Volume 17 Issue 2 October 2018.

Vision of a new economic system to replace America economic, population, military and environmental wars against our world, Earth.

by
Germain Dufour
Global Civilization

Note to the reader:
The four chapters of October 2018 Newsletter were based on the articles, letters, reports, research papers, discussions and global dialogues, and messages written by author(s) whose work were published in monthly Newsletters of years mostly 2017 and 2018. All published work can be found in the Global Dialogue Proceedings (check link http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/GIMProceedings/). Scroll down to years 2017 and 2018 and follow the Proceedings sections, and you will find the actual authors lists, with their papers and all references. Global Community Media is a way to communicate workable sound solutions to problems arising in the world. Let us share our problems and workable sound solutions. Sharing information is a necessity to all life and humanity's survival. Our world is changing fast before our eyes, and we must react quickly and hard to protect all life on Earth. No hesitation! Right now and no waiting! Life on the planet is our first priority. We must protect it at all costs. We, global citizens, fight to protect life on Earth for this generation and the next ones. We are the defenders of the environment and the global life-support systems. We know who the beasts are, and how they destroy the living on our planet. We have rallied together all over the world to protect our home, Earth. Just so you all know we don't pay anyone, and we don't pay expenses. We do volunteer work for humanity. We expect volunteers to be responsible and accountable of all their actions. We do soft activism work. We do not have a copyright research expert to do this work. In order to create a harmonious and compassionate Global Civilization, and to protect our planetary environment, the global life-support systems, we want to help you concerning all issues, and you may become a volunteer yourself. Check our volunteer page at: http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/GPA/gpahelpsyou.htm

Introduction and conclusion for all four Chapters.

Summary

Back to October 2018 Newsletter
http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/Dialogue2019/Newsletters/October2018/index.html
Back to Main Table of Contents.
http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/Dialogue2019/Newsletters/October2018/Our_world_Earth_Table_of_Contents.html

This 21st century is very crucial for humanity as it will determine our survival or not as a species and, consequently, the survival of the next generations. The Biosphere is our world, our home. The lives of all lifeforms and plants on our planet deserve protection, preservation, and care. The genomic information of plants, animals, and human beings is the common wealth of the planet, and all efforts to make use of this environmental commons must be framed around principles of equality, solidarity, environmental and climate justice.

Global Civilization disapproves of the limitless exploitation of the natural foundations of life, the relentless destruction of the biosphere, and the militarization of the space within and above the Earth's atmosphere. Several important causes of Global Warming, Climate Change, and the extinction crisis, have given rise of an existential threat to humanity and much of Nature.

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, developed economies have been emitting greenhouse gases (GHGs) which created global warming and today's environmental crisis, and that makes the capitalism system responsible, and we must first change it. By far, the nation that started, and still is pursuing the largest production of GHGs ever since WWII is America. And America is largely responsible for the global warming of the planet and, therefore the increase in the Earth’s surface temperature, the rising of sea level, climate change, and many other worldwide disasters. Unlimited fossil fuel exploitation means a commitment to GHG pollution over 16 times greater than the world’s present remaining Terminal Carbon Pollution Budget that must not be exceeded if we are to have a 75% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature rise. America is to be blamed for the extinction crisis, and should pay.

The extinction crisis is an environmental issue and also a social justice issue, one that is linked to long histories of capitalist domination over people, animals, and plants. The extinction crisis needs to be seen as a key element in contemporary struggles against accumulation by dispossession. This crisis, in other words, ought to be a key issue in the fight for climate justice.

The 1% people have as much wealth as half the world's population, and are controlling all economies on the planet. They stand behind a capitalist model of an economic system.

Capitalism has institutionalized a global ignorance, in which producers and consumers cannot know or care about one another, and in which the histories of all products will be lost. It is now increasingly evident that only by sharing the world's natural resources more equitably and sustainably will we be able to address both the ecological and social crisis we face as Global Civilization.

The combined effects of aggressive marketing, advertising, and planned product obsolescence mean that the American consumer’s oversized footprint is largely a consequence and reflection of the global power of Transnational Corporations(TNCs), corporate America. Global warming and climate change denialism requires shutting one’s eyes to obvious realities when the truth is that the Earth is warmer than it has been in 120,000 years. In that sense, it is perhaps more accurate to speak of corporate ecological footprints rather than the footprints of nations or individuals. Globalization has meant the distancing of cause and effect, source and sink, so that the pollution and human exploitation caused in the production and transport of goods has remained invisible and opaque to consumers.

How can further troubles not come into being when a vicious globalized capitalist system is in existence for which maximal profits, not people and their needs, is always the overriding goal? The global socioeconomic system of capitalism is forcing us to work harder to surpass previous consumption and population numbers until we have devoured everything that maintains life, ending up with a polluted, lifeless, and a scorched planet.

