Comprehensive
Global Perspective:
An Illuminating Worldview
A PREAMBLE IN WHICH THE AUTHOR OFFERS
HER SERVICES AS AN INTERPRETER, GUIDE, COMPETENT ASSESSOR, VISIONARY, AND FIGURATIVE
SEDUCTRESS, AND SUMMARIZES THE BROAD TOPICS CONTAINED IN THIS EPISTLE: LIFE AND DEATH, INDOMITABLE SPIRIT, HOPE AND
LOVE, LYRIC STORIES, PARABLES, FAITH AND DOUBT, MYSTERIES, VAULTING TRIUMPH,
SHAME-FACED IGNOMINY, PREDICAMENTS, INTRIGUE, PROPHECIES, SMOKE AND MIRRORS, AMBITION,
VAINGLORY, THE THIRST FOR POWER, ADVENTURES AND MISADVENTURES OF POLITICIANS, SO-CALLED
JUSTICE, VILLAINLOUS TREACHERY, WAR, CURIOSITIES AND CONUNDRUMS, FEAR OF GOD
AND THE SNARES OF THE DEVIL, SLINGS AND ARROWS, CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY, DENIERS
OF EVOLUTION, MUSINGS AND AMUSEMENT, SESQUIPEDALIAN SPECULATIONS, INDULGENCE
AND ABANDON.
An Introductory Ode.
Oh, Muses of
divine Inspiration, your evocative powers are summonsed
Nine
daughters of the supreme ruler of the Greek heavens, all-powerful Zeus
And of
fair and reasonable Mnemosyne, the graceful Titan goddess of Memory
Please provide us with clear
Insight, and all the best understandings we can deduce.
Let
heart-felt and passionate ideas ring forth --- ones that address the basic
question
Of how our
societies can balance today’s needs with tomorrow’s health and well-being
For it is
quite crucial that we accomplish this vitally important and salubrious goal
So that we
can achieve salvation, true security, clearer perspective, and sane-seeing.
An
integral new morality is needed to allow humanity to prosper and survive;
A natural
reverence for the vitality of individuals, communities and ecosystems
A
cooperative respect for competing interests, bound by a bold movement
Towards
ecological sanity, international peace, and other essential wisdoms.
“I am the
Poem of the Earth, said the voice of the rain,”
Whispering wistfully to us of our connectedness to the elements,
To the
wild animals, to the birds singing, to ourselves, and to each other
Bringing
our attention to the wonders of life, and to our joys and laments.
Our
current juncture in time requires open-mindedness and receptive versatility
As ever-changing
conditions favor nimbleness, adaptability and far-sightedness
And the
conservative Status Quo proves inadequate in coping with rapid change
Mandating
that we explore and embrace new ideas with courage and boldness.
Dr. Tiffany B.
Twain
August 1, 2011 (Principally composed between
2006 and 2009)
This Earth Manifesto manuscript contains understandings that have been
evolving for years.
Comprehensive Global Perspective:
An Illuminating Worldview
Introduction
This manuscript consists of 121 Chapters, roughly
organized as follows:
Introductory Thoughts and Declaration of
Interdependence (Chapter #1)
The Astonishing Parable of Nauru (Chapter
#2)
Understandings of a Big Picture Nature
(Chapters #3-36)
Primary Principles and the ‘Bet Situation’
(Chapters #37-38)
Insight, Ideas, Opinions and the Search for
Wisdom in America (Chapters #39-43)
Economics, Capitalism and Politics (Chapters
#44-66)
Energy Considerations, Peak Oil,
Neoconservatism and Corruption (Chapters #67-94)
Philosophical Perspectives on values, women, healthy societies,
sex, beliefs, philosophy,
extinction, creativity and reason (Chapters #95-114).
Insights on Religion and Culture (Chapters #115-121)
NOTE: One Dozen Big Initiatives
to Positively Transform Our Societies and the Progressive Agenda for a More Sane Humanity
are detailed distillations of the ideas, policy prescriptions and recommended initiatives
that are included throughout this manuscript.
See the Home Page, Part Four, for links to these two documents and other
important ones.
Complete
Table of Contents
1. A Declaration of
Interdependence.
2. The Astonishing Parable of Nauru.
3. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
4. Overarching Theme.
5. Profound Perspective.
6. Macro-Economics and the Value of Incentives.
7. A Vast and Rash Uncontrolled Experiment.
8. A Transformation Is A-Comin’.
9. Crisis as Dangerous Opportunity.
10. The Embrace of New
Ideas.
11. The Sustainability
Revolution.
12. Machiavellian
Machinations and Their Shortcomings.
13. Historical
Developments.
14. Better Plans for
Global Security.
15. Redefining Progress.
16. Intelligent Redesign.
17. The Importance of the
Precautionary Principle.
18. Morality and Right
Action.
19. Three Basic Considerations.
20. A Big Perspective.
21. The Decline and Fall
of Civilizations.
22. The Gaia
Understanding.
23. Carrying Capacity and
Far-Sighted Ecological Perspective.
24. Rueful Reflections.
25. In Defense of Reason.
26. Political Madness.
27. The Tragedy of the
Commons.
28. On Climate Change.
29. Earth Advocacy.
30. Reflections on
Feminine Perspective.
31. Youthful Insights.
32. Arguments Against
Maintaining the Status Quo.
33. Endangering the Tree
of Life.
34. A Focus on What Is
Really Important.
35. Conflict and Its
Undesirable Consequences.
36. A Cautionary
Tale.
37. Primary Principles.
38. The Bet
Situation.
39. Insight into Pyrrhic
Victories.
40. Greatness, or
Ignominy?
41. Ideas and Beliefs.
42. A Thoughtful
Digression on Opinion.
43. Searching for Wisdom
in America.
44. The Nature of the
Wealth of Nations.
45. Capitalism and
Democracy.
46. Pathological Aspects
of Capitalism.
47. Problems Associated
with Corporatism.
48. The Best Political
Philosophy.
49. Clean Money Campaigns
and a Healthier Democracy.
50. Waste Not, Want Not!
51. Clarifying Rational
Ends.
52. So Many Choices, and
So Hard to Make the Right Ones!
53. The Causes of
Problems, and Some Solutions.
54. The Failings of
Congress.
55. Advocating a Better
World.
56. My Simple Dream.
57. Ideals and Reality.
58. Sensible Strategies.
59. The Conjunction of
Idealism and Pragmatism.
60. Seductive Sirens.
61. Inequality and Its Implications.
62. The Wisdom of the
Golden Rule.
63. The Selfishness of
the Wealthy.
64. To Be or Not To Be.
65. Bubble Economics.
66. The Failings of
Business and Government.
67. Our American Achilles
Heel.
68. The Ramifications of
Peak Oil.
69. Other Addictive
Behaviors.
70. Global Warming.
71. Intelligent Energy Policy.
72. The Problems with
Misguided Subsidies.
73. Introspection into
Government.
74. Power and Corruption.
75. More Thinking Outside
the Box.
76. The Consequences of
Corruption.
77. On Improving People’s
Lives.
78. The Need for
Progressive Reform --- and Revolutionary Change!
79. A Call for Political
Change.
80. Negative Nabobs of
Neoconservatism.
81. The Continuum of
Political Perceptions.
82. Is Fascism
Encroaching on America?
83. Speaking Truth to
Amoral Power.
84. Neoconservatism and
Right-Wing Think Tanks.
85. The Foolish Toad.
86. The Hero Archetype
vs. Wisdom.
87. The Truth.
88. Misguided Priorities.
89. The Federal Budget Is
a Moral Document.
90. Considering Deeper
Causes and Consequences.
91. Constitutional
Principles.
92. Liberty and Justice
for All.
93. Progressive
Principles.
94. The Politicization of
Science.
95. The Dalai Lama and
Wholesome Values.
96. True Values.
97. Healthy Societies.
98. Beliefs, Convictions, and Philosophies.
99. Good Fortune and Generosity of Being.
100. Personal Universal Point
of View.
101. The Evolution of Life.
102. Ecological Revolution.
103. Only Reason Can
Save Us.
104. The Importance of a
Positive Attitude.
105. Women of the World,
Unite!
106. A Call for the Education
and Empowerment of Women.
107. Proactive Initiatives for
Women.
108. Preventative Medicine.
109. Sex is Natural.
110. Perspective on Abortion.
111. Absurdities of Inflexible Religious Dogma.
112. The Need for a New
Feminism.
113. More Noble Motivations.
114. Striving Not to Be
Nobody.
115. Insights on Religion and
Culture.
116. The Dangers of
Fundamentalism.
117. The Importance of the
Separation of Church and State.
118. Spiritual Understandings.
119. Religion and Drugs.
120. We Need a New Religion!
121. Literate
Ideas.
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INDEX: To find any topic, word or phrase in this on-line document, press
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AUTHOR NOTE:
My aspiration in writing this manuscript has been to create a modern-day
version of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, which advocated independence
from the power-abusing monarchy of England back in the year 1776. To readers, men and women, I submit the same
caveats as Thomas Paine:
“In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts,
plain arguments, and common sense: and
have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest
himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings
to determine for themselves … and generously enlarge his views beyond the
present day.”
And
to paraphrase Paine: “Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary
to the Public, as the important thing is the IDEAS THEMSELVES, and not the author. Yet it may be necessary to say, that she is
unconnected with any Party, and under no sort of influence, public or private, other
than the influence of reason and principle.”
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Chapter #1 – A
Declaration of Interdependence.
The overarching drive that has sparked the writing of this manuscript is
a vivid and passionate concern for a safer, fairer and more sane world. As an American who cares deeply about our
collective future and the health and well-being of our communities and our
children, and our country, and our entire planet, my belief is that a dramatic transformation
in our societies is needed that gives greater respect to long-term
considerations.
There is a profound interconnectedness and
interdependence of our fates with all other forms of life on Earth. All species of life survive by adapting to
their natural surroundings. Natural
ecosystems are astonishingly resilient, but since all life forms are
dynamically adapted to existing conditions, they are vulnerable to rapid
changes in habitats, competitive influences, increased temperatures, introduced
pollutants, over-harvesting, shifting precipitation patterns, and altered weather
and atmospheric conditions.
The survival of a
species is, by definition, existence that is indefinitely sustained. The human race must recognize and respect
the fact that we cannot continue to consume far more than is sustained by
natural resources, regeneration, and healthy ecosystems. The carrying capacity of damaged ecosystems
is less than that of healthy ones, so we should act to prevent harm to habitats
and we should avoid upsetting the providential balance of nature.
Chief Seattle, an Indian leader in the Pacific
Northwest, warned the United States government in 1844 against the misuse of
land, water, air, and animal life. He reportedly said, “Whatever happens to the Earth, happens to
the children of the Earth … All things are connected, like the blood that
unites one family. Mankind did not weave the web of life; we are but
one strand within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.”
We should honor Chief Seattle’s wisdom, and that of
other far-sighted philosophers who have gone before us. Jacques-Yves
Cousteau, the great French ecologist, researcher, explorer, inventor, and
filmmaker is one of these people. Cousteau summarized our obligations
best when he said:
“Each generation,
sharing in the heritage of the Earth, has a duty as trustee for future
generations to prevent irreversible and irreparable harm to life on Earth and
to human freedom and dignity.”
Basic energy and
water needs and global economic demands are inexorably depleting natural
resources. Hyped-up consumerism and
ruthless competition exacerbate such influences. The aggressive exploitation of resources and heightened
international conflicts over them tends to alter and damage ecosystems. Rapid population growth complicates these dilemmas,
generally making them worse. Resulting
impacts on the surrounding environment are crucially detrimental. We must recognize and acknowledge that we
are completely dependent on a healthy balance in natural ecosystems, and begin
to act accordingly.
It is becoming
urgently necessary for us to adopt a new trajectory of ecological concern. We must boldly restructure our societies to change
the mega-trends in human affairs. Our public
policies are fundamentally flawed in their failure to account for vitally
important social and ecological needs. We
must see the shortcomings of our current systems and heedfully invest in initiatives
that are more durable, more socially just, more fiscally sound, and more environmentally
sane.
The purpose of
this manuscript is to advance perspectives that are practical, progressive,
fair-minded and far-sighted. Fresh and comprehensive Big Picture insights
into complex issues can help create a powerful impetus for positive
change. An expansive awareness of the
challenges we face, in all of their complexity, is a valuable precondition for
energizing us into making important and salubrious changes in our habits and
institutions. Accurate and expansive knowledge
serves society better than ignorance and misconceptions.
Another purpose of all Earth Manifesto writings is to capture and express a positive
perspective that broadly expresses a true sense of today’s Zeitgeist. With an accurate and all-encompassing sense
of the tenor of the times, and a clear understanding of issues and good
practices, and a clear understanding of history, we can debunk the misleading
ideas and orthodox beliefs that are set forth by selfish vested interests and
authority figures and demagogues. By
doing so, we can begin to make the world a better place and ensure a greater
probability of leaving a fair legacy to posterity.
“Consult your own understanding, your own sense of
the probable, your own
observation of what is passing around
you.” ---Jane Austin
For
those who seek concrete and detailed ideas right now about how we could be
making pragmatic and constructive changes in our policies to improve our
societies, see the Part Four compendiums
of ideas in the Earth Manifesto, including:
(1) Radically
Simple Ways to Make America Fairer, and to Fix Both Social Security and Health
Care So We Can Move On to Address Much Bigger Issues;
(2)
Three
Bills of Right – A Triumvirate of Responsible Actions for the Greater Good;
(3) One Dozen Big Initiatives
to Positively Transform Our Societies; and ,
(4) Progressive
Agenda for a More Sane Humanity.
The bottom line is that public policies are wrong-headed
when they are designed to benefit the few in the short-term rather than the
majority in the long run. Policies that
increase income inequalities and social inequities and the economic insecurity
of the majority make it necessary for the powers-that-be to institute risky, corrupt,
and even repressive rule in order to maintain the anti-democratic injustice of such
prevailing conditions. When the disparities
between the rich and the poor are mercilessly increased, it makes our societies
less safe for all. The result is
greater difficulty in achieving true justice, economic health, societal
stability, peace, cooperative problem-solving, and sustainable existence.
Let’s be honest
with ourselves, and learn as much as we can, and find the deepest truths, and develop
the most accurate understandings. By
doing this we can create a revolution of economic and cultural ideas that proves
a spark that will enable vitally needed change. When we take into account the fundamental underpinnings and root
causes of problems, we can formulate more holistic and comprehensive solutions
to global challenges.
Let’s be aware,
and let’s get better organized!
Senator Gaylord
Nelson was the founder of Earth Day in 1970.
He talked about “the battle to restore a proper relationship between man
and his environment”. He sagaciously
noted that this struggle will require a political, moral, ethical and financial
commitment that is long and sustained, and one that is far beyond any efforts
yet being made.
The population of human beings has grown by more
than 3 billion people since the first annual Earth Day 41 years ago. Environmental problems have, during this
time, become starkly more pronounced. Yet
the voices of those who deny the damaging impacts we are having on our home
planet are still strident and influential.
In general, they serve to perpetuate the unsustainable exploitation of
people and resources, and to facilitate profiteering at the expense of the
greater good.
During the years of the George W. Bush
Administration, the proverbial pendulum swung sharply toward corporatism and Neoconservatism
and expanded presidential power and the Supreme Court shifted from a 5-4
majority of liberal-minded Justices to a 5-4 majority of “conservative”
Justices. But the writing on the wall
is clear: positive change and reform
must be effected, and the pendulum must swing back toward reason, fairness,
accountability, sensible regulation, long-term sensibilities, and ecological
sanity.
The election of Barack Obama on November 4, 2008 promised
hope of a potential dramatic shift in the political landscape toward fairer and
wiser ways forward. The first two years
of the Obama Administration have shown how difficult it is to achieve political
change in our sadly dysfunctional system.
The need for positive change, meanwhile, continues to grow.
Let’s be honest
with ourselves about the scope of our task:
the average “ecological footprint” of most Americans has been growing
larger for decades. Never in history have
there been more people on the planet.
Never have these people -- us! -- been consuming more resources on a per-person
basis, or in total. Think about your
own individual footprint, and correlated impacts. Isn’t it just about as big as it has ever been in your life? Recession may have simplified this scenario,
but it has also complicated it.
A tipping point of ecological awareness seems
to be gaining strength. At the same
time, we are also teetering on an ominous tipping point of accelerating change
that portends irreversible resource depletion, destabilizing climate disruption,
overpopulation and heightened conflict.
We would be wise to have the foresight to lend our support to a dramatic
restructuring of our societies to make them fairer, more sustainable, and more
conservation-oriented.
We have been marching lockstep down a path
which risks national bankruptcy and international destitution. We will almost certainly leave a legacy to
our descendants which is less providential than the legacy we collectively
received from our parents. We need new
parameters that promote overarching guidance toward rectifying this situation.
A Bill of Rights for Future Generations, as
specifically proposed in the Earth Manifesto, is needed to provide this
guidance.
Let’s boldly embrace a serendipitous idea: Let us begin to “pay forward” good deeds to
future generations by making revolutionary changes in the way we structure our
economies and activities. Sticking with
the status quo of constantly BORROWING from people in the future will almost
certainly prove to be woefully ill-advised.
Minor reforms and misguided priorities are simply not adequate.
The way we collectively perceive the world
profoundly affects the way we live and act in the world. One of the most provocative books written in
recent years is Spontaneous Evolution -
Our Positive Future (and a Way to Get There from Here). It provides surprising insights into the
nature of our brain waves (the various frequencies from Delta to Theta to Alpha
to Beta to Gamma) and of our perceptions.
It points out how powerful the influence of programming is on our
individual and collective behaviors. It
also provides great hope for transcendent changes through proper understanding
and enlightened education and cooperative problem-solving and the creation of a
healthy body politic.
I particularly love Spontaneous Evolution’s Chapter 2 - Act Locally … Evolve Globally,
in which there is a discussion of the four principal paradigms of perception
which have pervaded human consciousness since ancient times: Animism, Polytheism, Monotheism and
Scientific Materialism. I am eager to
finish reading this book, and to re-reading it, and to thinking about its
concepts, and to incorporating some of its insights and humor into this
manuscript.
“In a shrinking world that can use a good shrink,
We don’t need another theory of evolution.
What we need is a practice of evolution.”
--- Swami
Beyondananda
Many know the concept of someone being an
undesirable ‘persona non grata’. Let us now become familiar with the opposite
concept, a ‘persona grata’: a good person, a decent sort, an honest
person, a mensch. Such people are
needed to lead us to ‘paying forward’ some sensible and fair-minded deeds. To harvest good outcomes, we need leaders
who understand and communicate clearly the overarching need for us to sow
justice and ecological sanity and other sensible seeds.
These insights are dedicated to the great American
author and humorist, Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain. The one-hundred-and-first anniversary of the day he died was
commemorated on April 21, 2011. The 175th
anniversary of his birth was November 30, 2010. In addition to having
written great novels like the Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain involved himself in trying to beneficially
influence the foreign policies of the United States to stop American imperial
involvements in wars and occupations of Cuba and the Philippines. Mark Twain cleverly lampooned the
distinctive foibles and absurd behaviors of the human race, and he provided us
with keen insights into the true nature of political power, corruption, greed, folly
and needed safeguards.
Wallace Stevens once poetically opined: “Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around
a lake”. Before continuing, let’s take
a break, think about things, and wait a moment for guidance; and let’s anticipate -- aha! -- an epiphany. Breathe in slowly and deeply; imagine making a spiritually purificatory and
Nature-respecting circumambulation around a body of fresh water. Do some invigorating and exhausting outdoors
exercise, or soak for a while in a tub of hot water; whatever! Breathe deep,
and let go; then focus! Let the
paradigm shift begin!
Thanks
for joining me on this odyssey of philosophy. Entertain your brain … and let us seek inspiration that springs
from the Greek Muse Calliope, the
feminine muse of epic poetry and eloquence, who was regarded as the eldest and most distinguished of the
nine divine Muses.
Chapter
#2 – The Astonishing Parable of Nauru.
The true story of the island republic of Nauru provides us with a
compelling parable and a valuable cautionary tale. Let’s consider it
carefully, as it illuminates the dilemmas associated with a lack of foresight
and the shortcomings of short-term oriented planning in human affairs.
The Republic of
Nauru is a small oval-shaped island in the Micronesian South Pacific that lies
northeast of Australia and New Guinea, and just 26 miles south of the equator. It is the smallest island nation in the
world, and the smallest independent republic.
The island of Nauru once had rich resources of phosphates, which were
mined for use in fertilizers. Phosphate
is one of the three primary nutrients that plants require for growth. When Nauru gained independence from
Australia in 1968, the native inhabitants began to receive the financial
benefits of phosphate mining for the first time. They became relatively rich virtually overnight, creating one of
the world's highest per capita incomes.
A kind of generous welfare state was implemented soon thereafter.
Phosphate from Nauru was mined for a total of about 100 years. Most of it was exported to Australia to
enrich agricultural soils there.
Nauru’s non-renewable phosphate resources have now essentially been
completely depleted, and 80% of the island has been turned into a barren
wasteland with a central plateau that is a moonscape of deep pits and tall remnant
rock pillars.
The government of Nauru took much of the income from phosphate sales and
invested it in secretive trust funds.
Some of the trust fund investments went awry and failed, and others
suffered heavy losses due to bad investments and financial mismanagement and corruption. Nauru today has 90% unemployment and a
dreary outlook for the future due to the republic’s dwindling assets, few
sources of income, and the environmental devastation of their home island.
Nauru’s history provides a compelling and illustrative, but decidedly
non-illustrious example of the colossal folly of dominant forces of greedy
shortsightedness in human endeavors. It
makes us vitally aware of the reasons we must soon begin a radical redesign of
our economic and political systems, and a revolutionary modification of our habits.
Nauru’s experience
sends a potent message to business people and politicians in America: we should NOT be so closely mimicking the
policies that Nauru pursued. We should
NOT be so aggressively exploiting and depleting non-renewable resources. We should not be consuming unsustainably, causing
environmental devastation, investing unwisely, allowing corruption in business
and government, establishing unaffordably extravagant entitlements, or allowing
incompetent and shortsighted leadership.
All of the nations of the world are acting in similarly ill-advised
manners, but on a far grander scale -- a global one. The example of Nauru serves as a “canary-in-a-coal-mine” warning
to all nations that we should not be acting in such myopically exploitive and impetuously
improvident ways. The resources that we
are currently depleting on Earth are not limited to oil, natural gas, fresh
water, or the atmosphere’s ability to accommodate greenhouse gases. Many minerals are being depleted to critical
extents worldwide, and one of the most essential for food production is phosphorous. Yes, the very same resource that has been
basically exhausted in Nauru!
Some say that Peak Phosphorous production in the world has already taken
place, and that declines in the remaining supplies bode ill for the future of
food production on Earth. It is
imperative that we begin recycling the indispensable macronutrient phosphorous,
and returning it to the soil to decrease the need for mined phosphorous as
artificial fertilizer. Within 50 years,
the severity of this crisis could result not just in increasing food prices and
shortages of food, but potential large-scale famines and related social and
political turmoil.
The century of exploitative mining on Nauru not only destroyed the native
people's culture and their traditional way of life, but it also took a curious
physical toll on the islanders themselves.
The people of Nauru have been forced to import nearly all of their food
because of the island’s lack of soil and vegetation. The result of eating processed fatty foods such as potato chips
and canned meats, and drinking alcohol, has been an increase in high blood
pressure and diabetes and obesity.
These problems have decreased the average life expectancy of islanders
to only about 60 years.
As a parenthetical aside, it is interesting to note that the source of
the phosphates in Nauru’s 8-square mile landmass is not fossiliferous sediments
uplifted from the seafloor, as with most phosphate deposits mined in the
world. It consisted, instead, of a deep
accumulation of decayed bird guano.
