We are all members of the Global Community. We all have the duty to protect the rights and welfare of all species and all people. No humans have the right to encroach on the ecological space of other species and other people,
or treat them with cruelty and violence. All life species, humans and cultures, have intrinsic worth. They are subjects, not objects of manipulation or ownership. No humans have the right to own other species, other people or the knowledge of other cultures through
patents and other intellectual property rights. Defending biological and cultural diversity is a duty of all people. Diversity is an end in itself, a value, a source of richness both material and cultural.
All members of the Global Community including all humans have the right to food and water, to safe and clean habitat, to security of ecological space.
These rights are natural rights, they are birthrights given by
the fact of existence on Earth and are best protected through community rights and global commons. They are not given by states or corporations, nor can they be extinguished by state or corporate action. No state or corporation has the
right to erode or undermine these natural rights or enclose the commons that sustain all through privatisation or monopoly control.
Thus global rights include:
- Human rights
- Rights of global citizens
- Earth rights
- Peace and Justice rights for all life as researched and developed by the Global Community
- Rights of global politics, and Earth Government
- Rights of global justice for all life
- Rights of global protection for all life
Global rights are defined in details in the section the Scale of Global Rights.
These rights are dependent of their position on the Scale of Global Rights.
The Global Community asks how meaningful is the right
to life or to participation in political life if the ecological base
(the base of life) and the global life-support systems are seriously threatened:
* wilderness is vastly disappearing; species of the fauna and flora becoming extinct
* fisheries are out of control and will cease to be a part of our diet within a few decades
* the global Oxygen supply in the air we breathe is dangerously affected by both the burning
of petroleum products and deforestation; our ways of life affect the capacity for photosynthesis
* losses of forest cover and of biological diversity
* climate change affects everyone and everything
* the ozone layer is dangerously damaged
by man-made chemicals
* global warming causes major local
and global problems and forces the climate to change
* our drinking (fresh) water is becoming
more polluted and the increase in population requires much more fresh unpolluted
water;our ways of life affect dangerously the water cycle
* clean air no longer exists; air contains
chemicals affecting life all over the planet
* farmers do not generally engage on
their own in investment in soil conservation and despite all other efforts
the world is losing its best soils; global food production systems should be made to feed people as oppose to be competing for money
* everyone wants to consume more products, and thus use more of our resources, and no one seems to know what to do
with wastes; wastes of all kind including nuclear and release of radiation
* wars destroy not only human lives and community infrastructures
but also other lifeforms and the environment; wars feed the economies of war makers, weapons manufacturers, and predator nations in control of the
last 100 hundred years left of oil supplies in the world
* chemicals produced for human use and not found in nature and, eventually, reaching the environment with impacts on Earth's
waters, soils, air, and ecology
The Global Community found evident that
the ecological base is the essential prerequisite for the effectiveness
and exercise of all rights recognized for human beings. The stewardship
of the ecological base has to be given priority before the fulfilment of
various economic and social wishes. Demands resulting from the socio-economic
system of a particular country have to find their limits in the protection
of the global ecosystem. Vital interests of future generations have to
be considered as having priority before less vital interests of the present
generation. Supply chains have to be designed in a way, that the goods
can enter after usage or consumption into natural or industrial recycling
processes. If serious damages to persons, animals, plants and the ecosystem
cannot be excluded, an action or pattern of behaviour should be refrained
from. A measure for supplying goods or services should choose a path which
entails the least possible impact on the ecological and social system concerned.
This way functioning proven systems will not be disturbed, and unnecessary
risks will not be taken. Supply strategies consuming less resources should
have preference before those enhancing more resource consumption. When there is a need to find a
solution to a problem or a concern, a sound solution would be to
choose a measure or conduct an action, if possible, which causes reversible
damage as opposed to a measure or an action causing an irreversible loss.
Following the development of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, nations throughout the world developed their own version in line with
the Universal Declaration.
To determine rights requires an understanding of needs and
reponsibilities and their importance. The Scale of Global Rights and
the Global Constitution are the best guidance for continuing this
process. The Scale shows social values in order of importance and so will
help us understand the rights of a community. What are the universal needs
of a person, family, and that of a global community?
Security is a primordial human and Earth right. The Global Community has broadened the traditional focus
of the security of nations to include both the security of people as well
as that of the planet. Global security policies include:
* every person on Earth has a right to a secure
existence, and all states have an obligation to protect those rights
* prevention of conflicts and wars; identification, anticipation,
and resolving conflicts before they become armed confrontations. The Earth
Court of Justice will help here.
* military force is not a legitimate political instrument
* weapons of mass destruction are not legitimate instruments
of national defence
* eliminate all weapons of mass destruction from all
nations and have inspectors verifying progress to that effect
* all nations should sign and ratify the conventions
to eliminate nuclear, chemical and biological weapons
* the production and trade in arms should be listed as
a criminal act against humanity; this global ministry will introduce a
Convention on the curtailment of the arms trade, a provision for a mandatory
Arms Register and the prohibition of the financing or subsidy of arms exports
by governments
* the development of military capabilities is a potential
threat to the security of people and all life on Earth; the ministry will
make the demilitarization of global politics a high priority.
* anticipating and managing crises before they escalate
into armed conflicts and wars
* maintaining the integrity of the environment and global
life-support systems
* managing the environmental, economic, social, political
and military conditions that threatened the security of people and the
planet
Another major source of global unsecurity for people is
the culture of violence in everyday life as it is shown on television screens
and cinemas. The American Way of Life is creating this culture of violence.
An american child at age six year old has seen more violence on television
than any other child of the Middle East over a life span. This culture
of violence infects both industrial and developing countries, rich and
poor. This trend of culture of violence must end. The movie and TV industry and the Internet are a threat to global security.
The media is responsible for the propagation
of violence through communications. Why has government not done anyhting
to regulate the media industry? Surely everyone understood that on the
Scale of Global Rights security of the people of any nation is
more important than the human rights related to the freedom of expression
of the media industry. Security of the people and the state is on top of
the Scale. It is part of the primordial human rights. While freedom of
expression is a right found lower on the Scale and is classified partly
as:
* Community rights and the right that the greatest number of people has by virtue of its number
(50% plus one) and after voting representatives democratically (these rights can be and are usually a part of the constitution of a
country)
* and partly as economic rights (business and consumer rights, and their responsibilities and accountabilities) and
social rights (civil and political rights)
So the freedom of expression of a person is not as important
as the security of that person and the security of the state.
Consumers' rights impinge on the rights of other humans
living in the Global Community. The right to choice is the
consumer right that refers to the right to have a range and variety of
goods and services at competitive, fair prices and variable, satisfactory
quality. In order to assure choice in the developed country markets, governments
have implemented trade laws to facilitate cross border transactions and
transnational corporations (TNCs) have set up business off shore so they
can lessen the cost of the production process. The goods that are available
in the developed country markets are provided by slave labour, child labour,
sweatshops or in countries that allow the TNCs to forego adhering to pollution
or ecological concerns and human rights in pursuit of profit. Labour rights
are abused in efforts to earn more profits. This leads to abhorrent working
conditions, job insecurity and low living standards (all human rights).
Consumers in developed countries have been socialized to want more and
more things to consume but have not been socialized to appreciate the impact
of their consumption choices on the human rights of other people; that
is, they are not being responsible for their decisions.
In connection between human well-being and a sound environment, Earth rights are ecological rights and the rights that human beings have in protecting their global life-support systems.
Earth rights are those rights that demonstrate the connection between human well-being and a sound environment. They include individuals and global
communities human rights and the rights to a clean environment, and participation in development decisions. We define ecological rights as those rights of the ecosystem of the Earth beyond human purpose. They are those rights that protect and
preserve the ecological heritage of the Earth for future generations. The Earth Court of Justice guarantees ecological rights in its Statute. The Court guarantees also the rights to a safe environment and an environment free
from environmental degradation.
Global rights represent
an ideal and a supreme goal which can give meaning to life in society.
Throughout the history of humanity, the rights of human beings have been
defined and enshrined with reference to the values of the dignity
of each individual and of freedom, equality and justice. Human dignity resides in each of us, and this dignity
must be recognized and respected by all. These values
are universal. The Global Community has accepted and enshrined them into its own ways of behaving and dealing with all peoples.
Cultures and societies differ so much that their expression takes varying
forms, but diversity does not affect the foundation of inalienable values
constituted by Global Rights. Each individual is recognized as a representative
of humankind.
The Global Community recognizes
that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Freedom
is both a principle and a value. Individuals have the freedom of decision
and action to the extent that their actions do not interfere with the rights
of others. It is because human beings are free that they are subject of
law and are creators and holders of rights. Whay good would be freedom if Earth rights are out-of-control? Freedom and Global Rights are
therefore basic to each other.
Fundamental freedoms are far from
being enjoyed by all but it is our common future, it is part of our Vision
statement for year 2024. Human freedom is a value to be attained. Equality
is a value, an ideal for people who live a hard day-to-day life of economic
inequalities such as unemployment, and social inequalities caused by the
privileges enjoyed by some people and the exploitation of others, and inequality
of educational and health opportunities. Freedom and equality are both
indispensable. They are therefore accepted and enshrined
as universal values by which the Global Community governs its affairs. As universal values they are concerned with
our ability to decide, to choose values and to participate in the making
of laws, and they are dependent on the recognition of other people. These
values forbid any form of discrimination on the grounds of race, nationality,
sex, religion, age or mother tongue. By accepting both values of freedom
and equality we can achieve justice. One can be answerable for one's
actions in a 'just' way only if judgements are given in the framework of
democratically established laws and courts.
Social justice is another
universal value to which the Global Community aspires and accepts
as a universal value. Social justice consists in sharing wealth with a
view to greater equality and the equal recognition of each individual's
merits. All persons within a given society deserve equal access to goods
and services that fulfill basic human needs.
We also accept global rights as part of our universal values
from which we base our decisions. Global Rights are closely
intertwined with democracy. Respect for Global Rights and fundamental freedoms is one of
the characteristics of a democracy. The typical fundamental freedoms of
a democracy (freedom of expression, thought, assembly, and association)
are themselves part of human rights. These freedoms can exist everywhere. Democracy
is a political system based on the participation of the people. It foresees
the separation of powers among the judiciary, the legislative and the executive
authorities, as well as free and regular elections.
Let us give here a practical example of a global right.
Photosynthesis, is the process by which green plants and certain other organisms use the energy of light to convert carbon dioxide and water
into the simple sugar glucose. In so doing, photosynthesis provides the basic energy source for virtually all organisms. An extremely important
byproduct of photosynthesis is Oxygen, on which most organisms depend.
Photosynthesis occurs in green plants, seaweeds, algae, and certain bacteria. These organisms are veritable sugar factories,
producing millions of new glucose molecules per second. Plants use much of this glucose, a carbohydrate, as an energy source to
build leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds. They also convert glucose to cellulose, the structural material used in their cell
walls. Most plants produce more glucose than they use, however, and they store it in the form of starch and other carbohydrates
in roots, stems, and leaves. The plants can then draw on these reserves for extra energy or building materials.
Virtually all life on earth, directly or indirectly, depends on photosynthesis as a source of food, energy, and Oxygen, making it one of
the most important biochemical processes known. It is a part of the global life-support systems and is a right that needs protecting at
all costs. The right and responsibility that human beings have in protecting photosynthesis has the highest importance on the Scale of Global
Rights.
In today's affairs
a very powerful few are in possession of the Earth's resources, the land
and all its riches, and all the franchises and other privileges that yield
a return. These few people operate virtually without taxation. Is that what we want as a global democracy? Who should own the Earth?
(
see enlargement )
Who owns the Earth ?
Artwork by Germain Dufour
October 19, 2008
The United Nations (UN) cannot have
characteristics of sovereignty, which has been defined around a territory
and population. The Global Community has in fact been defined around a given territory,
that territory being the planet as a whole, as well as a specific population,
which is the Global Community. The Global Community has the power to make the laws of the land and to make the rules
for the territory of the Earth. Global Law has been and continue to be
researched and developed for this purpose.
