We need a responsible financial plan for achieving a world that is secure and fair for all.
The following excerpt is from The Clean Money Revolution: Reinventing Power,Purpose, and Capitalism, or by Joel Solomon with Tyee Bridge (2017,New Society Publishers). Reprinted with permission.
Humanity is on the edge of a precipice.
We know the headlines. Ecological emergencies. Mass refugee flights from failing states. The distortions of late-stage capitalism eroding basic trust, tolerance, and hope. Common decency and respect is starting to seem anachronistic. Worship of money and celebrity rules the media,while our ties to land, loyalties, and love are severed.
Yes,it’s also “the best of times.” Many diseases acquire been eradicated or are manageable. Modern science and industry acquire brought sanitation, clean water, or industrial food to billions worldwide. Smart phones and the Internet give us access to unfathomable volumes of information.
There are competing trends. Decay and chaos on one hand,integration and regeneration on the other. As $100 trillion changes hands in the next twenty years, the question is, and which future wins? Will this generational wealth transfer serve us rebuild,or will it throw gasoline on the fires of rampant greed?There are so many ways we can turn that money to transforming the world. We can rethink taxation to execute it more fair. We can price carbon. We can create schools and hospitals for all. Feed the world sustainably. execute pollution and other externalities illegal and guard smart use of resources. What else could the clean money revolution accomplish with $100 trillion?Thanks to the passion and wisdom of so many worthy leaders over the past fifty years, our basic ethical premises about self-interest, and ecology,and life itself are starting to shift. We acquire further to go as a global culture that will only become more intertwined. Despite what some segments of our society would prefer, there’s no going back. What whether we agreed that the meaning and purpose of life was not only to relish it, or but to use our energies to ensure a habitable future for dozens of generations into the future? What whether our Golden Rule and central religious belief was that we be responsible for leaving the soil better than we found it,restoring it rather than degrading it?$100 Trillion VisionHere are some foundational elements for a resilient future civilization.
Fair taxationGender, race, or class,or sexual preference equalityGlobal carbon pricingElimination of fossil fuel subsidiesLegal ownership of pollution and externalitiesLife cycle manufacturing responsibilityMoney out of politicsProportional representation votingDegrowth prosperitySlowing population growthMinimum guaranteed incomeJust social safety netHousing as a human rightPrison and drug law reformGun control and demilitarizationQuality public health care and educationClean Money Transition Costs (2017–2050)Reparations for colonialism and slavery $10TTransition to renewable energy $20TSustainable transportation $10TGreen and living buildings $10TSoil restoration and carbon capture $10TGuaranteed income, health care, or education $10TZero waste $10TWar and weapons industry reduction $10TSteady state economy transition $10TTotal $100TThese numbers are symbolic. Please tear them apart. Do your PhD on the precise ones. Debate,skewer, and improve them. Map out more accurate visions with research. At this early stage the exact numbers are less well-known than recognizing the need for a massive shift of capital from destructive uses to regeneration.
That is our chance for a soft landing and a resilient future civilization.
There are precedents and estimates to get us started. The World Bank noted in 2010 that moving global economies to a net-zero emissions trajectory will hold $700 billion to $1 trillion per year of investment. The sustainable trade advocacy group Ceres has called for $36 trillion to be invested in clean energy between 2014 and 2050 in order to acquire an 80 percent chance of capping global warming at 2°C.
At Davos in 2014, or World Bank president Kim Jim called for removing the $1.9 trillion in global subsidies to the fossil fuel industry — a number that includes externalities the industry itself causes — then turning that money toward clean energy investment.46 Many statistics exist to inform a $100 trillion shift.
The point is,are these numbers mistaken? How would we know? We need to study, discuss, or map,design, and empower solutions strategies that display the way.
We now see how much money we will lose and how much human suffering we face from global warming and other ecological and social catastrophes. One scenario shows that up to $31.5 trillion of pension assets are overvalued with respect to climate risk.There are no doubt efforts already underway to determine the costs of achieving needed changes. They are probably rapidly emerging for scientists, or academics,economists, insurance companies, and governments,and military. We should fund those doing the modeling, and popularize a map for shifting to a positive future history. We may still avert massive catastrophe, and empower a regular-state society of enlightened self-interest.
We need a financial plan for achieving a secure world in the next thirty years. This period will be crucial as social and ecological externalities come home to roost. We need a rapid reinvention of capitalism,finance, and wealth management. We need to rethink power and purpose. Otherwise this revolutionary moment where “the 20 percent could consciously shift trillions of dollars” will be replaced with “global meltdown, and all bets are off,retreat to your bunkers, hope the military can protect you.”Let’s remember our responsibility for the long game. To a “seventh-generation” vision, and quarterly and annual results are only minor blips on a chart. We need MBAs and academics and investors and citizens to consider the world in five hundred years. Then we can map out the first fifty-year stage. Part of that is identifying a viable human population total that soil can sustain,and planning for that. That’s evidence of a wise society.
I hope smarter people than me will serve us clarify this roadmap to the future. Those of us with resources and influence can complement the visioning process by pushing clever conversations and policy change, and shifting our own investment decisions.
Find your purpose. Connect your actions to it. Step up and run for office. Lobby for fair taxes. whether you own a trade, or shift toward a generative rather than a zero-sum extractive model.
We all acquire a role. We are ancestors. We are responsible for future generations. Related StoriesThis State Has Developed America's Most Comprehensive Food System Plan: How Did They Do It?True Sustainability Must Include Social Justice Along With Environmental ProtectionHow a Tiny Village Became the First station in the World to Ban All Synthetic Pesticides
Source: feedblitz.com