Yow, Mc Now! – This cautionary ecological tale has messy poetic irony,
indeed!
The depletion of phosphorus is not an isolated incident. It is part of “the gravest natural resource
shortage you’ve never hear of.”
Supplies of this critical component in fertilizers are being wastefully used
up worldwide, and this could lead to severe food shortages since it is a
critical component of plant growth. The
availability of mined phosphorus could peak in the next 30 years, leading to
falling crop yields.
Another fascinating
aspect of Nauru is its early history. Seafaring
Polynesian and Micronesian explorers first settled on the island in small
clans. They believed in a spirit land,
which also was an island, called Buitani.
They believed in a female divinity, named Eijebong, and they traced
their family descent on the female side.
The rest of the world would arguably be much better off to believe in
and fervently and protectively worship a female divinity -- one like Mother
Earth, for example! Yes, we could!
Stories, myths,
legends, and ‘holy books’ are provocative because they invoke our feelings and
imagination, and touch us in universal ways.
They evoke human needs and timeless themes that are a part of the
collective human inheritance. They
often contain valuable lessons, or “morals to the story”, just as folk tales or
wisdom tales do. In the mythology of
ancient Greece, Athena was the Goddess of Wisdom. She had the ability to think clearly and monitor events and note
effects and change a course of action when it became unproductive. Athena’s wisdom counsels us to use our wits
resourcefully and to act perceptively to save ourselves, much like Hansel and Gretel
did in the fairy tale that tells of children being abandoned in the forest.
We need not act like tortured souls to be able to give careful consideration
to the lessons of Nauru and other prudent understandings. Optimism and hope are valuable traits, and I
encourage readers to maintain a positive perspective and attitude while they
read these ideas.
The story of Easter Island in remote southeastern Polynesia is another tale with an urgent and sobering
message for our times. Monumental
iconic stone statues carved of volcanic rock tell a story that is both provocative
and compelling. Check this story out in
the Open Letter to Barack Obama in
Part One of the Earth Manifesto for illuminating details. Remember that ‘perspective’ literally means ‘clear-seeing’! We would be well-advised to strive to see
more clearly!
Auspicious Live
Earth concerts took place on 7/7/07.
At the time, they gave humanity hope and belief that artists, musicians
and activists amongst us can help launch a spirit of renewal which will yield
collaborative efforts to find better ways of getting along and of respecting
others, and of improving our societies, and of protecting vital resources and
healing the vital ecosystems of our home planet.
“Rebel
against something, because everything ain’t right!”
--- T-shirt at
a Blues concert
“A healthy and wholesome cheerfulness is not
necessarily impossible to any occupation.”
--- Mark Twain
Chapter #3 – The
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
A March 2005 headline of a national newspaper
stated, “Humans’ basic needs destroying planet rapidly”. This sobering
piece of news was not on the front page.
It was, in fact, buried more than a dozen pages back in the
newspaper. Such critically important information was deemed, astonishingly
enough, to be unworthy of more prominent coverage.
The headline concerned a study called the Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment. More than a thousand experts in 95 countries had spent
four years compiling its findings. This makes the report one of the most
extensively researched understandings in the history of humankind. The Assessment concluded that the human race
is unsustainably consuming natural resources and significantly degrading the
ecosystems upon which we depend. It warned that we essentially need to
develop new methods of economic activity, and adopt common sense strategies, so
that in the course of living our lives we will simultaneously better protect
the vitality of our environment and the future prospects of life on
Earth.
These findings profoundly concern each and every one
of us. Yet the news barely made a splash. It seems to have
practically disappeared from the radar of public attention like a skipping
stone sinking in the riffles of a river.
“The first rule of intelligent tinkering,” noted
Aldo Leopold in the Sand County Almanac,
“is to save all the parts.” Save all
the parts! One way to do this in the
grand scope of human affairs is to develop a better
appreciation of the synergistic relationship between the health of human
societies and ecological well-being, and to plan and act accordingly.
The Earth’s biological support systems consist of a
vast network of interdependent life forms and habitats and ecological
niches. We rely entirely on these natural ecosystems for our well-being
and survival. In particular, we depend on the bounty of the natural
world’s soils and forests and oceans and wetlands and rivers and aquifers for
our food, nutrients, fresh water, building materials, flood protection, and
even the oxygen in the air we breathe. The Nature Conservancy succinctly notes,
“Human well-being is derived directly from the health of natural
systems.”
According
to Genesis 1:26 of the Bible, God
said: “Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and
over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over
every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” (Who the heck was ‘He’ talking to? The Olympians and Titans, perhaps?)
About
two thousand years have elapsed since Biblical times, and we seem to have
gained little more respect for all the ‘creeping things’. But it is preposterous to suppose that God
would be in favor of our striving for ‘dominion’ without demonstrating a more
responsible stewardship of wildlife and resources, and without a more profound
respect for the ecological underpinnings of our well-being. Buddha, Brahma, Mohammed, and Jesus would
almost certainly be on the same page.
Instead of waiting for God to get really angry with us again and bring
on another devastating global Flood like ‘He’ is said to have done in the
Genesis story, I suggest herein many ways that we should be taking bold actions
to help ourselves and to improve the prospects of our descendents.
The
overarching guidance of a Bill of Rights for Future Generations would be a healthy
start. One primary way to help
ourselves and improve the prospects of people in the future would be by moving boldly toward sustainable uses of
resources. This course of action necessarily
involves a revolutionary shift from the use of resources that are non-renewable
to a reliance on renewable resources. Such
a shift would help assure that we leave a more auspicious legacy to our
descendents. It is absurdly
shortsighted for us to profligately consume and to inexorably deplete resources,
just as it is foolish to intentionally or inadvertently damage Earth’s crucially
important natural systems.
It is only because of our myopic perspective and our
extremely short-term-oriented economic system that we can continue to
aggressively clear-cut forests, overfish the seas, pollute the commons, and incessantly
encourage unsustainable development. We
can no longer afford to resist adaptive change, however, and we cannot allow the
status quo to remain ascendant. We can
not continue to deny that it is folly to continuously degrade fertile farmlands,
damage rivers, destroy wetlands, poison wildlife, diminish the health of habitats,
and reduce Earth’s biological diversity by causing numerous species extinctions.
Likewise, it is absurd to continue emitting climate-disrupting
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere without bold cooperative international
efforts to make deep and decisive cuts in emissions. The British government’s 2006 Stern Review (named after former
World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern) provided a turning point in
understandings. It asserted that there
will be substantial economic costs for doing nothing about the things that
contribute to climate change. It
concluded that the benefits of strong, early action on climate change considerably outweigh
the costs.
Widespread
adversities are being caused by global warming, and much more extensive harm is
predicted in the future. These facts
are starkly outlined in the 2007 reports of the United Nations Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change. more stories like this
With strikingly
blunt language, the final report on Nov. 17, 2007 of the Intergovernmental Panel
described climate change as “the defining challenge of our age”. It called on the United States and China,
the biggest emitters, to play a more constructive role. The report reads like "a final warning to humanity," noted Time Magazine. The Panel chairman Dr. Rajendra Pachauri
declared: "What we do in the next
two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment." NOW
is the time to act!
It
is becoming crystal clear that it is woefully inadequate to address this
challenge by continuing to ‘bury our heads in the sand’ with pathetic rationalizations
and denials and proposals for baby steps.
Voluntary efforts at emissions reductions are not enough. We must ‘Step It Up’ to truly mitigate climate
disruptions and sea level rises associated with a warming atmosphere, and to prevent
potentially abrupt and irreversible climate change. Otherwise, positive feedback loops will have extremely negative
consequences. This is discussed below in
Chapter #22 - The Gaia Understanding.
We must take such
understandings into account when formulating policy. We can no longer allow governments and big businesses to suppress
scientific understandings of on-going developments related to climate disruptions. Such deceptions have already delayed
effective responses to the threats that are gathering. These risks will almost certainly get worse
until we give them our courageous attention and devote committed action to
resolving them.
Patience, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a
virtue.
--- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
Chapter #4 – Overarching
Themes.
One theme of this
manuscript is that more comprehensive Big Picture perspectives could lead to
more responsible collective actions in our societies. To prevent the perceptible ecological degradation of our
wonderful planet, we must find ways to reduce the influence of short-term
thinking, greed, ignorance, ruthless competition, mismanagement and hubris.
One of the best ways to change our
country for the better would be to shift the focus of our politicians from
tactics that win elections to solutions that benefit society. All decision-makers must begin to better prioritize,
and to heed enlightened understandings of important issues. Our actions and
policies and institutions must be made fairer, more ecologically sound, and
longer-term oriented. There is nothing high-fallutin’
about it!
Unfortunately, the
influence of entrenched vested interests dominates our societies. Congress and the Executive Branch of the
government are essentially owned and operated and controlled by corporate
America. The primary aim of federal
government has become to advance the interests of large corporations and vested
interests, NOT to promote the general good or to ensure greater fairness, or to
maximize people’s civil liberties, or to protect people from the abuses of
power by politicians or corporations.
Fortunately, businesses
can often “do well by doing good”, especially in arenas such as ‘green building’
and efficient uses of water and energy.
But the business-as-usual status quo is primarily concerned with short-term
profits and narrow understandings of self-interest, so it strives to keep
economic and political systems the way they are, or to change them in retrogressive
ways. In doing so, entrenched interests
impede progress and oppose common-good reforms and prevent changes that would
be beneficial to the majority, and to posterity. These interests lobby successfully for the privatization of
profit and the ‘socialization of risk’.
They substitute the bottom-line short-term interests of corporations for
the best interests of the people.
Disciples of
economist Milton Friedman and his Chicago School ‘hurrah’ about privatization,
as if it is the panacea for all social ills, but it turns out that privatization
can create severe problems. Rather than
advancing positive and salubrious goals like lower costs, greater efficiency,
better management, and social improvements, the outcome of privatization is
often a spike in costly no-bid contracting, excessive fees, more unfair
cronyism, price gouging, incompetence, inadequate monitoring, increased fraud,
and less accountability. The
privatization of government functions and concomitant deregulation create rich
new opportunities for corporations to swindle taxpayers. This is not a good thing!
The outsourcing
of government activities to corporations has more-or-less doubled in the last decade
in the United States. The outcome of
this development has generally been detrimental, in distinct contrast to ideological
arguments to the contrary. Just look
how war services contracting turned out in Iraq: we have incurred exorbitant costs, shortfalls in reconstruction
goals, deceptive misinformation, billions in disappeared funds, murders of
Iraqi civilians, rapes by contractor employees, a lack of accountability, and many
injustices perpetrated by our occupation forces and military contractors.
One way that corporate
interests gain advantages is by foisting the costs of detrimental social and environmental
impacts upon society, instead of accepting regulations that require these costs
to be included in product prices.
Corporations should not be allowed to indulge in this corrupt expediency
of externalizing costs onto society. In
particular, all production costs should be included in prices that are associated
with pollution prevention and mitigation, environmental and toxic waste
clean-up, and the impacts of climate-change-causing greenhouse gas
emissions.
Here is a
valuable insight: every one of us
partially favors the externalizing of costs onto society. We do this through our demands as consumers
for good deals and cheap prices, and through our expectations as owners and
investors for maximum profits. These
twin influences make consumer and investor goals paramount in our economy. Our economic and political systems weaken
our focus on contrasting priorities that we all want in our roles as good
citizens; goals like secure communities, social fairness, good
quality public education, a social safety net, reasonable health care for all, democratic
safeguards, environmental justice, healthy ecosystems, clean air and water, and
public lands and open spaces that are protected from damages and unwise exploitation
and foolish development. It is becoming
obvious that our consumer and investor goals are going to need to be limited
somewhat to create a healthier balance between their shortsightedness and
overarching good citizen goals, which are clearly being given short shrift in
our political process.
The
fairest way to adjudicate between competing interests is to have fair
institutions and fair laws that are fairly applied with the purpose of securing
the best interests of the common good over the long term. Entrenched interests, however, strive
stubbornly to gain greater power and make bigger profits and expand their
privileges. Consequently, they avoid
making reasonable commitments to good citizen goals. It is unfortunate that these vested interests control our
political processes and thereby pervert our national priorities. Instead of advancing true justice and human
rights and intelligent planning and healthy societies and international peace, the
dominating interests in our society favor laissez-faire economic policies, stimulated
risk-taking, increases in inequality, exploitive profiteering, privatization, and
moving operations overseas to cheaper labor countries with fewer environmental
regulations. They also favor militarism
and empire building.
Vested interests
strive to gain the support of social conservatives and those who evangelize for
orthodox and doctrinaire concepts of God to help them achieve their narrow self-serving
goals. This manipulation is critically
dysfunctional. The outcome of such
strategies is generally unfair to the majority of the world’s people and even threatens
the well-being of all life on Earth. Revolutionary
change must come!
I encourage readers to strive to transcend
preconceptions and fixed beliefs. What
is the true nature of reality? How do
we really fit into the world? What
impacts on the natural world do our activities actually have? How can we lead honorable and meaningful
lives in ways that help improve our communities and protect our beautiful home planet
and guarantee a better legacy for future generations to come? Can we find ways of living that respect the
well-being of other forms of life on earth?
Our thinking and philosophizing is important because
future generations depend on the legacy we leave. More than nine years have elapsed since the terrorist attacks of
September 11, 2001, and I feel compelled to express the following point of view: “War is not peace, Camerado!” George Orwell and Walt Whitman would surely
have agreed, as would billions of others.
If we want a peaceful and sustainable world, then we need greater social
justice and fairer foreign policies, NOT bigger disparities of wealth and more
ruthless aggressiveness in warfare.
To achieve wholesomeness, peace and stability in the
world, we must be better neighbors. We
should make an overarching commitment to reducing inequalities and avoiding
military occupations of other countries.
We must use our super power more fairly and judiciously.
Mark
Twain called war “a wanton waste of projectiles.” Intrinsic in the sardonic and irreverent wit of this observation
is the recognition that war is terribly wasteful and indiscriminately violent
to civilians caught in “collateral damage” circumstances. Civilian casualties in our aerial warfare
bombings serve to turn more people into enemies, and erode the righteousness of
our cause. Such crude methods
essentially make our Air Force the police and judge and jury and executioner in
one broad stroke. War lacks fairness,
moderation, mutual respect and sanity. More
of my views on this topic, and of Mark Twain’s, are contained in Reflections on War, which extensively explores
important understandings of human conflicts;
see Part Three of the Earth Manifesto.
War is the ultimate expression of competition. But we cannot allow competition to become a
rogue’s economic free-for-all dominated by brute force, manipulative marketing,
unscrupulous profiteering, and prerogatives for capital and investors that harm
workers or the environment. We cannot allow
competition to take place without effective oversight or accountability. We must regulate monopolies and corporate
conglomerates and predatory banking practices.
We must prevent supremacist ideologies from allowing an ‘anything-goes-to-get-what-you-want’
morality or an ‘any-means-is-justified’ approach to accomplishing questionable
ends. Ends, for instance, like building
an imperialistic empire.
To create a less dangerous world, competition must
be made fairer by regulating it more wisely.
We must act more propitiously to ensure that our societies protect the
common good. If we develop and
implement enlightened initiatives and farsighted incentives, and embrace radically
broad-minded new ideas, we can channel the aggregate choices people make into
healthier and more sustainable directions.
New commitments must be made to responsibly
address wrong-headedness in government and in business planning, and to prevent
unjust wars and unwise development and irreversible ecological damages.
“An inglorious
peace is better than a dishonorable war.”
--- Mark Twain
A more expansive
concept of peace must be formulated. It
is not enough to consider peace as merely the absence of war. Peace, in more enlightened terms, is a state
in which there is a presence of social justice and respectful goodwill. In even larger terms, peace has a meaning
similar to that of the Great Lakes region of Africa, where the word for peace
is kindoki, which refers to a harmonious balance between human
beings and the rest of the natural world and the cosmos. Peace!
Chapter #5 – Profound
Perspective.
We live in an extraordinary time in history.
The combination of capitalism, democracy, industrial agriculture, free
enterprise, an abundance of fossil fuels, and technological innovations in
mining, medicine and communications have allowed humanity to feed additional billions
of people, and to create enormous wealth.
We have built complex civilizations, and dramatically improved literacy
and sanitation and public health. Life
spans have been significantly lengthened. The material quality of life
has improved for the majority of people. Political freedom has been
provided to more people than ever before.
Hooray for humanity for these valiant accomplishments! Yay for us!
The range of human needs and desires has also been
substantially enlarged -- for better or for worse. We do not have to look
far to see that these great accomplishments have come at a significant cost -- and
one that is largely yet-to-be realized. Every living system on Earth is
in decline. We have used more natural resources in the last 50 years than
in all of previous human history. The planet’s rainforests are being
rapidly destroyed. More than 95% of
old-growth forests in the continental United States have been logged at some
point. Ocean fisheries are being depleted wastefully and unsustainably. Wetlands, grasslands, and coral reefs are
being damaged worldwide. Vast areas of wildlife habitat are being altered.
Billions of tons of fertile topsoil are lost each year across the planet.
More than 20 billion gallons of fresh water from aquifers are being used in
excess of the amount replenished annually by rainfall.
In addition, we have burned 50% of all known
reserves of oil, and our demand for this non-renewable resource is increasing
wantonly. The volume of plastics pollution and electronic wastes is
growing rapidly. Billions of tons of greenhouse gases are being spewed
into the atmosphere each year, contributing to global warming and ominous changes
in weather patterns around the globe. More
than 400 nuclear power plants in 25 countries around the world are generating
both high-level and low-level nuclear wastes that will be radioactive for tens
of thousands of years.
We are essentially living rashly and “high on the
hog”. We are profligately wasting
resources and recklessly damaging and upsetting the healthy balance of
nature. This is a staggeringly unwise state of affairs. As a result of these and accompanying trends,
the number of political and economic and environmental and war refugees in the
world will increase dramatically in this century, as is happening now in Middle
East.
It is virtually certain that these trends will get
worse unless we address the compulsive drive to achieve growth in consumption,
and unless we simultaneously find better ways to reduce strong political and religious
opposition to any means other than ineffectual sexual abstinence of limiting
the rapid growth in the number of human beings on the planet. Our sanest endeavor would be to comprehensively
address the issues that are contributing to our unthinking embrace of undesirable
outcomes and increasing vulnerabilities.
The bottom-line goal of democratic capitalism is the
creation of jobs and wealth through the encouragement of economic activity and
the stimulation of economic growth.
This goal is being pursued no matter how foolish the parameters of this
growth may be. One driving reason for
this state of affairs is that high unemployment causes dissatisfaction among
workers, and this contributes to social unrest and heightens political risk for
incumbent politicians. On the other
hand, stagnant economic conditions crimp profits and disappoint the influential
wealthy.
A
powerful few people pull the strings behind the scenes in societies worldwide. There are many economic stimulus mechanisms that
are used to prime the pump of
growth. These mechanisms include
tax-cutting, subsidies and tax breaks given to businesses and investors,
government indulgences in pork barrel spending and deficit spending, the expenditure
of great sums of money on the military and government bureaucracy and federal
bailouts, and the depreciation of our currency by means of allowing the Federal
Reserve to print more money. Powerful
incentives are created for people to profit through speculation in equities and
real estate, and the demand for products is hyped through seductive advertising
and sly sales tactics, and suburban sprawl and population growth are encouraged
by wrong-headed public policies.
An enlightened perspective of these economic
stimulus mechanisms is needed to give us the impetus to change policies, and to
improve long-term planning, and to invest more wisely, and to restore natural
ecosystems instead of squandering and depleting resources. It
is the antithesis of true conservatism for our leaders and their loyal
followers to support policies that endlessly stimulate consumerism and create
economic bubbles and facilitate population growth. ‘What would Jesus buy?’
Read on!
Chapter #6 –
Macro-Economics and the Value of Incentives.
There are essentially two ideas of
macro-economics. One is that we should
strive to maximize consumption and wealth creation in order to generate a
prosperity that will allow the harmfulness of our activities to be mitigated. The other idea is that we should place
emphasis on harmonizing our activities with the basics that underlie the foundations
of our prosperity by acting to ensure the healthy balance of natural
systems. The latter idea posits that by
nurturing, protecting and restoring the soundness of natural systems, a longer-term
and more general prosperity can be developed that can reign indefinitely.
Effective market mechanisms exist to help solve many
of the daunting challenges facing us. But
we lack the will and courage to change policies and establish intelligent new
incentives that dare disappoint the current beneficiaries of existing policies. I feel strongly that we must now begin to
take into account the true costs of such things as resource depletion,
pollution, greenhouse gas accumulations, militarism, policies that exacerbate
inequalities and injustices, and energy policies that favor vested interests
like oil and coal companies.
It seems indisputable that we should reform our laws
and regulations to eliminate cumbersome and costly bureaucratic red tape and foolish
subsidies, and in their place to enact smart and socially beneficial incentives
that are sustainable by design. The principal
way that we should distinguish whether regulations and incentives are good or
bad, smart or foolish, is to make an objective analyses of their impacts on the
common good, and of the reasonable probability that the long-term consequences
are favorable for the greatest number of people over the longest period of
time.
The
authors of the 1972 book The Limits to
Growth cautioned us about the potential for the “overshoot” in resource
consumption. Now, 38 years later, the
indicators are significantly clearer. We
are living in completely unsustainable ways.
Limits are beginning to affect us that pose serious risks to future
generations. But we are failing to
adjust to limiting factors and changing social, financial, and environmental realities. Stop in the name of love! We must not figuratively pave paradise just to
put up a whole bunch of spiffy new parking lots and shopping malls and factory
outlets. Let us recognize what we’ve
got before it is gone -- and work together to protect it! Let’s ORGANIZE!
“It was the best of times, it was the worst
of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the
epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of
despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all
going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the
period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest
authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the
superlative degree of comparison only.”
--- Charles Dickens,
A Tale of Two Cities
Chapter #7 – A Vast and
Rash Uncontrolled Experiment.
“Let us cease thinking only of ourselves and
reasoning only in the short term.
Let us assure for the children to come the
same rights that have been declared
for their parents.” ---
Jacques-Yves Cousteau
In times of trouble we need someone to speak words of
wisdom to us, honestly, clearly, and cogently.
Rachael Carson stirred
an awakening of public environmental consciousness when she wrote the impactful
book Silent Spring in 1962. Her writing taught the world about the fundamental
irresponsibility of industrialized society toward the natural world.
The worldwide
impacts of human activities have never been as all-encompassing as they are
today. The course upon which humanity
is embarked has many parallels in history, but at the same time it is unprecedented
in global scope. Technological and
demographic changes are affecting societies and the natural world with a broad
scope and astonishing and accelerating speed.
We are all inextricably
involved in a rash uncontrolled experiment in (1) industrialization, (2)
urbanization, (3) stimulated consumerism, (4) profligate resource use, (5)
rapid population growth, (6) large-scale monoculture agriculture, (7) economic
globalization, (8) extensive habitat modification, (9) the generation of a
myriad of pollutants, toxins and wastes, (10) the alteration of the gaseous composition
of the atmosphere, (11) asset speculation, (12) financial deregulation, (13) status-seeking
behaviors, (14) inegalitarian social policies, (15) militarism, and (16) divisive
political strategies. Almost every
other species of life on earth is affected by these courses of action. No one knows exactly what the outcome and
consequences of this risky experiment will eventually be.
The great
predicament of humankind is that our cumulative activities in this experiment
are causing unintended consequences that cannot clearly be known. We are committing all species of life to
impacts caused by our collective activities that are radically unwise. We do this instead of acting in ways that
are precautionary, ethical, truly conservative, or benign. In Chapter #38, the ‘Bet Situation’ is
examined to clarify the real nature of some of the choices we are making, together
with incisive insights about 14 of the most significant and foolish gambles that
these choices entail.
