World Government and the Population Explosion
By John Taylor; 2009 Mar 13, 'Ala 14, 165 BE
One of the greatest challenges we face now is the population explosion. Thomas Malthus calculated centuries ago that growth operates according geometric progression while resources stretch only mathematically. Inexorable as this is, it will surely soon be worsened by rising sea levels and a flood of climate refugees in their billions.
On this blog we have been exploring how to respond to this looming crisis. One of the answers we stand for is to combine world governance with local -- personal, familial, neighbourhood -- planning. Our message is to take the saying `think globally, work locally' quite literally. Contrary to what many world federalists expect, it is on the neighbourhood level -- not internationally or regionally -- that the advantages of a world government will have their greatest impact and appeal. Jim Stark, in his book "Rescue Plan for Planet Earth," says,
"This analysis implies that the problem is not too many people, but too much greed, especially in the developed countries. But this conclusion has some fatal difficulties. First, it is just not credible to suggest that those who live in developed nations will ever willingly reduce their standard of living to that of a Chinese or Indian citizen (or anywhere close to that)." (Jim Stark, Rescue Plan for Planet Earth, p. 136)
I personally find this quite credible. The slave trade was abolished. Yes, there was struggle and civil war, but eventually chattel slavery was outlawed. Why can we not believe that reductions of the standard of living are impossible. Even if they were, this begs the question. Right now nobody has a standard of living, which is why we are going down the tubes environmentally. Affluent nations, while materially rich, are generally speaking languishing in cultural, social and spiritual poverty. The reorganized neighbourhoods that we have been working out on the Badi' blog over the past decade would offer an improved standard for everybody, rich and poor. Stark continues,
"And second, in the unlikely event we did `even out' the consumption imbalance, population growth would continue, and we will once again be up against the problem of having not-enough-of-everything when we are 10 or 12 billion. If all rich or well-off people want to share with the world's poor (which is at least half of humanity), I'm all for that, but even those with religious beliefs saying they have to do this type of caring and sharing do not do much of it -- not nearly enough to make a serious difference. And again, even if they did, if we do not slow down our rate of reproduction, we will only postpone the hardest decisions for a few decades. It is mathematically impossible to get away from the conclusion that we have to at least stop the net increase in human numbers, or we will end up with 15 or 20 billion people, at which point nothing short of constant warfare (for increasingly scarce resources) will assure that anyone lives any kind of life." (Id.)
This ignores the vast resources of human creativity stored up at the local level, and currently left to rot. Religion is sorely corrupt. Individuals rarely seek truth, and when they do their products are stifled. Education is very inefficient. Women, by and large, are badly oppressed, overworked and are operating at a fraction of their potential. The same is true of the poor, the old, and of hundreds of vital cultures obscured by the language barrier. Properly designed neighbourhoods would unleash these oceans of human potential to solve problems like runaway growth and the population explosion.
This release of untapped human resources would burst out as soon as a democratic world government (DWG) is formed. At first, all the new DWG would have to do is set up standards and coordinate efforts at the local level. With proper organization and construction neighbourhoods would be built everywhere, and a great demand would arise to live there. A world neighbourhood, arranged around cooperatives and full service house lifestyles, would offer more services than all but a tiny minority enjoy today. It would involve everybody in productive work and soon produce enough renewable resources to provide every human, no matter who they are or where they live, with the basic needs of survival without doing harm to nature. Meanwhile, improved religion, science and technology, and a vital culture, would remove the perceived need for greed.
The great power of this system is applied justice. Just standards would involve each person, family and neighbourhood. As their potential is released, local innovations would, guided by law and standards, take in all cultures and areas of knowledge equably. Success on the local level would be far more visible and persuasive than anything that happens in any world capitol city.
For example, both business and environmental leaders agree that in order to neutralize our environmental footprint it will be necessary in every neighbourhood to live up to what is being called subsidiarity, the principle that what can be done locally is done locally. Another new standard for buildings and vehicles is "net-zero." A net-zero operation is designed to be independent of central grids and at every step generates at least as much energy as it uses. All materials must be infinitely recyclable. We have been proposing several other principles and proposals for standard local organization.
Basic human needs are the same everywhere -- food, clothing and shelter. This universality constitutes a vast market, a global market involving several billions of consumers. Just by publishing a set of open standards for food, dress and housing, a world government would stimulate industry everywhere to compete for the vast profits to be won for them. Meantime, subsidiarity would assure that local employment and innovation are maximized. Economies of scale would quickly reduce prices for any green technology that affects the fundamental needs of all.
The beauty of it is that these universal standards would be self-implementing. There would be no need for a "carbon dictatorship," an autocratic big brother enforcing green change by force from the top down.
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blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/
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