This essay was published in the Journal, FUTURES, (Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd – England ), Volume 27, No. 3 PP. 353 to 362, April 1995 #0016-3287(95)00005-4. The text is a paraphrased version of a full manuscript called, The 21st Century Steward's Handbook, that had been accepted for publishing at that time, but it was never was.
FUTURES, is not generally distributed as popular media but is found mostly in university libraries around the world.
The, Troubleshooter, expression in the title represents a collective summary of the career of the writer, a graduate Engineering Technologist - Electronics ‘58, from Ryerson Institute of Technology in. The Ryerson learning experience deepened a general childhood curiosity of, how things worked , leading to the repair, modification or design of systems, as a typical career day. Over the years systems ranged from simple mechanical to electronic or electromechanical devises such as integrated aircraft flight systems, or to data processing systems involving people, hardware and early digital and analogue data handling processes. In the 1980s the troubleshooter began to notice systemic conflict between human activity and the natural world we live in. A study of this matter soon led to James Lovelock's book, The Ages of Gaia . This book describes how the sun's energy brought/brings systemic life into the atmosphere and the seas, to the microorganisms of earth and the flora and fauna from which we humans emerged. An understanding of these Gaian living systemic processes is prerequisite to understanding a Big Picture view of interacting subsystems of Gaia, such as specific ecosystems or the diverse elements of human civilization, such as economics, wars or air travel. This cumulative human activity has been rapidly accelerating in the past two centuries by drawing energy from fossil fuels. When we understand that the exponential growth of bacteria changed earth's atmosphere from a toxic mix, billions of years ago, to about 20% oxygen and 80% nitrogen, we can begin to understand how and why runaway growth in human activity is now changing it again, to …?
In systems-talk, an essential basics concept is feedback : negative feedback - tends to stabilize a system; no feedback causes drift or slow runaway; positive feedback causes exponential system runaway , to limits. These concepts apply in all systems from clocks to Gaia, to economics, to hegemonic control of governance by the rich.
Note: While the name Gaia is from Greek mythology, Goddess of Earth, Lovelock uses it with no spiritual conation, but simply as the metaphoric name of the overall system of life on Earth.
While much has happened in our world since 1994, the basic premise of the essay is still quite valid, including the narrow potential future pathways that could lead to a sustainable human civilization. At the end of this '94 text is a brief look at the future view from '07 .
The View from 1994
THE GAIA PRESERVATION COALITION© and what we stand for
Don Chisholm
May/94
A TROUBLESHOOTER'S ANALYSIS OF
THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT
A troubleshooter's holistic analysis of the human predicament (La Problematique, as coined by The Club of Rome) is presented in a manuscript - A 21st Century Steward's Handbook . The manuscript draws upon dozens of textbooks, research papers and many newspaper articles to justify conclusions. This paper is a paraphrase of data presented in the book, which has received favourable comment from professionals in the fields of biology, geology, psychology, ecology, psychiatry, physics and education. In a chapter called Recovery a teacher in the year 2096 describes how humankind's apparent course to disaster was turned around, enabling the class of 2096 to exist. A prerequisite to recovery is presumed to be a human `conscious evolution'.
BASIC PRESUMPTIONS
Energy - is the only antidote to chaos through the formation of nodules of order such as the symmetry found in life forms, snowflakes or society; all of these occur within a sea of chaos. Energy motivates all systems, including human life and thought processes.
There are three primary systems of concern:
~ GAIA - As defined by Lovelock: An interactive self-regulating system including all life on Earth and certain chemical elements on the Earth's mantle.
~ IndCom - All of Industry and Commerce, large and small.
~ Human nature - The way we behave and why. (Not a true system.)
On a global basis, rapid changes are in progress in such vital sectors as biodiversity, topsoil, energy, fresh water and others - (group A) and pollution sink limits, ozone depletion, global warming and others - (group B). The changes within group `B' are measurable but no one seems able to specify limits or say at what point the changes become life threatening or irreversible. However, each of the measurable and changing commodities in group A lead toward depletion within the next century. All are essential to human life. The changes are occurring exponentially, approximately in lock step with exponentially increasing human activity which is the product of industrial expansion and population growth. This is sometimes called IPAT (Impact = Population X Affluence X Technology).
