Handbook of Planetary Management
© 2010 Joseph George Caldwell. All
rights reserved. Posted at Internet web
site http://www.foundationwebsite.org
. May be copied or reposted for
non-commercial use, with attribution. (Part
1: 6 June 2003; Part 2: 13 February 2010, updated 6 March 2010)
Contents
3.
The Problem – Mass Industrialization
4. The Key to the Solution: Action
Follows Belief
5.
An Ally in the War against Planetary Destruction: The New Age / New
Spiritualism Movement
7. Situation Assessment, February
2010
9.
How to Wage and Win Global Nuclear War
10.
How to Establish a Long-Term-Sustainable System of Planetary Management
Part 1. Awareness
For
millions of years, during mankind’s hunter-gatherer phase, the human population
of Earth was on the order of five million people. With the development of agriculture and other
technologies about ten thousand years ago, the population increased to about
250 million at the time of the Roman Empire.
With the advent of the fossil-fuel age on Earth in the late Middle Ages,
the human population began to grow very fast.
It now (2010) stands at about seven billion, and is increasing by about
80 million per year. The human
population now consumes about 40 percent of all of the “current” solar energy
usable by biological organisms, and more than half of all fresh water. It is the most numerous mammalian species on
the planet, and the largest single species in terms of biomass. Massive human numbers and industrial activity
are causing the extinction of an estimated 30 thousand species per year and are
thereby destroying the ecological balance of the biosphere.
The large
size of the human population will not continue for very much longer. The world’s petroleum supplies have been
about half used up, and the remaining reserves will last for less than half a
century at current rates of consumption.
More significantly, the ecological balance of nature has been so
disturbed that ecological collapse (significant and major change) is occurring
long before the end of the petroleum age.
Most of the human species live in abject poverty, misery, hunger,
disease and squalor. Limits have been
reached on agricultural food production, and the world’s fisheries are now
collapsing from overfishing and pollution.
The world’s natural-growth forests are being destroyed at a rapid rate,
and will soon be gone from most parts of the world. Much of nature is being destroyed by
human-generated pollution and destruction of natural habitat.
Although
appeals to stop this destruction have been increasing in urgency and frequency
for many decades, mankind as a whole has been totally unwilling and/or unable
to stop the destruction of the biosphere.
It is clear that human population growth will continue until the system
collapses catastrophically. There are
many factors at work in this process of destruction, including human greed,
ability to tap the massive energy stored in fossil fuels and thereby cause
massive changes to the environment, addiction to the material benefits of
industrialization, the stranglehold of the “religion” of economics on human
culture (i.e., greater industrial production, both overall and per capita, is
“better”), contempt for all other species, and the widespread belief that God
will remove (“save”) all “good” people from the ruined planet (“End Times”
concepts, such as Apocalypse, Armageddon, Tribulation, Rapture, etc.).
Dynamic
systems almost always fail catastrophically.
In the case of human industrial civilization, which is now causing
massive changes to the planet’s environment and will soon exhaust the energy
source (petroleum) that is enabling massive human numbers, it is obvious that
the catastrophic demise will occur very soon (at the latest in a few decades
when petroleum supplies exhaust, but more likely within the next few
years). The only real issue to be
resolved is how much more damage will be caused to the biosphere prior to the
collapse and whether the human species survives. If industrial society could continue until
all petroleum is exhausted, a substantial proportion of all of Earth’s species
would have been exterminated. If
industrial society ends very soon (e.g., by war, disease, famine), the “Sixth
Mass Extinction” of the planet will end with the extinctions to date.
As noted,
the religion of economics has a very strong grip on human society. Although economic development and industrial
activity have been totally responsible for the ecological destruction that is
currently being wreaked on the planet, the myth that more economic development
and industrial activity will make things better is widely believed. Almost everyone believes that more industrial
development will improve the standard of living for himself and his family, and
that the associated ecological damage that occurs is not important.