Conservation, restoration, and management of the Earth resources
is about asking ourselves the question of "Who owns the Earth?" The large
gap between rich and poor is conected to
ownership and control of the planet's land and of all other Earth natural
resources.We,
the Global Community, must now direct the wealth of the world towards the
building of local-to-global economic democracies in order to meet the needs
for food, shelter, universal healthcare, education, and employment for all.
The Global Community has proposed a democracy for the people based on the fact that land, oil, minerals, other natural resources
rightly belong to the Global Community. The Earth is the birthright of all life.
The Global Economic Model proposed by the Global Community is truly
the best response to the world.
Again here we will keep this analysis within the "philosophy of life" framework of the Global Community, some called it the religion of the third millennium, others called it
the politics of the future generations now. Let us remind everyone the definition.
"The Global Community is defined as being all that exits or occurs at any location at any time between the Ozone layer above and the core of the planet below."
This is the fundamental definition of the expression "
Global Community" first defined in 1985.
This definition includes all people, all life on Earth.
It also implicitly says that no-one in particular owns the Earth but we all own it together.
Not just us people, but all life on Earth owns it. The beginning of life
stretches as far back as 4 billion years, and so Life claims its birthright of ownership of Earth, and so does the Soul of all Life, the Soul of Humanity.
Throughout this
analysis the land ownership of the Earth means ownership of the land and of all other Earth natural resources.
"A global community" is not about a piece of land you acquired by force or otherwise. One could think of a typical community that does not have to be bounded by a geographical or political
border. It can be people living in many different locations all over the world. The Global Community is thus more fluid and dynamic. We need to let go the archaic ways of seeing a community as the
street where we live and contained by a border. Many conflicts and wars will be avoided by seeing ourselves as people with a heart, a mind and a Soul, and as part of a community with the same.
The old concept of a community being the street where we live in and surrounded by a definite geographical and political boundary has originated during the Roman Empire period. An entire new system of
values was then created to make things work for the Roman Empire. Humanity has lived with this concept over two thousand years. Peoples from all over the world are ready to kill anyone challenging their
border. They say that this is their land, their property, their 'things'. This archaic concept is endangering humanity and its survival. The Roman Empire has gone but its culture is still affecting us today. We
need to let go the old way of thinking. We need to learn of the new concept, and how it can make things work in the world.
A typical community may be what a group of people, together, wants it to be. It can be a group of people sharing with the same values. It can be a group of people with the same cultural background, or the
same religious background. Or they can be people with totally different backgrounds and beliefs. The people making a global community may be living in many different locations on the planet. With today's
communications it is easy to group people in this fashion. It can be a village, or two villages together where people have decided to unite as one community. The two villages may be found in different parts of
the world. It can be a town, a city, or a nation. It can be two or more nations together.
Following this thinking we see land ownership is no longer a problem. The Earth and all its natural resources belong to all the "global communities" contained therein.
A village, or a city is "a global community" and owns the land around its boundaries. Along with the Global Community, it has ownership of all natural resources within its boundaries.
We will see in the Preview how this new system can work.
As mentioned above, land here, by definition, covers all naturally occurring resources like surface land, minerals deposits (gold, oil and gas etc), water, electromagnetic spectrum, the
trees, fish in the seas and rivers. It is unjust to treat land as private property. Land is not a product of labour. Everyone should therefore be given equal
access to such natural resources.
On the global level the Law of the Seas Covenant is an example of a global community lease payment basis for public needs as it has affirmed that ocean resources are the
common heritage of all and a proper source of funding for global institutions. Water belongs to the Earth and all species and is sacred to life therefore, the world’s water must be conserved, reclaimed and protected for all future
generations and its natural patterns respected.
Water is a fundamental human right and a public trust to be guarded by all levels of government; therefore, it should not be commodified, privatized or
traded for commercial purposes. These rights must be enshrined at all levels of government. In particular, an international treaty must ensure these
principles are noncontrovertable.
Water is best protected by local communities and citizens, who must be respected as equal partners with governments in the protection and regulation of
water. Peoples of the Earth are the only vehicle to promote democracy and save water.
Similarly, all the Earth natural resources belong to the Global Community to be used, developed and conserved for the maximum benefit of the people and of all
life.
The Global Community should set up expert groups and begin the necessary intergovernmental
negotiations towards establishing alternative revenue sources, which could include fees for the commercial use of the oceans, fees for airplane use of the
skies, fees for use of the electromagnetic spectrum, fees levied on foreign exchange transactions, and a tax on carbon content of fuels.
This thinking should give us a fresh start for a better future and bring some light to understanding previous claims of the many different
groups such as:
-
Native and aboriginal people claiming that their ancestors owned the land so now they do
-
God gave it to us so the land is ours
-
Property ownership system of the Roman Empire to today, our social-economic system of land owership
-
The military power of this world forcing ownership of land and of all other Earth natural resources against the will of everyone else
None of the above groups can claim ownership of the land and other Earth natural resources. They never did own the land and of all other Earth natural resources. And they never will.
Only the Global Community can rightfully claim ownership of the Earth.
Along with ownership comes the obligation of using the resources, share them or lose them. Land and all other Earth natural resources are not commodities.
Use the land,
share it or lose it. This principle also applies to banks and similar institutions all over the world and to Wall Street. You own property because the previous owners could not pay. Use that
property, share it or lose it.
Only the Global Community can rightfully claim ownership of the Earth.
Along with ownership comes the obligation of using the resources, sharing them or losing them.
Land and all other Earth natural resources are not commodities.
Use the land, share it or lose it. This principle also applies to banks and similar institutions
all over the world. You own property
because the previous owners could not pay. Use that property, share it or lose it.
|
Whoever owns the land and all other natural resources exerts power over those who are landless and no resources. The Global Community proposes to
extend democratic principles to include the ownership and control
of the Earth. The Global Economic Model was created for all
the people on the planet. The model makes sure that the
rights of all people and the rights of the planet are one and the same.
The Global Economic Model stipulates as well that we, as human beings, are trustees and caretakers
of all other life forms on Earth.
The Global Economic Model is global, as people are freed to move beyond
borders and boundaries and claim the whole Earth as their birthplace.
How the Earth should be owned is the major economic question of this
time. The world should be owned not just by the people living in it but by all life on Earth and the Soul of Life, the Soul of Humanity.
Unless a reformed or empowered Global Community is leading firmly upon
the principle of equal rights for all Global Citizens, then the planet
will be controlled by a handful of vested interests.
Land is not a product of labour. Everyone should
therefore be given equal access to natural resources.
The Global Economic Model proposes to make private property the product of labour. Common property
is all what Nature offers. The Global Economic Model policy removes
taxes from wages and increases taxes and user
fees on common property.
Each day taxpayers hand over astronomical amounts of money to build weapons of mass destruction, fuel dangerous and polluting technologies,
and subsidize giant corporations which concentrate the wealth and power of the world in the hands of an elite few.
So the ownership of the land and the natural resources will be challenged by the Global Community.
People need all tax dollars to take on the challenge but first must get out of spending on the military invasion of nations.
Let us try to answer a few simple questions.
After all the technology in the world has been used to get to the Moon, and now Mars, all the hard work, all the sweat and pain endured, and more, much more, to finally put a flag on the
Moon. Amazing human achievement! We can really be proud of a team that did it.
Just like the first European explorers who discovered America, they arrived and conquered. Natives did not have a chance.
Natives said America was their home. But no longer! The explorers said it is now ours. Most Natives were shot in the USA. More survived in Canada!
Explorers were not doing this hard work just for the pleasure of finding something new. Their countries sent them and pay for their expenses. Explorers were expected
to find something tangible that could make their countries proud and rich.
The question should be how does this relate to ownership of the Earth?
Does putting a flag on the Moon gives you ownership of the Moon?
Does putting a flag on Mars gives you ownership of the planet?
Does discovering the Americas by explorers gave them ownership of the Americas?
Does climbing Mount Everest gives ownership of the mountain?
The answer is no. None of the above own whatever they claim they do own.
Does mapping the ocean floor gives you ownership of the land nearby? No it does not.
Just because you put a flag on the Moon means you own the Moon. It just does not work that way.
A dog, a bear, a wolf, and many other life species, leave 'something' at the bottom of a tree, a bush, a building, a park bench, but this does not mean the life species owns the
tree, the forest, the park, the building or the town. People can leave a flag or whatever else, but that does not mean they own the Moon, planet Mars, Nunavut, Greenland,
the North Pole region, or the planet.
From the Global Community perspective, any new sustainable community brave enough to live on a new, inhabitated land
owns it. That is a basic principle. There no need to ask permission from any organization such as the International Court of Justice or the United Nations.
Someday people from a nation will land on the Moon and on planet Mars for the purpose of settling a colony. They wont ask permission from anybody because there is no one there.
People from another nation might do the same and settle a colony somewhere else on the Moon and Mars. There again they dont need to ask permission to do so.
Things get more complicated when a nation is a predator nation like the first explorers of North America. There were people living on the continent.
The explorers shut dead the natives when they got there. The explorers behave very much like predators. And the nations they represented were predator nations.
A predator nation is behaving more or less like a shark eating smaller fishes. No organization in the world should be going along with such human behavior.
Civilized people can live without killing others to survive. We dont need blood resources to survive. The global
civilization we have created has called upon the Agency of Global Police (AGP) to deal with predator nations.
Now let us deal with the problem of sovereignty over a territory.
The Global Community has established a criteria for a global community to exist.
What makes a 'nation' ? And what makes 'a global community' ?
A nation is defined primarily by its people, its communities; arts, history, social, languages, religious and cultural aspects included.
Fundamentally a nation or a state is defined as "a politically unified population occupying a specific area of land".
Perhaps it is time to leave behind the concept of 'nation'. It has confusing meanings and has been over-used in many situations and by everyone. Is it truly necessary
to discuss about it? I dont think so. Let us move on to the twenty first century. The Global Community has researched and developed new global concepts more
appropriate to our times. The concept of 'a global community'
is one of them and is certainly a powerful new concept that will make its place in history.
A global community has a well defined criteria based on global symbiotical relationships. And it does not require the occupation of a specific area of land.
These relationships allow a global equitable and peaceful development and a more stable and inclusive global economy.
The definition of the Global Community is:
The Global Community is this great, wide, wonderful world made of all these diverse global communities. Now we see how easily we can answer the question of ownership of the Earth
and sovereignty.
Criteria for sovereignty
- a global community is in place
- the land and its natural resources are just enough to live a sustainable life and for a healthy living
- the community governs its owns affairs as per the Scale of Global Rights, Global Law, Global Constitution, and the protection of the environment
and of the global life-support systems
- a symbiotical relationship exists between the citizens and the Global Community
- a democracy based on the fact that land, the air, oil, minerals, and all other natural resources within the community rightly belongs to the community along with the Global Community, and
that the Earth is the birthright of all life
We are all members of the Global Community. We all have the duty to protect the rights and welfare of all species and all people. No humans have the right to encroach on the ecological space of other species and other people,
or treat them with cruelty and violence. All life species, humans and cultures, have intrinsic worth. They are subjects, not objects of manipulation or ownership. No humans have the right to own other species, other people or the knowledge of other cultures through
patents and other intellectual property rights. Defending biological and cultural diversity is a duty of all people. Diversity is an end in itself, a value, a source of richness both material and cultural.
All members of the Global Community including all humans have the right to food and water, to safe and clean habitat, to security of ecological space.
These rights are natural rights, they are birthrights given by
the fact of existence on Earth and are best protected through community rights and global commons. They are not given by states or corporations, nor can they be extinguished by state or corporate action. No state or corporation has the
right to erode or undermine these natural rights or enclose the commons that sustain all through privatisation or monopoly control.
