WE CAN’T CREATE SUSTAINABLE PROSPERITY BY AN ACT OF WILL.
02/08/2021.
Dear Cop26 Delegate,
As you know the sheer importance of what is happing at the end of this inflationary period on Earth is going to define all of our futures.
Whether the forthcoming COP26 Summit results are brilliant or terrible if we are not found in harmony with the earth, is likely to make our age, a mythic one, to our distant or future descendants.
Our distant and future ancestors are what everyone on earth shares.
From this perspective.
No human goal today is more pressing than the search for sustainable prosperity.
But it must encompass all other purposes, including peace, justice, health, science, economic development, spiritual pursuits. Without them, all others will prove transient and illusory.
You will be attending a sobering up BY CLIMATE CHANGE SUMMIT that will hopefully show the scale of our problems and produce Actions that all in sundry can participate in.
You as a delegate must develop imagery that will bridge the incomprehensible gap between the forces of nature responsible for the very existence.
We are living today at a turning point for our species.
We can all be drowning in yelling about our differences, trying to control matters by fiat, or we can close our mouths and listen and try to follow some common sense.
This is a very special time that will never come again.
This summit is not the place, to blow your own trumpet, make worthless promises, but rather to agree on transparent actions on a global scale.
We all know that we need energy.
We all know that the production of energy must go green. Not in twenty years, not in ten years but right now.
So why not agree to the following.
Government non-repayable grants.
Enable every home to install solar panels and insulation.
We are at a pivotal moment in human history not because we still don’t really know where we come from, or if we are alone in the Universe, or do we really matter.
It is, of course, impossible to put into a sentence or a paragraph what is wrong with the world never mind the Universe.
But it’s possible to describe our world in a word. Beautiful and we humans occupy an extraordinary place in it.
The strange fact is that in this age of information when data is our currency of communication, most of us have no idea how to picture the world never mind the universe.
The last time the Western culture shared a coherent understanding of our world I would say, was away back in the middle ages, when Galileo discovered that we were not the center of the universe.
Now with climate change and the current Pandemic, it is as if we have just started to see the world in color, and that changes, not just what is far away, but what’s right here.
This discovery of the state of our plant challenges us to reframe everything and there is little point in learning a lot of science unless you can do something valuable in life with that knowledge.
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There is only one image of our world that shows us this.
The photo shows no countries on our planet, only landmass, oceans, and clouds.
Our endless preoccupation with nations and racial or ethical groups is completely misleading our intuitions.
This image shows our glorious plant in its true state without language in all its forms, cultural identification, religious beliefs, all are just tools, to shepherding ourselves successfully through the coming state of the world
This is going to require tremendous creativity, combined with more than a large dose of common sense, which unfortunately down the centuries and now is lacking in the collective management of our planet Earth.
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However, we live in a world where all information is freely available at the click of a mouse, so what has changed?
We’re seeing a lazy entitlement wash over the world where everyone feels as though they deserve what they want from their government the second they want it, without thought of repercussions or the rest of the population.
It seems like people don’t actually want democracy anymore, they want a dictator who agrees with them.
The sickest and most grotesque NEWS TOPPING THE CHART, dominating our attention and the news cycle, dividing and recruiting us into its ever more polarized camps, giving us a skewed view of how other people in the world really think, act, and live.
It seems like our new brave world is JUGED by a group of people that represents 0.01%, who take refuge in their own precious identity politics with us buying more and more into a worldview that is disconnected from cold data and hard facts?
The impact of the pandemic is showing despite loud warnings that continuing economic growth is incompatible with sustainability.
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So let’s take a look at the state of the world.
Even if we did stand on the moon it is a sad read and any solutions will not be found in religious beliefs or technology or in politics but in learning from history.
There have been over 250 major wars in the world since World War II, in which 23 million people have been killed., tens of millions made homeless, and countless millions injured and bereaved. Over 37 (or 42) million people have by killed by wars in the 20th century. Three times more people have been killed in wars in the last 90 years than in all the previous 500.
Over 35 major conflicts are going on in the world today.
There are approximately 30,000 nuclear warheads in the world today.
Current global military spending is approximately $800 billion per year; more than the total annual income of the poorest 45% of the global population.
Genocide and other mass murders killed more people in the 20th century than all wars combined.
33% of the world’s people live under authoritarian, non-democratic regimes. 35% of the world’s people live in countries in which basic political rights and civil liberties are denied.
1/3rd of the world’s labor force is unemployed or underemployed.
1 out of 6, children ages 5 to 17 worldwide are involved in child labor.
3 billion of the world’s people (one-half) live in ‘poverty.’
Women account for 70 percent of the world’s people who live in absolute poverty.
800 million people lack access to basic healthcare.
1.1 billion do not have safe drinking water. By 2025, at least 3.5 billion people, or nearly 2/3rd’s of the world’s population will face water scarcity.
870 million of the world’s adults are illiterate.
Over 100 million people live in slums.
The richest 1% of the world’s people earned as much income as the bottom 57%.
The wealth of the world’s 7.1 million millionaires ($27 trillion) equals the total combined annual income of the entire planet.
Poor countries (which contain 4/5th of the world’s people) pay the rich countries an estimated nine times more in debt repayments than they receive in aid.
Half of the forests that originally covered 46% of the Earth’s land surface are gone.
Between 10 and 20 percent of all species will be driven to extinction in the next 20 to 50 years.
60% of the world’s coral reefs, could be lost in the next 20-40 years.
More than 20 percent of the world’s known 10,000 freshwater fish species have become extinct.
Desertification and land degradation threaten nearly one-quarter of the land surface of the globe.
Global warming is expected to increase the Earth’s temperature by 3C (5.4F) in the next 100 years.
An estimated 40-80 million people will be forcibly evicted and displaced from their lands.
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The reality no matter how one looks at it, is that the old assumptions that provided the unifying ideas within our cultures are eroding because of our technological advancement, and although we are seeing what may prove to be the emergence of a new worldview consensus based on the Critical Theory it has not solidified its hold on society as yet.
With technology and Algorithms, our cultures have and are continuing to accept the idea that objective truth is inaccessible and that truth itself is, therefore, relative and personal, but how we conduct ourselves is just as important — even more important is how we do it sustainably and so far we have made a great job of it.
