A Constitution for the Earth
The book should be a seed for a growing awareness and appreciation of our home of the earth. In this way, knowledge can arise and from it action - a constitution for the community of life on earth.
What does nature mean to you?
A place of recreation? Vacation? Work? Freedom? Disorder? Wildness that needs to be tamed? Recharge your batteries?
I work with my hands in the earth again and again and am impressed every day by the wonder of nature. For me, nature is a place where I feel at home and can recharge my batteries. The interplay of light, water, plants, animals fascinates me every time anew.
The water, the air, the photosynthesis, the life processes, the human digestive system with 32 trillion alien creatures in us...the ecosystem of the forest - nature, of which we are a part, have all earned the Nobel Prize.
Nature shows us how it works - how a cycle system works - an interaction of different living beings and life processes without producing senseless waste, without exploitation or overexploitation, without extinction of species.
No tree grows into the sky and claims everything for itself, there are natural limits, without egalitarianism. Lived diversity.
We humans are fascinated by technology that cannot hold a candle to nature. Yet we completely lack appreciation for nature - we take it for granted, for granted. This has disastrous consequences. Human arrogance, self-absorption, illusion of omnipotence, coupled with selfishness, consistently leads us towards a Super Gau. Although we perceive this, we look away, do not want to see it.
We should give nature our daily appreciation. In schools, teaching the interrelationships and importance of nature as our basis of life should be the most important subject, so that an elementary awareness is created - which is obviously missing today.
The present system, which led to the current situation, believes to be able to solve the problem of the climate crisis with the conventional means and an unbroken belief in technology.
So why is it getting worse? Do we have until 2030 or even 2050?
In the midst of all this, one misses the big picture. We have built up powerful organizations and departments that need gigantic sums for their administrative structures, we hold congresses and symposia, yet the input in relation to the output is often 1 million to 1.
In order to check the efficiency of the processes in the determining bodies, the author has established the following in numerous self-experiments. The selection process for decision makers and people involved, who could make a concrete difference in the climate crisis, is determined by titles and papers that have been acquired in accordance with the system. But how much does this say about real competence and motivation.
The choice does not necessarily fall on the best candidate, but on the one who conforms to the system - this can be seen repeatedly in many institutions and organizations. The administrative apparatus and the application process alone swallow up vast sums of money. Good objectives are lost in the gigantic administrative apparatus and processes.
There is no authorized body that can intervene like a powerful UN protection force. There is a lack of concrete, hard measures and punishments, which, according to the polluter pays principle, hold the polluters responsible, even retroactively. Most of the time, recognized urgencies are talked about, ignored, and hushed up - action is made impossible by various mechanisms, the most important of which are the protection of existing assets and self-interest.
The existing system, the current decision makers, as part of it, and the applied value standards as well as their weighting, which lead to the decisions, are naturally shaped by the system. They are consciously or unconsciously designed to protect the existing system -this prevents innovation -this prevents change.
This is based on a deeply rooted human habit that protects us from the unknown, from change.
This pattern becomes devastating when the known, the present is sick or even self-destructive.
Try to explain to a schizoid-psychic that he is sick - he is so convinced that he is healthy that you have no chance.
This example can be applied to many situations, people and structures.
In the consideration of mankind and your handling of the climate crisis we can recognize similar behaviors.
So how can a potentially sick system find the solution to heal itself if it does everything from within to prevent a change?
To protect the possession is the highest, most valuable and with the greatest power defended element, even if it means death.
Who protects the Earth's heritage, the species, the forests, the ecosystems?
The cause of this misery lies in the lack of appreciation and the concomitant lack of valuing nature as the basis of life of the whole community of life on earth - not only of man who feels himself to be the chosen one with special rights. The protection of this basis of life goes hand in hand with the conscious putting into value and from this results the necessity of a constitution with laws and defined responsibility. It needs independent control organs and with an executive equipped with power of action, which can issue hard punishments with abuse and disrespect.
Man will not change, if profit can be made, self-interest will override everything else, no matter in which nation, political system, or ideology.
