IF I HAD JEFF BEZOS’ MONEY
Just had this piece published this morning on the Stanford University MAHB website. MAHB stands for Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere.
Just had this piece published this morning on the Stanford University MAHB website. MAHB stands for Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere.
There are a number of compelling overviews of what is wrong with humanity and how to make it right. This one, by a group called Transition Earth, is on point and about as succinct as these planetary prescriptions come.
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The Anthropocene is a new geological epoch that began with the Industrial Revolution and became
fully established after World War II, during what is called the ‘The Great Acceleration,’ when human
activities began to alter the state of the planet. The effects of the Anthropocene have already
percolated throughout virtually all aspects of the planetary system. Its impacts include rising levels of
greenhouse gases, mass extinctions, deforestation, and altered oceanic and atmospheric chemistry.
One predicted consequence of the Anthropocene epoch is that the planet may lose two-thirds of its wild animals by 2020. In the last fifty years, the Earth has lost 38% of its terrestrial vertebrate, 36% of it’s ocean vertebrates, and 81% of its freshwater vertebrates.
The impact of this goes far beyond just sentimentality – the interconnectedness of the web of life means all organisms serve
an ecological function upon which another relies, so to lose a species is to lose a part of the ecological system which sustains life.
How can we construct a future that will nurture the needs of the planet while protecting the rights of its vulnerable people in the face of an expanding population?
The previous epoch – the Holocene – nurtured modern day humanity, as agriculture thrived due to a relatively stable
climate; it is the only period we know to be able to sustain contemporary life.
As human pressures mount, and with the global population set to hit 10 billion by 2050, it is clear that the way we live and
run our world needs to be reformed. It is time to ensure that the natural earth systems which got us here today are
protected from irreversible repair, and most importantly, to support people’s rights while doing so.
How can we construct a future that will nurture the needs of the planet while protecting the rights of its vulnerable people
in the face oi anexpanding population?
Strategies for stabilizing the effects of the Anthropocene and securing a sustainable future include the following:
Rights of Nature
In a world where, according to the Living Planet Report 2016, global populations of fish, birds, mammals,
amphibians and reptiles declined by 58 per cent between 1970 and 2012, new approaches are needed to save
nature.
In 2014 New Zealand passed a law to recognize the Wanganui River as a natural entity with rights, protecting it
from threats such as pollution, and in doing so, protecting the abundance of life that the river fosters and the
ecosystem services it provides that enhance the well-being of people. Legally recognizing nature as an entity
means its rights to be and to thrive are protected, and not simply property to be plundered. As all life is
interconnected, this concept protects both wildlife and human well-being and is therefore a promising example
for future strategies.
In India, courts have granted rights to the sacred Ganges and Yamuna Rivers as living entities, and rights of
nature has been recognized in the constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador. Over 100 communities in the U.S. have
enacted some type of rights of nature legislation at the local level in an effort to protect both people and the
environment from threats such as fracking and toxic sludge waste.
New Economic Systems
The current global economic system is one that demands constant resource consumption and population
growth; not surprisingly, this system is unsustainable. While this economic model may have lifted people out of
poverty in the past, it is no longer viable, as Earth’s resources are limited, which in turn threatens the quality of
life for many people and harms the environment.
Alternative models exist that promote healthy communities living within the means of the planet. Steady state
economics is the ‘sustainable alternative to perpetual economic growth’, where population and resource
consumption mildly fluctuate or remain stable. In a steady state economy, the constant pressure to create more
jobs is reduced as population growth stabilizes, and the jobs that do exist are within enterprises of a more local
and sustainable nature. With less outside/foreign influences, jobs and local economies will be stronger and more
resilient while contributing to a cleaner and greener world.
Dietary Changes
A shift to a less meat-intensive and more plant-based diet is an effective, tangible way in which an individual can
reduce their contribution to planetary degradation. Animal agriculture is far more costly to the environment
than plant agriculture, in that it uses more water, land and nutrients, generates more greenhouse gases and
waste, and causes greater degradation to land by overgrazing and deforestation for pastures.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the total area of land dedicated to
growing feedcrop for livestock amounts to 33% of all arable land on Earth; the total amount of land used for
grazing by livestock itself amounts to 26% of all ice-free terrestrial land. These statistics combined mean that
livestock production comprises 70% of all agricultural land use and 30% of all land on the planet – land cleared
for food production equals the size of South America and Africa combined. A shift to a more plant-based diet
would mean less land and resources to grow more food.
