( 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.
It is impossible to address all that is wrong with our world at this moment and time.
We could say that history repeats itself or that it would be easier to imagine the end of the world than capitalism which like viruses doesn’t get tired.
No matter our problems, whether they be wars, economics, pandemics, destruction of our ecosystems, mass shootings, genocide cleansing, natural disasters, inequality, pollution, finite resources, mass unemployment, racism, or our addiction to checking our smartphones. OUR COLLECTIVE DETRIMENT ACTION OF YET ANOTHER YEAR OF PUMPING CARBON INTO OUR ATHOMISPHERE OUT WEIGHT THEM ALL.
IN THE BACKGROUND NOISE OF OUR ONLINE LIVES, CONSUMERISM WHICH FORTUNATELY HAS NOW BEING RUDELY INTERRUPTED BY THE WAIL OF AMBULANCES CARRYING COVID-19 VICTIMS IS GOING TO BE THE BANSHEE OF 2021.
What can anyone do about it?
It is inaccurate to say that the pandemic has not brought positive changes like the growing spotlight on healthcare inequity (the result of the poor and people of color suffering disproportionately from COVID-19).
It is accurate to say that the pandemic has set in motion a tsunami of new content and it would be naïve to think none of these are going to stick.
Warnings are powerful and even dire, but they still fall on fatigued ears, immediately forgotten or superseded by the next disaster, the new normal.
With nearly 270 million people around the globe marching toward starvation with Climate change, the next climate change world gathering in Scotland is already turned into a political coo by Boris Johnston the banshee of the European Union.
(A Banshee is an Irish female spirit who wails outside a home to warn of the imminent death of a family member. Often heard before she is seen, her wailing is that high-pitched that nobody willingly dares to attempt to witness this terrifying spirit.)
People need to brace themselves for the cold reality of what’s in front of them.
The vaccine is not a panacea.
It’ll take a year or more before some real material changes appear to the way we live and this journey from here to there is not a simple one.
WE ARE UNABLE TO VACCINATE AGAINST THE CONTINUING DESTRUCTION OF LIFE FOR-PROFIT WHICH WE DEPLORE.
AND WHICH IS THEN IMMEDIATELY FORGOTTEN OR SUPERESED BY THE NEXT DISASTER.
Humanity should not be an ONLINE AI TOY in the hands of a handful of rich people!
We know that those who have already died are mourned by all, the waste of life deplored by all. May they rest in peace.
2021 like any year holds the unknown but in the end, it is the earth that keeps us alive and it is the Sun that will kill us all.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Here we are coming to the end of another year and those of us who are not grieving the loss of a loved one should be counting our blessings. However, while we should all thank the Sciences the recovery from Covid as a society is now more than about antibodies.
As you might have guessed the most important anchor of recovery’ is for a COVID-19 vaccination that works. The implication is that without a vaccine the world will be unable to return to any sense of normality, particularly in terms of open interaction with your fellow man.
The pandemic has demonstrated and is demonstrating as I write, yet again, those global questions that require global solutions – which can be all wrapped up within the word Inequality.
World Governments’ first responses have naturally been national if this Pandemic echoes other defining events in our more recent history it will leave the political landscape transformed in some respects yet wearily familiar in others.
It would be fair to say that the debate about what makes life worth living is just starting. Digital interactions are no substitute for the things of real life.
The changes could be immense but unpredictable with digital platforms becoming the only way for many of us to work, get fit, or be educated and entertained.
It is not just purely economic survival it is also the reshaping of International relationships.
The normal we once knew is gone.
The infinite expansion economic model is bust resetting the western peasants’ sense of entitlement.
The digital transformation of business will get faster, with more automation and artificial intelligence to approve loans, profile customers, control stock, and improve delivery.
We now know the infrastructure can cope, on the whole, and we’ll need to think carefully about which platforms we use and what we say on them.
What happens next though is open to question.
The coronavirus offers a sense of how a greener world might feel but there are now two scenarios in play.
One scenario is that the world repeats the fossil fuel frenzy that followed the banking crisis, unleashing pent-up demand for oil and coal. Governments know this response well as a method to revive flagging economies.
