The initial shock of the COVID-19 virus was to create an international air of despair. Without a doubt
and without an option, we -- all of humanity -- were certainly caught "flat-footed" and were
forced to stop what we were doing and pay attention to this deadly virus. We were under threat of
death, universally forced to take a break from our personal realities and reconsider and
reassess not only our personal but communal priorities, as well.
The over a million in just the USA who have suffered and died are a tremendously sad tragedy, and hopefully, we will all be able to avoid any similar catastrophe for the rest of our lives. However,
if we don't take advantage of this "break" from our current realities and pay heed to the much
deeper catastrophe charging down on us; the long term price we will all pay is inconceivably
greater! This pandemic will become like the opening scene in a three-act tragedy with "... all the
world as a stage.".
Of course, I'm talking about the anthropogenic Climate Crisis which has been growing and
increasingly threatening humankind since the beginning of the Age of Industrialization. We have
blithely, and mostly unwittingly, been turning our once pristine life-supporting garden into a
filthy garbage dump surrounded by an effluent-filled ocean of human waste. The vast majority of us
are, from moment to moment, being forced to live with, and almost routinely confront, this lack of
respect -- which a relatively few well-heeled and in positions of power among us prefer to ignore,
much less even consider addressing.
The distractions abound! The critical attention of the masses is continually being redirected in
too many ways to relate. Some of it is self-induced, but way too much of our focus is manipulated
by humans who lack the vital survival emotion of empathy for others. We must all turn away
from the many incredibly talented malignant magicians who are constantly vying for our attention
with their various intriguing slights of hands. Instead, we need to look down and focus on the
enormous warming puddle of expanding toxic filth, which is rapidly beginning to flow around our
armpits and now threatening our chins!
So, what are we all to do now that we are embroiled in an enforced state of suspension? With so
many, if not most, of the once critical issues, both local as well as international, now have been
forcibly put on hold -- can we take advantage of this pause and reassess our priorities? Shouldn't
we stick our heads up and take a look around to see what has been working and what hasn't. Isn't it
critical that we use this time to restructure our values and reassess our objectives with our
primary focus being on our universal survival?
It is way past time -- but just barely in time -- to put to use one of our exclusive human skill
sets, and that is the ability to first imagine an idea and then manage a project that will manifest
that idea from conception to successful implementation. Obviously, we humans have way too often
used this quite unique ability to bring us to our current sorry state of affairs. However, very
often, the solution to a problem resides within the source of the problem. With that in mind -- and just a six-month window of opportunity
(starting mid 2021), shouldn't we ALL now "conceive" a solution?
Before we can find a solution, we must first identify the problem. At its most extremely simple
base level, the problem is that we humans, through our activity on Earth, have rather inadvertently
created a layer of particulate matter -- mostly CO2 -- to form in our Earth's upper atmosphere and
create a barrier which is causing reflective sunlight to be trapped and thus heating up the globe.
The cause and ramifications of this are way too vast to be explained here, but can be more fully
explored by clicking on this link.
While the generally widespread consensus is that the best way to correct the situation is to simply
ban fossil fuels -- which has been the primary source of generating CO2 -- it is becoming more
obvious that simply eliminating the cause is not the most efficient nor expedient method of actually
removing the barrier and repairing the accrued damage. In fact, if we simply pursue that single
simplified solution, we could very likely end up not inserting any more fossil fuels into the
atmosphere -- but our universal Climate Crisis fueled destruction would still be raging along.
In 2017, a highly regarded environmentalist (with six honorary doctorates) named Paul Hawkin, produced and
edited an important environmental book. In it, he described the results of a team of several
hundred environmentalists, scientists, researchers, teachers, etc., which he had assembled and charged
with the task of finding and updating the most effective methods of not only stopping the Climate Crisis but reversing its effects. Within a few years, this team of experts had produced, Drawdown. It not only itemized all of the
steps necessary to expediently and efficiently stop and reverse the Climate Crisis but had pointed
out the tremendous international economic advantages of pursuing their route to saving all
life on this, our only planet.
So, now that we have an extremely simplified description of the problem and a very
comprehensive solution, how do we go about taking on the most difficult aspect, that being the
implementation? It should be pointed out, regarding the concept of shutting down the fossil fuel
industries that most of those ineffectual ideas involve major decisions made by large corporations
at the behest and eventual cooperation with various governments. Thankfully, that is not entirely
the case with the Drawdown Project!
The experts who created the Drawdown Project have put together a chart of 80
solutions, which describe various methods of reining in the Climate Crisis. For example, here are the top ten SCENARIO 2 methods, ranked by maximized gigatons of Co2 reduction:
As with this sample, many of the full 80 solutions need to be addressed locally by local
citizens -- all around the world. This is a much more expedient process, with a new embedded sense
of international community being a welcome and necessary byproduct. Rather than standing by while
we wait for some corporation or government to come up with another time-wasting semi-failure of a
"solution," we can all get locally involved to accelerate the various recovery processes.
