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Alaska Development Stories

In the last half-century, $2.3 trillion of foreign aid has unfortunately not moved the needle on global poverty (To see how and why, read "From Poverty to Prosperity" by Arnold Kling and Nick Schulz, "The Bottom Billion" by Paul Collier, "A Farewell to Alms" by Gregory Clark, and “The Prosperity Paradox” by Clayton Christensen).

In stark contrast, a $960 million capitalization in the 1970s of 200 Native-owned enterprises in Alaska has produced over $155 billion in corporate earnings by 2020, catapulting most of Alaska’s 100,000+ Native population into America’s middle-class today. This is historic and unique. In little more than one generation, the typical income of Natives in Alaska soared from $2 per person per day to the middle class in one of the richest states and one of the richest nations on earth.

The stories that follow are dedicated to the bottom billion people on earth who still live on $2 per day. An Enterprise Solution for them exists via renewable energies from the sun, which produces six thousand times the energy humanity uses every day on earth. Future stories like these can dateline from Africa, Latin America, and Asia if the technology, energy, and enterprise organizational tools are made available to the poor. At Climate PROSPERITY Enterprise Solutions, LLC our goal is to help them write those stories for themselves.

(The following stories were published in Latin American newspapers and magazines in 2006)

“Alaska Natives Have something to Say to Their Andean Cousins”, By Michael Rowan, 2006.

More links:

The Hans Rosling video evidences the great strides the world has made in wealth creation and life expectancy. But the bottom billion people on our planet, mostly rural, have seen little or none of it. CPES is inspired by Rosling’s optimism and hopes the bottom billion on earth will soon experience it.

Audio

• View opening remarks by Dubuque Mayor Roy D. Buol and the keynote address by Ambassador (ret) Richard N. Swett, FAIA, at Dubuque's annual Growing Sustainable Communities Conference held on March 9, 2010.

• Listen to an interview of Ambassador (ret) Richard N. Swett, FAIA, talking about his career and the work he is doing building Sustainable Communities in emerging economies given on January 1, 2020, by Tim Horgan of the World Affairs Council of New Hampshire. (The interview starts at 18 minutes 30 seconds.)

Newspaper Articles

• The Faults of Masdar. Excerpts from a New York Times, September 25, 2010 article.

• Editorial "My Turn": Change the climate of the climate change debate. No need for a lose-lose scenario. By Richard N. Swett for the Concord Monitor, December 9, 2009.

• Achieving climate prosperity. By Richard N. Swett for The Washington Times, September 18, 2009.

Books and Articles

Ambassador Richard N. Swett

• Leadership by Design: Creating an Architecture of Trust, 2005 (Author)

• A Nation Reconstructed. A Quest for Cities That Can Be, 1996 (Co-Author)

Michael Rowan

• Getting Over Chavez and Poverty, 2006 (Author)

• The Threat Closer to Home, 2009 (Author)