On a warm Barcelona evening in the autumn of 2008, I was seated at an al fresco dinner table to honor awardees of the “Equator Prize” at the World Conservation Congress. This is an award given by the United Nations Development Programme to recognize community efforts to reduce poverty through environmentally sustainable practices. Just before the award ceremony was to start, a silver-haired well-dressed gentleman sat down next to me and pleasantly introduced himself: “I’m Ted Turner.” My first inclination was to say, “the CNN guy?” But then I paused – Mr. Turner was at this event not for his global media reach but because a decade earlier he had established the United Nations Foundation with an unprecedented gift of $1 billion – a third of his total net worth at the time.
The ensuing conversation with Mr. Turner was memorable in many ways, but what stood out most was his commitment to “global” rather than “international” order. He chose his largest philanthropic gift, not to establish a foundation in his own name or for a particular cause, but to celebrate and support an institution which stood for multilateralism to support the full range of planetary problems. The United Nations operated within the primacy of a “nation-state” model (hence international) but with aspirations for a more global order. It was not a global government, but it recognized the importance of global issues in an international world.
A decade before he established the United Nations Foundation, Turner established another novel philanthropy called the “Captain Planet Foundation,” (along with television producer Barbara Pyle), themed after the environmental superhero series Captain Planet and the Planeteers. The focus of this charity has been grassroots ecological literacy to inculcate knowledge and values about planetary order and individual actions needed by citizens for sustainability. Turner himself appeared in an episode of Captain Planet in the 1990s called “Who’s Running the Show?” as an environment-friendly media mogul inconspicuously named “Fred Lerner”.
In 2019, CNN did a documentary on the life of Turner and termed him “the real Captain Planet.” One of the defining aspects of the cartoon series is the realization for children that we are living in a particular time where humans have more agency than ever before. Although it started airing before the term “Anthropocene” was popularized by Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen, this is very much a saga of redemption in a time humanity’s disruptive tendencies. The opening narration of each episode reads like a homage to J.R.R Tolken’s Lord of the Rings:
“Our world is in peril. Gaia, the spirit of the Earth, can no longer stand the terrible destruction plaguing our planet. She sends five magic rings to five special young people: Kwame, from Africa, with the power of Earth… From North America, Wheeler, with the power of Fire… From the Soviet Union/Eastern Europe, Linka, with the power of Wind. From Asia, Gi, with the power of Water… and from South America, Ma-Ti, with the power of Heart. When the five powers combine, they summon Earth’s greatest champion, Captain Planet!”
While any form of hero worship is problematic, the role of sensible leadership in facilitating functional order is important and has thus created an epic industry of books on its own. The young planeteers saw “Captain Planet” as a parental leadership figure. In the age of teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg, a contemporary critique of “the planeteers” may be that they used their power rings with good intentions but at the end of every episode they ended up summoning Captain Planet. The message being from that age of parental supervision that an adult or hero has to be there to fix the problem. Thankfully, youth and children’s empowerment has received a great boost in recent years, including a Nobel peace prize for my Pakistani compatriot Malala Yousafzai at age 17. Turner and the UN Foundation recognized Malala even a year before she won the coveted Nobel prize.
Turner told me that he sees a convergence of grassroots and global initiatives moving towards a planetary order. Similarly, the convergence of youth empowerment and adult experience and life-long learning needed convergence. He was also mildly dismissive of the adage “think globally, act locally” – in his characteristic southern style: “Hell we have to think and act locally and globally! That’s what smart philanthropy should do.” Earth day is a time to consider giving for the planet. As more tycoons like Jeff Bezos (through his Earth Fund) and wealthy royals like Prince William (through his Earthshot Prize) valorize planetary philanthropy, Ted Turner’s vision of giving is worth emulating. We can be captivated by local stories and personalities which certainly have their place for projection. But let us also consider global institutions like the United Nations that are under constant threat by political forces of losing vital support. Smart philanthropy requires us to multi-task across local and global scales as Ted Turner did with his giving – that’s the inspiration we get from Captain Planet in virtual and real forms!
