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The SDGs: “The Very Best in Public Education”?

In Part Five of our look at the SDGs, we noted that the diffuse nature of our education system − thanks to federalism − makes it difficult for our central government to enforce and track progress on SDG 4.7.1. That indicator includes education for “global citizenship.” We have already seen voluntary uptake of the SDGs in higher education. In K-12, the NEA is a primary cheerleader.

According to the Federal government, in 2020-21, the United States had 3 million public school teachers. The nation’s largest teacher’s union is the National Education Association (NEA), and it claims “3 million members.” Even though many of the NEA’s members aren’t necessarily teachers, that’s still impressive reach into US public education.

The NEA has a charitable foundation that “works in partnership with others to promote the very best in public education.” Evidently, “the very best in public education” incorporates the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. It also includes the emotional manipulation of  5- and 6-year-old children.

* * *

In 2019, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the NEA Foundation published a book of lesson plans to promote its vision of education for “global competency.” Creative Lessons to Open Classrooms and Minds to the World cites the World Economic Forum’s list of “Global Risks” (p. 5); impending “climate catastrophe” (id.); and the purported worsening of race relations under Donald Trump (p. 7), among other woes, as reasons why education for “global competency” is urgent. And the authors believe the SDGs provide the perfect framework to educate our children into “global citizenship” as a means of averting certain disaster (p. 136):

Twelve[*] Lessons to Open Classrooms and Minds to the World is the result of a collaborative effort organized by the NEA Foundation to support outstanding teacher-leaders in developing 21st century global curriculum that is aligned with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals – a universal call-to-action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity.

[* The publication appears to have undergone a renaming somewhere between its first and last pages.] The book’s primary author, Harvard professor Fernando M. Reimers, cites many of his own publications,  dating back to 2009, on the topic of educating for global citizenship. A recurring theme in his work is promoting the right “affect”, or the correct “mindset”, to lead both students and teachers to embrace the United Nations’ goals . In other words, it’s all about manipulating emotions.

Scaring the Children to Save the Planet

Imagine it’s the first day of kindergarten. It can be an anxious time for parents, as well as a  frightening time for children. Some children will be “leaving the nest” for the first time. But as a parent, you know that your child will soon settle in to learn about numbers, colors, shapes, how to tell time, and . . . hunger?

Yes, that’s correct. Through its “Kindergarten Lesson Plans” (pp. 19-28), the NEA Foundation wants to instruct 5- and 6-year-olds on

  • What is Hunger?
  • Who Doesn’t Have Food?
  • Why Is Food a Human Right?
  • Hunger Around the World

(An additional lesson plan, “Lesson 4: Students can generate ideas of how to help fight hunger in their community” (see p. 26) seems to have . . . disappeared. Is it also worth noting that this “very best in public education” document consistently misspells “Kindergarten” as “Kindergarden”? Sure it is (pp. 19, 21, 23, 26).)

The goal of the first lesson is to have children “reflect on what it means to be hungry and explore emotions/behaviors that are tied to hunger”, and to develop “an understanding or empathetic attitude” toward those who are hungry. The NEA instructs teachers to appeal to the children’s sense of “fairness” (“Do you think it is fair that some people in our community do not have food to eat?”), and asks them to imagine not having enough food to eat (“How would you feel if you didn’t have any food to eat when you were hungry?”).

The second lesson is about anti-hunger activism (“Students will be able to identify hunger in their community and what community resources there are to help eliminate it.” “Students will understand that they can help alleviate the problem.”). The suggested teaching technique is borderline abusive:

Show students a blank paper plate and a grocery ad. Explain to the students that they are going to get 6-7 minutes to cut out pictures of food and glue it to their paper plate.

[Then], have the students sit in a circle with their paper plates. Explain to students that 1 out of every 5 children in our country struggle with hunger. Show children this statistic by taking away the paper plate from every 5th child in the classroom.

The children are then asked how having their plate taken away, or seeing their friends’ plates taken away, made them feel, and whether they “think it is fair that some children in our community face hunger?”

The third lesson builds on the activism theme by declaring food to be “a human right for all people”; therefore, “students’ actions can make their school, neighborhood, and the world better by helping make sure everyone has the food they need.” (Truly? They’re 5 years old.)This  lesson uses photos of drooping plants as a (very poor) metaphor for sharing food (“‘If there is only one pitcher of water, how should we water the plants? . . . . Ask students if one plant should get more water than another [maybe, depending on the type of plant!] and try to steer the conversation toward ‘sharing’ the water we have or ‘spreading around less to give all the plants some water [sic]”.) The lesson also tells teachers to show the children a video from an anti-hunger charity that includes images of children sleeping on sidewalks.