Who has the most
control over this experiment? It is no
doubt our business and political leaders.
Yet these leaders have the hubris to pretend that they are certain
that the doctrines driving these risky behaviors are right, best, necessary,
and socially good, even in the face of shocking reproofs that this is not the
case. Their actions are narrowly
partisan and short-term oriented, and often contrary to the greater good. Deep and extensive conflicts-of-interest
abound. As a result, our
decision-making and public policies lack propriety and wisdom. It is often an unfortunate illusion that our
leaders in government care foremost about citizens. Spike Lee makes this clear in his 2006 HBO documentary, “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem for New
Orleans in Four Acts”.
Oddly and paradoxically,
it is “conservatives” who, instead of advising that we proceed with caution,
clamor for us to go along, headlong and wholeheartedly, with this imprudent
experiment. It is one of the more
supreme ironies in the history of human thought that “conservatives” are amongst
the most stubborn deniers of scientific understandings about environmental
risks, and that they are often prominent and radical voices opposed to sensible
precautionary actions that would protect the economy from systemic risks -- and
the environment from destructive forms of exploitation. Amazing, and pathetic!
Dr. Pachauri of the United
Nations’ IPCC encouraged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Bush
White House to cease their “unprecedented obstructionism” of initiatives that
would address the anthropogenic causes of global warming. He said they should come to the table to
contribute to solving looming problems related to greenhouse gas emissions. While some progress has been achieved under
the Obama Administration, we must come together to honestly address this issue,
and Republicans must stop continuously obstructing progress.
The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown indicated that nations
who met in Bali for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December
2007 should agree on binding emissions caps for all developed countries. Brown said, "I know this means facing
up to hard choices and taking tough decisions.
That means governing, not gimmickry."
Politics is often
about gimmicks rather than real solutions. A confirmation of this is contained in the record-late 2008 state
budget of California, which used the preposterous gimmick of borrowing money
from future years’ lottery profits to theoretically close shortfalls. The time has come for honest actions and fresh
ideas and the enactment of ‘common ground’ solutions to problems. Americans must demand wiser and less corrupt
leadership.
When Barack Obama was
elected on November 4, 2008, many sincerely hoped and believed that he would be
able to lead us in more intelligent directions than those in which we have for
so long been proceeding. The inertial
forces of the status quo are proving to be very powerful and extraordinarily hard
to change, and our political system seems to be almost incapable of propitiously
and honestly addressing the most important problems we face.
Times have gotten
significantly more complex since Thomas Malthus, an English political economist
and demographer (1766 – 1834), proposed a Principle of Population which held
that humanity faces eventual and inevitable disaster unless population growth is
checked. Doubters still debate whether
Malthus’ contentions are valid, even though there are now almost 7 times as
many people on Earth and the negative impacts of our growing population are becoming
more and more apparent. It is becoming
ever clearer that we must begin to adopt sensible Precautionary Principles, as
discussed in detail in Chapter #17, rather than continuing to embrace policies
that ignore gathering threats.
R. Buckminster Fuller
once said, “Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not
depend on us. We are not the only
experiment.” We must see a profound understand
of Albert Einstein’s meaning when he said that “The release of atom power has
changed everything except our way of thinking.” In a starkly similar manner, our rash and largely unacknowledged experiment
is creating burdens on planetary ecosystems that are overwhelming them, yet we
continue to obtusely march lockstep down the path of thinking and acting that has
gotten us into this predicament.
The stakes are
enormous. We risk not only the quality
of life of every child and of all future generations, but ultimately even the
very survival of our species. We are
contributing to irreversible climate change, environmental damage, widespread
species extinctions, societal instability, and widespread conflicts. Yet our leaders refuse to accept intuitions
that tell us that new ways of thinking and acting must be embraced to reduce these
risks. Albert Einstein was surely
correct when he observed, “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of
thinking we used when we created them.”
To better manage our
economic and social and environmental challenges, we must cultivate new ways of
thinking, and behave and act with more broad-minded intention. Strong resistance always rises in opposition
to ‘paradigm shifts’, but once we are able to embrace new ideas, the
opportunity for achieving vital progress and propitious change accelerates. Among the things that we must unflinchingly
reform are the socially irresponsible aspects of unbridled capitalism and
economic fundamentalism and unfair imbalances in globalization and policies
that create speculative bubbles and bailouts.
We must also boldly address our dependence on oil, and the authoritarian
centralization of control, and hawkish nationalism and imperial aggression. We must adopt sensible open-minded attitudes
toward contraception and family planning policies. And we must reform our electoral system that obeys Big Money over
all other influences.
Carved in stone at
the Temple of Apollo at Delphi in ancient Greece were two wise maxims: “Know
Thyself”; and “Nothing in Excess”. In ancient times, Delphi was considered the
center of the known world, the place where heaven and earth met. This was the place on earth where man was
closest to the gods. Delphi was the
center of worship for the god Apollo, son of Zeus, who embodied moral
discipline and spiritual clarity. A
trip to Delphi was, for many centuries, a spiritual experience that offered
hope of enlightening revelation.
“Know Thyself”. “Nothing in Excess”. These are not primitive or irrelevant
clichés. The gods and goddesses of
ancient Greek mythology represent distinct archetypes in human behaviors. They embody deep truths that underlie the cultural
expressions represented by the myths.
Compare these precepts to the oracles of today, where competition is a relentless
thing, and persuasive advertisers have etched in our minds, and practically wired
into our bodies, very different messages:
“Buy More!”; “Go
Shopping!”; “Supersize Me!”; “Win Now!”;
“Be Cool”; and “Get Yours!”
Many influences urge
us to consume mindlessly, to use wastefully, to borrow heavily, to act
self-centeredly, and to abandon the virtues of moderation and self-discipline. It is no wonder that so many Americans have
become physically obese and intellectually unmindful. Let us strive to understand ourselves better,
and to embrace a modicum of moderation -- for our communities, our planet, and
ourselves!
“The only real voyage of discovery consists
not in seeking new landscapes,
but in having new eyes.” ---
Marcel Proust
When we strive to
achieve the clarity of greater awareness and honest realization, we
will be better able to shift our understanding and resist the potent power of corrupt
opportunism and manipulative persuasion. “Don’t believe everything you think!”
Bertrand
Russell gives us pause for thought when he opines:
“The
fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are
cock-sure, while the intelligent are full of
doubt.” Yes?
Chapter #8 – A
Transformation Is A-Comin’.
Planet Earth speeds through space, traveling more
than 65,000 miles per hour in its annual orbit around the Sun. The moon stoically and seemingly magically
revolves around us, affecting the ocean tides and evocatively changing moods,
its reflected sunlight bearing silent witness to the evolving saga of life on
Earth.
Humanity is collectively faced with a critically
serious choice: either we can make intelligent and courageous choices to
transform our activities into ones that are more fiscally secure, more ecologically
sound, and more mutually safe -- or we can foolishly choose to stick with
business-as-usual activities until devastating crises arise that force far more
wrenching changes upon us. There is a
natural propensity for us to wait until a crisis arises before taking remedial
steps to correct our course. A crisis
provides a clarion call that urges us to begin acting more wisely and
responsibly.
The cranial capacities of our brains have tripled in
size from that of our ancestors in the past few million years. We have evolved big brains, and it is a good
time for us to start using them to plan ahead more intelligently. We must find better ways of protecting the
well-being of our societies and the Earth.
The enormous momentum and ponderous inertia of dominant forces portend
that a series of crises will be required before we really begin to seriously address
the big challenges we face. It seems
foolish to procrastinate, because the gathering crises will result in resource
scarcities and severe disruptions in economic activities and even a possible collapse
in ecosystems. These outcomes will be
accompanied by intense strife, faltering institutions, chaotic social change,
environmental dislocations and worsening conflicts. As Henry Kissinger
once said, “The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.”
Why
do we continue to figuratively back ourselves into a corner by waiting until no
good alternatives remain? Let’s act
now! Unfortunately, during times of
crises, “disaster capitalism” is hyper-ready to take advantage of collective
traumas and vulnerabilities. Extraordinary
opportunities arise during emergencies and catastrophes that can be exploited
for enormous profits. Wars, economic
recessions, coups, natural disasters and terrorist attacks produce
opportunities that allow the imposition of austerity policies, privatization
initiatives, bailouts, free market absolutism, radical reconstruction, the oppression
of workers, and repressive rule.
Corporations and governments capitalize on such moments of weakness to
advance “shock treatment” therapies. The
economic doctrines of Milton Friedman were amongst the first to advocate such shocks
in order to achieve radical change.
Friedman went to Chile to advance his theories after the
democratically-elected government of Salvador Allende was overthrown in a right-wing
coup by General Pinochet, with the help of the CIA, on September 11, 1973.
Naomi Klein, in her book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster
Capitalism, cautions us that
we need to recognize what is happening, and why it is happening, in order to
protect ourselves against tyrannical abuses by right-wing governments and amoral
profit-prepossessed capitalist corporations.
Ms. Klein’s book is valuable in sparking dialogue about wars, financial
instability, military coups, dastardly acts, and disequilibrium that might be prevented
by greater awareness. The powerful
motivations that spark these conditions make it inevitable that we will have
more of such disasters. This is not paranoiac
speculation or conspiracy theory; it is
human nature and lucid historical perspective and the predictable outcome of cause
and effect!
Real economic
fundamentals severely deteriorated in 2007 to 2009 because of the bursting of
the housing bubble and related mortgage and subprime loan problems and financial
shenanigans. The history of economic
panics and recessions and depressions indicates that this financial instability
will hurt many people and the global economy as well. Abuses and risks in financial markets became similar to those
that characterized the late 1920’s, according to testimony by economic author
Robert Kuttner to the House Financial Services Committee on October 2,
2007.
Financial safeguards
enacted during the Depression have been dismantled in the guise of free market deregulation.
Predatory lending practices and speculative
investments have been enabled by this relaxing of regulation and oversight. Serious volatility and vulnerabilities in
our system have been made worse by enormous public debt and record trade
deficits, together with excessive leveraging, inadequately-collateralized
speculative securities, insider conflicts of interest, misrepresentations, engineered
asset bubbles, a lack of transparency, and deep fears on the part of investors. Government bailouts of banks and speculators
are costly, and they arguably delay a fair reckoning, and set up more intractable
economic disruptions in the future.
Chapter #9 – Crisis as
Dangerous Opportunity.
The Dalai Lama, the perceptive, broadminded, wise,
and eminently decent Buddhist spiritual thinker, once said: “In order to
accomplish important goals, we need an appreciation of the sense of
urgency.” Cool! Think about
this. The Dalai Lama is one of the most
philosophically calm people on Earth, and yet he communicates the fact that it
would behoove us to give close and clearer consideration to cautionary ideas,
and to heed them.
Great challenges
present ‘dangerous opportunities’. This
is the literal meaning of the two symbols in Chinese that represent the word
for ‘crisis’. Danger and opportunities arise that create a flux like that
achieved when a kaleidoscope is shaken.
This state of flux allows the world to be re-ordered. Such a restructuring can turn out to be
favorable to the common good, or they can be detrimental. It is distinctly advantageous for us to
develop clearer and more accurate understandings so that we make smarter and
fairer choices that are focused on creating healthier progress and better
communities.
It is my conviction
that radically compelling ideas, intelligently conceived and forcefully
conveyed, could make on-going transformations positive ones, both locally and
globally. There is a prodigious need
for such positive change because the consequences of sticking with the social
and economic status quo are too significantly risky. We need to herald the advent of new ideas that are designed to
create sustainable societies. We need
to courageously solve the challenges facing us. People must come together in demanding non-partisan vision,
broader coalitions, fairer initiatives, and management that is far more honest
and competent. Our leaders must be held
accountable for a dedication to the general welfare, not just to their own narrow
special interest.
We must vigilantly head off the forces of opportunism
that are always ready to take advantage of adversities to alter the world to
their narrow benefit. Sweeping positive change could alter the
dysfunction that is being created by public policies. Our current misguided tax, subsidy and energy policies are
contributing to dangerous addictions to wasteful fossil fuel usages, suburban
sprawl, bad traffic, bad air quality, injustices, wars, social conflicts, stressed
educational systems, and ominous changes in the global climate. New policies and better management must be
instituted that will contribute to solving these problems and bettering our
communities.
Hope, optimism and
confidence can help us create wiser plans of action. It is beneficial for the psychological well-being of individuals
to be proactive, and to believe that positive outcomes can be achieved through
our actions. It benefits the common
good when we get involved in grassroots efforts to achieve better ends for our
communities in support of progressive change.
An upbeat movement
driven by “blessed unrest” evocatively conjures up an image of a dynamic
transformation inspired by passionate resolve and caring consideration and
popular involvement. Paul Hawken’s
intelligence and vision, as expressed in his book Blessed Unrest, gives us hope that changes are underway that will
galvanize humanity into sensible action to save ourselves and our descendents.
I recommend that
readers watch the video of Amory Lovins’ rousing and hope-inspiring speech, “Imagine the World …”, which he gave at
the Rocky Mountain Institute’s 25-year anniversary celebration (Google it!). Or check out the independent,
entrepreneurial, nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute’s ideas at www.rmi.org.
Global problems can
be solved, but they must be addressed with determination, courage and
boldness. And they must be addressed
sometime SOON. It is distinctly unwise
to complacently continue to emulate Emperor Nero, figuratively ‘fiddling while
Rome burns’. A cogent clarity of
understanding and a committed concern for the larger contexts of human survival
will help to ensure that our undertakings are sustainable, and that a
reasonable quality of life is maintainable.
The challenges
facing us can seem so daunting that they paralyze us and inhibit us from taking
remedial actions. Feelings of despair
and inconsequentiality and eco-anxiety can be distinctly counterproductive; they can act against effectiveness of
response. Our leaders already overly
exploit public fears for profit and control and selfish advantage. They have practically created a growth
industry in alarmism. The relative
dangers of terrorist threats, for instance, have been so exaggerated that
Americans have been effectively terrorized, giving us all a "false sense
of insecurity". Our brains get all
riled up when subjected to fear. This
engenders a behavioral psychiatrist’s smorgasbord of glandular secretions like
adrenalin and cortisol, which can have startling affects on our behaviors! Dorothy Parker would wonder, “What fresh hell
is this?”
British child development psychologist John Bowlby
developed a well-regarded scientific theory concerning ‘childhood attachment’
behaviors. He wrote: “All
of us, from the cradle to the grave, are happiest when life offers us a series
of excursions, long or short, from a secure base.” Well, I believe! We
all seek personal and financial and emotional security, and by extension
national security; but what we really
desire most deeply is a personal sense of safety that allows us to relate more
confidently, to relax, to accept ourselves, to make adventurous excursions, to take
thrilling risks, to experience ooh-la-la titillating allure, or to open
ourselves up to our own unique forms of creative self-expression.
The best that a nation can do is to create an orderly and
safe civil society and an open structure in which all individuals are assured
choices in how to live their lives in accord with their own individual
propensities and predilections and profound positive inner motivations. When leaders intimidate citizens through
authoritarianism and the use of fear, and when they enact policies that
contribute to a more pronounced economic insecurity for the vast majority, and when
they manipulatively trap people into sheepish submission, they cause perverse
injustices and deplorably detrimental social dysfunction.
Many established religions
also use the strategy of playing on people’s fears. They do this to gain adherents and to exert control over people
for specific ends, both noble and ignoble.
They encourage the fear of death, of fire-and-brimstone ‘Hell’, and of
calamitous ‘End Times’. Fear can render
us incapable of undertaking needed courses of action. It can anesthetize us into feelings of hopelessness and futility. It can divert our attention and make us
retreat into the narrow pursuits that characterize basic survival and escapism
and faith in the wrong things.
Universal
voices speak eloquently and insistently of ecological sanity and social
intelligence. They communicate to us of
the urgent need for transformation.
Carl Sagan, who was a
scientist and educator and humanist, spoke with such a voice. He dedicated his life to building a positive
and integrated worldview capable of providing guidance to human beings in the coming
decades and centuries. He believed that
this was necessary because our ancient inherited mythologies are becoming less
useful, and more detrimental, as they become outmoded in the face of changing
times. As better and wiser
understandings evolve, we should recognize
new truths, even if they are economically or politically inconvenient, and even
if they are heretical to orthodox worldviews.
We are, after all, in a very profound sense all in
this existence together -- interconnected and interdependent!
Chapter #10 – The Embrace
of New Ideas.
The American poet
Walt Whitman once wrote these evocative words:
“Sail forth ---
Steer for the deep water only,
Reckless O
Soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,
For we are
bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we
will risk the ship, ourselves, and all.”
Let’s explore important and illuminating ideas.
“There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” (The great French poet, novelist and
polymath Victor Hugo expressed this concept).
In the past century, ideologies like communism,
fascism, neoconservatism, and laissez-faire capitalism have had far-reaching
impacts on humanity. But these ideologies have failed us in many ways,
and for many reasons. New ideas must now gain ascendance, ideas that can
deliver a more salubrious destiny for the human race.
The fundamental economic doctrine in the past 100
years has been that GROWTH is desirable, no matter what the cost. This
worldwide obsession with growth was reasonable and practicable as long as there
were available lands, vast forests, seemingly limitless stocks of fish, plenty
of fresh water and unpolluted air, and an undiminished cornucopia of natural
resources. Today, however, ecological buffer zones like frontiers, wild
lands, rainforests, and wetlands are rapidly disappearing. Places to dump
wastes are limited by ‘not-in-my-backyard’ impulses, and the atmosphere is
becoming laden with greenhouse gases, and the acidity of the oceans is
increasing. These developments make it
increasingly important that we redesign our economies so that they honor values
that are more wholesome and less destructive than unbridled competition, greedy
selfishness, materialistic consumerism and irresponsible harm.
Beneficial new approaches must be courageously
adopted to deal squarely with the rapid and accelerating changes that are
taking place in the world. This transformation of our behaviors, systems
and institutions must be focused on two factors:
(1) Doing the right things, which is to say, doing things that benefit
the greatest number of people over the longest term while causing the least
amount of harm; and,
(2) Doing things right, which is to say doing things reasonably,
efficiently, effectively, and sensibly, and with greater respect for the health
of the natural world.
Government cannot allow businesses to continue to
pursue the single-minded purpose of making short-term profits without taking
into account social and environmental costs of their activities. The longer we delay in boldly tackling dilemmas
such as these, the more difficult it will be for us to successfully address the
challenges.
There is indeed a
meritocracy of ideas, and it is time we sought the best ones. Humanity has an increasingly desperate need
for saner ideas, clearer analysis, common sense, truth, honesty, broadmindedness,
greater fairness and more intelligently designed public policies.
For a democracy to work, citizens must be well-informed and educated enough
to be able to responsibly take part in the democratic process. Hence the need for improved and broadened
public education, and independent media, and transparency in government. We need greater popular enlightenment!
Proactive plans must
be made to ensure better outcomes. Clever
rationalizations for “staying the course” are not acceptable. Politicians must give social well-being a
much higher priority than they give to doctrinal partisanship and corporate
prerogative and greedy opportunism and aggressive militarism. Instead of good ideas, however, our leaders often
serve up specious arguments, misleading justifications, deceptive propaganda and
reassuring words that are shrewdly formulated to perpetuate the privileges of
those in power. In this regard, our society is sadly
lacking in fairness, honesty and “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth”.
The best interests
of the people and the greatest benefits to the common good are completely different
from the dominant characteristics of the entrenched status quo. Right now, our societies are distinctly
oriented toward:
(1) Allowing corporations
to make the biggest possible profits;
(2) Giving rich
people the most extensive benefits that can possibly be accorded;
(3) Stimulating the
economy through the hyper-consumption of goods and resources;
(4) Relentlessly
pursuing activities that are unsustainable;
(4) Promulgating
public policies that are unfair and shortsighted;
(6) Eagerly using
military and CIA interventionism abroad;
and,
(7) Accepting an
obsequious attitude of government officials toward the authoritarian right-wing
segments of society. (This was most
true under the Bush Administration.)
Our industrial mode of consciousness also leaves us disconnected from Mother
Nature. Our success in exploiting, modifying and controlling
nature has been quite extraordinary, but our hubris in thinking that we can
continue to dominate nature without respecting our best knowledge of natural
workings -- or giving better protections to ecosystems and biodiversity -- is
becoming increasingly foolish, absurd, and risky. D’oh!
We
are effectively daring nature to assault us through such unwise activities as
building in floodplains, forcing rivers into artificial channels, destroying
wetlands, contributing to the devastation of coral reefs, clear-cutting
forests, and annually pouring billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere. It is as if we think we can impose our dominion over nature by working
against it, rather than recognizing the necessity of working with it. A
rapid “greening” of our perspective regarding these activities is urgent. Let us boldly act to make a difference, and
not merely emulate Don Quixote tilting at windmills in hapless misapprehension.
Hermes, the
Messenger God in Greek mythology, was the god of travelers and seafarers, the
seeker of meaning, and the guide of souls.
O Soul! He was he god of
persuasive communication and was known for his love of freedom, his agile mind
and his skills in creative expression and innovation. He was thought to bring intuitive insight and luck, so it is
appropriate here to invoke Hermes in our quest for understanding. Let us see clearly, and act
responsibly! (Hermes was also the
proverbial trickster --- but, Oh well, there is no doubt a good boy and a bad
boy in every man.)
Chapter #11 – The
Sustainability Revolution.
Deep in our consciences we know that we must find better ways of
protecting ecosystems and the environment.
Such understandings are at the core of the sustainability movement, and
of the insights of deep ecologists, and they must be respected.
Sustainability must become a national security priority.
The Sustainability Revolution that is taking place
must be embraced and encouraged. We
must collectively become far more responsible in the stewardship of natural resources.
We can no longer pretend that environmental concerns are a luxury --- because
in truth a healthy environment is a fundamental basis for the economic
health and well-being of our societies.
How can we help
facilitate this sustainability movement?
How can we inspire people to give far-sighted protections to our
supporting environment? Well, it just
so happens that many great ideas and strategic initiatives exist that would
help solve these problems. Such ideas are
explored throughout these writings, and are summarized in the “One
Dozen Big Initiatives to Positively Transform Our Societies” and the
“Progressive Agenda for a More Sane Humanity”.
Eating all the seeds of future crops is a course of
action that only the most desperate would consider. There are many “win-win” situations for people and the
planet. But policies that foster wins
for rich people and big corporations while the majority of people lose are just
not acceptable. Neither are short-term “wins”
for human beings that are achieved at a calamitous cost to the environment and
biodiversity.
To be able to sustain human existence is, of course,
an inadequate goal in itself. Beyond
the goal of mere survival, we must choose to create societies that do not
deleteriously degrade the ecosystems upon which we depend, and that further actually
help RESTORE them to a healthy vitality.
Heal, not harm!
The concept of our “ecological footprint” is
important. Imagine a continuum that
runs from the neediest of the poor to the greediest and most extravagant of the
rich. Every one of us falls somewhere
on this continuum, and each and every person eats, drinks, and creates wastes
every day. We make daily decisions on what
to consume, where to go, and what to do.
These activities all contribute to the aggregate impacts that our
activities are having on planet Earth.
Some individuals have very heavy footprints, and some have much smaller
ones -- but all contribute to the total.
Thus, all of us are a part of an unsustainable international economy.
We must collectively forge a path to the future that
can be followed indefinitely. Using
this as the principal criterion for guidance in all decision-making, we can
create and implement policies that are forward-thinking and flexible. Compromise is important to satisfy
legitimate concerns of opposing viewpoints --- without compromising the essential
and more encompassing wisdom of optimum actions.
