Environment
- Written by: David Wills
One of the major concerns of the Universal Peace Federation is how to promote programmes that encourage young people in particular with a vision of leadership to build peaceful societies. It is our firm conviction that good leadership requires good character as a foundation, together with well-developed management skills. So often in today’s world, however, management skills and methodologies are emphasized, while the fundamental importance of good character and values are overlooked. How, then, does one develop the qualities of good character? We at the Universal Peace Federation believe that the family is a “school of love and ethics” and the foundation stone of a peaceful society. The most basic elements of good character are to be found in a loving and supportive family environment.
- Written by: David Wills
Dr. Yong Cheon Song: Chairman, Universal Peace Federation - Europe, House of Lords, London – 6 July, 2011
The Universal Peace Federation's core vision is that of humankind as ‘one family under God’. The Universal Peace Federation is the umbrella for a number of organisations such as the Professors’ World Peace Academy (PWPA), the International Conference for the Unity of the Sciences (ICUS), the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace (IIFWP) and numerous others, which have considered the crisis of values over the past forty years.
- Written by: David Wills
House of Lords, July 6th 2011 Hosted by Lord Bhikhu Parekh
Sustainability, the Chair for the meeting Prof. Lord Bhikhu Parekh explained, is a normative concept and as such the purpose of this session was to consider the moral framework for sustainable development. Lawrence Bloom asked whether humankind will survive the intelligence test posed by the current crisis. This challenge was not simply of economy or the environment but whether humanity could embrace values based on a sustainable worldview. Dr Yong Cheon Song described initiatives of Dr Sun Myung Moon to prepare for this crisis of values over the last 40 years, through 'Good Governance and Character Education', scholastic bodies to consider ‘absolute values’ and initiatives to expand ocean related industries as well as investments in land to preserve precious ecological systems. Jack Corley described the character education courses he had developed in China and Russia to refocus on core issues such as finding happiness through living for the sake of others, primarily learned and practiced in the family.
- Written by: David Wills
'We are the product of 14 1/2 billion years of evolution but the next 14 1/2 years will prove if we are viable as a species' stated Lawrence Bloom to add a sense of perspective to the World Environment Day 2010 commemoration event. Chair of the UN Environment Programme for Green Economy Initiative and World Economic Forum, Davos for Global Agenda Council on Urban Development, Bloom emphasied that we are suffering from a 'crisis of values' and that we had lost our sense of interconnectedness to each other and the world around us. Murad Qureshi AM commented that the competing models of economic and political theory that had inspired large sections of society in the past are now all being challenged in an unprecedented manner. This included environmentalism based on neo-classical economics.