The final lesson, for the small children who probably don’t yet know their own address, or how to find their town or city on a map, is “Hunger Around the World.” They are to be shown the “World Hunger Map.” Once the children have “identif[ied] continents that experience the most hunger” (implying Africa and using Kenya as an object lesson), they “will learn that one way to help people that do not have enough food is to share what you have”. And then, the teacher is to impart the lesson’s grand finale (“Conclusion”):

Food is a human right and everyone in the world should have enough food to eat. If we are going to reach the Sustainable Development Goals to help the world, we need to create ways to make things more equitable.

Absolutely. Right after we learn to tie our shoes.

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“Sustainability” Is the New Black

(This is the sixth entry in our series looking at the United Nations’ “2030 Agenda”. To read previous posts, scroll down, or type “SDGs” in the search bar.)

Like fashionistas taking cues from the Pantone “color of the year,”  most major private institutions now embrace some form of “sustainability,” whether in sports ( “NBA Signs UN’s Sports for Climate Action Framework“); entertainment (“At WarnerMedia, we are committed to integrating sustainability into all aspects of our business, content and culture globally”); health care (“Go green at CVS“); retail (“Costco Wholesale Corporation Sustainability Commitment”); financial services (“Bank of America: Our commitment to environmental sustainability”); or technology (Google has a “single mission — to foster sustainability at scale”).

“Sustainability” is the new black.

In education, we have seen that federal government efforts to measure progress on UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 (“Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”) and its associated “targets” (including “education for sustainable development” and “global citizenship”) have not been smooth. Nevertheless, the cult of sustainability is alive and well throughout education in the United States. Our first stop is higher education.

“Sustainability” at Top US Universities

To gauge the prominence of sustainability ideology at the university level, a review of the nation’s most prestigious schools is instructive. Of the universities ranked one through ten in the most recent U.S. News & World Report list, all have sustainability offices, goals, curricula, or plans of one sort or another (Princeton; MIT; Harvard; Stanford; Yale; University of Chicago; Johns Hopkins; University of Pennsylvania; CalTech; Duke; Northwestern). For most of these institutions, “sustainability” isn’t simply about recycling, or about reducing the school’s own “carbon footprint;” rather, it’s about both ecology and “equity,” and it concerns the content of both instruction and research. 

For example, MIT’s “Environmental Solutions Initiative” is weaving sustainability and environmental topics into classes required for graduation. Stanford cross-lists courses from its Doerr School of Sustainability within majors such as education, sociology, political science, and within the professional schools; the school says that “[a]cross our activities we are embedding equity, access, and inclusion.” Harvard’s efforts to become “fossil-fuel neutral” take account of “social equity.” Johns Hopkins’ “Office of Sustainability is part of a Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Working Group of the Ivy+ Sustainability Consortium [which] follows the guiding principles of Introspection, Anti-racism, Intersectionality, and Amplification.”

Among the top-rated schools, Yale is the most explicit about its efforts to align teaching and research with the UN’s 2030 Agenda and its SDGs:

In 2015, the Yale Office of Sustainability began looking at how teaching and research at Yale aligns with the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

[ . . . ]

Key Findings

Research at Yale University covers all of the Sustainable Development Goals
Every department or school has at least one faculty member whose scholarship relates to the SDGs
Yale has high participation in research relating to SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being), SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 10 (Reduce Inequality), and SDG 16 (Peace and Justice)

To arrive at this conclusion, Yale prepared a “comprehensive database of over 4,000 faculty members that provides insights into how Yale’s scholarly activities connect to the SDGs, [which] can be referenced, filtered, and used to foster connections and action.” The university’s Office of Sustainability memorialized its methods in a how-to guide, entitled “Assessing Research and Teaching Connections to the SDGs.”

According to the guide, this “comprehensive, up-to-date list of faculty members” excluded only emeritus and visiting faculty. (p. 3) It advises that any school adopting the Yale methods should have its “SDG Review Team . . . regularly track” faculty on their SDG alignment. (p. 7)

Though one would hope Yale values academic freedom, the guide notes (without irony) that “(f)aculty members may or may not appreciate being categorized by SDG.” (p. 9) The authors offer advice on how to avoid ruffling faculty feathers:

√ Tip: language matters! Avoid saying that their teaching or research “support” or “advance” an SDG. Use less direct terms like “connect to.”

The report notes proudly (p. 12) that 

Yale was also the lead author on the 2019 International Alliance of Research Universities online publication, Global Priorities, Educated Solutions: The Role of Academia in Advancing the Sustainable Development Goals and led half-day program of the same name in June 2019[.] 

That publication notes that the SDG “mapping” of faculty of the kind done by Yale “is not an absolute or prescriptive process” but “can be a fruitful conversation starter” for those academics who don’t view their work in SDG terms.  (p. 13.)

But perhaps no US institute of higher education promotes the SDGs as thoroughly and as publicly as Carnegie Mellon University.