Within every country on Earth, people “game” the
system, both legally and illegally, to gain advantages. Powerful developed countries abuse their
power to obtain resources and cheap labor and access to markets abroad. They are able to do this in economically
imperialistic ways because of a lack of effective constraints and fair and enforceable
international laws, regulations, agreements and institutions.
Future well-being is
being negatively affected by our current wrong-headed priorities, so we must
seek to achieve beneficial outcomes by changing the rules and regulations that
govern our actions. The best way to
accomplish this is to create national incentives and disincentives that are
clearly and wisely focused. People’s
behaviors are powerfully motivated by recognition and rewards. Knowing this, it would be advantageous to
restructure our economy in such a way that individual motivations are made
consistent with ecologically-sound outcomes.
Such a restructuring must involve full-cost pricing, so that all costs
incurred in the production of products are included in their price, including
pollution abatement, toxic waste cleanup, worker healthcare, and a contribution
to a Climate Change Impacts Fund to offset the amount of carbon dioxide
produced. This plan would automatically
contribute to helping solve many of our labor and environmental problems.
Unfortunately, the majority of our representatives have been opposed to
any deviations from the status quo of special corporate prerogatives, subservience
of workers’ needs to the greed of shareholders and investors, dominance-oriented
politics, militarism, pork barrel spending, and extreme partisanship. May Barack Obama be successful in changing
this! Our leaders have for too long resisted
progressive reforms, preferring to stay the course and give ever-bigger perks
to their supporters, who are primarily the rich and the powerful. Counterproductive agendas have been advanced
that are contrary to the common good, because such policies benefit the narrow
constituencies that provide campaign contributions to elected officials to get
elected and to stay in office.
This system is seriously flawed. “Clean Money” campaigns are a positive and
potentially effective way to reduce the dangerously unfair and damaging
influence of Big Money on American domestic and foreign policies. Chapter #49 provides compelling perspective
on how Clean Money electoral reform could dramatically help improve
decision-making, and focus politicians on efforts to make our societies truly
fairer, safer and saner.
Some say that our industrial culture will NOT
voluntarily stop damaging the natural world.
They say that indigenous cultures will continue to be eliminated, the
poor exploited, the natural world polluted, and that those who resist or
dissent will continue to be mocked, disenfranchised, jailed or killed. They are possibly right. But I am hopeful. There is still time and potential for us to save ourselves by
making revolutionary changes to our economic, political and judicial systems.
Chapter #12 – Machiavellian
Machinations and Their Shortcomings.
The father figures
in our society must, it seems to me, become more reasonable and responsible and
responsive and humanitarian, and less authoritarian and unfair. I challenge everyone to read Al Gore’s
insightful book, The Assault on Reason,
and come to any other conclusion than that we would be far better off, if we
want a safer, fairer and more sane world, with a leadership role model similar
to Al Gore or Barack Obama rather than one like George W. Bush or Dick
Cheney. I am personally a strong
proponent of giving greater respect and more political power to intelligent and
empathetic ‘mother figures’ in our societies.
Today’s retrogressive patriarchal politicians are creating too many
problems in the world by contributing to increases in inequality, ruthlessness
of competition, arrogant hubris, militarism and foreign occupations.
A friend of mine who lives in the Big
Sky Country of Montana, an old man who has been a lifelong Republican, aptly
expressed the feeling of many Americans during the elections of 2008 when he
said, “I have not left the Republican Party, it has left me!” What a disgrace to our country it was, and a
fiasco, for George W. Bush and his loyalists to have abandoned important
traditional principles of balanced budgets, limited government, honesty,
fairness, integrity, honorable concern for the common good, multilateralism in
international affairs, and the right of Americans to well-protected privacy rights
and civil liberties.
Another friend of mine, a woman who had always supported the Republican
Party, wrote to me just after the 2008 elections: “I broke with my Republican tradition and have voted
Democratic. With the rest of the world looking at us as bullies, the best
I figured we could do was change the face of the country internationally and
see if we can rejoin the cool kids in the cafeteria rather than eating
alone under the bleachers.”
Karl Rove’s obscene obsession with
power and political victory at-any-cost typifies a creed which holds that unethical
and anti-democratic means are justified to accomplish supremacist ends. Extreme partisanship has trumped the best
interests of the American people and allowed a ‘culture of corruption’ to run
rampant in Washington D.C. It has also
encouraged many initiatives that pander to corporations and rich people and patriarchal
male dominance of our society, instead of seeking actions consistent with the
common good. And it has led to
objectionable outcomes such as pay discrimination against women, and the
denigration of gay people, and the hypocritical exploitation of religious
people for unchristian purposes.
Many millions of people worldwide felt
a great sense of relief to see the helicopter lift off on January 20, 2009 to
take George W. Bush out of Washington D.C. -- and out of power. Despite bone-chilling weather, there was
reportedly a remarkable sense of excitement and anticipation in the air, and a
growing hope that new leadership in the U.S. will restore a healthier balance
to our American values, our communities, our domestic economy, the
international economy, our foreign policies, and our planetary ecosystems.
The last Administration demonstrated with startling
clarity the truth in P.J. O’Rourke’s cynical observation that “Republicans are
the party that says that government doesn’t work -- and then gets elected and
proves it.” Our great political
experiment in democracy has shown that vigilant commitments to freedom and democratic
fairness principles must be coupled with progressive reforms and a free press
and strong judicial oversight in order to ensure a vibrant society that works
best for the majority of people. In
November 2008, I thought ‘Good riddance to the Republican gambits for permanent
political dominance!’
But corrupting influences always confront government. This makes the struggle for fairness a
continuous process. This is because greed
and Machiavellian obsessions with power and control persist, and seem to forever
spring anew. Intensifying international
competition over the control of energy, food, land, fresh water and mineral
resources guarantees that the struggle for nations to maintain democratic forms
of government will be daunting. It is
-- and will remain -- extremely difficult for our nation to preserve any
semblance of fairness for our own people and for other people around the planet.
Both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party
have serious shortcomings, as do our dominant social institutions: corporations and government and churches. Our economic and political systems need to
be seriously reformed in order for us to achieve a sustainable future. The Sustainability Revolution requires that we
begin to place a much higher priority on ecological values. As Wallace Stegner once wrote:
“I believe that
eventually, perhaps within a generation or two, they will work out some sort of
compromise between what must be done to earn a living, and what must be done to
restore health to the earth, air and water.”
The time is NOW to embrace new commitments to
accomplish this goal! Perhaps it is time that we consider a new
concept: a Lifetime Ecological
Footprint Total (LEFT). Imagine an
omniscient supercomputer that keeps track of all the resources that each person
consumes during his or her entire lifetime, together with every iota of waste that
is produced. That’s what LEFT is.
I
can think of no greater moral imperative than that we take what’s LEFT into
account in all our society’s decisions and planning; in other words, that we take sensible precautionary measures to
ensure that we leave a fair legacy to our descendents. “Our prosperity as a nation will mean little
if we leave a world of polluted air, toxic waste, and vanished forests to
future generations.” This fine rhetoric
is contained in a letter dated June 11, 2001 sent to me by the White House,
which was signed by George W. Bush, in response to my voiced concerns about
environmental damages. This is ironic
in light of the President’s antagonistic actions toward environmental concerns during
his terms in office!
Soon
enough, yea, all too soon for most, each and every one of us will be dead and
gone, every molecule of us dispersed to its next indeterminate destiny. Any ascent through St. Peter’s pearly gates
of judgment will face a more sophisticated Lord, not one obsessed with other
gods, idols and graven images, or jealous glory, or the keeping of the holy
Sabbath day, or other commandments;
nay, it is my belief that we shall be judged by more relevant and
important Commandments, ones like the Golden Rule, responsible citizenship, ‘brotherly
love’, reasonably nurturing parenthood, our personal contributions to social
justice and planetary protection, and our role in contributing to peace amongst
nations. To me, these propositions
sound more appropriate for a modern day Holy Book!
A memorial
dedication plaque in a grove of towering California redwood trees, the tallest
of living things, observes:
Remove
Nothing from the Forest
Except Nourishment for the Soul
Consolation for the Heart
And Inspiration for the Mind
Wouldn’t it be
something if we began to treat all of the remaining rapidly-dwindling
old-growth forests with such greater respect?!
I find it to be an
ironic twist that the political left seems to demonstrate a much greater
concern for the whole of society, for future generations, and for overall
biological well-being than the political right, whose natural traditionalism,
conservatism and professed concerns for family values might seem to be a
natural platform for intelligent protections of the environment. But the brilliant scheming politicians that
control the right wing have hijacked such people and advanced policies that are
environmentally damaging. They defend inegalitarianism
and the status-quo and social inequities and ignorance and the raw pursuit of
power and authoritarianism. They seem
to be obsessed principally with personal gain and self-aggrandizement. As the American economist John Kenneth
Galbraith once observed:
“The modern conservative is engaged in one
of man’s oldest exercises in moral
philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral
justification for selfishness.”
Chapter
#13 – Historical Developments.
The history of humankind has been profoundly
affected by two principal revolutions. The first was the Agricultural
Revolution that began about 10,000 years ago. Before human beings began to
cultivate crops and domesticate animals, they lived semi-nomadic lives and
hunted wild animals and gathered plants and herbs and fruits. The cultivation of crops allowed mankind to generate
surpluses and settle down in villages and towns that eventually grew into
cities and civilizations. It also allowed human numbers to proliferate.
The second great change in human societies was the
Industrial Revolution. It kicked into
high gear just over 200 years ago with advances in mechanical power like steam
engines. This revolution was facilitated by great strides in science,
technology, mechanization, innovation, mining methods, resource exploitation, electrification,
the utilization of fossil fuels, urban infrastructure improvements, advances in
medicine, and the stimulus of democratic governance. Perspective on the
nature and impacts of this transformation of human societies will be discussed
at length in later chapters of this epistle.
We are now in the incipient stages of a new and
equally far-reaching revolution that mandates that we plant the propitious
seeds of sustainable activities. The
era is ending in which we can make advances simply by more efficiently harvesting
the bounty of nature, or by wantonly depleting the cornucopia of resources so
providentially available to us. Economic
policies worldwide must be redesigned to limit emissions of greenhouse gases
and to reduce air pollution like that associated with China’s rapid growth and its
widespread use of coal. The smog in
Chinese cities is pervasive, gray and suffocating on an epic scale.
Our human civilization is becoming increasingly vulnerable. We are
creating a house of cards, adding bells and whistles and technological
innovations, but simultaneously letting the foundations rot and the
superstructure crumble. We are creating
a sea of troubles by increasing our liabilities and debt, encouraging
speculative excesses, extravagantly wasting resources, and waging ruthless wars
against other countries. We do this
partially because we embrace false values of conspicuous consumption,
materialism, and undisciplined consumerism.
Our government has foolishly involved us in wars to meddle in the
affairs of other nations with the principal goal of facilitating profiteering
and building the influence of our imperialistic empire and feeding our
addiction to fossil fuels.
The
very premises of the dominant paradigms of human thought and action threaten our
future well-being. The findings of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
make it clear that we must begin to question these premises, and to wholeheartedly
respect the basic tenets of an ecologically-sound transformation in our economic
system and our business and government institutions.
Chapter #14 – Better
Plans for Global Security.
The
Oxford Research Group published a report on June 12, 2006 with the stark
conclusion that sustainable security can be achieved only by addressing the root
causes of four main threats to global security: (1) the ruthlessness and unfairness of competition over resources; (2) the trends toward global
militarization; (3) the impacts of
greenhouse gas emissions on climate change;
and (4) the marginalization of the majority of people in the world
through disparities of wealth, power, and economic inequities. The report cited as unwise our unilateral
attempt to control threats through the use of force without addressing the root
causes. Heavy-handed policies often
attack only the symptoms of problems, rather than effectively and cooperatively
attempting to resolve problems by addressing their true causes.
Dr. John Sloboda of the Oxford Research Group wrote in 2006: “Preserving
the planet for our children and grandchildren speaks to our deepest
aspirations, no matter what culture, religion, or ideology we belong to or
espouse. The entire global political
system has been fruitlessly distracted for nearly half a decade by 9/11 and its
consequences. It is not just that the
United States-led ‘war on terror’ fails to address the real threats facing
humanity; the very conduct of that
‘war’ is exacerbating these threats, and bringing closer the likelihood of
their devastating impacts on human and environmental security. If
these growing threats are not halted within the next few years, the world could
pass a tipping-point which would catapult it into a period of intense and
unprecedented conflict.”
We must develop a
bigger-picture understanding of the “war on terror”. This extremely costly conflict is clearly damaging international
hopes for peace and justice, and it is distracting us from far more vitally
important domestic and international initiatives. The foreign policy of the United States has clearly been a major
contributing factor in inciting terrorist attacks. The 9/11 airplane hijackings and aerial assaults on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon are just the most horrible example of retaliatory
“blowback”, which is the CIA term for the unintended consequences of our
foreign policies because of resentments these policies engender.
The emphasis in our
policies on economic domination, aggressive militarism, and ruthless covert
operations create strong opposition to our arrogant, deadly and hard-line
imperialistic actions. Since terrorism
is one of the few weapons available to those who are powerless, poor and desperately
alienated, terrorist attacks become more likely in response to our aggressive
activities. Author Chalmers Johnson
actually predicted in the year 2000 that we would reap retaliatory payback for our
policies and actions in his book Blowback:
The Costs and Consequences of American Empire.
None of the real
security challenges we face has a military answer: not stateless terror, not nuclear proliferation, not failed
states, not mass desperation, not Peak Oil, not resource depletion, not global
pandemics, and not climate change. We
need a new approach in our foreign policy!
Islamic extremists
have been astonishingly effective in spreading fear amongst us, spiking the
cycle of violence and repression. Our
leaders have greatly hyped up this threat to exploit the opportunity to further
advance their own agenda. They have
reduced the transparency of government and eroded protections for citizens’
rights. With our attention distracted,
politicians and corporate profiteers have perversely distorted our society’s
priorities, reaping enormous benefits at the expense of people and of peaceful
coexistence.
Plato philosophized that societies should be led by
their wisest members. It is contradictory to this understanding to allow
people to control our government who are ideologically rigid, shortsighted, and
selfish. We must reject grave injustices. We must support good quality public education and equality of
opportunity. We must marginalize repression,
authoritarianism, and religious extremism and replace it with statesmanship,
fairness and far-sighted sustainable initiatives.
We are indeed in
need of new paradigms -- of ethics, of ecologically-sound initiatives, of
stewardship rather than dominion, of conservation, of moderation in consumption,
and of peace-building. We must develop
ways to increase responsible behaviors and Golden Rule fairness. We must find ways to cultivate a respectful tolerance
of differences, and to implement appropriate priorities. We must demand honesty from our leaders. We should implement new initiatives to
achieve a better quality of life for people through voluntary simplicity. We should encourage responsible family
planning, and give priority to life, in all of its forms. We should not pander so slavishly to things like
profiteering, resource exploitation, corrupt opportunism, global racketeering,
narrow-minded doctrines, religious ideologies, deceptive marketing, and aggression
in warfare.
“Honesty is the first chapter in the book
of wisdom.”
--- Thomas
Jefferson
Philosophers,
literally, are those who love wisdom.
The most famous early Western philosophers were Socrates, Plato and
Aristotle. Socrates was enigmatic and
impious, teaching mankind to ask questions in order to elicit truths that he
felt were implicit in all rational beings.
He courageously challenged the powerful, as did Jesus of Nazareth 400
years later, by criticizing all forms of injustice and corruption. We could benefit from deeply understanding
Socrates’ belief that right insight was necessary for right action.
Plato was one of
Socrates’ pupils. He believed in lively
discourse, so he established the original school of philosophy, the Academy in Athens, to advance
understandings of the true nature of ideas.
Plato’s most famous student was Aristotle, one of history’s most
original and perceptive Big Thinkers.
Aristotle was a meticulous organizer of thought and knowledge, writing
extensively on philosophy, logic, natural science, ethics, politics and
poetics. He believed in the concept of
the “Golden Mean”: a balance between
excess and deficiency. He maintained
that balanced moderation is necessary for a harmonious and virtuous life. He rationally believed that eudemonia (human flourishing, or living
well) is the highest good. This is
valuable perspective. Aristotle did
have some antiquated and erroneous ideas, as well as serious biases in his
perspectives, however: he believed that
slavery was just, and that women are inferior to men. Slavery is not just; and
women are not inferior to men, and should not be treated so.
The ideas espoused herein plumb philosophy, science,
economics, politics, psychology, history, morality, and the nature of human
motivation in order to advance understandings and actions by which our
societies can better flourish. By invoking
our faith, imagination, reason and creativity, we can discover insights that
will lead us to improve our economic and political systems and help us plan for
contingencies more wisely, thus providing for a saner future.
Chapter #15 – Redefining
Progress.
Optimum public planning requires that our
institutions wisely make choices based on our best understandings. The
QUALITY of economic growth, for instance, must be more important than the rate
of growth. Economic indicators help express our social values and drive
policy agendas. In such ways, economic
indicators not only measure our society, but they also help to shape it. The insights of the new discipline of ecological
economics must be cultivated.
Our established measure of economic activity is
represented by Gross Domestic Product, or GDP.
This measure is misleading because it reflects progress as if increased
spending is positive even when it occurs for undesirable things such as medical
cost inflation, more prisons, bigger bureaucracy in government, and larger
expenditures for wars and military waste, pollution clean-up, pork barrel
programs, fraudulent Homeland Security projects, the “war on drugs”, and
disaster reconstruction.
In the early stages of the current
recession, French President Nicolas Sarkozy moved to begin a ‘statistical
revolution’ to end the political dominance of GDP as a measure of economic
health. The French president, a
right-of-center politico, asked two left-of-center Nobel-laureate economists,
Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, to lead a commission on the “measurement of
economic performance and social progress.”
The report stated: “the time is
ripe for our measurement system to shift emphasis from measuring economic
production to measuring people’s well-being.”
We must redefine progress by utilizing more
auspicious measures like Genuine Progress Indicators (GPI), which more
accurately gauge the actual health of economic activities and truer elements of
the quality of life. These measures
would take into account factors like healthy communities, general wellness,
greater fairness, fulfilling work, and authentic connections to others and respect
for the natural world. This change in
focus would allow us to see a truer picture of our economy, and to accordingly improve
our priorities and modify the negative aspects of our activities. This redefining of progress would give recognition
to the deeper insights that are elaborated at the website RedefiningProgress.org.
Good arguments can be made that the government’s
methods of measuring such things as inflation are distorted. Judging from people’s common experience with
increasing prices for such things as food, gasoline, rent and healthcare in the
face of low official inflation statistics, such contentions have credence, and
merit closer analysis.
The small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has the
extraordinary idea of measuring well-being by endorsing comprehensive “Gross
National Happiness” indicators. Bhutan’s Prime Minister Lyonpo Jigmi Y Thinley once
elaborated with this observation: “The four pillars of Gross National Happiness
are the promotion of equitable and sustainable socioeconomic development, the preservation
and promotion of cultural values, the conservation of the natural environment,
and the establishment of good governance.”
Imagine
if the United States were able to commit itself to more enlightened ideas like
these! We could once again become the
beacon of sanity and hope to the rest of the world. It would help us to enact a more broad-minded approach to
domestic and foreign policies. And good
governance would be a refreshing and positive change from today’s partisan and
corrupt political landscape with its serious shortfall of fiscal soundness, honesty,
discipline, responsibility, civil discourse, and oversight and accountability.
Entrepreneurship has
been put on a pedestal as the pinnacle of success in our society, and surely
small businesses are the driver of job creation in the United States. But sometimes, especially for large
corporations, the entrepreneurial spirit is quashed, and too often there is
instead dishonest profiteering, underhanded opportunism, the deception of consumers,
efforts to milk the public treasury or relentlessly exploit workers or cheat
people or damage the commons in a manner that is tragic for the general welfare. This must be reformed!
What would it look
like if, instead of delaying, we courageously and proactively CHOSE to reduce
our growth to a more sustainable level?
Think how salubrious it would be for our societies if we were able to
embrace understandings of growth that acknowledge the importance of Genuine
Progress measures rather than merely adding up all the business-as-usual
activities that are measured by GDP. I
also believe that it is incumbent upon us to consider whether it should be an
overarching priority for us to honestly address overpopulation, which has the
most basic of environmental impacts, by encouraging responsible parenthood and making
safe contraception widely acceptable and available.
Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can
change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Perhaps “music is the way”. Listen to some virtuoso saxophone numbers,
or some of your own favorite type of music, or do some West African
drumming. Music opens the mind, excites
a primal part of our being, soothes us, nourishes the heart, heals the soul, creates
community, and transforms us all. The Live Earth concerts on 7/7/07 had
some 2 billion viewers, and it subtly influenced people’s understandings. This helped advance a slow transformation
that is hopefully taking place which must soon gain steam to create fairer and more
sustainable societies.
The compelling cultural phenomenon of storytelling is
conveyed effectively through the imagery and content of independent documentary
films. This medium is also helping to
provide a portrait of our societies as they are coming into being, and to
positively impact the depth of our understandings. Check out more of these films!
And join me in actively supporting positive change NOW, because the need
for gentler, fairer and more responsible undertakings is urgent!
Chapter
#16 – Intelligent Redesign.
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for
people to assume individual and collective responsibility for the future of
their societies, it becomes self-evident that a powerful global conversation
must take place that results in our choosing to alter the institutions that
perpetuate shortsightedness in human affairs.
Our economies and political systems must be
redesigned with the goal of having the aggregate daily choices of all people on
Earth result in RESTORATIVE impacts on nature’s ecosystems rather than
destructive ones. Bold incentives and disincentives that are consistent
with the freedom to choose are the fairest way to achieve these goals. The greater good should be the barometer of
what policies should be enacted.
The brilliantly sensible businessman and author Paul
Hawken wrote in The Ecology of Commerce:
A Declaration of Sustainability, “We must design a system … where doing
good is like falling off a log, where the natural, everyday acts of work and
life accumulate into a better world as a matter of course, not a matter of
conscious altruism.” Think about this.
It is a great and important and revolutionarily simple idea!
Earth
from Above is a fabulous book of awesome photographic images. Every library should obtain this beautiful
volume. It contains a wise narrative of
heartfelt and philosophic insights.
Written by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, the book makes this vital observation
about our home planet:
“Ecologists understand the processes that support life on earth: the fundamental role of photosynthesis, the
concept of sustainable yield, the role of nutrient cycles, the hydrological
cycle, the sensitive role of climate, and the intricate relationship between
the plant and animal kingdoms. They
know that the earth’s ecosystems supply services as well as goods, and that the
former are often more valuable than the latter.”
The epic 93-minute film Home by Yann Arthus-Bertrand is a ‘must-see’. It has beautiful aerial images and a
haunting narrative. It can be viewed at
http://www.youtube.com/homeproject. Recognizing these ecological understandings,
it is our duty to give greater protection to the ecosystems of our planet. These ideas are simply common sense.
Of course we must protect our children, and the world in which they will
live! Will we?
“We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand
individual
threads,
and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return
to us as results.”
--- Herman Melville
Chapter
#17 – The Importance of the Precautionary Principle.
We cannot accurately foresee what changes will occur
in the future, or how they will affect us.
Big Picture perspectives and the extrapolation of trends, however, can
help us frame probable scenarios.
Despite substantial uncertainties about the nature, scope, severity and
implications of problems facing the world, bold actions targeted toward
transforming our societies into more versatile ones will help us adapt to the
accelerating changes that are taking place.
Our best strategy
is to follow an honest and reasonable “no regrets” approach that is focused on
actions and behaviors that are consistent with shared prosperity and the common
good. This “no regrets” idea is the
basis for the precautionary principle.
As enunciated in Principle 15 of the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment
and Development, this principle states that “Where there are threats of serious
or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as
a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental
degradation.”
