Thanks to the NAEE blog for spotting the latest missive from the UN: The Lazy Person’s Guide to Saving the World. Laughably, this is a guide to how we can all save the world, without even moving from the sofa. As NAEE notes, the UN seems to have become a branch of the advertising industry – run by teens, I'd say, judging by the language. It begins:
End extreme poverty. Fight inequality and injustice. Fix climate change. Whoa. The Global Goals are important, world-changing objectives that will require cooperation among governments, international organizations and world leaders. It seems impossible that the average person can make an impact. Should you just give up?
No! Change starts with you. Seriously. Every human on earth — even the most indifferent, laziest person among us — is part of the solution. Fortunately, there are some super easy things we can adopt into our routines that, if we all do it, will make a big difference.
We’ve made it easy for you and compiled just a few of the many things you can do to make an impact.
Dear me. There are three levels to this dangerous nonsense: things you can do ...
- from your couch
- at home, and
- outside your house.
It's dangerous, not because the things advocated are useless (far from it), but because it reinforces the pernicious myth that meaningful change will come most effectively from individuals – whether on the sofa or not.
Because of this, there's surely a need for a level 4 – things you can only do with others to bring about system changes. It will be too much to hope that the UN will do this, but others might.
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