A few
writers have shown very convincingly how mankind’s current global industrial
activity is analogous to cancer or other serious disease (in this case, a disease
that is destroying the biosphere), but few people are willing to accept that
mankind in its current numbers is a pathogenic or parasitic organism. Most people simply do not want to hear that an
estimated 30,000 species are being made extinct every year by human
activity. Collectively, human society is
in a state of mass denial that the biosphere is undergoing massive, immediate
and irreversible change, that the large human population is completely
unsustainable, and that human population collapse is imminent.
It is now
impossible that the situation will improve by peaceful means. Globalization (global industrialization at
high levels) has a stranglehold grip on human society. No world or national leader is willing to
propose, or promote, or even accept a decrease in either the gross national
product or the gross national product per capita. Global petroleum supplies will exhaust so
soon that there is now no way for human population to decline slowly to sustainable
levels. Human population increased in
direct proportion to petroleum availability, and it will decline in direct
proportion to petroleum availability. The
fact is that billions of people will soon die – and not from old age! The coming die-off of the human species will
be the direct consequence of either the decline in petroleum availability or
mankind’s destruction of the environment – global war, disease and starvation
are just around the corner.
The
significant issue facing the planet is not how to avoid catastrophic collapse,
since that is now inevitable. The
significant issues are what to do after it occurs, and how to prepare for the
post-catastrophe era (to minimize the destruction being caused by global
industrialization and to ensure the establishment of a long-term-sustainable
system of planetary management after its demise). The Foundation websites have analysed and
discussed this situation at length, and have presented examples of long-term
sustainable human populations and organizations. One such population is a synarchic (Platonic)
government of a “minimal-regret” population consisting of a single-nation
high-technology population of five million people and a globally distributed
hunter-gatherer population of five million people.
The purpose
of the Foundation websites is to promote awareness of the human population
problem, suggest solutions to this problem, and to help bring about conditions
such that when the industrial world collapses, a better (i.e.,
long-term-sustainable) system of planetary management is established (set up
and maintained). Much of the website
material to date has been concerned with description and analysis of the
problem, and a general discussion of solutions (see, e.g., Can America
Survive?). Recently, more material has
been presented concerning specific approaches to planetary management, or to
ensuring that a rational (long-term-sustainable) planetary management system is
established. This handbook is one more
step in that direction.
Without
modern industrialization, the human population did not have much impact on
Earth’s ecology. In a hunter-gatherer
mode (on the order of five million people globally), it had practically no
impact at all – it was just one minor mammalian species, living off the land. Even with primitive agriculture (on the order
of 250 million people globally), it did not have a large impact. The world’s tropical forests and oceans
remained pretty much as they had for millions of years, and mankind’s use of
natural materials caused little impact on the planet’s biodiversity. The big change occurred when mankind began to
use modern technology, tap fossil fuels on a large scale, and increase its
population dramatically. The planet can
support a few hundred million people living under primitive (agricultural)
conditions, or about five million living a high-technology lifestyle, without
causing major disruption to the biosphere.
Examples of long-term sustainable human populations are: about 5-20
million hunter-gatherers; or about 250 million primitive-agriculture people; or
about five million high-technology people; or the latter together with a small
number of hunter-gatherers (e.g., five million). In other words, the “carrying capacity” of the
planet is from about five million people to a few hundred million, depending on
the level of technology, and the greater the level of technology (energy use,
pollution generation), the fewer the people that can be supported long-term. Whatever the total number of human beings,
the macroscopic impact of the human species on the biosphere must be very
small, for that population to be sustainable in the long term.
If mankind
is to be able to stop the ongoing mass species extinction, it is necessary to
dramatically reduce the level of industrial activity on the planet. Economic development and industrial activity
are the problem, not the solution. The
problem is how to bring about and maintain a reduction in industrial activity,
when almost everyone wants more.
