wfn.org | Baha'i news: "Rethinking Prosperity" is topic for panel at UN

[Sally Weeks <sweeks@bwc.org>]

>Baha'i World News Service
>http://news.bahai.org
>For more information, contact: news@bahai.org<mailto:news@bahai.org

"Rethinking Prosperity" is topic for panel at UN

NEW YORK, 12 May (BWNS) - Professor Tim Jackson doesn't hold back when desc 
ribing today's consumer culture:

"We are encouraged to spend money we don't have, on things we don't need, t o 
create impressions that don't last, on people we don't care about."

Professor Jackson, a member of the Sustainable Development Commission of th e 
United Kingdom, made his comments at a panel discussion held this week in  
conjunction with the current session of the UN Commission on Sustainable D 
evelopment.

The Baha'i International Community cosponsored the discussion, titled "Reth 
inking Prosperity: Forging Alternatives to a Culture of Consumerism."

Countries are being driven further into debt - not to mention potential env 
ironmental catastrophe - by levels of consumerism that do not contribute to  
sustainability, Professor Jackson said.

The answer, the panelists proposed, is to reconsider the nature of the cons 
umer culture that relentlessly urges people to adopt a lifestyle based on t he 
acquisition of new and more material goods.

A representative of Consumers International, Luis Flores Mimica of Chile, o 
bserved that there are many people in the "developing world" who have not y et 
taken up the consumer-based lifestyle, which he said was largely filled  with 
"empty aspirations."

"There is no way they can continue to follow the path of 'development' as l 
abeled that way in the 1950s," he said.

Jeff Barber, executive director of Integrative Strategies Forum in the Unit ed 
States, said one place to start "redefining progress" would be to consid er the 
vast research about what really makes people happy. Much of that sho ws that 
material consumption does not necessarily lead to a feeling of well -being.

Victoria Thoresen, of the Norwegian Partnership for Education and Research  
about Responsible Living, suggested that a way to help humanity make the sh ift 
to a system of sustainable values is to recognize our essential oneness  - and 
to consider that humanity is now collectively moving from an adolesc ent stage 
towards maturity.

"Constructive change depends upon individuals being able to recognize spiri 
tual principles and to identify patterns and processes of development in so 
ciety," said Ms. Thoresen, who is a Baha'i.

Duncan Hanks, a representative of the Baha'i International Community to the  UN 
Commission on Sustainable Development, announced the publication of the  new 
Baha'i statement, also titled "Rethinking Prosperity: Forging Alternat ives to 
a Culture of Consumerism."

"At a time when oil spews forth uncontrolled in the Gulf of Mexico, we feel  
both the immediacy and urgency to rethink what fair and just progress is,"  he 
said. "We have been rethinking what true prosperity looks like."

What is needed first, Mr. Hanks said, is public discourse on the nature and  
purpose of human development, along with the recognition that each individ ual 
has a contribution to make in building a more just and peaceful social  order.

Professor Jackson agreed. "We need a better concept of prosperity, a shared  
prosperity, a lasting prosperity, a prosperity built around the concept of  
people's capacity to flourish, within the confines of a finite planet," he  
said.

The discussion, held on 10 May at the New York offices of the Baha'i Intern 
ational Community, was cosponsored by UNESCO - the United Nations Education al, 
Scientific, and Cultural Organization - and the Permanent Mission of Sw eden to 
the United Nations. The 2010 session of the UN Commission on Sustai nable 
Development runs through 14 May.

Read more about the statement, "Rethinking Prosperity: Forging Alternatives  to 
a Culture of Consumerism" at http://news.bahai.org/story/770.

To read the article above online and see the photograph, go to:
http://news.bahai.org/story/772