The Global Community found evident that
the ecological base is the essential prerequisite for the effectiveness
and exercise of all rights recognized for human beings. The stewardship
of the ecological base has to be given priority before the fulfilment of
various economic and social wishes. Demands resulting from the socio-economic
system of a particular country have to find their limits in the protection
of the global ecosystem. Vital interests of future generations have to
be considered as having priority before less vital interests of the present
generation. Supply chains have to be designed in a way, that the goods
can enter after usage or consumption into natural or industrial recycling
processes. If serious damages to persons, animals, plants and the ecosystem
cannot be excluded, an action or pattern of behaviour should be refrained
from. A measure for supplying goods or services should choose a path which
entails the least possible impact on the ecological and social system concerned.
This way functioning proven systems will not be disturbed, and unnecessary
risks will not be taken. Supply strategies consuming less resources should
have preference before those enhancing more resource consumption. When there is a need to find a
solution to a problem or a concern, a sound solution would be to
choose a measure or conduct an action, if possible, which causes reversible
damage as opposed to a measure or an action causing an irreversible loss.
All over the world, there is also a vast array of different life-form communities that inhabit land, water and air.
Everyone of those global communities, human and otherwise, have an Earth right of ownership
of the planet and of all its natural resources. It is their birthright. They dont express themselves in English, but we understand them. Human beings have a moral
obligation to protect and conserve the biodiversity of life on Earth.
And the best way to do that is by creating a security and biodiversity zone all over the planet.
Truly, the world is on the threshold of a global revolution, and needs to
proceed with the non-violent approach. The Global Community needs to build an economic democracy
based firmly on the basic principle that the Earth belongs equally to
everyone as a birthright. The Earth is for all people to labour and live
on and should never be the possession of any individual, corporation,
or uncaring government, any more than the air or water, or any other
Earth natural resources. An individual, or a business should have
no more than is needed for a healthy living.
The impacts of our democracy are destroying the Earth global life-support systems.
A few people have control over so much of the Earth.
To live in a world at peace and have conditions of basic justice and fairness in human interactions,
our democratic values must be based on the principle of equal rights to the Earth.
Territorial conflicts has for millennium been the basis of war and mass killing of others.
Throughout the ages wars have been fought over land, and other Earth natural resources.
We have seen
oil conflicts in the Persian Gulf, and the Caspian Sea Basin.
We have seen
water conflicts in the Nile Basin, the Jordan, and Indus River Basins.
We have seen wars being fought
over minerals and timber in Brazil, Angola, Cambodia, Columbia, Congo, Liberia, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
The view from space shows us a global landscape in which competition over resources is the governing principle behind the use of economic and military power.
Truly, resources have become the new political boundaries. Democracy is an excuse to gain control over those resources by mega corporations.
Conservation, restoration, and management of the Earth resources
is about asking ourselves the question of "
Who owns the Earth?" The large
gap between rich and poor is connected to
ownership and control of the planet's land and of all other Earth natural
resources. We, the Global Community, must now direct the wealth of the world towards the
building of local-to-global economic democracies in order to meet the needs
for food, shelter, universal healthcare, education, and employment for all.
The Global Community has proposed a democracy for the people based on the fact that land, the air, water, oil, minerals, and all other natural resources
rightly belong to the Global Community along with the local communities where those resources are found. The Earth is the birthright of all life.
The Global Economic Model proposed by the Global Community is truly the best response to the world.
Global Community criteria for sovereignty:
- a global community is in place
- the land and its natural resources are just enough to live a sustainable life and for a healthy living
- the community governs its owns affairs as per the Scale of Global Rights, Global Law, Global Constitution, and the protection of the environment
and of the global life-support systems
- a symbiotical relationship exists between the citizens and the Global Community
- a democracy based on the fact that land, the air, water, oil, minerals, and all other natural resources within the community rightly belongs to the community along with the Global Community, and
that the Earth is the birthright of all life
- Earth management and taxation of all Earth natural resources
Without this criteria no one can claim ownership - sovereignty - of any geographical area on the planet.
Earth governance does not imply a lost of state sovereignty and territorial integrity. A nation government exists within the framework of an
effective Global Community protecting common global values and humanity heritage. Earth governance gives a new meaning to the notions
of territoriality, and non-intervention in a state way of life, and it is about protecting the cultural heritage of a state. Diversity of cultural and
ethnic groups is an important aspect of Earth governance.
Earth governance is a balance between the rights of states with rights of people, and the interests of nations with the interests of the Global
Community, the human family, the global civil society.
Earth governance is about the rights of states to self-determination in the global context of the Global Community rather than the traditional
context of a world of separate states.
The Global Community has in fact been defined around a given territory,
that territory being the planet as a whole, as well as a specific population,
which is the Global Community. Global
Parliament has the power to make the laws of the land and to make the rules
for the territory of the Earth. Global Law has been and continue to be
researched and developed for this purpose.
The old concept of a community being the street where we live in and surrounded by a definite geographical and political boundary has originated during the Roman Empire period. An entire new system of
values was then created to make things work for the Roman Empire. Humanity has lived with this concept over two thousand years. Peoples from all over the world are ready to kill anyone challenging their
border. They say that this is their land, their property, their 'things'. This archaic concept is endangering humanity and its survival. The Roman Empire has gone but its culture is still affecting us today. We
need to let go the old way of thinking. We need to learn of the new concept, and how it can make things work in the world.
A typical community may be what a group of people, together, wants it to be. It can be a group of people sharing with the same values. It can be a group of people with the same cultural background, or the
same religious background. Or they can be people with totally different backgrounds and beliefs. The people making a global community may be living in many different locations on the planet. With today's
communications it is easy to group people in this fashion. It can be a village, or two villages together where people have decided to unite as one community. The two villages may be found in different parts of
the world. It can be a town, a city, or a nation. It can be two or more nations together.
Following this thinking we see land ownership is no longer a problem. The Earth and all its natural resources belong to all the "global communities" contained therein.
A village, or a city is "a global community" and owns the land around its boundaries. Along with the Global Community, it has ownership of all natural resources within its boundaries.
We will see in the Preview how this new system can work.
As mentioned above, land here, by definition, covers all naturally occurring resources like surface land, minerals deposits (gold, oil and gas etc), water, electromagnetic spectrum, the
trees, fish in the seas and rivers. It is unjust to treat land as private property. Land is not a product of labour. Everyone should therefore be given equal
access to such natural resources.
The Global Community is defined around a given territory,
that territory being the planet as a whole, as well as a specific population,
which is the Global Community. The Global Community has the power to make the laws of the land and to make the rules
for the territory of the Earth. Global Law has been and continue to be
researched and developed for this purpose. We are all members of the Global Community. We all have the duty to protect the rights and welfare of all species and all people. No humans have the right to encroach on the ecological space of other species and other people,
or treat them with cruelty and violence. All life species, humans and cultures, have intrinsic worth. They are subjects, not commodities, not objects of manipulation or ownership. No humans have the right to own other species, other people or the knowledge of other cultures through
patents and other intellectual property rights. Defending biological and cultural diversity is a duty of all people. Diversity is an end in itself, a value, a source of richness both material and cultural.
All members of the Global Community including all humans have the right to food and water, to safe and clean habitat, to security of ecological space.
These rights are natural rights, they are birthrights given by
the fact of existence on Earth and are best protected through global community rights and global commons. They are not given by states or corporations, nor can they be extinguished by state or corporate action. No state or corporation has the
right to erode or undermine these natural rights or enclose the commons that sustain all through privatisation or monopoly control.
A nation is defined primarily by its people, its communities; arts, history, social, languages, religious and cultural aspects included.
Fundamentally a nation or a state is defined as "a politically unified population occupying a specific area of land".
A global community has a well defined criteria based on global symbiotical relationships. And it does not require the occupation of a specific area of land.
These relationships allow a global equitable and peaceful development and a more stable and inclusive global economy.
"A global community" is not about a piece of land you acquired by force or otherwise. One could think of a typical community that does not have to be bounded by a geographical or political
border. It can be people living in many different locations all over the world. The Global Community is thus more fluid and dynamic. We need to let go the archaic ways of seeing a community as the
street where we live and contained by a border. Many conflicts and wars will be avoided by seeing ourselves as people with a heart, a mind and a Soul, and as part of a community with the same.
"The Global Community is defined as being all
that exits or occurs at any location at any time between the Ozone layer above
and the core of the planet below."
The Global Community is this great, wide, wonderful world made of all these diverse global communities.
The old concept of a community being the street where we live in and surrounded by a definite geographical and political boundary has originated during the Roman Empire period. An entire new system of
values was then created to make things work for the Roman Empire. Humanity has lived with this concept over two thousand years. Peoples from all over the world are ready to kill anyone challenging their
border. They say that this is their land, their property, their 'things'. This archaic concept is endangering humanity and its survival. The Roman Empire has gone but its culture is still affecting us today. We
need to let go the old way of thinking. We need to learn of the new concept, and how it can make things work in the world.
A typical community may be what a group of people, together, wants it to be. It can be a group of people sharing with the same values. It can be a group of people with the same cultural background, or the
same religious background. Or they can be people with totally different backgrounds and beliefs. The people making a global community may be living in many different locations on the planet. With today's
communications it is easy to group people in this fashion. It can be a village, or two villages together where people have decided to unite as one community. The two villages may be found in different parts of
the world. It can be a town, a city, or a nation. It can be two or more nations together.
The Global Community is thus more fluid and dynamic.
Following this thinking we see land ownership is no longer a problem. The Earth and all its natural resources belong to all the "global communities" contained therein.
A village, or a city is "a global community" and owns the land around its boundaries. Along with the Global Community, it has ownership of all natural resources within its boundaries.
As mentioned above, land here, by definition, covers all naturally occurring resources like surface land, the air, minerals deposits (gold, oil and gas etc), water, electromagnetic spectrum, the
trees, fish in the seas and rivers. It is unjust to treat land as private property or a commodity. Land is not a product of labour. Everyone should therefore be given equal
access to all natural resources.
Only the Global Community can rightfully claim ownership of the Earth.
Only the Global Community can rightfully claim ownership of the Earth.
Along with ownership comes the obligation of using the resources, sharing them or losing them.
Land and all other Earth natural resources are not commodities.
Use the land, share it or lose it. This principle also applies to banks and similar institutions
all over the world. You own property
because the previous owners could not pay. Use that property, share it or lose it.
|
Along with ownership comes the obligation of using the resources, share them or lose them. Land and all other Earth natural resources are not commodities. Use the land,
share it or lose it. This principle also applies to banks and similar institutions all over the world. You own property because the previous owners could not pay. Use that
property, share it or lose it.
Let us try to answer a few simple questions.
After all the technology in the world has been used to get to the Moon, and now Mars, all the hard work, all the sweat and pain endured, and more, much more, to finally put a flag on the
Moon. Amazing human achievement! We can really be proud of a team that did it.
Just like the first European explorers who discovered America, they arrived and conquered. Natives did not have a chance.
Natives said America was their home. But no longer! The explorers said it is now ours. Most Natives were shot in the USA. More survived in Canada!
Explorers were not doing this hard work just for the pleasure of finding something new. Their countries sent them and pay for their expenses. Explorers were expected
to find something tangible that could make their countries proud and rich.
The question should be how does this relate to ownership of the Earth?
Does putting a flag on the Moon gives you ownership of the Moon?
Does putting a flag on Mars gives you ownership of the planet?
Does discovering the Americas by explorers gave them ownership of the Americas?
Does climbing Mount Everest gives ownership of the mountain?
The answer is no. None of the above own whatever they claim they do own.
Does mapping the ocean floor gives you ownership of the land nearby? No it does not.
Just because you put a flag on the Moon means you own the Moon. It just does not work that way.
A dog, a bear, a wolf, and many other life species, leave 'something' at the bottom of a tree, a bush, a building, a park bench, but this does not mean the life species owns the
tree, the forest, the park, the building or the town. People can leave a flag or whatever else, but that does not mean they own the Moon, planet Mars, Nunavut or Greenland.
From the Global Community perspective, any new sustainable community brave enough to live on a new, inhabitated land
owns it. That is a basic principle. There no need to ask permission from any organization such as the International Court of Justice or the United Nations.