The other is that every element of nature and every life form is a part of the global inventory (managed by the allegedly benevolent state, which, in turn, is owned by several suddenly benevolent wealthy people, via unregulated, biased algorithms technology).
Their goal is to count and then efficiently manage and control all resources, including people, on an unprecedented scale.
Ultimately, the Great Reset will result in two tiers or people:
The technocratic elite, who have all the power and rule over all assets, and the rest of humanity, who have no power, no assets, and no say-so in anything.
Finally, international institutions like the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization, and the European Union may be challenged to up their games – or go away.
National security capability will be judged by stockpiled medical equipment and preparedness for the next pandemic or environmental catastrophe, not just on how many tank brigades can be deployed.
Ofcom estimates that 59% of 12 to 15-year-olds have their own tablet, while 83% have a smartphone so sustainable development will be Technocracy, and there’s not a single area of life that is left out of this Great Reset.
A strong transhumanist bend where humans merge with machines and in which law enforcement will be able to read our minds.
Our suspended life in lockdown could be incubating a grievance that, when released, triggers angry questions, a search for blame, and demands for reprisals. The fear is that our behavioral norms will have become infected by distress and hardship, that we will emerge more individual and less together.
Economic hardship will strain social ties. That’s the real test for this generation – not “can we keep our temper in lockdown?” but “can we quietly repair our social fabric in the tough times?”
If you want to change governments don’t focus on changing the government; you’re not going to get anywhere. You’ve got to change the corporations because the governments are becoming just pawns of the corporations trading online, with no ethics other than profit.
Also, practically every problem we have can be traced back to an environmental cause so we must consume less, consume better. We must use business to inspire and implement solutions to the forthcoming environmental crisis. ( See previous posts 0.05% for the Planet.)
The COVID-19 crisis has given new relevance to the concept behind Yang’s campaign centerpiece—an idea is known as universal basic income (UBI).
In contrast to need-based subsidies, the idea behind UBI is that everyone is eligible.
Now is the time for its introduction to offset job losses caused by the pandemic and technology.
It would provide enough to cover the basic cost of living and give financial security not just to the wealthy but to all. It would remove the problem with existing welfare programs that keep people below the poverty line.
It’s the only solution to an economy where “a small group of people are getting very, very wealthy while everyone else is struggling to make ends meet. It would give society a much-needed ballast during the forthcoming recession.
Automation is fundamentally changing the structure of societies.
The question is of course who funds the income.
The top one percent ie the wealthy and tech companies paid for it.
or 10 to 12% of GDP go directly to the universal income payments.
When it comes to Climate change it poses many challenges:
The massive development of renewables will require the use of immense land. The rapid end of fossils will require reconverting large parts of the economy. Finally, how can we get the majority of the population to accept such a commotion?
Such an upheaval will require more than digital surveillance or the four most dangerous words being parroted by a gullible public these days are, “I TRUST THE SCIENCE.”
Happy Algorithmic Christmas to all.
Control the world through digital surveillance, not on your nanny.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
There is a radical difference between conventional threats and emerging threats which are posing a strategic challenge that must be met with a strategic response.
On one hand, it would be fair to say that Human advances have got us into the mess, but the question is the technology capable of getting us out of the mess.
Globalization, complexity, our relatively unsophisticated mechanisms for sharing information and making sense out of changes that we barely perceive, much less understand, all assure that any major threat — and especially non-state threats such as infectious disease – covid -19.
So let’s look at a few things that stick out like sore thumbs when it comes to technology.
The fear that technology could cause humanity’s downfall as such offers some terrifying scenarios that could befall our species.
The risk of the creation of some new super virus or bug in a lab that we are unable to control if it were to escape into the wild isn’t any longer beyond the realms of impossibility.
It means we must apply technology in ways responsive to our most immediate and frequent threats and must balance our use of technology with the intelligence cycle:
If we do not harness the fourth industrial revolution to the benefit of all we will turn the planet once more back into a snowball Earth.
We must develop reliable capabilities for developing technology advancement.
No government, no international organization, and certainly no corporation, can be relied upon to seek out and act on the truth, or even to act in the public interest.
So in my view, the greatest threat we face is unregulated software that is driving our lives. It is one of the greatest problems afflicting modern society, not because of human intelligence, but because we are allowing profit-seeking algorithms to dominate consumption.