Carnegie Mellon: SDG-U 

In 2021, Carnegie Mellon University (#22 in the U.S. News & World Report rankings) performed a (second!) full-scale “Voluntary University Review [“VUR“] of the Sustainable Development Goals”, looking at CMU’s “efforts to align [its] education, research and practice with the . . . SDGs” (p. 5). In fact, according to the report, CMU was the first university in the world to engage in such a review. (p. 9)

In 2020, CMU had engaged in a “17 Rooms” exercise, an initiative pioneered by the Brookings Institution and the Rockefeller Foundation to brainstorm ways for the school to support the SDGs (pp. 6, 12). That year, it released its first VUR, and the University Provost “participated in the UN Foundation and Brookings Institution’s side event at the United Nations General Assembly on ‘American Leadership on the SDGs.'” (p. 12) (Brookings and the UN Foundation are the “Force Multipliers” featured in Part Two of our series on the 2030 Agenda.) According to the VUR (p. 9; emphasis added),

While the SDGs include environmental stewardship challenges, they represent a paradigm shift in how the world thinks about sustainability that encompasses reducing inequality; creating peaceful, just and inclusive communities; reducing poverty and more.

CMU’s promotion of the SDGs includes:

        • Incorporating SDG information into fall 2021 student orientation (p. 11)
        • “Mapping” all classes “to all relevant SDGs” (p. 13)
        • Coding the “academic and research activities of faculty members” in an electronic profile that can be used to compare these activities to the SDGs (pp. 13-14)
        • Tasking undergraduates in a class on data analytics and research to “develop an automated approach to analyzing courses using the SDGs”, and offering data tools so the CMU community can “search 14,351 courses from fall 2019 to fall 2021 to see how they relate to the SDGs and make SDG-informed decisions about their courses.” (p. 16)
        • Highlighting “Early Adopters” among the faculty who identify where their work aligns with various SDGs (pp. 18-19)
        • Reaching out to student organizations to “educate [them] about the SDGs and encourage them to engage in the Sustainability Initiative” (p. 21)

Indeed, CMU professor Sarah Mendelson was one of three witnesses to testify at Congress’s “first ever” SDGs hearing on September 15, 2022 (see Part Two).

One could say Yale and Carnegie Mellon are definitely operating within the same “sustainability paradigm.”

From “Mapping” to the SDGs to “Conforming” to the SDGs?

Imagine you are a faculty member (at Yale, Carnegie Mellon, or any university following in their footsteps) whose courses and research projects don’t “map” well against the SDGs. What “actions” would your employer take? How would the “map” be used as a “conversation starter”?

“Mapping” research and course offerings against the SDGs – then making the results public in an “electronic profile” of faculty members – can only have one effect: to restrict future classes and research projects to those that fit the “sustainability” mold. In fact, that is exactly what UNESCO is urging universities to do in a recently-published report on “transforming higher education”:

The report calls on higher education leaders and actors to push for transformations within their institutions, using the report’s recommendations to critically reflect and act on their role for achieving the 2030 Agenda. Higher education institutions must take on a stronger role to tackle the world’s most pressing issues.

Knowledge-Driven Actions: Transforming higher education for global sustainability (from the “Short Summary”). Universities are to “reflect[] on what kinds of knowledge are necessary, [and] whose knowledge is needed” (Foreword by Stefania Giannini); to explicitly incorporate the SDGs into the classroom; and to allow the SDGs to shape research (pp. 82-83). Nevertheless, UNESCO disclaims any intention to restrict academic freedom:

The recommendations of this Global Independent Expert Group are not intended as a counterpoint to the ideals of curiosity-driven, basic research and academic freedom. Rather, HEIs [Higher Education Institutions] should wherever possible facilitate and engage in activities that promote the SDGs. In fact, we argue that it is those very HEIs as free institutions that have the motivation to lead societal change wherever needed to achieve the SDGs.

(p. 77) Perhaps UNESCO doth protest too much.

For an in-depth examination of the threat the “sustainability” paradigm poses to academic freedom in higher education (with a look at the paradigm’s Marxist underpinnings, as revealed in this UNESCO document), listen to Dr. James Lindsay’s New Discourses Podcasts on “The Strange Death of the University” Parts One and Two.

• • •

Although the US isn’t a member of UNESCO, the United Nations sub-agency primarily tasked with promoting the UN’s education agenda, the UN is not idle when it comes to promoting its vision for education in America. Our next look will examine efforts by the UN and others to promote the SDGs in K-12 education.

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A Day Late, Billions of Dollars Short

We here at Based Bytes are a day late in acknowledging United Nations Day (October 24). We should be more on the ball, especially in light of the billions of dollars the United States spends on the organization.  Noster culpa.

Please know that the UN is working hard to, in the words of the Secretary General, “rescue the Sustainable Development Goals.” Interesting word choice.

We will resume our look at the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs’ impact on education soon.

