From "A Revolutionary Solution":
CHAPTER III
A BLEAK OUTLOOK
We have known about and predicted the current state of the climate crisis for decades. Yet, we continue the destruction of our oceans, air, water, forests, soils, wildlife, plant species, and bedrock. These are the very things that make planet earth unique. They are all absolutely necessary to support human life. We are burning fossil fuels at record rates, creating new and expanding stockpiles of chemical and biological warfare, and manufacturing an expanding array of plastics all contributing to our demise.
Global warming is the largest facet of the environmental catastrophe we find ourselves in today, yet it is only one of the many consequences of humans polluting our planet. The toxic waste that we produce on an annual basis continues to grow, even though our understanding of the devastating global effects increases and our awareness of the problems we have created comes into clear focus.
Our oceans, air, water, forests, soil, wildlife, plants, and bedrock are all interconnected. Each system affects the others. There is significant overlap of these systems such that human exploitation of our planet’s resources has had devastating effects on the entirety of our ecosystem.
Below are some of the most significant challenges facing each system of our environment:
Our Oceans
- Plastics accumulation, disintegration, and effects on aquatics and human food chain.
- CO2 accumulation, ocean acidification, and effects on marine life.
- Changes to surface pH that “could have devastating global consequences.”
- Continued overfishing and poor marine resource management around the world, such as “Chinese super trawlers stripping the ocean bare.”
- Ocean temperature rise, disrupting marine life, causing dead zones, toxic algae blooms, species migration, ocean current shifts, and the increase in number and strength of hurricanes and cyclones.
- Increased melting of world’s glaciers and polar caps, causing sea-level rise, flooding in low lying areas.
- The populations of low-lying nations, and indeed entire countries, will need to migrate as sea-levels continue to rise.
Air
Water
Forests
Soil
- Land Conversion and Habitat Loss: The clearing of land for agriculture/aquaculture.
- Wasteful Water Consumption: Aquaculture alone uses on average 78 percent of the world's drinkable water.
- Soil Erosion and Degradation: Ploughing of farmland exposes the topsoil, making it susceptible to being blown or washed away. Brazil loses 55 million tons of topsoil each year in this way.
- Pollution: Agriculture is the leading cause of pollution in many countries worldwide due to the use of pesticides, fertilizers, and agrochemicals causing issues including extreme growth of invasive plants and algae.
- Climate Change: Over 14 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions result from the use of fertilizers, livestock, manure management, ploughing, and rice cultivation.
- Genetic Erosion: Traditional crops and animals are being replaced with genetically modified forms. “This has resulted in up to a 75% loss in diversity among crops. The loss of genetic diversity reduces plants [sic] potential for adapting, breeding, and changing conditions. This puts the food-supply for the world in [sic] risk for the long-term.”
- “Global crop yields could be reduced by nearly one-third with a 4°C temperature increase.”
Wildlife
- “We're now losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate, with literally dozens going extinct every day,” and “30 to 50 percent of all species possibly heading toward extinction by mid-century.”
- Climate emergency causing severe impact to bumblebees, who, along with other bee species, are responsible for ensuring pollination of 70 percent of our fruit, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.
- “Global warming could kill half of wildlife in Earth's forests.”
- The WWF claims that, “If immediate change is not made, it's likely that more than 70% of plants and reptiles, as well as 60% of mammals and birds, will be lost.”
- Two degrees centigrade (2°C) is the upper limit threshold of the Paris Climate Agreement, a limit that is likely to be exceeded, yet even if the 2°C limit isn’t breached, more than 35 percent of species will still be at risk of total extinction in the Amazon.
- Current estimates show the world's largest king penguin colony have already declined by 90 percent.
- The monarch butterfly's migration in California has declined by 86 percent in two years (2017-2018).
- In the Mojave Desert, in the United States, decreased rainfall from the climate crisis has “led to around 30 percent of the bird species and 43 percent of all species in the area to all but disappear from the numbers that existed in the region a century ago.”
- Humans make up just .01 percent of all life on the planet based on our mass, but have already destroyed 83 percent of wild mammals. In fact, the Guardian article further points out that, “Of all the mammals on Earth, 96% are livestock and humans, only 4% are wild mammals.”
- Currently, only 30 percent of the entire world population of birds are wild, meaning a full 70 percent of birds are chicken and other poultry meant for our consumption.71
- The Endangered Species Act (in the United States) continues to face uphill battles. Many in Congress fight solely for lobbyists, such as the oil and gas industry, who line their pockets with cash ignoring our very real and present catastrophic situation.
Plants
Bedrock
These lists are anything but exhaustive and are meant to reveal the extremely urgent situation all earth’s inhabitants face today. In light of this, it is difficult to understand why we are not already working together as a planet to save our environment.
