Editor;
At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day in
countries where income level and urban-rural gap discrepancies are
ever-widening. According to UNICEF, each year 22,000 children die due to
poverty and malnutrition - 1 in 3 youthful survivors are without adequate
shelter; 1 in 5 have no access to sanitation and safe drinking water; and 1
in 7 lack reasonable availability to health services. Nearly a billion
people are unable to read books or sign their names.
In our interconnected, rapidly shrinking wwworld, we must
learn to love other people’s children as our very own. Changing cosmic
priorities demand compassionate non-judgmental perspectives which respect
tolerant multiversity, say “No” to greed, fraud, political corruption and
uncivil wrongs, and prize cooperation over competition. Easy solutions
seldom are, but we must re-think alternative options and re-learn
all-too-hasty quick fixes to complex confrontations depending on use of
bullyrag imposed force.
With global military expenditures exceeding $1 trillion
dollars annually, reducing such spending in poor developing countries as
well as overdeveloped rich ones can and must be a central component of the
battle to eradicate extreme poverty, alleviate hunger, improve educational
opportunities and enhance child survival.
Renewable energy is essential to modern society -
slashing high carbon emissions from dirty fossil fuels, reducing greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere, switching to cleaner renewable energy sources like
solar and water and making each of us more self sufficient while
simultaneously creating millions of new jobs.
The fresh water crisis, sanitation and conservation
represent the planet’s major environmental problems, roiled by fierce water
shortages, access wars, fecal contamination, industrial pollution and
outmoded infrastructure that too often fails. The threat of nuclear weapons
proliferation, the overreach of industrialization and the destruction of
valuable natural eco-environmental resources are other shared concerns to be
mutually addressed.
The rich superpowers must stop denying the lonely
planet’s poorest and most vulnerable inhabitants their legitimate fair and
equal just rights to brighter prospects for future generations, seeking to
ensure human security that reaches beyond military might.
Dr. Charles Frederickson
Bangkok