With studies now showing that plant-based diets are linked to lowered risk of heart disease and some cancers,
this change in eating habits would benefit people’s health as well as the planet.
Invest in Voluntary Family Planning Services
One of the most overlooked but critical solutions for a sustainable future is the need to invest in voluntary family
planning services and women’s health. Some 214 million women and girls in developing countries who don’t
want to get pregnant do not use contraception, often due to a lack of access, supplies, money or information.
Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia are home to almost 60 percent of the women who want to avoid
pregnancy but cannot access proper contraception. The birth rate in 20 African nations exceeds five children per
woman.
Tackling this issue means that women will be able to support healthier families and communities by having a
choice of how many children they want in alignment with the resources they have, and will simultaneously help
manage population growth.
In countries where communities are facing the problems of climate change and ecological collapse, access to
family planning, reproductive rights and education will empower women to confront these challenges,
benefitting both their well-being and that of their families, as well as the planet’s.
Looking Ahead
Having constructed, reclaimed and drilled our way out of the last epoch and into a new, ecologically
impoverished, concrete Anthropocene, it is time to rethink the way we interact with the world in which we live.
It is vital that we put efforts into curbing the impacts humans have on the planet so that the Anthropocene does
not shift into an environmental state that is hostile to life, something that could happen if changes are not made.
This can be done by respecting nature and protecting it, realizing that we are part of a web of life that should be
nourished not exploited, shifting away from an economic model based on perpetual growth and consumption,
reducing the amount of food obtained from animal sources and investing in voluntary family planning services.
Published August 2017 by Transition Earth, a non-governmental organization that works to increase awareness of the
effects of increasing population growth and unsustainable economic growth on people and the planet.
www.transition-earth.org
Here is a link to an excellent article that was just posted, by The Guardian. The author, Rana Dasgupta, provides an excellent view on the destabilizing forces at work in the world we know today. The nation-state model of political organization no longer works. Global scale corporations ignore consequence as they focus entirely on profit. The people who control world financial markets are no longer constrained by national borders. Neither are the dynamics of mass communication and the social media. Dasgupta’s analysis reflects the reality of our modern world. Perhaps the biggest factor in this is the massive burden of 7.6 billion humans on the planet we all share. That is double the population that was on Earth just fifty years ago. We live on and must share a planet with finite resources. We are outstripping its ability to provide.
Belgian physicist, Ilya Prigogine developed ‘General Systems Theory’, which basically says that as a system becomes more complicated and burdened, the instinct is to lay on ever more scaffolding, stabilizing things temporarily, until the weight of the reinforcing structures cause the entire system to collapse, clearing the way for a new order that takes into account the forces that brought down the previous order.
What is the new order all humans must embrace? Planetary citizenship, and a commonly shared responsibility to protect our planet and its biosphere, That seems to be what Dasgupta is calling for. I could not agree more.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/05/demise-of-the-nation-state-rana-dasgupta?CMP=share_btn_link
Another great article from The Guardian. It points up a simple truth. The biggest share of conflict in the world is, and always has been, driven by men.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/08/violent-extremists-share-one-thing-gender-michael-kimmel?CMP=share_btn_fb
Merriam-Webster defines ‘Dignity’ as the ‘Quality or state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed’. With dignity, comes respect.
There are certain things we all need in order to have dignity. It starts with enough food to eat and clean water to drink. In the world we know, dignity also requires having safe and comfortable shelter as well as a modicum of privacy. To all of that, I would also add access to education, and quality healthcare.
Dignity and respect go hand in hand. Without these basic needs, it is still possible to hold up one’s head in a dignified way and command respect, but it’s not common.
In a society worthy of its citizens, public policy is designed to assure that all citizens have the basic necessities that are the foundation of human dignity.
Many of the European nations are built around public policy that offers all their citizens something well beyond the basic requirements. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, and France, and some others provide free healthcare, free university education, and a very robust safety net.