Some see a
solution by means of war. Because of all
of the problems being caused by mass industrialization, the likelihood of
occurrence of global war and the magnitude of its consequences are increasing. The main problem with war as an approach to
solving the world’s current ecological problem is that the very people who
would win are the ones in favor of global industrialization! As long as most people believe that
industrial activity is the solution to the world’s problems, and that more is
better, the survivors of a collapsed industrial world would simply rebuild
industrial society, and the ecological destruction of the planet would
resume. It does not seem likely that forceful
action (violence) is a solution to the world’s ecological problem. Too many people are committed to large human
population and global industrialization, and too few seek a solution. If a small number of people tried to bring an
end to this current world paradigm by force, they would almost certainly
fail. Furthermore, a small group of
people cannot control a large population against its will for very long. Global war will likely occur as part of the
demise of the global industrial age, and it may be useful as a means of
establishing a long-term-sustainable system of planetary management, but it is
not relevant to maintaining such a system for a long time.
As long as
most of the world’s population is committed to (addicted to) global
industrialization, it is unlikely that a different system of planetary management
would arise. As Neale Donald Walsch has
argued forcefully, however, action follows belief. If the survivors of a global catastrophe
believe that a resumption of global industrialization will improve things, then
that is what they will seek to achieve.
If, on the other hand, the survivors see clearly that global
industrialization was in fact the problem – the very source of the planetary
destruction – then they will seek to avoid a resumption of the industrial
age. And this is the key to the solution.
Although
almost no one at the present time is willing to decrease industrial activity to
a low level, that attitude can be changed.
As observed above, the industrial era will end soon, and it will almost
surely end in a catastrophic collapse (global war, disease, famine, or
whatever). When that happens, the
survivors will see that large-scale industrialization has failed, and they will
have experienced first-hand the destruction that it has caused. They will understand the disastrous
consequences of a large human population and global industrialization, and they
will be receptive to change. It is at
that time that a significant opportunity will exist for significant and lasting
change.
In order
for the post-catastrophe surviving human population to be receptive to change,
it is very important that they be fully aware of the reasons for the collapse
of global industrial society when it occurs, and also aware of planetary
management approaches that will avoid a repeat of the destruction caused by the
present system. Establishing this
awareness is the primary mission of the Foundation websites – to disseminate
information describing (1) the state of the world, (2) the reasons why
large-scale industrial society must collapse and do so catastrophically, and
(3) planetary management approaches that will avoid further destruction and a
recurrence of the experienced collapse.
When most people of the world genuinely believe that global
industrialization was the problem that destroyed the world, then they will act
to prevent its re-emergence. It is at
that time that it will be possible to establish a planetary management system
based on synarchic government of a minimal-regret global population of ten
million people.
I observed
above that almost no one believes that global industrialization is the problem
and that it is destroying the planet. Almost
no one. There is a one group of people,
however, that is appalled by the level of violence in the world and the
destruction of nature by global industrialization, and who are also very much
convinced that a transformation to a better world is both possible and
imminent. That is the group of people
who are generally called “New Agers,” but it also includes spiritualists and
mystics. New Agers have a vision for a
better world. They are optimistic that a
new world order can be established in which people can live in peace with each
other and in harmony with nature.
In addition
to their viewpoint that world peace and harmony with nature are possible, New
Agers possess another attribute that is very important – their large
numbers. There are literally millions of
people who are interested in New Age / New Spiritualism concepts. The only thing that is lacking is that,
although these people are optimistic that the world is about to enter a new
Golden Age of peace and harmony with nature, they (as a group) do not see
exactly how this will happen, or exactly how it can be brought about. Moreover, they are not generally aware that
they as a group are the key to solving the world’s problem. Many are convinced that the dawning of the
Age of Aquarius will bring substantial and significant change, and that this
change may even be turbulent and violent.
Some are convinced, nevertheless, that if enough people believe and hope
for world peace and harmony with nature, this will happen.
While the
New Age / New Spiritualism movement is a phenomenon of the last few decades, it
traces its beginnings in spiritualist and personal development movements from
ages past. There have been many writers
in this field. Some of the more
successful or better-known ones are Rudolf Steiner, G. I. Gurdjieff, P. D.
Ouspensky, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, René Guénon, Julius Evola, Frithjof Schuon, Jean
Gebser, Neale Donald Walsch, Thom Hartmann, Gary Zukav, Michael Talbot, Fritjof
Capra, and Laura Knight-Jadczyk, just to name a few.
