NYC is always remaking itself, so it is said. I surmise that’s reason enough to call it “New”. I prefer just to call it ‘York City’. Dark ominous clouds shroud our vision of a bright tomorrow, not only in York City, likewise about the third planet from the Sun.
The rain is not transparent today. The rain has an opaque white texture. At 36 Degree Fahrenheit temperature we claim snow is not the term to use to describe this type of precipitation. Piling layer upon vertical layer of this opaque rain, in a horizontal viewpoint, across a large waterway, known as the East River, exists a fog. A thin veil of buildings show face along the waterway’s edge. Depth of a three dimensional city behind and beyond the thin gray facade has disappeared from view. The street, the park, the waterway, the highway, and the singular planar skyline, captured in an opaque grey daze, is framed in the lines between the periphery.
Decades have managed to skirt by in my life since the time the architectural studies touched on the campus of the New York based world headquarters of the United Nations (UN) international intergovernmental organization. I really delight now, and relished then, the design, the original conceptual designer, Frenchman Le Corbusier along with Brazilian designer, Oscar Niemeyer, and an international team collaborating to reach a plan to be built post World War II. The physical constructed complex became a operational reality in 1951.
I have yet to walk the UN grounds on the Manhattan island. At this very moment my eyes capture the 39 floor Secretarial tower, the lower eastern Conference structure, and domed General Assembly space on the east bank of the East River from my westerly Long Island City perch. An oversized white dish satellite beams its central antenna my way skyward. I can not see the Non-Violence (sculpture), nor the 1954 Peace Monument. A walk of the grounds is called for, yes?
Architecturally speaking, the campus composition elicits strong horizontal lines emanating the message it holds within its confines for the world, to the nations of the world, ‘Peace and Security’.
The meaning of the design logo seen below:
While the olive wreath is an ancient symbol of peace, the map is the indication of the organization’s desire to extend its influence to the whole world.1
Headquarters of the United Nations is in International Territory at 760 United Nations Plaza, Manhattan, New York
Arabic: مقر الأمم المتحدة
Chinese: 联合国总部大楼
French: Siège des Nations unies
Russian: Штаб-квартира Организации Объединённых Наций
Spanish: Sede de las Naciones Unidas
The United Nations is pushing, promoting, protecting the world
Preamble of the UN Charter
WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
AND FOR THESE ENDS
to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and
to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and
to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,
HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS.
Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.
Here below it is appropriate to add what is a common theme amongst human beings:
Sleep, eat, walk, sit, stand, talk, see, hear, taste, feel, jump, run, ahhhh the aroma of commonality |:-)2
Why in the world do we need to complicate life with additional baggage to travel the rivers of time and space by adding war, hunger, poverty, inequity, injustice, weapons of mass destruction, hate speech, church / state conflicts, whoredom, sound pollution, animal cruelty, dope sickness, racial targetng and any other social issue one cares to enumerate?
For me personally, the most extreme social condition that confronts humanity today is climate chaos, the ever present human acts sponsored ‘climatic change’. Although 70%3 of this activity causing severe stress on Ms. Gaia can be traced to six dozen plus mega fossil fuel companies, we all have a degree of responsibility to keeping our home, of planet earth, safe for our grandchildren and their grandchildren. It is a duty that demands an imperative action from us, for without it quality of life will always be abhorrent to all earthlings.
If we as a whole disregard and give up attaining solutions to our global problems Mother Earth will overwhelm all of it, the plants, the animals, and the homo sapiens. Nothing will be left of the planet, no life will be spared. It will become the trio of Mercury, Venus, and Earth. Earth will be truly paradise lost. I am sure we are together in our collective consciousness, that you nor I not want to see the dead planet reality. Hence what are our options? What do we do to address the multiple issues that are foremost in our societies, individually and collectively?
What is the UN’s role in international conflict, specifically Ukraine today?
Like its previous 75 year plus history,
‘… the Assembly can, through both its words and resolutions, make it clear that the majority of UN members reject what Moscow has done, will support peacemaking efforts and stand ready to help the victims of this tragic, needless and perilous war.’4
Saving the earth from the scourge of war is one important mission, by means of peacekeeping, once warring factions, retreat. It is not a force to engage in with combatant peoples, but an entity to practice forbearance within cultural divides, or in this case Russian Ukrainian conflict, a dictator and the world.
We see in the UN’s description in the attached graphic of 17 attainable TARGET goals5:
All can assist to ensure that we meet the Global Goals.
I choose TARGET 13 to create action to counter climate change and personalize them this way:
13.1 - I can strengthen small parts of the built environment, say my home, to adjust easily to change and an adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters.
13.2 - I will continue to integrate lifestyle choices to cooperate with climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning.
13.3 - I will make educational improvements, while continuing to raise awareness to those in common and uncommon spheres of influence, so ‘climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning’ resources become widely embraced.
13.4 - Support the commitment undertaken by developed-country parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) future goals through persuasive narratives.
13.5 - Promote mechanisms such as the New Green Deal in the US of A for ‘raising capacity for effective climate change-related planning and management in least developed countries and small island developing States, including focusing on women, youth and local and marginalized communities.’
These goals I pledge to abide.
A Zoetic Message from New York City to York City
Ms. Gaia is beckoning us to be vigilant. The United Nations is functioning to help us be vigilant. Our time is right now. Our life is so precious. As I close this message in the dark of night I glance over the East River waterway to see a troubled twilight highway gridlocked in a red taillight chained procession, barely moving. Yet in the past week I personally have witnessed and shared multiple dialogs, in the light of day, brilliant moving conversations and heartfelt acts confirming a love filled world of peacemakers.
We will and need to continue to engage in the high ideas we were born to achieve. Issues that distract us need to be discarded, removed, then quickly replenished with worthwhile endeavors. Seventeen (17) SDG‘s (sustainable development goals) set up by the UN in the year 2015, prompt us to do just that. Will we do so?
Let us try, smartly and consistently, to accomplish all by the year 2030!
https://1000logos.net/united-nations-logo/
Tweet by @Earth_Architect 7:20 AM 02/25/09
The Reality of Climate Change - The Problem with Jon Stewart - March 12, 2022
https://reliefweb.int/report/ukraine/what-un-general-assembly-can-do-ukraine What the UN General Assembly can do for Ukraine posted March 1, 2022
THE 17 GOALS https://sdgs.un.org/goals - UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York in September 2015.