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United Nations 2030 Agenda (Part Four): SDG 4.7 — “Transforming” Education . . . and the World

The modus operandi of the United Nations is to present an impossible-to-criticize wish-list, then to act as though the impossible were somehow achievable (such as SDG 1, “End poverty in all its forms everywhere”; contra Mt. 26:11, “you always have the poor with you”). The devil, as they say, is in the details.

By their very impossibility (“Eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions is an indispensable requirement for sustainable development“), and the fact that, like numbers counting up to infinity, there is no end to the project, the goals run cover for a radical plan to restructure our institutions, in particular, and our culture, more broadly.

This is clearly visible in the realm of education. The closer one looks, the more obvious it becomes that “sustainability” functions as a comprehensive worldview – stated otherwise, as a religion – and that the intention is to use schools as one of the primary vehicles to remake all of society. However, as we shall also see, for the master planners, the United States is a particularly tough nut to crack.

• • •

[Sustainable Development] Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

Could anyone possibly object to improving lives through education? Or to the idea that you’re never too old or too young to learn? (Set aside for the time being what concepts might be buried within the terms “inclusive,” “equitable,” and “lifelong learning.”) The overall aspirations appear anodyne; the hidden agenda appears within the “targets” that support this “goal.”

While the bulk of the SDG 4 targets call for expanded educational, all-ages access to “quality” education in broadened, “equitable” ways, Target 4.7 just sounds . . . different:  

 

4.7. “By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development“

https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda (emphasis added). 

The language of this “target” raises many questions:

  • What are “the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development” (which sounds like activism in the classroom)?
  • What is “education for sustainable development”?
  • What is meant by a “sustainable lifestyle”?
  • What is “global citizenship”?
  • How does the UN propose to shape students to in turn shape “culture [to contribute] to sustainable development”?

If “sustainability” is starting to sound suspiciously like a secular religion, and “global citizenship” sounds like a call for one-world government, there is a reason. The roots of these concepts run deep at the UN.

Brave UNESCO World

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is the UN infrastructure designed to promote its more “soft power” means of attaining heaven-on-earth. It  was created in 1945 in the immediate aftermath of World War II to “bring people together and strengthen the intellectual and moral solidarity of humankind, through mutual understanding and dialogue between cultures.” Its “clear vision” is that “to achieve lasting peace, economic and political agreements among States are not enough.” https://www.unesco.org/en/history 

Some families have an outsized impact on world affairs. In the Twentieth Century, the Huxleys of Britain were such a family. Physiologist Andrew Huxley won the 1963 Nobel Prize in medicine.  Writer and philosopher Aldous, in 1932, had published Brave New World, one of the two premier English-language dystopian novels of the twentieth century (along with George Orwell’s 1984). And, most importantly for our purposes, in the years between those singular accomplishments by his brothers, Julian Huxley became the first Director-General of UNESCO. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huxley_family

In 1946 in a pamphlet called  UNESCO: Its Purpose and Its Philosophy, Julian Huxley called on UNESCO to “stimulate the quest . . . for a world philosophy, a unified and unifying background of thought for the modern world.” [p. 41; emphasis added] In fact, Huxley had long advocated for a one-world, secular religion of “evolutionary humanism”.

Thus, the new Director-General sought “a single common pool of experience, awareness, and purpose” for humanity. [p. 17] He believed that such a “united . . . tradition” was the key to mankind’s progress and “that the best and only certain way of securing this will be through political unification.” [p. 13; emphasis added] Therefore, the seeds of a new, secular religion – given form in our time as “sustainability” – and of the push toward “global [as opposed to national] citizenship” were sown at UNESCO from its inception.

This “utopian world-scale political ideal,” though its popularity has waxed and waned since the publication of Huxley’s pamphlet, appears alive and well in Agenda 2030, and in particular in UNESCO’s “Education 2030 Framework for Action,” an initiative to shepherd the implementation of SDG 4. Nevertheless, while the central planners have a grand vision for all our lives (and, judging by their written output, appear to get paid by the word), they can’t always get what they want.

• • •

We Will Get It Right “This Time”

SDG 4 is far from the UN’s only recent education master plan. Before that, there were the education prongs of the MDGs (“Millennium Development Goals”), as well as the EFA (“Education for All”) initiative. Both sets of goals set 2015 as their target completion date, and none was completed on time (though the UN claims the MDGs were responsible for meaningful improvements on numerous anti-poverty metrics in the developing world).

Undaunted, in the Education 2030 Framework for Action, UNESCO member states strode forward “with a sense of urgency” to implement their new, global, and “transformative” plan. Education 2030 Framework, p. 7. Indeed, “[e]very effort must be made to guarantee that this time the goal and targets are achieved.” [p. 22.] Not only that – these goals are even more ambitious than the previous, unrealized goals. In a companion guide to the framework, UNESCO says, 

SDG4 therefore pursues this unfinished education agenda, but also goes beyond. . . . SDG4 continues the EFA focus on quality basic education for all and broadens the agenda further to include concern for equitable access to post-basic education. . . . What is also new to SDG4 is the focus on the relevance of learning outcomes both for the world of work, as well as for citizenship in a global and interconnected world.

