....... for Earth's body.

Please know that I would like to be mistaken in suggesting that humanity may not have 20 to 25 years to figure things out with regard to what human being are perniciously doing to the Earth in our time, and to begin to move with all deliberate speed from soon to be seen as patently unsustainable ways of living in this world to alternate lifestyles that put the human community on a road toward sustainability.  

At least to me, time is of the essence; it is in short supply; and there is no time whatever to waste.  I expect that people here in this small community are going to play a large part in developing strategies and implementing able responses to the global challenges posed to humanity by human over-consumption, overproduction and overpopulation activities, inasmuch as these activities, when taken together, appear to be approaching a leviathan-like scale of unsustainability on a planet of the size and with the make-up of Earth.

Young people ask every day, "What needs to be done now?"  

At least one of the correct responses to the children's good question could be astonishingly simple, so incredibly obvious and yet so difficult to so much as even acknowledge because too many wealthy people, their bought-and-paid-for politicians and their talking heads in the mass media willfully ignore it.  For all of the super-rich and their minions, silence is golden.

All of the trillions of dollars of wealth, that are concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority of people within the family of humanity, have been derived from taking something of value from the Earth and doing something productive with it. For a long time, taking from the Earth in this way did not pose a clear and present danger to biodiversity, the environment, the integrity of Earth and, perhaps, humanity. For a moment, consider that the trillions of dollars comprising the global economy is wealth which has been "transferred" from Earth's body into the bank accounts of people we call "haves."  Millions of "haves" hold almost all of the money. One problem with this distribution of Earth's resources, however, is that billions of less fortunate "have-nots" in the the human community are hungry and destitute.  Even though the "have-nots" have ecological footprints, we know the impact of the "have-nots" on the Earth is a small one.  On the other hand, the millions of "haves" who possess the lion's share of world's wealth have huge ecological footprints because they have extracted a great deal from the Earth and also have conspicuously consumed Earth's resources to the point of appearing obscene in our time.

The task at hand is evident. The "haves" who have almost all of the world's wealth, almost all of which has been accumulated at the expense of the Earth, need to return to the Earth a portion of that which they have commandeered from it.  The wealthy and powerful among us are asked to help humanity transition from a perverse dedication to the endless accumulation of wealth and power that is effectively dissipating Earth's resources, degrading Earth's frangible ecosystems and recklessly consuming Earth's body, to a more fair and equitable sharing of wealth with the "have-nots" as well as to a willing commitment to protect of Earth's biodiversity, promote renewal of Earth's resources, and do whatsoever is required of us to save the Earth as a fit place for human habitation by our children and coming generations.

As has been noted in the Stern Report, the IPCC Report, and in many other reports, those who hold almost all the wealth are called upon to make effective reparations to a ravaged Earth from which almost all that they possess has been derived.

Sincerely,

Steve

This sounds like a very reasonable and important plan. I can imagine Edwards endorsing it, Obama considering it, Hillary ignoring it and the Republicans denouncing it.  

Return a fraction of the revenues derived from auctioning permits to all people on Earth in the form of an annual per capita payment.

I can bet this will be the controversial point for a lot of people.

Might have been better of leaving it for disaster relief, or further greenhouse abatement.
_

Also does this system include banking permits inbetween years?

   Who will select the people who run the Trust and how will it be done?

   The proposal suggests "2. Appoint trustees based on their understanding of the purposes and details of the Trust and dedication to the goals of the Trust, not their political affiliations, geographic origins, or other criteria."

     Who appoints them?  Who decides who is qualified?  How many?  How will they make decisions?  What is the arbitration process for violations and/or disagreements?

     This sounds a bit too much like the old Deux Ex Machina, the trumpets sound, wise women (men) descend, we turn the power and problem over to them, they save the world, we pay a little money and go back to sleep.

     Folks, we can't even agree on a treaty (such as Kyoto), how are we ever going to agree on a group of people to run such a trust?

     Sounds pretty, won't hunt.

     Who will the governments of the world trust to run such a process in a fair and equitable way?

     (And the US, which barely supports the UN, do you think it is likely to agree, the gun nuts will flood the streets looking for black helicopters).

patrick in Beijing

While I'm sympathetic to trying to alleviate poverty while solving global warming, I'll echo some of the commenters above that this plan is not entirely inspiring.

Maybe it's the attempt to commodify nature (as the REM lyrics alludes to). Or the falling back to a "Plato's Republic" style of overbearing, and paternalistic "managerialism".