Even if growth of IPAT were miraculously stopped, the life-essential parameters in group “A” would still diminish, but at today's rate - toward zero perhaps within the next century. A pragmatic analysis of the above information leads to the inescapable conclusion that within the next 100 years, there will be a reversal in population growth as social chaos increases and average life expectancy drops. Human extinction is a distinct possibility. This scenario is repeatedly illustrated by those who create computer models of the future based on projections of the integration of historical trends and anticipated changes. (i.e., Limits to Growth ; Meadows et al 1970 & 1991)
Unfortunately, today this pragmatic analysis cannot be accepted by most people. Well known psychological characteristics of Homo sapiens prevents people from conscious acknowledgment of data which affects them personally but is repugnant to such a degree that it is too far outside of their sphere of comfortable information. Information such as the possibility of impending human extinction will be denied or ignored, inhibiting the expression of alarm appropriate to an uninhibited view of what the future appears to hold for us and our loved ones. Exposure to evidence of denial can cause anger. Sometimes the denied information causes anxiety relief through activity in other areas. This whole process of denial, ignore, deflection, cognitive dissonance, etc. can be referred to as `the Sacred Cow Syndrome' (SCSyndrome). It affects individuals, small groups, large groups and nations. It even affects the agenda of such prestigious organizations as the United Nations. The wide ranging effects of the SCSyndrome has a synergetic locking-in effect and has set up a deadly ring of irresponsibility by individual and group acceptance of the shared illusion that all is well. For example, if academic or national leaders do not display alarm appropriate to our danger, the students or voters will tend to follow their lead, not because they always believe their leaders but in this case they `want' to believe them. Any individual leader who breaks the ring of silence may be ostracized by people and peers. This process is called `group think'.
When someone sees through the ring of denial and acknowledges the full and personal implications of La Probematique, it is somewhat of an `emotional event', and is often accompanied by a feeling of anger. Three things can occur after this point. These are:
1. An individual may spend time and effort trying to break through the SCSyndrome held by others. He/she may study ecology for a while, he may keep his anger to himself or she may join a `green group', and try to adopt the belief that what they are doing will provide substantial long-term help. But eventually a feeling of futility may take over and they will rejoin the majority and enjoy temporary comfort under the veil of denial. They may tell children that to save the world they must compost, recycle, save a tree, and in their hearts they know that they are lying. Individuals can time-share conflicting views, sometimes one real and one wishful or illusionary.
2. Sometimes seasoned scientists such as biologists or geologists - doctors of Gaia - withdraw from actively trying to communicate our dangers. If you ask them about the La Problematique, they will simply say, "There is no hope for humanity".
3. Individuals can join with others who have shattered the common illusion of well-being; people who have gone through despair and who are not afraid to face the future as it really is. Such people can openly say, "Scientific evidence indicates there WILL be a major reduction in human population before the end of the next century. Humans may fail nature's `survival of the fittest' test. BUT human conscious evolution may enable us to collectively agree to reduce our numbers through natural attrition in combination with the self-discipline of birth restrictions while carefully maintaining our industry, which is essential to keep society free of chaos. We have a moral obligation to take whatever action is necessary to leave our children a habitable planet".
Such a group of people have formed an organization called the Gaia Preservation Coalition (GPC). With regard to La Problematique, we are `realists' - at least we like to think so. Seventeen hundred scientists have signed a petition stating that for humanity to survive, major change is necessary. We speculate on `what are' and `how' these changes may occur. To openly acknowledge that Homo Sapiens is under siege and that we are the enemy, helps us to adopt, as a common paradigm, the concept of The Common Good and the Gaia Principles, listed at the end of this paper.
Technological, agricultural and medical development have has brought us far beyond sustainable limits to human growth. These limits were exceeded about 200 years ago. The material comforts humans now enjoy are courtesy of the inertial-like force of eons of Gaian development and billions of life cycles past. This global inertia of biodiversity and stored resources is dwindling as you read. To cope with our reality, personal and group paradigm shifts are necessary. But our human nature resists change .
The root paradigms that spawned the democratic system of government originated long ago, when nations were truly sovereign and borders were never crossed by most people or by most industries. Most news was local. Technology has changed our realities, but the paradigms that guide our governance are rooted in the past. But our human nature resists change .
Technological development enabled global communications, automated manufacturing and global trade. Governmental controls over industry, trade and monetary stability were developed in the past, to work mostly within sovereign borders when manual labour was the main motive force of industry. The economic `recession' we speak of may be not a recession but a slide down a slippery slope toward increasing industrial and social chaos. This is because control measures which evolved in the past don't work effectively within new realities such as automation, international debt and world wide competition in an industrial arena were there are no referees. Uncontrolled economic decline is our most pressing problem. A society in chaos loses all ecological concern as daily survival becomes supreme. In the recent Canadian election campaign the word `environment' was absent from discussion. Discussed was the urgency to create jobs for the Newfoundland fishermen, now unemployed because the cod fish are gone.
Our leaders seek economic improvement through the `Global Economy'; but who is in charge? The leaders of GATT and the UN have some control, but most control is by political leaders of powerful countries like the US , leaders who are guided by IndCom whose motivation is profit, as it needs to be. Unfortunately the well-being of neither humanity nor Gaia is within this motivation. We now reside in a small interconnected world but there is no one in charge to oversee the big picture and interrelated issues. If there was responsible global leadership, the primary responsibility of that leadership would be toward survival of our species. But the more `civilized' society becomes the more we consider the `P'- population, of IPAT to be personal - beyond political control. And the political group think `A' - Affluence, and `T' - Technology, must always increase. And so the `I' - Impact, is driven ever upward in our finite world.