This principle of precautionary action involves
controversy because there is a wide scope of complex uncertainties AND because
there is powerful resistance by Big Business to any initiatives that would
reduce their power, prerogatives and profits.
The multinational energy companies, for instance, are the biggest and
most profitable industries in the history of the world, so it is little
surprise how large their influence is in dominating our national decision-making.
The Bush/Cheney White House, in
particular, was ridiculously beholden to selfishly shortsighted energy industry
and war profiteering interests.
Businesses naturally strive to minimize costs, so
they act to avoid paying for the costs of pollution and environmental damages
they cause, and they seek to minimize the amount of money they must spend on
their workers, or on socially beneficial initiatives. Consumers, in their enthusiasm and congenital disposition to get
cheap prices and good deals, as evidenced by the success of such retailers as
Costco, Wal-Mart Stores and Home Depot, do not demand that good citizen
initiatives correct this state of affairs. And investors seem to feel that the more profit the better, and
damn the consequences!
Conflicts and paradoxes abound in our policy
considerations. But the time has come
today to seek strategic alliances to overcome the unfairness and
shortsightedness of dominant forces. We
can begin to truly solve the dilemmas facing us by cooperating together with
common sense and far-sighted intention.
We must ascend above the fray and make reasonable, intelligent, and nonpartisan
judgments in every situation. We must
balance competing interests and give honesty, fairness, foresight and long-term
considerations greater force in all policy decisions.
Bicycle race enthusiasts who watched the Tour de
France in July 2007 could see that in this intense competition the winner is
always a part of a committed team that cooperates together, taking
advantage of rigorous training and ‘drafting’ techniques and alert
patience. The temptation may be strong
to gain advantages by cheating through the use of illegal steroids and
underhanded tactics, but it is risky and wrong. Likewise, ultimate success in larger competitive enterprises is
best achieved by intelligent cooperation, wise planning, fair adherence to the
rules of the game, and far-sighted preparation. Cheating, deceiving the public, evading regulations,
intentionally harming others, and acting illegally are prescriptions for eventual
failure and ignominy, in addition to being highly unprincipled.
Voltaire once wrote
that history consists only of fictions that contain varying degrees of
plausibility. The same can be said of
interpretations of current events.
Analysis is subjective. History
adds a dimension of longer-term perspective.
Historical perspective also unfortunately offers generous opportunities
for spin by propagandists, and this spin can distort the truth and create odd
forms of historical revisionism.
Imagine a graph that shows human population growth over the past 10,000
years. It would look like a horizontal
line that is suddenly spiking sharply upwards in the past century. Graphs of resource consumption,
technological change, and many other indicators would look similar. This gives us a perspective of the rapid and
relatively sudden change that characterizes the challenges facing us.
Policy-making is generally dominated by large private
banking and corporate and investment interests that oppose fair competition. These interests often work against balanced
budgets, community and environmental protections, sensible regulations, international
justice, and peaceable coexistence with other countries. They subvert renewable resource initiatives,
suppress innovation, undermine energy efficiency, and obstruct the conservation
of resources. They also often oppose affordable
housing measures, safe and convenient public transportation, and the
alleviation of poverty.
These dominating interests sabotage intelligent
public planning. They contribute to
social and environmental problems. Stratagems
of hyped-up consumerism and fiscal stimulus combine with human population
growth to help cause serious damages to Earth’s ecosystems.
How can we best
distinguish between what is right and what is wrong? Sometimes our reason, and sometimes our faith, is best equipped
to determine. Click
on the REFRESH-ICON function of your brain, and continue reading!
Chapter
#18 – Morality and Right Action.
Ambrose Bierce was one of the most influential
journalists of the late nineteenth century.
He created a satirical dictionary in which he defined politics as “a
strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.” Politics is rarely about noble
principles; it is most often about
gaining power and privileges and making money.
There are definitely ways to more fairly balance competing interests. These generally involve following fair, democratic
and moral principles.
Morality
is the vital glue of society. It is concerned
with the judgment of what is “good” and “bad” in human action and
character. In its origins, morality consists of those things that are
considered essential to the health and preservation of a social group.
Moral right action should not merely be a function
of theological dogma, or of fear, or of political ideology. Instead, it should be a function of sociology:
what is right for society depends on the well-being of the majority AND of
future generations. What is right and proper is what is best in the long
run. It is not right to neglect the interests of future generations by
pandering principally to greedy shortsighted interests today.
Consider the astonishingly shortsighted legacy that we are leaving to our
children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. We are degrading the
environment through unsustainable development, pollution, wastes, toxins, and
greenhouse gas emissions. We are
recklessly and immoderately depleting non-renewable resources, and doing so at
an accelerating rate. We are carelessly
contributing to the extinction of many species of life and diminishing
biological diversity by damaging ecosystems and wildlife habitats
worldwide. We are making this state of affairs worse by irresponsibly
indulging in stimulative deficit spending, saddling people in the future with
enormous amounts of debt. We are allowing vested interests to make our
societies increasingly unfair and inegalitarian. And we are accepting the efforts of politicians and religious
organizations to oppose sex education, contraception and the empowerment of
women, even though progressive initiatives such as these serve to increase
responsible parenthood and reduce rapid population growth.
We are, in summary, ignominiously “fleecing the future” with our
actions. This could scarcely be less right! Somehow we have
created a world, 250 years after Voltaire wrote Candide, which is becoming less and less the “best of all possible
worlds” of the optimistic character Dr. Pangloss. “The tutor Pangloss
taught metaphysico-theolog-cosmolonigology.
He proved admirably that there is no effect without a cause, and that
this is the best of all possible worlds.”
It is a delightful
metaphor of healthy perspective that Voltaire concludes Candide with the advice that we must tend our gardens. We would be far better off treating the
planet as a sustainable garden, or a revered open space, or even a well-managed
and productive farm, rather than a mine to exploit and abandon, or a land of
forests to be chopped down … or a battlefield on which to viciously vanquish
various “enemies”.
Deep
down in our hearts, we all at least suspect that many of the patterns of
thought and behavior in our modern societies are shortsighted and stupid. Contemplate the perceptive understanding of the
Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn: “Justice is conscience -- not a
personal conscience, but the conscience of the whole of humanity.”
I feel strongly that we should establish a socially-just
“Precautionary Social Principle” that enshrines a fair and bipartisan concern
for the common good as the highest value.
An ethical earthquake is needed to shake up our entrenched, wasteful and
inequitable priorities, and to emasculate unfair partisanship and dogmatic
doctrine and deceptive propaganda and shortsightedness.
Historians Will and Ariel Durant observed in their
enlightening book The Lessons of History
that the concentration of wealth in societies occasionally reaches a critical
point where either sensible legislative redistributions of wealth are enacted
(like progressive tax reforms), or increased violence or even destructive
revolutions take place that generally destroy wealth rather than redistribute
it.
A progressive morality would be more auspicious than
either an ambitiously repressive one or a meek and yielding one. This new overarching sense of moral
rectitude would focus on larger concerns rather than narrow self-righteousness,
avarice, and self-centeredness.
In Matthew 25, the Bible talks about God’s
judgment of nations. It indicates that
God will judge us by how we treat the poor, the sick, the hungry and strangers
and prisoners. While I personally doubt
that there is a God who judges human beings, and that he has some special and
unchanging ‘infinite justice’ criteria that ‘He’ applies in ‘His’ judgments,
any true moral judgment of leaders and societies and civilizations must take into
account considerations about how the most vulnerable members of our society are
treated.
"For what shall it profit a man, if he
shall gain the whole world,
and lose his own soul?" --- The Bible: Mark 8:36
Ambrose Bierce
offers a second satirical definition of “politics”: “The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.” There are many ways that we could reform our economic and political
systems so that they would prevent the most egregious private advantages which harm
the greater good. It would behoove us
to alter public policies to establish clear duties and incentives for citizens
to act more reasonably and responsibly.
The protections included in the Bill of Rights must simultaneously be
defended to fairly balance these policies with laws that respect privacy rights
and personal freedoms. It may be
difficult for us to change our habits and our ways of doing things, but the
consequences will be severe if we fail to recognize and address the risks of wrong-headed
and shortsighted behaviors.
“Knowledge, above all, is a responsibility for the
integrity of what we are, primarily of
what we are as ethical
creatures.” --- The Ascent of Man,
J. Bronowski
Chapter
#19 – Three Basic Considerations.
We see that serious social, economic, political, and environmental
challenges face us. This makes it highly important that we choose
long-term strategies that are wise and sensible as guides for our
decision-making. Three principal objectives must become indispensable in
making all of our society’s public policy considerations: (1) fairness, (2) sustainability, and (3)
peaceful coexistence.
FAIRNESS is the cornerstone of decency and democracy. Powerful
forces of greed and special privilege are dealing significant setbacks today to
fairness doctrines in the United States. For this reason, our economic
and political systems must be redesigned to ensure that they are more
FAIR. This must include fairness to people alive today as well as to
those to be born in future generations.
It seems to me that
each and every person should assent to -- yea, even demand -- a social
establishment that offers fairer opportunities to everyone, and that guarantees
a basic minimum of healthcare security to all citizens. Everyone is, after all, ultimately in the
same boat together; and we are all
potentially only a moment away from tragic accident or catastrophic ill
health. "Of all the forms of
inequality," Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "injustice in
health care is the most shocking and inhumane." Good fortune is a fortuitous thing for which we should give our
blessings, and consequently we should tithe a bit to the future to ensure that
others will live in a fairer society and on an inhabitable planet.
All of our laws and institutions must incorporate
elements that emphasize goals that are, in the long run, SUSTAINABLE. We
must take long-term considerations into account. Common sense tells us
that the ultimate moral good must consist of actions that do not hurt human
well-being, prosperity, and the potentials for healthy survival. It is a
moral imperative for us to leave a fair legacy to our children, and theirs, and
theirs, and theirs, and theirs, and theirs, and theirs, not just to the fabled
Seventh Generation, but indefinitely.
Thirdly, we must make certain that PEACEFUL
solutions are found to the growing conflicts in the world over differing ideas
and diminishing resources. We simply must find better ways to ensure that
conflicts are resolved without resorting to military aggression and war. Instead of trying to “fix the intelligence
and facts around the policy”, as the Bush Administration did in the run-up to
the invasion of Iraq (according to the head of British intelligence, as
reported in the notorious Downing Street Meeting), we must seek consensus and
pragmatic realism and adhere to the principles of just war, especially the
understandings of proportional responses.
As Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, noted
when he was 85 years old in the film The
Fog of War, if we cannot persuade other nations that share similar
interests and values of the merits of proposed uses of military power, we
should not proceed unilaterally, for we are certainly not infallible or
omniscient.
In light of these strategic objectives, the
following three Principles are proposed as overriding considerations in all
public policy-making. Instead of
pandering to special privileges for the few, or short-term advantages for elite
segments of society, or maximizing profits of big corporations, the following
three Principles should always be taken into account in our
decision-making. They are:
(1) The Golden Rule Fairness Principle. This principle holds that there should be a
maximum of fairness to all people in our societies. A cornerstone of decency in our democracy is a reasonable modicum
of egalitarian initiatives and fair dealings.
(2) The
Precautionary Principle of Ecological Propriety. This principle will be designed to “pay forward” actions that are
propitious to our heirs. To the extent
that our actions are unsustainable and environmentally damaging, new methods
must be developed to guarantee the vitality of our environment and protect the
future prospects of life on Earth. We cannot continue to plunder the planet
without regard for the consequences of our actions.
(3) The
Nuremberg Principles of International Law.
These principles, designed in the wake of the atrocities of World War
II, identify crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. Peaceful coexistence must include stronger
international institutions that are empowered to prevent military aggression by
any nation. It is critically important
that the superpower U.S. alter its foreign policies to be more responsible,
more humble, more peaceable, and more just.
Chapter
#20 – A Big Perspective.
Jared Diamond is a professor who wrote a book titled
Collapse, How Societies Choose to Fail or
Succeed. In this book, Diamond reveals findings made from his study
of many civilizations throughout the long course of history. He confirms
that the human race must, to survive and prosper, pay particular attention to
long-term thinking, and that we must successfully embrace anticipatory
long-term planning. Diamond further indicates that we must be willing
to reconsider core values that once served society well, when those values
become outmoded and detrimental due to changing circumstances or deteriorating
environmental conditions.
Each
moment is a juncture at which we can choose to progress or to regress. We
must not cling to outmoded worldviews, or continue to persist in errors of
perspective related to critically important issues. Enthusiastic embraces of unexamined and anti-environmental dogmas
are stunted and terminal offshoots of the vital and viable course of
survival.
Whether or not one believes that life has evolved
over many millions of years, our social evolution favors the ability of
individuals and societies to be flexible in adapting to change. The
long-term survival of our species depends on our adaptability -- NOT on our
being obstinately inflexible in clinging to rigid conservatism and narrow
doctrines and failing policies.
Knowledge and a progressive ability to cope successfully are the
mainstream of human evolution;
ignorance, denial and intractability are not.
Orthodox
ideas tend to entrench themselves in social and political systems long past the
point that they are useful, and well into a new era where they become unacceptably costly and clearly
detrimental. Mark Twain noted
succinctly: "Loyalty to petrified
opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul."
It
is a poor plan to hunker down and stick with the old, the fearful, the
short-term-oriented, the unfair, the regressive, the vested-interest-dominated,
the unsustainable, the deceptive, the dishonest, the bullying, the
manipulative, the doctrinaire and the authoritarian. The better plan is to wisely choose the honest, the intelligent,
the fair, the sustainable, the free-thinking, the hopeful, the compassionate,
and the visionary.
Fresh
ideas must be given greater sway, ones that are more fortuitous to the general
good. The honorable late Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota believed that
politics should be about far more than power, money, and winning at any
cost. He once said, “Politics is about
the improvement of people’s lives. It’s about advancing the cause of
peace and justice in our country and in the world.”
Government
and religion, our main traditional institutions, are struggling to keep up with
the extraordinary rate of change in technology, communications, economic
developments, cultural mores, medical advances, environmental affairs, and
geopolitical realities. What we need
now is a public figure who can rise to this historic occasion and use symbols and
rhetoric more honestly and more effectively in communicating the need for fair
and constructive actions. People need
to be inspired and unified in this goal.
By using our reason and
intelligence, guided by compassionate caring, we can act more wisely and plan
ahead better. When we give greater respect to nobler intuitions, and to our
spiritual understanding, and to our sense of interconnectedness with the most
important aspects of life, we can gain confidence in ideas that are
comprehensive and progressive. This
will help us overcome the obstacles we face, and diminish the influence of politicians who adhere to shortsighted doctrines,
spendthrift actions, and the tenets of neoconservative domination.
Instead of visionary leaders, dedicated civil servants and
honorable statesmen, our ship of state is being run by people who are power
hungry and greedy, and those who seem to be con artists and deceitful swindlers
masquerading as upright citizens, and by scheming ‘robber baron’ kingpins of
industry, self-serving liars, self-aggrandizing narcissists, shills for
manipulative reactionaries, faithful sycophantic political operatives, us-good-them-evil
ideologues, and corrupt born-again hypocrites.
We must change this state of affairs!
Chapter
#21 – The Decline and Fall of Civilizations.
Profound forces are at play in the world, forces of
cause and effect, action and reaction, progress and regress, development and
decay. Civilizations have historically arisen in response to
successful dealings with great challenges.
Civilizations grow when they respond appropriately to such challenges; and they enter a period of decline when they
fail to cope.
Numerous instances in history have shown
that the energies of a small minority of passionately creative people can contribute
to revolutionary solutions being devised to address problems. These solutions re-orient entire societies
in the direction of positive adaptation to change, together with enhanced means
of survival.
Throughout history, civilizations have been seen to
grow, climax, and decay. Studies of many civilizations reveal that
DECLINE generally occurs because of the same combination of causes:
1. Resources have been squandered and decimated;
2. Political corruption and mismanagement has become
widespread;
3. An unfair plutocracy becomes established,
characterized by an ever-growing disparity between the fortunes of the rich and
the poor;
4. The populace grows complacent and is diverted by
materialistic indulgences, lavish forms of entertainment, sports spectacles,
and foreign wars;
5. The military, because of a dangerous arrogance of
power, becomes bloated and overextended in costly and debilitating foreign wars;
6. The public is divided by inegalitarian domestic
policies and becomes effectively disenfranchised, so the populace becomes
increasingly cynical and apathetic;
and,
7. There is a massive influx of people and their customs
from abroad.
Think about this. Seven characteristics of the
decay of civilization, and the United States is channeling them as if they were
some virtuous Holy Grail! The historian Arnold J.
Toynbee argued that "Civilizations die from suicide, not by
murder."
Some
say that the rise and fall of cultures is cyclical. Even Arnold Toynbee, who did not believe in fatalistic
determinism, observed: "The historical cycle seems to be: from bondage to spiritual faith; from
spiritual faith to courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to apathy; from apathy to
dependency; and from dependency back to bondage once more." Nineteen civilizations are said to have
followed this pattern, each one rising and falling over a span of about 200
years.
America’s
200 years need not be up; but we can
not let selfishness and complacency drive us toward inaction or apathy or
despair. History shows that as
empires climax and decay, the ruling elites become ever more desperate and
corrupt and anti-democratic and authoritarian in their drive to maintain their
power. This dynamic certainly seems to
now be playing out in the U.S. as our wealthiest citizens become ever more
staunchly opposed to paying taxes. We must resist trends that drive us in regressive
directions, and remain vigilant against all moves that could lead to greater
authoritarianism.
It
is not inevitable that our country, or nations worldwide, will be devastated by
class warfare, corruption, despotism, religious strife, clashes of
civilizations, the radicalization of religious fundamentalists, or disastrous
ecological collapse. But the proverbial
bull must be seized by the horns, and creative people must strive valiantly to
help solve daunting dilemmas. We cannot
allow business leaders, politicians and the right wing to busily advance their
selfish interests and their goals of empire and domination while the planet
slowly orbits in toward a combustive calamity of resource depletion and
heightened conflict and overpopulation.
Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has
dominated international politics with its unbalanced superpower influence. Imperial empires are built by using
domineering tactics of economic exploitation and coercive power and
control. In the last 100 years, the
types of government that have pursued imperialistic foreign policies have
included right-wing fascist ones, and authoritarian communist ones, and harsh
dictatorships, and extremist theocracies, and arrogant capitalistic ones. None of these are desirable forms of
government from the standpoint of the best interests of humanity.
All of these types of government tend to treat their
citizens with a malignant disregard for the best interests of the people. They utilize ruthless tactics to achieve
their goals. They centralize power in authoritarian
structures. They encourage blind
patriotism and belligerent nationalism.
They favor State corporatism and expanded privileges for elites. They use deceptive propaganda and cultivated
‘Big Lies’. They control the
media. They practice secrecy. They disdain human rights. They espouse doctrine and restrict personal
freedoms and embrace pseudoscience.
They strive to divide people.
They suppress dissent. They
neglect important domestic priorities and stint on supporting social goals. They often cultivate fear and prejudice and
hate. They advocate severe punishments
for crime. They intimidate and
scapegoat people who oppose them. They
enact laws that serve to oppress workers.
They manipulate the judicial system.
They encourage role rigidity, male domination, sexism, racism, homophobia,
and the figurative pillorying of gay people.
The oppose abortion, they intertwine government and religion, and they
suppress intellectuals and artists.
D’oh! My eyes roll; my thoughts wander. So
much suffering and harm is wreaked on people around the globe in the pursuit of
power and control and glory and greed.
Ideals of freedom, egalitarianism and democracy are rent asunder in the
process. Authoritarian centralization,
under either communism or capitalism, is often severely detrimental to the
majority of people.
In bygone centuries,
European imperialism involved a system of economic mercantilism and colonial
occupations. Naval power and strong-arm
tactics were used to exploit peoples in Third World countries. England, Spain, Portugal, Germany, France,
the Netherlands, and Italy all built far-flung colonial empires. The injustice of colonialism eventually led
to revolutionary movements for independence in dozens of countries around the
world.
A new form of
empire-building has replaced the colonial imperialism of the sixteenth to
twentieth centuries. This new form of
international power-abuse involves economic imperialism that is more subtle and
insidious. International banks,
multinational corporations and Western governments use predatory development
schemes and a rigged international banking and trading system to enrich giant
corporations and investors and elite groups.
Their goal is to increase profits and to exploit resources and cheap
labor, no matter what the cost to the people in developing countries.
The old forms of
colonialism seem downright vulgar compared to the sophisticated new forms of
imperialism. Free enterprise is running
amok by advancing schemes of privatization, corporate globalization, various
forms of institutional bribery and fraud, speculative development, radical
social engineering, surges of militarism, and other forms of exploitive ‘economic
shock therapy’.
Economic inequality
is the most important source of friction in world politics. The industrial revolution has heightened inequalities
of wealth and power, and the earliest countries to industrialize colonized and
exploited non-industrialized countries.
Peripheral societies which have been left behind basically have two strategies
that can be used to break out of economic and political dependency: (1) by
means of revolutionary independence movements, or (2) by imitating the methods
of industrialization and using technological innovations and market mechanisms
such as currency controls, tariffs and other import barriers. Opposition to the latter methods by the
developed world makes the former dangerous outcomes more likely. It is clear, however, that fairer and more
peaceable strategies are preferable to violent revolution, so we should make
international efforts to be fairer to less developed nations.
Economic
development abroad these days generally relies on those who preach the gospel
of progress. Such people unfortunately
often ally themselves with forces of domination, repression and austerity in order
to advance the interests of investors and those in ruling classes. Powerful people almost invariably abuse
their prerogatives, and the world’s poor become ever more hapless pawns of the
rich and privileged.
Meanwhile,
obstinate hunger subversively festers in the slums of the world, posing a
serious threat to the future safety of all.
One of the primary roots of conflict in human societies is the
instability that results from the systemic abuse of the poor by economic and
political elites.
Chalmers Johnson in his Nemesis trilogy of books provided provocative perspective
concerning America and the consequences of efforts to build an imperialistic
empire. Gray Brechin writes about
similar themes in his book, Imperial San
Francisco, which investigates the California Gold Rush and its aftermath, with
a focus on the growth of urban power, empire, ‘robber barons’, greed, ambition,
and earthly ruin.
While
civilizations seem to pass through various stages of genesis, growth,
disintegration, breakdown, and dissolution, these stages are NOT
predestined. We need not be fatalistic,
and in fact, the best thing we can do is to be confident and to courageously join
the struggle to transform our societies into fairer and more sustainable
ones. By recognizing limits, embracing conservation
and peace-building, and making reasonable, intelligent, fair and intrepid
changes for a saner future, we have a better chance of transcending
disintegration, violence and chaos.
Chapter #22 – The Gaia
Understanding.
A
valuable shift in perspective can be gained by understanding the modern concept
of Gaia.
Gaia
is the physical totality of the Earth and all of its life forms together,
interconnected and interdependent. The
entire planet and its biotic communities function together as a dynamic and
thoroughly interdependent self-regulating organism. Homeostasis is a term that is used to describe the process by which our
bodies regulate and maintain a delicate internal equilibrium of temperature,
water content, blood alkalinity, oxygen supply, nutritional needs and other
factors essential to vitality.
Gaia itself seems to have a similar process of
homeostasis!
Consider the fact that a hive of bees cannot be
fully understood in a context of individual bees alone, since there is a profound
interdependence between the hive’s queen and its drones and its workers. Similarly, the biotic community of life on
Earth cannot be truly understood without at the same time knowing about
interconnections and interrelationships amongst life forms and natural
processes like photosynthesis and the hydrologic cycle of evaporation and
precipitation.
Gaia has marvelous
capacities for resilience and spontaneous healing, especially when in a healthy
state. All species are essentially
actors in a co-evolutionary dance of survival that rely on mutualism for
continued existence. Gaia is balanced,
provisioning, and beautiful; oceans, rivers,
wetlands, rainforests, the atmosphere and millions of species of life interact
together in a miraculously wondrous way.
