Robert Bilott, an American environmental attorney and author, is known for lawsuits against DuPont on behalf of plaintiffs from West Virginia and has spent more than twenty years litigating hazardous dumping of dangerous chemicals, especially PFAS. His most recent book is Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer's Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont? U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) outlines a host of health effects associated with microscopic PFAS exposure, including cancer, liver damage, decreased fertility, and increased risk of asthma and thyroid disease. This microscopic plastic pollution problem is found in thousands of products distributed worldwide. As with the fossil fuel and tobacco companies, many chemical companies had scientific studies showing the ill-effects of certain plastic pollution, however, that information was often not shared with the public. Mark Ruffalo, renowned actor and activist, portrayed Mr. Bilott in the movie Dark Waters. Last year, the United Nations held a major conference on plastic pollution—as well as several environmental conferences over the decades.

Liz Karan, Project Director of Protecting Ocean life on the High Seas with the Pew Charitable Trusts, highlights the challenges to protect the marine life and water quality in the oceans.  The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Treaty and the International Seabed Authority are the foundations for a comprehensive global approach to preserve biodiversity, prevent pollution and contamination of the oceans. The International Seabed Authority is working to develop the regulations for safe mining the seas to extract valuable ores, such as manganese nodules. Several countries, such as Chile and Costa Rica, are pushing to develop environmental regulations and guideline to prevent environmental disasters. Some countries want to ban deep-sea mining because, if not properly regulated, it can create environmental devastation. Recent United Nations Conferences on oceans and deep-sea mining have contributed to developing these critical guidelines.

Philip Lymbery is Chief Executive of a leading international farm animal welfare organization called Compassion in World Farming. He was appointed an ambassadorial “Champion” for the United Nations Food Systems Summit in 2021. His most recent book is: “Sixty Harvests Left: How to Reach a Nature-Friendly Future.” Compassion in World Farming strives to reduce the inhumane treatment of animals who are removed from the land and put in factory farms that utilize overcrowded crates or feedlots.  These animals no longer contribute to rejuvenating the soils. If the current depletion continues, it is quite probable that the world will have only 60 more harvests until the soil can no longer provide basic food supplies. Humans can choose to eat more plants, less meat and dairy, and use non-factory farm sources, pasture fed animals, regenerative and organic agriculture.    The recent UN Environmental Conference focused on methane impacts from farming, and the heat, drought and flooding impacts of extreme weather on agriculture.  

Ms. Izumi Nakamitsu is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs. The Office for Disarmament Affairs (ODA) was established to work with and support United Nations member states to negotiate the peaceful uses of weapons of mass destruction to small arms. Currently, nine countries have nuclear weapons.  The risk of accidental or purposeful use of nuclear weapons is the highest it has been since the Korean War. The UN is striving to provide incentives to reduce the nuclear stockpiles, especially since nuclear weapons could destroy life on the planet. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is a cornerstone to encourage non-nuclear states to use technology for peaceful purposes and the nuclear powers to reduce their stockpiles. The policy of No First Use has been under discussion for years. In order to reduce the potential nuclear risks, it is critical to involve women and youth in the decision-making process to help solve these thorny problems.

Professor Andrew Koppelman, a John Paul Stevens Professor of Law at Northwestern University, is the author of “Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed.” Libertarianism has deteriorated into a more doctrinaire form as espoused by Ayn Rand or Charles Koch. President Franklin Roosevelt dealt with a stock market collapse, bank failures and high unemployment which are some of the reasons for establishing a social safety net, such as Social Security. Libertarianism argues that people should be unencumbered, and shrinking the size of government and giving tax cuts will be beneficial. The climate crisis and Covid pandemic have proven these concepts inaccurate. Joe Biden has a coherent belief in both a free market and a governmental apparatus to help when the market fails. Donald Trump does not have a fixed philosophy but wants to assist his business colleagues, even if it endangers employees and the public. A balance should be reached between individual freedom and government overreach.

Patrick Sciarratta, President of the Global NGO Executive Committee, discusses how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) interface with the United Nations Department of Global Communication regarding issues to eliminate the devastation of war, promote economic and social development and enhance human rights. Many NGOs have Consultative Status at the United Nations with organs such as the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). One NGO that has been a major UN partner is Rotary International (RI). In 1987, Rotary invited some UN agencies, namely the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), along with the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), to form a unique public-private partnership to combat the scourge of polio. Other NGOs such as Kiwanis International and Lions International have collaborated with UN agencies on a wide-range of health and legal problems. Nearly 2,000 NGOs representing faith-based, businesses, environmentalists, labor, human rights, etc. groups are networking with the UN.

