E3 network

From the Seed.

Four years ago in Santa Monica, California, a group of economists, philanthropists, and NGO representatives gathered to discuss the state of the environmental movement. What they found was that while environmental advocates were able to make arguments on scientific and legal grounds, they were missing the third leg of the stool: economics. As more and more environmental decisions were being made on the basis of economics, this expert gap was turning into a severe hindrance.

In the Indian context, I always wonder about think tanks, what could they be? Anyway, people who are interested to know that the poor in the US sometimes figure in these ‘thoughts’ please read the Seed Magazine’s interview of the E3 network chief, an excerpt is here:

Seed: What makes this different from a traditional think tank?
KS: If we modeled ourselves as an environmental think tank, we’d be doing a lot of in-house research and publishing under a brand name. But we see ourselves as an organizer and a catalyst for research. Almost everyone in the network has a “day job”—many are academics, some work for think tanks, some have government positions. We thought our economists would have more of an impact if they represented different institutions across the country, whereas think tanks tend to become associated with a particular ideological bent—“Of course they said that, that’s the American Enterprise Institute.” With the network, we’re bringing 100 different economists to bear on different issues. And they don’t always agree. More.