Improvements to Global Green New Deal
My first impressions
I think tha Green New Deal (USA, Europe) are well written, smooth style, tone, and rhythm, while they expose a plan for a revolution, eg. “This is the first attempt at a political response to climate change that is on the same scale as the problem itself.”
From my perspective, we’re trying to get people to imagine something new while we’re using old clichés which are known, for example “ New Deal”, I think we need to find a way to phaseout the old terms and concepts and replace them with new concepts reflecting a reorganized social structure, Original and disruptive arguments in addition to the GNDE plan could help overcome fear and resistance.
Basically, the GND is a public venture capitalist for financing transition. The GND is going to finance the transition from a “
matrix of interlocking corporate balance sheets.” to an interlinking social structure with sound long-term environmental husbandry. And we need to achieve it very quickly.
Disruptive Argument Example
Jobs – I’m not a fan of the word “Job” as it seems so archaic and colonial especially as we’re planning on a Universal Basic Income / Universal Basic Dividend UBI/UBD. I would search for words which elicits dreams and aspirations. Like “personally satisfying activities”, (fulfilling, enriching, motivating), etc. The GGND could also mention the destructive nature of some “jobs”, leading to alcohol and drug abuse, social stigmata, and personally degeneration sometimes with suicidal outcomes. Plus, excessive CEO salaries and political weight. “Jobs” seems like a trap, the past, what can we replace it with, in semantics and in actuality?
Money – We need to morph the concept of money in order to control the narrative.. Money is a false argument, the planet’s net worth is estimated between 300 trillion and
$5 quadrillion dollars, There are 9 billion people on Earth. Divide the money up equally. And then print more as needed.
For me, I’m looking for “bubble up” as opposed to the “trickle down” society.
Spending a euro/dollar/pound/etc. is like a vote. A lot of small “dollar votes” for Bernie Sanders is an example. Earning and spending differently, at all levels of society, is a pillar of the GGND.
Nature maintains sustainability via diversity and constant change, its robust we humans should try emulating this approach.
Fire and Faims
The FIRE – Finance, Insurance and Real-Estate (from the book
Bullshit Jobs) and
FAIMS – Fashion, Advertisement, (selected) Industries, Military and Security (from Michael Spratt) – These economic sectors are going to down size and recycle into the “Green Economy”, We need to assure employees and business owners, as they may feel that they will loose.
Also, I wonder what moral values and environmental ethic these employees and their children have and can many be “convinced” to “Greencycle”?
Also, after the intro of the GND in the USA the trolls and bots through social networks, obfuscated the message while the “web” responded with simple, but original clichés, they seemed to get some traction for their originality and probably calmed and altered some social network’s narrative.
Leave the oil in the soil, the coal in the hole
Name, shame and shackle
Off with their offshore
Nature has time, Humans don’t
etc
Some Reinforcement
These points seemed to “light” in the text and might need some reinforcement, again, this is just my opinion.
Could we add something about managing and exploiting aquatic biotopes and resources (marine and fresh water) by local communities? Fishing and aquaculture rights should not be sold for industrial exploitation which is subsidies and who over exploit resources with very detrimental affects upon the resources and local communities. Industrial fishing (and aquaculture) are often (dangerous) subsided environmental abuses. (Use the same philosophy as local forest management).
Is it to much to mention other environmental time-bombs such as nano particles, prions, forever chemicals, products which cause very long term damage, like nuclear power and GMOs?
Community Control Over Police: A Proposition. The GND might highlight this to better counter the military/police state creep.
Reinforce the promotion of legal standing and legal representation of living organisms and biotopes, like people, associations and corporations.
Open
Finally, and this might seem redundant, but, Open -government, science, justice, data, knowledge. Use of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interchangeable and Reusable) data, open research publications, data and very importantly, the source code. Citizen science, participative, informed and serious debates plus education which is pertinent and applied.
All patients made public treasurers for anyone to adapt and exploit for the good of all humanity.
No more decisions behind closed doors.
Technical Suggestions
One technical suggestion for recovering abandoned and dilapidated buildings is to use Google’s street photos, API and AI to locate ruins based upon photos and create a database, use government databases to locate and contact owners, mayor’s office… Make it open, participate and innovative.
Now, for discussion purposes only, I’d like to add some disruptive idea, perspectives and arguments…
The “International Justice: climate change” seems very similar to the 17th century, “Laws of the High Seas”. Basically, any country has jurisdiction to accuse, try and condemn any captain, crew or owner (eg. government) sailing under any pavilion, anywhere for “crimes committed” on the high seas. The GND enhances and adapts this justice system to environmental and social justice, globally. There might be some legal text from these old laws which can be directly applied to climate justice.
