OPINION:
Tom Basile’s praise for the 39th U.S. president in “Jimmy Carter’s lessons for leaders” (Web, Feb. 24) misses one profoundly important focus of the Carter administration: Jimmy Carter’s commitment to our future.
Most elected officials since have ignored the clear warnings detailed in Carter’s 1980 bipartisan “Presidential Commission on World Hunger,” which concluded that “[t]he most potentially explosive force in the world today is the frustrated desire of poor people to attain a decent standard of living.” Commissioners agreed “that promoting economic development in general, and overcoming hunger in particular, are tasks far more critical to the U.S. national security than most policymakers acknowledge or even believe.”
Since 1980 U.S. policymakers have ignored this wisdom. And today we are experiencing the consequences of increases in disease, international terrorism, war, environmental problems and other human rights problems (refugees, genocide, human trafficking). These global pressures now fuel anti-democratic populist movements everywhere.
The failure of my baby boomer generation in creating sufficient political will is primarily to blame. The highest priority of today’s generation should be the 17 U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The evolution of pathogens, weapons, war, corruption, environmental distresses, misinformation, failing democracies, growing economic disparities and debt burden are outpacing our political will to change. This is literally and globally unsustainable.
CHUCK WOOLERY
Rockville, Maryland