In the 1990s many individuals and groups cry out for `human rights', `reproductive rights' and `justice for all'. Such aspirations are reasonable only within a stable society where IPAT driven chaos is decreasing, not increasing. Our concept of `civilization', groomed by egoistic cultural beliefs and unfounded righteousness, is in conflict with finite measurable realities of Gaia. Meditation on our paradoxical dilemma has led toward the concept of `The Common Good'. The Common Good will be served when IPAT does not have an adverse effect on Gaia, and humans can live as part of the balance of nature, with adequate industry fuelled only by renewable resources. When we take charge of planetary stewardship, when we have set a course that will eventually fulfil the requirements of The Common Good, only then can we can feel that we have fulfilled our moral obligation to our own well-being, to our children and to future generations.
We have the advantage of knowledge from science and psychology. To continue to accept the status-quo with a political agenda that is carrying us toward extinction is a morally bankrupt avoidance of responsibility. And also, it's not very smart. (We refer to contemporary Western style morality.)
A SUSTAINABLE WORLD VISION
For an enterprise to achieve a future goal, a vision of that goal must be clear to all leading participants. Milestone markers must be etched in the calendar with the acknowledgement that events may change markers as the universal time line changes desire to history.
The following is a troubleshooter's vision of an achievable desirable future world. Some have said this desired future seems too utopian to be realistic. The chances of reaching this sustainable society may be small, but if we aim for less, the odds of reaching sustainability diminish - toward zero, as with today's political and social agenda.
The description of the goal will be written in the present tense as if we were in the year of about 2070.
The criteria of The Common Good are met now that the global population is reduced to 500 million. Population is distributed rather unevenly over the face of Earth. Earth is divided into 20 (an arbitrary number for now) major bioregions within which fundamental renewable resources and light industry support the local human population. However, for complex or heavy industry requiring large markets to justify development costs, there is a world market.
Regional governments administer most matters within each bioregion while the Federation World Government administers the larger, `big picture' issues. `The Commons' (land and natural resources) are controlled by the Federation and leased to industry under license.
Two types of social structures are available and people may transfer from one system to the other, from time to time. There is the IndCom administration and the Communal administration.
IndCom operates very much as it did the 20th century wherein individuals and corporations compete; those best adapted or lucky in this environment can achieve wealth. Taking full advantage of automation in manufacturing, quality management techniques and the use of new processes and material in construction, even with 500 million people, IndCom does not require the participation of all adults. And not all adults wish to participate in IndCom.
The Communals operate as social blocks where accommodation is provided for all people not in IndCom. Western culture leading up to the 1990s had created a `work ethic', creating a stigma if one was unemployed or on welfare, even when IndCom was collapsing from internal systemic faults. The stigma of not working is now part of history. All people are accommodated in a dignified way.
These social islands of people (Communals) are primarily financially supported by the Central government, but are self-sufficient in terms of services. In the years 2000 - 2060 there were a very large number of elderly people. Most of them chose to be accommodated within the Communal where they mingled with people of all ages. Within these social islands individuals can earn money by helping to support their Communal. They may pursue studies, the arts, sports or idleness. They may also transfer to the world of IndCom and vise-versa. The level of an individual's human activity is significantly lower in this environment than when every person felt compelled by inherited `work ethic' to compete for a job. Individual Communals may compete, like a corporation, with IndCom in labour intensive industries, in some types of farming and in some types of education. After tax profits are distributed within the Communal.
From 1998 until about 2060 a lottery system was used to determine who may have children. Computer projections now indicate that we have achieved sustainable development (continuous improvement in personal self-determination without growth in human activity), replacement procreation is the norm.
To help politicians understand the full implications of legislative change, each political party tests its plans on a computer model of the future wherein projections of past trends mingle mathematically with a wide variety of changing influences. Gone forever are the days of political promises based on false hope and illusion when neither politicians nor voters fully understood the ramifications of the complex interrelated issues. Referendums are held before most major legislative change. Through their home computers citizens communicate with government. They scrutinize the images of projected change before they cast their vote in the referendum. Before a vote is valid each individual must pass a simple test which indicates that the voter understands the issue.
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Through uninhibited consideration of the realities exposed by physical science we find that options leading to a sustainable future are very limited. To a troubleshooter, the proposed vision is `the most likely to succeed' course. Regardless of the route we take, IPAT must be lowered through a variety of means including self-imposed birth restrictions while protecting the integrity of a more efficient IndCom. The process does not need to be painful; it will certainly be less painful than if we let natural uncontrolled trends deal with us and our children.