Once again, I feel that the word “jobs” needs to morph into something like “personally satisfying activities and total social integration (participation, contribution, etc.)”. I don’t really know why, I just have a feeling that we’re playing into the hands of the extraction industries by promising “jobs” instead of hope for happier more satisfying lives.
Think, out of the box.
Optimize the Photons
Think of a society who’s goal it is to optimize the photons it receives from the sun everyday, as opposed to every individual exploiting this resource for personal profit. The net daily change (constructive – destructive, dividend – debt) is equally distributed to all members of the society. An emergent function could produce happier, less suffering, more personal freedoms and time to enjoy the photons as the group strives to optimize it’s allocation of photons.
Musk Ox Mentality
Or, try thinking of musk ox
(Ovibos moschatus), a large herbivore living in the arctic circle. The group’s behavior in order to survive cold and predators is to form a circle around the weaker members, calves, mothers, elders. The circle is made up of the strongest member of the group. Imagine an outer circle of big horned heads, backed up by strong muscular bodies, motivated to protect the weaker members of the group in the center of the circle.
I feel that our human society has turned its most able and strongest individual inward, to attack the weakest member of our group. I’d like to see our most able bodies turned to protecting our weak, consolidating our divisions and advancing the entire group to overcome our real problems, for example, Ignorance, (scientific, medical, technical, space, energy…).
homo sagacious
I’d also like to propose, that since we’re in a new geological epoch,
anthropocene epoch, that humans have evolved from homo sapiens to homo
sagacious, We now have a new species, “sage men” as opposed to “knowledgeable men”.
Concerning the extraction industries and the Green New Deal.
From my perspective, for the moment, the GND needs the extraction industries to first accept the GND and then finance the preliminary phases of the transition. The extraction industries could be interested in :
Recovering the Sahara Desert – 20% of Earth’s land mass, 700 year of agriculture production (at current water consumption rates), thanks to one of the wolds largest fresh water underground aquifers, abundant solar energy. Imagine, 3D printer construction of dispersed autonomous villages, surrounded by agricultural lands and filled with climate refuges. I can see the vultures capitalist circling already. Does the GND have any leverage on this?
Space mining meteors – If the extraction industries want to extract let them do it in space, meteor mining. The GND could help us kick some extraction industries off our planet while satisfying mankind’s natural instincts to explore, learn and expand.
Morphing military tech for environmental regeneration such as adapting drones to autonomously scrape water from a reservoir’s surface and drop the water on local plants (instead of bombs on people). Or converting Hexapod walking robots into watering forests by autonomously dropping a water hose into a mountain stream and then move outward watering plants. In winter they could create frozen ice packs in the forests for water storage to be used for irrigation during the summer.
If the military / technology industries have so many hotshot brains lets apply them to quickly finding both short and long term solutions to our environmental / social crisis.
I propose these “baits” in order to divide and weaken resistance, add imaginative narratives and kick-start others into re-action. Studies show that once 25% of a group believes something to be true (or false) the other 75% of the group adhere very quickly. I think we’re there.
Plus, we’re already seeing contractions in global consumption and production along with negative interest rates. A little “good news” for the environment.
3D printers are reducing manufacturing cost, using free open models, for small scale local production and consumption which eliminates both transport and finance. Fablabs and “Factories in a Box” are introducing products into the local markets at the expense of established products.
There are so many people way ahead of our leaders concerning the environmental crisis and we’re finally forcing leaders to decide. They have 3 choices, either stay with the group who got us here and who are still in power, and still proposing the same while positioning to prophet from their placebo solutions and probably our extinction, or, GND, or some lame combination of both.
In closing,
I agree with the GND from a philosophical perspective while my experience has taught me that all divisions are arbitrary. Everything is interconnected. We divide an analogically interconnected world into discrete units for intellectual simplicity and laziness. These divisions are arbitrary and based upon an individual’s agenda. How someone “divides” their observations gives me an idea of what narratives to use in order to reintegrate their “arbitrary divisions” back into the ensemble. For me, the ensemble is alway much stronger than the sum of all the divisions.
We are overcoming the divisions which have been used to get us into this mess. We just need a global political structure which frees us from the past so that we can invent a revolution and a future.
Hope this wasn’t to long. I wanted to contribute something “different”.]]>