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Collected Essays, Volume Vi

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Collected Essays, Volume Vi COLLECTED ESSAYS, VOLUME VI John Scales Avery August 10, 2021 Contents 1. A BETTER WORLD IS POSSIBLE! 2. CLIMATE: WE ARE NOT DOING ENOUGH! 3. BIDEN’S AGGRESSIVE FOREIGN POLICY 4. WATER AND LIFE 5. CRISIS MEANS DANGER AND OPPORTUNITY 6. LIVING TOGETHER IN PEACE 7. WE NEED SOLIDARITY, NOT SANCTIONS 8. ONLY IMMEDIATE CLIMATE ACTION CAN SAVE THE FUTURE 9. ATTACKING IRAN WOULD RISK GLOBAL DISASTER 10. THE JAWS OF POWER 11. WE NEED A WORLD FEDERATION 12. CHALLENGES FOR JOE BIDEN AND KAMALA HARRIS 13. OUR LIFESTYLES MUST CHANGE 14. A CRITICAL U.S. ELECTION 15. ECOLOGY AND ECONOMICS 16. PREDICTING THE FUTURE 17. THE ETHICS OF MAHATMA GANDHI 18. THE ICC’S ENORMOUS IMPORTANCE 19. WE NEED PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST 20. SHARING SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE 21. SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM FUTURES 22. WHY WAR? 1 23. A CRITICAL DECADE 24. 67 YEARS IN THE PEACE MOVEMENT 25. WATER 26. THE WORLD AS IT IS, AND THE WORLD AS IT COULD BE (expanded) 27. LIVES IN MATHEMATICS 28. OUR SUICIDAL WAR AGAINST NATURE 29. ADAM SMITH’S INVISIBLE HAND IS AT OUR THROATS 30. ETHICS FOR THE FUTURE 31. HUMAN SOCIETY AND THE BIOSPHERE 32. A HISTORY OF THE EARTH 33. THE ROAD NOT TAKEN 34. YE ARE MANY, THEY ARE FEW 35. OUR WORLD IS BURNING 36. THE ECOLOGICAL IMPACT OF MILITARISM 37. REMEMBERING THE 1960’S 38. SOME ASPECTS OF QUANTUM THEORY 39. LIVES IN EXPLORATION 40. HUMAN NATURE 41. MALTHUS REVISITED 42. LIVES IN EDUCATION 43. REBUILDING AFTER CORONA 44. LIVES IN POETRY 2 4 Chapter 1 ARTICLES A BETTER WORLD IS POSSIBLE! Tasks for the future When we rebuild the world after the COVID-19 pandemic, we will be faced with many important challenges and tasks. We need a new economic system, a new society, a new social contract, a new way of life. Here are the great tasks that history has given to our generation: We must achieve a steady-state economic system. We must restore democracy. We must decrease economic inequality. We must break the power of corporate greed. We must leave fossil fuels in the ground. We must stabilize and ultimately reduce the global population. We must eliminate the institution of war. And finally, we must develop a more mature ethical system to match our new technology. We must achieve a steady-state economic system A steady-state economic system is necessary because neither population growth nor eco- nomic growth can continue indefinitely on a finite earth. No one can maintain that ex- ponential industrial growth is sustainable in the long run except by refusing to look more than a short distance into the future. Of course, it is necessary to distinguish between industrial growth, and growth of cul- ture and knowledge, which can and should continue to grow. Qualitative improvements in human society are possible and desirable, but resource-using and pollution-producing industrial growth is reaching its limits, both because of ecological constraints and because of the exhaustion of petroleum, natural gas and other non-renewable resources, such as metals. The threat of catastrophic climate change makes it imperative for us to stop using fossil fuels within very few decades. 5 6 COLLECTED ESSAYS VI Figure 1.1: The Earth, seen from space. Today, the distinguished economist, Herman Daly, continues to write perceptive articles and books documenting the need for a steady-state economy. Among his books, the fol- lowing are noteworthy: Steady-State Economics (1977); For the Common Good (1989, with John B. Cobb, Jr.); Valuing the Earth (1993, with Kenneth Townsend); Beyond Growth (1996); \Ecological Economics and the Ecology of Economics" (1999); Local Politics of Global Sustainability (2000, with Thomas Prugh and Robert Costanza), and Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications (2003, with Joshua Farley. Prof. Daly is a re- cipient of the Right Livelihood Award, which is sometimes called the Alternative Nobel Prize. We must restore democracy in our own countries if it has been lost It is obvious, almost by definition, that excessive governmental secrecy and true democracy are incompatible. If the people of a country have no idea what their government is doing, they cannot possibly have the influence on decisions that the word `democracy" implies. Governmental secrecy is not something new. Secret diplomacy contributed to