Current economic policy is short-term creating a non-saving society for the rainy day.
One only has to look at the effects of the covid pandemic to see that a redistribution of wealth is required urgently if we are to have any chance of a caring society.
The current threats.
Take for example.
Cyber malware.
What is malware? How dangerous is it?
It is a contraction of malicious software that exploits your digital life, by mining your personal data either to profit directly or sell on the information. It comes in the form of a virus embedded in a piece of software and can spread from one file to another or computer.
There are several types of malware.
A worm. Does not need to be triggered. It automatically propagates itself.
A Trojan. Can be a good-looking App that will wreak havoc.
A Ransom. Pay up before everything is deleted.
They can be weaponized to have real-world consequences. Over fifteen Iranian facilities were attacked and infiltrated by the Stuxnet worm.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) disclosed on Wednesday that it has suffered a cyber-attack, leading to unauthorized access to documents relating to a Covid-19 vaccine.
Now imagine the threat to the stability of critical infrastructures around water, electricity, and gas that are vital to the running of nations.
The next has to be Climate change.
The main problem here is that no one whats to foot the bill. ( See previous posts)
To achieve long-term and profound progress in environmental governance, policy focus needs to be complemented by intensified efforts to strengthen the rule of environmental law not just shallow promises coming out of Climate Conferences.
To do so, the capacity of international courts to pronounce judgments on environmental matters, the clarity, and scope of environmental legal principles, and compliance with and implementation of judgments must be further strengthened with a constitution for the whole of the Earth.
What’s at stake here are basic rights to life and health so the pursuing of climate policies that violate the right to life must have genuine consequences if we are to keep global warming to 2°C.
Climate change crossing borders with impunity.
Next: Poverty.
The gap between rich and poor is now a pandemic.
No single factor can account for the large disparities in economic development among the countries of the world. Nor is the relative influence of any particular factor likely to remain the same over time.
While such things as technology and natural resources are obvious factors in economic development, they are plundered for profit’s sake by high-frequency trading run by unregulated data mining algorithms.
However, there is no denying the fact that the rich are becoming richer and the poor are becoming poorer.
This is happing not because of human intelligence but can be attributed to numerous factors such as social immobility, globalization, more advanced technology, and taxation.
Current economic policy is dominated by short-term thinking so there is a serious lack of savings for the rainy day.
The COVID-19 pandemic will and is widening the gap between the rich and the poor, especially in the emerging online markets and developing economies.
Next.
Nuclear Armageddon.
The threat of nuclear Armageddon has receded these days replaced by Climate Change.
Still, it’s a worrying thought alongside artificial intelligence, biotechnology warfare it is and remains inconceivable to our comprehension other than an instant self ext to our existence.
Next
Enslavement by self-replicate robotic robots created by nano-sized technology.
It may well be a piece of code – not a nuclear weapon or infectious disease or indeed climate change – that brings about humanity’s downfall.
As our culture advanced and our species invented many things that will make our lives easier, our demand for raw materials increased by leaps and bounds. We get these resources from the other. The problem is, we’re using too much and without care. Our planet just can’t keep up with our ever-increasing demands.
Finally: With quality education becoming more and more expensive only an investment in people and not profit has any hope.
Our demand for knowledge shows no sign of abating.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
The climate crisis awaiting us will be infinitely worse than the one we are going through with Covid-19.
It could quite simply make our planet uninhabitable.
This isn’t like a war or an economic recession, or pandemic, where you know things, will be bad for a few years but eventually improve.
The universe is governed by one overarching set of laws, the laws of nature and science, and the human community, must exist within these laws.
We all know that the climate is not regulated by a pandemic.
After more than 2000 years of human history, both religion and politics have failed at solving any of the major problems humanity has faced over the centuries and both have little to offer for the series of serious problems we face today.
We are all members of just one race – the human race and we share one home – the planet Earth. We all have the same basic aspirations for life, liberty, and happiness. We should not be separated by religion or discriminated against because of skin color, sexual orientation, or other prejudices.
It seems to me that this is the first time in history we have known things will get worse for the foreseeable future. There is no more time or room for inaction as we can only slow down the rate at which things get worse.