New Age devotees
will be strongly attracted to the synarchic government / minimal-regret
population movement, since it aligns well with many of their principal
interests and concerns. The term
“synarchy” was in fact introduced by the 19-th century spiritualist, Saint-Yves
d’Alveydre (although the concept was introduced much earlier, by Plato). The goal of world peace and harmony with
nature is a common goal for New Agers.
Except for the single high-technology city-state, all human population
will be organized tribally. Thom
Hartmann (The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight) summarizes the five
primary traits of tribal groups: (1) political independence; (2) egalitarian
structure; (3) get their resources from renewable local sources; (4) have a
unique sense of their own identity; and (5) respect the identity of other
tribes. With an end to the sixth mass
species extinction, the diversity of species in the biosphere will be
promoted. The diversity of the human
species, too, will be promoted, with the re-emergence of independent tribes all
over the planet. The likelihood of plagues,
epidemics and ecological disasters will be dramatically reduced, since the
gross intermingling of human beings and other species that characterizes
globalization will cease.
The
“evolutionary agenda” of Barbara Marx Hubbard (Conscious Evolution) will
be realized: (1) meet basic food and shelter needs of all people; (2) limit our
population growth; (3) restore Earth’s environment; (4) learn to coexist with
other species; (5) learn sustainable economic development; (6) shift the vast
military-industrial technological complex toward building new worlds on Earth
and in Space; (7) redesign social and economic systems to enhance human
compassion, cooperation, and creativity; (8) emancipate individuals’ unique
potential and life purpose; (9) explore and develop the further reaches of the
human spirit and the universe beyond the planet of our birth. Overall, “the planet makes its transition
from it high-technology, polluting, and overpopulating phase to a system that
fulfills its collective potential.”
The unified-planet
goals of Neale Donald Walsch (Conversations with God, Book Two) would be
realized: (1) an end to wars between nations and the settling of disputes by
killing; (2) an end to abject poverty, death by starvation, and mass
exploitation of people and resources by those of power; (3) an end to the
systematic environmental destruction of the Earth; (4) an escape from the
endless struggle for bigger, better, more; (5) an opportunity – truly equal –
for all people to rise to the highest expression of Self; and (6) an end to all
limitations and discrimination holding people back – whether in housing, in the
workplace, or in the political system, or in personal sexual relationships.
The world
vision of James Redfield (The Celestine Vision) would be realized: (1)
overcoming poverty and world hunger; (2) preventing crime; (3) protecting the
environment; (4) saving the forests; (5) an end to mass terrorism and warfare;
and (6) transformation of culture from planned obsolescence.
The vision of L.
Ron Hubbard (Scientology) would be
realized: A civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war,
where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is
free to rise to greater heights.
One of the
fascinating aspects of the minimal-regret population proposed in Can America
Survive? is the fact that it allows for and promotes both a high-technology
society and low-technology societies on the planet. At the present time, the high-technology
culture (Young Culture, in the terminology of Thom Hartmann) is exterminating
the primitive culture (Older Culture).
(It is also exterminating itself.)
In a minimal-regret-population world, both cultures exist in harmony. The high technology culture (the synarchic
government) promotes the survival of the low-technology culture – that is its
primary mission, its reason for existence, its meaningful work (its secondary
mission is advancement of scientific and spiritual knowledge). The low-technology society preserves the
tribal community life that is so meaningful to human existence. Human beings are able to develop both in a
high-technology culture and a low-technology culture. Both exist on the same planet in a symbiotic
relationship: the high-technology culture protects the low-technology culture
(and ensures its own continued existence) by preventing the rise of mass
(global) industrialization. The
low-technology culture, dispersed over the planet and with limited
intermingling, promotes greater diversity of the human species and dramatically
reduces the likelihood of human-species extinction from a localized catastrophic
incident (because of geographic dispersion and very limited intermingling).