Feedback loops can contribute to a healthy
equilibrium in natural systems. When
human activities disrupt such natural balance, feedback loops can also have
decidedly negative impacts and they can adversely affect the fabric of
biological existence. One example of
this is that deforestation makes global warming worse, and this contributes to the
faster melting of glaciers and ice sheets and snow cover, and this in turn
reduces the reflection of the sun’s heat into space, speeding up the warming
process and serving to increase the number of catastrophic wildfires that spew enormous
amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year. Such fires destroy trees whose
photosynthesis would otherwise take carbon dioxide out of the air.
Global warming also tends to release more methane
into the atmosphere from peat bogs. Methane
is 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide in its atmospheric warming effect,
according to scientists. Once we
understand how feedback loops can compound the effects of changes, we can gain
vital perspective that will help inform our actions and facilitate our choosing
wiser ways of ensuring our own species’ flourishing and safety and survival.
Let’s forgive ourselves. Let’s forgive others. And
let’s acknowledge that the resources of the Earth are our natural capital and
that they should not be blithely squandered.
No business can exist for long if it continuously spends its capital
resources; yet we are exploiting the
resources of the Earth with little regard for inexorable depletion. In addition to being the source of a bounty
of natural resources, the Earth provides extremely valuable ecosystem services
that are crucial to all aspects of human well-being.
Ecosystems services are provided by (1) wetlands,
which mitigate flooding, purify water, and provide rich aquatic nursery
habitats; (2) forests, which regulate
stream flows, protect topsoil and fisheries, and provide wood, fiber and
critically important carbon sinks; (3)
wild areas that provide sustenance to wildlife and ensure biological
diversity; (4) birds, bees and various
other pollinators that provide seed dispersal and crop pollination; (5) natural systems that keep insects, pests
and diseases in check; (6) the natural symbiosis
and resilience found in the diversity of ecosystems which helps maintain Gaia’s
balance; and (7) public lands that
offer recreational, aesthetic, and spiritual values.
Scientists estimate that ecosystem services
contribute about twice as much value in total in the international economy
every year as the global gross national product. And we are mindlessly messing with Mother Nature, harming its
ability to continue providing these services!
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment released in 2005
estimated that 60% of these ecosystem services are being degraded or used
unsustainably. SIXTY PERCENT!
Human activities are both intentionally and
inadvertently altering and damaging habitats all around the world. This impoverishing of the planet is taking
place at our own distinct peril. “It is
an unnerving thought,” writes Bill Bryson in A Short History of Nearly Everything, “that we may be the living
universe’s supreme achievement and its worst nightmare simultaneously.”
Paul Hawken observed
in Blessed Unrest that social justice
and environmental movements may well be “humanity’s immune response to toxins
like political corruption, economic disease, and ecological degradation.” Consider this: when individuals are inoculated with small doses of pathogens,
our immune systems acquire immunity through the exposure to larger-scale
attacks by the same pathogens. What a
miracle this is! It is a form of ‘memory’
in the immune system. In a similar way,
we can consider committed ecological concerns by individuals as immunological
protections of Gaia against pathological threats in the form of ecosystem damages
and unwise exploitation and habitat degradation. We should collectively heed such concerns, rather than expending so
much effort to undermine them!
The concept of Gaia
is named after the Greek Earth goddess Gaea. It is instructive to go back to ancient
Greek mythology and ponder its genesis Creation theory:
Gaea,
feminine-gendered Earth, emerged from Chaos and gave birth to a son, Uranus,
who represented the Sky. She then mated
with Uranus to create, among others, the twelve first-generation Titans who
were primeval nature powers worshipped in historical Greece. The Titans were an early ruling dynasty of
powerful deities during a Golden Age.
They were the parents of second-generation Titans like Atlas and
Prometheus and the sun god Helios and the moon goddess Selene, and they were
the parents and the grandparents of the Olympians.
Uranus, the first
patriarchal father figure in Greek mythology, grew resentful of the children he
parented with Gaea, so he kept them trapped within her womb. This caused Gaea great pain and
anguish. Cronos, the youngest Titan,
came to help his mother. Cronos lopped
off his father’s genitals with a sickle and threw them into the sea, and by
such means became the most powerful god.
He and the Titans then ruled over the universe, and created new deities,
many representing elements in nature such as the sun, the moon, rivers, winds,
and the rainbow. Others were monsters,
personifying evil or dangers.
Cronos mated with
his sister Titan, named Rhea. From
their union were born the first-generation Olympians -- Zeus, Poseidon, Hades,
Hera, Hestia and Demeter -- who ruled the sky, the sea, the underworld and the
affairs of mankind.
Imagine yourself alive
2,500 years ago in Greece; this
Creation myth was the dominant spiritual, cosmological, and religious
explanation of existence at that time in the most advanced civilization in
Europe. A rich and well-developed
mythology surrounded these deities and enveloped the Greeks in a mythical
connection to their world.
This Creation story
has a bit of a patriarchal slant to it, eh?
Lots of testosterone! The father’s
genitals were lopped off by his son!!
It makes one yearn for the good old days when the Great Goddess ruled
humankind’s beliefs, and when appreciation was given to the beneficence of the
natural world. In those times, greater
respect was probably accorded to Mother Earth, since people held a more
personalized vision of the impersonal powers of cause and effect.
The Great Goddess
Earth had been revered in ancient Europe and Asia for thousands of years before
barbarian invasions led to the subjugation of these early civilizations by
peoples whose deities were dominated by male warrior gods. These invasions fractured and suppressed mother-based
religions, and father-based theologies became dominant. These patriarchal religions oppressed not
only the feminine deities, but also the women in their societies and the female
life force with its deep connections to fertility and nature. Read the Da
Vinci Code for an enigmatic, thrilling and entertaining perspective on
this. Fie on Opus Dei?!
Our societies are
still paying the price for the sometimes subtle and sometimes ruthless
subjugation of the divine feminine. Our
patriarchal culture tends to stunt the basic needs of both women and men. It inhibits personal growth and the fulfillment
of our human potentials. It oppresses
women and restricts their freedoms and prerogatives. In larger ecological terms, instead of appreciating our home
planet, we allow Mother Earth to be exploited without really recognizing and respecting
her intrinsic values to us in a healthy condition. We further pretend myopically that we will be able to continue doing
this indefinitely with impunity. NOT
LIKELY!
I recommend the late
Leonard Shlain’s book The Alphabet Versus
the Goddess: the Conflict between Word and Image for its compelling perspective
on the curious transition of early civilizations from Mother Goddess worship to
the worship of male Gods. Shlain
formulates a compelling case for deeper causative reasons for this
occurrence. He correlates this change
to a shift in ancient societies from giving women high levels of respect to
severely restricting their freedoms and rights.
The study of
mythology can provide enlightening insights.
Powerful images within us are expressed in story-telling, myths,
legends, rituals and holy book stories.
These are stories which resemble Rorschach revelations of our inner
selves and the drives that affect us.
We are all acted upon from within by universal archetypes that reside in
our collective unconscious, such as those richly embodied in the
characteristics attributed to ancient Greek goddesses and gods. Zeus!
At the same time
that archetypes influence us, we are profoundly affected by forces from
without, in the form of expectations and cultural stereotypes. Knowledge of the forces that influence us
gives us the power to shape our lives in ways that are more meaningful and more
consciously fulfilling. Read the intriguing
book, Goddesses in Everywoman: A New
Psychology of Women by Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen, for a deeper and more
personal framework of this topic.
Belief
systems and myths help us to define ourselves.
They create identity and a sense of belonging and meaning in our
lives. Every culture throughout history
has had its own unique creation myth, apparently in response to the powerful human
need for explaining existence and believing that we are important. How could it be otherwise that we are at the
center of the universe? Could it
be? Isn’t it? Surely every child thinks, “It’s all about me!”
Since
we seem to have a basic need for a creation myth, there can scarcely be a more
solid, fact-supported, adaptive and unifying one than the one unfolding through
science and deep ecology. This grand
saga reveals an eons-long physical evolution of the universe, our solar system
and planet Earth. Within this backdrop it
presents a magnificent conception of the genetic evolution of all life on
Earth, including every species of life in a billions-of-years-long epic of
evolutionary change along a multifaceted branching of the tree of life.
It
would be salubrious for us all if a reconciling balance could be re-established
between masculine and feminine cosmologies, theologies and worldviews. By yielding a bit of the drive for
domination, the masculine divine could allow the vital feminine divine and its
corollary positive attributes to gain proper and healthier influence in our
societies. Women could be empowered and
accorded fairer treatment and equality of opportunity, and we could cultivate
cooperation toward achieving greater good goals rather than ruthlessly and
uncompromisingly competing.
Ayla,
the heroine character in Jean Auel’s novel The
Clan of the Cave Bear provokes images and our imagination of a world long
ago. It entertains us with a marvelous
Ice Age saga, while it simultaneously gives us provocative insights into how
different the relationships and cultures of prehistoric peoples may have
been. Imagine facing the primordial
world that Ayla lived in, with its pre-literate social ties and cave bears and
saber-toothed tigers and wooly mammoths.
Try to place yourself in those times and contexts and worldviews. It provides a compelling way of looking at
our selves and our relationship with the Earth!
All populations of animals exist in dynamic natural
balances. Their populations are controlled
by limiting factors such as predation, disease, competitive pressures and the available
food supply. Humanity is not
independent or exempt from these influences.
For this reason it is
foolhardy for the human race to continue acting in ways that upset natural
balances and the current equilibrium of ecological systems. We should refrain from the wholesale
destruction of habitats, forest clear-cutting, fisheries depletion, wasteful
usages of fossil fuels, and the degradation of the quality of water resources
and agricultural lands and wild areas.
We should limit emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Our actions create a dangerous and unsettled
situation that will be probably be restored to balance only after our
equilibrium-disturbing influence is ancient history, hundreds or thousands or
millions of years from now.
Life has survived
some overwhelming calamities on Earth, such as the Cretaceous Extinction that
took place 65 million years ago. This
biotic catastrophe has been traced to a meteor impact in the vicinity of the
northern part of the Yucatan Peninsula.
The fossil record shows that more than half of all species of life on
Earth became extinct at that time, including numerous species of
dinosaurs.
The increase in the
rate of extinction today, however, is the first time that extensive extinctions
have been caused by one species of life (us!), rather than by a geophysical
phenomenon. Biologists and other
researchers generally agree, according to Edward O. Wilson in The Future of Life, that the extinction
rate of species today is somewhere between 100 and 10,000 times the average
rate that has pertained for tens of millions of years, long before human beings
began to impact biological diversity on Earth.
Think about the alarming
die-off of honeybees which is taking place in the United States today. This can be seen as a proverbial “canary in
the coal mine” warning, cautioning us that the dismissive attitude of our
culture toward pollution, waste and greenhouse gas emissions is creating risks
too big to allow. Similarly, the
decline in both the diversity and abundance of birds and amphibians and mammals
and other vulnerable species of life should serve as a warning against our
obtusely and obstinately staying our current course.
Change in human
societies tends to take place in a kind of punctuated equilibrium, one of
gathering energies and tipping points.
It is clear that, for our own good, we must make difficult decisions to
define a new epoch in which we choose to act more intelligently to prevent the
widespread extinction of species on Earth.
We must find common ground between economic progress and conservation in
order to protect future generations and prevent the extinction of roughly half
of all species in the next 100 years.
“Now is the time!”
An Ode to Gaia
Crystal clear water splashes down a verdant canyon
Laughing a
tune of satisfying elemental simplicity.
Water-loving plants crowd the contours of the watershed,
Reflecting a state of
balanced natural existence and seeming felicity.
High up
above, on mountain ridges and peaks,
Awe-inspiring vistas can be seen which give one a feeling of definite
sanity,
Connected, integral, visionary, and susceptible to revelation and
epiphany
Yet miniscule and ephemeral
in the face of infinity and eternity.
Drifting along on a stream
Narrows
and rapids, waterfalls;
Meandering pools in the meadows,
Eddies around every bend.
The water
has its own influences,
Its own
involvements.
To it,
all events contain
Equal
amounts of pleasure,
Of sorrow.
The water
runs swiftly
In this
stage of its existence,
Runs
with random energy,
Active and infinitely
changing.
And
occasionally the water flows into lakes
Splashing
against the beautiful shore
Or lying
deep in calm repose,
Quite
unconcerned that, eventually,
It will again become rain.
Chapter
#23 – Carrying Capacity and Far-Sighted Ecological Perspective.
The concept of the carrying capacity of
natural habitats is useful and important. Nature provides a limited
carrying capacity for every species of animal, depending on food supply and
population density. The versatility of human ingenuity has allowed the
human race to extensively expand the range of places where we can live.
We have been able to mask the natural limits on our population growth and our
consumption activities, temporarily, by using our collective abilities to make
shelter, clothing and tools, and to cultivate and utilize a wide variety of
sources of food and energy.
But we are already using up an estimated 40% of the
total annual biological productivity of our beautiful water planet. This
means that between foraging, agriculture, timber harvesting, wildlife hunting,
animal husbandry and fishing, we are taking 40% of the total annul productive bounty
of the planet for ourselves.
Imagine the impact we will have as our population grows
by 50% in the next 50 years!
In effect, we are simultaneously doing three things:
(1) Consuming the non-renewable resources upon which we depend;
(2) Damaging ecosystems through over-utilization, unsustainable
development, topsoil erosion, suburban sprawl, habitat destruction, and
resource depletion; and,
(3) Increasing our demands on nature with increasingly effective
extractive technologies and dramatic increases in our human numbers.
In other words, we are steadily diminishing the
carrying capacity of the Earth to support us. This is ultimately
unwise. We are assaulting the foundations of a healthy existence while
simultaneously failing to take meaningful steps to conserve resources, reduce
our consumer demands, or stem the tide of our human population growth.
The ecological underpinnings of everything upon which we depend cannot be
continuously and unsustainably degraded.
Ecologists note that on an island, where it is
easiest to quantify the approximate carrying capacity of a single species like
deer, there have been instances where deer have been introduced and have
increased in population beyond the expected level that can be naturally
supported. When the number of deer
exceeds the carrying capacity by a large enough margin, they eat all of the possible
sources of food, and a population crash results. Instead of the number of deer declining to a balance in the range
predicted as being the carrying capacity, devastating starvation occurs and
very few deer survive. This is like the
proverbial interplay of populations of rabbits and foxes. Being intelligent creatures, can we not
choose to control our population and consumption, rather than wait until
impersonal certainties of cause and effect wreak devastating havoc on our
species?
Human
attentions have been dominated, particularly in the past 100 years, by security
anxieties, economic competition, ideological struggles, and wars. But we
cannot let such concerns prevent us from developing a healthier overarching
ecological perspective. All of these issues are inextricably
interconnected. It is becoming critically important for us to be able to
integrate progressive ideas and wholesome understandings into a set of visionary
and beneficial plans that will help us better cope with the enormous challenges
facing the human race.
There is a “call of
the wild” within us all, but it is subsumed and repressed by our increasingly
urban upbringing and the economic needs to which we feel subjected. Our strong desires to belong, and our
compliant conformity to seductive consumer and cultural indoctrination, are
factors that also act to prevent us from a more primordial connectedness to
nature. Henry David Thoreau said, “In
wildness is the preservation of the world.”
“Humanity is exalted not because we are so far
above all living creatures, but because knowing them well elevates the very
concept of life.”
--- Edward
O. Wilson
Chapter
#24 – Rueful Reflections.
In 1910, President Theodore Roosevelt noted that:
“The nation
behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn
over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value.”
By this standard, humanity is NOT behaving well
today. Scientists tell us, as a consequence
of these actions, that we are driving many species of life to extinction and
undermining the very foundations of our long-term prosperity.
Some say that we are treating Mother Earth like a
prostitute. We are pimping her services at every opportunity. We
are objectifying her, selling her virtues, making her gaudy with development,
exploiting her wilds, and showing a lack of concern for her well-being.
We are desecrating her charms, violating her pristine qualities, and taking
advantage of her passivity and vulnerabilities. We are, in summary ---
and pardon the raw symbolism --- figuratively ‘fucking’ our Mother Earth.
Our motto seems to be “EARTH FIRST! --- We can screw
the other planets later!” I hope that readers can at least chuckle
ruefully at this bumper sticker sentiment, because there is value in humor and
light-heartedness, no matter how serious and consequential the topic!
Consider the extent to which our activities today
are similar to a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi
scheme is a type of fraudulent investment operation in which investors receive
abnormally high short-term returns that are paid for by funds received from
subsequent investors. Such scams
inevitably collapse because they are unsustainable: there are no earnings to pay investors, so the suckers who come
late to the scene are duped by promises of high returns, and they eventually
lose their money. The economic
strategies of today’s economic fundamentalists are predicated on unsustainable
growth, to they have distinct parallels to Ponzi schemes. They facilitate enormous profits now at the
expense of sustainable activities in the long term. We are essentially rewarding investors and speculators and
profiteers in the short-term by borrowing resources and externalizing costs on
those in the future, so the ‘suckers’ in this scheme are our children and
theirs and theirs, far into the distant future.
A ‘spectre’ is haunting planet Earth, a spectre of human
overconsumption, overpopulation, and the overproduction of wastes, pollutants,
toxins and climate-altering greenhouse gases.
It is high time that a prophet of sober assessment, hope and optimum
solutions advances comprehensive perspectives and ideas whose implementation
will create saner societies. This manuscript,
together with the “One Dozen Big Initiatives to
Positively Transform Our Societies” and the “Progressive Agenda for a More Sane
Humanity” are my earnest attempt to provide such propitious
understandings.
“It is wiser to find out
than to suppose.”
--- Mark Twain
Chapter
#25 – In Defense of Reason.
Intensely partisan,
power-abusing politics plays a big role in our human destiny. Recognizing this, we must proactively seek
ways to advance far-sighted initiatives to remedy this situation. Many of the chapters of these writings regrettably,
but of necessity, deal with POLITICS.
The most direct are Chapters #78-79;
they call cogently for dramatic changes in our incumbent national
leadership, which were finally achieved with the national elections of November
2008.
The right-wing
political machine portrays conservatism as representing reasonableness and
rectitude. It continuously attacks
liberals, portraying them as being wishy-washy, clueless, bleeding hearts, and
lacking in good ideas. But I challenge
readers to review the compendium of progressive ideas in the “One Dozen Big Initiatives
to Positively Transform Our Societies” and the “Progressive Agenda for a More
Sane Humanity”, and to come to any other conclusion than this: it is actually status-quo conservatism
that is the failing political philosophy, and the one that is truly
shortsighted, brutally unfair, misleading, progress-stymieing, unsustainable,
and wrong-headed.
Political leaders in
the U.S. strived for the eight years of the Bush Administration to control the
American people by dividing them. They
preached democracy, but shrewdly sowed seeds of fear, insecurity, inequality,
nationalistic fervor, dogmatic certitude, patriotic zealotry, divisive
intolerance, and doubt about the consensus of scientific findings. Instead of embracing better plans, they
resorted to the terrible ruse of distracting people from domestic problems by
engaging in aggressive warfare. This tactic
is unconscionably wrong.
Radical right ‘conservatives’
share hard-line attitudes with religious fundamentalists, whether Christian or
Islamic. They are often enemies of honesty
and respectful tolerance and freedom because of their rigidly controlling
patriarchal stances on family issues, sexuality, secularism and modernity.
The only legitimate
source of power in a democracy is the consent of the governed. Yet when consent is manufactured through government
control of information and distortions of the truth, the legitimacy of this
consent is eroded. When rational
understanding is obscured through tactics of scaring and distracting people,
the quality of decision-making is harmed.
When the government ignores and suppresses vital information, and
sanitizes reports, and distorts facts, and uses misinformation,
misrepresentations and secrecy about key issues and government operations, it
is unjust and anti-democratic. Many
attempts were made by the Bush Administration to control information and use
misleading statistics and remove important information concerning health,
safety and environmental matters from government websites and the public
domain. We have become the puppets of
manufactured consent through mass persuasion and deceptive propaganda.
British philosopher
and statesman Francis Bacon said long ago:
“Knowledge is power.” Attempts
by governments and think tanks to control information, misrepresent it and
slant it are abuses of power. We must
be aware that convictions can be illusions.
To know something, it is best to be open-minded to contrary information
and opinions, to test convictions against a close scrutiny of reality, and to
strive to correct misapprehensions.
The “God, guns and
gays” strategy of using hot button social issues to divide people and sway
elections has been used all too effectively to advance “conservative”
causes. But our energies should be
focused on far more serious issues. Instead
of being distracted by red herrings and narrow-mindedness, we should find ways
to limit the high cost of wars abroad, reduce enormous budget deficits and
address problems of homelessness, poverty and social injustice. And we should strive to staunch the rapid
depletion of resources and restructure our societies to mitigate the grave
impacts of environmental dilemmas.
Unfortunately, radical
right politicians in Congress have distracted the public’s attention from these
important issues. They have advocated
oppressive legislation to deny civil rights to gay people, oppose gender
equity, stoke anti-immigrant sentiments, interfere with family planning
programs, limit women’s reproductive rights, prevent the establishment of
reasonable gun controls, and intimidate people from expressing dissent.
Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the
Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States,
believed strongly that the powers of the federal government should be vigilantly
constrained, and that we should protect and expand human liberties and
representative democracy. He would
probably be figuratively turning over in his grave to see the extent to which
the Executive Branch usurped power under the Bush Administration, and how it
bullied Congress and manipulated public opinion and stacked the federal courts. He speaks to us today, in fact, from beyond
the grave, about the essential ideals and principles of our Government:
“… should we
wander from (these principles) in moments of error or of alarm,
let us hasten to retrace our steps and
to regain the road which alone leads
to peace, liberty and safety.”
The U.S. Senate considered
a Flag Desecration Amendment in June 2006, which narrowly failed to pass. It was an electioneering ploy that
Republicans used to gain patriotic support in the national elections of
November 2006, just as they have done in previous elections. Americans should, parenthetically, thank the
Senate for defeating this Constitutional amendment, and congratulate ourselves
for having once again rejected attempts to curtail Free Speech rights that have
been guaranteed for over 220 years by the brilliant and necessary Bill of
Rights. Our democratic freedom to speak
out in dissent from government policies is eroded when people are intimidated
by government harassment and retributive actions and State coercion.
In truth, we should
be honoring our core values and Constitutional principles. We should not just be worshipping the flag
as a symbol of an America that the radical right debases with their disdain for
rules of domestic and international law and principles of justice. Attempts by the right-wing to erode the checks
and balances in our government, and to minimize our national commitments to the
general welfare and peaceful coexistence amongst nations, are distinctly wrong-headed!
Strategies devised
to polarize Americans have been used to advance a retrogressive, repressive and
partisan agenda that benefits a small segment of society at the expense of the
common good. These strategies diminish
citizen rights and individual privacies.
They subvert the wisdom of our national planning and damage our
democracy and threaten our fiscal well-being.
They harm the beneficial support systems of a healthy environment and
biological diversity. And they hurt our
hopes for peaceful coexistence and the propitious prospects of people in future
generations.
Song
lyrics, apropos of our odd dilemma:  “Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right,
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you,
Yes, I’m stuck in the middle with you.”
Chapter
#26 – Political Madness.
I encourage readers
to peruse Reflections on War in Part
Three of the Earth Manifesto. It
contains valuable insight into the historical motivations for war and the
demagogic methods that have been used throughout history to achieve the goals
of leaders who involve their countries in war.
The bottom line is that militarism, together with our domineering
American militaristic-apologist ideology, neoconservatism, are being severely discredited
in many ways.