The world is now facing a collision of not just climate change but is colliding with finite resources in a much that the current economic growth could end or totally collapse in the not-so-distant future.
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But a free and functioning democracy demands a populace that can sustain discomfort, tolerate dissatisfaction, be charitable and forgiving of groups whose views stand in contrast to one’s own, and most importantly, that can remain unswayed in the face of some violent threat.
The words ” We Need” are only words. They should be replaced the words ” Action Now”
Why?
Because we also need to be clear in our own hearts and minds about the solution to the world’s problems. If we are to do anything we must break the alignment between theological advancement – climate change and pollution.
The world is at a crossroads as the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the global economy have combined with increasing polarization and highly charged elections.
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So what will we do?
Probably have a conference.
But if you could change the world, what would you do?
We live our entire lives as aspiring presidents, aspiring movie producers, aspiring artists, aspiring authors, aspiring human rights activists, aspiring world-renowned scientists, and aspiring thought leaders while we sit in front of our TV screens, walk around glued to Smartphones, or Ipads that fed us pictures of climate change, wars, the covid pandemic, racism, political/economical collapse.
All Encouraging us on one hand, to think that the world is more violent than it really is while on the other hand promoting the glamorous life of people that believe that they are better off than we are;
What I fear is that we’re seeing now is a loss of that ability to handle discomfort and dissatisfaction.
What I would do is help people think for themselves.
While governments introduce more and more taxes to pay for inequality/economic growth charities competing to raise funds to save almost everything, from adopting everything from a child to a fish or animal to a plant, in the real world.
Taxes form a key ingredient in the social contract between citizens and the economy but How taxes are raised and spent can determine a government’s very legitimacy.
Health programs:Military: Social Security:Interest on the national debt: Education programs: Food and agricultural benefits: Pensions. Government machinery.
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Our new world now needs solidarity more than ever to make the world a better place.
Presently in a year when the world is fighting a pandemic, the Olympics in Japan will once again show us what we are capable of in sport to bring our true authentic selves to every situation. ( See: Post – The Olympics games show be permanently hosted in Greece.)
It represents a true coming together not separation, in a true spirit of humanity.
Without this coming together there will be no new world but a world run by algorithms that will not treat us as equal.
But how can you take on the problems of the world when there’s so much to do already?
In science, we have been staggered by revelation after revelation that things are not what we previously thought them to be, and beneath each layer of reality we have unpeeled lies another. It is not hard to piece together all this information to comprehensively picture what the end times will look like.
If so, what are we to do about it?
The only way to beat the attention economy is to opt out of it.
As the growth models of countries cannot be sustained Countries need to overcome political hurdles to invest in infrastructure and human capital.
How?
One way is to publish the information about political capture so that the public can hold politicians to account for reforms.
Because the only way for human rights to persist is for everyone to collectively agree to accept that things don’t have to go their way 100% of the time.
Freedom can only exist when you are willing to tolerate views that oppose your own when you’re willing to give up some of your desires for the sake of a safe and healthy community when you’re willing to compromise and accept that sometimes things don’t go your way and that’s fine.
Finally, we must accept that world problems will always be with us.
The world has woken up to the need to curb emissions and invest in climate resilience. But we all need to move faster down this path, we now have less than 100 days to go until the UN climate summit, Cop26 arrives in Glasgow.
Five years on from the Paris Agreement, and with countless evidence that the climate crisis is worsening, the negotiations will focus on nationally determined contributions to stop the world from warming above 1.5 degrees. But as the countries confer with each other, it will be the people of the world who have the most to say: we need action, need more of it, and need it now.
They will not address nature and climate as one.
HOW CAN YOU GET INVOLVED?
We know that the production of energy is the biggest contributor to global warming.
If we want action not promises to reduce carbon emissions in twenty years in thirty years there is no reason that non-repayable grants could be made available to everyone to convert to green energy by installing solar panels.
So why not use the tools that are available to demand our governments to do so on
Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Emails to cop26@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
I am no scientist but it stands to reason if the magnetic north is moving the earth is rotating differently than in the previous hundredths of years.
As a result as with any spherical shape that rotates, it is exposing a slightly different surface, either for longer or shorter to any light shining on it such as the Sun causing a difference in temperature to the exposed portion of the sphere.
What is causing the magnetic north to shift?
Whatever is causing it the weight distribution on the earth has to be contributing.
Human-made materials are now equal weight to all life on Earth.
The mass of everything people have built and made, from concrete pavements and glass-and-metal skyscrapers to plastic bottles, clothes, and computers, is now roughly equal to the mass of living things on Earth and could surpass that this year, according to research published today in Nature.
The Earth weight: 5,972,000,000,000,000,000,000 Metric Tons.
Freshwater.
Every year we use a massive 4.3 trillion cubic meters of freshwater = 4,260,000,000,000 m3 / tons.
Concrete. After water the single most widely used material globally. It outweighs the combined mass of all living plants. China production of 2 billion tons alone is predicted to reach four times the 1990 level. 2 billion tonne quantities per year, by 2050, concrete use
Plastic. – 8.3 billion tons
The world produces a million plastic bottles a minute – many for water. That’s 500 billion in a year!
Asphalt. – 30% of the world is Land of which 2% is urban which is covered let’s say to the extent of 10%. Therefore 30%x2%x10% = 0.06% of the world covered in Asphalt.
Sand. – 15 billion tonnes.
Crude Oil. – Nearly 100 million barrels per day. The average barrel of domestic crude oil weighs 302.82 pounds. You do the maths this time.
The mass of earth’s life is about 1.1 trillion metric tons.
In 2016, a team of scientists estimated the weight of the “technosphere”—including not just wholly artificial buildings and products, but also the approximate weight of the land and seafloor that we’ve excavated, modified, or trawled to build cities, plant crops, raise livestock, and catch fish.
They came up with a figure of 30 trillion tons.
Now add, for example, ( The World Steel Association estimates that for every ton of steel we produce) almost two tons of CO2 are added to the atmosphere.
Then add on all the rest of Cardon produced and the amount the whole human race emits every year is 35 billion roughly.
It is no wonder the magnet north has shifted.
