GLOBAL NECESSITIES

Global Necessities

We need the most compelling, noble, yet realistic directives for crafting green law and governance policy to empower and sustain a popular movement that grows quickly enough to win our race against time.

The anarcho-facist corporatists are waging war against nature, spirit, and life. Is it real? Yes, it is. Is it sane? No, it is mass-insanity and mass-conspiracy, like the culture of human slavery, but the ecocidal corporatist culture is committed to enslaving and sickening all of us and our planetary life-support system, the biosphere.

Establishing a new paradigm and green laws for a sustainable green culture requires massive popular support and sustained political action against seemingly overwhelming odds. The following sustainability policy imperatives are not replacements for the principles embedded in the Earth Charter, but proactive updates mandating effective action to reinstate our most ancient natural values.

Global Sustainability Policy Requisites:

1. Respect nature and revere life in all its diversity.

2. See the Earth and all living beings as relatives worthy of loving respect.

3. Care for the community of life with understanding, compassion, and love.

4. Restore and protect the integrity of Earth's living web of relationships and environments.

5. Prevent imbalance, harm and pollution as the best method of environmental protection.

6. Nurture and protect the Earth's bounty and beauty for present and future generations.

7. Hate and war are harmful: sustain a peaceful, healthy, rational, just and egalitarian culture.

8. Advance the study of ecological sustainability, promote and support the open exchange and wide application of green knowledge and wisdom.

9. Sustain sane patterns of production, consumption, recreation and sexual procreation to safeguard Earth's regenerative capacities and individual rights and communal well-being.

10. Denounce and eliminate tyranny, greed and poverty by sustaining consistent political and fiscal support for this vital cultural, ethical, and ecological necessity.

11. To foster and enhance healthy human development and biospheric responsibility, support cultural activities, institutions, and organizations that express healthy values and green ethics.

12. Require positive responsiveness and enforce compliance with laws governing sustainable development, universal access to excellent educational experience, sustainable health care, gender equality, opportunities for appropriate work, and life enhancing cultural interaction.

13. Expand, foster and support mentor-apprenticeship programs, integrate formal education and cultural learning with the ecological wisdom, knowledge, values, and skills needed for a responsibly sustainable way of life.

14. Enact and enforce laws ensuring an unpolluted natural environment and a culture supportive of human dignity, bodily health, and spiritual well-being; with extra safeguards for the special needs, ways, means, and potentials of indigenous peoples, minorities, elders and children.

15. To remain healthy, cultural institutions at all levels must remain strong. Denounce, stigmatize, boycott, prosecute, legally and financially penalize, transform or terminate corrupt, destructive institutions and organizations.

16. Promote and cultivate sustainable peace and a culture of respect by honoring and rewarding true generosity, unbiased compassion, tolerance, nonviolence, creative problem solving, and biospheric consciousness.

17. Foster and sustain healthy cultures and green community development by seeking out heroes, productive geniuses, creative innovators, master artisans and truly green experts, honoring and rewarding them for the importance and merits of their work, regardless of academic credentials, official affiliations, or commercial sponsorship, regardless of age, gender, race, or religion.

18. While fostering and supporting green community development associations, cooperative community banks, local currencies and nonprofit credit systems, enhance and ensure cultural and ecological health by penalizing or stigmatizing destructive greed, psychopathic ambition, gross excess, waste and corruption.

The explicit intentions, especially in the 17th and 18th directives, are prerequisites for ensuring and expediting a greener future. Multinational corporations, executive ego demons, and greed crazy politicians have waged psychological, biological, chemical, and economic warfare against us and the Earth, aggressively and habitually. Brilliant creative problem solvers have invented great new technologies, far superior to what is typically recognized, publicized, and adopted, but systemic corruption sponsored by large corporations now forces most of our greatest innovators to suffer, scramble, and waste time trying to find investors. Unless we dethrone, defeat or heal and re-educate the psychopathic enemies of Earth and nature, they will keep disempowering and enslaving us until it is too late to prevent and/or minimize more catastrophic damage.

