Despite the lateness of the hour and the dire state of just about everything we hold dear, might it still possible to slow and perhaps even reverse the global race to ruin?
Some say it’s already too late, that greed, selfishness and apathy have sealed humanity’s fate.
According a January 2017 article in The New Yorker Magazine, the one-percenters have already booked the last train out-of-town or purchased personal helicopters to flee to million-dollar condos in refurbished missile silos and elite refuge colonies in New Zealand.
Then there are those who refer to themselves as members of The Near-Term Human Extinction movement (NTHE). These men and women seek peace of mind by daily living a life of excellence.
Others, though, just say no to human extinction.
But to avoid the deadly downward spiral climate scientists warn we are presently facing, we’d need to make dramatic changes in our lifestyles and ways of doing business.
Make available a new form of energy
Let’s put the brakes on our fossil-fuel-burning CO2 emissions, which have risen to a level not seen on Planet Earth for 3 million years. When CO2 emissions rise, so does the global temperature. The oceans are taking the biggest hit because water absorbs heat like nothing else. As oceans warm up and acidify from carbonic acid, coral reefs die and entire food chains collapse, including those depended upon by millions of humans.
Time and vested interests are the enemies here. There’s simply not enough time or political will to make the shift from a fossil fuel energy system to one based on renewables such as solar and wind power before the planet heats up to unbearable levels. To stave off the inevitable, we’d need an advanced energy technology that can rapidly and inexpensively replace all uses of fossil fuels in years, not decades.
Fantasy? Seventy years of midnight raids on laboratories, equipment confiscations by unidentified parties, threats to researchers and too many mysterious deaths of energy inventors suggest that technologies have and do exist that offer immediate alternatives to the fossil status quo. Consider that 5,347 patents are presently sequestered by the U.S. patent office and therefore banned from commercial development. Likely a large portion of these patents are energy related.
On average, every 90 minutes, worldwide, citizen observers report instances of aircraft of unknown origin flying through our skies. Often, impressive photographs and videos are provided as proof of the observations. Many high-level military, government and retired corporate technical staff have testified in public about personal experiences observing or working with advanced ET technology and biological entities. Unusual crafts move through our skies silently, sometimes hovering and often performing seemingly impossible maneuvers. It’s highly doubtful these unconventional aerial ships rely on petroleum fuels for propulsion. Could such advanced energy technologies quickly replace our 18th century fossil power systems currently in use? And really, who’s in control of these crafts?
Reduce population impacts
To achieve long-term sustainability, we’d need to significantly ratchet back our global population, as the planet’s remaining resource base simply cannot support the 10 or 11 billion people forecast by the UN for the end of the present century unless affluent consumers are willing to drastically reduce personal consumption and share resources with those without. Scientists say we’d need 4 Planet Earths if everyone were to try and emulate the American lifestyle. It’s just not possible.
Make better food choices
As industrial agriculture accounts for a third of our global greenhouse gases and the majority of water pollution and species loss, we’d need to shift to a mostly plant-based diet. This would require minimizing production and consumption of meat and dairy products. As a result, we’d all become much healthier, saving hundreds of billions of dollars and massively reducing human and animal suffering.
Plant more trees
According to the Yale University School of Forestry we’ve lost about half the trees on the planet. We need to save what’s left and plant millions more as trees are a powerful sink for carbon emissions. Forest loss from fires, development and industrial agriculture can comprise as much as 30% of global greenhouse gases.
Should we worry about AI (Artificial Intelligence)?
You bet. Elon Musk recently warned that deploying AI in the form of autonomous weapons could trigger a WWIII. As early as 1978, visionary scientist Dr. John Lilly coined the term “Solid State Entity” or SSE to describe his concern that the “silicon based universe” (computers, AI, etc) is utilizing the “carbon based universe” (humans) to enable self-replication with the goal of eventually becoming independent of human control.
Totally scary stuff, as computers already control nuclear power plants and weapons and just about everything else. But what do we do about the vast numbers of jobs that will shortly disappear as robotics take over much of the work in the manufacturing, production and servicing sectors? I suggest we institute a “robotics tax” or a “worker displacement fee” coupled with a Universal Basic Income that would provide a secure, simple, quality of life, regardless of employment or educational status.
Liberate the hidden trillions
Let’s start with exposing the fact that, according to Forbes Magazine, super-rich individuals and their families have at least $32 trillion of hidden financial assets squirreled away in offshore tax havens. Secretive corporations likewise hold off-budget balance sheets that hide many more trillions. Oxfam notes that, appallingly, just “7 billionaires are as rich as the poorest half of the world’s population” and that “the top 1% has as much total wealth as the rest of the world combined.”
Such extreme inequity strongly suggests that capitalism is simply incompatible with long-term planetary sustainability. As capitalism depends on growth, one must remember that unlimited growth in a limited space eventually becomes a recipe for terminal calamity.
What if we could harness these tens of trillions of dollars to address such critical global issues as health care, sanitation, water decontamination, women’s education, reduction in student and small farmer debt, ocean revitalization, clean energy, soil rebuilding, restorative agriculture, demilitarization, refugee relief, etc.? Such might just change the course of civilization from one of ruthless exploitation to one where distressed individuals, communities, and nations can truly heal and possibly even thrive.
Priority needs:
- Financial aid to 2 billion poor — $ 2 Trillion
- Clean water and sanitation — $ 500 B
- Refugee relief — $ 500 B
- Small farmer debt relief — $ 300 B
- Student debt relief — $ 30 B
- Biodiversity protection — $ 400 B
- Distribution of new energy — $ 300 B
- Ocean restoration — $ 1 Trillion
- Women’s education — $ 200 B
- Global education — $ 500 B
- Protect indigenous cultures– $ 150 B
- Global healthcare & social security — $ 1 Trillion
- Public infrastructure — $ 3 Trillion
- Other social/environmental needs $ 3 Trillion
A Grand Vision for Change
Let’s pull together social change, social service, social justice, environmental, climate justice, technology experts, peace groups, humanitarians, philanthropists and other appropriate organizations and create a “World Stewardship Council” or “Global Climate Justice Cooperative” to identify and direct the necessary financial support to actions that can positively transform our world.
Share and support
The key to such a future is for affluent individuals and nations to live more simply, leave stuff for others and generously share the wealth with those who have little or none. This won’t happen, though, unless enough people begin to recognize our common humanity. Moreover, those who hold positions of power and influence must be willing to implement programs that benefit all, not just the privileged few.
The Charge —
Though the time is rapidly approaching when deleterious circumstances will overwhelm even the best efforts to change course, informed, wise and preemptive actions now could make all the difference in preventing Homo sapiens from joining the ever-increasing list of failed species. This is our charge — today, tomorrow, and for whatever time it takes.