Earth Government for Earth Community
A grassroots process
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Earth Government for Earth Community A grassroots process |
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
World overpopulation at the turning point requires each and every one of us to take a stand on rights and on being a part of to the Global Community, the human family. To take such a stand has four parts:
We need to take this stand for the survival of our species. For sure, the most important step towards achieving sustainability is to control our population growth. To ensure our survival we must manage our population wisely. Today we are not asking women to have only one child as is done in China. No! First of all it does not work in China. Their population is still increasing. We are asking it to be socially acceptable for women to have the freedom of having or not having children. We are asking it for women to have the freedom to say no I dont want children, or yes I want to raise a family, and to make that socially acceptable. For this to work, women must also be given equal rights to men in every way. The Chinese family policy does not work because women are not given the freedom to choose for themselves and the equal rights to men. Women are 'persons' just like men. Those men and women who choose to raise a family of one or more children will be given support if needed. The effect of such change in our ways will be acceptance of being a part of the global community and that each one of us is doing things for the good of all. In this way, the heart, mind and spirit of the Global Community will be in the forefront of positive actions to ensure our survival. Let us have a look at this stand in more details. a) I am not just a woman, I am a person, I am
a part of a global community
Earth Government is dedicated to give women: a) equal rightsThere are a lot of situations showing the need for a woman's perspective and solution to a problem, locally and globally. For instance, historically a Peace Movement has always been associated with women. It was thought as a feminist action. The method of decision making in such movement was intended to expand leadership rather than to narrow it. Most women groups in the feminist movement worked by consensus, the relationship among themselves has always been intimate and caring, and they often included a concern for all of humanity. The feminist peace movement has created a value system based on an ethic of caring, caring for each other and caring for the world as well. Women groups have dealt with issues such as motherhood, violence against women, citizenship rights, and oppression. World peace has been seen through women's eyes. Even the ecofeminist vision has peace rooted in nature, and the very essence of life and of our survival have been said as female qualities. The ecofeminist position is that the Earth is our mother, and she is being ravaged by militarism and male-created toxic substances. Women help defined how we should see ourselves as a part of a global community. A global community is not about a piece of land you acquired by force or otherwise. A typical global community of a million people does not have to be bounded by a geographical or political border. It can be a million 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 global community with the same. The Global Community is this great, wide, wonderful world made of all these diverse global communities. b) I am not just a man, I am a person, I am a part
of a global community
War is the greatest violation of human 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. Today, men have brought forward the concept of 'partnership'. A trade partnership between nations, or an economical agreement is about the control of a nation by the other. Rich countries manipulate trade agreements in order to ensure profitability. What is trade when the US military is taken over a nation's resources? Trade has no meaning except when the US is getting richer at the expenses of all other nations, including Canada, and at the expenses of the global life-support systems. The military is used against domestic dissidents, like a police force. It is also used to expand markets and keep international dissidents in line. Governments of poor countries that try to take control of their own resources and develop their own economies (instead of remaining areas of cheap labour and raw materials for rich countries) are declared enemies, terrorists, and attacked, officially or otherwise. Nicaragua, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and the Middle East are examples. U.S. military is "to protect U.S. interests and investments" and that includes making other nations safe for U.S multinational corporations. And that is exactly what is happening in the Middle East where the U.S. military is protecting its strategic economic interests especially the continue flow of oil at the cheapest price, thus making global warming worst by ten-fold. The argument for 'free trade' states that countries should specialize in certain products that they are good at producing and buy from other countries what they are not good at producing, so that the economy is more efficient. What kind of efficiency is it when the pieces of a product are sent half way around the world to be assembled in a country with cheap labour, then shipped back to be sold? It may be profitable, but it is a waste of time and energy as well as resources, and moving products this way is not environmentally friendly and is a threat to the global life-support systems. What kind of efficiency is that? Huge amounts of money are spent on marketing to get people to buy things that they don't need. Where is the efficiency in that? Of course it is a bad idea to be a member of the World Trade Organization ( WTO). There are no advantages! It just does not work for anyone except when you have an army to knock down any member who does not do your five wishes and plus. A membership in the WTO is not needed and nations should instead seek relationships with fewer other nations only if needed. Certainly it is better to seek an economic relationship with another nation we can trust than with a hundred nations we have no control on and everyone of those nations has a say in the governing of our nation, its environment and social structure. The WTO only offers illusions to profit the