Some readers, noticing the great similarity of the 18 green policy imperatives and the 16 statements of the Earth Charter, may question the need for an update. For some, this new policy document may seem a product of impatience. If we knew how much time we have for a global solution, that might be a good guess. Unfortunately, the signs of ecological collapse are multiplying far faster than anyone can measure precisely. We may be beyond the tipping point of runaway climate catastrophe already. If that is so, then swift emergency action could minimize the consequences. Radical remedial action might slow down  or prevent our descent into a worst-case disaster scenario. Not knowing where we are on the slippery slope of no return, the wisest strategy is to implement the toughest policy and laws as soon as possible.

Clearly, the plan and the team must both be coherent for a successful, well orchestrated effort. Global implementation requires the strongest, most comprehensive possible approach to broadcasting and teaching the principles of ecological, cultural, and economic responsibility.

Ecocidal business corporations exist only to shelter profit from whatever might reduce it, including penalties and costs of damages, injuries, and atrocities. The Global Policy Necessities are essential for minimum cultural health and sustainably ecological community development. With anything less, we will get more of the abuse and ecocidal atrocities we suffer already.

In Nigerian territory alone, Exxon Valdez scale oil leaks are a daily average. Corporate rule accelerates ever more giant dead zones in the oceans, more rapid acidification of the water, accelerating die off of coral reefs and plankton (that provide most of our oxygen), more plastic, toxins and hormonal disruptors in fish and everything else we eat or drink, more extreme weather, and so on. Potent green policy must initiate emergency reform of every government on the planet. To expect or promote anything less would be an irresponsible breach of personal integrity, causing incalculable harm and irrevocable suffering in your lifetime and others.

ECOLOGICAL STANDARDS

Ecological Planning Standards

A beautiful green apple with an unseen worm hole, may be rotten to the core, not fit to eat.  A building, a product or a plan may get a green label, yet be far less than ideally sustainable and cost effective.
     True cost pricing for the whole life cycle is essential for sustainable  success, but requires qualitative evaluation of factors and issues left out of standards in current use .  Now we have a way to remedy that deficiency.
     Malcolm Wells, an early bioneer of green architecture and responsible planning, began developing a green rating standard in the 1960s and, by 1969, published a practical form featuring four degrees of negative and positive scoring factors.  Using the new form, you can evaluate the factors affecting any kind of project, product, process, activity or subjects.
     Also in the 1960s, pioneering ecotect Paolo Soleri and his apprentices began developing designs and plans for cities that reverse ecocidal damage and waste, by eliminating secondary causes, irresponsible design, anti-green construction, and urban-suburban sprawl.  Soleri's work opened the flood gates for bioethics and innovation for a sustainable civilization, but lacked a practical master plan for transition from our ungreen world to the ultragreen world of the future.
     One main advantage of the Greenbook standard is that the line items cover all the basics of what makes a plan, project, process, product or thing either green or anti-green.  Each of the qualifying categories covers a complex mix of basic and contributing causes, and effects.  Rating the benefits and/or impacts may seem too difficult without expert consultants, but this standard requires only a reasonable effort to access the best available data and determine the most likely benefit or harm.  We can use the new standard to define a sincerely green, reasonable effort.  Your scoring of each category listed may be imperfect, yet produce an evaluation good enough for protection of all generations.
     Wells used his form in an example featuring abandoned farmland. In that case (with negative impact numbers getting a minus sign), the rating variables were equivalent to:

1 = rarely/never, 2 = sometimes, 3 = often/usually, 4 = always/constantly

(See the link at the end of this section)

