Daily Frameworks for 28 June 2023

’Idál, 05 Rahmat (Mercy), 180 B.E.

One Planet, One Habitation

16.0 Proposals for Exploration

16.1 Consensus around global objectives, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), could be more robustly translated into action by framing consultation ¹ around common recognition that every country still has much to learn about integrating the imperatives—equally important—of both sustainability and development. Some countries have secured high levels of material development for many of their citizens, but exert disproportionate ecological impact in terms of resources consumed and waste generated. Others have a much more sustainable ecological footprint, but remain in need of significant material development to meet the basic needs of their citizens. The goal each nation must be working toward is well-being for all populations through means that ensure sustainable and harmonious relationships with the natural environment. Centering this universal goal would provide an important point of unity around which consensus can be translated into collective, purposeful action. ²

Some Answered Questions

It is quite otherwise with the human race, where the greatest oppression and injustice are to be found. Thus you can observe, on the one hand, a single person who has amassed a fortune, made an entire country his personal colony, acquired immense wealth, and secured an unceasing flow of gains and profits, and, on the other, a hundred thousand helpless souls—weak, powerless, and wanting even a mouthful of bread. There is neither equality here nor benevolence. Observe how, as a result, general peace and happiness have become so wanting, and the welfare of humanity so undermined, that the lives of a vast multitude have been rendered fruitless! For all the wealth, power, commerce, and industry are concentrated in the hands of a few individuals, while all others toil under the burden of endless hardships and difficulties, are bereft of advantages and benefits, and remain deprived of comfort and peace. One must therefore enact such laws and regulations as will moderate the excessive fortunes of the few and meet the basic needs of the myriad millions of the poor, that a degree of moderation may be achieved. ³

1. “It is incumbent upon everyone to observe God’s holy commandments, inasmuch as they are the wellspring of life unto the world. The heaven of divine wisdom is illumined with the two luminaries of consultation and compassion and the canopy of world order is upraised upon the two pillars of reward and punishment.”
   Bahá’u’lláh. Tablets of Baháʾuʾlláh, Revealed after the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. Translated by Habib Taherzadeh. 1st ed. Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, 1978, 126. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/bahaullah/tablets-bahaullah/4#729068803 ↩
2. Bahá’í International Community Staff. “One Planet, One Habitation.” International Environment Forum, June 1, 2022. https://www.iefworld.org/2022bic_OPOH. ↩
3. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Some Answered Questions. Translated by Laura Clifford Barney. Wilmette, Ill: Baháʾí Publishing Trust, 1981, 273-274. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/abdul-baha/some-answered-questions/13#329878619 ↩