When I said
above that New Agers / spiritualists / mystics as a group do not see exactly
how world changes can be brought about, I am referring to details, such as
setting up a synarchic world government after the global collapse of
industrialism. The New Agers know exactly
what approach to use. It is the approach
of mystics and spiritualists. It is the
long-established “secret” to success – meditation (prayer), desire,
visualization, planning, action, etc. (see Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich for more on this). All that is lacking is specificity and
clarity in setting goals and objectives. Once the New Age community has a clear
understanding of the nature of the global crisis (e.g., as described in Thom
Hartmann’s The Last Hours of Ancient Sunshine), it may set specific
goals to bring about a better world.
Except for Hartmann, most New Age writers seem oblivious to the severity
of the environmental crisis. As long as
they and the New Age community are unaware of the nature and seriousness of the
crisis, nothing will happen. Knowledge
and awareness are very important. As
Laura Knight-Jadczyk writes, “Knowledge / awareness protects, ignorance
endangers.” Once they are fully aware,
nothing can stop them. Action will
indeed follow belief.
It should
be emphasized here that information from spiritual sources has a high degree of
equivocation (unreliability), and must be evaluated with a very critical
eye. Much information from spiritual
sources is false or misleading, like the messages of the Oracle at Delphi and
channelling. Some, perhaps much, is
total nonsense, like the ramblings in a dream.
All such information must be carefully evaluated in the light of
knowledge, using critical reason. In any
event, these sources can provide useful clues to the nature of reality, and may
suggest useful alternative future paths to consider. The fact is that physical science has proved
disastrous for mankind and for the biosphere, and spiritual science can provide
useful insight and guidance.
The forces
of global industrialization are very powerful.
They are committed to and addicted to the complete destruction of the
planet’s biosphere. Stopping them will
not be easy. The war against global
industrialization will not be easy to win.
The battle to establish world peace and a stable biosphere will involve
much hard work, commitment, and sacrifice.
And it will involve much faith.
As noted in the Bible, “Prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare.”
In order
for the New Age community – or any other community – to work enthusiastically
and effectively on a particular program for achieving the ultimate goal of
world peace and harmony with nature, it is necessary that they be aware of the
problem, understand its nature, and believe in the program (i.e., believe that
it is an effective and desirable way of achieving the ultimate goal and
generally superior to other alternatives).
The
Foundation websites propose a synarchic government of a minimal-regret
population of ten million as a feasible and desirable means of achieving a
long-term-survivable human population and biosphere. To encourage the adoption of this planetary
management paradigm, the Foundation websites present detailed information on
the nature of the crisis and the proposed solution. They also present suggestions for additional steps
that may be taken to increase awareness and acceptance of the proposed
solution, and that will increase the likelihood that the solution will be
attempted and successfully implemented.
These steps include the following:
·
Publication
of the book, Can America Survive?, which presents a detailed analysis of
the current state of the world and a rationale for implementing a
minimal-regret population on Earth.
·
Publication
of articles that discuss various aspects of planetary management, synarchy, and
the minimal-regret population.
There is no
central organization coordinating the movement to establish a synarchic
government of a minimal-regret population.
There are several reasons for this.
First, it is anticipated that at some point the national governments of
the world will move against the synarchic-government /
minimal-regret-population movement, since it is antithetical to all they stand
for (i.e., the industrialized world, globalization). (There is substantial precedent prompting
this belief – both France and Germany moved against Synarchy early in the
twentieth century.) The vulnerability of
this movement is substantially reduced by the lack of a central
organization. Second, it is considered
advantageous from the viewpoint of credibility and acceptance if the Foundation
/ synarchic / minimal-regret movement has no commercial interests, motives or
basis. As long as the movement is a
“grass-roots” one, and there is no central organization or headquarters, there
is no need for large amounts of money to accomplish the movement’s goals. The “organization” exists only as an idea:
with no physical or financial assets, there is nothing for the industrial world
to attack or destroy. Nothing is more
powerful than an idea whose time has come.
The movement has no need for monetary funding – it is the power of
conscious evolution that will enable it to come into being.
The general
approach of the Foundation website is to make effective use of certain features
of the present system of global industrialization to bring about a synarchic
world government and minimal-regret population.