Unpacking Sustainable Development Goal 4: Education 2030 Guide, p. 9 (emphasis added). 

The Education 2030 Guide also repeats the definitions used in the overall agenda, and (of course) generates some new acronyms. “Sustainable development” is viewed across “three dimensions – economic, social and environmental”. And the sustainability “agenda” asserts “a universality of principles (human rights),  [and a] universality of reach (focus on equity and inclusion)[.]” [p. 10] As for the acronyms, education for sustainable development is now “ESD.” Global citizenship education is now “GCED”. [p. 14]

SDG 4 Intrudes FAR Beyond Literacy and Numeracy

According to the guide, ESD and GCED can provide people with education that is

relevant, with a focus on both cognitive and non-cognitive aspects of learning. [Via ESD and GCED, “citizens” can acquire the] knowledge, skills, values and attitudes required . . . to lead productive lives[.]

[p. 14, emphasis added.] Linger on that statement for a moment. The UN has its sights set on “transforming” education, from near-cradle to grave, now to include college, university, and vocational training. It also seeks to “transform” the entire global population’s “values and attitudes,” with a focus that includes “non-cognitive aspects of learning” – a.k.a., social-emotional learning, or “SEL.” (We will explore the centrality of SEL to SDG 4 – and to the entirety of the progressive education agenda – in future posts.)

What hubris. 

Whither the United States?

The United States has had an on-again, off-again relationship with UNESCO. At the time of the adoption of the Education 2030 documents, the US was not a voting member. It is currently listed on the UNESCO website as a “Non member.” 

Still, that does not mean that UNESCO cannot promote SDG 4 within the US. After all, the US government in the Obama years “enthusiastically” supported the adoption of Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (as we saw in Part One), and at least a few members of Congress are SDG champions (as we saw in Part Two). So, what does the organization’s advocacy look like in the United States? Have schools, quietly or explicitly, embraced “ESD,” or “GCED?” And has the federal government done anything to implement SDG 4?

Stay tuned.

Agenda 2030 Part One, Part Two, Part Three

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United Nations 2030 Agenda (Part Three): From Ecology to “Equity”

As we have seen in Part One  and Part Two about the United Nations 2030 Agenda, billions of dollars and untold hours have been (and continue to be) spent to develop and promote the “SDGs,” the UN’s “Sustainable Development Goals.” In one sense, the SDGs are like any standard, corporate strategic plan: to work efficiently, you have to know what you are working toward.

Looked at more closely, however, . .  well, the UN’s red undies are showing. Maybe this is inevitable since the UN’s entire existence is premised on collective action. The questions become: What does the UN mean by “Sustainable”? And, how does the 2030 Agenda affect what’s happening in real life, where you live?  The answers might be somewhat surprising (or, on second thought, maybe not).

The Brundtland Report

The UN has been talking about “sustainability” for decades. In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development, an independent UN body, issued the report, “Our Common Future” (known as the “Brundtland Report” after the chairperson of the Commission). The Brundtland Report sought to meld concern for the environment with the need for world-wide economic development, with particular attention given to developing nations (from the” Chairman’s Foreword”):

Many critical survival issues are related to uneven development, poverty, and population growth. They all place unprecedented pressures on the planet’s lands, waters, forests, and other natural resources, not least in the developing countries. The downward spiral of poverty and environmental degradation is a waste of opportunities and of resources. In particular, it is a waste of human resources. These links between poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation formed a major theme in our analysis and recommendations. What is needed now is a new era of economic growth – growth that is forceful and at the same time socially and environmentally sustainable.

Thus, the Foreword sets the crisis tone (“unprecedented pressures”, “downward spiral”) and offers the way out of the crisis (“a new era of economic growth [that is] sustainable.”) Here is part of the report’s treatment of “sustainability” (Ch. 2, I, 1):

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts:

the concept of ‘needs’, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and

the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs.

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/5987our-common-future.pdf

Where it discusses “equity,” the report focuses on “inter-generational” equity (i.e., leaving adequate resources for future generations (Annexe I, 1)) and present-day equity (working to ensure the wealthy don’t hoard resources at the expense of the poor (Overview I, 3, ¶28)).

Though this 1987 report is not devoid of such favorite collectivist themes as wealth redistribution and population control, its primary focus is ecological. Now, however, the UN and its cheerleaders apply a more aggressive “social justice” gloss to the term “equity.”

All Aboard the (New) “Equity” Train

The western world, and especially the United States, recently has seen  an overtly leftist “equity” agenda assert itself in the workplace; in education; in entertainment; in government − in short, in every sector of society. The groups advancing the SDGs are no exception.

