The 11th Hour

Posted on by inspired

We are actually talking about the last few minutes before midnight; assuming the history of our world is expressed in terms of a 24-our clock, our species only appeared at 23.45, so we weren’t even around at the 11th hour. And yet, in our short presence, we have catapulted Earth towards the destruction of all life on it.

Leonardo diCaprio produced this film in 2007, almost 5 years ago. For some reason or another I missed seeing it at the time. Last night I took out 3 hours to focus on the film and the 50 or so interviews it contains with leading thinkers and proponents for change that will take us back to becoming re-integrated with Earth. As a Red Indian chief reminds us in the film, the earth has endless time, our species does not..

The film’s sub-title is “turn mankind’s darkest hour into its finest”. By the time you have watched the main film and then the equally long addendum which gives a number of illustrations of what is already working, it becomes clear that we have much of the skill and knowledge to make some radical changes that could well make this one of our finest hours.

What therefore is clearly missing is the collective will and strong leadership towards change. And, as I argue elsewhere, this leadership will not, cannot, come from those currently in our traditional leadership positions. If ever we needed to encourage the emergence of new forms of leadership and new leaders, it is now. Indeed, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is arguably such a new form of leadership, where the massive majority says ‘enough’ and so encourages new leaders to step forward, lead the change and then merge back into their communities.

In meditating on the film, and the viable ideas and tools for change it enumerates (e.g. mimicking nature in the production of glass without huge energy consumption; self-cleaning buildings and cars; using nature’s technology that creates the illusion of colour to avoid having to apply polluting paints; are just a few examples of what was possible 5 years ago – imagine how much more must be around today), it became clear to me that while it is absolutely right to encourage every individual to make their life-style more sustainable, that alone is not enough – we also need to flex our collective muscle and allow the new leaders to emerge : e.g. exercise your shareholder rights, even if you only hold a minimal number of shares; urge institutional shareholders to encourage companies to adopt new technologies and use their lobbying power to influence government. Single and collective action need much more to go hand-in-hand.

If you have not yet seen the 11th Hour, please go and see it as soon as possible – better still, buy it from Amazon or download it, for you will want to watch it more than once. Leonardo diCaprio has undertaken a fine bit of reporting. I would like to see more and updates on the breakthrough solutions and technologies designed to emulate nature and will help take us back towards doing things nature’s way, which ultimately will enable us to re-integrate ourselves with our home planet.

One small statement by one of the interviewees in the film left an indelible impression – a survey of school children in the US showed that even the youngest could recognize up to 1,000 corporate logos, but none could identify more than 4 plants or trees in their neighbourhoods.

We need to curb the urge to consume

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In 2012 we need to fight the instincts that make us want more

We will always have the urge to consume more than we need, but recognising this as a problem is the first step towards recovery …. Val Curtis for the Guardian Professional Network – guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 January 2012 11.52 GMT

Val Curtis is an evolutionary psychologist who argues in this recent article that what stood us in good stead in the early stages of our evolutuion is now contributing to our downfall.

Economists are beginning to argue that perhaps the encouragement of increased consumer spending is no longer a sensible way out of recession.

Are we about to make a major evolutionary leap? I would not hold my breath quite yet.

Profitability re-defined for One World

Posted on by inspired

The Omnius Manifesto argues that in a model in which the world needs to be seen as one shared space, all productive capacity has to be accounted for in terms of ecological balance, with rewards and penalties for those not in balance.

This is one of those proposals that seeks to re-shape, at fundamental level, one of the great anomalies that shape global society in the 21st century, loss of proper accountability by the corporate world. I appreciate the fact that it is based on down to earth insights into the nature of human beings, and involves steps that are immensely practical and for which precedence exists. And it is based on the still not put into practical action fact that we all share one tiny planet and therefore each have the right to demand that nobody puts its ecological balance at risk, or more at risk than it already is. It is one of very few whole-planet solutions currently in circulation.

As we are unlikely in the short term going to be able to change certain fundamental aspects of human nature, the Manifesto suggests we leave the elements required to satisfy current human desires in place, and simply change the parameters that deliver and measure what these desires seek.