The current system is so large and powerful, and so committed to
destruction of the biosphere, that it cannot be overcome with a “frontal
attack,” and its collapse will be so sudden, devastating and uncontrolled that it
may destroy everything, including the chance to establish a
long-term-sustainable system of planetary management. The key to establishing a
long-term-sustainable system of planetary management will be to take effective advantage
of some features of it, and retain some features of it, as it collapses (“Let
no good crisis go to waste,” as the Obama administration asserts). The approach is, as in the martial arts (Tae
Kwan Do, Karate, Jujitsu), to apply skill and leverage to use the opponent’s
mass and momentum against him, to your advantage. One way in which this is being done is to
make use of the Internet to disseminate information on planetary management –
using globalization’s information-technology resources to educate people on the
nature of the current destructive planetary management system and the
long-term-sustainable system of planetary management that may replace it. Other ways in which the assets of the present
system may be used effectively to replace it with a better system are discussed
in the sections that follow.
Part 2: The Synarchist Manifesto
This Part
(update of 15 February 2010) is dedicated to my son, Joseph George Caldwell IV
(12 August 1960 – 18 January 2010).
It was the time of the preacher
In the year of ‘01
Now the preaching is over
And the lesson’s begun
It was the time of the preacher
In the year of ‘01
Now the lesson is over
And the killing’s begun
It was the time of the preacher
In the year of ‘01
When you think it’s all over
It’s only begun
Selected verses from “The Time of the Preacher,”
from The Red Headed Stranger
collection, words and music by Willie Nelson
A lot has
happened since Part 1 (Sections 1-6) of this Handbook of Planetary Management was published in June of 2003. Since that time, the system of growth-based
economics has continued unabated and world population has continued to soar,
from 6.33 billion to 6.98 billion today (February 2010; source: University of
North Carolina world population clock at http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop). Environmental damage continues to increase
and the sixth mass species extinction continues. This is “business as usual” – large human
numbers and industrial activity continue to destroy the biosphere. The significant thing that has changed,
however, is that there is a growing agreement that global oil production is
decreasing, i.e., we are passing “Hubbert’s Peak” on “Hubbert’s Curve” of
global oil production (the exact peak is uncertain because of substantial
fluctuations in production, caused by variations in demand (caused by economic
and demographic circumstances) and in supply (caused by discovery of new oil
sources and exhaustion of existing ones)).
The purpose
of setting up the Foundation website was to disseminate information about a
proposed strategy for a long-term-sustainable biosphere and human population –
the “minimal-regret” population strategy (consisting of a single high-tech
nation of five million people and a globally distributed low-tech population of
five million hunter-gatherers). The
website has achieved this objective. The
number of “hits” by visitors has increased from zero in 1999 when it was
established to about 3,000 per month in 2003, to about 20,000 per month
today. The works posted on the
Foundation website are downloaded frequently throughout the day, and there are
many links to the website from external servers. The concept of a minimal-regret population is
now widely discussed and debated.
In the ten
years since the minimal-regret population strategy was published in Can America Survive?, not a single
feasible alternative global population strategy has been proposed. In the absence of alternatives, it appears
that the minimal-regret strategy will be implemented upon the collapse of the
current world economic system (growth-based economics, large human numbers and
industrial activity).
This Part 2
(Sections 7-10) of the Handbook of
Planetary Management sketches some alternative scenarios for the near-term
future. The purpose of these sketches is
to stimulate discussion and facilitate planning by those who seek to implement
a minimal-regret population strategy after the collapse of the present planetary
management system.
The title
of this Part 2 is “The Synarchist Manifesto.”
Although I have previously defined what I mean by synarchy, it bears
repeating. Synarchy is a system of
planetary management, or world government.
My concept of synarchy is a single government similar to the government
of Guardians proposed by Plato. The word
“synarchy” was coined by the French mystic Alexandre Saint-Yves d’Alveydre in
the late 1800s, as representing a unitary form of government opposed to
“anarchy.” Synarchy refers to a single
world government, as contrasted to the current anarchic system of a couple of
hundred nations all competing for domination.