To finish I invite any environmental to tell me that I am wrong.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
We live in an age in which intersecting crises are being lifted to a global scale, with unseen levels of inequality, environmental degradation, and climate destabilization, as well as new surges in populism, conflict, economic uncertainty, and mounting public health threats.
All are crises that are slowly tipping the balance, questioning our business-as-usual economic model of the past decades, and requiring us to rethink our next steps.
In the next few months, we will once again witness a gathering of verbal diarrhea in Scotland all promising to go green.
There is no doubting in the last few decades that we humans have achieved advances away beyond what our ancestors would have believed possible. The irony is that to survive we have to become something very different from what we are.
Many optimists believe that technology can transform society and solve climate change.
To a great extent, this is probably true no more so than in the field of medician.
Take the discovery by Alexander Fleming in 1928 of Penicillin.
Before its discovery, we were dying thirty years early than we do today.
His discovery was down to an accidental piece of bacteria landing on one of his Petri dishes which took another ten years to develop into a drug to save lives.
Today with human intelligence and machine learning we can produce drugs in a matter of months.
The way forward to reducing CO2 emissions is not a by-pass lane it is by using the technologies that already exist.
It’s time to cut out the verbal and bull shit and make these technologies affordable to all.
Yes, the world today is in a dire state and a new kind of social and ecological environment needs to be created with green energy the price of which is toppling daily.
Comparing global problems involves lots of uncertainty and difficult judgment calls, but every problem is solvable if we devote resources to building a just world and not guns.
THE WORLD RUNS ON ELECTRICITY.
SO IF WE WANT A GREEN FUTURE NON-REPAYABLE GRANTS TO CONVERT FROM FOSSIL FUELS GENERATED ELECTRIC TO ENERGY BY NON-POLLUTING RENEWABLE MATERIALS – WIND – SUN- WATER- GEOTHERMAL – HYDROGEN.
SUCH A MOVE WOULD CREATE MILLIONS OF JOBS AND COULD BE FUNDED BY PLACING A WORLD AID COMMISSION OF 0.05% ON ALL ACTIVITIES THAT HAVE PROFIT FOR-PROFIT SAKE AT THEIR HEART. ( See previous posts)
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We are now presented with two very different futures.
The last generation that can stop devastating climate change. We have the knowledge and the tools – we just need politicians to lead the way.
or
We fail to meet climate mitigation goals.
For certain, either outcome will not be easy or cheap and it is happing faster than we wish to acknowledge.
The problem is the two outcomes are profoundly interlocked with lots of uncertainty.
HOWEVER, UNLIKE THE CURRENT PANDEMIC CLIMATE CHANGE WON’T JUST DISAPPEAR IT WILL REQUIRE A NEW MEANING OF LIFE.
To recognize that we are entering a new world with opportunities and perspectives is an enormous challenge not because of climate change but because of the current inequalities existing on the Planet.
The choice we are now confronted with is one we will have to make over and over again as we transition to a more resilient, zero-carbon, just, and healthier future.
The question is who is going to pay for the transition.
New transformative technologies may promise a radically better future but also pose catastrophic risks.
THERE IS LITTLE POINT IN REDUCING GLOBAL TEMPERATURES IF BY THE TIME IT HAS STABILIZED HALF OF THE WORLDS POPULATION HAS BEEN DESTABILIZED OR DISPLACED.
A lack of global emphasis on foreign aid, conflict, and political factors have kept poverty as a driving factor of Inequality.
To adjust to the coming new kind of social and ecological environment, how do we frame either of the above outcomes constructively.
We will have to relearn the world to do so.
We have to become more aware of the future of our planet and our future and the legacy of the human species to start a serious battle to make up for the damages.
At the moment it is difficult to know the changes in the ecosystems that surround us not to mention the social uncertainty to come.
The fundamental economic problem is related to the issue of scarcity.
Society is mostly dominated by people wishing to consume more goods and services that are available.
One in nine people in the world go hungry each day and suffer from nutritional deficiencies as a result.
Currently, 1 in 9 people lack access to clean water across the world.
The problem is not that we aren’t producing enough food, but rather that people lack access to food. Many people do not have enough money to purchase food and cannot grow their own.
To try to work out which global problems are most pressing and make progress on foundational questions about how best to address them is impossible unless we address the fundamental problem.
To recognize that scarcity will drive almost everything.
To recognize a sense of shared humanity.
To recognize that approximately 600 million children are not mastering basic mathematics and literacy while at school.
To recognize that is not just climate change that treating the world but artificial intelligence and the way we are using it.
Using only the interaction of its embedded sensors, computer programming, and algorithms in the human environment and ecosystem — is becoming a reality that cannot be ignored anymore.
Because building autonomous weapons systems are one thing but using them in algorithmic warfare with other nations and against other humans is another.
They will in no uncertain terms alter the very fundamentals of security and the future of humanity and peace.
As global temperatures continue to rise, technology improves and the world economy grows, it gets easier to cause destruction on an ever-larger scale with the weaponizing of artificial intelligence both military-wise and as a social tool.
The Weaponization Of Artificial Intelligence
The development of autonomous weapons system (AWS) is progressing rapidly, and this increase in the weaponization of artificial intelligence seems to have become a highly destabilizing development. It brings complex security challenges for not only each nation’s decision-makers but also for the future of humanity.
There are always unforeseen consequences when new technology is introduced. Those unintended outcomes of artificial intelligence will likely challenge us all.
AI algorithms must be built to align with the overarching goals of humans.
As more and more data is collected about every single minute of every person’s day, our privacy gets compromised.
Look at what is happing in China with its social credit system, it could devolve into social oppression.
Unless you choose to live remotely and never plan to interact with the modern world, your life will be significantly impacted by artificial intelligence.
The transformative impact of artificial intelligence on our society will have far-reaching economic, legal, political, and regulatory implications that we need to be discussing and preparing for.
Sure, it can transform our lives for the better.
In fact, people have gotten used to depending on AI for almost everything and can’t imagine not having these technological advancements as part of their life. Because many processes and applications are getting automated, people are getting addicted to these kinds of inventions which can be an issue for future generations to come.
Societies will face further challenges in directing and investing in technologies that benefit humanity instead of destroying it or intruding on basic human rights of privacy and freedom of access to information.