SOME TROUBLESHOOTER'S CONSIDERATIONS
We are the enemy. We will come to our rescue. To accommodate this paradox we need to make what psychologists call a conscious evolution . Members of the Gaia Preservation Coalition (GPC) have already done that. Some of us depend on the human spirit to help guide us through these times of rapid, emotional change. It does not matter whether the human spirit is considered to be a religious phenomenon or a survival resource built into our psyche during animal evolution.
WHAT ARE MORALS MADE OF? - Surviving hunter-gatherer societies maintained their population to levels sustainable by natural produce from the forests and meadows. When necessary, infanticide was a common means of limiting population. Nature's guideline, Survival of the fittest demands any measure necessary to ensure survival of the species. Western culture teaches us to consider measures such as infanticide to be repugnant - fortunately, today's birth limiting technology make it unnecessary. But if the cultures, morals and presumed rights of modern humans inhibit us from limiting our numbers to what is sustainable within Gaia, then indeed we have become an unfit species , and nature will extinguish us. Since we have birth limiting technology available it seems irresponsible to not use it. If an individual made a voluntary action which would lead to our extinction, most cultures would consider that person to be immoral; but we proceed beyond our limits as a group, each of us afraid to questions another's rights to reproduce. Does group participation alleviate guilt and a moral violation? The SCSyndrome prevents most of us from speculating in this field of thought. Our hunter-gatherer forbearers displayed greater wisdom that us .
Over the past two centuries contemporary cultures and their evolved morality alow us to reap human benefits (albeit not equally), all made possible by deficit spending of eons of Gaia's resources; this process is especially accelerated by the use of fossil fuels - energy - the staff of life. Throughout this process, humanity has drifted farther and farther from our hunter-gatherer heritage and our natural roots. Our human-made cultural roots trace back to: Man, centre of the universe, on a flat earth, or the `garden of Eden' story. Our cultural evolution enabled the burning of witches and human enslavement. Although our human nature resists change, individuals and our beloved culture, religions and other influential institutes must now acknowledge that pronatalism in all forms is a personal moral violation and a crime against all of life .
We must understand that beneath the overburden of righteousness and protocol, all human choices are egoistically motivated. Magnanimous generosity is in fact self-gratification. When denial ends and the illusion of well-being is shattered, we find that we personally are exposed to the wrath of what is to come if we and our fellow humans maintain the status-quo. Personal fear can bring focus on real solutions. Fortunately, our genetic inheritance causes us to get personal satisfaction out of knowing we will help provide for our children and loved ones while helping with the cause of preserving our species. Religious beliefs may cause some people to prefer their own reasons to preserve our species. The motivation matters little; we will require the efforts of people of many beliefs if we are to succeed at reaching sustainability.
THE REAL WORLD
We are a gullible animal and we seek comfort in any story which brings temporary anxiety relief. Samples are: political promises to enhance social benefits without increasing taxes; bibles; the Brundtland Commission's concept of `sustainable development' through minor modifications to our social behaviour; futurist writers who gloss over terminal trends in group A (on page one), to paint pictures of a rosy future.
The real world consists of many countries, many belief structures, many wars, and, perhaps, 11 times more humans than can be sustained. Gaia Principle Five states, ` To be undaunted by the enormity of the task at hand and to work around problems that cannot be dealt with immediately' . It would not be practical to try to save all the world, all at once, all at the same time. One of the things lacking is a global role model of sustainability. Any nation with a relatively high literacy rate, which presumes to be sovereign, could become this role model - Canada , the US or Australia for example.
By narrowing our geographic focus to one achievable short term goal, we mentally eliminate over 95% of the problem. However, the denial problems within Canada are still very large, and to convince the rest of Canadians that they too should be alarmed by what our common future holds is still an awesome task.
HOW TO GET FROM HERE TO THERE
—A TROUBLESHOOTER'S RECOMMENDATIONS
PRIORITY ONE: TO ESTABLISH A COMMON GOAL - survival
The Gaia Preservation Coalition (GPC) represents a block of people who do not share the common illusion, and we wish to be a focal point for others who have broken free. Most of us agree that survival of our species is THE predominant issue. This helps us to accept the concept of The Common Good and most of the statements within the Gaia Principles. The Gaia Principles represent the basis for a new common paradigm. These principles were formulated, discussed and modified to satisfy a consensus. Consensus does not preclude differing opinions. Survival depends on an informed, free and less inhibited society self-governed within democracy.
We recommend that individuals and groups scrutinize inherited learning and that we cherish essential stability found in good tradition, while rejecting the inappropriate. The GPC hopes to become a local, a national and international symbol for paradigm change, but only necessary change. The credibility of reality (what is scientifically verifiable) will grow as our membership grows. Membership growth will add synergy to illusion breaking.