     The Greenbook rating form can be used for establishing true cost pricing and assessing environmental impacts, penalties, fines, tax rates and incentives.
     An inferior standard or code accepted as 'green enough' acts as a deadly institutional retro-virus in our cultural immune system, gradually destroying the society and the economy, the building industry, real estate markets and communities.  The Greenbook standard can even be used to create a new LEED Diamond certification standard.  It could also replace all the other standards and cure the codes.
     The new Green Planning Standard—plus life affirming ethics, effective reason, compassionate inspiration and creative problem solving—enables progress to sustainable success in a greener future as rapidly as possible. If you think not, consider this, while most of the building industry suffered stagnation and worse, green building increased by nearly 50% per year. Why the huge disparity? The confusion, limitations, complications, and builders' attitudes are aggravated by standards, codes, and regulations inadequate to the real scope of the problem. Now, consider this: harmful, wasteful, ugly buildings usually stand and degrade the quality of life for decades or centuries. Designers, builders, developers, planners, and policy makers need this alternative to overly complicated, existing standards and codes. We all do.
     The Greenbook toolkit and sustainability rating standard provide the essential qualifications for creating a green master plan for a successful future.  Yet, some may fail to sustain denial and selective inattention.  Real world examples may help them wake up and get sober.  The few that follow may be sufficient for a wake up call and reality check combined...
     The Chinese plan to double the area of their built environment by 2030.  With population and economic growth rates of India close to China's and the rest of the Third World catching up fast, that means doubling the amount of human habitat built over the last 5,000 years in 18 years.  That could double or triple the use of bricks, concrete, and pavement.  That means doubling or tripling the amount of carbon released in the production and use of bricks and concrete.  Bricks account for over 80 billion pounds of CO2 annually.  Depending on whose numbers you use, the amount of extra carbon dioxide (CO2)  released will equal from one to ten times the weight of the concrete itself. Though that means from over 1.6 billion to over 32 billion extra pounds of CO2 emissions yearly, until 2030 or beyond. The supply chain, production, and use of bricks releases over 80 billion pounds of CO2 annually. The CO2 emmissions accompany billions of tons of other greenhouse gases (GHG) generated by similar industrial processes, transportation, and construction support operations. Some of the other gases are poisonous, but total release of the methane frozen under the ocean floor and virtually locked in many millions of square miles of permafrost in the arctic tundra would cause the worst impact.
     Methane is nearly 22 times more potent than CO2. Releasing much more methane would finish killing the ocean's coral reefs with increasing acidity and cause acid-rain strong enough to finish off most land animals and plants for a million years. The average temperature would also rise to over 140° F. Yet, superior formulas for green concrete and unfired masonry have existed for thousands of years, with only a tiny fraction of the embodied energy and GHG impact of ungreen concrete. New, high performance substitutes are even better, but virtually suppressed.
     Another dire example is the environmental pollution and true cost of tar sand and oil shale mining and the conversion process for producing low grade fuel oil and gasoline. Far from being an affordable, green alternative to foreign oil, tar sand and oil shale are ecological nightmares worse than liquid oil and coal combined. They require excess use and pollution of groundwater and air and extended burning of fuel for transportation and power. The related propaganda helps to suppress the truth.
     The best alternative to oil shale, oil, coal, nuclear power and wind energy is electric solar power. Using bogus science, bad statistics, and lies to maintain the illusion of necessity, the corporate energy cartel makes you think that solar electric technology is inadequate. With optimal building efficiency and vehicle upgrades, solar photo-voltaic panels (made mainly from sand and recycled metal), mounted on rooftops and over parking lots, will provide more than enough electricity for all of humanity's future needs.
     Including energy efficiency upgrades of buildings, transportation, and industries in the calculations shows that the big power industry's projections of future demand are far above necessity and reality. For reference, as early as the 1960s, passive-solar design made buildings with 90% energy efficiency not only possible but more affordable than conventional buildings.
     We should also remember that war is basically ecocidal. Armor piercing projectiles made of nuclear waste, depleted uranium and plutonium, are vaporized and pulverized (powdered) by super hot explosion on impact. That process, and all the other toxic compounds and metals released into the environment during battles, is as bad as pollution gets. Plutonium loses only half its radioactive killing power over 240,000 years; and one microgram can go on killing and harming for almost twice as long as it moves through the biosphere, carried as dust in the wind, or as snow, in the rain or in living bodies.
     Long after battles and wars, the plague of land mines not only kills, cripples, mutilates and terrorizes innocent civilians, they make large areas of land unsafe for farming, organic or otherwise. The new Green Planning Standard gives us a way to effectively evaluate the anti-green elements of a weapon system, a tactic, a campaign strategy, a battle, a war, war crimes, and the true total costs of war and its "collateral" damage.
     Radical climate change and its destructive potentials are no longer debatable. For designers, planners, policy makers, developers, district attorneys, judges, and politicians, the green rating standard is essential, not optional. Ignoring it is aiding and abetting ecocide and, possibly, negligent mass homicide. Death is the result of both accidental and deliberate mass murder; and public officials, lawyers, and professional policy makers have no legal excuse for either. The same holds true for designers and builders.