Saint-Yves conceived three major institutions of social control:
religion, politics and economics. In my
concept of synarchy there is no role for any of these three institutions. There is but a single institution, the
government, which manages the planet much in the same way that a captain and
crew would operate a space ship – Spaceship Earth, in this case. To quote from my previous article, On Synarchy (posted at http://www.foundationwebsite.org/OnSynarchy.htm):
“In
my concept of a single planetary management organization, there is no room for
economics, politics, or religion as social institutions of control. With respect to economics, the primary role
of the planetary management organization is to prevent industrial
activity anywhere on the planet outside of the high-technology single-nation
city-state. With respect to politics, the
planetary management organization is operated as a mission-oriented business or
military organization or a church, not as a political entity. There is no room for politics in this
organization (although the hunter-gatherer tribes over the rest of the planet
are free to adopt whatever political system they prefer). With respect to religion, although there is a
fundamental and profound role for the spiritual, religion plays no role in the
organization (once again, the hunter-gatherer tribes are free to establish
whatever religions they desire).
Economics is the driving force that has corrupted mankind and is destroying the planet. Economics – the dismal science. In his 1930 essay, “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,” mathematician John Maynard Keynes observed the fatal limitations of economics as a long-term basis for human society:
“Some day we may return to some of the most sure and certain principles of religion and traditional virtue – that avarice is a vice, that the extraction of usury is a misdemeanor, and the love of money is detestable. But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little while longer.”
Some
Closing Remarks
There is a
lot of discussion and argument over the term “overpopulation.” See, for example, the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation
and the Wikiquote http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Overpopulation. Many people do not realize that economic
development dramatically reduces the
number of people that can be supported by the biosphere on a long-term-sustainable
basis. The reason for this is that
high-tech people consume many times – perhaps 100 times – more energy and other
resources as low-tech people. Using this
rule of thumb, the impact of a high-tech person on the biosphere is about 100
times greater than the impact of a low-tech person (primitive agriculture or
hunter-gatherer society). High-tech
people use more space, use more of the recurrent solar-energy “budget,” consume
more resources, cause more (and more severe) pollution, and destroy more of
nature than low-tech people (each high-tech person causes the destruction of
about an acre of natural land, in conversion to infrastructure such as
buildings and roads). Industrial
production produces much waste that is not easily recycled by the biosphere
(such as chlorine-based chemicals, which are not generally produced or consumed
by natural organisms). Using the
exemplar factor of 100, whatever level of low-technology human population can
be accommodated without causing noticeable impact on the rest of the biosphere,
the level of high-technology population that can be accommodated is at least
one-hundredth times fewer. Hence, for
example, if the biosphere can accommodate 500 million low-tech people on a
long-term-sustainable basis, it may be able to accommodate perhaps only five
million high-tech people on a long-term-sustainable basis. These numbers are illustrative. No one knows just how damaging the impact of
high-technology society on the biosphere really is. These numbers are inferred simply from the
approximate ratio of energy utilization for high-tech vs. low-tech people. The point is that, contrary to what
economists may say or imply, economic development places much greater
per-person demands on the biosphere’s resources, and the biosphere can hence
accommodate far fewer, not more, of them.
The only means to long-term-survival is to keep human numbers and
industrial activity as low as possible. For
more discussion of this phenomenon, see my article The End of the World, and the New World Order, at http://TheEndOfTheWorld.htm.
In just a
few years, the world population will have dropped from seven billion to at most
a few hundred million. If you are still
alive, you will find yourself in either of two situations. Either you will be a member of the nuclear
power that has won the first stage of global nuclear war, or you will be living
in a “post-apocalyptic” world that has no energy to run its fabulous machines,
and is slipping back into simpler times.
If you want to picture what most of the world looks like, consider the
following passages from the Bible (extracted
from Can America Survive?):
Jer. 1:14. From the north disaster will be poured out on all who live in the land.
Jer. 2:7. I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce. But you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable.