Someday people from a nation will land on the Moon and on planet Mars for the purpose of settling a colony. They wont ask permission from anybody because there is no one there.
People from another nation might do the same and settle a colony somewhere else on the Moon and Mars. There again they dont need to ask permission to do so.
Things get more complicated when a nation is a predator nation like the first explorers of North America. There were people living on the continent.
The explorers shut dead the natives when they got there. The explorers behave very much like predators. And the nations they represented were predator nations.
A predator nation is behaving more or less like a shark eating smaller fishes. No organization in the world should be going along with such human behavior.
Civilized people can live without killing others to survive. We dont need blood resources to survive. The global
civilization we have created has called upon the Agency of Global Police (AGP) to deal with predator nations.
Now let us deal with the problem of sovereignty over a territory.
The Global Community has established a criteria for a global community to exist.
What makes a 'nation' ? And what makes 'a global community' ?
A nation is defined primarily by its people, its communities; arts, history, social, languages, religious and cultural aspects included.
Fundamentally a nation or a state is defined as "a politically unified population occupying a specific area of land".
Perhaps it is time to leave behind the concept of 'nation'. It has confusing meanings and has been over-used in many situations and by everyone. Is it truly necessary
to discuss about it? I dont think so. Let us move on to the twenty first century. The Global Community has researched and developed new global concepts more
appropriate to our times. The concept of 'a global community'
is one of them and is certainly a powerful new concept that will make its place in history.
A global community has a well defined criteria based on global symbiotical relationships. And it does not require the occupation of a specific area of land.
These relationships allow a global equitable and peaceful development and a more stable and inclusive global economy.
The Earth and all its natural resources belong to all the "global communities" along with the Global Community where they are found.
A village, or a city is "a global community" and owns the land around its boundaries. Along with the Global Community, it has ownership of all natural resources within its boundaries.
The Global Community criteria for sovereignty implies control, authority over a territory. The concept of state sovereignty is
embedded in international law. Traditionally, this definition reflects a state’s right to jurisdictional control, territorial integrity,
and non-interference by outside states. Sovereignty implies both undisputed
supremacy over the land’s inhabitants and independence from unwanted intervention by an outside authority.
However, sovereignty has also been increasingly defined in terms of state responsibility and Earth management. This includes a state’s exercise of control and authority over its territory, and
the perception of this control and authority by other states. Sovereignty is thus linked to the maintenance of international security and to the protection of the environment
and the global life-support systems.
Across the globe, reserves of oil and gas that were previously regarded as uneconomical are being actively explored and developed. From the Arctic to East Asia to the
South Atlantic, untapped billions of barrels of oil are attracting the interests of energy companies and speculative finance capital, seeking to take advantage of the high price of
crude oil. One of the greatest potential oil and gas bonanzas is to be found beneath the Arctic Ocean. A report issued by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), 24
July estimated that the Arctic region holds around 90 billion barrels of oil—equal to the total proven reserves of Russia, the world’s second biggest oil producer. Up to 30
percent of the world’s unproven natural gas deposits could also lie beneath the ice, as well as a possible one-fifth of untapped reserves of natural gas liquids. To date, most of
the Arctic Ocean is international water, covered all year by a thick ice sheet. Russia, like all countries around the North Pole, claims sovereignty over the seas up to
200-nautical miles (370 km) from its coast.
Canada is developing military capabilities in its far north, with an army training centre based at Resolute Bay and a port for a new fleet of ice-strengthened patrol ships on the
northern tip of Baffin Island. These capabilities, as well as a C$40 million mapping project in the Arctic, are aimed at fending off its rivals. Canada is especially concerned
about the US claim that the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, should it open due to retreating ice, must be an international sea route. Ottawa insists that the
passage would be an internal Canadian waterway. Energy reserves in Alaska and the Chukchi Sea have become a key part of US plans to boost domestic oil production.
Speaking for the oil conglomerates who stand to make tens of billions of dollars from these oil fields, on June 18 President Bush pressed Congress to reverse the longstanding
ban on offshore drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, as well approving the development of onshore production on federal lands.
More than half of the undiscovered oil resources are estimated to occur in just three geologic provinces: Arctic Alaska (30 billion barrels), the Amerasia Basin (9.7 billion
barrels) and the East Greenland Rift Basins (8.9 billion barrels). More than 70 per cent of the undiscovered natural gas is likely to be in three provinces: the West Siberian
Basin (651 tcf), the East Barents Basins (318 tcf) and Arctic Alaska (221 tcf), the USGS said. The study took in all areas north of latitude 66.56 degrees north, and included
only reserves that could be tapped using existing techniques. Experimental or unconventional prospects such as oil shale, gas hydrates and coal-bed methane were not
included in the assessment. The 90 billion barrels of oil expected to be in the Arctic in total are more than all the known reserves of Nigeria, Kazakhstan and Mexico
combined, and could meet current world oil demand of 86.4 million barrels a day for almost three years.
The significance of the report is that it puts firm figures for the first time on the hydrocarbon riches which the five countries surrounding the Arctic - the US, Russia, Canada,
Norway and Denmark (through its dependency, Greenland) - have been eyeing up for several years.
Like we have explained above putting a flag on Moon does not give you ownership. Our first explorers did not own the land just because they stepped foot on
North America. Just because you put a flag on Mount Everest means you own the mountain. You dont! And the Inuit dont own Nunavut either.
The population density of Nunavut is 0.015 persons per square kilometer. So 82.4% of Nunavut is practically empty of people. One can say Nunavut is mostly without
people. If someday a colony is set up on the Moon will that mean the people making up the colony owns the Moon? No it does not! The people of the colony could say they own
an area large enough for their own survival, a sustainable living. Not the entire Moon. Similarly for the Inuit people. They dont own Nunavut.
The Inuit are in large part being taken care of by the Canadian Government. They are being used by the Canadian Government to claim soverighty of Nunavut.
Somewhat like the colony on the Moon would be taken care of by the nation on Earth.
So the Inuit people can only claim to own a small area around their communities.
This means that people from all over the world could come to settle a community in Nunavut.
In Nunavut there is also a vast array of different life-form communities such as the polar bears, caribou, Arctic foxes, seals, beluga whales, northern fulmars, and those communities of organisms that inhabit the sea
floor like brittle stars, worms, zooplankton, microalgae, bivalves and some of the lesser known sea spiders.
And there are many more. Everyone of those global communities have an Earth right of ownership
of the North and of all its natural resources. It is their birthright. They dont express themselves in English, but we understand them. Human beings have a moral
obligation to protect and conserve the biodiversity of life on Earth.
The Earth management of Nunavut is an asset to the Global Community and Canada. The Global Constitution shows us how it can be done with Global Law, the Earth Court of Justice,
and how the Global Protection Agency (GPA) and the Agency of Global Police (AGP) can protect the territory. Global Community Arrest Warrants can be issued to anyone
breaking Global Law. The GCNA Emergency, Rescue and Relief Centre is vigilant and quick in helping all life in need of help.
Fot the protection of those global communities we will need to create a biodiversity zone in the North by way of Earth rights and taxation of natural resources.
As we have explained above, the Global Community is defined around a given territory,
that territory being the planet as a whole, as well as a specific population,
which is the Global Community. The Global Community has the power to make the laws of the land and to make the rules
for the territory of the Earth. Global Law has been and continue to be
researched and developed for this purpose. We are all members of the Global Community. We all have the duty to protect the rights and welfare of all species and all people. No humans have the right to encroach on the ecological space of other species and other people,
or treat them with cruelty and violence. All life species, humans and cultures, have intrinsic worth. They are subjects, not commodities, not objects of manipulation or ownership. No humans have the right to own other species, other people or the knowledge of other cultures through
patents and other intellectual property rights. Defending biological and cultural diversity is a duty of all people. Diversity is an end in itself, a value, a source of richness both material and cultural.
All members of the Global Community including all humans have the right to food and water, to safe and clean habitat, to security of ecological space.
These rights are natural rights, they are birthrights given by
the fact of existence on Earth and are best protected through global community rights and global commons. They are not given by states or corporations, nor can they be extinguished by state or corporate action. No state or corporation has the
right to erode or undermine these natural rights or enclose the commons that sustain all through privatisation or monopoly control.
For these reasons the Global Community has set aside a specific region to create and protect
a biodiversity zone in the North Pole region.
Map #1
( see enlargement
)
Planetary Biodiversity Zone: North Pole region
Artwork by Germain Dufour
September 26, 2008
The Global Community has also established a planetary biodiversity zone now under the protection of the Global Protection Agency (GPA).
Map #2
( see enlargement
)
Planetary Biodiversity Zone: oceans, rivers, lakes and forests
Artwork by Germain Dufour
September 25, 2008
We have declared a moratorium on
all development in the zone, including all drilling, military testing, and any other destructive uses of the ecosystems.
We have declared a moratorium on
all development in the zone.
The planetary biodiversity zone includes :
- North Pole region
- South Pole region
- all oceans
- all forests
- all lakes
- all rivers and connecting streams
- all wetlands and grasslands
- living organisms and ecosystems in all of the above
The people of all nations are required to respect the moratorium until global law
has been completed to include regulations to be enforced by the GPA.
Comprehensive population policies are an essential element in a world
development strategy that combines access to reproductive health services,
education and economic opportunities, improved energy and natural resource
technologies, and to healthier models of consumption and the 'good life'.
Global poverty, aspects and issues
are related to the problem of overpopulation.
People have to regulate their population by means that are voluntary and benign and have to take along with a fair proportion of other lifeforms. Proper Earth
management will certainly be a necessary tool to achieve this goal. If not there will be a collapse of humanity and environment. From now on every global decision
we do will have tremendous consequences on our future.
In general, populations of all lifeforms grow exponentially that is by a steady proportion of whatever was there before. When there is no practical limit on resource then
populations usually grow maximally and the only limit is that of the reproductive capacity of the female animal. About 10,000 years ago, human beings were obliged to
commit themselves more or less fully to agriculture and the human population was 5 to 10 million. By the time of Christ, after only 8,000 years of large-scale agriculture,
the human population was 100 to 300 million. After this time, the exponential growth of the population entered its rapid phase. The billion mark was passed by 1800 A.D.
By year 2000, the human population exceeded 6 billion. Thus agriculture allowed a thousand-fold increase in numbers over a period of 10,000 years.
In practical sense, agriculture cannot feed a human population that has grown beyond the capacity limit. We must ask ourselves whether we can stop the growth by
means that are voluntary and benign, or whether the eventual environmental restraint will be out of our hands. At some questionable time in our future we will find that our
soil will no longer have the nutrients it needs to produce quality food. For some time we may counter this problem by fresh weathering of rock. Not for long! The loss of
lifeforms on Earth will be permanent.
Obviously something has to be done! The Global Community proposes a tight global policy, benignly implemented, or it will be very nasty indeed. In practice, a human population of 10 to
12 billion would be too uncomfortably high and would add a high strain on world resources. What kind of world population would be reasonable? What goal should we aim
at? A population should be small enough to be sustainable indefinitely and still allow plenty of leeway for ourselves and other lifeforms. It should also be large enough to
allow the formation of healthy civilizations.
We propose a world population of 500 million. The policy to apply is for every family to have only one or two children. It would take a thousand years to reach our goal of a
population of 500 million.
The continued economic growth in India and China is an important factor to reduce world poverty. The rich-poor gap is getting wider in developing countries as well as
within richer countries. Factors to help reduce the gap:
* be sustainable locally first and globally next only if needed. Let go the WTO, NAFTA or any free trade agreement that destroy your economy.