(For the uninitiated, “equity” does not mean “equality,” i.e., treating people equally; rather, it seeks to ensure equal outcomes in whatever realm it is applied. For a “translation [of ‘equity’] from the wokish,” go here: https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-equity/)

“Equity” proponents build off the neo-Marxist framework that sorts people into oppressors and oppressed, based on identity categories, with non-whites generally falling into the category of “oppressed” (with the notable exception of high-achieving Asians — which speaks volumes.) And while politically satisfying for its adherents, there is scant evidence that anti-poverty actions based on “an equity lens” actually improve life for the intended beneficiaries: the poor and the marginalized. https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/report/critical-race-theory-would-not-solve-racial-inequality-it-would-deepen-it

Which brings us to “sustainable/sustainability” in the SDGs. According to the Brookings Institution,

Today’s crises have laid bare deeply entrenched inequalities and systemic racism. The SDGs encourage policies to reach the most vulnerable first, to benefit those who have been left behind by the global economy. . . . “Sustainability” is now understood to extend beyond the environment to incorporate equity, justice, and opportunity, to ensure the long-term viability of communities.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/11/12/american-leadership-in-advancing-the-sdgs-to-achieve-equity-and-sustainability/ (Showing how thinking has changed over the years, in the Brundtland Report, the word “systemic” appears only twice, and the word “racism” not at all. The “race” the report concerns itself with most is the “arms race.”)

Part Two of our look at the 2030 Agenda touched on the Charles Stuart Mott Foundation, one of the “partners” of the SDG-force-multiplier Brookings Institution. According to the Mott Foundation’s president, “[the SDG framework] gives us a great way to look at big issues like racial injustice, poverty, education and health through a common lens, and it offers a common language to share what works.” Mott even commissioned a study “to take a fresh look at the SDGs through an equity lens [and the report] highlights how matters of racial equity are implicit throughout the SDG framework.” https://www.mott.org/news/articles/global-goals-local-solutions/ The resulting study accepts the premise that “systemic racism” lies at the core of disparate poverty rates among blacks, whites, and Hispanics in the United States, and it advocates for “racial equity-related grantmaking”. https://www.mott.org/news/publications/how-the-sustainable-development-goals-can-help-community-foundations-respond-to-covid-19-and-advance-racial-equity/

So, what are the effects of Mott’s “SDGs through an equity lens” approach on the recipients of the Foundation’s largesse? A UN Foundation/Brookings Institution report on US progress implementing the SDGs (“The State of the Sustainable Development Goals in the United States”) shines the spotlight on two grantees.

Equity in Orlando:  One Mott-funded, SDG-aligned project is “Thrive Central Florida.” https://www.mott.org/grants/central-florida-foundation-thrive-central-florida-2020-06357/ Thrive administers five separate funds to address different needs within the Central Florida community. https://cffound.org/thrive/ At least indirectly, according to the UN Foundation/Brookings document, the Thrive coalition “helped push the City [of Orlando] to create a position of Chief Equity Officer.” This is evidence, per the report, of “a sense of shared momentum to advance the SDGs through a variety of different mechanisms.” https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-state-of-the-sustainable-development-goals-in-the-united-states/ (downloadable pdf available at link). Time will tell whether the addition of a “Chief Equity Officer” to the Orlando payroll pays dividends for the poor and marginalized of that city, in keeping with the SDGs.

Bringing the SDGs and Woke-Speak to the Heartland:  In mid-July 2020, Mott gave a $50,000 grant to a group of five community foundations serving rural Kansas, the “Kansas Association of Community Foundations.” In exchange for the money, the association was to “prominently include content on the Sustainable Development Goals and their adoption by community foundations at its annual national Growing Community Foundations Conference.” https://www.mott.org/grants/kansas-association-of-community-foundations-raising-awareness-and-educating-u-s-community-foundations-on-the-sdgs-2019-05739/  The grant was made pursuant to Mott’s “Civic Society − Enhancing Community Philanthropy” interest area. Domestic grants under this branch of the program require recipients to tailor their efforts to the SDG framework. https://www.mott.org/work/civil-society/enhancing-community-philanthropy/

Then, in 2021, Mott gave the Kansas association a $300,000 grant to get down to work. https://www.mott.org/grants/?query=Kansas

A UN Foundation report on the Kansas effort reveals community leaders straining to “connect their local action to global ambitions” and to use the “common lens” and “common language” to describe their efforts (“I had never heard of the SDGs before. But essentially, you think of everything that’s a really big, hairy problem − that’s what the SDGs are all about.” “The SDGs played a big part helping us with our approach to making sure everyone can afford homes. We want to make sure that we’re making housing here [in Bird City, KS] sustainable.”) Other Kansans seemed more comfortable with woke-speak, the precise meaning of which is, unfortunately,  unclear (“Let’s build up to that systemic change.” “We’re actors and agents of change now whereas, before this project, we weren’t.”). Some praised the data-collection aspect of SDG compliance (“There has to be a data component to all this because how else are you going to measure success?”).