I suspect the real solutions to global warming will be much muckier and fought-out (and probably enforced by trade sanctions). But that could be a good thing. Because it could portend a deepening trend of democritization, as ordinary people take ownership of the problem.

I don't see how we can solve the myriad ecological problems we face with the current system of corporatism (and the greed, insecurity and consumerism it fosters). We need to find ways to inspire people that the Earth is worth saving. And tap all that unused creativity. IMHO, of course.

The Sky Trust reminds me too much of BF Skinner's behaviorism (and Pavlov's dogs): people don't respond authentically and fully to a system of rewards and punishments. Psychology has moved on. People are complex social beings who evolved in problem-solving groups. What we need are new ways to put that problem-solving ability to work.

Maybe it's the attempt to commodify nature (as the REM lyrics alludes to). Or the falling back to a "Plato's Republic" style of overbearing, and paternalistic "managerialism".

I would furthermore argue that the capitalist system is headed toward such "managerialism" anyway, for the sake of saving itself.  Thus, for instance, the popular "solution" among the political classes, to the health-care crisis in the US, is to pass laws requiring everyone to carry health insurance, thus criminalizing large segments of the public for their refusal to subsidize HMOs.  

The system seems to caught between an ever-increasing demand for investment opportunity and an ever-decreasing growth rate; capitalism has dealt with this problem over the past thirty years by becoming more and more "virtual," i.e. more and more businesses lie about what they've got in order to appear solvent.  The resultant contradiction appears to be coming to a head, with the derivatives shakeout and the inertia in the housing market.

When confronted with ecological crisis and economic crisis, both at the same time, which one do you think the US government will deal with?  In the end, then, we can expect government to defend capitalism, not nature.

http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus

.........preservation of Earth's ecology.

Dear Friends,

Perhaps we can agree that global challenges, already visible on the far horizon, could soon be posed to humanity. Because economic globalization could be approaching a point in human history when it becomes patently unsustainable on a planet with the relatively small size and make-up of Earth, the current scale and unbridled growth of global consumption/production/propagation activities of the human species could produce a colossal wreckage of either the global economy or Earth's ecology, even in these early years of Century XXI.

If leaders are presented with a forced choice between protecting the global economy and preserving Earth's ecology, it seems crystal clear to me that the leadership of the kind we have today will reflexively choose the economy.....first, last and always.

What do you think?

Sincerely,

Steve

Steve Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001

..........the twilight zone of endless growth.

The ruling politicians and economic brokers who maintain control over a lion's share of the world's wealth and military power in our time are in denial of reality. They want what they want and, as they tell us in demonstrable ways, they will have whatsoever they desire, come what may for our children, biodiversity, coming generations, global ecosystems and the integrity of Earth.

The leaders in my not-so-great generation apparently wish to live without having to accept limits to growth of seemingly endless economic globalization, increasing per capita consumption of scarce resources and skyrocketing human population numbers worldwide; their desires are evidently insatiable; they choose to believe anything that meet the `standards' for political convenience and economic expediency; and they act accordingly. But, despite all their widely shared and consensually validated specious ideas and soon to be unsustainable production, consumption and propagation activities, Earth exists in space-time, is relatively small and bounded, and has limited resources upon which the survival of life as we know it depends. Whatsoever is is, is it not?

What worries me is this: the elder guarantors of a good enough future for the children appear to be leading our kids down a "primrose path" along which the children could unexpectedly be confronted with sudden, potentially colossal threats to human and environmental health, threats that are directly derived from converging human-induced global challenges such as pernicious impacts of global warming and climate change, massive pollution of the air, water and land from microscopic particulates and solid waste, and the reckless dissipation of scarce natural resources. All the while, the leading elders remain willfully and foolishly in denial of the fulminating ecological degradation by declining to acknowledge, much less beginning to address, humanity's emerging, human-driven predicament.  One day, perhaps sooner rather than later, our children could have extraordinary difficulties responding ably to that with which they could soon come face to face; that is to say, because their elders have so adamantly refused to so much as openly recognize God's great gift of good science of global warming and climate, our kids will not even know what "hit" them, much less why it is happening.

Beware when anything starts with the premise of making "free' markets respond to solve problems.  The underlying assumptions wreck the outcome.

Follow the theory laden terminmology back up the garden path to the actual start, corporatism, before proceeding down the path to the hedge fund traders new cash flow source.

Libertarian, really corporatarian, economics (real voodoo economics) is where the path starts.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog