The Irish musician
and activist is widely recognized for his advocacy for the poor in Africa.
He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and was granted honorary knighthood
by Queen Elizabeth. And now he’s warning members of one of the world’s leading
development organizations about the threat of climate change to the poor of the
world.
Before taking the top spot at the World Bank earlier this
year, Jim Yong Kim
co-founded the global medical NGO Partners in Health with Dr. Paul Farmer, and
served as president of Dartmouth College. He added to Bono’s warnings his
concern that catastrophic levels of global warming would be reached within the
next generation, not in some distant time horizon.
Here are brief snippets from Bono’s comments, and Kim's responses:
Bono: [An] “unholy trio” of extreme poverty,
extreme ideology, and extreme climate make a very difficult weave; very strong,
very hard to break. And we have to accept that the climate crisis could undo a
lot of the work we do in development.
World Bank president Kim: The world at two or four degrees [Celsius hotter] is
going to look so different. And it’s not three generations ahead. I have a
three-year-old son. When he’s my age, he could be living in a completely
different world. And right now, I don’t see the roots of that movement [to
combat climate change] taking shape.
I’m no expert on the World Bank, and I know some people who
offer only qualified endorsement of their work.
But when leaders who have dedicated their lives to alleviating poverty
raise the alarm about the climate crisis, maybe it’s time for people of
goodwill to take action. The world will not do what it must without the
United States. And the U.S. will not do what it must while most of our politicians
think that we don’t care.
Maybe it’s time we write our representatives and tell them
we care. Do it now, by clicking here.
You care. I care. But I'm afraid we have no idea how much our children
will wish we had really cared.
May God bless you.
J. Elwood
No comments:
Post a Comment