Some of my prepared speech I did use, and have deleted here. You can listen to my friends and me on the ABC's website.
I'll cover three points: how to buy more time, how to cope with disaster, and how to build a better world for the survivors.
First, how to buy more time.
We humans have the great fortune of support from an alien species: Merlin and Aurora. But suppose that, instead, we'd had an invasion of bug-eyed monsters, here to eradicate all life on Earth. Wouldn't we all combine, from the poorest peasant to the wealthiest billionaire, regardless of race, religion, language, location? To survive, humanity would need to unite against the common enemy.
Humanity's enemy, the cause of our problems, is not space invaders, but the global economy. This is a device for turning nature into pollution, in order to increase the number of zeros in certain computers. Does that make sense?
The problem arises because we've had unrestrained growth in a limited system. I'm not saying anything new. We've exceeded the limits. I'm not the first to say that, either.
We're facing disaster, have already experienced disaster, because for hundreds of years, each generation has stolen from its future.
We are that future.
To save something for ourselves, and to give us a chance of having descendants, we need to make BIG changes. NOW.
OK, what's wrong with the economy?
First, it's assessed on an idiot measure: the GDP. This is a sum of money changing hands, including good things like food, shelter, entertainment, and bad things like repairing smashed cars, the cost of keeping criminals in jail, the costs of cancer caused by pollution, etc. It excludes a great many costs economists mislabel externalities. Plastic waste in the ocean kills marine life and birds. That's not in the GDP, but is a very real cost; one of the threats to our existence as a species. Unravel the web of life, and we'll fall through the hole.
Alternatives exist. One example is the King of Bhutan's Gross National Happiness. There is a vigorous Degrowth movement with very sensible recommendations. One of Canberra's sons, Professor Costanza of ANU, advocates a measure termed Genuine Progress Indicator. It includes monetary equivalents for externalities, and excludes social costs. Interestingly, while GDP has skyrocketed in the past forty years, GPI has stagnated since 1976. Think of the implications.
A wonderful set of ideas is the Thai King's Sufficiency Economy Philosophy. There is a book on it by Avery and Bergsteiner. This is Buddhist economics. If it were applied globally, many of our problems would disappear.
Also worth considering is the kind of resource tax Alaska imposes on oil companies, but applied to a wider range of resources, as described by Peter Barnes.
We need major, urgent effort to develop and apply such ideas.
Currently, the rich are stealing from the poor. Consumption is consuming the future. Instead, we need to live simply, so we can simply live.
Ted Trainer's group in Sydney has been doing it for years. Their environmental footprint is 10% of the average Australian's, and they live a good life.
During the global economic meltdown in 2009, many countries rewarded the criminals with big payouts. Iceland rightly put them in jail.
My next point is the link between work and pay. There is stigma against the unemployed. Actually, they do no harm. The harm is done rather by people who don't work, but live off their wealth, often inherited. People admire the jet set, while despising the dole bludger.
Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha are among those who preached against greed and avarice. Listen to Pope Francis. Life is not about money, power or status. All that matters is what you take with you when you die.
To buy us time so we can work toward survival, we must redistribute wealth. Money is an illusion: entries in computers. A bank creates "money" by lending what it doesn't have, then charging interest on the illusion. Obama in America and Rudd in Australia turned the economy around by making gifts to business, financed with nothing. Of course, this was the Keynesian economics that ended the Great Depression.
If money had real value, such smoke and mirrors tricks would be impossible. We now need another smoke and mirrors trick: taking the zeros from those who have too many, and using them for projects with real economic benefits.
Will some people suffer?
No. The 1% will have sufficient to carry on the way they have, although I hope they'll stop squandering our common wealth. All wealth, ALL WEALTH, comes from nature. No one owns nature. We are not apart from it, but a part of it. That was Aunty Lil's message. Let's learn from Aboriginal wisdom.
Corporations will suffer, but corporations are not people. To prove this, I ask you: how many corporations have broken laws? And how many have served jail sentences?
To survive, we need to reduce our wants, in order to satisfy our needs. We should live in moderation, when too much is as bad as too little.
I'll now talk about technology. In the 1970s, the Club of Rome demonstrated that technology can solve any problem, but only by making one or more other problems worse. This is true. Nevertheless, technology can buy us time.
We MUST keep coal, oil and gas in the ground. According to the IPCC's very conservative estimate, the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere are guaranteed to cook us within thirty years maximum, but in fact we have far less time than that. It's cooking California and the Amazon now!
We need a massive switch to energy conservation. People and businesses should be paid for using less. Waste must become socially unacceptable. What energy we do need should come from renewables. Incidentally, Aurora's Metta Bootstrap is funding a business in Brisbane that provides very cheap conversions of cars from petrol to electric.
We must stop all deforestation, NOW. Instead, we need to plant trees as carbon sinks.
