What is a global citizen? I have to write a report on this. It must have examples, compare and contrast etc.

Question

What is a global citizen? I remember a very early Sunday School lesson, where Jesus indicated to the disciples the TWO commandments in response to a question: The two commandments were 1) love your God, and 2) love your neighbor. Then someone asked him what did he mean by neighbor? The response was that you had to commit time, care, and resources to those whom you did not even know. So global citizens are people who take care of the entire world, as if it were cherished.

Here is a nice little speech by Senator Byrd on Good Neighbors, which fits in very well with the concept of global citizen:

http://byrd.senate.gov/speeches/2005_july/neighbors.html

Let's first look at definitions of citizen:
"a native or naturalized member of a state or nation who owes allegiance to its government and is entitled to its protection"

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/citizen

A global citizen, then, is a person who owes allegiance to the world and is entitled to the protection of the world. Although we don't have a unified world government, we can stretch that part to mean allegiance to the other people and lands. We should abide by international conventions, like the Geneva Convention treatment of prisoners of war. We should take part in agreements, like the Kyoto Treaty, designed to help protect the world's environment. We should weigh the consequences to the world when we consider going to war against another nation.

On an individual note, we should educate ourselves about what is going on in the world, the customs and history of other peoples, and dangers to these countries and their environments. Since we can't choose world leaders, we can vote for U.S. leaders who will best reflect our views as responsible global citizens.