Defining a Worthy Human Future Shaping a Sustainable, Life-Affirming Way of Being on Earth.
‘Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water. Don’t sit this one out. Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet.’
Carl Sagan, Astrophysicist, Son of the Cosmos
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We humans find ourselves pushing up against a chaotic cultural bottleneck of a scale and consequence never seen until now. Just over the past 50 years, we have more than doubled our numbers to 8 billion humans, on the way to well over 10 billion before the end of this century. We are taking everything our Earth has to offer for ourselves. The evidence of our planetary-scale overreach is undeniable.
For thousands of years, humans – our planet’s apex species – have considered themselves above and superior, assuming that our living natural world is here for us to take from, and take from, and take from, over and over, blindly, without fear of consequence.
Now, early in the 21st century, the natural world, the very store of living wonder we all depend on, is severely over stressed and at increasing risk of total collapse. Humans are entirely responsible. We are destroying our planet’s life-support systems. The ones we all depend on; the vital ones we cannot survive without.
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‘Individuals learn faster than institutions and it is always the dinosaur’s brain that is the last to get the new messages.’ Hazel Henderson – The Politics of the Solar Age
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The Fermi Paradox
There are some who read the scientific evidence and believe that for life on Earth it’s already too late. Just under a century ago, early in the atomic age there was a famous physicist, whose name was Enrico Fermi. He looked at the vast universe that surrounds our Earth and considered the possibility of alien civilizations. He concluded the only reason we have not intercepted signals from any other civilization was they had all destroyed themselves when they got to the point humans on Earth had reached. Fermi’s idea is now referred to as ‘The Fermi Paradox’.
There are also contemporary thinkers like Peter Leyden and William Halal, who have distilled trends that suggest humans are on a transformative path to the best kind of humanity we can be. They are saying, if we manage to not destroy ourselves, we could be on course to a way of being that is both life-affirming and sustainable. That’s if we manage to not destroy ourselves…if…
Winning with a Worthy Vision
It seems like we, and I’m referring to all of humanity – all genders, all ethnicities, all nationalities – we have two ways to go. We can continue on the road we’re on, which translates to more tribalism and self-interest, more conflict, more suffering, more violence and death, as the natural world hits bottom and collapses around us…or, or we can choose to save life on Earth by choosing to be the best, gender-equal version of humanity we can be.
That means standing together as one human family behind common purpose. The challenges we face are planetary in scale. There are solutions that can work, but they only work if applied on a whole-Earth scale. We have the technology to redeem ourselves. What we need now, above all else, is a global human commitment and the political will that goes with it.
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‘From a legal point of view, we now have the scientific and technical capability to quantify a stable and well-functioning state of the Earth System as an intangible object of international law which, by being global and indivisible, should belong to all humanity – the intangible Common Heritage of Humankind.’
Paulo Magalhaes, Founder and Chairman, Common Home for Humanity
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Building Commitment Through ‘The Earth System Treaty’
Humanity must have a new planetary-scale, cultural direction, a gender-equal, transformative cultural direction in which we all commit to restore and protect the natural world we all depend on.
The distinguished Australian science author Julian Cribb has distilled a response to this common need; a response that challenges all of humanity to rally behind an uncomplicated set of legally binding measures that together add up to something Cribb calls, The Earth System Treaty.
Endorsed by The Council for the Human Future, this Treaty, which Cribb calls on all nations, all groups, all businesses, and every individual Earth citizen to sign and commit to, includes the following legally binding measures…
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- A universal ban on nuclear weapons
- An international plan to combat climate change
- An international plan to restore forests, soils, fresh waters, oceans, atmosphere and
biodiversity to stable, sustainable levels and end extinction
- An international agreement to operate a circular economy and end waste
- A plan for a renewable world food supply sufficient for all
- A plan to end universal chemical pollution in all forms.
- A plan to reduce the human population voluntarily to a sustainable level.
- A plan to anticipate and prevent future pandemic diseases.
- A Global Technology Convention to oversee the safe development and introduction of Dangerous new sciences and technologies and minimize the harms they cause.
- A World Truth Commission, to combat and expose the lies and disinformation
- An Earth Standard Currency
- All 17 of the Sustainable Development Goals
- All 16 of the principles enunciated in the Earth Charter
- All of the Safe Global Boundaries described by the Stockholm resilience Institute.
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‘Time and time again, our species has escaped existential threats by reinventing ourselves, finding new skills not coded in our genes to survive new challenges not previously encountered.’
David Grinspoon. Astro-Biologist, Author, Earth in Human Hands
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Let’s share this Earth System Treaty far and wide. Let’s get past individualism and self-interest. Let’s embrace cooperation and shared commitment. There is nothing complicated about the ideas that shape this urgent reflection of common human purpose.
For the sake of all of humanity and all of life on Earth, for the sake of our own survival, let’s choose to become the best version of humanity we can be. Let’s all of us stand together and sign on to the Earth System Treaty.
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‘You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.’
Buckminster Fuller, Dymaxion Thinker
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Geoffrey Holland is a veteran media writer/producer and a committed advocate for nature and gender rights. He is currently a regular contributor to Planetary Press. He was Curator of Dialogues for Stanford MAHB. He was also a regular contributor to Transition-Earth, and is the principal author of The Hydrogen Age.