the out- break of World War I, and the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement later contributed to the bitterness of conflicts in the Middle East. However, in recent years, governmental secrecy has grown enormously. The revelations of Edward Snowden have shown that the number of people involved in ARTICLES 7 secret operations of the United States government is now as large as the entire population of Norway: roughly 5 million. The influence of this dark side of government has become so great that no president is able to resist it. We do not know what will happen to Julian Assange. If he dies in the hands of his captors for the crime of publishing leaked documents (a crime that he shares with the New York Times), he will not be the first martyr to the truth. Many modern governments have become very expert in manipulating public opinion through mass media. They only allow the public to hear a version of the \news" that has been handed down by powerholders. Of course, people can turn to the alternative media that are available on the Internet. But on the whole, the vision of the world presented on television screens and in major newspapers is the \truth" that is accepted by the majority of the public, and it is this picture of events that influences political decisions. Censorship of the news by the power elite is a form of secrecy, since it withholds information that is needed for a democracy to function properly. There has always been a glaring contradiction between democracy and secret branches of the government, such as the CIA, which conducts its assassinations and its dirty wars in South America and elsewhere without any public knowledge or control. The gross, wholesale electronic spying on citizens revealed by Snowden seems to be specifically aimed at eliminating democracy. It is aimed at instilling universal fear and conformity, fear of blackmail and fear of being out of step, so that the public will not dare to oppose whatever the government does, no matter how criminal or unconstitutional. In the United States, the presidency of Donald Trump has been a continuous assault on democracy and constitutional government. He is, without question, the most dangerous and evil president in US history. His policies aim at increasing economic inequality in the United States, rather than decreasing it. Trump's climate change denial, his support for the giant coal and oil industries and his sabotaging of renewable energy, all threaten to defeat the world's attempts to avoid the existential threat of catastrophic climate change. We must restore democracy in our own countries wherever it has been replaced by oligarchy. When we do so, we will free ourselves from many evils, including excessive economic inequality, violation of civil rights, and the suffering produced by perpetual wars. We must decrease economic inequality In his Apostolic Exhortation, \Evangelii Gaudium", Pope Francis said: \ In our time humanity is experiencing a turning-point in its history, as we can see from the advances being made in so many fields. We can only praise the steps being taken to improve people's welfare in areas such as health care, education and communications. At the same time we have to remember that the majority of our contemporaries are barely living from day to day, with dire consequences. A number of diseases are spreading. The hearts of many people are gripped by fear and desperation, even in the so-called rich countries. The joy of living frequently fades, lack of respect for others and violence are on the rise, and inequality is increasingly evident. It is a struggle to live and, often, to live with precious little dignity... 8 COLLECTED ESSAYS VI \Just as the commandment `Thou shalt not kill' sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say `thou shalt not' to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape. \In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wield- ing economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting." The social epidemiologist Prof. Richard Wilkinson, has documented the ways in which societies with less economic inequality do better than more unequal societies in a number of areas, including increased rates of life expectancy, mathematical performance, literacy, trust, social mobility, together with decreased rates of infant mortality, homicides, impris- onment, teenage births, obesity and mental illness, including drug and alcohol addiction.
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