The United Nations provides a guide called The Lazy Person’s Guide to Saving the World. It lists a bunch of things that you can do with little effort to help them meet their Sustainable Development Goals.
What gets me about this kind of guide is that it treats each of us simply as consumers. Essentially, they’re saying “you consume too many resources, so turn off your lights, hang your clothes on a clothesline, don’t preheat your oven, etc.”
I think there’s a disconnect between the U.N.’s audience and what they are saying. I’m not sure, but I suspect that people visiting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals website are probably already doing many of the things they list, and just the fact that they’re on the website would indicate that they are more involved than the “Lazy Person” they’re targeting.
The message seems to be that if you’re not uprooting your life and getting a job at the U.N. or one of their partner organizations, then your job is just to have as little impact as possible. Forget the fact that you have skills that you might be able to offer. Forget the fact that you have experiences that might make a big difference if there was a way for you to contribute your insights. The U.N. doesn’t want your contribution, just try not to make the problem worse.
I’m almost certainly overreacting, but I’m probably not the only one who does.