In the U.S., we’ve lost our way. In the U.S., the top 1% of people own 82% of the wealth. In the U.S., politics are rigged to allow legalized bribery. In the U.S., banks and corporations are considered ‘people’ with the same rights of living ‘flesh and blood’ citizens. In the U.S., money is considered a form of speech, which means the power is all in the hands of wealthy elites, who can use their deep pockets to buy the politicians and the public policy they want. In the U.S., ‘he who has the money makes the rules’. According to the monied elite, healthcare is a privilege, not a right. Education, even at the elementary level, is being squeezed to allow tax cuts for the already rich. In the America we know, an advanced education is no longer a lock for success, but it may well be a prescription for lifelong debt. In the U.S., a large share of the population is now surviving, paycheck to paycheck. At the same time, the government safety net, if you lose your job, has been shredded by congressional conservatives.
These days, the Federal government is in the hands of elected officials, who trade favor for money from the rich and powerful. Congress serves these special interests by making public policy that jeopardizes the dignity of the vast majority of our citizens. Among so many other things, our corrupt elected officials strip away long standing regulations to boost profits for their rich benefactors. They work to shred the social safety net that ever more citizens depend on. They do it so they can give tax cuts directed mostly to people who are already wealthy. Pitting the rich and powerful against average citizens is a disgrace and a perversion of the fundamental role of government, which is, or should be, to assure a minimum level of dignity for every citizen.
Portland, Oregon, my city, is a great place to live. Unfortunately, thousands of people in Portland are homeless, living on the streets, struggling to survive. Portland’s once vibrant downtown is over run with homeless people. Many more homeless people live on the streets or in public spaces around the city. We are all diminished when large numbers of our fellow planetary citizens lose their dignity, struggling to survive .
Our government has lost its way. It needs to marginalize the influence of money on our politics, and get back into the business of serving the common good and doing what it can to assure that all of its citizens are able to live with dignity.
I am a political progressive. I generally follow the news of the day by watching MSNBC. Chris Hayes is one of the bright personalities on MSNBC.A few yerars ago, Hayes write a book, Twilight of the Elites: America after Meritocracy. The idea behind the book is rooted in human nature and is pretty self-evident. It is this: People like to get ahead, and when they do, they like to stay ahead. In America we have evolved a meritocracy to provide opportunity for the best and brightest to achieve the American dream. At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work.
Chris Hayes is a very skilled wordsmith. Combine that with a very compelling and well researched argument, you get a terrific book. Twilight of the Elites is a terrific book.
At this point, I’m going to defer to some quotes pulled right from the book, interspersed with some thoughts of my own.
‘…the iron law of meritocracy (predicts) that societies ordered around the meritocratic will produce inequality without the attendant mobility ideal… over time, a society will grow both more unequal and less mobile as those who ascend its heights create means of preserving and defending their privilege and find ways to pass it on across generations.’
This is not rocket science. Kings, Emperors, and war lords have been operating this way since the beginnings of agriculture, 10,000 years ago. Elites entrench themselves in positions of power and privilege and they stay there by any means necessary. In the world we live in, it’s people like the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson, who wield their power and influence to maintain the status quo that favors them while diminishing the masses.
‘…one of the lessons of the (past decades) is that intensively competitive, high reward meritocratic environments are prone to produce all kinds of fraud, deception, conniving, and game rigging.’
‘…we cannot have a just society that applies the principle of accountability to the powerless and the principle of forgiveness to the powerful. This is the America in which we currently reside.’
‘While the basic logic of democracy is one person one vote, our entire system of representation heavily weights the preferences and interests of those with the most money.’
‘…in the three decades after 1979, the top 10 percent captured all of the income gains, while incomes for the bottom 90% declined.
‘The challenge, and it is not a small one, is directing the frustration, anger, and alienation we all feel into building a trans-ideological coalition that can actually dislodge the power of the post-meritocratic elite.’
So, corrective action is required; disruptive corrective action. Where to focus the attention of the disaffected to deliver meaningful change? In Twilight of the Elites, Chris Hayes talks about building coalitions across ideologies; bringing the disaffected tea party types together with progressive change agents like the ‘Occupy Wall Streeters’ to disrupt the gravy train the elite have created for themselves. That’s a tall order to be sure. This is where Hayes’ book falls a bit short. He talks about altering the code for income taxes and about restoring the estate tax to reduce the extreme advantage people like Paris Hilton gain through massive inherited wealth. Problem is the already wealthy are experts at using their money and influence to thwart any efforts to undermine their dominant position.