* annulment of world debt
* national social-economic policy reforms
* creation of symbiotical relationships between high-income countries with those less industrialized and entrepreneurial cultures
* improved international financial governance
* educating people about the Scale of Global Rights
In 30 years an additional 200 million hectares will be needed to feed the growing populations in the tropics and subtropics, but only 93 million hectares are available in
these nations for farms. Most of that land is forested and should be preserved. Other ways to feed this new population include:
* improved agricultural practices
* make use of salt-tolerant crops obtained by genetic engineering or use domesticated wild plants that are already salt-tolerant
* make sure of stem cells for meat production, i.e. mass-producing of muscle tissue rather than animals
With one-fifth of the world's total population, China has only 7% of the world's arable land. Mountains or deserts cover two-thirds of China, making only the balance of the
land available to 1.3 billion people.
An equitable and humane solution to overpopulation and overconsumption may be possible.
Over the past millions of years, human beings have evolved into the dominant animal on the planet.
However, in the last several centuries we have increasingly been using our relatively newly acquired power, especially our
culturally evolved technologies, to deplete the natural capital of Earth, in particular its deep, rich agricultural soils, its groundwater stored
during ice ages, and its biodiversity.
This trend is being driven in large part by a combination of population growth and increasing per capita consumption, and it cannot be long
continued without risking a collapse of our global civilization. Too many people, especially too many politicians and business executives,
are under the delusion that such a disastrous end to the modern human enterprise can be avoided by economic and technological fixes that will allow
the population
and the economy to grow forever. But if we fail to bring population growth and
over-consumption under control, the number of people on Earth is expected to grow from 6.7 billion today to 9 billion by the second half of the 21st century,
then we will inhabit a planet where
life becomes increasingly untenable because of looming crises: global warming, conflicts and wars over resources, and the degradation of the natural systems on which we all depend.
The Global Community believes it is possible to build a better future for all of us by developing some consensus on goals through Global Dialogue 2009
in which people discuss the human
predicament and decide whether they would like to see a maximum number of people living at a minimum standard of living, or perhaps a much lower population
size that gives individuals a broad
choice of lifestyles. It is clear that only
widespread changes in norms can give humanity a chance of attaining a sustainable and reasonably conflict-free society. To achieve such change will
involve everything from demographic
policies and transformation of planet-wide energy, industrial, and agricultural systems, to North-South and interfaith relationships and military postures.
Politicians, ecologists, industrialists, social scientists, everyday citizens, and the media must join this dialogue. Whether it is possible remains to be seen; societies have managed to make major
transitions in the recent past, as the civil rights revolution in the United States and the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union clearly demonstrate.
We will continue to hope and work for a
cultural transformation in how we treat each other and the natural systems we depend upon. We can create a peaceful and sustainable global civilization, but it will require realistic thinking about
the problems we face and a new mobilization of political will.
There is a growing awareness that the unrestrained growth of populations should pay for itself. Taxes and utility costs must
escalate in order to pay for the growth. In addition, growth brings increased levels of congestion, frustration, and air pollution.
In recent years, several industrialized nations have seen taxpayer revolts in the form of ballot questions that were adopted to limit the allowed tax increases.
The revolts have been in the nations that claimed to be the most prosperous because they had
the largest rates of population growth. These limits on taxes were felt to be necessary to stop the tax increases that were required to pay for the
growth. Unfortunately the growth has managed to continue, while the schools and other public agencies have suffered from the shortage of funds.
Communities can slow their population growth by removing the many visible and hidden public subsidies that support and encourage growth.
It clear that there will always be large opposition to programs of making population growth
pay for itself. Those who profit from growth will use their considerable resources to convince the community that the community should pay the costs of
growth. In our communities, making growth pay for itself could be a major tool to use in stopping the population growth.
Nations experiencing decreases in Total Fertility Rate (TFR) are nations that are very different from each other racially,
religiously, and politically, implying that the drive to stabilize populations is a global movement. It is being realized that more people now means less of everything
else now and for generations to come, and that more people simply cause additional strain on already-strained resources. In fact,
decreasing fertility is an important part of an economic development strategy.
What happens to the idea of the dignity of the human species if this population growth continues at its present rate?
It will be completely destroyed. Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive overpopulation. Convenience and decency cannot
survive overpopulation. As you put more and more people onto the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter
if someone dies, the more people there are, the less one person matters.
Having reached 6.7 billion in 2008, human population continues to grow. It was estimated that the population of the world in year 2050 will be 9,084,495,405.
UN population projections for the year 2050 range from 7.9 billion to 10.9 billion, suggesting the extent to which we can influence our
future. More people and higher incomes worldwide are multiplying humanity 's impact on the environment and on natural resources essential to life.
Based on these trends, it is clear that the 21st century will witness even greater pressures on natural resources. Current demographic trends
offer hope, however. Over the past 40 years the average number of children born to each woman has fallen from five to less than three. Young
people increasingly want to wait to have children and to have smaller families. Policymakers have a choice. They can do nothing, or they can help
ensure that in the 21st century the world 's population peaks with fewer than 8 billion people, simply by committing the financial resources to
meet the needs of couples who want to have smaller families, later in life.
In some regions of the world where the TFR is low there are large numbers of old people and fewer young persons.
This has been of increasing concern to the governments of many of these nations, including the Zero Population Growth nations.
Because these rates are at (or below) Replacement Level Fertility (RLF), populations in these nations have either stopped
growing (in the case of many of the European nations) or will soon, after passing through the lag introduced by their
age structures. These regions of the world are not expected to contribute significantly, if at all, to future population growth.
Many of the nations with high and relatively unchanging TFR's have several features in common:
- they are still largely agricultural,
- there is much social inequity and poverty, and
- women are held in very low status and
poorly educated (for example, in sub-Saharan Africa, 49% of women between the ages of 20 and 24 years are illiterate (for women
older than 25 year, the illiteracy rate is 75%!)
People in such nations often do not understand that more children in their families and societies is actually an impediment to progress, feeling instead
that many children constitute an advantage. Finally, some of these regions still have a large unmet demand for contraception, and
relatively high rates of infant and child mortality.
Clearly the environmental challenges facing humanity in the 21st century and beyond would be less difficult in a world with slower population
growth or none at all. Population is a critical variable influencing the availability of each of the natural resources considered here. And
access to family planning services is a critical variable influencing population. Use of family planning contributes powerfully to lower fertility,
later childbearing, and slower population growth. Yet policymakers, environmentalists and the general public remain largely unaware of the
growing interest of young people throughout the world in delaying pregnancies and planning their families. In greater proportions than ever, girls
want to go to school and to college, and women want to find fulfilling and well-paid employment. Helping people in every country to obtain
the information and services they need to put these ambitions into effect is all that can be done, and all that needs to be done, to end world
population growth in the new century.
Reproductive health services can help. Voluntary family planning and other reproductive
health services can help couples avert high-risk pregnancies, prevent unwanted childbearing and abortion, and avoid diseases
such as HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, that can lead to death, disability, and infertility.
Comprehensive reproductive health services, especially care in pregnancy and childbirth and for sexually transmitted infections,
are key to preventing disability and death and improving women's health. Better access to emergency care during childbirth and
safe abortion services would also contribute significantly to lower maternal death rates. Family planning diminishes risks associated
with frequent childbearing and helps reduce reliance on abortion.
An important obstacle to couple negotiation of contraceptive use and protection from STDs including HIV is that most women
have unequal access to resources and decision-making. Yet women are more vulnerable to the consequences of unplanned pregnancies
and often HIV/STI's. For these reasons, countering the prevailing gender stereotypes that increase risky behaviors and decrease
couple communication is a key strategy for promoting good reproductive health.
Individuals, too, can help bring about a world that is more secure and more supportive of life, health and happiness. They
can educate themselves on population dynamics, consumption patterns
and the impact of these forces on natural resources and the environment. They can be socially, politically and culturally active to elevate
the issues they care about. They can become more environmentally responsible in their purchasing
decisions and their use of energy and natural resources. And individuals and couples can consider the impacts
of their reproductive decisions on their communities and the world as a whole.
The world's forests provide goods and services essential to human and planetary well-being. But forests are disappearing faster
today than ever before. Due both to deforestation and human population growth, the current ratio of forests to human beings is less than half
what it was in 1960. Yet we not only need more forests, we need forests more than ever beforeto protect the world's remaining plant and
animal life, to prevent flooding, to slow human-induced climate change, and to provide the paper on which education and communication still
depend. More efficient consumption of forest products and eventual stabilization of human populationa prospect that appears more promising today as birthrates declinewill be needed to conserve the world's forests
in the coming millennium.
Population dynamics are among the primary underlying causes of forest decline. Poverty, corruption, inequitable access to land and wasteful
consumption practices also influence the decisions of governments, corporations and individuals to cut and clear forests. The interaction of these forces
is most evident in areas such as South Asia, Central America and sub-Saharan Africa, where poverty, rapid population growth and weak institutions
contribute to forest loss and severe environmental degradation.
The dominant force in forest loss is growth in the demand for farmland. Subsistence agriculture is the principal cause of forest loss in Africa,
Asia and much of Latin America. Slash-and-burn farming and other traditional techniques were sustainable for centuries when population densities
were lower. Today they are a major factor, along with the expansion of commercial farms and livestock grazing areas, in the permanent conversion
of wooded land to agriculture. The need to increase food production is expected to accelerate the forest-to-farmland cycle, especially in
countries where alternatives for meeting this demand are limited.
A typical American uses 15 times as much lumber and paper
as a resident of a developing country. Reducing wood consumption in the industrialized world is unlikely to stop forest loss in developing
countries however, since most of the wood consumed comes from trees in the industrialized countries themselves. Nevertheless, the consumption
model offered to the rest of the world threatens accelerated forest loss as both populations and economies grow in developing countries.
Population policies based on human development and the Scale of Human and Earth Rights offer the greatest hope for the future of forests. This is not an
argument for population "control" but for the social investments that allow couples to choose when to have children and how many to have.
Programs linking conservation activities with family planning services show promise for achieving both the sustainable use of forests and greater
acceptance of reproductive health services.
Sustainable wood consumption is essential for the future of forests. Individuals and institutions alike should promote the ecologically sound
and socially responsible use of forest products. Eco-labeling, or the environmental certification of wood products, could speed the adoption
of more sustainable forestry practices. Consumer demand for green-certified paper and other wood products is an important complement to recycling
and other efforts to reduce wood consumption.
The rate of world population growth is beginning to decline, but the total number of people could still double or even triple
from todays 6.7 billion before stabilizing a century or more from now. Women in most countries are still having more
than the two-child average consistent with a stable population size. Moreover, so many young people are now entering or moving
through their childbearing years that even a two-child average would still boost population size for a few decades until the
momentum of past growth subsides. Yet there is reason for optimism. The combination of access to family planning and other reproductive
health services, education for girls and economic opportunity for women could lower birthrates enough to stabilize world population
well before a doubling of todays total.
Motivation, rather than differential access to modern contraception is a major determinant of fertility. Individuals frequently respond
to scarcity by having fewer children, and to perceived improved economic opportunity by having more children.
Economic development does not cause family size to shrink; rather, at every point where serious economic opportunity beckons, family size preferences expand.
A) Foreign aid conveys to the recipients the perception of improving economic wellbeing, which is followed by an increase in the fertility
of the recipients of the aid.
B) Migrations from regions of low economic opportunity to places of higher economic opportunity result in an increase in the fertility of the
migrants that persists for a generation or two.
The need is not to control population growth. Governments cannot control childbearing and attempts
to do so have sometimes led to coercive approaches to reproduction that violate human rights. The need is rather to expand the
power individuals have over their own lives, especially by enabling them to choose how many children to have and when to have them.
The well-being of the world's forests is closely linked to the health and well-being of women. Investing in education for girls
helps them to contribute to their national economiesand to postpone childbearing until they are ready for a family. Providing credit and
other economic opportunities for women creates alternatives to early and frequent childbearing. Finally, better access to quality reproductive
health services directly benefits women and their families. These approaches increase human capacity, providing the greatest long-term return to
societies, individuals and the environment. Moreover, they are likely to lead to an early peak in world population in the coming centuryquite
possibly at levels that can co-exist with forests that teem with human and non-human life for centuries to come.
Comprehensive population policies are an essential element in a world development strategy that combines access to reproductive health services,
to education and economic opportunities, to improved energy and natural resource technologies, and to healthyer models of consumption and the "good life."