The report offers few details on how improvements in these rural Kansas communities are newly “sustainable.”  https://unfoundation.org/blog/post/how-5-community-foundations-in-kansas-are-bringing-the-sdgs-home/

• • •

One sector where there appears to be very little resistance to the SDGs − on the contrary, there is tremendous enthusiasm − is education. We will turn there next.

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United Nations 2030 Agenda (Part Two): Meet Some of the Force Multipliers

The United Nations has no jurisdiction to change laws or practices within the United States.

For the 2030 Agenda to have impact, decision-makers and money people, both public and private, have to sign on. And sign on they have, with enthusiasm, though with more success so far in the private sector.

Here is a look at two of the most prominent US NGOs that are aggressively pushing the 2030 Agenda/SDGs:

The Tacticians: The United Nations Foundation and The Brookings Institution

In 1997, CNN founder Ted Turner pledged a $1 billion gift to the United Nations, the largest private gift the agency had ever received. That money seeded the United Nations Foundation, created in 1998 with an initial policy focus on “Women and population stabilization, sustainable environment and climate change, children’s health, and strengthening the U.N. system.” (New York Times, May 20, 1998.)

The foundation has since updated its mission statement to focus on the SDGs:

We act as a strategic partner to help the UN mobilize the ideas, people, and resources it needs to deliver, and grow a diverse and durable constituency for collective action. We focus on issues at the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals, build initiatives across sectors to solve problems at scale, and engage influencers and citizens who seek action. Partnership, and the power of smart and strategic collaboration, is in our DNA. We believe everyone has a part to play, everyone’s voice should be heard, and everyone has a stake.

https://unfoundation.org/who-we-are/our-mission/

The UN Foundation is an umbrella organization. Located under the umbrella are:

  • United Nations Association chapters (“The United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA) is a movement of Americans dedicated to supporting the United Nations. With over 20,000 members (60% under the age of 26) and more than 200 chapters across the country, UNA-USA members are united in their commitment to global engagement and their belief that each of us can play a part in advancing the UN’s mission and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.”)   https://unausa.org/mission/
  • The Business Council for the United Nations (“BCUN connects forward-thinking companies with the UN to advance action on the SDGs and our shared goals around global health, climate action, gender equality and other critical issues.”) https://www.businesscouncilfortheun.org/about
  • The UN Foundation Global Entrepreneurs Council (“a strategic advisory council that brings together entrepreneurs and thought leaders who are committed to finding innovative solutions to global problems and helping the world deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).) https://unfoundation.org/what-we-do/initiatives/global-entrepreneurs-council/

In addition, the UN Foundation “partners” with more than 80 other entities, including a roll call of many of the world’s most prominent corporations (Amazon Web Services, Bank of America, Unilever, Google, to name just a few),  to promote the SDGs and “forg[e] a more . . . sustainable future.” https://unfoundation.org/who-we-are/our-partners/

• • •

The Brookings Institution is a left-leaning thinktank that works hand-in-hand with the UN Foundation. (To get a taste of Brookings’ point of view, visit articles on its website such as, “Why Federalism Has Become Risky for American Democracy”, and “Democracy on the ballot − How many election deniers are on the ballot in November, and what is their likelihood of success?” https://www.brookings.edu/ )

In 2019, Brookings launched “the SDG Leadership Cities Network”  to boost local implementation of the 2030 Agenda. https://www.brookings.edu/essay/sdg-leadership-cities-network-and-toolkit/  Then, in 2020, Brookings created an arm of the Institution devoted exclusively to promoting the SDGs, the “Center for Sustainable Development.” According to its director, the Center’s SDG-promoting mission includes tackling “systemic issues of racism, exclusion and inequality.” https://www.brookings.edu/news-releases/brookings-launches-the-center-for-sustainable-development/ 

Brookings “supports” the work of local jurisdictions by partnering with, and receiving money from, grant-making foundations: “This initiative of the Brookings Institution is supported by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and Rockefeller Bellagio Center.” https://www.brookings.edu/about-the-local-leadership-on-the-sustainable-development-goals/  The foundations, in turn, undertake efforts to advance the SDGs, sponsoring their own “initiatives” and “methodologies,” and making direct grants to communities.

• • •

In 2022, Brookings and the UN Foundation released a joint report lamenting the US’s failure to better implement the SDGs. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/2022_Brookings_State-of-SDGs-in-the-US.pdf It provides a convenient window into the thought processes of pro-2030 Agenda, globalist NGOs.

The State of the SDGs in the United States breathes a sigh of relief that the Trump Administration has given way to the Biden Administration (“Shifting away from the ‘America First’ foreign policy of the Trump administration, the Biden administration is seeking to revitalize its alliances and reestablish its leadership in mobilizing collective action on humanitarian and development issues, for which the SDGs can be an essential asset”).