Historian Howard
Zinn observed during the Bush Administration that the wrong people were in
power in the United States, people who have faith in imperial empire and guns,
bombs, war propaganda, indoctrination, strict authority profiteering, and
special privilege. Professor Zinn delivered a challenge to us when he said,
“To be neutral and to be passive is to collaborate with whatever is going on.” He defines democracy as “not just a
counting-up of votes” but a “counting-up of actions.” Those are fighting words -- and they encourage each of us to get
involved in some form of constructive social activism.
Charles Schultz’
character Snoopy shows us that exasperated existential exclamations of AARGH!
are often followed by an aftermath of embarrassed contrition. In light of this fact, many people avoid
controversy, protest and social action.
The ruts of tradition and conformity run deep. It is apparent that politicians count on people’s natural fear
and embarrassment of taking a stand.
They encourage complacency and strive to subdue the outrage of citizens
at unfair, violent, reactionary and punitive actions of their governments. This may logically motivate us to submerge
ourselves into our own personal worlds, and to merely intone private mantras of
“AH … AH … AH … UH … UH”. But I believe
that more is demanded of us!
“The wisest men follow their own
direction.”
--- Euripides, fifth century B.C.
Chapter
#27 – The Tragedy of the Commons.
How can humanity earn a living and simultaneously
protect the health of the earth, water, and air? Let’s explore this
question.
People fail to act in socially and environmentally
responsible ways for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons are rational;
and some of these reasons are irrational.
Irrational reasons for disastrous behavior include
confusion, ignorance, clashes of values, cultivated denial, unreasonable fears,
emotional hijacking, ideological inflexibility, closed-mindedness, and persistence
in error. As societal needs change, rigid resistance to progressive
adaptation prevents the adopting of policies that are the most consistent with
the greater good. Shared delusions, psychological denial, misunderstanding,
“groupthink”, and the madness of crowd psychology can also contribute to
socially irrational public policy-making.
Author
Edward Abbey once astutely and sarcastically observed, “One man alone can be
pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin'
can beat teamwork.” Ha! (There are countervailing perspectives like
those explored in the book by James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds, which reveal that the aggregation of
information from groups of people can result in better decisions. Herein lies the hope in a democracy that the
crowd can weigh in on the side of better decision-making. To avoid the failures of crowd intelligence
like those in mobs or irrational stock market bubbles, a diversity of opinion
must be cultivated, and people must be encouraged to draw on localized
knowledge and to think independently.)
The primary rational reasons for disastrous
behavior include obtuse self-centeredness, the failure to properly anticipate
logical consequences, greediness, ruthlessness in the competition for
ascendancy, and poorly informed decision-making. Small elites who lust
for wealth and power often collaborate in rational activities to dominate
policy and decision-making. Corporate interests, for instance, clash with
more broadminded civic interests to facilitate the over-exploitation of
resources. And in the case of speculative bubbles, it may seem eminently
rational to participate as long as there are ‘greater fools’ to take advantage
of.
Rational behaviors contribute to the phenomenon
known as the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’. The rational self-interest of
people who are competing for benefits from a shared resource often results in collectively
irrational damage to that resource. The reason that this occurs is
simple: self-interested individuals are
motivated to get immediate benefits from an activity, while the unintended
consequences and negative impacts of resource exploitation are insidious and
less immediately apparent, and they are borne by the less-focused entire
community.
The Tragedy of the Commons describes what is taking
place in many different arenas of resource exploitation. For instance, the decimating impact on
formerly rich fisheries by fishing fleets from many competing nations occurs
because unregulated competition results in the over-harvesting of fish stocks. Actions by rational individuals can thus result
in outcomes that are utterly insane for the entire group. This is a tragedy that extensively affects
the ecological commons.
It turns out that better cooperation, not less-regulated
competition, is necessary to improve the prospects of sustainable resource usages.
The only sane way for the whole of society to benefit is to create a system of
far-sighted rules which are designed to protect common resources from
depletion, damage or destruction. This requires the agreement and the
honest compliance of all participants to such rules. It also requires oversight and effective enforcement.
The parable of the Tragedy of the Commons also applies to the issue of
pollution. In this case, rather than the consequences of exploitation
being a depleted commons, it is a polluted commons. Rational companies
make bigger profits by the disposal of wastes into the commons, because then
the costs are borne by all.
The current resistance to international efforts in dealing with global
warming can be clearly understood as an instance of this accumulating
tragedy. Some 160 nations ratified the Kyoto Protocol to help mitigate the
looming ecological damage that will be caused by global warming and related
climate change. But the United States refused to comply, selfishly and
shortsightedly opposing these accords. China and India are also unwilling
to take dramatic initial steps to control emissions, because they see that the
process of industrialization without heed to the global commons has allowed
developed countries to benefit economically, and they regard it as an injustice
for them to now be required to follow a different and more expensive that is
more strictly cognizant of reduced emissions requirements.
Thus the world is failing to boldly act to solve the ominous problems
associated with deforestation and the pouring of billions of tons of carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere every year. Our inaction sends a message of presumptuous
disregard for the well-being of all life on the planet. It ignores the plight of people living on low-lying
islands of the South Pacific and areas of every nation with ocean coastlines
and bays.
The United States insists on acting in the myopic self-interest of big corporations
instead of making reasonable commitments to cooperate for the common good. This
is done because we have the power to ignore rational and intelligent
cooperation, NOT because it is the right thing to do.
Chapter
#28 – On Climate Change.
The last nine years have been amongst the 25 warmest years in recorded
weather history. Glaciers worldwide are
melting. So are the Arctic and
Antarctic ice caps. Hurricanes, tornados, floods, and drought are
intensifying. The concentration of
carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by about 25% in the last 50
years. The rate of its accumulation is
accelerating. It is becoming
increasingly probable that climate change caused by global warming will
contribute in coming years to costly coastal flooding, agricultural
disruptions, exacerbated desertification, worsening wildfire devastation, the
spreading of disease, mass migrations of refugees, biological extinctions and
other environmental and social catastrophes.
A principal mechanism of climate pattern disruptions
is the alternate warming and cooling of the world’s oceans, which contribute to
El Niño and La Niña weather patterns that shift the jet stream and cause more
extreme wet and dry periods in different locales.
Carbon-dioxide emissions were about 40% higher in 2009 than in 1990,
despite the efforts made in the Kyoto Protocol to diminish them in developed
countries. Scientists have actually
been surprised by the rate of global warming, but one theory holds that as
ocean surfaces warm in general, this causes the natural process of carbon
dioxide absorption by oceans to be reduced.
The higher rate of increase of carbon dioxide concentrations in the
atmosphere implies an earlier and more severe onset of the problems mentioned
above. Perhaps the correlated global
warming is partially a result of hot air emanations from climate change deniers
--- who knows? One would have to ask
Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma about that.
I personally can’t imagine opposing the Precautionary Principle, to the
detriment of future generations, just to help out the bottom-line profitability
of the oil and gas industry and other big businesses!
Scientists have been warning for years about the enormous quantities of
carbon dioxide that are being spewed into the atmosphere. The vast majority of scientists believe that
the current excess of 30 billion tons of annual carbon-dioxide emissions into
the atmosphere from human activities unequivocally contribute to global warming
and climate change. They say that this
significantly heightens the risk that trillions of dollars in costs will be
incurred later this century for climate-change-related disruptions.
Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of
the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, indicated in a May 2007
interview that action against global warming could be successfully undertaken
at a modest cost. “Climate change is
not something in the future. It's
already here,” he said. “The cost of
inaction is going to be far higher than action."
British author H.G. Wells wrote in 1920: "Human history becomes more and more a
race between education and catastrophe." These words are even
more relevant today!
Al Gore’s compelling film, An
Inconvenient Truth, made it seem that necessary changes are achievable, and
that there is hope that people will realize how serious the stakes are for
failing to act soon. We are reaching a
fascinating Tipping Point in awareness and public opinion on climate
change. This will hopefully help worldwide
efforts to mitigate the effects of global warming. (Unfortunately, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun
in December 2010 was unable to implement strong protections, so the years
continue to pass by without our leaders successfully addressing this
overarching environmental challenge.)
Our Tipping Point in global awareness of the threats posed by greenhouse
gas emissions is matched against an even more far-reaching Tipping Point -- an
ecological one. We are reaching a point
where our industry, agriculture, animal husbandry and population growth are irreversibly
damaging ecosystems and driving many species of life to extinction. This undermines the biological support
systems upon which we completely depend.
No one can predict whether our Tipping Point of awareness is arriving
soon enough, and with enough force, to ensure that we will win the race between
education and catastrophe. The November
2010 elections gave climate change deniers more power, so the near term outlook
for meaningfully addressing this issue seems likely to deteriorate.
These are strange days indeed. We
seem to be emulating the Captain of the Titanic by willingly throwing caution
to the wind and ordering full speed ahead in treacherous waters. Progressive ideas envision critically needed
changes, but they struggle against relentless forces that advocate the freedom
to operate without regulation, limitation, social responsibility or lobbying
restriction, and without sensible measures to strengthen our democracy through campaign
finance reform.
Senator Mitch McConnell embodies this obstinate opposition to a fairer
democratic republic. It is sad for the
American people that his pragmatic success in advancing the cause of wealthy
people and giant corporations has taken precedent over all other
considerations. His role in brokering a
compromise on extending the Bush tax breaks in December 2010 is chilling. After all, future generations will be
required to pay interest expense of hundreds of billions of dollars on the
money we are borrowing to finance the lowest tax rates on rich people since the
1920’s. In this regard, this
Obama/McConnell compromise is chiefly a compromise of the prospects of our
children and their descendents to lead secure lives in a sound economy with
adequate resources and an unpolluted environment.
Powerful forces stubbornly strive to stay the course even when the course
becomes untenable. Reckless right-leaning leaders have advocated for
years that we merely make more studies of the problems of global warming and
climate change. They assert that
voluntary limitations on emissions will be effective, despite extensive
evidence to the contrary. It is
becoming urgent that we boldly and innovatively address the increasingly
irreversible nature of our predicaments related to climate change
and overpopulation and ecosystem stabilization. The Eleventh Hour is upon us!
A Supreme Court decision on April 2, 2007 confirmed that the
Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate greenhouse gas
emissions. This was an important step
toward getting our laggard federal government and giant corporations to give climate
change prevention a higher priority. After
the passage of more than a year, the EPA continued to drag its feet rather than
acting to mitigate the impending impacts of climate disrupting emissions. The EPA Chief during the Bush Administration
sided with the White House in opposing the rights of States to set more
stringent emissions policies. This thwarted
the efforts of California and a dozen other states. This federal-trumps-State strategy turns traditional Republican
anti-federalism on its head, just as the costly bailouts of big banks are
doing.
Green taxes and sensible regulations are needed. The first step in dealing with the dilemma,
because it is politically achievable and therefore expedient, is to establish a
system of emissions caps for companies and an ‘emissions trading system’. This plan is a more complex and less
effective way to implement carbon emission costs than direct carbon taxes, and
its effects are delayed because it does not address a key issue: our dependence on fossil fuels and their
inexorable depletion. But at least a cap-and-trade
emissions system would be a good way to start dealing with the problem. Inevitably, we must more boldly strive to
make the transition to renewable alternatives, and the cap-and-trade system must
be designed to discourage fraud, complacency, bureaucracy, and mere greenwashing.
The disruptive impacts of climate changes cause by
global warming are not unstoppable; we
just have not yet made determined efforts to stop them. The federal government is partly at
fault. The Bush Administration had an extensive record of denying and
suppressing science in order to support the doctrines of the status quo,
particularly with regard to energy policy and the auto and oil industries.
A New York Times article on January 29, 2006 reported a revealing instance of
this. A young Republican political appointee in the NASA public affairs
office tried to censor top NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen to suppress
scientific findings on global warming.
Since then there were hundreds of documented instances in which Bush White
House officials interfered with government scientists’ global warming work and
findings.
Too often our leaders are far more concerned with good press than good
results. They have created a culture
that discourages people from telling the truth. Shame on our
leaders! They must be held more
accountable. Inaction on greenhouse gas emissions is becoming a serious
liability. The Bush Administration
seems to have been of the same mind as Donald Rumsfeld, who in a ‘snowflake’
memo to himself once noted that “bumper sticker statements” should be used to
rally public support for unpopular wars.
I assert that we need deeper and wiser understandings of issues, not merely
bumper sticker sentiments!
The Bush Administration heavily edited Senate testimony by Dr. Julie
Gerberding, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to the Environment
and Public Works Committee on October 23, 2007. This testimony was related to the human impacts on global
warming. A former EPA official, Jason Burnett, revealed in July 2008 that Vice
President Dick Cheney's office and the Council on Environmental Quality pushed
to "remove from the testimony any discussion of the human health consequences of
climate change." White House efforts to muzzle officials to
prevent them from providing valuable information to the American people were a
serious disservice to the functioning of our democracy and to our well-being
and national security.
In February 2006, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin
ordered NASA’s Mission Statement to be changed to delete from its mission the
purpose of helping “to understand and protect our home planet”. Really?!
TV satirist Stephen Colbert got in the spirit of this action by suggesting
that, to be consistent with NASA’s semantic political-operative strategy, the
Environmental Protection Agency should remove from its name the words
“environmental” and “protection”!
Ha!! (Woe to us!)
In June 2006, NASA eliminated funding for some new
satellites that would have monitored the Earth’s changing climate. What we don’t know can’t hurt us? Michael Griffin created a brouhaha on May
31, 2007 when he suggested in a National Public Radio interview that global
warming might be a good thing, thereby adopting the propaganda of the Greening
Earth Society, a coal industry ‘think tank’ that tries to spin perceptions in
order to facilitate the building of more polluting plants and to continue
allowing coal companies to make bigger profits by externalizing a myriad of
costs onto society.
The shrewd but essentially malicious cultivation of doubt about
science by Big Oil and its friends in Congress is another example of the unconscionable
peddling of influence. This gambit
allows business to avoid costs that would be incurred by taking precautionary
measures to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases. Big Business has successfully taken advantage of uncertainties to
thwart changes to the sweet system that allows it to profit by externalizing costs
of pollution and waste disposal, resource depletion, worker health care, and
looming climate disruption risks onto society.
No Administration ever before was so closely tied to the oil industry as
the Bush Administration. In 2001,
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice and eight cabinet
secretaries and thirty-two other high-level political appointees had been
intimately associated with Big Oil, according to Richard W. Behan in AlterNet’s
“top story of war and empire in 2007”. Government
officials in charge of many agencies, as a consequence, often subverted the
missions of their agencies and gave priority to the interests of industry and
other vested interests. People are far
too often given lower priority than compulsions to make bigger profits.
Ignorance, denial, opposition to change, and profiteering by entrenched
interests are potent forces in our economic and political landscape. The Supreme Court decision referred to above
concerning the EPA was made by a vote of 5 to 4, with doctrinal conservatives
demonstrating their adamant opposition, once again, to sensible regulation and intelligent
adaptation to change, even in the face of the most far-reaching threats to the environment
ever faced by humanity.
But we must not despair. There are many individual and collective actions that can be
taken to reduce global warming and mitigate the impacts of climate change. A sustained common endeavor is
necessary. More sophisticated and
meaningful public communications and bold initiatives are needed to encourage
such things as ‘green building’, conservation, technological cooperation,
forest and threatened species protections, risk mitigation, and other
“climate-friendly” behaviors. We must
avoid paralysis and find tangible and compelling new ways to motivate people to
reduce their ecological footprint impacts.
Economic incentives and disincentives are the most
effective means of encouraging innovation, conservation, efficiency, energy
alternatives, behavioral changes, and structural modifications to our
economy. Subsidies to fossil fuel
industries should be reduced. Clean
coal technologies should be developed and a worldwide moratorium on new
coal-fired power plants should be implemented until ‘carbon-dioxide
sequestration’ technologies are developed.
Sensible alternatives to oil and coal must be fast-tracked.
The global economy must
somehow be effectively ‘decarbonized”.
The rapid destruction of tropical rainforests and temperate forests
worldwide must be stopped. Rainforests
act as a sort of reverse ‘lungs of the planet’ by using up carbon-dioxide and producing
oxygen through their process of photosynthesis. Rainforests contain about 50% of the species of life on Earth, so
they are a great repository of biodiversity.
Our best opportunity for immediate and cost-effective reductions of a
buildup of greenhouse gases is through reversing the trends toward rapid tropical
deforestation.
One of the best ways to accomplish the goal of reducing greenhouse gas
emissions would be to increase carbon taxes to fund new initiatives aimed at
stopping deforestation. Tax increases
could be made socially progressive by partially offsetting them with reductions
in payroll taxes. Politically, gas taxes may not yet be
feasible, but they are a better plan than cap-and-trade laws.
Meanwhile, the ‘population
connection’ between deforestation and increasing greenhouse gas emissions must
be emphasized. Global population
stabilization must be achieved through education and voluntary family planning
programs. Individuals and couples must
be enabled to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing, and timing of
their children. All women should have
the information and means to do this without coercion, interference, discrimination
or violence. The ability to make these
decisions about family size is essential to realizing larger goals, including those
of having healthy families and a healthy environment. Voluntary family planning programs in nations worldwide give
people the tools needed to save lives, eradicate illiteracy, reduce poverty, prevent
HIV/AIDS, empower women, conserve the world's fossil fuels, protect
biodiversity, and reduce deforestation and desertification.
Also, an inclusive green movement could
create profoundly important changes through targeted investments and the
politics of hope, optimism and opportunity.
The bright promise of a ‘green economy’ could include and inspire and
energize people of all races and classes.
A historic coalition could be formed that makes a ‘green wave’ which lifts
all boats and unites the best of business, civic leaders, environmentalists, labor
unions, social and racial justice activists, students and intellectuals.
The book, HEAT, by Monbiot has a compelling
conclusion: "The campaign against
climate change is an odd one. Unlike
almost all the public protests which have preceded it, it is a campaign not for
abundance but for austerity. It is a
campaign not for more freedom but for less.
Strangest of all, it is a campaign not just against other people, but
also against ourselves." Hmmm … It
seems apparent that no one wants to choose any degree of austerity or
sacrifice, or to be required to be disciplined -- even if the resulting impact
on our lives were to create greater simplicity, less stress, more meaning or
greater national security.
The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is one
of many organizations that are committed to trying to establish greater sanity
in human affairs. They work with businesses and government to offset
negative environmental impacts, and in effect to combat abuses of corporate
power and the dysfunction of our economic system and political processes.
Like another effective nonprofit organization, Environmental Defense, NRDC
advocates initiatives that are designed to improve the prospects for beneficial
outcomes rather than environmentally damaging ones. The NRDC’s Partnership for the Earth campaign has
six objectives, which seem vitally important in the big picture: to curb global warming, save wildlife and
wild places, revive the world’s oceans, create the clean-energy future, stem
the tide of toxic chemicals, and accelerate the greening of China.
Environmental Defense and the NRDC should be applauded
for their goals and their integrity in making efforts to get companies to
commit to limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
I urge everyone to support the efforts of these organizations, and to
strive to do your own part to conserve fossil fuels and electricity and water,
and to strongly support sensible and far-sighted initiatives.
Chapter
#29 – Earth Advocacy.
Extensive and
awe-inspiring natural beauty abounds on our lovely Planet Earth;
Mountains, and valleys, and meadows, and
streams existing in dynamic grace
And our home planet provides us with
nourishment and spiritual sustenance,
Earning appreciative blessings -- but the
inadequate respect -- of the human race.
The most profound understanding of ecology is
that everything is interconnected
So every attempt to comprehend our healthy
relationship to our sustaining environment
Naturally involves economics, sociology,
philosophy, and alas, political controversy
But, so be it -- Let us explore important
issues fairly, reasonably, and without lament.
Our home planet is a beautiful place, as everyone
can appreciate who spends time outdoors, away from the often degrading
influences of human activities. Open spaces and public parks and
protected lands are inspirational and revitalizing to our spirit.
Movements to preserve such areas for ourselves and future generations are great
undertakings and eminently laudable accomplishments.
Protected public lands are vital to our quality of
life. Our willingness to protect public lands is an early sign of the
type of wisdom that may prove to be crucial in ensuring our long-term survival.
I feel strongly that we should continue to value and defend public lands
against the powerful forces of development and exploitation.
Windswept ridges and
peaks that project above glaciers and ice fields are called ‘nunataks’. During past ice ages, alpine trees like
Lodgepole Pines and Whitebark Pines and other forms of plant life survived in
nunataks, and were therefore able to re-colonize the lands that had been
scraped barren by the ice, once global temperatures warmed and the ice had
melted. Nunataks served as storehouses
of genetic materials that once again were able to colonize the land once the glaciers
retreated. After the glaciers melted,
lichens built soil bit by bit, using sunlight and water and the process of
photosynthesis to dissolve the raw materials of rock, and they leave organic
compost when they die that is beneficial to succeeding generations.
Lodgepole Pines have
winged seeds, which allow them to propagate themselves on the wind to new habitats
like those created when glaciers retreat.
In contrast, Whitebark Pines have wingless seeds, and their cones do not
even open on their own. They rely,
instead, on a symbiotic relationship with a species of birds known as Clark’s
Nutcrackers. These birds bury enormous
quantities of seeds to be retrieved in the winter for food. Studies have shown that these birds do not
find about 30% of the seeds that they bury, and these lost seeds often turn out
to be propitiously planted for the germination of trees in new locations. This symbiotic adaptation is surely an
evolutionary marvel.
Today’s wild lands
and wilderness areas are like modern nunataks:
they are biological islands in a sea of altered and developed
lands. As in the past, these modern
nunataks provide irreplaceable genetic storehouses that are capable of
replenishing disturbed lands. Today’s
National Parks and Wilderness Areas, and roadless areas in National Forests,
and public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management which are not commercially
exploited, are thus vital islands of hope for the future. We simply must make much more serious
commitments to protect them!
Our children seem to
be increasingly suffering from ‘nature deficit disorder’. They plug in to television and computers
instead of developing creativity in outdoors exploration and play. This is a trend that does not bode well for
their current or future well-being, or for the cultivation of that spirit in us
all that is willing to protect the vitality and beauty of creation. Go for a walk, and find a lovely place to
free your feet; “your mind will follow!”
The global pressure to figuratively pave everything
over is mounting as our human numbers increase. This makes it imperative
that we strengthen our will to protect parks, open spaces, wilderness areas,
and the integrity and balance of the natural world.
New commitments to preserving the health of the
National Park System are needed. There
is no question that our National Parks are beset by serious problems. They are reeling from pressures of development
and poor management practices. They
have enormous maintenance backlogs.
They are being damaged by wildlife poaching, heavy vehicular traffic and
air pollution. They are suffering
stresses associated with decades of inadequate funding. This shortfall of support is becoming more
visible as facilities are closed, public access is reduced, compromises to
visitor safety are made, law enforcement is diminished, and fewer interpretive
programs are available.
A fascinating world of extraordinary understandings
is available to us if we remain sensitive to the healthy aspects of
relationships. By cultivating expansive
outlooks and maintaining open minds, we can more effectively respect and
appreciate the beauty and wonderful bounty of Mother Nature. These ideas
are written as a form of Earth advocacy and human sanity campaign. Join in!
“There is just
one hope of repulsing the tyrannical ambition of civilization to conquer every
niche on the whole Earth. That hope is
the organization of spirited people who will fight for the freedom of the
wilderness.”
--- Robert Marshall,
Wilderness Society founder
Chapter
#30 – Reflections on Feminine Perspective.
Consider what can be called the “Tragedy of the
Common Good”. This is a not uncommon
phenomenon that has been growing like a malignant cancer in our societies. This tragedy is characterized by a natural
self-centeredness that is metastasizing into a high-stakes, winner-takes-all
game. Private plunder and public graft
have occurred in all nations throughout history, no doubt, but nonetheless it
is high time that we find more effective methods to limit such activities.