Jer. 3:2. Look up to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been ravished? By the roadside you sat waiting for lovers, sat like a nomad (an Arab) in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness.
Jer. 4:5. Disaster from the north. …For I am bringing disaster from the north, even terrible destruction. A lion has come out of his lair; a destroyer of nations has set out. He has left his place to lay waste your land. Your towns will be in ruins without inhabitant. The whole land will be ruined, though I will not destroy it utterly. Therefore the Earth will moan and the heavens above grow dark…. All the towns are deserted; no one lives in them.
Jer. 6:10. To whom can I speak and give warning? Who will listen to me? Their ears are closed so that they cannot hear.
Jer. 8:20. The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved.
Jer. 25:31. The tumult will resound to the ends of the Earth, for the land will bring charges against the nations; he will bring judgment on all mankind and put the wicked to the sword….Look! Disaster is spreading from nation to nation; a mighty storm is rising from the ends of the Earth. At that time those slain by the Lord will be everywhere – from one end of the Earth to the other. They will not be mourned or gathered up or buried, but will be like refuse lying on the ground.
Jer. 30:11. …Though I completely destroy all the nations among which I scatter you, I will not completely destroy you.
Jer. 31:40. The city (Jerusalem) will never again be uprooted or demolished.
Jer. 48:10. A curse on him who is lax in doing the Lord’s work! A curse on him who keeps his sword from bloodshed!
Lam. 1:1. How deserted lies the city, once so full of people!
Lam. 4:9. Those killed by the sword are better off than those who die of famine; racked with hunger, they waste away for lack of food from the field.
In either
case – a member of the surviving high-tech nation or a survivor of the
destroyed industrial world – you have important issues to address: What will
you do for food and shelter, and security?
If you are a member of the technological nation that has won the first
engagement, these concerns will have been addressed by the military’s
long-range planning. If you are part of
this community, you have a “higher” issue to address: You will be faced with
the decision of whether to work for the establishment of a
long-term-sustainable system of planetary management, or for a re-establishment
of the industrial society that is now destroying the biosphere. If instead you find yourself a denizen of the
now-low-tech remainder of the world, you have some really basic survival problems
to address. That part of the world –
over ninety-nine percent of it – will quickly form into tribes and warlord
fiefdoms. If you do not survive, you
have nothing to worry about. If you do
survive, you had better have a plan. As
Nietzsche is said to have remarked, “A man without a plan is not a man.” If your country is not making plans to
survive global nuclear war, who is doing the planning for you? Visualize yourself in the post-apocalyptic
world. Picture yourself in this
situation within the next two years. You
have no food, and you have no weapons.
What will you do? Your first
concern is physical survival, and you will work this out with your fellow
survivors – or you will not. More
importantly, your society is headed for a primitive existence for the next
several million years. What will you do
for spiritual sustenance? The political
and religious systems of your former world failed. What will replace them?
Many people
might believe that all that matters after global cataclysm is surviving in the high-tech
nation, and that if they end up in a “hunter-gatherer” world, then their life
would be of no significance. But this is
not the case. The members of the
non-industrial world will have a superb opportunity for spiritual development –
perhaps a far greater opportunity than the members of the high-tech nation, who
in fact are at a disadvantage in developing spiritual capabilities because of
the distractions of technology.
I mentioned
earlier that it is my belief that the solution to the planet’s current crisis
will be achieved (or, at least, understood) only by spiritual means. Mankind has opted to rely on physical science
and established religions for guidance, and they have brought nothing but
destruction and devastation to our biosphere and species, and impoverished our
spiritual life. They have caused the
problem and exacerbated it. Our
political and economic system (growth-based economics) is based on destruction
of nature and on economic slavery. Our
religious systems are based on ignorance, blind faith, intolerance, bigotry,
denial of facts and rejection of reason.
As Einstein once remarked, the kind of thinking that caused a problem is
unlikely to get us out of it. What will
be different the next time? It is time
to search for knowledge, truth and understanding, and to reject ignorance and
denial. The solution to mankind’s
problems lies in the field of spiritual science.