few wealthiest people on Earth. They say "become an industrialized nation as we are". But that is the biggest illusion of all. To become an industrialized nation is far from being the best solution. The best way and solution for any nation is to follow the Scale of Human and Earth Rights. Right on top of the scale are the ecological rights, the global life-support systems, and the primordial human rights of this generation and of the next generation. Economic and social rights come next and are not the most important. That makes a lot of sense! The effect of IMF and World Bank policies in the world caused the destruction of the economies of the poor nations (now we call them 'developing' countries). They impoverished the people by taking away basic services and devaluating their currency. They opened up the national economy to be ravaged by competition with richer nations. Poverty lead to other problems causing the ecological destruction of a poor nation. On the other hand, a global symbiotical relationship between two or more nations can have trade as the major aspect of the relationship or it can have as many other aspects as agreed by the nations involved. The fundamental criteria is that a relationship is created for the good of all nations participating in the relationship and for the good of humanity, all life on Earth. The relationship allows a global equitable and peaceful development. The emphasis of a global symbiotical relationship is not so much on how much money a nation should have or how high a GDP should be although money can be made a part of the relationship. We all know developed countries live off developing countries so the emphasis has no need to stress out the profit a rich nation is making off a poor nation. The emphasis of the relationship should give more importance to the other aspects such as quality of life, protection of the environment and of the global life-support systems, the entrenchment of the Scale of Human and Earth Rights and the Charter of Earth Government into our ways of life, justice, peace, spiritual freedom, security, and many other important aspects as described in the global ministries (health, agriculture, energy, trade, resources, etc.). c) We are responsible, accountable and equal persons
in every way
Every single human being must deal responsibly with the affairs going on in his (her) own 'global community' ~ when a person takes personal responsibility for his own affairs ~ he becomes empowered as a person. He can then reach beyond his own property and family, and help to work with others living in and around, even a part of the local community he lives in ~ the villages, the town community, the surrounding territory, and so on. The key is personal responsibility. Therefore the individual is the important element, one who takes responsibility for his community. This individual cares about jobs, homes, streets, the welfare and success of his community. d) We are part of the Global Community
Perhaps now we should introduce some important members of The Global Community: the global civil society, the Earth Community, the human family, Earth Government, all different ways of expressing the same people. Most of the time many politicians representing their citizens at the United Nations have no knowledge, experience, and understanding of global problems. They seek advise from others, and these 'others' are always members of the global civil society. Yet politicians make global decisions or the lack of them during meetings. Politicians become actors on the world scene. Actors taken jobs they are not always qualified to take in reality. They make decisions and they dont understand consequences. In effect, the lack of sound leadership from the part of our politicians are threatening the security of all people and all life on Earth. The global civil society is made of people from all aspects of life who have a greater understanding of the problem whatever it may be. The global civil society is the mind, heart and Soul of humanity, the human family. They maybe NGOs, businesses, agencies, scientists and professionals, religious groups, or other groups. They should have a voting right during all meetings of the General Assembly and Security Council of the United Nations. They are given an important status in Earth Government. Humanity has to regulate its population by means that are voluntary and benign and has to take along with a fair proportion of other lifeforms. Proper Earth management will certainly be a necessary tool to achieve our 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. It would take a thousand years to reach our goal of a population of 500 million. To achieve our goal will require from each and every one of us a stand on the rights and on belonging to the Global Community, the human family. If our population was to decrease as projected here then what other major global problems would be managed automatically? This question is really saying that the overpopulation is the cause of several major global problems such as: * lack of resources
There are many related aspects of the global life-support systems that is affected by an overpopulated planet: * global warming
Some religious people will argue that to reduce human reproduction is to prevent the birth of possible babies, to deny life for the glory of God, and that more babies means more glory. We understand this view. Our proposal of a world population of 500 million does not in any way contradict God's Plan for humanity. On the contrary, it reinforces the Will of God for the diversity of Life throoughout the universe. By accomplishing our higher purpose we will be able to propagate trillions of liferforms and much more over the universe. Beside, with such a small population, there is no doubt that our species would last at least a million years. That is 500 million x 1 million But if we let our population rise to about 20 billion then we may not survive more that 1,000 years or so. That is 20 billion x 1,000 thousand In order words, if we exercise restraint the total number of human beings
who will be on the planet could be at least 25 times greater than it
May the DIVINE WILL come into our
lives and show us the way.
Germain Dufour, President
Website of the Earth Community
Organization and of Earth Government
Copyright © 2000 Earth Government for Earth Community
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