Policies to decrease world population:
delay reproduction until later in life
Delaying reproduction is important in influencing population growth rates. Over a period of 60 years, if people delay reproduction
until they are 30 years old, you would have only two generations, while if you do not delay reproduction you would have three generations (one generation every 20 years).
spread your children farther apart
to have fewer children overall
government commitment to decreasing population growth
Create policies that help decreasing the number of children being born. Policies such as income tax deductions for dependent children and maternity and paternity leaves are essentially pronatalist and should be eliminated.
programs that are locally designed and that include information on family planning and access to contraceptives
educational programs that emphasize the connection between family planning and social good
The vast disparities
in reproductive health worldwide and the greater vulnerability
of the poor to reproductive risk point to several steps all governments
can take, with the support of other sectors, to improve the health
of women and their families:
- Give women more
life choices. The low social and economic status of women and
girls sets the stage for poor reproductive health
- Invest in reproductive
health care
- Encourage delays
in the onset of sexual activity and first births
- Help couples prevent
and manage unwanted childbearing
- Ensure universal
access to maternal health care
- Support new reproductive
health technologies
- Increase efforts
to address the HIV pandemic
- Involve communities
in evaluating and implementing programs
- Develop partnerships
with the private sector, policymakers and aid donors to broaden
support for reproductive health
- Measure Progress
More and more young people on every continent want to start bearing children later in life and to have smaller families than at any
time in history. Likewise, in greater proportions than ever, women and girls in particular want to go to school and to college, and
they want to find fulfilling and well-paid employment. Helping people in every country obtain the information and services they
need to put these ambitions into effect is all that can be done, and all that needs to be done, to bring world population growth
to a stable landing in the new century.
War is not sustainable. It never was. The military option, war, is against global sustainability, global right, and global peace in a big way.
The worst environmental degradation happens in wars. Farm products in fields and livestock are abandoned, there is no more control on toxic wastes, and water, air, and land are polluted. People are displaced and feel no longer
responsible for the quality of life in their communities. Historically, the industrialized nations have caused the most damage to the environment, with their careless technology and policies. Emissions from factories and vehicles have
caused ozone depletion, acid rain, and dangerous greenhouse gases
have forced the global warming of the planet and the climate to change dangerously, the worst threat to humanity and all life. Leaders of the wealthier nations must be willing to accept responsibility for past mistakes and to help pay the financial burden for environmental protection of the developing nations. This is the
most damaging conflict of interests between the rich industrialized countries and those that are poor and struggling just for existence.
The Global Community helps wealthy and poorer nations reach a better understanding of each other's needs.
All aspects are interrelated: global peace, global sustainability, human and Earth rights and the environment. The poor is more concerned with ending starvation, finding a proper shelter and employment, and helping their children to survive. Environmental issues become
meaningless to the poor. In reality, all concerns are interrelated. As soon as the environment is destroyed beyond repair, human suffering is next. Ecology has no boundaries. All nations suffer the effects of air pollution, global
warming, loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, acid rain, ozone depletion, silting of streams, and countless of other environmental problems. This was the reason for developing the
Scale of Global Rights.
War is the greatest violation of global rights that one people can inflict on another. It brings deaths and injuries, starvation, diseases, millions of people losing their homes and livelihoods, and massive
destruction of property. Children and teenagers are placed in internment camps, and several are often forced to serve as soldiers. War not only corrupts the morals of soldiers, it leads to a decline in the
morality of the whole nation. Political and military leaders are always convinced that their particular war is justified. From their point of view, there are several reasons to go to war: loyalty to allies, religion, a
thirst for power, greed, ancient grievances to be settled, or the desire to alleviate suffering among their people.
A nonviolent settlement to a conflict would always be more advantageous. War is self-defeating
because it cannot secure what it sets out to achieve, protection against attack. The hatred for the enemy whipped up by war and the desire for revenge among the losers leads to an accursed vicious circle
from which there is no escape. The difference between agressive and defensive, or just and unjust wars, is ridiculous. They are tags each side adopted to suit its interests. War and militarism destroy civil
liberties within a nation.
What happens to a person's conscience when he/she wears the uniform of the soldier? It is enslaved to the state. He must kill when ordered. No government, whether democratic or despotic, can allow the
soldier to decide what to do according to his conscience. That would undermine discipline and the power to fight.
Territorial conflicts has for millennium been the basis of war and mass killing of others.
Throughout the ages wars have been fought over land, and other Earth natural resources. Blood resources started when the first explorers came to America and started to
kill Natives. Explorers had to come back home with the prospect of future catches for their countries.
We have seen oil conflicts in the Persian Gulf, and the Caspian Sea Basin.
We have seen water conflicts in the Nile Basin, the Jordan, and Indus River Basins.
We have seen wars being fought over minerals and timber in Brazil, Angola, Cambodia, Columbia, Congo, Liberia, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
The view from space shows us a global landscape in which competition over resources is the governing principle behind the use of economic and military power.
Truly, resources have become the new political boundaries. Geopolitical boundaries between nations are gradually disappearing to make place to georesources boundaries. Democracy is an excuse to gain control over those resources by mega corporations.
'Blood oil and gas' is certainly a proof of this statement.
Building global communities require understanding of global problems this generation is facing. There are several major problems: conflicts and wars,
no tolerance and compassion for one another, world overpopulation, human activities,
as population increases the respect and value of a human life is in decline,
insufficient protection and prevention for global health, scarcity of resources and drinking water, poverty, Fauna and Flora species disappearing at a fast rate,
global warming and global climate change, global pollution, deforestation, permanent lost of the Earth's genetic heritage, and the destruction of the global life-support systems and the eco-systems of the planet. We need to build global
communities for all life on the planet. We need to build global communities that will manage themselves with the understanding of the above problems.
Wars truly make no sense! The world is too crowded and too
small nowadays! And weapons too lethal! So security cannot be achieved through the military. The only job the military should be asked to do today is to protect the global life-support systems. These systems have the highest
priority on the Scale of Global Rights
and are certainly more important than any of the other rights on the Scale including security. Simply because without life there is no other rights possible. Without Oxygen there is no
life! Without clean water there is no life! So protect life on Earth at all costs. Wars are the biggest threat to life and to the ecosystems of the planet.
So security must be achieved by other means than wars. We might as well shelved the war industry from humanity right now and that means phasing out all nuclear, biological, chemical weapons right now.
Governments that have weapons of masss destruction (WMDs) are all terrorist governments. They are a threat to global security.
I am asking them to disarm.
No waiting! That also
means having inspectors verifying the phasing out in all nations of the world, and not just in some Middle East country. The nature of global security has changed since the
rise of the Global Community organization. Security used to be about the protection of
the state and its boundaries, people, institutions and values from an outside threat. The Global Community will emphasize as a priority the prohibition of external interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states. Today the security of people
within the Global Community is just as important as the security of states. Citizens must be secure.
The Global Community has proposed a democracy for the people based on the fact that land, the air, water, oil, minerals, and all other natural resources
rightly belong to the Global Community along with the local communities where those resources are found. The Earth is the birthright of all life.
The Global Economic Model proposed by the Global Community is truly the best response to the world.
Truly, the world is on the threshold of a global revolution, and needs to
proceed with the non-violent approach. The Global Community needs to build an economic democracy
based firmly on the basic principle that the Earth belongs equally to
everyone as a birthright. The Earth is for all people to labour and live
on and should never be the possession of any individual, corporation,
or uncaring government, any more than the air or water, or any other
Earth natural resources. An individual, or a business should have
no more than is needed for a healthy living.
The impacts of our democracy are destroying the Earth global life-support systems.
A few people have control over so much of the Earth.
To live in a world at peace and have conditions of basic justice and fairness in human interactions,
our democratic values must be based on the principle of equal rights to the Earth.
When people know they own the resources in their communities then people can start directing the wealth of their resources towards
the building of local-to-global economic democracies in order to meet the needs for food, shelter, universal healthcare, education, and employment for all in their community.
Global rights will help here. Global rights allow people to do what they need to do in order to be sustainable. People and communities are protected by global rights.
Once again, this time in Iraq, we see the natural resource wealth of an entire nation enriching none but a criminal class and
megacorporations.
Iraq has 115 billion barrels of known oil reserves. That is more than five times the total in the United States. And, because
of its long isolation, it is the least explored of the world’s oil-rich nations. A mere two thousand wells have been drilled
across the entire country; in Texas alone there are a million. It has been estimated, by the Council on Foreign Relations,
that Iraq may have a further 220 billion barrels of undiscovered oil; another study puts the figure at 300 billion. If these
estimates are anywhere close to the mark, US forces are now sitting on one quarter of the world’s oil resources. The value
of Iraqi oil, largely light crude with low production costs, would be of the order of $30 trillion at today’s prices. For
purposes of comparison, the projected total cost of the US invasion/occupation is around $1 trillion. Who will get Iraq’s
oil? One of the Bush administration’s ‘benchmarks’ for the Iraqi government is the passage of a law to distribute oil
revenues. The draft law that the US has written for the Iraqi congress would cede nearly all the oil to Western companies.
The Iraq National Oil Company would retain control of 17 of Iraq’s 80 existing oilfields, leaving the rest – including all yet
to be discovered oil – under foreign corporate control for 30 years.
The occupation may seem horribly botched on the face of it, but the Bush administration’s cavalier attitude towards ‘nation-building’ has
all but ensured that Iraq will end up as an American protectorate for the next few decades – a necessary condition for the extraction of its
oil wealth. If the US had managed to create a strong, democratic government in an Iraq effectively secured by its own army and police
force, and had then departed, what would have stopped that government from taking control of its own oil, like every other regime in the
Middle East? The costs are about ten billion dollars a month
plus a few dozen American fatalities are negligible compared to $30 trillion in oil wealth, assured American
geopolitical supremacy and gas for voters. In terms of realpolitik, the invasion of Iraq is not a fiasco; it is a resounding success.
Territorial conflicts has for millennium been the basis of war and mass killing of others.
Throughout the ages wars have been fought over land, and other Earth natural resources. Blood resources started when the first explorers came to America and started to shut
dead Natives. Explorers had to come back home with the prospect of future catches for their countries.
We have seen oil conflicts in the Persian Gulf, and the Caspian Sea Basin.
We have seen water conflicts in the Nile Basin, the Jordan, and Indus River Basins.
We have seen wars being fought over minerals and timber in Brazil, Angola, Cambodia, Columbia, Congo, Liberia, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
The view from space shows us a global landscape in which competition over resources is the governing principle behind the use of economic and military power.
Truly, resources have become the new political boundaries. Geopolitical boundaries between nations are gradually disappearing to make place to georesources boundaries. Democracy is an excuse to gain control over those resources by mega corporations.
'Blood oil and gas' is certainly a proof of this statement.
Conservation, restoration, and management of the Earth resources
is about asking ourselves the question of "Who owns the Earth?" The large
gap between rich and poor is connected to
ownership and control of the planet's land and of all other Earth natural
resources. We, the Global Community, must now direct the wealth of the world towards the
building of local-to-global economic democracies in order to meet the needs
for food, shelter, universal healthcare, education, and employment for all.
The Global Community has proposed a democracy for the people based on the fact that land, the air, water, oil, minerals, and all other natural resources
rightly belong to the Global Community along with the local communities where those resources are found. The Earth is the birthright of all life.
The Global Economic Model proposed by the Global Community is truly the best response to the world.
Global poverty, aspects and issues
are related to the problem of overpopulation.
People have to regulate their population by means that are voluntary and benign and have to take along with a fair proportion of other lifeforms. Proper Earth
management will certainly be a necessary tool to achieve this goal. If not there will be a collapse of humanity and of the environment. From now on every global decision
we do will have tremendous consequences on our future.