What is going on today is largely attributable to the failure of growth-based capitalism. We need to address the structural deficiencies in the existing system. To maintain a general satisfaction in a social system that’s driven and motivated with competition, endless growth is needed, but in a finite system it must end when resources are exhausted. However, we also have a double whammy, that of pollution which impairs life and the carbon that’s heating the biosphere and acidifying the oceans, they would end life if the system is maintained to its exhaustion.

Economic growth (measured as Gross Domestic Product) and value are seen as the same. Meanwhile, the actual value generated outside of market capitalism – the “care economy,” social labor, eco-stewardship, digital communities and commons – are mostly ignored or considered merely personal (“values”). Today, we have a dictatorship of one kind of value as delivered by the market system, which determines for everyone how they can live and what they should believe in.

The word “value” is useful to merchants and economists in talking about money and markets. But it has little relevance when talking about ethical living or the human condition.

Hence, with the dollar as world money the US gains an automatic borrowing mechanism giving it global policy autonomy denied other states. Given a current account deficit financed by savings of others in the world, US government spending on global militarization and other priorities can expand without “crowding out” private sector borrowing.

The main source of economic reliability in America was transferred over time from gold to dollars, specifically to US treasury bills. This major shift allowed the Federal Reserve to print dollars practically without limit (as seen in recent years with interests rates for borrowing money from the FED at around 0%), well aware that the demand for dollars would never cease, this also keeping alive huge sectors of private and public enterprises (such as the coal industry, fracking industry, car manufacturing, food and farming industries, and most importantly the military industry which has always giving jobs to more than half of America's population). This set a course for a global economic system based on financial instruments like derivatives and other securities instead of real, tangible goods like gold. In doing this for its own benefit, the US has created the conditions for a new financial bubble that could even bring down the entire world economy when it bursts.

To become great again, the US parlayed the world’s largest national debt, its trade deficit, budget deficit, capital account deficit and savings rate deficit, into a position in the global driver seat through the dollar remaining global hub currency.

Naturally, the more the dollar was used in the world, the more America had the power to spend on the military. For the US, paying a bill of 6 trillion dollars (this is the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) has been effortless, and this constitutes an unparalleled advantage over countries like China and Russia whose military spending in comparison is a fifth and a tenth respectively.

The United States found itself in the enviable position of being able to print pieces of paper (simply IOU’s) without any gold backing and then exchange them for real goods from other nations.

This economic arrangement has allowed America to achieve an unparalleled strategic advantage over its geopolitical opponents (initially the USSR, now Russia and China), namely, a practically unlimited dollar spending capacity even as it accumulates an astronomical public debt (over 21 trillion dollars). The destabilizing factor for the global economy has been America's ability to accumulate enormous amounts of public debt without having to worry about the consequences or even of any possible mistrust international markets may have for the dollar. Countries simply needed dollars for trade and bought US treasures to diversify their financial assets.

What would be the shape and fundamental goals of an expansive anti-capitalist movement against extinction and for environmental justice? It would have to commence with open recognition by the developed nations of the long history of ecocide. Such an admission would lead to a consequent recognition of the biodiversity debt owed by the wealthy nations of the global North to the South. Building on the demands articulated by the climate justice movement, the anti-capitalist conservation movement must demand the repayment of this biodiversity debt.

This proposal is based on moving towards a situation in which all nations have the same level of emissions per person (convergence) while contracting them to a level that is sustainable (contraction). A country such as the United States, which has only 5% of the global population, would be allowed no more than 5% of globally sustainable emissions. Such a move would represent a dramatic anti-imperialist shift since the US is at present responsible for 25% of carbon emissions. The powerful individuals and corporations that control nations like the US are not likely to accept such revolutionary curtailments of the wasteful system that supports them without a struggle. Already there is abundant evidence that they would sooner destroy the planet than let even a modicum of their power slip.

Massive fossil fuel corporations such as Exxon, for example, have funded climate change denialism for the past quarter century despite abundant evidence from their own scientists that burning fossil fuels was creating unsustainable environmental conditions. Such behavior should be seen frankly for what it is: a crime against humanity. We should not expect to negotiate with such destructive entities. Their assets should be seized. Most of these assets, in the form of fossil fuel reserves, cannot be used anyway if we are to avert environmental catastrophe. What remains of these assets should be used to fund a rapid, managed reduction in carbon emissions and a transition to renewable energy generation. These steps should be part of a broader program to transform the current, unsustainable capitalist system that dominates the world into steady state societies founded on principles of equality and environmental justice.

A legally imposed contraction of the fossil energy supply and a rapid global conversion to renewable energy, is a necessary step toward saving our world, Earth. So what should Society do to avoid the worst impacts of climate change? Capitalism is based on ceaseless compound growth that is destroying ecosystems the world over, the goal in the rich nations of the global North must be to overturn our present expansionary system by fostering de-growth . Most importantly, nations that have benefited from burning fossil fuels must radically cut their carbon emissions in order to stem the lurch towards runaway climate chaos that endangers the vast majority of current terrestrial forms of life.