Never before have we known that the deterioration of not just our countries, but our entire planet, will continue for the foreseeable future – no matter what we do.
Providing that we don’t wipe ourselves off the face of the planet it is incumbent on the government to provide an environment that is supportive of an individual’s ability to seek and achieve happiness in their lives. Humanity must take urgent action to reverse the course of climate change that is already affecting the biosphere or threaten humanity’s very existence and the future of all of the species populating our planet.
If we persist with the course we are all on we can expect mass migrations, death, and destruction as a result, with many parts of the world becoming uninhabitable.
If we succeed in limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, we will still have sea level rises of around half a meter, killer heatwaves, and drought in many parts of the world – leading to a decrease in agricultural productivity.
Even before the current Pandemic, we are all complicit with the sclerotic political system that has failed to address the crisis, and we all contribute to carbon emissions.
Few of us can say that we have risen to the challenges.
Why?
Because the climate crisis requires true altruism and real sacrifices.
Are we even capable of that?
Climate change is a truly global, complex problem with economic, social, political, and moral ramifications, the solution will require both a globally-coordinated response (such as international policies and agreements between countries, a push to cleaner forms of energy) and local efforts on the city- and regional-level (for example, public transport upgrades, energy efficiency improvements, sustainable city planning, etc.).
It’s up to us what happens next.
Unfortunately, all our actions are motivated by self-interest, but our lives will lose meaning if we can see beyond I am all right Jack.
Consider what society will look like if there are no generations to follow us and no future – it’s a vision of despair.
Our main problem is that no one nation or individual wants to foot the bill.
So why not make a profit for profit sake pay.
( Se previous Post; A world Aid fund of 0.05% on all Profit generated for Profit sake. )
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
The truth takes into consideration feelings and beliefs, whereas they have no place in fact.
A fact is something that is true everywhere and for everyone.
Facts do not change according to region, caste, culture, religion, etc.
That is not to say that facts from the past have been overturned and proven to be false and that some facts from today will be proven false tomorrow- History is written by the Victor. We no longer know when a fact is going to be true for eternity.
Some of them will.
Take for example you have to be born to experience death. Currently true.
However, with the arrival of Artificial Intelligence – it appears that not just robots but humans will have both life and death capable of independence, separable from one another.
This is not quite yet a scientific fact” but we could be standing on thin ice.
So what makes a fact a fact?
Facts are hardcore and hence they cannot keep constantly changing; a fact remains a fact until proven otherwise. A fact states something that has actually occurred or happened, but we have no idea what’s outside the visible universe.
A matter of seeing is believing I suppose.
The truth is often considered to have a grander scope than facts.
However, something that is true for one person may not be true for everyone.
Is this true?
With the arrival of the Internet, the world has shrunk but unfortunately, we are all now on different platforms of truth.
For example. Facebook discovered that warning users that an article was false caused people to share that article even more.
It seems that the closer you get to the truth, the further you get from the world.
In other words, while you can get people to understand the facts, the facts don’t always matter.
Unfortunately, we don’t care about the truth as much as we typically think our highly social brains make discerning truth more difficult than we might hope because we often protect our previous beliefs rather than face inconvenient truths.
Why?
It’s because we’re all viscerally connected to truth on a fundamental, physical, and spiritual level. It’s part of who we are and like a virus, we instinctively reject dishonesty.
We learn to put on a mask (personality), to present an acceptable display, and hopefully, nobody will see the truth. That process spreads to other aspects of our lives, many times unknowingly.
To think about the future, you have to know about the present
– Prof. Hans Rosling, TEDtalks 2014
My understanding, in a nutshell, is that a hypothesis gets upgraded to a theory (closest you can get to fact) not possibly by chance occurrence. This is evidence that it is true, and will remain true until (if it ever happens) new evidence that disproves it comes to light.
Valid does not equate to true.
Sometimes theories are inducible and then prove by deduction,i.e gravity.
So why do we argue so much when facts about contentious topics are readily available?
If the data are gathered, shouldn’t we all be reaching the same conclusions?
Obviously not.
Presenting people with information about an issue in a nuanced way, rather than presenting them with pro-con arguments laid out in a simplified manner, leads people to have more complex and satisfying conversations about contentious issues.
