It is our traditional belief in the law of "supply and demand" that has us abusing, rather than managing the planet, and is the sole cause of climate change - unless we challenge that which has created the problem how can we possibly fix it?
The three major areas we need to address immediately are:
1. We believe it is our right to take from this planet whatever, whenever and however we choose, without any thought or responsibility for managing what we are doing – and it still continues today in spite of accelerating climate change.
2. If we now place in this equation our belief in financial management and the law of supply and demand to regulate what we use, then a growing shortage of food means ever increasing prices. This is already becoming a problem and is further exacerbated by the growing demand for ethanol. Financial mechanisms are also prone to abuse, as we have already seen in the infant “Carbon Trading Market”, and we should seriously heed this course of action - our history as a species shows we are incapable of effectively policing our financial markets.
3. With an increasing number of people unable to feed themselves our traditional political institutions and beliefs will need to be seen to be doing something, and so we lapse into blame as one race accuses another of hoarding.
Increasingly aggressive blame will deteriorate into conflict, further expanding the threat to our existence as a civilisation through the powerful and sophisticated weapons we have now developed.
The most powerful nation may come out on top by annihilating everyone else - but as global war escalates, who can say with any degree of certainty that they too will not blow themselves off the face of this beautiful planet, given the nature of modern terrorist warfare and the inability to determine who is the ”enemy”?
I do not believe I am exaggerating anything within this scenario, but simply illustrating the application of our traditional values on this growing problem.
After all it is these values which have created the problems we now face and so how can they possibly provide the solution?
I would ask those in power to consider the following two simple first steps towards combating climate change:
1. By challenging the above beliefs we embark upon a process of change in our relationship with each other and our surroundings.
2. By admitting that political and corporate judgement, over scientific and environmental findings is not working, we make a major and positive admission - that the natural world is far more powerful than all governments and multinationals put together, or anything else we might devise – bringing us closer to managing, rather than abusing this planet.
This truly unique moment in time demands leadership that can help us to relate to each other and the planet with a new understanding, because they know that embedded within this era are the ingredients for our destruction, or survival – the choice is ours.
