The charter of the United Nations begins with “We the people.” The U.N. is the one organization that ostensibly ties all of the world’s people together. And yet I’m sure that swaths of human beings don’t identify themselves as a…
Climate translation and Paris COP21
By Scott Stearman In a meeting I attended at the Council on Foreign Relations, David Sandalow made a semi-funny 2-degree joke about climate change. Sandalow is a fellow at Columbia University and a former Undersecretary of Energy. He participated in…
Confronting the silence of structural racism
By Scott Stearman There is recognition at the United Nations that people of African descent have been subject to a fairly specific kind of insipid global racism. This racism is somewhat unique in that it isn’t simply based on standard…
Leave no one behind
As anticipated the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals last week. These 17 goals will help set a global agenda for the next 15 years (also called around the U.N. “Agenda 2030”). The SDGs are…
What has the United Nations done for me lately?
What has the U.N. done for me? Presuming you live in the west, the United States specifically, I suspect your answer is, “not much.” This august and yet cumbersome, very serious and yet mock-worthy, institution exists in the minds of…