In the future, predictive analytics and artificial intelligence will play an even more fundamental role in content creation that will affect our wallets, health, safety, and lives.
The mistake we are making is to think that this situation is the only future.
That it is impossible to regulate AI because of the rate of AI change entails.
This is not true as it is possible to Audit all AI technology and algorithms to ensure that comply with human values and to make their programs totally transparent.
Why is the above urgent?
Because combined with climate change we are faced with and a transactional wealth of a new currency of unknowable value called personal data inequality will ravage the planet we all live in and on.
These are not some science fiction movie scenarios the current Pandemic is revealing a much more tragic and fragile world that requires more than trust.
The United Nations (UN) currently lists 22 “Global Issues”.
These correspond with the most important issues of our time and are known as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).
Here is a few of them.
FOOD SECURITY.
HEALTH ISSUES.
EDUCATION.
GENDER EQUALITY.
AFRICA.
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES/ POLLUTION.
OCEAN CONSERVATION.
WATER SCARCITY.
GLOBAL ISSUES THAT REQUIRE POLICY SOLUTIONS.
This is not intended to be an exhaustive list. Rather, it serves as an overview of some of the major issues all global citizens should be aware of.
Artificial intelligence is not on the list.
Because the biggest challenge facing the planet needs every solution possible including technology like artificial intelligence (AI).
But AI is not a silver bullet it can only unlock new insights, pinpointing those responsible for it.
The current environmental issues pose so many problems to industry and society that not enough action has been taken to stop turning Climate change into a product.
My goal in this blog is not to convince people climate change is real, or that AI is destroying society it’s to get people who do believe that climate change is real and that Algorithms for profit’s sake are plundering the world to do more to affect change.
What can be done by any of us against the might of Capitalism that will have any effect?
There is only one weapon available to us all and that is our buying power.
If we use our collective buying power you will then see not just governments but global corporations change their tune from profit to sustainability.
We decide whether we want to look at the world in one way or another, always making tradeoffs.
As Harvey Sacks observed.
” If only we introduced some fantastic new communication machine the world will be transformed”
” But the best and brightest devices must be accommodated within existing practices and assumptions in a world that has whatever organization it already has”
All are under threat because all are happening at what scientists estimate to be about 1,000 times the normal pace and are yet to be quantified.
All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
I don’t think people realize how little time we have left.
We are in a state of planetary emergency in more ways than one but climate change is the one we should all be addressing if we want to live our lives.
It is obvious why.
It is not an abstract threat already causing wars, mass migration, the extinction of species, plants, scarcity of fresh water, quality air, you name it and it will be affected by a raft of new diseases.
A groundswell of demand for green energy can push a behavior, product, or technology from the fringe and into the mainstream but at what cost to the health of the earth.
While the term “tipping point” is applied quite loosely regarding the political and societal change, it is clear that a number of them will need to be crossed – and quickly – to avoid toppling those in the Earth system.
These social tipping interventions comprise removing fossil-fuel subsidies and incentivizing decentralized energy generation, building carbon-neutral cities, divesting from assets linked to fossil fuels, revealing the moral implications of fossil fuels, strengthening climate education and engagement, and disclosing greenhouse gas emissions information.
Earth’s climate will not respond to forcing in a smooth and gradual way.
It will respond in sharp jumps which involve large-scale reorganization of Earth’s system.
Along with the climate, I think we also need to be looking at tipping points in human, social and technological systems.
There are, for example, many different views on how the term should be defined and used.
Here is my definition. A transition to a new state at a rate determined by the climate system itself and faster than the cause.
And then there’s another definition that actually says there needs to be a positive feedback mechanism associated with the element. So that means there is something that’s self-reinforcing and then that could lead to irreversible changes as well.
Both definitions point to a system that would not revert to its original state even if the forcing lessens or reverses. In other words, it stays in its changed state for some considerable time, or possibly even permanently. It is subsequently difficult, if not impossible, for the system to revert to its previous state.
A glance at the news media on any given week will likely highlight all sorts of climate change impacts. We are on the precipice of climate system tipping points beyond which there is no redemption.
Ecological systems are deeply intertwined.
The interactions among the elements of our global climate system mean a substantial change in one will affect others.
Powered by heat energy from the sun, the atmosphere, oceans, ice sheets, living organisms like forests, and the soils all affect, to a greater or lesser extent, the movement of that heat around the Earth’s surface.
Tipping points we thought might happen well into the future are already underway.
Global climate change has already had observable effects on the environment.
For example, the slow collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet is in progress.
Arctic warming and melting of Greenland’s ice sheet are driving freshwater into the North Atlantic, which is contributed to a recent 15 percent slowdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) in the Atlantic Ocean.
Extensive thawing of permafrost is already happing with the potential to realize billions of tons of methane gas.
There is more heat-absorbing open water and 40 percent less reflective ice so we’ll reach 1.5 C in one or two decades.
Even if countries act on their Paris climate agreement pledges to reduce emissions, warming will still rise more than 3 degrees C (5.4 degrees F).
It’s important to know that global temperatures aren’t driven by human emissions of carbon alone.
The risk of those cascading into an irreversible global tipping point with tremendous impacts on human civilization warrants a declaration of a planetary climate emergency.
To err on the side of danger is not a responsible option. It is significantly cheaper to prevent additional global warming than it is to face its impacts.
We need to change our approach to the climate problem because our efforts to reach global targets have been “utterly inadequate”
No amount of economic cost-benefit analysis is going to help us now that we face an existential threat to civilization. The reality is that the cumulative impact of these changes will cause fundamental parts of the Earth system to change dramatically and irreversibly.
While climate records are being routinely broken, tipping points are not part of any economic analysis of climate policies it is widely assumed to mean that we are now committed to suffering these tipping events.
The time for talking is over and no matter what we do there has to be a radical change to our behavior.
Climate change will not be stoped by technology unless we distribute both the cost and benefits by allocating 0.05% of profit for profit’s sake in order to distribute wealth by way of nonrepayable grants to all activities that will mitigate its effects. ( See previous posts )
Only a fraction of articles and papers in economics journals discuss climate change.