It is a "fight" on lost ground.
On reflection, it follows that we need to change something fundamentally, as in the creation of traffic rules that have global validity. No one will question the usefulness of a red light, it benefits all of us, right or left, old, young, etc.
We are about to drive this unique planet earth with full throttle to the wall and we do not stop on earth, we are also about to fill the orbit of the earth with boundless garbage, uncontrolled, without responsibility and accountability.
Does it really need the collapse until we admit to ourselves what is the matter?
Programs for the year 2030 or 2050 are , it is a pushing out and stock protection.
It needs immediately "life rules" similar to the traffic rules, i.e. a constitution for the life community of the earth with world-wide validity.
The earth does not need humans, humans however need the earth with an intact Oekosystem. We are about 8 billion people and it took billions of years to develop this miracle of the earth that we destroy in a few decades.
The benefit of a constitution for the earth is not one-sided for individual countries or institutions, etc. - but world-wide, superordinate for all the same!
There are many well-meant initiatives and programs, but they reach too short only at the surface, are small plasters without profound effect and above all they lag behind the time.
Here are the limits of political systems.
Such a constitution cannot be achieved democratically through party politics, i.e., through a trial of strength between individual interests.
It needs, as now demonstrated in the Corona crisis, a common action superior to single interests - ubiquitous interest must be the guideline, based on science, transparency, values hierarchy and intelligence.
Capitalism has conquered the whole world and is the new religion.
The "re-gulations" watch what is happening like a jet flying away supersonically. We read headlines like "It's hot in Europe, all over the world. New heat records, drought, species extinction, forest fires, Pole is melting, etc"
Only when we are sick do we realize the value of health. Although we have the ability to anticipate, we do not use it. This is the case throughout the history of mankind.
Crises could be chances to recognize true values and to put them into value.
It is obsolete to rely on ethics, morals or honor - the unscrupulous rule the world and perfected PR does the rest, a good example is the inflationary used word "sustainability". Let's be realistic, it's all about profit and for that any means is fine - lying, cheating without taking responsibility for it are allowed if they lead to success.
Making profit is not a bad thing in and of itself, but not when it comes at the expense of the earth's community of life. It is not sensible or intelligent to saw off the branch on which one sits, maybe it will last until one's own death, but what about our children?
To stop the current climate crisis, hard guard rails are needed for the benefit of all, analogous to the red light in road traffic. Now, not in 2030 or 2050.
The problems of the world are solvable, there are biodegradable plastics from renewable resources, there are hydrogen engines, there is energy production from renewable sources sun, wind and water, etc., there is all this now and we have an army of motivated, brilliant scientists - what is missing is the prioritization and the will for consistent implementation - even if that means to partially cut the conservation - in the interest of the whole community - including the stock holders.
And just now, in the lockdown, there is the chance of a new weighting of our value system and the setting of priorities on the basis of a profound understanding of ecology and altruism. This requires 100% transparency.
That this also makes sense on the economic side is proven in a growing number of studies and is, with common sense and unclouded by self-interest, also very comprehensible.
E.g. ski resorts that represent a 70 billion market in Switzerland and soon have no more snow - disasters - droughts - species extinction - follow-up costs space debris, dismantling of nuclear power plants and storage of contaminated waste, waste disposal, health costs caused by environmental pollution,
If in the calculation of products, buildings, work processes, the total energy balance would be made with the following criteria:
-100% transparent
-including the total grey energy
-including the environmental damage caused
-including the costs of 100% ecological disposal
then we would be rid of the crisis within a year.
Our earth is a rare jewel in the vastness of the cosmos. We cannot buy a second one and Mars is not really an alternative.
But we can act now and use our ability of anticipation.
They will say we can't because of this and that. Nobody would have thought 1 ½ years ago that there could be a global lockdown because of a virus.
The climate crisis, its cause and effects are umpteen times worse than this virus. That justifies the urgency and immediate action - a constitution of the Earth's community of life.
www.erde.group
Donald Jacob
Basel, 4/22/2021
Gardener, ecologist, landscape architect, publicist and artist
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