True.
But our ears are dull of hearing, and our eyes have closed thanks to algorithms that control what we hear or see. They warp our perception of reality and reasoning by creating social media echo chambers.
We can share our worldview like never before, yet we often feel worlds apart when assessing our shared reality. Social media typically does not promote positive interactions.
Complacency lures in the comfort of our smartphones or our living room couch and sadly, we’re always the first victims of our lies because we have to believe them first before we can convince others to do so.
The result is that the difference between fact, truth, and opinion becomes blurred.
What can be changed?
Any sane person, regardless of nationality, color, or political stance, would aim for the first – truth and facts.
So why don’t we just get indisputable facts on the table?
Reaching the correct answer required participants to think carefully about the data.
We often reason with desired conclusions in mind and selectively recruit our mental faculties towards reaching those conclusions.
However if the people most capable of accurately interpreting data are at least as biased as the rest of us, how can we hope to find common ground on our most pressing and divisive issues?
Climate Change – Inequality, Covid-19, you name it. It’s hard to find the truth because there is so much falsehood out there making so much noise that the truth gets drowned out.
Everyone wants to be right, but practically speaking it’s usually more important for us to be socially accepted and internally consistent in our beliefs.
To divert from this human automation, we have to make a deliberate choice.
We have to actively decide to put on the brighter light and accept that doing so will sometimes help us in the longer run. Until we find systematic ways to improve our reasoning, we can all take steps towards improving political discourse by making efforts to challenge our personal beliefs and biases. Our values are more meaningful than their political utility, so if you stumble into a heated debate remember that the search for community, happiness, and truth transcends partisan boundaries.
Without being honest with ourselves we’ll never be honest with others.
Living in our own little world of self-created lies and avoiding the truth of our life experience takes great energy-producing even greater amounts of stress.
The first lie is the one we tell ourselves. It’s usually, “It didn’t happen” or “It didn’t happen like that.”
Sometimes it’s hard to find the truth because for too many people nowadays truth does not matter, only power. Donald Trump.
We have a natural instinct to search for answers and make sense of things.
These phenomena can be described by many different words
Ondinnink, Qualunquismo, Zlatwic,
We are constantly bombarded by messages by well-meaning NGOs who desperately try to help people living in poverty. At the same time media throw in a mix of news full of disasters and war, and then they host huge charity shows on TV ever so many times a year.
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
John Adams, 2nd President of the United States of America
Life is making mistakes and that’s the truth.
Here is what Alex Google might tell you.
Something that actually exists; reality; truth: Your fears have no basis in fact.
Something is known to exist or to have happened: Space travel is now a fact.
Truth is known by actual experience or observation; something is known to be true: Scientists gather facts about plant growth.
Something said to be true or supposed to have happened: The facts given by the witness are highly questionable.
Law. Often, facts. An actual or alleged event or circumstance, as distinguished from its legal effect or consequence. Compare the question of fact, the question of law.
Truth, on the other hand, is a true state of a certain matter, person, place, thing or event. Truth is considered to be more archaic than fact. It is more subjective than resolute fact. Dictionary.com defines ‘truth’ as:
The true or actual state of a matter: He tried to find out the truth.
Conformity with fact or reality; verity: the truth of a statement.
A verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like: mathematical truths.
The state or character of being true.
Actuality or actual existence.
An obvious or accepted fact; truism; platitude.
Honesty; integrity; truthfulness.
(Often initial capital letter) ideal or fundamental reality apart from and transcending perceived experience: the basic truths of life.
Agreement with a standard or original.
Accuracy, as of position or adjustment.
Archaic. Fidelity or constancy.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin
we repress the truth and our feelings about it with a lie to keep the pain at bay.
All of them are presenting overwhelming challenges ahead.
(A Banshee is an Irish female spirit who wails outside a home to warn of the imminent death of a family member. Often heard before she is seen, her wailing is that high-pitched that nobody willingly dares to attempt to witness this terrifying spirit.)
We are constantly bombarded by messages by well-meaning NGOs who desperately try to help people living in poverty. At the same time media throw in a mix of news full of disasters and war, and then they host huge charity shows on TV ever so many times a year.