The report displays great concern for what other nations think of the United States. It  calls on the US government to assert “global leadership” and reestablish “credibility”; decries what it sees as the past waste of US “political capital,” and asserts the need for the US to “win[] favor” with other nations to advance the SDG agenda.

The worldview of the report is, not surprisingly, collectivist. The authors endorse a “whole-of-society approach to progress” as measured by the SDGs. Pointing to entities in the private sector, like universities and philanthropies, that have freely aligned their decision-making processes to the SDGs, the report says the initiatives “point to a growing SDG ecosystem of action”. Yes, they do. And the authors want the federal government to do more as well. In its recommendations, the report:

  • Calls on the President, Secretary of State, and other “high-level” political officials to “publicly signal U.S. commitment to the SDGs”
  • Asks the government to conduct a “Voluntary National Review” of SDG progress and present it to the UN (in part because “all the other G7, G20, and OECD countries” have done so)
  • Suggests the Biden Administration re-tool the language it uses to describe its development efforts, to use the SDGs as the “lingua franca” of its communications − again, to impress the rest of the world
  • Calls for the creation of “a cabinet-level SDG Council” to coordinate foreign and domestic policy around the SDGs
  • And seeks a “national roadmap” to track SDG progress in the US

• • •

Some Congressional Moves Related to the SDGs

Nine days before President Biden took office, on January 11, 2021, California Representative Barbara Lee introduced House Resolution 30, “Supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.” Several weeks later, it was referred to a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, where it remains. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolution/30/all-actions?overview=closed#tabs

On September 15, 2022, during the same week as the UN General Assembly meetings in New York, the Chairman of that subcommittee, Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro, held what one witness called “the first hearing exclusively about the SDGs in the seven years they’ve been active.”  https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/2022/9/the-sustainable-development-goals-and-recovery-from-the-covid-19-pandemic-implications-for-us-policy

The hearing witnesses echoed many of the same views expressed in the Brookings/UN Foundation report (asking Congress to require the administration to make a voluntary national report on SDG progress to present to the UN; calling for increased Executive Branch focus on the SDGs; seeking disaggregation of data by identity factors, to name a few). They also claimed that US failure to join with the global community in making the SDGs a priority creates a power vacuum that the Chinese Communist Party and Russia are eager to exploit.

Two weeks after chairing this hearing, Rep. Castro signed on as a co-sponsor of Rep. Lee’s SDG resolution. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolution/30/cosponsors

• • •

Next, we will look at some of the ways in which the SDGs are affecting life in the real world.

Part One: https://basedbytes.com/united-nations-agenda-2030/

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United Nations 2030 Agenda (Part One): Coming Soon to Your Town?

When you think of the United Nations, what comes to mind? How about, maintaining international peace and security? Good answer! That’s the very first purpose listed in the UN Charter. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-1

Okay, what about promoting “sustainable housing” in Bird City, Kansas, population 450? Or providing the framework for a prestigious American university to judge its course offerings? Or helping to pressure a major American city to hire a “Chief Equity Officer”?

If this all sounds like the UN needs to “stay in its lane,” then you haven’t met the 2030 Agenda.

• • •

They have big plans in Turtle Bay.

According to the UN, we are on a “collective journey” to “[t]ransform[] our [w]orld.” This project goes by the name of “the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda (Article 1, ¶ 3 of the UN Charter opens the door to this.)

The 2030 Agenda was adopted in September 2015, on the occasion of the UN’s 70th anniversary and with the enthusiastic support of the Obama Administration. (“As a former U.S. Ambassador to the UN, I had the privilege to help usher in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. . . . The United States strongly supports the 2030 Agenda, and we are committed to its implementation.” — Former Obama UN Ambassador/current Biden USAID Administrator Samantha Power. https://usun.usmission.gov/remarks-by-administrator-samantha-power-at-the-high-level-political-forum-on-sustainable-development/ )

Let’s peek under the hood.

The Agenda consists of “17 Sustainable Development Goals [the “SDGs”] with 169 associated targets which are integrated and indivisible.” (¶18) It went into effect on January 1, 2016, and all UN member countries pledged to implement the Agenda. (¶21)

Here are the SDGs:

  • Goal 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
  • Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
  • Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
  • Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
  • Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
  • Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
  • Goal 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
  • Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
  • Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
  • Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
  • Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
  • Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
  • Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts* [*Acknowledging that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the primary international, intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change.] 
  • Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
  • Goal 15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
  • Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
  • Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

Holy cow! That’s a lot of “sustainability”! (14 uses of the word and its variants in 17 bullet points.) What does “sustainability” mean?  (We will come back to that.)

These SDGs aren’t just intended for others − as a signatory to the Agenda, the United States is supposed to implement them, too. So, who is taking us on this “collective journey” to “[t]ransform[] our [w]orld”?

As always, follow the money − and learn the backstory. In Part Two, we will meet the NGOs devoted to implementing the SDGs in the United States.