( Seven minute read)
There have been trillions and trillions of words spoken, written , and not heard about climate change.
I don’t know about you but I am tired of hearing that there is going to be another summit on climate change.
There have been proposed changes in absolute emissions that for all intensive purposes are a joke.
We all know that the capitalist world has little interest in reversing or addressing climate change as any action to do so is also politically tarnished by national self interested.
The whole business of a climate crises is much larger conversation than reducing CO2 emissions on HP of country by country.
The whole problem must be reframed. Words matter.
Climate change is not the problem. It is not the threat to Earth.
Take note: I didn’t say it was a threat to Earth. Because it’s not. It is only a threat to the things that live here — and that’s how we need to frame it
Climate change prevention must become the effort to “Save The Humans.”The idea of saving humans isn’t tough to grasp.
We also all know that Climate change is in fact the result of an world economic system that has been built for a few to extract every precious value out of this planet for the sake of profit – from natural resources to the fruits of human labour.
It is this system that has created climate change and if not changed it not pandemics that will create massive global migration and wars.
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To survive the fourth industrial technical revolution which is the next phase of our human existence we will need to restructure our social and economical systems and repair the earth.
Environmentalists should appeal to people’s enlightened self interests because we don’t think we need saving.
This is where we start.
So as I have said words matter.
For example there is little point in John Kerry going to China to talk about climate while accusing Chinees of genocide.
Because the Chinees will say so what you the USA exterminate the Indians.
When in fact they should be talking about the world climate as a reality and our cities and communities are not prepared only to make profit off people who will have to migrate.
We must all have the courage to admit we’ve taken too much.
To open our eyes to the fact that the entire world is paying a price for the privilege and the comfort of just a few people on the planet.
It’s time for us to make society – wide changes to a system that incentivise consumption to the point of global imbalance. Our social, political and economic systems of extraction must be transformed into a systems that regenerate the earth and advance human liberty globally.
It is arrogance to think that technology will save us and it is ego to think that we can continue this unjust and extractive approach to living on the planet and survive.
We must establish a new social attitude with technology by passing laws that make it and its use transparent and tax all profit seeking algorithms before all income disappears into the cloud.
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Earth you might like to think belongs to all of us, but the assertion that climate activists are ” Saving the Planet,” or even “saving life on Earth ” is scientifically baseless.
The majority of humans will only see a small amount of Earth in their lifetime, and only a fortunate few will ever look through the window of a spacecraft at Earth’s true vastness
As much as we may think otherwise, we are profoundly, astronomically insignificant.
Earth is a big concept to grasp but it not difficult to grasp that most of the CO2 emissions come from CHINA, USA, INDIA, RUSSIA, AND JAPAN.
It’s difficult for humans to find the motivation to save something that they don’t truly comprehend but the threat of climate change is looming. It is a threat to all species.
When world leaders sit round the table to try and tackle what has become possibly the greatest moral crisis of my generation they are powerless to make any solution’s work without financial support – no country wants to carry the can or implement tax rises – levies etc. Instead they introduced carbon credits that turned CO2 emission into a product to trade on the stock market.
The underlying theory OF CARBON CREDITS is simple.
If one party can’t stop emitting CO2, it can ask another to emit less so that, even as the first carries on producing CO2, the total amount of carbon in the atmosphere is reduced.
But climate change is not just an environmental problem, it is a human rights issue. We are already calling people refugees when they are displaced by climate disaster even when they don’t cross international borders.
Despite this, the idea of ensuring justice between those generations responsible for the effects of climate change and those who will have to pay the heaviest price for it is not mentioned.
So we must stop borrowing from the future and act now
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Climate change or whatever it is called next year is something we all better get used to adapting to.
Instead of taking action on this problem what are we doing?
We are fighting wars all over the world, planning the next Olympic games, carbon-trading, bailing-out the bankers, worshiping consumerism, developing more weapons, flying, planning the next election.
In other words: business as usual.
There is no doubt whatever that the world is warming up – the evidence is there for all to see – a BIG problem that is not going away, which has no respect for empty promises, targets and resolutions.
It is, with the greatest respect, totally useless to produce such stupid arguments as “the rich western countries have had their turn at exploiting the world’s resources and now it is our turn”.
Let us remember that global warming is not the only serious problem. In the long term depletion of minerals of food, oil, freshwater and other essentials is equally critical. The fact is that you cannot blame the past.
Unfortunately Politicians have hijacked “Global Warming” which is now a massive revenue generator for Governments.
Greed rules our modern world so it must be the solution.
There is no reason with the technology we have not to place a world aid commission of 0.05% on all activities that are
Profit for profit sake.
This would spread the cost fairly across the world, create a preputial fund out of which nonrepayable grants could be given to all projects to reverse climate change. ( See previous posts)
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
We are coming up to another god-wobbling Climate Change gathering in Scotland which by any account will be A ZOME GATHERING because of COVID-19 on the 1 – 12 November 2021.
This one is the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26).
A two-week showcase as to why the world is unable to come together to tackle the problems of climate change. Remember that these conferences started in the 90th.
This one is likely to include demonstrations of virtual reality technology; showcasing innovation helping to tackle global climate change and probably like the others will archive little or nothing.
Why?
Because they produce nonbinding promises without addressing the main problem of how or who is going to finance the changes needed.
We live in an age in which intersecting crises are being lifted to a global scale, with unseen levels of inequality, environmental degradation, and climate destabilization, as well as new surges in populism, conflict, economic uncertainty, and mounting public health threats.
The coronavirus pandemic may lead to a deeper understanding of the ties that bind us on a global scale., and there are, to a certain degree, parallels that can be drawn between the current COVID-19 pandemic and some of the other contemporary crises our world is facing. All require a global-to-local response and long-term thinking.
All need to be guided by science and need to protect the most vulnerable among us, and all require the political will to make fundamental changes when faced with existential risks. They all need Money.
It’s rational for an individual country not to drastically reduce greenhouse gases, given most economies are heavily based on energy resources that emit them. Yet, if all nations act that way — indeed, that’s what’s happening — most countries would eventually be worse off due to the cumulative impacts of all our emissions, not to mention the hoarding of covid-19 vaccines.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that Covid -19 is real and that Climate Change will wreak havoc on the planet. BOTH ARE ALREADY DOING SO.
