LEARNING TOOLS
From Charles Eisenstein's wonderful book, CLIMATE: A NEW STORY. Pages 272 f.
Here are some of the policies and changes that are necessary over the next couple decades if we are to change course and move toward a living world rather than the Concrete World of chapter 7. Most of them are obvious corollaries to the themes of this book; I will leave two for the end that require some explanation as to why they are so crucial for planetary healing. I am leaving out important reforms like ending mass incarceration or implementing universal basic income that have only indirect (albeit powerful) long-term ecological benefits.
Here are some of the policies and changes that are necessary over the next couple decades if we are to change course and move toward a living world rather than the Concrete World of chapter 7. Most of them are obvious corollaries to the themes of this book; I will leave two for the end that require some explanation as to why they are so crucial for planetary healing. I am leaving out important reforms like ending mass incarceration or implementing universal basic income that have only indirect (albeit powerful) long-term ecological benefits.
- Promote land regeneration as a major new category of philanthropy: fund demonstration projects, connect young farmers to land, and help farms transition to regenerative practices. Provide public funding and government support for this transition as well by shifting agricultural subsidies away from conventional crops.
- Institute a global moratorium on logging, mining, drilling, and development of all remaining primary forests, wetlands and other ecosystems.
- Expand the land protected in wildlife refuges and other reserves. When possible, enlist local and indigenous people in protection efforts to align their livelihood with ecological health.
- Establish new ocean marine reserves and expand existing ones, with the goal of placing a third to half of all oceans, estuaries, and coastlines into no-take/no-develop sanctuaries.
- In the rest of the oceans, establish strict bans on driftnets and bottom trawling.
- Ban disposable plastic bags for retail purchases. Phase our plastic beverage containers in favor of a refillable bottle infrastructure.
- Reconstitute the World Bank to serve ecological healing rather than development. start by declaring the Amazon and Congo rainforests global treasures, purchasing the external debt of countries whwere the rainforests grow, and canceling the debt at a rate equivalent to the potential income from now-banned logging, mining, and drilling in those areas.
- Promote afforestation and reforestation projectgs globally with an emphasis on ecologically appropriate native species.
- Establish an "eco-corps" to address youth unemployment and restore ecological health by planting trees, building water retention features on public land, deconstructing dams, etc.
- Change building codes, sanitation codes, and zoning regulations to allow higher density development, tiny homes, composting toilets, aquaculture wastewater treatment, etc. Nullify all land use covenants that prohibit vegetable gardens.
- Reintroduce and protect keystone species such as (in North America) beavers, wolves, and cougars.
- Carry out water restoration projects worldwide through water retention landscapes (swales, ponds, check dams, etc.), regenerative grazing and horticulture, and the strategic removal of dams, canals, and levees.
- Relocalize the food system and promote economic localization generally, first by nullifying free trade treaties and replacing them with "fair trade treaties" that protect local economic sovereignty.
- Institute a negative-interest financial system through international agreement to impose liquidity fees on bank reserves, along with complementary measures such as Georgist land taxes and other anti-speculative taxes.
- Apply pollution taxes to make companies internalize the social and ecological costs of toxic waste, radioactive waste, air pollution, and water pollution.
- Impose a deposit system for most manufactured goods so that manufacturers have an incentive to create durable, repairable products with easily recoverable materials.
- Turn away from pesticides.
WEBSITES WORTH CHECKING
1. THE WORLD CLIMATE CLOCK. The deadline for achieving zero emissions, and the percent of the world's energy coming from renewables.
2. https://www.consciousevolution.co.uk/
3. https://www.kosmosjournal.org/kj_article/an-evolutionary-transition-is-coming-are-you-ready/
4. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-theory-consciousness.html
2. https://www.consciousevolution.co.uk/
3. https://www.kosmosjournal.org/kj_article/an-evolutionary-transition-is-coming-are-you-ready/
4. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-theory-consciousness.html
FUTURE PROJECTS WHERE YOU CAN HELP
1. Let's create a Study Guide that can be used by individuals and/or groups of people.