In general, populations of all lifeforms grow exponentially that is by a steady proportion of whatever was there before. When there is no practical limit on resource then
populations usually grow maximally and the only limit is that of the reproductive capacity of the female animal. About 10,000 years ago, human beings were obliged to
commit themselves more or less fully to agriculture and the human population was 5 to 10 million. By the time of Christ, after only 8,000 years of large-scale agriculture,
the human population was 100 to 300 million. After this time, the exponential growth of the population entered its rapid phase. The billion mark was passed by 1800 A.D.
By year 2000, the human population exceeded 6 billion. Thus agriculture allowed a thousand-fold increase in numbers over a period of 10,000 years.
In practical sense, agriculture cannot feed a human population that has grown beyond the capacity limit. We must ask ourselves whether we can stop the growth by
means that are voluntary and benign, or whether the eventual environmental restraint will be out of our hands. At some questionable time in our future we will find that our
soil will no longer have the nutrients it needs to produce quality food. For some time we may counter this problem by fresh weathering of rock. Not for long! The loss of
lifeforms on Earth will be permanent.
Obviously something has to be done! Earth Government proposes a tight global policy, benignly implemented, or it will be very nasty indeed. In practice, a human population of 10 to
12 billion would be too uncomfortably high and would add a high strain on world resources. What kind of world population would be reasonable? What goal should we aim
at? A population should be small enough to be sustainable indefinitely and still allow plenty of leeway for ourselves and other lifeforms. It should also be large enough to
allow the formation of healthy civilizations.
We propose a world population of 500 million. The policy to apply is for every family to have only one or two children. It would take a thousand years to reach our goal of a
population of 500 million.
The continued economic growth in India and China is an important factor to reduce world poverty. The rich-poor gap is getting wider in developing countries as well as
within richer countries. Factors to help reduce the gap:
* be sustainable locally first and globally next only if needed. Let go the WTO, NAFTA or any free trade agreement that destroy your economy.
* annulment of world debt
* national economic policy reforms
* creation of symbiotical relationships between high-income countries with those less industrialized and entrepreneurial cultures
* improved international financial governance
* educating people about the Scale of Human and Earth Rights
In 30 years an additional 200 million hectares will be needed to feed the growing populations in the tropics and subtropics, but only 93 million hectares are available in
these nations for farms. Most of that land is forested and should be preserved. Other ways to feed this new population include:
* improved agricultural practices
* make use of salt-tolerant crops obtained by genetic engineering or use domesticated wild plants that are already salt-tolerant
* make sure of stem cells for meat production, i.e. mass-producing of muscle tissue rather than animals
With one-fifth of the world's total population, China has only 7% of the world's arable land. Mountains or deserts cover two-thirds of China, making only the balance of the
land available to 1.3 billion people.
Beside global warming, the human activity that affects Earth most is that of food production. We need to form a global ministry dealing only about agriculture and the
protection of our soils. All nations will be part of the ministry. We have to design systems of food production that meet our own needs, and also leave room for these
other lifeforms we want to take along with us. Western agriculture is designed in the end to maximize profit. As a primordial human right, the prime concern of the human
species is to feed people. Therefore we have to do things differently. We will have to produce less livestock as we effectively double the population we need to feed:
ourselves, plus the livestock that is supposed to be feeding us. We also have to apportion the land surface of the whole world more efficiently, using some for highhly
intensive food production (which makes use of less land), some for extensive agriculture (combining food production with wildlife conservation) and designing some
specifically as wilderness areas with global corridors between them.
In developing countries, the most important environmental pressure is linked to poverty. Poor people put pressure on the land and forests, over-exploiting them to survive.
These countries must be helped. They must accept the implementation of the Scale of Human and Earth Rights and the Charter of Earth Government into their way of
life. We must give them access to technologies that use fewer resources, energy efficient technologies, 'clean' technologies.
The debt of the developing nations to the rich nations was a form of global tax and therefore the poor or 'developing' nations dont have to
pay it back. In fact poor nations should expect way more money as tax by the rich nations and not as loans. The state of the world today is the result of a specific
set of interlocking institutions: the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. These institutions are designed to generate massive wealth for the few and poverty for the
rest. The same people who make the decisions in government and corporation make the profit. They create a tight concentration of power. Together they are a form of
anti-government whose only goal is profit. The IMF, through Structural Adjustment Programs, now directly runs the economies of over 70 countries. That means that about
1000 economists and bureaucrats control the economic policies for 1.4 billion people in these countries. That is a form of anti-government. The people that profit most
from the global economy are white people. The people who are most oppressed by the global economy are people of colour. Racism and sexism have become the norm.
The entire planet is in a state of low intensity civil war. The ruling elite profit off of the exploitation of the rest of the world.
The Global Community was
looking for a method of raising global taxes, of redistributing incomes to the poorest communities, of providing debt-free technical assistance to non-industrial and
developing countries to help them out of poverty and to meet environmental and social standards, but there it was all along right on our eyes. The Earth Court of
Justice will be asked to decide on the debt be changed into an actual tax to be paid by the rich nations to the poor nations, and to decide on the amount of tax to be
paid. Developing nations will then be able to start rebuilding their communities as per the Scale of Global Rights. They
will not have to satisfy the economic needs and wishes of the rich nations. The Earth Court of Justice will also be asked to rule illegal the activities of the IMF, the World
Bank and the WTO unless they become a part of a greater whole such as the Earth Ministry of Financial Institutions. These
institutions will be controlled by the Global Community.
Because governments of poor nations had to promote 'free trade', this situation cause barriers to trade to be eliminated and now we are seeing the globalization of 'free
trade'. Poor nations are now asked to produce only the products they are good at producing and buy from other countries the products they are not as good at producing.
This way the economy of a nation will function at maximum efficiency. So now governments are told to open up their borders and to stop meddling in markets, so
that competition will be free internationally. Often what is called trade is really moving of resources across borders between subsidiaries of the same corporation. Nothing
to do with free competition. Economic activity is centrally-managed and planned by the corporate elite. Capital move freely across borders as restrictions on the flow of
money have been removed. Corporations can relocate their operations to the countries with the lowest wages, the least active unions and the lowest environmental
standards. The reality is that more polluting industries are encouraged to relocate to poorer countries. A polluting industry tends to increase the chances that people in
the surrounding area will have health problems. If pollution kills someone or makes them unable to work, the cost to the economy, or to the industry in the case of a
law-suit, would be roughly equal to the projected wages that the person would have earned in the rest of their life. In a country with low life expectancy and low wages, this
cost will be lessened. It costs less to dump a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country.
The global financial crisis has propelled the French Leader and EU Leader to go all around the world to orgainize a Summit this November, the Summit of all G20 nations, the most
industrialized nations, and 'fix' the crisis. These leaders are interested in fixing their economies, not the global crisis. They instrested in money, the stock market,
not the people of world, the future of the next generations, or the environment. A money fix will not solve a problem. Money is used to deal with goods as an exchange between
people, businesses and governments in the world. The problem is not money. The problem is the amount of goods being taken from the Earth, exchanged and consumed, and all the
pollution associated with this process. The problem is the fundamentally wrong economic system created to allow these exchanges to occur for the benefit of a few rich people on the
planet and at the expenses of an overpopulated world, the poor and the middle class people, 6.7 billion people, and at the expenses of all life on Earth, the environment, and the
global life-support systems. A money fix is not the solution.
They will also talk about NATO's future and how the organiztion can be used to rule the world under the leadership of the G20 nations. A fundamentally bad new
world order.
The main intergovernmental bodies including the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Trade Organizations (WTO),
the European Union (EU), and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
have all endorsed the New World Order on behalf of their corporate
sponsors. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance of democratic states in Europe and North America, is the official protector of
the corporate sponsors.
Governments in both developed and developing countries have abandoned their historical role of regulating key economic variables as well as ensuring a minimum livelihood for their people.
They are no longer sustainable locally.
We are dealing with a complex and centralized constellation of economic power in which the instruments of market manipulation have a direct bearing on the lives of billions of people. The prices of
food, water, fuel are determined at the global level, beyond the reach of national government policy. The price hikes of these three essential commodities constitute an instrument of "economic warfare",
carried out through the "free market" on the futures and options exchanges. These hikes in the prices of food, water and fuel are contributing in a very real sense to "eliminating the poor" through
"starvation deaths". The sugar coated bullets of the "free market" kill our children. The act to kill is instrumented in a detached fashion through computer program trading on the commodity exchanges,
where the global prices of rice, wheat and corn are decided upon.
When the Global Community is confronted with the latest evidence of the startling growth of income and the ever increasing chasm of wealth inequality around the world, we
need to recognize obscene social and economic arrangements for what they are and demand something different. Presently, there are nearly 500 billionaires worldwide whereas 1.2 billion
live on a dollar a day or less. Tens of millions of children are locked out of school because their parents are unable to afford school fees. More than a million children die a
year from diarrhea because their families lack access to clean drinking water. More than one billion people worldwide do not get essential health care. On average, developing
countries have one doctor for every 6,000 people whereas industrialized countries have one for every 350 people. Under developed countries face a nightmare of almost no
healthcare for their teeming masses.
We live in a world where all natural and human resources are exploited mercilessly, so that a small minority can consume far more than their rightful share of the world's real
wealth.
Those at the helm, the big corporate rulers, are getting bail-outs in this financial crisis, not Main Street.
Now, as we push the exploitation of the earths social and environmental systems beyond their limits of tolerance, we face the reality that the industrial era faces a
burnout, because it is exhausting the human and natural resource base on which our very lives depend.
Living at the crossroads of this global crisis, we must hasten its passage, while assisting in the birth of a new
civilization based on life affirming rather than money affirming values. All over the world people are indeed waking up to the truth. We should strive and take steps to reclaim
and rebuild our local economy.
Be sustainable locally first and globally next only if needed. Let go the WTO, NAFTA or any free trade agreement.
It should also be our goal to create locally owned enterprises that sustainably harvest and process local resources to produce jobs, goods and
services. Ideally our economy should be local; rooting power in the people and communities who realize their well being depends on the health and vitality of their local
ecosystem. We should favor local firms and workers, who pay local taxes, live by local rules, respect and nurture the local ecosystems, compete fairly in local markets, and
contribute to community life.
Labour should not be taxed but pollution should. The exploitation and use of natural resources should also be taxed.
A global economy empowers global corporations and financial institutions, local economies empower people. It is our consciousness, our ways
of thinking and our sense of membership in a larger community, which should be global, the Global Community. Perhaps the most important fact of all, albeit forgotten, is that life is about living, not
consuming. A life of material sufficiency can be filled with social, cultural, intellectual and spiritual abundance that place no burden on the planet. It is time to assume
responsibility for creating a new future of just and sustainable societies free from the myth that competition, greed and mindless consumption are paths to individual and
collective fulfillment.
The fate of global food production has now become one of the terrors of the future.
Much of our current recessionary downturn has been caused by market speculation, from the oil and food sector all the way to the White House itself. For the last seven years, the Bush
administration has placed climate crisis on the back burner in existential pursuit of resource wars and an "American way of life" that has turned from a dream of Hummers, housing and bling into a
nightmare of price hikes, foreclosures and layoffs.
Food riots are breaking out across the planet. We must re-examine corporate control of the food supply. The rise in global food prices has sparked a number of protests in recent weeks, highlighting the
worsening epidemic of global hunger. The World Bank estimates world food prices have risen 80 percent over the last three years and that at least thirty-three countries face social unrest as a result.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned the growing global food crisis has reached emergency proportions.
In recent weeks, food riots have also erupted in Haiti, Niger, Senegal, Cameroon and Burkina Faso. Protests have also flared in Morocco, Mauritania, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Mexico and Yemen. In most of
West Africa, the price of food has risen by 50 percent -- in Sierra Leone, 300 percent. The World Food Program has issued a rare $500 million emergency appeal to deal with the growing crisis.
Several causes factor into the global food price hike, many linked to human activity. These include human-driven climate change, the soaring cost of oil
and a Western-led focus on biofuels that turns food into fuel.
This is the brutal world of capitalist agriculture – a world where some people destroy food because prices are too low, and others literally eat dirt because food prices are too high.