Kevin Cassidy, Director and Representative to the Bretton Woods and Multilateral Organizations of the UN’s International Labour Office for the US in Washington, DC., discusses the role of the ILO, which was created in 1919, in developing international standards, rights at work, employment and income opportunities, social protection, social dialogue and tripartite consultations with workers, employers and governments. He emphasized the importance of the Dignity of Work concept. Major trends in the work arena are climate change, Green Economy and clean energy. A “just transition” is imperative for all of the participants. Pay equity, violence and harassment and child care are the main impediments to women in the workforce. By incorporating the new approaches, it is possible to create an additional 100 million jobs and generate $26 trillion by 2030. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets are critical to preserve planet Earth and make it more habitable by eliminating poverty, overcoming hunger, empowering women and girls and combating climate change, just to mention a few.

Thom Hartmann, an American radio personality, author, former psychotherapist, businessman, and progressive political commentator, discusses his new book: “The Hidden History of Neoliberalism: How Reaganism Gutted America and How to Restore Its Greatness?” Neoliberalism ostensibly contributed to the transfer of $50 trillion from the middle class to the wealthiest 1%, as well as shifting 15 million jobs from the U.S. to Mexico and China. One suggestion to reduce this disparity and the vast income gap would be to adopt Alexander Hamilton’s 11-Point Plan for American Manufacturers. He argues that free trade is really managed trade by the large corporations. Another major player in perpetuating this myth and increasing income inequality is the US Congress. Several Supreme Court decisions exacerbated the situation with the Citizens United ruling, corporations being declared persons and money equated with free speech. The media, in general, has been radically altered with the loss of local ownership of media outlets, the demise of the Fairness Doctrine by Reagan in 1987 and the constant quest for viewers’ ratings and profits.

Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute, focuses on the threat of nuclear weapons in the world today. The use of nuclear weapons is incompatible with the development and survivability of living organisms and the planet as a whole. Elimination of nuclear weapons should be at the heart of the debate. Currently, over 13,000 nukes are maintained by 9 nuclear countries. Several suggestions were proffered as to how to reduce the likelihood of an accidental or purposeful exchange of nuclear weapons: the US should not move forward in spending over $1.3 trillion to modernize the aging nukes—stockpiles should be reduced; all countries at the UN should adopt a No Strike First policy; and international agreements, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to reduce the nuclear threat should be strengthened and countries should adhere to their commitments. The US and Russia have over 75% of the nuclear weapons; whereas, the UK, France, China, Pakistan, India, North Korea and Israel have the remainder.

Dr. Daniel Fiorino, a Distinguished Executive in Residence in the Department of Public Administration and Policy, is the Director of the Center for Environmental Policy in the School of Public Affairs at American University. He is the author of the “Clean Energy Transition: Policies and Politics for A Zero-Carbon World.” The world needs to move quickly from dirty to clean energy because of the health risks, inefficient and expensive energy sources like coal and the deterioration of the climate and the planet. To improve the energy system, people must use energy as efficiently as possible, generate electricity through renewable sources, and electrify all the other end-uses, such as cars, trucks and other modes of transportation. The Biden Inflation Reduction Act is a major step toward clean energy. For decades, the United Nations has led the way to convene countries to work together to battle climate change.

Dr. James M. Van Nostrand is an Author, Professor of Law, & Director of the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development at West Virginia University. His most recent book is: “THE COAL TRAP: How West Virginia Was Left Behind in the Clean Energy Revolution.” He highlights how political and business leaders have been unable to move beyond the “coal trap” of West Virginia’s heritage, and how it harmed the state’s citizens and dimmed their future prospects through the obstinate reliance on an unsustainable and outmoded resource: coal. The state experienced a “Lost Decade” because West Virginia leaders doubled down on fossil fuels and ignored the clean energy technology. In reality, there is not a “War on Coal” because market forces and consumer demand dictated the outcome. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act provided assistance to West Virginia through tax credits and other energy-saving initiatives.