Private motivations operating in the public domain have
the effect of perverting our priorities and subverting the democratic
principles of fairness and equal representation. They do so by creating policies that are inegalitarian and manipulative
and foolish and irresponsibly short-term oriented. They also tend to create a ‘tragedy of the ecological commons’, in
which top executives and wealthy investors and lobbyists utilize
capitalist-fostered entities like private banks and large corporations to gain
outsized privileges and benefits in order to exploit, deplete and waste resources
and make larger profits by externalizing the costs of the harm they do upon all
others.
Too many
governments around the planet are controlled by ‘conservative’ men whose
deepest convictions are driven by a strong bias for “strict father” male
authority. About half of the people in
the world belong to Christian or Islamic religions that are distinctly dogmatic
and patriarchal and dominion oriented.
These attributes hinder progressive change and contribute to human
rights abuses, culture clashes, sexist discrimination, and conflicts that are
increasingly dangerous to mutual security and world peace.
Are there ways
that we can inspire more cooperation, justice, civility, kindness, loving
concern, safety and reasonable commitments to the greater good? Yes!
I feel strongly that humankind can better achieve this by cultivating
“feminine” virtues of empathetic understanding, constructive communication,
peaceful conflict resolution, moderate self-restraint, earnest cooperation, and
a more nurturing caring for other people and for Mother Earth. It would be propitious for humankind to cultivate and empower
these more ethical, honorable, and compassionate perspectives in our
societies. Worldviews that reflect
these feminine qualities are needed today more than ever.
“You can't depend on your judgment when your
imagination is out of focus.”
--- Mark
Twain
We should all salute
a well-developed anima in every
man. This is the Jungian archetype of
the feminine in a man’s psyche that is so often repressed. This unconscious feminine aspect of a male
allows him to connect with his inner gentleness, emotionality, sentiment,
sensibilities and broader spiritual awareness.
Hey, macho dudes, get over the strutting, and let’s get on with trying
to co-existing peacefully, to cooperate with others, to be more aware and open-minded,
to heal and grow personally, and to live in accordance with the Golden Rule.
Women of the world,
unite!
A united front can accomplish great things. Patriarchal leaders in all modern societies strive staunchly to
divide people, intimidate them, and prevent them from uniting to assert their
civil rights and gain greater control. I’m not trying to out-Marx Karl Marx when I
write this, but someone has got to make more serious efforts to get everyone to
follow the ‘unity’ route someday soon.
Marx advocated that workers unite against amoral capitalists to change
the world. I figure that, though we
have not transcended the need for greater fairness to workers, it is incumbent
upon us to unite in larger ways by supporting greater equality for women,
fairness, peaceful coexistence, more expanded human rights, and the overarching
goal of ecological sanity.
Any manifesto worth its salt has a goal, at least tangentially, of
“saving the world”. My earnest
intention in these writings is to help facilitate positive social change, and to
remake the world. ‘God knows’ that
there is much to be done to achieve a more sane existence for you, me, the most
vulnerable amongst us, and our children and grandchildren. Making a positive
difference in the world seems like such a noble, practical and meaningful
purpose; and it is one that is so much
more desirable than selfish and ignoble and socially detrimental motives.
 In times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me
Singing words of wisdom, let it
be, let it be! 
--- Lyrics
of the Beatles
Note that I am just a normal gal, and this manuscript is not about
me. It is an honest portrait of our
human societies, and only incidentally a kind of self-portrait in ideas. It contains concepts that resonate with
enlightened versions of the truth. It
provides understandings that hopefully correspond more accurately than most to
reality, and thus offers a counterbalance to the authoritarian and rigidly
reactionary points-of-view that dominate and repress human societies.
Powerful forces are channeled here.
They demand the expression of evolutionary wisdom from an awareness
beyond our ephemeral individual lives, a voice that insistently calls out for
deeper perspective and clearer understanding and wiser collective
behaviors. My hope is that readers will consider these
ideas carefully and objectively, and maybe even discover some ‘Aha! moments’. I hope that readers will care about these
ideas and embrace them, or at least allow them to stimulate their thinking and
questioning, and perhaps promote greater insights.
These points of view
differ distinctly from orthodox and doctrinaire ones. My purpose in setting them forth is to advance ideas and understandings
that are honorable, visionary, democratically fair, far-sighted, noble and
consistent with America’s founding ideals.
Amongst these purposes is to make sure that our government is responsive
to the rights of citizens and their concerns for the greater good.
In contrast, the
Establishment is primarily concerned with the protection and expansion of
lopsided privileges for elites and narrow commercial and investor interests. These concerns are ironically similar to those
of the British Empire in 1776 under the oppressive colonial regime of King
George III. It took a Revolutionary War
for Americans to overthrow that particular domineering rule. History shows that bloodshed can be avoided
and positive change achieved by cultivating attitudes and initiatives that are fairer
and more progressive.
Politicians and
others who act as mouthpieces and cheerleaders for special interests are
generally dishonest and disingenuous with regard to their true motivations and
intentions. They distort the truth and advance
policies that are often detrimental to their societies as a whole. In contrast, the ideas herein are proffered
with no other interest than to advocate plans that are most likely to make our
societies better and more sustainable.
You will certainly
notice my strong affiliation with progressive thoughts and ideas, and even with
some radical ones. These understandings
are more valid than self-centered points of view because they are not driven by
ulterior motives. They are based on
years of experience, observation, rational
judgment, engaging conversations, extensive reading, extrapolated trends, and wide-ranging
philosophical contemplation. Their motivation is not selfish or grounded
in unwarranted pessimism, superstition, ideology or paranoia.
I feel confident
that a greater appreciation of the life-supporting qualities provided by
healthy ecosystems on Earth will enable us to move boldly toward the goal of leaving
a legacy that is more salubrious for future generations. It could also help assure us and our
descendents of a better overall quality of life. Clearer perspectives and more caring values can help unite people
in support of common goals and more sensible policies and fairer
behaviors.
If, somehow, a million people read this manuscript in its entirety, it is
my strong conviction that the course of history would be beneficially
altered. Please help achieve this goal
by reading on, and by recommending it to your politically and philosophically
inclined friends. (THANKS!)
I
paraphrase Walt Whitman, from his poem “So Long”:
From behind the screen where I hid I
advance personally solely to you.
Camerado, this is no book, Who
touches this, touches a woman …
As Huck Finn
said, this ought to “give the bullfrogs something to croak about for days, I
bet.”
J.D.
Salinger, the author of the classic 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, died on January 28, 2010. It is entertaining to review the first
sentence of this book, with its wry point of view:
"If
you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know
is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like and how my parents
were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into
it, if you want to know the truth."
Ha! I personally had a very good childhood, but
the Earth Manifesto is not about me, like I indicated above, so I won’t bore
any hypothetical readers with the details!
Chapter
#31 – Youthful Insights.
High schools, colleges and universities are great
laboratories for the ferment of ideas. Young people have a much larger
stake in fairer societies and sustainable activities and a healthy planet than
older people, who are relative short-timers.
Unfortunately, the interests of young people are being given extremely
short shrift by the dominant forces in our societies today. Our materialistic culture is inimical to the
future well-being of the young due to its emphasis on mindless shopping, profligate
consuming, wasteful consumerism, polluting, borrowing, and allowing narrow
special interests to control our politics, priorities and decision-making.
Alert! Reading is
sometimes a kind of rote activity.
Our eyes often run inattentively along the page as we dutifully intone
the words while our attention is
distracted by a cascade of peripheral thoughts. Our minds can become preoccupied instead of comprehending the
ideas conveyed. Our thoughts may wander
to the review of events, emotions, fantasies and other distractions that percolate
subversively through the interstices of our brains. Right now, please pay attention! Read
these words alertly and with an open mind. Evaluate the logic of the observations
herein, and feel free to disagree -- but only after giving them fair
consideration. Think clearly and be skeptical, because critical thinking
can help reveal misrepresentations and logical fallacies in the words and
actions of politicians -- and of mere philosophical pundits, as well. Remember the motto of the Enlightenment:
‘Sapere aude!’ --
Dare to know! -- Have the courage to use your own understanding!
These ideas are the culmination of many years of
evolving thought. The urgency of their motivation increased in the
aftermath of the traumatic terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, largely
because of my outrage at the hijacking of America by neoconservative ideologues
after the attacks. Additional
authoritarian impetuses will likely arise as the twenty-first century unfolds,
so bold steps must be taken to strengthen our Constitution and rules of law and
courts against attacks on our rights and freedoms.
All of the
sociopolitical observations in these writings have two primary concerns:
(1) that economic
and political initiatives often adversely affect workers, poor people and the
natural world, and are therefore harmful to the future well-being of the human
race; and,
(2) that it is
ethically wrong for our government to side primarily with the interests of
small privileged minorities, especially when such courses of action
detrimentally affect the common good.
Reckless and
relentless efforts are being made by those on the radical right and their
minions in government to shift tax obligations from rich people and
corporations to everyone below the upper classes, and to everyone in the
future. These misguided efforts are
unfair and foolishly myopic. And these
gambits are dangerous, because they intensify social status conflicts and
increase the risks of political instability and environmental calamities. Give us a break!
During my college
years, my closest friend and I enthusiastically saluted and embraced moments of
‘Instantaneous Lucidification’. We
recognized that enlightenment is elusive, but we also saw the value in
questioning authority and in doubting ‘certainties’. We liked this concept, which we had invented in a moment of
clarity and spontaneity and inspiration.
We realized that there are bigger picture perspectives and more accurate
and insightful ways of seeing the world.
This gave us hope that some sort of grand unified theory was somewhere
out there awaiting to be elucidated.
Perhaps it is now coming together!
I
attended one of America’s great universities in the late 1960’s and early
1970’s. Intellectual ferment was
brewing back in those days, along with idealistic peace and love movements and
anti-war protests and social activism. Peace
advocacy actually became a dangerous position, and it was investigated by the
FBI. Perhaps this is why John Lennon
was hounded by authorities trying to deport him, as revealed in the excellent documentary
film, The U.S. vs. John Lennon.
John
Lennon imagined all the people living life in peace. Recognizing the danger in advocating peace to war advocates, he
wrote the lyrics to The Ballad of John
and Yoko:
 The way things are going
They’re gonna crucify me. 
When I was in my
twenties, I spent three years traveling around Europe and North Africa and ‘across
Asia on the cheap’ and around the South Pacific and later the North Pacific. I hiked more than a thousand miles and read
hundreds of books during this time, and I was exposed to many different
cultures and attitudes and perspectives and broadening experiences. Having spent so much time traveling, I
imagined that I was emulating Plato, who had spent twelve years traveling the
world, “imbibing wisdom from every source”.
Plato had embarked
on his extensive travels at a propitious time.
He had been affiliated with the aristocracy and therefore represented a threat
to the democratic Establishment at that time in his native Greece. Athens was ruled in that era alternately by either
elite oligarchs or democratic majorities, and neither form of rule was
ideal. The oligarchs had their own
selfish interests in mind, so when they were in power they went to terrible
lengths to defend the advantages of the few against the majority of ordinary
people. Plato regarded democracy as no
better, because the people sometimes killed the wealthy in violent revolutions,
and they were easily swayed by the emotional and deceptive rhetoric of
ambitious politicians, and this resulted in disastrous wars and numerous atrocities and terrible injustices.
Things aren’t all that different today, despite revolutionary changes in
technology and communications and industrialization and demographics. This is because human nature doesn’t change,
so we are still mired in politics that give us forms of governance that are far
from ideal. Plato advocated letting ‘philosopher
kings’ rule. Unfortunately, benevolent Philosopher
Kings are hard to find! And they would
probably never get elected to office, lost in the miasma of election politics
and fund-raising and greedy partisanship.
There is an interesting parallel here to Christian prophesy: many religious believers just can’t wait for
Jesus to come back, but ‘by God’ Jesus would be ignored or laughed out of town
for his simplistic moral teachings about the poor and the dispossessed. He would probably be homeless, and rather
than being recognized for his humanistic values, he would no doubt be
incarcerated for his challenges to authority.
The need for transformation in our societies is growing greater every day
as our materialistic focus and myopic willingness to plunder and destroy the
natural world is causing increasingly adverse circumstances. Young people, unite! Remember the words of Thomas Jefferson, who
opined:
“I believe that the people, when properly
armed with the facts, will come to the
right conclusion.”
I propose that college
courses be designed around the Earth Manifesto and dedicated to studying the
ideas it contains.
Chapter
#32 – Arguments Against Maintaining the Status Quo.
The European Renaissance of the fourteenth to
seventeenth centuries A.D. achieved its greatness by embracing freedom of
thought and by rejecting the inherently puritan and tyrannical aspects of the
Dark Ages and monotheistic religions.
Fluid concepts of divinity helped spark important triumphs of logic and
science. This state of affairs was
accompanied by advances in technological innovation and artistic creativity and
the achievement of a certain measure of democratic government. Similar influences occurred in ancient Greek
civilization. And they have definitely
pertained in the last 200 years in Western civilization.
In modern times, the challenges facing humanity are
urgent and more consequential on a global basis than ever before. Yet die-hard evangelism and recklessly
reactionary ideologies are trying to set back the clock by asserting stronger
control over people’s actions and thoughts.
A new renaissance can be achieved only by rebuking and rejecting this
trend. We must instead embrace more
progressive thinking, and broad-mindedness, and far-sighted perspective, and a
continuity of fair-minded resolve.
Intelligent action is needed. We must reject myopic and regressive
thinking that perversely accepts inequality, injustice, dogmatic belief, unfair
special privileges, fiscal irresponsibility, authoritarianism,
closed-mindedness, discriminatory bigotry, and harsh punishment. We should seek enlightenment, or at least
common sense, and we must once again reject a Dark-Age-like domination of ideas
by demagogues and monomaniacs.
These are some of the many truths that are quite
inconvenient to authority figures and the powers-that-be in our societies. Adaptive change is needed, rather than the
ossification of our institutions. We
cannot allow decisions to be made by entrenched and change-resistant corporations,
or by corrupt government bureaucracies.
We cannot allow the greater good to be inexorably harmed by social
conservatism, traditionalism, manipulative leaders, reactionary politicians,
and religious fundamentalists who are obsessed with power and control.
“Family values” is a slogan that has been used by
the conservative movement as catchwords to gain support and control. But true family values are being hurt by the
self-serving agenda of the right wing.
Women and children are very important parts of families, yet their
interests are being served pathetically poorly by neoconservative economic,
social, fiscal and environmental policies.
John Fowles puts it forcefully and succinctly in his
1970 book, The Aristos:
“In a world in which many societies and racial blocs are on the verge of
growing so large that they will have to exterminate one another in order to
survive, and in which the means rapidly to effect such an extermination are at
hand, conservatism, the philosophy of unrestricted free enterprise, of self, of
preserving the status quo, is obviously the wrong and dangerous one.”
When we see the
human race wasting, damaging, depleting and polluting rivers and oceans and
wild lands and temperate forests and rainforests, we must take steps to remedy
this trend. At the same time, when we
understand that the world’s resources are being converted to cash, with enormous
sums of money being borrowed from the future to help stimulate the achievement
of this dubious goal, we must demand policies that discourage this irrational
and unwise state of affairs.
Economics and politics profoundly affect the lives
of people everywhere. I repeat the
words of the late Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, who believed that
politics should be about more than power, money, and winning at any cost:
“Politics is about the improvement of people’s lives. It’s about
advancing the cause of peace and justice in our country and in the world.”
Business-as-usual practices and their supporting
ideological dogmas remain the strongest determinants of economic and political
policies. Stubborn adherence to these doctrines puts us at an ever-larger
risk of failing to adapt to rapid changes in our societies and in global
demographics, technological innovations, and environmental impacts.
Social morality, cultural norms, mores and urges to
belong and to conform influence human affairs in many ways. Strong counter-urges, on the other hand,
motivate people to conflict with the status quo in individualistic
self-expression. Whether bohemian or traditionalist,
radical or reactionary, no matter what, it is time for all of us to come
together and boldly speak out against all forms of shortsightedness and
oppression.
A friend of mine, a
smart 14-year-old girl, participated in the People to People Student Ambassador
Programs, which are a part of an international education program started by
President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956.
She said that she wants “to show people in other countries that everyone
in America is not all about war and oil, and that kids all around the world are
actually the same in a lot of ways.” Similar
to the volunteer Peace Corps program that works with local communities in many
countries around the world, the People to People Student Ambassador Programs
were created to help bring about positive interactions with other people
abroad, and to improve understanding and the prospects for world peace. Bravo for such undertakings, and for those
who participate in them!
Chapter
#33 – Endangering the Tree of Life.
On a clear day, you can easily see the Farallon
Islands from Mount Tamalpais in Northern California’s Marin County, and from
the hills of Point Reyes National Seashore. Wildlife enthusiasts on a
whale-watching expedition in 1997 witnessed an attack by a killer whale just
south of the Farallons in which a great white shark was lifted right out of the
water. It was an awesome display of the living world’s mysterious,
beautiful, and daunting natural order.
This is one example of the wondrous and dynamic
balance that exists in the living systems of our extraordinary home
planet. All forms of life exist in a fragile dance of survival. Everything
eats everything else with a seemingly pitiless and almost exuberant ferocity. But life is quite resilient. Human beings are upsetting this marvelous
balance of nature with our unthinking consumerism and correlated propensities
to hunt wildlife, clear-cut forests, over-harvest biotic resources, destroy
habitats, introduce invasive species to places they are not native, pollute and
degrade the land and rivers and seas, and emit enormous quantities of greenhouse
gases into the atmosphere. We do these
things intentionally as well as inadvertently, almost as a matter of habit and
compulsion.
Many kinds of large terrestrial mammals lived in
North America 13,000 years ago, including elephant-like mastodons, woolly
mammoths, giant camels, dire wolves, American cheetahs, saber-toothed tigers, a stately deer
called the stag-moose, and five species of ground sloths, some of which were as
big as modern elephants. There were beavers the
size of today's black bears. Human beings
arrived around that time, probably by land or by sea from Siberia, and their hunting
was almost certainly a significant factor in driving these large mammals to
extinction. Some scientists argue that
introduced diseases may have played a bigger role, as they did in the
decimation of native populations of human beings when European conquerors
arrived in previously isolated places like Mexico, South America, North
America, Australia and the islands of the Pacific.
In more modern times, millions of American bison
were slaughtered in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, driving the
species to the verge of extinction. Huge
flocks of passenger pigeons and many other species were completely wiped out. The provocative book, The World Without Us contains interesting insights into this topic
in Chapter 5, ‘The Lost Menagerie’.
Our species has understood the role we have played in
causing extinctions only since the late seventeenth century, when the large
flightless Dodo bird was wiped out on its native island of Mauritius in the
Indian Ocean, as lucidly described in David Quammen’s book, The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in
an Age of Extinctions.
The destruction of habitats is crowding out more and
more species. Our human impacts
increasingly harm biological diversity. This is an ominous
development. We are in a figurative sense sawing off the limbs of the
tree of life upon which we are ever-more precariously perched. We must
address this trend with the greatest possible sustained concern. To do
this we must protect public lands and entire ecosystems. We must work constructively with farmers and
ranchers and other private property owners to enforce the provisions of the
Endangered Species Act. Our own
well-being, as well as that of our descendents, may well depend upon this.
Richard Leakey, one of the world’s foremost paleoanthropologists,
said in a speech on February 22, 2006:
“There is an
inevitability to extinction, but there is no inevitability to the cause of
extinction being our own stupidity and failure to act.”
In a declaration
published on July 20, 2006 in the international weekly journal of science, Nature, a group of scientists wrote that
the Earth is on the verge of a biodiversity catastrophe. The scientists indicated that only a global
political initiative will be able to stem the loss. They declared: "There is growing recognition that the
diversity of life on earth, including the variety of genes, species and
ecosystems, is an irreplaceable natural heritage crucial to human well-being
and sustainable development. There is
also clear scientific evidence that we are on the verge of a major biodiversity
crisis. Virtually all aspects of
biodiversity are in steep decline, and a large number of populations and
species are likely to become extinct this century.”
The scientists in Nature further noted: "Despite this
evidence, biodiversity is still consistently undervalued and given inadequate
weight in both private and public decisions.
There is an urgent need to bridge the gap between science and policy by
creating an international body of experts on biodiversity."
Scientists estimate
that 12 per cent of all birds, 23 per cent of mammals, a quarter of conifers, a
third of amphibians and more than half of all palm trees are threatened with
imminent extinction. Climate change could
lead to somewhere between 15 and 37 percent of all species being wiped out by
the end of the century, the scientists say.
“Because biodiversity loss is essentially irreversible, it poses serious
threats to sustainable development and the quality of life of future
generations."
Studies of “island
biogeography” have revealed that a key variable in the number of species on any
given island is the territorial size of the island. It turns out that the number of species on an island tends to be
strongly correlated to its size, almost as if it curiously conforms to a
consistent mathematical formula.
Roughly speaking, the number of species doubles for every tenfold
increase in area. The formula also
works in reverse, so that if an island’s area containing wild habitats is
reduced by 90%, the number of species it can support drops by half.
The implications of
this information are scary. When we
contribute to the fragmentation of ecosystems, it leads directly to a drop in
the number of species that can survive in them. Some species are driven to extinction. This is one reason that the average rate of extinction of species
today exceeds the average over the long term by a factor of 1,000, and it could
increase in the next century to a rate exceeding normal by a factor of 10,000
times.
On the Geologic Time
Scale, 600 million years have elapsed since the end of the Precambrian
Era. The Paleozoic and Mesozoic and
Cenozoic Eras are demarcated by mass extinction events. Some say that the Cenozoic is giving way to
a new Anthropozoic Era because of the decimation of other species by human
activities. This is not something about
which to be proud!
Almost all species of life are nearly perfectly
adapted to the dynamic balance of conditions in the niches they occupy on
Earth. The recognition that the human race is causing extinctions, as
well as profound adverse changes to biological systems, can arguably be
considered the beginning of a necessary evolution toward making revolutionary changes
to staunch the damage we are causing. Let
us accept and study this recognition, and give it higher priority! We surely should embrace saner
behaviors.
New commitments must be made to finding ways to
mitigate the growing destructiveness of our activities. Positive potential
solutions abound, as summarized in detail in the “Environmental Priorities”
section of the Earth Manifesto’s Progressive
Agenda for a More Sane Humanity. We
must free ourselves to pursue these better ideas by marginalizing the powerful
forces arrayed against such understandings and commitments. Is this possible?
Chapter
#34 – A Focus on What Is Really Important.
Another of the insights that professor Jared Diamond
shares with readers is that social risk is heightened when decision-making
elites are insulated from the consequences of their actions. In other
words, in societies where the elites are insulated from suffering the
consequences of their decisions, they are more likely to pursue socially risky
and irresponsibly selfish short-term activities. This is highly negative
for the best long-term interests of society.
In the United States today, people who are rich and
powerful are insulated in many ways from the impacts they are having.
They live in gated communities, drink bottled water, have good access to health
care, send their children to private schools, and are better able than the poor
to avoid crime and many kinds of health risks. Money allows them to be
able to afford more security and opportunity and variety. Their children
have better opportunities in education and employment, and they are far less
likely to be forced to risk their lives in dangerous military occupations such
as those in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Dante Alighieri, who wrote his masterpiece The Divine Comedy about 700 years ago,
noted that “the hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of
great moral crises, maintain their neutrality.” Ha! To tell the truth, I don’t know a thing
about Hell. But there is little question that humanity is facing great
moral crises today. And these are NOT merely the gaudy sideshow of
controversial hot-button social issues like abstinence-only sex education and contraception,
abortion, gay rights, capital punishment, flag-waiving patriotis
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