The Greenbook Rating Form in PDF 8.5" x 14" format:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B3Kw6mGNJYgANzJlMTg4NjgtZTNiMC00YmM4LWJmOGMtMDQ1ODBjZDcwOTBl&hl=en_US

GREENING GOVERNMENT

Greening Government

"Nothing creates more misery than incompetent government... Day by day, the lives of the people took on the color of despair.
... "The economic crisis rocked the foundation of people's lives, just like a massive earthquake..."

Daisaku Ikeda's description is about Japan's disastrous situation at the end of WWII, but it now applies to too many of us around the world. For the ecocidal ruling elite, the "Free Market" means depressing and enslaving 99% of us so they can be big winners and party in excessive luxury while destroying the world.

Effectively serving and protecting us and our best interests is the only justification for government. When government lets the sick egos of 1% of us impoverish, enslave, retard and abuse 99% of us, that is psychopathic tyranny, not good governance. The recent history of Kuwait, Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya prove that we can successfully act, as healthy, self-determining beings with a sustainable future, to ensure the effectiveness of government, to serve and protect our whole way of life, as long as that is something more than TV addiction and chasing debt dollars, drugs, and pleasure no matter what.

We can use the Green Planning Standard to evaluate politicians, current and proposed laws, regulations, systems, projects, programs, strategy, and methods. That and the Global Policy Directives and Gandhi Mandates will enable positive change, as rapidly as possible. Then the Seven Essentials of successful culture will be our core values and prime motives, especially in politics and economic activities.

Since we, and all future generations depend on a healthy environment for a healthy quality of life, sane social policy is impossible without sane environmental policy. Sane environmental policy depends on humane, compassionate, ethical economic policy. Politicians, lobbyists, and corporate officers who ignore or deny or lack real interest in these issues may be clever, but are not wise or sane, nor competent or trustworthy. Denial of basic truth is a symptom of delusion, mental illness that causes illness, indiscriminate destruction, and further perversion of human culture. If we fail to sustain personal sanity and governance based on sane policy, based on the Seven Essentials of Cultural Success, the Global Policy Necessities, and the Gandhi Mandates, we will fail to choose a sane, healthy, successful future. If most of us fail to sustain success, this fragile civilization will fall, and we would all suffer the consequences of ultimate failure.

We can all admit that political pretenses and superficial changes will produce no systemic change that sustains healthy culture in a beautiful future for a majority of human beings. Free Market and fair trade are not identical concepts. Schumacher, Galbraith, Keynes and Adam Smith all agree on that. Against overwhelming odds and heartless opposition, Galbraith's pragmatic view led him to concentrate on implementing and developing Keynes' strategy for rescuing the culture. Schumacher focused more on explaining the ecological impacts of negative social games, while fostering and sustaining a more holistic approach to creating a healthy culture. That was mostly ignored or forgotten in the elitists' rush for ever bigger scores, destructive privilege, perverse power, and more stuff.

Abuse and corruption are not service. What terrorist attack is worse than deliberate ecocide? But why do right wing elitists want the admiration of uneducated fools and ill informed neurotics? Remember, they are victims of child abuse and deliberate brain damage, suffering undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder. Rule by ignorance, greed, hostility and corruption is beyond unhealthy. Socially impaired politicians and executives need compassion and therapy as much as any brain damaged child.