Covid-19 has brought the entire world economy to its knees in a matter of weeks during a pandemic that scientists warned us would come.
While enacting policies today to cut greenhouse gas emissions won’t have a discernible impact on global warming for decades, if not centuries. That’s because we have already locked in significant warming due to our historical emissions. Unlike other policies, climate change is cumulative. The longer we wait to address it, the bigger the problem it becomes and the harder it gets to solve, fueling a feedback loop that makes solutions ever more difficult.
Although global emissions were not as high as last year, they still amounted to about 39 billion tonnes of CO2. Covid-19 has changed this narrative to one that involves avoiding a rebound in emissions.
The bottom line: Big climate policy would have to offer concrete benefits outside of its impact on emissions — think jobs or energy security — to overcome this time disconnect.
The bottom line: We are the first generation of humans to start paying the price for a warmer world, and we are also the first to face costs as we try to address it.
We’re paying now and later.
Cost No. 1: Responding to flooding, heatwaves, and other extreme weather that climate change is often making worse.
Cost No. 2: Enacting policies to reduce emissions, which would come in the form of higher fossil-fuel costs today.
Cost No. 3 will continue for decades, if not centuries, even in addition to Cost No. 2.
This is because of the aforementioned time disconnect: the amount of warming locked in already has also locked in associated costs — which will come in the form of not just money, but also health, lives, and nature losses.
This just might be the world’s greatest collective action problem, which is when rational, self-interested decisions of individuals make the circumstances of the group worse, and vice versa
Imagine getting taxed before you put that money into your fund and then not living long enough to reap the payoffs of your fund. That’s happening with climate change, on a global scale.
Even though climate change presents a slower, more long-term health threat, an equally dramatic and sustained shift in behavior will be needed to prevent irreversible damage.
When we eventually overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, we can hopefully hold on to that sense of shared humanity in order to rebuild our social and economic systems to make them better, more resilient, and compassionate
Joe Biden’s climate plan promises net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Biden would be pushing 110 years old when he’d have to check (likely from the afterlife) on how his policy did. I’ll be 65. How old will you be?
Essentially all organisms use weather cues to guide their lives, and when these change and fracture everyone takes a hit.
As I have said in previous posts there is only one way to finance the changes.
That is by making a profit for profit sake pay, by placing a World Aid Commission of 0.05% on all activities that are not sustainable. ( See previous posts.)
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
As we floundering around in the midst of COMPOUNDING PANDEMICS that are far from over, the future is not here yet.
With our planet is crying out, our political leaders are like fish out of water, apart from the obvious, it seems that we have lost the plot. Compounded by ignorance, short term self-interest, the pursuit of wealth, and political interests, any actions that are vital for survival are stymieing by the lack of conciliation.
Climate Change, Biodiversity, Artificial Intelligence, Poverty and Inequality, Population all on the top of the list. All of them are presenting overwhelming challenges ahead.
There is no way of sugar-coating any of these threats, they have no borders.
We are brought up with other people’s perceptions of life.
Not until we develop enough, intellectually, can we change those perceptions, and even then it can be difficult to change our perceptions about the world until we start to really question it.
Anything else is a blatant lie.
With millions of dead and millions more death to come, we can only prevent any one of them from coming to fruition if we take all of them especially the environmental threat seriously.
With large swaths of people still dealing with entrenched inequalities, it is no wonder we are unable to see the above threats as reality.
If there was ever a time to join together it is now.
We all have an identity and cultural distinctiveness, but if we bound together in a common cause, we could accomplish spectacular things.
To do this we must first start to see ourselves as HUMAN BEINGS, and the planet earth as HOME, not our individual countries.
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I am sure you will agree that the world order is destined to change and it’s urgent that humanity gets a way to preserve what’s left on Earth.
In this regard, technology is not a destiny jobs will be for robots and life for people.
The problem is who is the owner of the robots and how do we ensure that we all benefit.
At the moment there are millions wasting their time in useless jobs to scratch a living. Rest assured that capitalism will come up with millions of more useless jobs.
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Unfortunately, we are not able to act as one, and even if we could there would be no point in becoming mindless drones with no culture.
There would be no point in living because it’ would be all just be one culture with no distinct forms.
The raw reality exposed by the current pandemic is that everyone is only just a human unable to act as one due to greed-driven by unregulated social media and profit-seeking algorithms.
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The big question is what can be done?
SOLUTIONS WITHOUT FUNDING, ABOUND ON TED TALKS.
We know that poverty is one of the main driving forces when it comes to any long term perspective to protecting the earth.
Poverty is not due to a lack of knowledge. POVERTY IS CREATED BY SCARCITY, not a personality defect as Maggie Thatcher once said.
As George Orwell said “Poverty annihilates the Future “
You would think by now we would have figured out the reasons for its existence.
ALMOST EVERYTHING NEEDED FOR LIFE IS MADE SCARCE BY APPLYING CAPITALIST PROFIT, TURNING ALMOST EVERYTHING INTO A PRODUCT TO BE TRADED.
SO WHEN ONE IS UNABLE TO ACQUIRE WHAT IS NEEDED DUE TO THE LACK OF CASH YOU HAVE POVERTY. If we genuinely ask why do the poor make so many bad decisions THIS IS THE MAIN REASON.
Till now we have ignored the symptoms of poverty to our cost, and now to the chilling silence of Earth protests, we find ourselves unable to enjoy the Earth we live on.
To date, we have created World organizations without the power of funding that vents verbal warnings, that no one takes heed of unless it is in their own interest to do so
Take Co2 admissions. We continue to pump Co2 into our shared atmosphere. (Earth isn’t the only planet in our solar system with an atmosphere, it is the only one in which we humans can survive.)
It is blatantly obvious that we are not able through our global conversation whether they are online or not due to profit-taking we are not able to establish any solidarity.
A lot of religious people mentioned that there is a leader who is going to save this world and stands for oppressed, poor, and homeless people.
While we are waiting we need to be more creative in our imagination if we want to match the relentless progression of biodiversity loss, climate change, and the other problems facing us all that are going to drive the Scarcity market.
A basic income is an idea that has and is being kicked from pillar to post for years.