Dr. Thomas G. Weiss is a distinguished scholar of international relations and global governance with special expertise in the politics of the United Nations. Since 1998 he has been Presidential Professor at The Graduate Center, CUNY (The City University of New York), and is Director Emeritus of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. A recent book is “Would the World Be Better Without the UN?" Spoiler alert on page 190: even with its limitations the world is far better off with the UN to help deal with enormous problems such as climate change, diseases, human rights, refugees and human trafficking, as a few examples. Ukraine is a challenge that shows how the UN Security Council is partially paralyzed due to the Russian veto of major resolutions. Meanwhile, other UN agencies are on the ground in dangerous areas of Ukraine to help over 5-million refugees, provide food assistance, develop maternal and child health programs and keep nuclear reactors from melting down, just to mention a few. Also, UN agencies also help move aircraft, ships, mail and weather information worldwide.

Felix Dodds is an Adjunct Professor in Environmental Sciences and Engineering at the University of North Carolina. He is an Associate Fellow at the Tellus Institute in Boston, and he is the City of Bonn’s International Ambassador. He co-authored his recent book: “ENVIRONMENTAL HEROES IN DIPLOMACY: PROFILES IN COURAGE” which highlights several outstanding heroes in the environmental area. Following are the chapter titles: a) Luc Hoffmann, Geoffrey Matthews & Eskandar Firouz: Escaping a Cold War Quagmire: The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands; b) Sidney Holt: The Long-Haul Hero Who Saved the Great Whales: The International Whaling Commission; c) Mostafa Tolba: The Egyptian King: The Montreal Protocol; d) Franz Perrez: Putting the ‘Basel’ Back into the Basel Convention; e) Raúl A. Estrada-Oyuela: Hero of Kyoto: The Kyoto Protocol; f) Barack Obama: The Missing Hero? The Copenhagen Climate Summit; g) Christiana Figueres: The Can-Do Advocate: The Paris Agreement on Climate Change; h) Maurice Strong – From Poverty to UN Under-Secretary General and Father of Sustainable Development – The Rio Earth Summit; i) Maria Luiza Viotti: A Believer in Multilateralism and the Power of Collective Ideas: The Rio+20 Conference; j) Paula Caballero: Building a Blueprint for a Better Future: The Sustainable Development Goals.

Ali Wyne is a senior analyst at Eurasia Group focusing on US-China relations and great-power competition. In his book, America's Great-Power Opportunity: Revitalizing U.S. Foreign Policy to Meet the Challenges of Strategic Competition, Ali offers the first detailed critique of great-power competition as a foreign policy framework. He posits that China and Russia are significantly more able and willing to challenge U.S. national interests and the prevailing order than they were at the end of the Cold War. He offers the following: The United States should not analogize today’s geopolitical environment too closely to the 1930s or the Cold War. China and Russia’s oft-touted reputations for strategic vision are overstated. Though China now occupies a more central position in the global economy than it did prior to the onset of the pandemic, its strategic prospects are more challenged. With its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has reenergized NATO, reinvigorated transatlantic ties, induced a significant recalibration of German foreign policy, made itself more beholden to China, and curtailed its access to capital markets and technological inputs. America’s core challenge—and opportunity—is to formulate a foreign policy that can endure no matter what steps China, Russia, or any other competitor takes.

Dr. Alynna J. Lyon is a Professor of Political Science at the University of New Hampshire and is Co-Editor and Chief of the journal Global Governance. She authored “US Politics and the United Nations: A Tale of Dysfunctional Dynamics.” Dr. Lyon traces the UN’s creation in 1945, dating from the League of Nations and President FDR’s effort to create an organization to prevent war, assist economic and social development and promote human rights. The US benefits more than any other country due to UN programs, such as peacekeeping, combating diseases, battling climate change, assisting in moving aircraft, ships, mail and weather information worldwide, to mention only a few. Most US presidents concluded that the UN was vital to provide an international forum to convene the countries of the world to deal with issues such as diseases, climate change, regional conflicts and a myriad of other contentious problems. The illegal US invasion of Iraq, failure to support key peacekeeping missions and withdrawal from the Iranian Nuclear Deal, the UN Human Rights Council and WHO were disastrous decisions that weakened America and strengthened adversaries such as China. The UN is essential, however, polls show the American public generally supports UN activities but does not understand the UN. The general public should develop objective news sources about the UN and avoid Right-Wing radio and other outlets, such as Fox, OAN and Newsmax that are allegedly biased or choose not to comprehend many of the UN programs.

