Tag: child mortality

This month, we’re not exactly discussing an article, but learning about and discussing the planned 18-month “roadmap” to revive and recreate the American Ethical Union’s supportive relationship of all Ethical communities, and to help start new ones. The source document is a worksheet accessible online (details below).

The goal of the session is that each of us has an opportunity to consider the work ahead with others of good intent, and imagine how we might best deal with the inevitable challenges. We’ll start with a summary of the Roadmap, so you needn’t read it.

But, if you want to read the roadmap before our meeting, it is at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FPjzwe1AZKbubEtRNVqwgZHobEtoUszGzYZ979AvlPw/edit?usp=sharing. Start with the Orientation tab. The other tabs in the worksheet show the steps of each constituent project, sorted in different ways.

If the share link doesn’t work, contact Ken Novak at Ken@ChicagoEthical.org.

Ken Novak, the Circle’s representative on the AEU’s Board and the Board member who seconded the motion to accept the Roadmap, will spend a few minutes at the beginning to provide context and present its elements in a more digestible manner, he hopes.

Join us!

Two complementary Opinion pieces in last Sunday’s New York Times frame our discussion of the challenges of 2025, and where the world saw some improvement in 2024.

Ezra Klein’s 1/19/2025 ‘Now Is the Time of Monsters’ (share link) begins:

Donald Trump is returning, artificial intelligence is maturing, the planet is warming, and the global fertility rate is collapsing.

To look at any of these stories in isolation is to miss what they collectively represent: the unsteady, unpredictable emergence of a different world. Much that we took for granted over the last 50 years — from the climate to birthrates to political institutions — is breaking down; movements and technologies that seek to upend the next 50 years are breaking through.

Nicholas Kristof’s 1/19/2025 “The World Is a Mess, and It’s Still the Best Time to Be Alive” (share link) is his latest in an annual tradition reviewing ways in which life on Earth improved in 2024, citing declines in child mortality and extreme poverty, among others.

If the share links do not make the entire article available to you, contact Ken Novak at Ken@ChicagoEthical.org.

The goal of the session is that each of us has an opportunity to explore the topics with others of good intent, and imagine how we might best understand to face the challenges. We’ll start with a summary of the articles, so you needn’t read them. Join us!

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