How to get around this problem? The answer to me is not complicated. You have to disrupt the ability of the elites to use their wealth to get what they want. The way to do that is to get the overwhelming masses of people affected to focus on one straightforward action that would induce the change that is so badly needed. I’m talking about a constitutional amendment that eliminates ‘corporate personhood and the idea that ‘money equals free speech’. These two corrupt legal constructs are the foundation on which rests the perverse reality that ‘he who has the money makes the rules.’
A group called ‘Move to Amend’ is pressing for just such an amendment. It’s language is brief and unambiguous. Here is a House Joint Resolution, still not passed, that presents the amendment in simple terms.
Section 1. [Artificial Entities Such as Corporations Do Not Have Constitutional Rights]
The rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons only.
Artificial entities established by the laws of any State, the United States, or any foreign state shall have no rights under this Constitution and are subject to regulation by the People, through Federal, State, or local law.
The privileges of artificial entities shall be determined by the People, through Federal, State, or local law, and shall not be construed to be inherent or inalienable.
Section 2. [Money is Not Free Speech]
Federal, State, and local government shall regulate, limit, or prohibit contributions and expenditures, including a candidate’s own contributions and expenditures, to ensure that all citizens, regardless of their economic status, have access to the political process, and that no person gains, as a result of their money, substantially more access or ability to influence in any way the election of any candidate for public office or any ballot measure.
Federal, State, and local government shall require that any permissible contributions and expenditures be publicly disclosed.
The judiciary shall not construe the spending of money to influence elections to be speech under the First Amendment.
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Here is a link to Move to Amend’s webpage… https://movetoamend.org/
I read this book by Jeremy Rifkin, who also wrote The Zero Sum Marginal Cost Society. It shines light on a new day
Here is a documentary that features Rikfin presenting the trends that should make us optimistic about where our world is headed.
On Saturday, March 24, 2018, students from across America and even in other countries will stand up and demand reasonable gun regulation. Only a month ago, students at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida were terrorized , when a disgruntled former student showed up with an AR15 assault weapon and opened fire, gunning down dozens of students, leaving 17 dead in his wake. The difference this time is the students from Parkland that survived the attack are pushing back…seriously pushing back. They have stepped up to demand meaningful gun regulation, including a ban on assault weapons.. The Stoneman Douglas kids have become assertive and articulate leaders in a nationwide effort to bring people together in support of their cause.
Tomorrow, Saturday, March 24, 2018, at least 500,000 people are expected in Washington to demand that their elected representatives do something about the epidermic of gun violence across America. Millions more are expected in events in cities across America, and in even some cities in Canada and in Europe.
These kids have thrown down the gauntlet. They have put politicians, who are owned by the NRA on notice. The resolve of these kids, many of whom will be voting in the next election in November for the first time, is very encouraging If young people galvanized by the gun issue successfully take down politicians owned by the NRA, the impact could go far beyond gun regulation.
The sub-title of Jeremy Rifkin’s recent book is The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Collapse of Capitalism. Provocative to say the least. This new book is a logical and worthy successor to Rifkin’s last, which was titled, The Third Industrial Revolution. Rifkin has become something of a world class guru on the clean energy revolution that is well underway. It’s about fossil fuels and a market driven economy giving way to a world powered by clean, inexhaustible renewable energy resources like solar, wind, and hydropower.
In The Zero Marginal Cost Society, Rifkin sees industrial capitalism and materialism as giving way to an era that is far more inclusive, empathetic, and sustainable; a new age in which the cost of goods and services are driven down to near zero by technological innovation and the very market forces that have shaped the world that we know. The millennials, the first generation raised in this new era, are less interested in the accumulation of property and possessions, and far more interested in seeing the world as a collection of commons – like the air, the water, and the biosphere – that we all depend on and all have a collaborative stake in nurturing.
Many of those that have gotten rich as the facilitators and minions of market capitalism are often quick to dismiss Rifkin’s suggestion that they are on their way to being marginalized. But the case he makes is exceedingly compelling. The profound, global scale changes underway are built on the information internet, the emerging internet of energy, and the just developing internet of things.
Rifkin’s credentials are formidable. His more than 20 books have been translated into 35 languages. He has been an advisor to the European Union for more than a decade and has had a significant influence on Europe’s adoption of his ‘Third Industrial Revolution’ vision.