Free money for everybody.
Not the welfare state but AN INCOME FOR ALL – UNCONDITIONAL YOU DO WHAT YOU WANT WITH IT.
Where will the cash come from?
( See previous posts. A World Commission of 0.05%)
Of course, no one or anybody is going to take on or take down the holy grail of profit for profit’s sake.
After all, we live in societies that have allowed themselves to be subsumed by greed with ethics still being sacrificed on the altar of turnover and growth at all costs- GDP.
What is truly galling though is how the rot persists, where people cannot see the direct causal link, to overconsumption prompted by the advertising industries.
Profit is not intrinsically bad, but profit for profit’s sake alone is not just bad it’s unimaginably damaging.
Profit has to be extracted in such a way that every partner in the supply chain profits; from the workers to the shareholders, from the local community through to the nation itself.
That means creating a system where people are empowered to speak, where processes are so transparent that nothing can be hidden and where part of those profits is reinvested into those communities to sustain growth and development for generations to come.
So before we find ourselves teetering over the edge of the precipice. We need to speak truth to power when we start to feel discomfited, not when we have already entered the realm of cognitive dissonance or, worse, open and cynical collusion in the Bell Pottinger mode.
We have been gifted by the current pandemic which is yet to reach its apogee. It is daring us not to be paralyzed by our past.
It is offering a chance to find and resolve, to do things differently.
To call out the emperors of technology, when they stride about us in their unabashed nudity to put sustainability at the core of their online and off-line operations.
They are now the praetorian guard of citizen and corporate activists and it is essential in this post-covid-19 economic depression that society should be saved from exploitation.
Unfortunately, they are unable to regulate themselves. This can be done only when the state interferes with total transparency.
Is it not time that all non-essential products are labeled with their carbon footprint.
What is Cash but transparency, in its naked form, creating fair competitions.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
We, humans, live on an ecologically fragile planet with limited resources that must be sustained for future generations we must move humanity to an alternative world system — one committed to social justice, deep democracy, environmental sustainability, a safe climate, and planetary health.
The COVID-19 pandemic contains the fuel for social change – verbal with little imagination as to what to change.
History tells us that social changes can occur quickly once economic, political, social structural, and environmental conditions have reached a tipping point.
Humanity is now obviously at a crossroads or perhaps several crossroads: one is business-as-usual which is sure to result in dystopia; another is a shift to some variant of green capitalism, which is gaining considerable support; and finally an eco-socialist vision that, while muted at this time, will hopefully become stronger as the need for it becomes more apparent to the mass of humanity.
Thanks to Covid -19 the world is off-balance – and it will remain so for years to come.
Far from settling into a ‘new normal’, we should expect a COVID-19 domino effect, triggering further disruptions – positive as well as negative – over the decade ahead.
It has underscored the interconnectedness of our natural, social and economic systems, and provided a stark reminder of the scale of systemic risks that can build up when we allow weaknesses and negative impacts to accumulate over time.
Continuation on the current pathway will, over time, only lead to deeper and deeper crises, including an ever-escalating climate change crisis, the result of growing greenhouse emissions spewed by the capitalist treadmill of production and consumption.
Combating both climate change and global capitalism go hand-in-hand however the raw truth is that Capitalism will certainly not consciously permit the eventual demise of global capitalism and the emergence of an ecosocialist world system promoted by many.
In previous posts, I have advocated that without funding all alternatives will fail whether they are green capitalism and existing climate regimes, including the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, which is not sufficient to mitigate climate change in any serious way.
How can we expect the system that created the problem to solve the problem?
Despite the daunting difficulties that much of humanity currently faces, and will continue to face over the course of this century capitalism today continues unabated to pump Co2 into the atmosphere and will continue to do so after the Climate Summit this year in Scotland. (By the deadline of December 31, 2020, only 70 out of 192 countries had presented their new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs): the individual commitments made to fight against climate change.)
One doesn’t have to have to be a delegate to this summit to know that if we manage to get on top of the current Pandemic which is bleeding the coffers of countries endeavoring to save their economies the emissions will triple on returning to anything that looks like normal.
Of course, we will be told that we have learned the lesson that Green is the way forward. It is true to say that the construction of ecosocialism needs to be based upon a commitment to a long-term sustainable balance between sociocultural systems and the natural environment but it is also true to say that the capitalist world system continues to self-destruct due to its exploitative, oppressive, socially unjust, and environmentally unsustainable practices – this will continue with artificial intelligence to plunder the earth for a profit with machining mining called data, fed to machine unregulated algorithm, making us all but powerless.
Ecosocialism constitutes a vision against the mal-distribution of resources on a global scale that capitalism produces is bound to keep alive, notions of social justice and equality, deep democracy, and socialism in oppressed classes.
It is only by spreading the cost of change fairly that we can reinvent capitalism.
We could adopt a universal wage and let people fend for themselves but this won’t change our habits.
It is time to envision future scenarios and strategies for achieving an alternative world system.
Once again here’s how.
Because we live in different cultures, transparency is vital to address the main problem – Inequality in all its forms.
To do this the cost of change has to be spread fairly.
This can only be achieved by making a profit for profit sake contribute.
Not by taxation, IMF loans, foreign aid, or begging charity aid programs.
The UN is now relied upon by the international community to coordinate humanitarian relief operations due to natural and man-made disasters in areas beyond the relief capacity of national authorities alone.
We currently have the technology that maximizes profit and future profit, like high-frequency trading that runs 90% of world stock exchanges.
THERE IS NO REASON NOT TO PLACE A WORLD AID COMMISSION OF 0.05% ON ALL ACTIVITIES THAT ARE NOT SUSTAINABLE TO CREATE A PERPETUAL FUND TO TACKLE CLIMATE CHANGE AND OTHER PRESSING WORLD PROBLEMS.
ALL OF ITS AID WOULD BE GRANTED NON-REPAYABLE.
THIS FUND COULD BE ADMINISTERED BY ELECTED MEMBERS.
ALL PROJECTS OTHER THAN DISASTER RELIEF WOULD BE SUBJECT TO APPROVAL AGAINST A WRITTEN EARTH CONSTITUTION THAT TRULY ALIGNS MARKETS WITH THE NATURAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SYSTEMS ON WHICH WE ALL DEPEND.