PRIORITY TWO: COMMUNICATIONS TO THE YOUNG
Many members of the GPC (educators, ecologists, scientists) have witnessed `psychic turning off'. This occurs when you talk to an individual or group about La Problematique. At first you have their interest and attention, and then at some point as you delineate the magnitude and closeness of their personal peril, interest abruptly ends and denial takes over, protecting them from further anxiety increase. We need to brainstorm for ideas on how to increase an audience attention span before losing people to elements of the SCSyndrome. Perhaps we could develop a pro-active communication protocol which first talks about the effects of SCSyndrome. This area demands research and public exposure. The GPC could trigger this research and we could create literature suitable to the various levels of learning. Principle One - to acknowledge the peril is prerequisite. Knowledge of addictive behaviour will be important here. As soon as you believe there is a workable solution to La Problematiqe, peace of mind increases while anxiety decreases. We need a basis for faith in our future - our story of survival must supplement other stories and basis for faith. As mentioned earlier, humans can harbour multiple stories, even stories that conflict.
Because attitudes, morals and belief structure become internalised (fossilized) as people grow older, young adults and children, those who hope to spend the most time in the 21st century are the most likely to readily adopt the new realities - if adults will give them a chance. In the 1990s we read about children who, in general, have adopted a feeling of gloom and doom. To counter this, educators teach children to recycle, to compost, to make `environmental' decisions, and then, miraculously we will achieve `sustainable development'. The children's uninhibited feelings are far more accurate than those of the adults who try to mollify and sooth until the children too, adopt the shared illusion of well-being. And they will eventually believe their role-models because learned beliefs do not need to be rooted in reality.
We must tell children the way it is. When they look for the wisdom of their elders, we need to tell them that the evolutionary development of our human nature has not prepared us for today's type of problem. Mother nature's species evolved to be very prolific in order to survive the rigorous testing through, `survival of the fittest'. But through conscious evolution we can recognise that our natural prolific nature must now be controlled. It has befallen to today's younger generation to exercise this control. Young people entertaining thoughts of having children need to know that life expectancy at birth now grows shorter as time goes by. To contribute to that shortening is a moral issue which has been avoided by their forefathers and foremothers. For young people to learn about human nature and nature in general is even more important than learning the three `Rs'. Biological and psychological understanding can lead to the reduction of IPAT by reducing the `P', - Population.
Regarding the `AT' of IPAT (human activity - Affluence X Technology), we must explain that industry/commerce and technological progress (IndCom) have brought us many comforts and apparent advantages over our ancestors. But elements of IndCom must be changed.
All young people need to know that while IndCom was evolving, success was measured by growth in Gross National Product (GNP). This improved the well-being of industrial leaders but it was coincidental if the well-being of the population in general improved. Most economists and industrialists believe GNP growth to be essential and the population must believe it too. Canada 's last government was elected on the promise to kick-start the economy and the incessantly repeated promise, "We will make jobs", which translates as, `We will increase the `AT' of IPAT. What short-term misguided animals we are!
It's not surprising that we believe IndCom must grow because our primary information sources, TV, radio and newspapers are primarily funded by IndCom. Along with entertainment and information we are bombarded by commercials telling us to buy, to replace the old just for the sake of new . And we do. A conscious reduction in personal consumption of consumer goods will be a part of our new credo.
Automated manufacturing and reduced demand for products will eliminate the need for many jobs. Rather than looking at this as a negative perspective, we should embrace it as the advantage it really is. In 1994 the encroaching collapse of our economy is causing our social security network to deteriorate while governments work disparately within the framework of old paradigms trying to re-kindle economic growth. We must `get real' and change our social structure to accommodate the times we live in. We must acknowledge there are, and may always be, far more people than jobs within IndCom. The stigma of `being unemployed' or `on welfare' must be removed. All of these people, and more, must and can be accommodated with dignity. That they were born into a grossly overcrowded world was not their fault, but this immoral fault must stop. As we plan economic and population reduction, we can plan a society of groups of people who will collectively never work in the context of IndCom as we now know it. Our goal must include the concept of Communals and we must alter our inherited `work ethic'.
If we start soon, we could approach sustainability in 60 to 70 years, before depletion of the Gaian reserves. To spur motivation in the initial years, a feeling of urgency must prevail, like at the onset of an inevitable war.
Higher learning: - The most likely spawning ground for the required rapid change is through university students who feel futility in what the economic and ecological future appears to hold. Unfortunately, their institutes show little resilience regarding change. Fossilized attitudes prevail. These institutes of academic isolationism churn out graduates to enter professional life with little or no concept of the `big picture' of life. Professors in physics and engineering have little impetus to teach human nature or matters of ecological concern. Psychology students don't anticipate the end of non-renewable energy, and in economics, diminishing resources can represent an opportunity for profit.