Another way of storing enormous amounts of carbon is through nurturing topsoil. This means replacing chemical agriculture with systems like organic farming and Permaculture. Earlier this year, a UN agency demonstrated that they're financially competitive with the agribusiness that kills soil, and poisons everything with terrible chemicals.
We must redesign transport. Each locality needs to become self-sufficient in as many goods and services as possible. What must be moved needs to use highly efficient public transport. A distance tax is one good idea.
Again, it's not for me to propose solutions, but to emphasize that the knowledge and capability are there. We need to DO it, by yesterday.
Now, I go on to war, including terrorism. Actually, there is no difference. War is terrorism carried out by a nation state.
A villain in a book said, "War is wealth." Eisenhower warned us against the military-industrial complex. All the problems of poverty, ALL THE PROBLEMS OF POVERTY, could be solved with a small fraction of resources poured into armaments.
You should read an excellent, detailed analysis by Tom Engelhardt of the corruption, inefficiencies and deliberate waste built into the war industry.
The best way to buy time is to turn swords into ploughshares.
Like keeping fossil fuels in the ground, like redistributing wealth, this means opposing vested interests. We have an admirable model: the Quakers. If everyone, regardless of religious belief, acted like the Quakers, there could be no war.
The excuse for war is that the other side is evil. I tell you, in a war, both sides do evil. If we want to eliminate terrorism, we need to eliminate the unfairness and inequality it feeds on. Even the religious fanatics can only inspire the masses if those masses already feel strong, justified resentment. Hitler could use anti-Semitism to mobilize Germany only because of the cruel reparations the Allies demanded after World War 1. So, generosity, decency, fairness work far better than bombs and sanctions. Every time we kill, we create many volunteers to the extremist cause.
The time from 1914 to the present is full of genocidal wars. Irrational hate rules. Why?
John B. Calhoun's research on the effects of population density on rats provided an answer. As population pressure increased, many rats developed stress-related diseases: cancer, eczema, asthma, digestive ulcers, etc. At higher levels, also, some females were unable to properly teach their young how to be adult rats, leading to the rat equivalent of personality disorders. And at the highest levels, many became so territorial they killed their own mates and young, and gangs of males fought to the death.
Look around our world. We're Calhoun's rats.
But this gives me hope. None of these reactions was universal. Some rats chose not to be affected by crowding. We humans can do the same.
For rats, population pressure is other rats they see, hear and smell. For humans, it's not so much numbers, but perceived competition and unfairness. So, again, we can reduce conflict through generosity, compassion, fairness.
But, naturally, the main reason for population pressure is, well, population. I am fifteen years old. During my lifetime, global population increased by 2.3 billions, to 7.5 billions, despite over a billion deaths due to wars and environmental disasters during that time. World population in 1950 was 2.5 billions. We've been breeding like rats.
This is another of the limits we've passed. We must stop. NOW.
Having a child is not a private matter, because it affects everyone. I love children. I'd love to be a father one day, but the times to come will be horrifying. Why should I impose a short life of immense suffering on a new person? Isn't that a crime?
The usual answer is that this causes an age imbalance. An increasing proportion of the population will be old, and dependent on a shrinking number of those able to work. This is an illusion. In 1963, Denis Gabor demonstrated in Inventing the Future that 10% of the adult American population at the time could have produced 100% of the goods and services of the US economy. With the immense technological development since, according to my calculations, we could now do it with 3%. Imagine, we could choose to have 97% unemployment, without loss of goods and services. And, actually, as I've said, we must greatly reduce the production of stuff anyway, and that further reduces the need for workers.
The real problem is providing meaningful, constructive activity for people, without tying it to money. This can be done through more personal self-sufficiency, replacing canned entertainments with local arts, volunteering -- hey, living a modern equivalent of the ancient Aboriginal lifestyle!
Naturally, I'm against all artificial reproduction. Those with a desperate need to breed can receive therapy, like those with a desperate need for heroin.
This finishes my first point: how to delay disaster. We can delay it, but we can't prevent it. We're over the tipping points. It's too late.
In fact, disaster is not in the future, but already history. Sea level rise has destroyed Pacific islands like Kiribati. Terrible cyclonic storms have hit New York and even Boston, the Philippines, Vanuatu. Here in Australia, bushfires have become more savage. What used to be 100 year floods can now be expected every few years. Droughts are dryer, and last longer.
Some of the changes are predictable, and we can plan for them. The first is sea level rise and cyclones, which only affect coastal areas.
Coastal cities should be abandoned in a planned, regulated way, and replaced with cities inland, on higher ground.
Half of Brisbane... the Melbourne CBD... millionaire properties on Sydney Harbour... Surfers Paradise... We leave them, or die in them.
Sea level rise gives us the opportunity to switch to a daisy-chain of small, almost self-sufficient villages, connected by highly efficient light rail, but NO roads.
We'll have the resources for the change globally if we invest military spending in survival spending.
