Imagine a hiker who is led only by the source of food and burns everything behind him. Where will he end up? Somewhere there is no more food ahead, nor behind.
In my previous blogs, I have expressed my idea that we all live in and live by our future projections. Our projections determine our value and actions. All actions have consequences.
Our ecological and economical calamities are direct results our our projections. What do we expect? To be richer and ... nothing else. We are even willing to shorten our life span for wealth.
Our illness is "Everything for Money".
With the paradigm of "everything for money", civilization became a place where lack of money means unfit for survival. The clash between Capitalism and Socialism thus lies in the tolerance of poverty. It is a jigsaw that can never be balanced. On one hand, the government must maximize the national wealth by protecting the rich, but on the other hand, it must also protect the underdog to maintain long-term sustainability because all forms of social inequalities will result in class conflicts inevitably.
In a world where Communism is practically dead, regardless of their self-labeling, all governments shift between Capitalism and Socialism at different times. When they have more wealth to spend or at very dire times, they are "more" socialistic and vice versa.
There is another bigger picture we need to see. We, the whole world, are getting richer, at the expense of consuming our earthly resources. By getting richer and richer, modern societies all depend on a highly elevated standard of living. In a most modern city, the worst poverty still live like kings to many parts of the undeveloped world. The result is that it is getting more and more difficult to lead a "basic" life in such cities. And with the growing importance of cities to National economy, we became "addicted" to wealth. That's why "deflation" is the most scary word for economists and world leaders. To stop becoming "richer" is nothing short of a death penalty.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with being richer. The question is: where are we heading? Is there a limit to this path of wealth?
If our common goal is JUST to get richer and richer and richer and richer, we have got what we have asked for, with the price it carries.
Ancient Chinese wisdom has always warned that there are limits to everything. When such limits are exceeded, it will return to the opposite. Therefore, Chinese wisdom values balance more than anything. To reach this balance, we must know what the upper and lower limits are, or to know who we are in relation to everything higher and lower to us.
Chinese medicine is the best expression of such understanding. While Western medicine tries to "tame" illnesses, Chinese medicine seek to understand the balances between the forces that govern our physical health and to restore it. Illness is not external, it is a loss of internal balance. When the balance is restored, the body is capable of fighting external threats because the body too is a product of the greater balance of nature. In evolutionary terms. we survive because we are fit. Let's not forget, we have survived millions of years before the advent of medicine.
Whenever something tries to be something else, or exceeds its original limits, it simply will not last. That is our calamity. We do not understand our relationships with Nature and one other. We are using Nature to serve our ego, thinking we can somehow get over it. We even fool ourselves into the belief that we could actually move to Mars when Earth is toasted.
We ARE a product of Earth, we are doomed outside of it. To really remove our curses, we must respect the dominance of Nature over us. Nature does not punishes us for being richer. It is our blind lust for wealth that backfires on us.
We need a new projection. "Everything for money" must go. "Money for something" should be in.
What should that "something" be? That is THE question.
Even a child dreams to be a fireman or something. What about us? To be richer? For what? It is a question we need to ask ourselves, as an individual as well as a species.
Expect to die of obesity if taste becomes everything in eating.
November 10, 2008
November 3, 2008
WWF Living Planet Report 2008
PLEASE READ THE WWF's
What do you call a business which never pays its suppliers? And their selling prices do not include raw material costs? Answer: Modern economy.
The root of over-consumption is not defined by how much we consume. It is the difference between our consumptions and our ecological contributions. We can consume like mad IF we can regenerate as much resources with zero pollution.
Oil prices are too high, aren't they? Not at all, If we consider the availability of known oil reserves, 100 times the current price is still a bargain! And, how much a nice wooden furniture would cost us? Or a piece of xerox paper? Without a doubt, whatever price we pay it is not enough to grow the same amount of wood. We paid for everything all right, well, except the raw material.
We must find a way to balance our credit-and-debit with Nature, NOW! "Garbage recycling" and "use less" programs are never sufficient to compensate our economical and population growths, short or long term.
Our economical growth is mainly powered by customization, cheaper prices and bigger consumption volumes. It is only making the situation worse because as more and more natural resources are being extracted, less and less profit margins are left available for the big change. Very few new inventions can really be eco-friendly as well as economical and they are constantly threatened by "even cheaper" prices.
With the wrong incentives, or the lack of right incentives, the majority of us have been trained day in day out to promote consumption through our occupations, on the other hand, we demand cheaper (and more) unnecessary merchandises to sustain a "higher" standard of living as a reward of our hard work, yeah, the hardwork of promoting more consumption！It is nothing but a big loop of self-propelled consumption.
In the grant scale, no consumer can resist the temptation of "better living" over "global ecology". Our occasional acts of self-constraint is not enough to change the bigger picture. After all, without real economical incentives, individual efforts are difficult to administrate or sustain. As least, it would be too slow to save us from an ecological meltdown.
Our worse enemy is therefore the structure of economy inself which engulfs every facets of our lifes.
We need the correct incentives embedded deep into the blood of our economy. i.e. eco is value, is money! It is the only way we can change FROM WITHIN.