Stewards of the 21st century need a handbook covering a broad spectrum of subjects. A few universities have initiated the beginnings of an integrated study course, but change is too slow. It is resisted by academic leaders who must produce specialized graduates prepared to produce; already indoctrinated with IndCom's growth ethic.
Revolution/conscious evolution: - As the required changes occur we will tread a fine line between determined evolution and anarchy - we are at the edge of chaos. We must enter a new stable state guided by intellectual thought; sometimes total chaos lies between stable states.
PRIORITY THREE: COMMITMENT
To facilitate the planned transition to a show-case sustainable society, Canada , or whatever geographic area elects to do so, will have to temporarily withdraw from participation with the rest of the world. The prices of our goods and services and even the value of our dollar would soon not equate to those of the outside world because the price of our energy would dramatically increase and ownership of resources would change to a licensing arrangement. It will be necessary to impose increasing import/export tariffs which will eventually make external trade impractical.
Immigration too, must end; otherwise our own self-imposed birth limiting will be eclipsed. To the argument, "We have a moral obligation to take in immigrants and to help poor counties", we will counter, "There is nothing we can do which could have lasting consequences. The long term view indicates that our most significant contribution toward sustaining our species will be to shatter global denial and the illusion of well-being."
When we consider such issues as Canada 's large foreign debt, seemingly drastic measures may need to be taken. To simply default is an option. Such measures become rational when considering the fundamental choices involved: human survival or the human concept of honour. To forgive and to forget foreign debt will produce angry bankers - bankers whose children now have a chance for a better future.
Nothing has changed in the reality spoken by Peter The Great who said, "If you want peace, prepare for war". If the desire for peace prevails over the real necessity of self-defence in our volitile world, other forces will soon swamp our fragile efforts to achieve sustainability. As we end the 20th century, forces of unpredictable change are occurring in China , Russia and with militant Islam. We share Earth with these and many more unknowns.
If the GPC can achieve a critical mass of credibility and political change begins, we must continually communicate our goals, beliefs and intentions to the rest of the world, and we will ask them to join us in the experimental road to sustainability through reality.
Once we begin to remove the tightly sealed lid on the illusion of well-being, the anger and fear and the very personal threat by the spectre of extinction will permeate our individual and collective conscious psyche. Who knows where this might lead? History has no precedents. The closest parallel is in periods at the onset of war, such as when Britain finally conceded that war against Hitler was inevitable. Individualism gave way to their common effort. Perhaps the same feelings will rapidly emerge against our common enemy - us.
PARADIGM MATERIAL
THE COMMON GOOD (from the human perspective) - Each species of life is important for overall system stability; therefore each is important for the common good. As we humans are but one component of the overall system of Gaia, it will be presumed that what is good for humans will be good for the rest of the living and non-living components of the system and visa versa. When the common good is served, there will be economic stability; human activity will not have a destabilizing effect on nature, and we will honestly be able to forecast a long term future where the human spirit can thrive.
THE GAIA PRINCIPLES
PRINCIPLE ONE
To acknowledge that uncontrolled human population growth in conjunction with the unrestrained consumption of earth resources have brought about a crisis that threatens all life on earth. To work toward establishing an equilibrium of nature in which all life - Gaia - and future generations can enjoy and share the fruits of this unique planet.
PRINCIPLE TWO
To recognize that humans suffer individually and collectively from foibles which may blind our objectivity regarding an unpleasant reality. By interacting with fellow humans we can help each other recognize, acknowledge, and hold clear in our minds these weaknesses so that unpleasant reality can be dealt with.
PRINCIPLE THREE
To modify our personal expectations in life from expectations based on the past, to expectations consistent with a sustainable future.
PRINCIPLE FOUR
To assume responsibility for personal change because in a free society no government or world-wide organization can force upon us the required behavioral and attitude changes. Personal long-lasting freedom requires personal responsibility and compromise.
PRINCIPLE FIVE
To be undaunted by the enormity of the task at hand and to work around problems that cannot be dealt with effectively and immediately.
PRINCIPLE SIX
To establish `the common good' as the highest priority, while preserving individual human freedom and rights where possible. The long-term well-being of Gaia will be the primary consideration.
PRINCIPLE SEVEN
To work toward living within our global means with regard to energy usage and to recycle consumer goods rather than extract non-renewable resources from Earth.
PRINCIPLE EIGHT
To work toward the elimination of human-made barriers of classification that have historically caused conflict between groups of humans.
PRINCIPLE NINE
To work for the maintenance of the democratic process in countries where the democratic process is functional, and to bring about change within the rule of law.
PRINCIPLE TEN
To recognize that humans must become stewards of the planet, but stewardship does not make humans superior to other life forms .