We are in the midst of an unprecedented worldwide food price inflation that has driven prices to their highest levels in decades. The increases affect most kinds of food, but in particular the most
important staples – wheat, corn, and rice. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization says that between March 2007 and March 2008 prices of cereals increased 88%, oils and fats 106%, and dairy 48%.
These increases are catastrophic for the 2.6 billion people around the world who live on less than US$2 a day and spend 60% to 80% of their incomes on food.
Hundreds of millions cannot afford to eat.
Food is not just another commodity, it is absolutely essential for human survival.
Those most hit by shortage include the rural landless, pastoralists and the majority of
small-scale farmers. But the impact is greatest on the urban poor. And the rises are producing what we are calling the "new face of hunger" -- people who suddenly can no longer afford the food they
see on store shelves because prices have soared beyond their reach.
The very least that humanity should expect from any government or social
system is that it try to prevent starvation –
and above all that it not promote policies that deny food to hungry people.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez was absolutely correct on April 24 when he described the food crisis as the greatest demonstration of the historical failure of the capitalist model.
There are many factors contributing to this current crisis, including the rising price of oil, deregulated agricultural markets, financial speculation, and biofuels. Another key factor is climate change, which
is affecting crop yield and food production. It is time for us to get serious about understanding the way climate change affects water resources for food production and conversely the way agricultural
water use is leading to climate change. Agricultural practices geared towards growing export-oriented monoculture crops are chemical intensive and have resulted in high levels of pollution in local water
systems. In addition, nitrogen used in fertilizers leaches into water courses increasing the indirect nitrous oxide emissions downstream. This model of production has intensified water use, both in terms
of the water going into the growing of the commodities themselves, but also in terms of inter-basin water transfers. Protecting our waters in local watersheds and wetlands and using them judiciously in
support of local agricultural systems and livelihood practices, rather than continuing with the current strategy of promoting export-oriented, monoculture, industrial, water-guzzling agricultural systems,
is key to reducing the water sector's direct contributions to climate change. Moreover local practices that conserve and enhance local water availability to ensure resilience of rain-fed agricultural
systems are necessary as an adaptation mechanism, to meet climate challenges and to help meet food security goals, two of the biggest challenges for developing countries today. It is time to reevaluate
our agricultural policies that promote water and energy intensive agriculture.
Doing so will help us cope with extreme changes in the hydrological cycle and resultant food and water crises many communities and nations are sure to face. Effective and sustainable water
management in agriculture in support of healthy food systems needs to be part of the climate solution.
We need to form a global ministry dealing only about agriculture, food production and the
protection of our soils. All nations will be part of the ministry. We have to design systems of food production that meet our own needs, and also leave room for these
other lifeforms we want to take along with us. Western agriculture is designed in the end to maximize profit. As a primordial human right, the prime concern of the human
species is to feed people. Therefore we have to do things differently. We will have to produce less livestock as we effectively double the population we need to feed:
ourselves, plus the livestock that is supposed to be feeding us. We also have to apportion the land surface of the whole world more efficiently, using some for highhly
intensive food production (which makes use of less land), some for extensive agriculture (combining food production with wildlife conservation) and designing some
specifically as wilderness areas with global corridors between them.
Welcome to the age of Peak Oil and Gas: as oil prices hit new highs and supplies sink, our way of life drastically changes.
We are nearing the end of the Petroleum Age. Major investors are not likely to cough up the
trillions of dollars needed to substantially boost production in the years ahead, suggesting that the global output of conventional
petroleum will not reach the elevated levels needed for the global economy but has begun an irreversible decline.
The use of military force will continue to protect the flow of imported petroleum.
In Washington, that energy strategy has generally enjoyed
broad bipartisan support. The current debacle in Iraq will not shake this consensus.
In fact, the opposite appears to be the case: possibly fearful that the chaos in Iraq will spread to other countries in
the Gulf region, senior figures in both parties are calling for a reinvigorated US military role in the protection of foreign energy deliveries.
The US military presence in key producing areas and in the sea
lanes that carry foreign oil to American shores will always be a priority by whoever is at the helm of the White House.
The strategic
stance adopted by President Bush in justifying his determination to retain a potent US force in Iraq has been passed on to the Democrates.
We should expect an increase in the use of military force to protect the overseas flow of oil, as the
threat level rises along with the need for new investment to avert even further reductions in global supplies.
What happens when the energy supply stops growing, but the population continues to grow? More importantly, what
happens when the energy supply begins to decline, as population continues to grow?
Peak oil is not simply an issue of learning to conserve or finding ways to do more with less. It isn't simply about the
possibility of economic collapse, war, starvation or global pandemic. It isn't just about changing our behaviors or our
beliefs. It is about turning ourselves inside-out, and not only surviving the transformation, but also being and living equal and
in harmony with all the rest.
The new world order is now where energy governs what we eat, where we live, and if and when we travel. This new world order will be characterized by fierce international competition for
dwindling stocks of oil, natural gas, coal, and uranium, as well as by a tidal shift in power and wealth from energy-deficit states like China, Japan, and the United States to energy-surplus states like
Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. In the process, the lives of everyone will be affected in one way or another; with poor and middle-class consumers in the energy-deficit states experiencing the
harshest effects. That is most of us and our children.
As a start to fixing our energy problem is to recognize what we have done wrong. For instance we need to revert the trend of using biofuel obtained from pood products.
Biofuels, far from reducing greenhouse gas emissions, actually have a negative environmental footprint.
A trade-off between fuel and food has taking place, and that the economically more attractive production of biofuels for the industrialised countries has crowded out food production for the poorest
regions of the world. Increasing prices of food, and their scarcity, have recently sparked riots.
Biofuels gained from extensive plantations of oil palms, soybean, rapeseeds and the like have a negative environmental footprint due to massive use of pesticides and fertilisers, which leads to
acidification of groundwater.
Problems with biofuels are numerous: deforestation, increase in greenhouse gas emissions, requirements for land that does not exist to achieve positive environmental effects, enhanced food insecurity,
creation of more poverty, increased soil degradation, decreased biodiversity, and an accelerated depletion of natural resources.
Petroleum supplies are declining as demand increases. This unfolding trend will radically change human habitation on the Earth. Among the consequences will be the drastic reduction of food and fresh
water available to people, not only in poorer parts of the globe, but throughout the planet. Industrial societies with their industrial agriculture are dependent upon fossil fuels such as petroleum, natural
gas, and coal for many things, including transportation, electricity, and making plastics and other modern essentials. Oil is the main ingredient in conventional food. As the supply of petroleum and other
fossil fuels decline Peak Water and Peak Food will follow. In recent months we have seen the return of food riots in the Caribbean, Asia, and Africa. Industrial societies run on electricity powered by the
cheap energy of fossil fuels. As the supply of those energy sources decline and world-wide competition for them through wars and other means heighten, more electrical grids will fail, and with them
access to both food and water. We need even more than food security; we need food sovereignty. Who controls your food? Growing at least part of
one's own food, and having something to trade, will be essential to survival.
Oil and natural gas depletion will soon begin to undermine the capacity of urban and metropolitan areas to sustain human life. Modern urban and metropolitan life depends on oil and natural gas for
food production and distribution, residential heating, water purification and distribution, sanitation, and the power grid that delivers electricity for the pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports,
communications, elevators, home heating controls, and automated building systems. As international food transport collapses, most oil rich nations face starvation too, regardless of how much oil
they possess. Oil depletion means population decline for all urban areas. The notion that urban and suburban dwellers will relocate to small villages in agricultural regions is unrealistic. In the ensuing
Peak Oil generated global economic depression, the value of urban residential properties will plummet. Increasing unemployment will slow new house sales and accelerate mortgage and property tax
foreclosures. With more and more urban homes up for sale, their prices will decline sharply. And, as the price of urban property declines in value, rural property will increase in comparative value. At
the same time, the cost of building new homes in rural areas will increase with the increasing cost of oil and natural gas. Building materials (asphalt and fiberglass shingles, cement, plastic and
aluminum siding, fiberglass insulation, glass, lumber, and bricks) are either made from oil or they are manufactured with the energy of oil, natural gas, and coal. All building materials and construction
workers are transported using oil (diesel and gasoline). Electricity that is used in the manufacture and construction of houses will also become more expensive. Coal (which is transported with diesel)
and natural gas (which uses oil in exploration, drilling operations, and transport of workers) provide the energy for electric power generation. Thus coal and natural gas costs, as well as the cost of
electricity, will increase with the increasing price of oil. Similarly, the construction of residential water (wells and pumps) and sanitation systems (septic systems or outhouses in rural areas) will cost
more and more as the price of oil increases.
Global crude oil production has already begun to decline, from 100 million barrels per
day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time demand will increase 20%. The price of oil will skyrocket like never before. No one can
reverse this trend, nor can we conserve our way out of this catastrophe. Because the demand for oil is so high, it will always exceed the level of production; thus oil depletion will proceed at the same
rate until all recoverable oil is extracted. Alternatives energies will not fill the gap. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains,
ships, and mining equipment. The proponents of the electric economy, the hydrogen economy, or an algal bio-diesel economy ignore the obvious. There is little capital, time, energy, or public will for
such trillion dollar infrastructure makeovers. The belief in alternative energies is so strong that most scientists and politicians avoid examining obvious questions – does the development of alternative energies
consume more energy than they provide, and do alternative energies consume liquid fuels and give us electric power, which is not what we need? We are facing the collapse of the highways that
depend on diesel trucks for maintenance of bridges, cleaning culverts to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways
carry the parts, transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables, all from far away. With the highways out, there will be no food coming in from "outside," and without the power grid virtually
nothing works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated systems. After the last power black out, the people living in rural areas will find that
surviving will become increasing difficult without all of the goods from the “outside” (food, canning jars, fencing, roofing, hay, straw, seed, animal feed, plastic tarps, fertilizer, clothes, fabric, medicine,
hardware, saws, wood stoves, etc.). The survivors will be the very few who live in areas with good rain and soil and who prepared intelligently for a life without oil.
No nation can become a superpower without being rich because it is only the wealth that builds a mighty army, air force and navy and subsequently leads to the nation
becoming an empire. That was the cases with Turkey, Great Britain, Germany, USSR, Spain, Belgium, Italy and Japan in the last century. They all sought gold, silver, copper,
iron and precious jewellery to amass a wealth and also robbed weaker nations of their essential resources but like the mighty Romans, they too were defeated only to become
a chapter in the history of empires. There is no dispute that it is about oil. It is oil and not gold, silver, copper, iron and precious jewellery that has now become the lifelines of
all nations, including China, India and USA. These countries rank first as global consumers of the world’s oil production. Between them, they consume 40 million
bbls crude oil per day or 40% of the global production. China was a net exporter of oil until 1993 and now, like the US, it is a net importer. Without oil, their industrial
outputs would grind to a screeching halt. It is therefore natural that the source of the next conflict will be oil and the Middle East and the Indian Ocean as the fault lines
between the nations of the east and the west. The US, India and China are seeking security of energy supply but they are doing so in different ways. China is also aspiring
for energy security but, unlike the US which has the psyche of an empire, it is seeking security of supply through investments and not occupation. The goals for energy security
are in reverse modes. The US has been transformed from democracy to a capitalistic oligarchy whereas China is moving from oligarchy to socialist capitalism. The US is an
indebted nation whereas China is a lender nation. The Americans are becoming poorer, lavish and lazy because of a lack of incentives and ideology from their leadership. The
Chinese, in contrast, are becoming richer, frugal and hard working because of incentives and a cultural ideology. China has been investing heavily in Iran’s energy to the tune
of billions of dollars and also in Canada, Africa and Central Asian countries.
Whereas China is seeking to protect shipments of oil, the US, in sharp contrast, is seeking plans to deny shipments of oil to China. These two divergent views will have to
ultimately clash along the critical maritime flash points from the narrow Strait of Hormuz to the long and very narrow Strait of Malacca as the energy game speeds over the
next 5 years.