Extract from the book by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams « The Book of Hope » that I wish to share with the world.
« What was the role of hope during those early days?
- If I hadn’t had hope that I could, given time, gain the chimps’ trust I would have given up. »
- Jane paused and looked down.
- « Of course there was the nagging worry—did I have time? I suppose it’s a bit like climate change. We know we can slow it down—we’re just concerned as to whether we have sufficient time to effectively turn things around. »
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What if we took the time to take care of the Earth?
This is the cradle of humanity. It sustains us all. Whether we are beautiful, ugly, rich, poor, healthy, sick, or any other difference that makes us who we are; we all live on Earth, and it is ailing. It speaks to us, it cries out through its increasingly severe catastrophes.
The climate is changing, and so are we. Inequality and suffering are increasing every day all over the world. The levels are not comparable, nor are they equal, but they are all inhumane. Everyone is doing what they can, depending on where they are and what they have to face.
Climate change. Let’s change the way we act.
A truce for the Earth, a truce for Us:
- A truce on bombs, missiles, drones… everything that makes the Earth tremble. Instead, we could take the time to care for those who have lost everything because the cities they lived in have been destroyed. We could take the time to find out which country the people living there want to belong to. A large number of job creations.
- A truce on new cell phones, electric cars that consume enormous and scarce Earth resources, and new vehicles in general… We could take the time to repair old phones and cars and upgrade them. We could take the time to learn how to manage electric car batteries when they reach the end of their lifespan. Some jobs will be put on hold, but others will be created.
- A truce in the pursuit of profit for the sake of money. Natural resources are not distributed equitably across the Earth. Nor are inequalities. Countries don’t necessarily have the financial capacity to act properly towards the Earth and their populations, because human well-being and the regeneration of natural resources will never be profitable. We could take the time to look at humanitarian or public interest organizations that have developed expertise in a particular field, and to finance them to respond crises: humanitarian crises, forests, plastics, pesticides, food, housing, animals, health, social ills, injustices… This will create jobs.
- A truce is needed for the large, expensive machines that must be profitable by destroying so much, including those that clear-cut forests in no time, wiping out all life in a forest which has been developing for thousands of years. There are many people without jobs in the countries, or jobs that will be put on hold by the truce of new phones, new vehicles, new large structures… Let’s manage our forests sustainably, for living forests thanks to jobs that will support many people. They are the lungs of the Earth and of our children. They have a profound impact on humanity’s life expectancy. Like the oceans. Many jobs to be created.
When Earth’s resources are exhausted, we’ll have all the time in the world to cry, talk about the good old days, build spaceships to leave Earth in a hurry and fight to get on them. Or anything else unfair.
The Earth still has resources.
But with climate change, it’s sending us an SOS.
- Let us unite for Her.
- Let us unite for Life.
- Let us unite for Peace on Earth.
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A truce for the Earth
I speak of a truce because the priority is not to settle disagreements about existing intensive farming practices, nor to debate whether electric cars are more ecological or not, whether IA is useful or not,… nor on the long-term choices to be made for the future of humanity.
I’m talking about a truce to prioritize climate change and heal our wounds, stop wars and misery.
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The priority is to let the Earth regenerate.
It needs rest, diversity, attention, and Us too.
- Let’s make a truce on everything that destroys and impoverishes the Earth (bombs, overexploitation of natural resources, mass deforestation, etc.).
- Let’s make a truce on the development of infrastructure that impoverishes the Earth (intensive agriculture, monoculture, data centers, etc.).
- Let’s make a truce on idle money that allows injustice to flourish. During this truce, on any bank account exceeding “1 million”, “1 %” could be levied, in order to create a monetary dynamic starting from people who are committed to solving climate change, stopping wars and misery. The monetary threshold and the percentage levied will need to be defined so that they are fair, adjusted to the standard of living of the country, and respectful of both parties, « the Rich / the Earth / the Humanity”.
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And concretely…
This letter is a seed to ask ourselves questions in order to find solutions now, to manage climate change which will handicap future generations and to stop wars and misery now.
We need to isolate the problems, analyse them, ask the questions, and answer them.
Here are the first steps that it inspires in me.
- Uniting people who want to take action for the Earth. I am aware that making this a reality will require a lot of people and time. The letter allows to contact individuals, associations, firms, etc., in order to unite. Do you wish to participate? Do you think a petition would be useful for gaining media attention? One petition overall or several petitions per theme (forest protection, ocean protection, stop wars, stop productions that impoverish Earth’s resources, etc.)?
- Making another way of doing things visible. The first thought that came to mind when I wrote this letter was for the people who will lose their jobs if we stop building vehicles, phones, large structures, and other things. A little voice answered me, « Do you think these people, on the assembly line, digging into the earth in grueling conditions, destroying nature, dreamed of this job as children? » Well, I don’t think so. I think these people do this because they need money for their families, to live. If we offer them something that better aligns with their childhood dreams, they wouldn’t be worse off. What needs to change is our perception of life, what we do with our lives, and what we can do in our societies. That’s why I specified in the list of truces where there are opportunities to create jobs. Life is well orchestrated when we don’t try to control it. List the needs on a large scale, list the existing human solutions, and cross the data in order to solve the problems that exist with local and citizen solutions which have proven themselves. Perhaps through the fair management of natural resources without overexploitation, people could find work locally, and dangerous forced migration could be reduced.
Dialogue, listen to one another, and turn our differences into a strength. We choose to address global problems through large international institutions, which so far have not found any miracle solutions. What if we changed our approach? Let’s collect proposals from everyone who has an idea, submit them to experts, if they are viable, let’s fund them. Here is the first idea I submit to initiate this approach: If we removed all the debris, the redundant satellites, those that no longer function, the obsolete ones, and those orbiting the Earth, wouldn’t some of the excess heat evaporate? Wouldn’t this help slow down global warming? I’m not a specialist in greenhouse gases, climate, or modeling. This is a proposal for managing climate change. What is the impact of the objects orbiting the Earth, on the Earth’s atmosphere and temperature?
- Create monetary dynamic through a tax on money sitting idle in bank accounts. “1 %” levied on any bank account exceeding “1 million” to fund projects which meet our problems: climate change, wars, misery. Let’s make a truce in the pursuit of profit for the sake of money.
The difficulty that we will have to overcome is to take into account the fact that certain needs and constraints will contradict each other.
You can send an email to obel.bourgait@gmail.com to reply, to give an opinion on the opportunity to launch a petition or any other remarks. I will be happy to answer them and to list them to the blog or more depending on our desire to participate.
Let us act and deploy a truce for the Earth, and Us