PRINCIPLE ELEVEN
To lobby governments to assess all planned action considering the full dimension of time, including life on Earth in the distant future.
PRINCIPLE TWELVE
To accept personal responsibility, and to help in your own way toward communication of the GAIA PRINCIPLES, either individually or collectively, to others both at home and abroad .
Manuscript of A 21st Century Steward's Handbook in Cerlox binding, produced by desktop publishing techniques are available at $25.00 Cdn. plus shipping.
We seek new individual and associate members. The Gaia Preservation Coalition, is a Canadian Federally registered non-profit organization.
Join us in thanks for the privilege of living in a beautiful, bountiful planet where energy, bequeathed by a dying sun of the universe, has given us cognition and light. Let not our presence extinguish the flame of life.
A Realist's hope.
Arguments presented herein are substantiated with references in the manuscript. Generation of the primary thesis has been an interactive process with inputs from such people as:
Chris Shoofs English professor, LaSalle College , Montreal
Digby McLaren Past president of the Royal Society of Canada, a geologist
Dr. Keith Ronald Marine biologist - Director of Environmental Studies, University of Guelph
Dr. Jane Dougan Coordinator of Environmental Studies, University of Guelph
Dr. Henry Kock Professor of Horticulture, University of Guelph
Loyal Rue Professor of Religion and Psychology, Luther College , Decorah Iowa
Mr. C.R. Nixon Chairman of the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome - former Deputy Minister of Defence
Peter Timmerman Professor of Environmental Studies, University of Toronto . Cdn member of the team to develope Earth Charter for presenation at RIO 94
Sharon Bezeau Manager of Student Affairs - McGill University
John Livingston Professor Emeritus, York University - founder of The Nature of Things
John McRure Chairperson of Conservation Council of Ontario 's Energy Task Force.
FES York University degree
Derek Paul Professor of Physics, University of Toronto
Farley Mowat Well known Canadian writer
Dr. W. Watters Professor Emeritus Psychiatry, McMaster University , author of several books
Alexander King President Emeritus and Co-Founder of the Club of Rome
Dr.Bonnie Bullough RN, Dean of Nursing U of NYState, Buffalo , author of several books
Barry Zwicker Journalist, researcher, media critic
Dr. R. Slaughter Professor, Institute of Education , U of Melborne, Austraila
Dr. Allen Tough Professor of Future Studies and Adult Education - OISE
Dr. Wally Poole Professor of Adult Education, Brock University - now semi retired teaching Outdoor/Environmental Education
Rev. Thomas Berry Priest at Riverside Centre, Bronx New York - Annual speaker at the Centre for Ecology & Spirituality at Holy Cross, Port Burwell, Ontario
Laurent Leduc Professor of Theology and Environmental Ethics
From the Journal, FUTURES, (Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd – England )
End of original text
June, 2007
Fifteen years ago global warming was just beginning to show signs of the forecast chaotic weather and glacier melting: now is very real and in the news every day.
Fifteen years ago the idea of peak oil was discussed by only a few people. Now that we may be at the peak, the pump price may be one reason that more and more people now take this issue serious enough to question civilization's comfortable, business as usual .
Fifteen years ago the money supply of fiat $US dollars, floating free of any physical commodity, was already expanding much faster than normal exchanges of goods and services warranted. In 2007 the money supply expansion is much more accelerated (13% per year for the M3 money, crated by derivative markets and other tricks). We read that those who should be in control of the money supply claim to have lost control : now the money supply accelerates toward system limits. Wild money expansion is part of the reason for the rapidly widening rich poor gap . Such large differences have historically led to either war or collapse of societies. Today 50% of the world's 6+ billions suffer from hunger.
Fifteen years ago books with the titles like, The Cancerous State Of Capitalism (John McMurtry, U of Guelph), or When Corporations Rule The World , (David Korten) were beginning to make inroads in public thinking, questioning the democratic capitalism that had brought much apparent wealth to an influential few. Today there is a growing conscious awareness of our loss in real wealth : Real wealth being open spaces, clean air, plenty of water and food. The basic building blocks of life within Gaia for large animals, such as humans, seem to be rapidly slip sliding away.
Our human nature evolved to enable us individuals to deal brilliantly within a limited array of issues, but within just a small section of the spectrum of issues that collectively affect our common future. But as mentioned briefly in the above essay, the SCSyndrome causes us to discount or reject issues that are unfamiliar, or outside of our cultural conditioning, or that tend to cause discomfort when we are forced to confront them.
Therefore, the voting public still chooses governments motivated by the folly of The Growth Syndrome , a runaway belief system of corporate capitalism and with a corresponding runaway system of fiat dollars.