Now we come to the final and most critical aspect of reversing the apocalypse, which is, in less than
a dozen years, destined to befall us all. What kind of management will take on this most important
project in the entire history of humankind? While I can proffer some management suggestions, I won't
presume to assert a firm answer to this final aspect of a solution. Of course, since Paul Hawkin
has already assembled an experienced, qualified, and sincerely dedicated team to deal with this
issue, it would seem logical that the members of The Drawdown Project would be ideal candidates to
continue providing the necessary ongoing research. Also, it would seem to me that at the top of
the management pyramid we should see representatives of all the major countries of the world. This
should not only contribute to international agreement but multi-level participation, as well.
As for startup funding, it would seem to me that initially, a very straightforward formula could be
used to assess a fee on each of the 195 countries of the world, which would be based on the
percentage of total pollution that they each have historically, and are currently, producing. In
time, according to the Drawdown projections, income from the various planet-saving techniques would
not only be self-supporting but quite "profitable."
Because of the various enormous pressures that will certainly accrue on the members of any such
organization, there MUST be strict security and transparency measures put in place -- at the very
onset. The selection process should include complete background security and psychopathy checks for all candidates, as they must each have a documented record of open honesty, high moral character as well as a history of sincere and proven dedication to public service.
Another critical aspect which must be addressed is the psychological history of all
candidates regarding their demonstrated history of, or lack of -- empathy and
conscience for their actions. Since we are dealing with the prospect of a final mass
extinction event, it will not be acceptable to allow any human who takes on that responsibility to
be devoid of the necessary emotions of empathy for others and a conscience for any
impropriety. In that regard, research has shown that three of the most dominant characteristics of
sociopathic and psychopathic
individuals is that they lack empathy and a conscience -- as well as the fact
that they are quite predominately male. Therefore, since women are our
instinctually motivated caretakers, besides being primarily responsible for the loving
development of the worlds children -- AND since they are also the most vulnerable as well as being the majority of the population of the world
-- they should be exclusively considered as candidates to control the management panel
tasked with addressing our Climate Crisis.
Without question, the world is full of highly qualified female candidates. A few examples of who
readily come to mind are -- Christine Legarde, President of the European Central Bank; retired Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel; the young Ex-Prime
Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern; Massachusetts Senator of the United States, Elizabeth
Warren, Environmentalist and Activist from Sweden, Greta Thunberg; Representative Karen Bass, Democrat from California; Primatologist Jane Goodall -- as well as many other female members of the Drawdown Project -- to name but a few.
An off-repeated phrase comes to mind, "Out of chaos comes opportunity." We are certainly in the
throes of chaos and now is the time to seek out, develop, and take advantage of the opportunities
waiting to be internationally seized. If we -- all of the people of the world -- take
full advantage of the times we are living in and find a unity of spirit and direction, we can
massively reset so many of the cruel injustices which have plagued us ever since we first wiggled out of
the primordial ooze and began to move around on the land.
In the process of streamlining our focus for the benefit of all life, perhaps we can rid ourselves
of the long-standing inequalities that our masses have always had to endure. Another phrase comes
to mind, "Injustice for one is injustice for all." If we use this opportunity to demonstrate, once
and for all time, that we, the people of the world, not only need but are ready to build new models
for living in peace and harmony on a planet that is finally filled with humanity for all -- and not
just a few.
With that in mind, it must be taken into consideration that the assessment of any political/economic system should be measured by the associated usage and/or definition of just one operative word -- value. How that word is defined by the ultimate true output of the following described systems is highly relevant to the overall and long-term humanity of said system.
At their most basic core there are, excluding authoritarianism, basically just two systems to consider.
1. The current political/economic system in place in the US is a corporate-controlled, capitalistic system that dominates their democracy with results that are measured by the value generated through ever-increasing levels of financial and, thus, political power. The major obstacle that the US faces -- in numerous aspects -- is the fact that the US is the only major country in the world that has legalized political bribery, with the Supreme Court passing into law the Citizens United Case of 2010.
2. The other system, which has variants around the world, is composed of a democracy that legally dominates a tightly regulated form of capitalism as well as democratically controlled corporate and cooperative systems -- which are primarily mandated to create member directed value in the form of broad advancements for all of the participants in the democracy.
Fate has provided us with a very rare opportunity disguised as a universal catastrophe. How we individually evaluate our current circumstances is, of course, up to each of us. However, consider that we can now choose to collectively harness our unified will and initiate long overdue major actions to improve on all that we have been given so far. Or, we can passively -- through inaction -- allow the retardation of humanity's momentum to painfully and fitfully fade away into barely identifiable particles of eternally historic dust.
Until we first acknowledge and then nullify the very source of our vast unwitting struggles,
we shall frustrate, wallow, and waste ourselves confronting a death spiral of ramifications.
"Hi Terry,
I'd give you an A+ on your disquisitions re psychopathy,
if you'd taken my McGill courses in personology.
To our global empath, you are a goldmine of information."
Dr. Frank Dumont
Full Professor, Department of Educational and Psychology
Director of the Ph.D. program in his field
McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Click here for the Rush To Power site.
And, click here for our Congressional action plan!
Or, here to refer others to our "introductory" page.
If you are interested in assisting with this project -- in any
capacity -- send us an email (address is below).
We will respond and then, if you like, add you to our email list and keep you updated with our activities.
Join us to help save all life on this planet!
seeking (at) nomoreinsanity (dot) org
Created June 1, 2020, and updated as needed.