Let's Start Honouring the Children

I was reminded again today of the vital new philosophy or worldview suggested by Raffi Cavoukian, a world-renowned Canadian children's singer/entertainer who has turned his focus to the adults of the world, knowing that it's adults who make the decisions. (Too bad it's not the kids! See Speak for the Children.)

Child honouring is the simple — but transformative and, for many cultures, revolutionary — notion of putting the children at the centre of deliberations and actions. A sort of golden rule:

Do unto the world what will be best for all the children.

I said it was simple! But it makes a damned good guiding principle, doesn't it? Especially if one understands that children are more sensitive to famines and environmental toxins and other degradations than adults are — in the literature, they are called a "susceptible sub-population."

So if we care about the children of the world, and we love the special children in our own lives, please, can we start implementing the precautionary principle? I commented the other day to someone who knows our prime minister that I think he must hate his children. She responded that he probably loves them more than anything in the world (besides his cats) — he just "doesn't believe in climate change."

"Well," I responded, "that's the same as hating his children." He is certainly condemning them to a hellish future, and that — to me, at least — does not come across as love.

It is time to put the children at the centre of our moral compass!

p.s. Somalia and the United States of America are the only two countries who have not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. That sort of fits the US attitude to the climate change crisis as well, doesn't it?