CHAPTER IV
PREVENTING PROGRESS
The barriers that currently exist in our society which prevent action have been deeply ingrained into our daily life for hundreds of years. That is why they will be so fiercely defended, in spite of the necessity to eliminate them in order for us to all move forward with solutions that will work. Below are some of the roadblocks, the reasons we must remove them, and why they will be defended by many:
Money
Money is the reason for so much that is going wrong in our world today…
- ...like corporations, often voting in favor of profits over environmental harm they cause, as corporate directors are bound by "fiduciary duties and standards," which include "acting to promote the value of the corporation for the benefit of its stockholders."
- …like planned obsolescence of products.
- …like 11 percent of our fellow humans starving, but not due to a lack of food in the world. We currently produce enough food to feed 10 billion people, a full 33 percent more people than currently inhabit the earth.
- …like lacking the proper permission needed to get food to the large populations of starving humans, driven by greed for money.
- …like in Yemen, where “widespread starvation threatens 13 million more. War and famine, along with economic collapse and the worst cholera outbreak in modern history, have driven the country to its knees.”
- …like in the United States, where “43 percent of American households cannot afford a budget that allows for rent, food, health care, transportation, and cell phone service.”
- …like extreme greed by religious leaders, extinctions caused by greed, and political gain.
- …like having enough vacant office space in the USA that in 2018 there was over 8,000 square feet per person available for every homeless person.
- …like so many ‘jobs’ these days – unfulfilling and offering nothing for the betterment of mankind.
- In fact, when money is removed from society, all of these issues and jobs go away or are moot, as there is no longer the drive or ability to accumulate wealth:
-
- Politicians in search of personal gain over service
- Fast buck for 'fast' (unhealthy) food
- Gambling / get rich / Ponzi / pyramid schemes
- Most theft
- Telemarketers
- Pop-up ads
- Junk mail
- Checkout lines
- Loan sharks
- Corporations (as we know them today)
- Lobbyists
- Insurance, banks, stock market, hedge funds, financial advisors
- Marketing, sales, and advertising
- Most security guards
- Excess pollution
- Fear of litigation
- Trade wars
- Wealth-induced isolation illnesses
- Hard choices between food, heat, rent, and clothes
- Death by poverty
- And the list of good things that happen when money does not exist is astounding. Just a few to give you an idea are:
- Patent protections end and everyone can manufacture with the best designs, the best processes.
- No more monetary incentives to create useless pieces of plastic trash that end in landfills.
- Sharing resources (like a lawnmower, ladder, or table saw) becomes the norm, reducing costs of production, resources, and landfills.
- Unused items given to those in need (rather than retaining to sell)
- Fairness and equality for every human, including food, shelter, clothing, and medicine worldwide!
- Over 22 percent of the current workforce freed to pursue meaningful work (USA numbers).
We all know that money alone does not bring happiness. In fact, studies have shown again and again that once basic needs are met, such as food, shelter, clothing, and healthcare, having more expendable monetary resources makes no difference in a person’s happiness. Can we cure the addicts – those whose lust of money has overtaken their rational thinking? “Of all the things one might be addicted to, nothing tops the greed-laden pursuit of wealth in its audacity, manipulativeness, and gross insensitivity to the needs and feelings of others. Not to mention its extreme, short-sighted, irresponsible covetousness. Ask a multi-millionaire or billionaire so afflicted (if you can find one willing to talk to you!), and you’ll discover that their ‘mega-fortune quest’ really has no end point. They won’t be able to name the definitive ‘millionth’ or ‘billionth’ that, finally, will do it for them. They can’t because the means by which they reap their riches has itself become the end.” Unfortunately, there is NO AMOUNT OF MONEY at which they feel fulfilled. No amount is ever enough.
If money grew on trees, I might be tempted to try some, but its roots are, prophetically, evil. The Bible tells its followers, “The love of money is the root of all evil.” The Qur’an directs people to, “relinquish to strive for money.” Similarly, a “Buddhist novice is required to renounce all his worldly possessions before he is allowed to enter monkhood.”
We have seen myriad examples of the problems money creates, the socio-economic issues it perpetuates, and the inequality it guarantees. Many, if not most of the issues caused by money are rooted in greed. Likewise many, if not most of the opposition to these ideas seem to have a common theme: “You can’t fix greed.”
I understand it is extremely difficult to make the paradigm shift and imagine a world without money. It is so entrenched in absolutely everything we do, and how we manage so much of our lives. It is my hope that by the end of this short book you will understand living in a society without money fixes greed almost entirely.
This diary is from my new book: "A Revolutionary Solution" and companion website: https://arevolutionarysolution.com where you can explore more on this topic, and download your free copy. For a free paperback copy please KosMail me.