Natural City Conference Keynote by Stephen Lewis in Toronto

All of the priorities of the world are so completely out of whack ... If only we honoured our promises. - Stephen Lewis

I know I have written about Lewis at length before, both when I saw him at the Make Poverty History debate and when I read A Race Against Time, the compilation of his Massey Lectures regarding AIDS in Africa and the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals. I have a huge amount of respect for Stephen Lewis, and I urge anyone to see him speak if they have the chance. He is charming, brilliant, funny and inspiring.

I saw him again last night, at Convocation Hall in Toronto. This time, he was the keynote speaker at the Natural City Conference (previously mentioned as the hosts for Jane Goodall). On this night, Lewis spoke about sustainability and about the appalling things being done to the planet, and to one and other, through an often willful ignorance.

"There is absolutely no question in my mind that the absolute greatest threat to our time is climate change," said the man who has worked with UNICEF, in federal and provincial and international politics, and as an AIDS advocate. "For me, climate change is the scariest development on the planet." He went on to address Canadian politics, calling the Harper government's rejection of the Kyoto Protocols its "single greatest mistake" — no small criticism from a democratic socialist.

So what is sustainable development? According to the Brundtland Commission, which originated the term back in 1987, the goal of sustainable development is "to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs."

Lewis used the work of the Brundtland Commission and the Millennium Development Goals as a framework to discuss where we, as human beings, are failing. To Lewis, there are connections between our failures to provide aid, medical care, and food, and our failure as stewards of the environment.

Lewis illustrated this idea with a description of a visit to a slum in Monrovia. There he saw people living in horrendous conditions, in a "wasteland" without any greenspace or any sign of the natural world. Except for one: the former Liberian president's private golf course, just beyond a wall.

This juxtaposition of wealth and poverty came up several times over the evening. Lewis mentioned that one-fifth of the world's population lives on less than a dollar a day and that the United States spends $4887 per capita on health care, versus Niger's $6. He made these points because the situation is not sustainable, and to highlight how far behind the world is on the Millennium Development Goals.

Article Author: Bonnie

Bonnie writes about books every Thursday at Fourth-Rate Reader, about everything else at Signifying Nothing, and sometimes she resorts to pictures. She lives in Toronto.

Visit Bonnie's author page — Bonnie's Blog