It is about building real resilience, driving equitable and sustainable growth, and reinventing capitalism itself.
PROJECTS THAT MEET THE REQUIRED PERMATERS WOULD THEN BE ELIGIBLE FOR FUNDING.
TO AVOID CORRUPTION AND LOBBYING ALL APPROVED PROJECTS ARE PLACED IN A TELEVISED YEARY DRAW.
50,000 – 100,000
100,000 – 250,000
250,000 – 500,000
500,000 – 1 MILLION
1 MILLION AND GREATER.
Here is a suggestion that could be funded.
Products Labeling.
Marketers use labeling for their products to bring identification to impart information to the consumer about the product. They allow customers to know about the item and give necessary messages including ingredients, instructions, and uses.
Why not their carbon footprint with a symbol showing their contribution to Carbon emissions.
Human and nonhuman, have a natural right to sustenance.
( See the previous posts on a world aid commission.)
All human comments and imagination appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
IF THERE IS ANYTHING TO LEARN FROM COVID IT IS THAT WE HUMANS MUST CHANGE THE WAY WE LIVE COLLECTIVELY AND INDIVIDUALLY ON THIS PLANET.
CURRENTLY, WE ALL LIVE WITHIN IDEOLOGIES THAT ARE BROKEN.
SOME VISIBLE SOME NOT.
(An ideology (/ˌʌɪdɪˈɒlədʒi/) is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially as held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which “practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones.” Wikipedia.
There are many different kinds of ideologies, including political, social, epistemological, and ethical.
“We do not need…to believe in an ideology. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our good human qualities. The need for a sense of universal responsibility affects every aspect of modern life.” — Dalai Lama.
“The function of ideology is to stabilize and perpetuate dominance through masking or illusion.” — Sally Haslanger
“[A]n ideology differs from a simple opinion in that it claims to possess either the key to history or the solution for all the ‘riddles of the universe,’ or the intimate knowledge of the hidden universal laws, which are supposed to rule nature and man.” — Hannah Arendt)
At the root of all these ideologies is the value of money.
HOW IT IS ACQUIRED AND DISTRIBUTED IS WHAT NEEDS TO BE CHANGED.
A religion may present a vision of a just society, but it cannot easily have a practical political program with or without money.
All idea systems have a class basis. This class bias is defined by the acquisition of wealth in one form or another – assets, power, etc. Nither however can any longer dominate the state through an appeal to the populace, and then use the powers of the state to control both the economy and the private lives of the citizen’s work.
No longer can politics itself, acquire certain ideological characteristics whose true nature is concealed.
All forms of isms that belong to the 19th or 20th century may suggest that ideologies are no older than the word itself—that they belong essentially to a period in which secular belief increasingly replaced traditional religious faith.
So let’s ask the question.
Where are we?
In terms of truth we now in a world both connected and disconnected in the extreme sense of the word connected.
IT IS CLEAR THAT THE WORLD NEEDS TO MOVE BEYOND SLOGANS.
A system that rewards those with capita while taxpayer’s money is used to support food banks for those out of work is not sustainable.
The economic injustices are plain to see with historic debt the inheritance of the young along with irreversible climate change and biodiversity collapse.
We now need an ism that shifts human values to a different set of values by placing the earth’s healthy existence at the forefront of all our values.
WE MUST NOT ONLY CONFRONT OUR MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF THE NATURAL WORLD WE MUST USE KNOWLEDGE NOT AS A MEANS TO CREATE WEALTH BUT AS A GLOBAL UNDERSTANDING WHERE WE ARE AT.
WE CAN NO LONGER STAND BYE AND WATCH BIG TECH MONOPOLIES COMPANIES SWALLOW WHAT IS LEFT OF COMPETITION.
WE CAN NO LONGER STAND BYE AND WATCH A MARKET PLACE THAT CREATES WINNERS AND LOSERS ON THE BASES OF WEALTH.
WE CAN NO LONGER WATCH WORLD ORGANISATIONS GOVERNED BY VETOES.
WE ALL DEPENDENT ON EACH OTHER AND OTHERS AND MUST COLLABORATE WITH ALL THAT SURROUNDS US.
No longer is it possible for any system whether it’s socialism, communism, anarchism, fascism, nationalism, liberalism, and conservatism to be FREE OF INTERFERENCE FROM ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, MACHINE LEARNING, AND UNCONTROLLED ALGORITHMS.
THESE TECHNOLOGIES IN THEIR PRESENT STATE ARE SIGNALING THAT INTERPRETATIONS OF IDEOLOGIES ARE OUT OF DATE.
You only have to look at the world to see the inequalities created by the pursuit of growth at any cost. This pursuit has turned all of earth’s resources into products to produce more products sold in a marketplace governed by short term profit.
No longer is it possible to take fresh air, fresh water for granted.
If we don’t want a world where from birth to death is viewed as an opportunity to exploit our weaknesses and essential needs to live out our lives in the first place, we need AN NEW IDOLOGIE CALLED REALISM, NOT ESCAPISM, NOT APATHY, OR ANY MONOTHEISM, OR NEOREALISTS
“ Rather a collective meanings that constitute the structures which organize our actions.”
There is only one solution.
That is as advocated by this blog in several posts to Harness PROFIT FOR-PROFIT SAKE.
High-frequency trading with algorithms, sovereign wealth funds buying earth resources – land, water, energy, futures/ hedge funds – betting on demand, currency exchanges manipulating value, trade deals excluding fair trade, the list is endless.
ALL ACTIONS THAT ARE NOW REQUIRED TO CHANGE COURSE REQUIRE FUNDING.
A 0.05% WORLD AID COMMISSION ON ALL ACTIVITIES THAT ARE NOT SUSTAINABLE WILL CREATE A PERTUTIAL FUND OF TRILLIONS TO CREATE A WORLD THAT’S WORTH LIVING ON.
There is one thing for certain change is happing but the window for change is closing.
Climate change is not something that might happen in the future.
We need a new relationship, to a more sustainable relationship with the natural world.
Creative imagination is what’s required so if you read this post let’s hear your comments.
All of them are presenting overwhelming challenges ahead.