The specter of an integrated collapse of both the Gaian natural system and IndCom grows more vivid each day. Many friends and scientists that I've communicated with in the past 20 years have simply given up on humanity. As Dr. John Livingston told me, “we are a rouge species headed for extinction – the sooner the better for whatever is left!” Or a group of eminent scientists write in a peer-reviewed journal: The Earth Today Stands in Imminent Peril ... and nothing short of a planetary rescue will save it from the environmental cataclysm of dangerous climate change. Sir Martin Reese, past president of the Royal Society of UK, speculates there is a 50/50% chance humans will be extinct by the end of this century: the era of our grandchildren.
However, this troubleshooter does not give up hope as long as it may be technically possible to changes our mother ship's name from Titanic to Gaianicity . There is still time for vast numbers of people become concerned about very personal and very global issues, sparking a widespread sudden human-spiritual awakening, or conscious evolution . That could foster a significant change in human values, toward a seventh generational type thinking (with Iroquois resolve - "In every deliberation we must consider the impact on the seventh generation... even if it requires having skin as thick as the bark of a pine. "). In systems-theory we need to induce negative feedback on the runaway elements of society that foster growth in human activity (i.e.: human numbers and per capita resource throughput ).
Today there are many individuals, NGOS, and even a few enlightened politicians that attempt to bring change in diverse segments of our complex civilization. One example, Google - monetary reform - will show many NGOs with viable ideas. When these agents of change begin to share a common future view, synergetic acceleration could enable a social revolution from our current suicide economy toward a sustainable goal. The communal and IndCom from the essay above would be much better that our current heading. Many thoughtful writers speculate on viable future scenarios, such as Lester Brown's
Plan B's . We must select the best of these choose one of these.
Can you escape the SCSyndrome and join a social revolution of change?
* Gaianicity is a word coined to describe living harmoniously in a world, Gaia, where all life is interconnected, ever changing, and constantly recycling.
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May wise thinkers have made summary comments on the human predicament. Here area a few.
Capitalism is the relentless accumulation of capital for the acquisition of profit. Capitalism is a carnivore. It cannot be made over into a herbivore without gutting it, i.e., abolishing it.
—Warren Wagar, Professor of History, State University of New York at Binghamton
All species expand as much as resources allow and predators, parasites, and physical conditions permit. When a species is introduced into a new habitat with abundant resources that accumulated before its arrival, the population expands rapidly until all the resources are used up.
—David Price, Energy and Human Evolution
"The origins of the cataclysm lay in the utopian endeavor of economic liberalism to set up a self-regulating market system." [p. 29] THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION, Karl Polanyi;
"Because it is destructive of life and spirit, the capitalist economy must be considered a social pathology. Even its apparent capacity to create vast wealth is largely illusory, because though it is producing ever more sophisticated gadgets and diversions, it is destroying the life support systems of the planet and the social fabric of society. It is therefore destroying our most important wealth. Its institutions function as cancers that forget they are part of a larger whole and seek their own unlimited growth without regard to the consequences."
—David Korten, 2nd Annual Feasta Lecture, Dublin , 2000.
Not only will men of science have to grapple with the sciences that deal with man, but--and this is a far more difficult matter--they will have to persuade the world to listen to what they have discovered. If they cannot succeed in this difficult enterprise, man will destroy himself by his halfway cleverness.
—Bertrand Russell
Nature must, in the not far distant future, institute bankruptcy proceedings against industrial civilization,and perhaps against the standing crop of human flesh, just as nature had done many times to other detritus-consuming species following their exuberant expansion in response to the savings deposits their ecosystems had accumulated before they got the opportunity to begin the drawdown.
—William Catton, Overshoot
We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.
—Aldo Leopold, American environmentalist and author
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power."
—Benito Mussolini, Fascist dictator of Italy
Corporations have taken over the government and turned it against its own people.
—Ralph Nader, consumer advocate
There are certain disturbing things we simply would rather not realize. Because it is preprogrammed and mindless method of responding, automatic consistency can supply a safe hiding place from those troubling realizations. Sealed within the fortress walls of rigid consistency, we can be impervious to the sieges of reason.
— Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
At age 80 Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Zen philosophical writer 1869-1966, wrote in 1949
"Man makes many tools and uses them effectively in various fields of his activity,
but he is always exposing himself to the tyranny of the tools he has made.
The result is that he is no more master of himself,
but an abject slave to his surroundings,
and the worst thing is that he is not conscious of this fact.
This is specially noticeable in the realm of thought."
http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/future_of_humanity.html . Despite the passage of 30 years Asimov's words still read well. As Asimov notes:
"There is no need to decide whether to stop the population increase or not. There is no need to decide whether the population will be lowered or not. It will, it will! The only thing mankind has to decide is whether to let it be done in the old inhumane method that nature has always used, or to invent a new humane method of our own. That is the only choice that faces us; whether to lower the population catastrophically by a raised death rate, or to lower it humanely by a lowered birth rate. And we all make the choice."
