Leaders of 20 nations meet this weekend in Washington, united in their discomfort with their position in the world, their victim status and their common sense that something else is possible.
Together they represent:
- 100% of the responsibility
- 90% of world industry
- 80% of world economic output
- 70% of the world’s population
- 60% of the world’s land mass
- 50% of the world’s resources
- 40% of the world’s ethno-bio-diversity
- 30% of the world’s AIDS population
- 20% of the world’s good intentions
- 10% of the world’s good ideas
Together, they will produce 0% of the answers and actions capable of leading us all to a sustainable, peaceful prosperity.
On the surface their desires are simple, they want to live long and prosper. They understand in their guts that it would be fair if they could just chop wood and carry water to make ends meet, and have a decent chance at pursuing happiness. Underneath, their goals and ambitions are complicated by a vision tinted by separateness, hearing muffled by unholistic understanding and feeling anesthetized by their knowledge of their own unrepresentativeness.
The features of a group that could deliver solutions would be
- wholesome representation (integration)
- common purpose, process and practice (intention)
- holistic world view (inspiration)
This is a good test run because it represents exactly the kind of coordinated decision-making and action planning that is going to be necessary if we are going to change course from the fate looming over the world in the coming decades, towards our destiny of sustainable peace and prosperity. Achieving the challenging changes that will be required to avert environmental and social degradation, will require inspiration integrated with intention, that stimulates action across the world.
What the G20 leaders could do to start in the right direction:
- agree to form trans territorial alliances that will allow representatives at the next meeting to represent 100% of the worlds population
- recognize that national currencies are no longer useful in a globalized economy and yet we are not ready to adopt a global currency, so there must be consolidation towards trans territorial currency units, each managed by an independent central bank
- define the role of a central bank as an apolitical organization charged with responsibility for management of the money supply, and therefore banking regulation, interest rates and value stability
- resolve to prioritize their own humanitarian support systems so that coordinated action in the future is about moving forward, not rescuing from past miss steps
- stimulate microeconomic activity by reforming their tax systems, establishing micro marketplaces, deploying information access networks and implementing basic social security systems
- advance the Doha round of trade talks by focusing on these two factors:
- establish the right to food sovereignty
- remove international recognition of biogenetic patents
- promote sustainable self-sufficiency
- ban the export of subsidized agricultural products to stop rich subsidizing blocks contorting the real market for food; if the need is humantarian then give it away
- establish a carbon tax framework
- establish unified rates of taxation
- agree standards governing the use of funds raised from carbon taxes
- establish the right to food sovereignty
Standards of LIFE 