I find the transition Rifkin sees as already underway as reason for hope. Rifkin believes that humanity can weather the storm we have created for ourselves with regard to fossil energy dependence and climate, egregious human overpopulation, resource scarcity and conflict that arises from it, and the perversion of governance by a small number of super rich sociopaths, who use their wealth to prevent change that is contrary to their own personal interests. The latter, to me, is the biggest threat to Rifkin’s positive vision. An example of this: the Koch Brothers, two pathological siblings, who are worth $100 billion between them. They and their ilk are determined to use their money to pervert history and stand in the way of the kind of change that is critically needed in our world. The Kochs – who own a massive part of Canada’s tar sands – are heavily involved in fostering climate skepticism and bolstering the Republican party, which has become an almost entirely obstructionist force in American politics.
If the reassuring vision that Jeremy Rifkin illuminates so persuasively in The Zero Marginal Cost Society is to be fully realized, the ability of the super rich to use their money to derail the transition to a post-market, collaborative future will need to be blunted. Here again, as I have written in so many of these blog pieces, we have to look at a Constitutional Amendment to turn back the sell out of citizen rights driven by recent decisions of the Supreme Court. The five conservative judges on the Roberts court have opened the floodgates to political influence spending by the Koch Brothers and their super rich friends. Two decisions, Citizens United and more recently, McCutcheon vs. FEC
assured that ‘he who has the money makes the rules’.
I am inspired by the trends Jeremy Rifkin has identified. As a means of protecting the biosphere, I want to see his hopeful vision fully blossom. That is why I choose to support Move to Amend, an activist organization that is focused on achieving a Constitutional Amendment that says Corporations are not people and money is not speech. That kind of change would neutralize the ability of big corporate money and the super rich to distort our political process. If you aren’t already on board with this, I urge you to educate yourself then get with the program and be part of the solution.
Jeremy Rifkin’s book gives us reason to hope for a better future. Read The Zero Marginal Cost Society, then stand with Move to Amend, and do your part to help make it happen.
Here is a link to the webpage for The Zero Marginal Cost Society http://www.thezeromarginalcostsociety.com/
Here is a link to a one hour presentation Jeremy Rifkin made on his latest book to the leaders of Google… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-iDUcETjvo&feature=youtu.be
Billionaire oligarchs and corporate elitists have used their political power to funnel all the wealth to the top, leaving average citizens twisting in the wind. Edward Abbey once said, ‘You have to stir the political pot regularly, otherwise a layer of scum rises to the top’. In the US, the scum at the top has never been thicker. The good news is, young people, galvanized by yet another ugly incident of mass gun violence, have finally decided they aren’t going to take it anymore. They are not in the mood to allow heartless, greedy politicians to stand in their way. The mostly old white men currently in charge have proven themselves to be too corrupt to serve the common good. They need to be voted out. This article that just appeared in Alternet reflects on yet another way young people are being set up for financial failure.
Across eight high-income countries like the U.S., Germany, and the U.K, early 30-something millennials have household incomes four percent lower than members of Generation X (born between 1966 and 1980) had at the same age. In the U.S., that number is slightly worse: American millennials are making five percent less than Gen Xers were at the beginning of their careers in the U.S.
Developed countries once boasted of growing wealth and wages, but those days appear to be over. When they were in their early 30s, for example, Generation Xers were making 30 percent more than the baby boomer generation that preceded them. But as the Foundation writes in the report [5], “the 20th century growth story that has seen each generation enjoy higher incomes than the one before them has ground to a halt in nearly all advanced economies in the 21st century.”
The Resolution Foundation is clear on the cause for this stark drop in income. “It’s no secret that the financial crisis hit the vast majority of advanced economies hard, holding back millennial income progress in countries around the world,” Daniel Tomlinson, policy analyst at the Resolution Foundation, writes in the report.
Sure, young working Americans today spend more money on luxuries and comforts [6] than other generations have. But the Resolution Foundation report shows that in addition to the burden of outstanding college loans, which ran an average of $37,1172 in 2016 [7], millennials still struggle with the lasting impacts of the global recession. Maybe this knowledge will make older American think twice before blaming their financial woes on avocado toast [8] in the future.
Liz Posner is a managing editor at AlterNet. Her work has appeared on Forbes.com, Bust, Bustle, Refinery29, and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter at @elizpos. [9]