I’m just putting this out there: Pope Francis and I have a few things in common, and not just because we’re both Catholic. Alas, our paths didn’t cross while he was on his whirlwind tour de USA – my commute wasn’t even disrupted (not that I’m disappointed by this!). But we both paid recent visits to the UN Headquarters on the occasion of the formal launch of their new Sustainable Development Goals, and we both happen to be environmentalists as well. I couldn’t be more pleased by Francis’ message of environmental stewardship, and by the way it seems to – maybe, just maybe – be taking hold, if the promises made by India, China and others leading up to the climate change negotiations in Paris this December are to be trusted.
I spend a lot of time on my own blog writing about the intersection between food and the environment, and now that I currently live in New York City, one of the most urban places in the world, that intersection often occurs in the realm of food waste (you can see a couple of past posts here and here). The broad concept of waste was one of Pope Francis’ themes in his address to the UN General Assembly – the idea that our capitalist society is inherently wasteful, both in terms of natural resources and human capital, and that some of the most marginalized people in civilization are suffering as a direct result of the actions that stem from that mindset. The pope argued that “a true ‘right of the environment” does exist…because we human beings are part of the environment… Any harm done to the environment, therefore, is harm done to humanity.” He went on to say that “The poorest are…part of today’s widespread and quietly growing ‘culture of waste.’”
Carlo Petrini, founder of the International Slow Food movement, offers an incredibly hopeful analogy on how these problems of waste and exclusion may someday be resolved. (I went to Italy in Fall 2010 for Slow Food’s biannual international Terra Madre event, an amazing gathering of food educators, producers, and advocates from around the world. To give you a sense of how impactful it was, a French gentleman whom I had befriended earlier at the conference told me after the final convening that the French interpreter – a woman being paid to do a job – was crying as she translated Petrini’s Italian for the French attendees.) Petrini describes humanity as moving along in one direction, supposedly towards “progress.” And in the course of that relentless movement, certain groups can’t keep up, while others forge ahead without a backwards glance at their brethren falling farther and farther behind. This happens until those leaders of the pack come to a standstill, when they find themselves at the edge of a cliff: the limit of our resources. It’s at that point that, according to Petrini, we will all collectively turn around – and as we move away from the edge, or limit, those who had lagged behind will now be at the helm, leading the way back towards a sustainable existence.
His message is powerful: let’s harness the wisdom of previously excluded and marginalized people in order to collectively address global problems like climate change and our inequitable food system. That same collaborative sentiment was palpable at my own visit to the UN, which was part of a large convening to commemorate and formally launch the UN’s updated Sustainable Development Goals (building off of their Millennium Development Goals from 2000).I was at the UN headquarters specifically for the “Mobilizing Generation Zero Hunger” assembly, which calls on the world, and on youth in particular, to end hunger by 2030. Zero Hunger is #2 out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
Obviously I’m jazzed about this kind of stuff, so I was completely star struck by the whole experience. While we waited for the auditorium to free up, people convened on the UN plaza. As the blue UN flag fluttered in the background I chatted with both NY locals and people who had come from farther afield: global public students from Duke, professors from Denmark. I even ran into a nutrition student who attends the masters program for which I work. The mood was celebratory, and it really felt like a day for psyching ourselves up for the daunting task at hand.
The hall itself was filled with probably well over 200 people, most of whom were observers like me, but many who were experts in world food and agriculture policy. (My people!) With that kind of brain power in the room, it was hard not to think, “Psh, world hunger, please – give us a hard problem to tackle.”
Michael Higgins, President of Ireland, started things off with a rousing call to action. I felt like “hear, hear!”-ing pretty much everything the man said, especially his statement that “this contradiction [of hunger still existing in such a resource-rich world] will be considered one of the great failings of modern society” and that solving it is the “moral imperative of our lives and our times.”
We subsequently heard from industry, government, NGO, and UN leaders, and one overarching message came through loud and clear: the younger generations are going to help solve this and to some extent the old guard needs to step out of the way. The moderator (who was wonderfully irreverent, by the way) at one point asked those of us who were 35 and younger to stand up, and we were the clear majority. The challenge is so big that you could easily chalk up a gathering like this, and a gesture like that, to a pat-on-the-head platitude, but I truly do believe that gaining momentum is a crucial first step. It’s amazing what people can start to accomplish as soon as they feel empowered to take action.
One absolutely vital concept that Pope Francis has brought to this sustainable development conversation is a reminder that the environment and nature (and that which feeds us) is inextricably linked to our very existence as human beings. His words are so stupidly simple that they bear repeating: “We as human beings are part of the environment. Any harm done to the environment, therefore, is harm done to humanity.”
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