Global Manifesto
PREAMBLE
It is becoming more and more obvious that steadily increasing population and increasing material consumption are creating a world that is fast consuming its capital and pushing nature's limits. There has been no lack of warnings issued by various individuals and organizations but more corrective action must be implemented. The time is now when urgent action is required before pollution and shortages of fertile land - and water - create a world that cannot recover from the pillaging that has been and is going on. The following document has been prepared to alert decision makers in business, government and academia to what action is urgently required.
A. POPULATION
FACTS
World population in 2004 is estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau to be 6.4 billion and increasing by 73 million per year at a growth rate of 1.14%. By 2050 they estimate it will reach 9.1 billion depending on rates of fertility, especially in the third world. See their website:
www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldpop.html
Increasing population requires increasing supplies of energy, water, grazing land, grain lands, fisheries and other natural resources all of which are already at risk, and declining on an absolute and per person basis.
Increasing population generates more pollution of air, water and the soil as result of increased consumption of resources...
Increasing population becomes concentrated in cities which generates problems of housing, transportation, food and energy, with increased potential for poverty and social unrest
ACTION REQUIRED
National governments must make urgent efforts to stabilize population by limiting births by: family planning, birth control and upgrading the status of women, and in some cases the enacting of legislation limiting family size.
Religious and social bodies must lift restrictions on birth control.
The education of women in less developed countries should be encouraged and financed by the more developed countries.
B.
ENERGY
FACTS
Fossil fuels represent about 75% of world energy used of which oil was 33% (1998) most of which is burned releasing large amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere. This is a major contribution to global warming,
Massive burning of coal (to replace oil) will have a serious impact on global warming due again to the release of CO2 to the atmosphere.
Alternative energy to replace oil is unlikely to be available to satisfy increasing demands (even at higher prices) by 2010 or 2020 at present rates of development.
Political decisions in oil producing countries could drastically reduce or cut off oil supplies to the major oil consuming countries causing a major fuel crisis in transportation, heating and electric power generation..
The website "The Coming Global Oil Crisis" supports the above concerns:
"A growing number of analysts now predict that global oil production will peak within the coming decade and then start to decline, leading to higher energy prices with major economic consequences. Oil is the largest single traded commodity in the world. It supplies about 95 percent of all transportation fuels and 40 percent of the world's commercial energy. It also provides feedstock for thousands of manufactured products and is critical for food production."
http://www.oilcrisis.com/news/article.asp?id=4157
ACTION REQUIRED
Commitment of much larger resources to the development of alternative sources of energy (such as wind, geothermal, fuel cell and hydrogen) to replace oil, particularly in transportation, by national governments and business, with specific targets of availability to a definite time horizon.
Large increase in investment in the processes for the capturing and sequestering of CO2 prior to its release into the atmosphere, including the immediate funding of prototypes, is urgently required.
Governments must set and enforce stricter standards for automobile generated pollution as in California and Iceland..
Programs must be implemented by the energy industry to increase public acceptance of nuclear energy to enable the installation of the required supply of energy by the time the oil supply is over the peak in the next 10 or so years. Research must be increased on acceptable means of disposal of nuclear waste.
Both governments and business are urged to prepare and publish realistic alternative scenarios for the anticipated constraints imposed by a reduced oil supply including recommended solutions.
Emergency plans should be set up to
deal with a possible sudden cutting off of foreign oil supplies to
major
oil consuming countries.
C. ENVIRONMENT
FACTS
Global warming is now an accepted fact with its impact on sea levels, weather, desertification and melting of glaciers and ice caps. http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/default.asp
Global warming requires increasing amounts of water for irrigation.
Water tables world-wide are dropping year-by-year in the face of rising population and industry demands. This may well be the critical resource of the future. See Worldwatch paper;
http://www.worldwatch.org/pubs/paper/128/
Industrial pollution is increasingly contaminating fresh water bodies, making them unpotable and killing off marine life, and creating breakdown of the earth's protective ozone layer .