Dr. Augusto Lopez-Claros, Executive Director of the Global Governance Forum, discusses his recent book, “Global Governance and the Emergence of Global Institutions for the 21st Century,” which proffers that the United Nations, which was created out of the ashes of World War 2, and other international organizations must make major structural changes to become more efficient, effective and relevant. Some suggestions include expanding the role of the UN General Assembly’s 193 member states to adopt binding resolutions concerning peace and security and developing a global parliament. He also suggests that existential threats such as income inequality, the Sixth Mass Extinction, nuclear arms proliferation and climate change crises must be seriously dealt with because these problems are accelerating quite rapidly and will cost trillions of dollars more to confront them the longer policymakers and the public do not take aggressive action.

Amir Dossal, President and CEO of the Global Partnerships Forum (GPF), previously served as Executive Director of the UN's Office for Partnerships. Mr. Dossal explains how the GPF works with the public and private sectors on a myriad of programs such as mentoring youth, empowering women, developing clean energy and confronting the Covid-19 challenges—primarily with the goal to help achieve the United Nations 17-Sustainable Development Goals. He is a founding Commissioner of the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development and co-founder of the Blockchain Commission for Sustainable Development as well as several other substantive organizations such as the Coalition for Better Health at Lower Cost and the Pearl Initiative.

Sir Mark Lowcock, former United Nations Under‑Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, discusses the role of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and his new book Relief Chief: A Manifesto for Saving Lives in Dire Times.

As the “relief chief” his main responsibility was to coordinate the work of major humanitarian agencies, such as the International Red Cross, UNICEF and the UN Refugee Agency, to effectively streamline the delivery of humanitarian services to people affected by natural or human-made disasters, such as war in Ukraine or famine in the Horn of Africa. The major causes of disasters include climate change, wars, ethnic conflict, genocide, corruption and food insecurity. He focused on four major areas: invest in causes of a disaster and not deal with symptoms—populations should be helped to become more self-sufficient; many crises, such as a drought in the Horn of Africa or a hurricane in the Caribbean, are predictable and able to be anticipated and prepared for; need to work more diligently with certain groups that are most vulnerable, namely women and girls; most relief decisions are made by the donors and humanitarian agencies, but not the impacted populations that should have input into the decision-making process.

Robert Skinner, Deputy Director and Chief of Partnerships and Global Engagement

Outreach Division of the United Nations

Department of Global Communications (DGC), details how the DGC works to communicate with the world. A major communication theme revolves around the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as to eliminate poverty, promote food security, empower women and girls and combat climate change. For the SDGs to be successful, it is critical to partner with local governments, civil society, academia and the private sector. One particular initiative to involve youth is through a program called “Football (soccer) for the Goals.” Previously, Mr. Skinner headed up the UN Office for Partnerships, the United Nations Information Centre in Washington, D.C. and the United Nations Foundation’s New York Office.

Katrina vanden Heuvel, the publisher, part-owner, and former editor of the magazine The Nation is a political commentator on various TV programs, a guest columnist for the Washington Post and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She emphasizes how President Franklin Delano Roosevelt helped found the UN out of the ashes of World War 2 and proffered the Four Freedoms (Freedoms of Speech and Worship and Freedoms from Want and Fear), which are arguably under siege by the former president, Donald Trump. Similar autocratic, anti-democratic insurgents are operating in Hungary, the Philippines, Brazil, Russia and several other countries. She highlights the major differences between the Trump (Unilateralist) and Biden (Multilateralist) foreign policies: it is in America’s interest to actively participate in UN agencies, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the Human Rights Council, as well as NATO and the EU. Although it was a strategic blunder by Donald Trump to withdraw from the Iranian Nuclear Deal, which actually was successful in blocking Iranian ambitions to develop a nuclear weapon, the Biden Administration has a responsibility to move more aggressively in reactivating the agreement. Other areas of importance are to maintain a strong military defense, reduce the bloated Defense Department budget and the disproportionate influence of the Military-Industrial Complex, provide assistance to veterans and develop more effective lines of communication and dialogue with adversaries such as China and Russia.