Perhaps, we need something like this:
1. A new eco-currency, say #, instead of $, a real trading currency
2. A world eco-bank to manage this money
3. A global eco-committee to determine the eco-currency value for all controlled earthly resources, including water, oil, minerals, wood, forest, farmable lands and etc.
4. Any relevant extractions entails a payment to the eco-bankin terms of eco-currency, e.g. quota-based annual fees and deposits.
5. These eco-money will be redistributed to countries for maintaining and promoting ecology, evaluated by the eco-committee with specific appraisal schemes.
6. Bonus will be given to innovative breakthroughs, somewhat like the Nobel price.
Benefits:
1. Since it is real currency, all countries will strive to earn it as a source of national income. e.g., more farmable land and forest means more income; less extraction and more eco-efforts means surplus. And eco-friendly enterprises will become valued assets of the country and may receive tax-cut as an incentive. Of course, bad eco-management means eco-deficit.
2. Sanctions are relatively easy to adminstrate: any non-confoming countries will not receive national eco-income, and additional tariff will be added temporally or partially for targeted export trading. Other countries which import "illegally" will likewise be penalized.
2. Comparing to regulate individual enterprises, it is much easier to control because earthly resources are limited in terms of category. A tightened domestic licensing scheme can manage most relevant activities.
3. Since eco-costs have been paid for from the begining of all supply chain, there is no need for any further regulations in subsequent production and trading activities. Pollution is something each government needs to self-regulate, in order to earn its eco-income from the eco-bank.
"IT WILL NOT WORK, because..... " Yes, I know that.
Please tell me what can work! We need as much brains as we can use in this subject matter now, or reserve our "intelligence" to hunting animals for food in a not-too-distance future.
What do you call a business which never pays its suppliers? And their selling prices do not include raw material costs? Answer: Modern economy.
The root of over-consumption is not defined by how much we consume. It is the difference between our consumptions and our ecological contributions. We can consume like mad IF we can regenerate as much resources with zero pollution.
Oil prices are too high, aren't they? Not at all, If we consider the availability of known oil reserves, 100 times the current price is still a bargain! And, how much a nice wooden furniture would cost us? Or a piece of xerox paper? Without a doubt, whatever price we pay it is not enough to grow the same amount of wood. We paid for everything all right, well, except the raw material.
We must find a way to balance our credit-and-debit with Nature, NOW! "Garbage recycling" and "use less" programs are never sufficient to compensate our economical and population growths, short or long term.
Our economical growth is mainly powered by customization, cheaper prices and bigger consumption volumes. It is only making the situation worse because as more and more natural resources are being extracted, less and less profit margins are left available for the big change. Very few new inventions can really be eco-friendly as well as economical and they are constantly threatened by "even cheaper" prices.
With the wrong incentives, or the lack of right incentives, the majority of us have been trained day in day out to promote consumption through our occupations, on the other hand, we demand cheaper (and more) unnecessary merchandises to sustain a "higher" standard of living as a reward of our hard work, yeah, the hardwork of promoting more consumption！It is nothing but a big loop of self-propelled consumption.
In the grant scale, no consumer can resist the temptation of "better living" over "global ecology". Our occasional acts of self-constraint is not enough to change the bigger picture. After all, without real economical incentives, individual efforts are difficult to administrate or sustain. As least, it would be too slow to save us from an ecological meltdown.
Our worse enemy is therefore the structure of economy inself which engulfs every facets of our lifes.
We need the correct incentives embedded deep into the blood of our economy. i.e. eco is value, is money! It is the only way we can change FROM WITHIN.
Perhaps, we need something like this:
1. A new eco-currency, say #, instead of $, a real trading currency
2. A world eco-bank to manage this money
3. A global eco-committee to determine the eco-currency value for all controlled earthly resources, including water, oil, minerals, wood, forest, farmable lands and etc.
4. Any relevant extractions entails a payment to the eco-bankin terms of eco-currency, e.g. quota-based annual fees and deposits.
5. These eco-money will be redistributed to countries for maintaining and promoting ecology, evaluated by the eco-committee with specific appraisal schemes.
6. Bonus will be given to innovative breakthroughs, somewhat like the Nobel price.
Benefits:
1. Since it is real currency, all countries will strive to earn it as a source of national income. e.g., more farmable land and forest means more income; less extraction and more eco-efforts means surplus. And eco-friendly enterprises will become valued assets of the country and may receive tax-cut as an incentive. Of course, bad eco-management means eco-deficit.
2. Sanctions are relatively easy to adminstrate: any non-confoming countries will not receive national eco-income, and additional tariff will be added temporally or partially for targeted export trading. Other countries which import "illegally" will likewise be penalized.
2. Comparing to regulate individual enterprises, it is much easier to control because earthly resources are limited in terms of category. A tightened domestic licensing scheme can manage most relevant activities.
3. Since eco-costs have been paid for from the begining of all supply chain, there is no need for any further regulations in subsequent production and trading activities. Pollution is something each government needs to self-regulate, in order to earn its eco-income from the eco-bank.
"IT WILL NOT WORK, because..... " Yes, I know that.
Please tell me what can work! We need as much brains as we can use in this subject matter now, or reserve our "intelligence" to hunting animals for food in a not-too-distance future.
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