The global wave of Reverence for Life, Music for Life concerts on April 22, 2008 will be an expression of people united in their yearning for a world overflowing with Reverence for Life. But that is not our world. Not yet. The truth is that we are living in difficult, dangerous, and sometimes truly dispiriting times. We worry about problems of war and peace, including especially the horrifying dangers of nuclear weapons, and yet even 15 years after the end of the Cold War, the US and Russia maintain stockpiles of more than 25,000 of these agents of mass destruction and death, many on hair-trigger alert. We worry about the degradation of our natural environment; yet we have still not taken sufficient steps to ensure our grandchildren and their children a healthy planet. We worry about health care both in wealthy countries and in the developing world – including the epidemics of HIV/AIDS, TB, and malaria that threaten Africa’s survival; yet we still have not guaranteed even basic preventive and curative health services for all. We worry about the more than one billion of our global neighbors who suffer in absolute poverty; yet we tolerate their living that way, and all too early dying. Perhaps worst of all, we worry about children and their education, which will determine the fate of the world’s next generation; yet we accept that over 100,000,000 children do not even attend primary school.

In September 2000, at the largest gathering of heads of state in the world’s history, the U.N. General Assembly unanimously adopted the U.N. Millennium Declaration, committing governments to addressing these and other urgent world problems.  But to date the concrete steps to achieve the goals of the Millennium Declaration have been woefully inadequate, in large part because of a lack of adequate government support and funding. 
Dr. Schweitzer addressed his April 1957 anti-nuclear appeal directly to the people of the world, rather than to governments, because he understood that mobilizing world public opinion is the crucial step in achieving solutions to global problems of health, the environment, and peace.  If (and only if) enough people insist on positive change, then government policies will follow.

Monday, April 23, 2007 and Beyond: Declarations of Conscience
Abolish Weapons of Mass Destruction; Mobilize Tools of Global Healing

On Monday, April 23, 2007, the exact 50th anniversary of Dr. Schweitzer's 1957 Declaration of Conscience, people throughout the world, including all Nobel peace laureates, were invited to issue their own individual or collective "2007 Declaration(s) of Conscience."  Participants were asked to transcend political, cultural, religious, or national differences and identify concrete, ongoing action steps, both local and global, through which they could together address important problems of peace and justice, health, and the environment.  At a local level, identified problems and proposed solutions may vary as widely as the diversity of human communities.  At a global level, participants were encouraged to include in their Declarations of Conscience an appeal to national and world leaders to work together with greatly increased vigor to achieve the U.N. Millennium Goals.  Special emphasis was placed on the urgency of efforts to Abolish Weapons of Mass Destruction and Mobilize Tools of Global Healing, and steps to address the health and poverty crisis in Africa.
Please click on the following to find a gateway to networks of organizations engaged in advocacy activities on the following issues:

• Abolition of nuclear weapons
• Protection of the global environment
• Health and development in Schweitzer’s beloved Africa
• U.N. Millennium Development Goals