Every year, more and more of Alaska, the Canadian northwest and the Siberian taiga go up in flames. In 2014, there were the first terrible WINTER fires in Norway. And the Fertile Crescent of Australia is the most fire-prone area on Earth. We have the knowledge and technology to deal with this disaster. One big improvement is to STOP CLEARFALL LOGGING. Well, we must stop logging altogether. Read the work of ANU's Professor Lindemayer.
Floods: We have the knowledge to predict future floods, given expected rainfall changes and sea level rise. As with the shores, we need to move out of what may have been safe in the past, but will become flood-prone. Instead, use flood plains the way ancient Egyptians did, to grow food.
Another predictable disaster doesn't involve nature, but the financial system. Imagine the 1930s Great Depression, multiplied a hundredfold. It's coming. Economic commentary by experts is full of the predictions, supported with evidence. We can cope by proactively GETTING RID of the current economic system. I've already mentioned alternatives.
Earthquakes and volcanoes have many causes, but human-made changes have added to this causal mix. A no-brainer is to stop fracking. We urgently need to stop all oil and gas extraction anyway. Also, we're removing the weight of glaciers and snow. The Matterhorn is falling apart!
The final predictable source of disaster is the death of marine life. George mentioned ocean acidification as a major cause. So-called dead zones on continental shelves are also growing at an alarming rate. They're due to fertilizer and organic runoff from the land, causing a temporary explosion of plant growth. Then this dies, depriving the water of oxygen. We can't do much about acidification, but can reduce organic runoff through better waste disposal and farming practices, as a matter of extreme urgency.
Next, I go on to the kind of society we need to aim for.
The disaster we're facing is global. You cannot protect one country from it while ignoring, or even fighting off, the rest of humanity. The concept of a nation state is only 500 years old. It's honored when that suits us, ignored in empire-building, invasions and wars when it doesn't.
It doesn't suit the present. Australia's shameful asylum-seeker policy is an example of the kind of thinking that makes a problem worse. Our footprint is population multiplied by consumption per person. If we choose to live more simply, we'll have the room to admit people fleeing from genocide, the effects of climate change, and to escape grinding poverty. If we reduce our breeding, if they reduce their breeding, we'll welcome their energy and gratitude.
Defending territory creates enemies. Compassionately sharing territory creates harmony.
Remember, I said, the purpose of life is to grow spiritually, life after life. Those who create enemies are getting F grades in the school of life. Those who create friends get A-s. That's the concept of karma, and my teachers assure me, it's spot on.
I've said it before. Live simply so you may simply live. Possessions will only dispossess you of life. Grab more now, and suffer not much later. Let go of stuff, and we have a chance.
When the alien Merlin took me to the Moon, it told me that the way to save humanity is to replace an insane global culture based on greed, aggression, territoriality with a sane one based on compassion, cooperation, decency.
Think about it: which kind of world would you, personally, enjoy more?
So, I return to the concept of metta: unconditional love. Even if you do evil, and I abhor what you've done, you have my love, and I'll do whatever I can to help you. If you do the same to me, if we all do it, then we have a chance of survival.
Remember Aunty Lil's welcome to country? We're all brothers and sisters. There is only one race: the human race. We don't own this planet or any piece of it, but are caretakers. Humanity has been a lousy caretaker, and we're now suffering the consequences. It's time to do it the Aboriginal way.
What kind of world do the survivors need to build?
Aim for a stable population that doesn't overload its life support.
Live in moderation, so that too much is as bad as too little.
Seek for meaning and purpose in giving rather than grasping, in helping rather than fighting, in cooperation rather than competition.
Because, the only thing that matters is what we take with us when we die.
We can reduce and delay disaster, and build a good life after it, if every thought, every word, every action is with consideration of long term consequences.
Avery, G. & Bergsteiner, H. (eds) (2015). Sufficiency Thinking: Thailand's Gift to an Unsustainable World. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Barnes, P. (2014). With Liberty and Dividends for All. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
https://bobrich18.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/bobbing-around-volume-14-number-12/#peterb
Club of Rome (1974). Mankind at the Turning Point.
Costanza, R. et al., (2014). Development: Time to leave GDP behind, Nature (Genuine Progress Indicator):
http://www.nature.com/news/development-time-to-leave-gdp-behind-1.14499
Horton, K. G., (2015). Growth in what? Quarterly Journal of Economics 129(3): 222-227.
Tom Engelhardt: The American Way of War in the Twenty-First Century
Dennis Gabor (1963). Inventing the Future. Secker & Warburg
King of Bhutan's Gross National Happiness
David Lindenmayer (2015). Clearfelling in Australian Forests. CSIRO Publishing
Iceland's pots and pans revolution
Sutcliffe, Cynthia, (2013). The Global Economy We Need to Build. Journal of Economics 87: 23-29.
The UN on traditional agriculture vs. factory farming
Bob Rich's writing showcase Anxiety and Depression Help Site Bob's Mudsmith site Bob's blog Bobbing Around List of files relevant to the Doom Healer