Destruction of the rain forests and forests in general are causing rapid species extinction and having a negative impact on weather patterns.
Transportation and manufacturing are creating major levels of pollution of both air and water resources, and the rate will rapidly increase as less developed countries increase their aspirations.
The major bases of food supply are rapidly deteriorating including grasslands, grazing lands, fisheries, and demands are increasing on a per person basis and as world totals. See various research papers of the Worldwatch Institute: http://www.worldwatch.org/pubs/paper/
ACTION REQUIRED
Stricter regulations and standards must be established towards reducing the escape of CO2 into the atmosphere to reduce global warming.
Water consumption must be rationed (or alternative procedures developed) to preserve water tables in appropriate areas with responsible stewardship before they become exhausted.
Clean water laws need to be created or re-enforced with appropriate penalties for non-compliance.
Deforestation must stop and programs developed by wealthier countries for the less developed countries where the deforestation is taking place. Stewardship of forests is called for.
Governments and industry must set new and stricter standards of pollution, beyond those already set at Kyoto and Rio with severe penalties for infraction. Long term scenarios must be developed to rationalize this procedure.
Governments must implement appropriate taxation on removal of natural resources to allow for replacement or development of alternative less destructive procedures.
D. ECONOMICS
FACTS
Economic theory and practice does not adequately factor in the cost of non-renewable resource consumption and depletion.
Both governments and business are dedicated to a continual increase in economic growth and profit, with a lack of concern for the cost to the ecoshpere.
Economic growth has been and is now the basis of increasing standard of living but is consuming nature's capital and creating industrial waste and air, water and soil pollution.
Economic growth cannot continue especially as less developed countries attempt to attain the high consumption levels of the more developed countries. Nature has limits.
Current indices of gross domestic product (GDP) do not reflect the ecological cost of the consumption of resources and concern for the longer term future of the planet.
ACTION REQUIRED
Economists must now band together to create new approaches to economic theory and practices to include longer term impacts of consumption of the Earth's capital resources.
New indices of the true state of the economy must be developed to take into account the consumption of nature's capital and the loss of unrenewable resources. See the work of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy: http://www.nrtee-trnee.ca/eng/main_e.htm
Business must re-examine its role in viewing growth as the only way to succeed, and find ways to satisfy shareholders in the short term without polluting the earth and unnecessarily consuming resources.
E. VALUES
FACTS
Governments, and their leaders, are too often waiting for the people to demand stricter standards for population, energy and the environment and not providing the vision, courage and leadership required to cope with the longer term trends that threaten the planet.
Lobbying by private and commercial groups, often associated with large sums of money, has too much influence on government decisions and legislation to the point where public interest is bypassed.
ACTION REQUIRED
Governments must take a leadership role in the protection of the environment for the long range good of the people they govern, and not be delayed or diverted by large financial inputs from private interests.
Politicians and those responsible for government decisions must be responsible to the people and the practice of lobbying by commercial interests constrained or made an open book available to all citizens.
Governments should implement a senior department on the environment, as in Holland, that will have seniority over other departments and the right of advice and veto in proposed legislation
F. OTHER OBSERVATIONS
Enough studies have been done on the above problems and concerns; now is the time for action to be responsible stewards of the Earth to avoid political, social, economic and environmental difficulties. We are pushing nature's limits, and stronger corrective action can be put off no longer.
This Global Manifesto focuses on issues of the environment, to protect the finite planet we live on. It does not cover other concerns such as poverty, human rights or armed conflict. Dealing with the environment though, as noted above, would have a huge and beneficial impact on all aspects of long term life on the planet.
Let us learn from the story of Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean. http://www.eco-action.org/dt/eisland.html
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Filed Disc 32 Global Manifesto.wpd
Fred G. Thompson
Futurescan Consulting
Ottawa, Canada
February 2004