The principles and stratagems expressed and prescribed in the previous sections, support remedial emergency executive orders, they enable compelling campaign strategies, ballot initiatives, new legislation, policy directives and real mandates for our legal and political representatives, making them accountable for their decisions and actions. Most politicians are lawyers. Neither lawyers nor judges have any excuse for ignoring, subverting, perverting, abusing or breaking the law. Judges, law enforcement officers, and other government officials have a legal responsibility to enact and enforce effective laws and regulations.

Overwhelming amounts of scientific research data are unnecessary for protecting humanity from ecocidal officials, corporations, processes, and products. In law and governance policy, there are two principles that apply to all cases where common sense and compassionate wisdom should rule, the "prudent man" or reasonable person rule and the bright line test.

In the first case, law makers, administrators, and judges should err on the side of caution if any reasonable person would realize that an act or product clearly involves substantial danger of harm. For example, if we know that a process or product has caused great, ongoing harm and damage that is hard to measure, then there is no good reason to permit it or to demand exact quantitative analysis of the damages and costs before imposing a ban. In the bright line test, unless there is visible evidence pointing to the existence of a fleeing suspect beyond one or more doors, there is no justification for an unwarranted entry or search. In the case of ecocidal mania and corporate corruption, many bright lines indicate the presence of dangerous suspects, perpetrators, and traitors behind the closed doors of many, very expensive offices and conference rooms.

In the USA, we have all the power and reason we need to force the changes needed by our children and other living beings. All we lack now is the intent, will, motivation, commitment, and action we need to the cause the desired results.

Those of us who truly care must not give up. We need to foster more awareness, understanding, integrity, more compassionate wisdom, more participation, accountability, action and progress.

Since it may be best to let the ecocidal maniacs keep playing their for-profit game for a few generations, we can even use the Supreme Court's bogus decision to hold corporations more responsible, accountable and indebted to society for their extra privileges and superhuman political power. For example, states could require corporations to assign 50% of each stock offering to their citizens, or counties and cities could levy realistic corporate taxes, fees, duties and fines, but give corporations the right to use double the amounts of stock as an alternative.

In a green, responsible partnership model, governments can hold corporate officers and directors legally liable for gross mismanagement, malfeasance, and corrupt practices. Breach of the partnership 'contract' by corrupt corporate directors and staff would then be felonies, including treason. Still, at some point it will be best to divest corporations of their unconstitutional, illegal rights, illusory powers and political privileges. Letting corrupting illusions and lies continue will always tend to foster more mass confusion, corruption, damage, and negative exploitation. To sustain a government that fosters best case scenarios for all of us, we need to find and cut out the rot.

As usual, the anti-green, anti-life opposition will increase its attempts to scare us or seduce us into more despair, apathy or complacency, and away from accomplishing our mission. To win a healthier future and a saner, less corrupt government, we must strike on many fronts, but making official corruption equal to treason is a prime essential.

Since the US Supreme Court has lost touch with the basis of US law and the reality of planetary karma while pandering to corporate demons, we may need to establish two (2) new branches of government, either officially or functionally, state by state, county by county and/or at the level of community. The constitution of the so-called Iriquois tribes of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, with five branches of governance, sustained the commonwealth and peace in harmony with nature for several centuries. We can use typical corporate and nonprofit structures for our modern situation. That means establishing a national board of directors, with a leadership committee instead of a chairman. A board of advisors with supervisory responsibility or a supervisory council of elders or stewards can function as guardians of the public good. If such a robust system is made official then, when the Supreme Court refuses to hear important cases or makes perverse decisions, the new branches of government can also serve as courts of last resort.

Yes, we can, as a nation and as a species, defeat the enemies of nature, spirit, and freedom, but not by sitting back, watching TV and expecting politicians or a super-hero to do our job for us. If we want the best possible government of, by and for us, the people, then we must reform it for ourselves, for our children and for theirs. One step at a time, with passion, we need to ensure that our Green Policy Directives are widely distributed, understood, implemented, enacted in law and enforced with effective penalties and incentives. However long it takes, since the causes and actions are truly noble and excellent, the results will be equally good. Our worst fear should be getting tricked into selling or renting ourselves and our children back into delusional slavery.