The author, Dr Jeffrey Eisen, lucidly argues that we are applying false accounting criteria to evaluating the profitability of companies and corporations : at the moment the make-up of figures on either side of a balance sheet does not take into account what the effect of the organisation’s activities (that produce conventional profitability) are on the planet as one single unit of “Lebensraum”, or in his terminology, the humansphere, the space humanity occupies with nature.

He proposes that in future companies be judged by their consumption of resources, both natural and human. ‘Resources’ are defined to include – fresh air and clean water, as well as the more usual items and the cost to repair any damage caused (assuming possible). Once these new accounting elements are agreed, a company would then be assessable as ecologically in surplus, in balance or in deficit. While all natural life is ecologically balanced, capitalism and its economic tenets are currently decidedly negatively balanced. Society will under the new proposal be expecting at least ecologically balanced delivery of goods and services; corporations achieving this will be awarded by an adjustment in taxation rates, ranging from tax credits where the output is achieved is ecologically positive, to penal taxes the greater the ecological negativity. Balanced output will potentially be awarded with zero taxation. The author even suggests that because it demands balance or positivity, global society might even go as far guaranteeing a profit to companies that achieve the required balance [potentially for a number of years from start-up, commentator’s addition].

To be truly effective such a measure of profitability would need to be introduced globally, which in turn would require not just an international treaty, but also a global standardisation and monitoring body, with potentially executive power.

There is a central idea to this proposal that is overdue for implementation; it deserves support and further development, go to http://psychonoetics.com. The entire Omnius Manifesto is available for download from here (9-pages).

Money Beyond Manipulation …

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Voices are being heard suggesting that in these troubled times the gold standard should be re-introduced to give money some intrinsic value. Those who remember the pre-1971 era of gold-backed money know that this does not prevent the manipulation of currencies by speculators.

Here is a wholly new alternative, called the ‘the Objective Money’ solution. This writer first proposed this in the 1980s. It values money against the energy balance sheet of a nation or community, and bases itself on a unit of energy measurement called the “Erg” (its root is ‘ergon’, the Greek for ‘work’). This is essentially a measure of energy, energy is the stuff that everything is made of (“matter is energy reduced to visibility”). There is international agreement on the Erg as a standard of measurement.

The potential or actual energy of everything is measurable – we know what one horsepower is; we know how much energy a gallon of refined oil contains (depending on the efficiency of conversion); and we can measure the potential energy output of a healthy human, between the ages of 18 and 50, to give us a new unit, that of one human power; etc. In fact, the actual and potential energy of the world, as well as of individual nations or communities, can be calculated in terms of potential and realised energy. This listing, which takes solar power, wave-power, human power, etc. into account, represents the credit side of a nation’s balance sheet.

The debit side will contain a listing of wasteful energy consumption, e.g. numbers of gas-guzzling cars; per head power consumption; numbers of electrical appliances, etc. Add these up, and we have the negative side of the balance sheet. The differential between the two sides represents the value backing of this country’s currency.

The US Dollar, usually considered one of the world’s strongest currencies, under this objective formulation would slip into the middle ranks, in value terms, because of the enormous amount of energy wastage that occurs there, and its huge volume of energy imports (which is an energetic “cost” item). A Middle Eastern oil-rich country on the other hand, sitting on huge oil-reserves (= potential energy), plus plenty of potential solar energy, will show a very healthy positive side to the balance sheet. The negative side, by virtue of typically smaller populations, even with highly wasteful energy consumption patterns, will remain relatively modest. Because of the huge positive energy balance backing such a country’s currency, it would quickly be recognised as one of the strongest currencies in the world.

Another benefit of an energy-balance linked monetary system would be that a poor country like Bangladesh would no longer linger at the bottom of wealth league tables as its currency would have strengthened due to the large amounts of potential energy locked within its population and national boundaries.

The other joy of an energy-linked, objective currency system is that it takes the valuation of currencies out of the hands of speculators and places it back with governments and their people – if they find new sources of energy supply; develop better ways of releasing potential energy; and of reducing energy consumption, they will be able to put more genuine value behind their currency, so affecting their exchange rate and international standing.

The perceptive reader will immediately see the wider impact of such an objective energy-linked currency model. The Light Living Laboratory will in due course expand on this (a fuller version of this blog appears there).