People For A Renewed Society

Carlos Rymer

Summer, 2007

People for A Renewed Society1: A Proposed Vision Background The climate movement is growing quickly in the United States and elsewhere. Youth are leading the way through the Campus Climate Challenge, citizens have spoken through Step It Up 2007, the labor community is demanding action through the Apollo Alliance, farmers are embracing clean energy with their 25 x 25 challenge, the religious community has called for firm action to protect the planet from disruptive climate change, the clean energy industry has been working hard at improving technologies, and many other communities have risen to the climate crisis to demand deep and quick cuts in global warming pollution. Later this year, there will be climate marches in three states, a national convergence of youth in Washington, D.C., and many other actions calling for strong federal action, especially from presidential candidates who will work to replace the current administration. Discussions at the governmental level still treat the growing climate and broader environmental crises as external issues that are critical but do not require substantial changes to society (economically, politically, and culturally). Today, the global community is clearly not on a good track. The climate crisis is just the most noticeable symptom of how bad we’re doing. Of course, unless we cut emissions globally as soon as possible, we may not have a chance of correcting any other problem. But what is meant by “not on a good track”? It’s more than just the environmental crisis. It’s how government is controlled today because there are no incentives for businesses to be separate from government; it’s how people’s health is declining everywhere (growing obesity, diseases, etc.); it’s how youth are being indoctrinated by a culture that promotes conflict; it’s how poverty and income inequality are actually growing; and it’s how all natural stocks are on a downward trend. So, on the heels of a growing climate movement that will ensure something is done about the climate crisis, we have an opportunity to change all this, to attach all these issues to the broader flaws in our political2 and economic3 systems. The climate crisis involves energy, 1

Proposed name. Narrow political system, designed centuries ago and not appropriate for today’s society, which has so many different communities (workers, farmers, environmentalists, scientists, women, youth, economists, engineers, businesspeople, etc.). 3 Our economic system is based on markets that are exclusive of social and natural capital, which clearly have enormous value. As a result, the future has no value to us under the current system. 2

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Summer, 2007

businesses, poverty, loss of natural resources, health, and many more components and symptoms of our worsening society. Cleary, solving it alone will solve most of the problems connected to energy, such as agriculture, air pollution, and perhaps even poverty, and will undoubtedly present a huge economic opportunity. But it won’t address many other problems. We need to embrace a new vision that frames the climate crisis as an opportunity to address the inherent flaws in our government structure and our form of capitalism. Building a Model in ew Jersey or Anywhere The current climate movement is too focused on its mission to ensure that appropriate leaders get elected to pass legislation to begin the task of rapidly reducing global warming pollution. Other movements, such as the anti-war and the human rights movements, are also focused on their goals. Unfortunately, it is unlikely any of these will make the inherent connections across issues and embrace a vision of systemic changes that connects all the issues to the flaws in our political and economic systems. That is, unless a successful model is in place somewhere to serve as an example of what this kind of vision can achieve. We need to build this kind of model in our state if we want others to embrace this kind of vision. We need to find out whether it can work and whether it truly is the best way to deal with the climate crisis and the host of other problems our nation and the rest of the world have. There have been attempts to cross-connect issues and different communities, but none has developed a vision simple and attractive enough in our state so as to really make clear that our problems are major symptoms of flawed politics and economics. We don’t have problems because they somehow happened and we can’t deal with them. At the level of sophistication and progress at which society is today, we really are capable of dealing with all these problems all at once; we know that. In order to build this model, we need to collectively agree to establish an organization that will: 1. Promote this vision. 2. Identify and attract the different movements in our state. 3. Make the message behind our vision clear through the media.

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Summer, 2007

4. Run campaigns4 in municipalities, schools, businesses, and other places to get some version of our 8-Point Plan implemented or endorsed. 5. Propose state legislation in the form of a package – one that will fix the economic and political flaws (this may defy federal laws, but we need to find a way to do it; it will also see a lot of opposition due to many reasons). Motivation The Climate Crisis: Despite the clarity on the seriousness about the climate crisis, there is still significant inertia to change on the part of political leaders. Recent studies show that IPCC predictions are low. For example, Arctic summer ice melting predictions were 30 years ahead of reality. The North Pole will be completely gone during the summers of the 2020’s. Similarly, IPCC didn’t include the dynamics of the ice sheets. Top scientists indicate that these (West Antarctica and Greenland) have begun to disintegrate, and that if they melt, sea level globally would rise 14 meters. In addition, with a 0.8C increase above pre-industrial levels, Australia is seeing a drought never seen, Africa is being increasingly desertified, severe weather events are becoming more common, glaciers are retreating almost everywhere, and poverty is being exacerbated by agricultural loss due to global warming. In spite of these warnings, governments are failing to react appropriately. The current science indicates that in order to prevent the 2C threshold, we must reduce global emissions 60% by 2030. More recent studies indicate that the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere should be no more than 350 ppm. Yet the boldest plans call for 50% cuts by 2050. What isn’t noted is that the 60% by 2030 goal gives us a 50% chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change. Catastrophic here means widespread migration, a spread of infectious diseases, loss of forest, soil, and water resources, destructive storms, loss of agriculture, 14-meter sea-level rise (that will destroy many cities and economies), increased conflicts, and possibly a large reduction in the human population. It seems that we are trying to manage the unsustainable.

The Politics: Many governments make decisions that are motivated by the calls for special interests to keep the status quo of making profit, as if making profit can only be done by degrading social and natural capital. Despite widespread support for significantly higher environmental protection, universal health care, an end to wars, the eradication of poverty, better 4

We will need one strong, visionary name for the state-wide campaign.

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Summer, 2007

civil rights, and other calls of society, political leaders stay away from these goals. Not only are our politicians today put in place by special interests, but our people are largely indoctrinated by the media to either ignore these calls or support them mildly. Most people are inactive because they don’t have any incentive to be active; they don’t believe they are being affected enough to do anything about anything. A sustainable society cannot have a majority that is deliberately made negligent by its political system.

The Economics: The world standard for economic status currently is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), designed and instituted about a century ago. Unfortunately, like our governance structure, this indicator has been believed to be perfect since it was instituted. As a result, political leaders may claim to have allowed for strong economic growth while we are largely depleting the biosphere’s capacity to produce goods and services, our human capital is being degraded, and our future is being fully compromised for present profits. The GDP does not take into account that global warming, diseases, crime, poverty, destruction, war, and other issues are negative aspects of society, and that society as a whole does not want them. As a result, there are incentives to degrade natural and social stocks to make up for economic stocks. A sustainable society needs to make sure that any measure of progress includes environmental and social performance as well. The Rest: The war in Iraq is a war for oil and business. Global poverty, in many cases, is caused by political decisions to promote profits. The environmental crisis is another sacrifice for profit and power, in this case of the foundations that build our very economy (natural and social capital). Diseases are becoming very widespread, especially those that result from a developed, careless society, such as cancer, obesity, and diseases that affect the nervous system. Income and racial inequality add to the score of problems largely resulting from flaws in our political and economic systems. One clear point, however, is that many of these things are similar to the same problems we’ve had in the past. It seems that we have been approaching them as single, separate issues that can be fixed under the current system. It also seems that as we fix problems, new ones emerge. And as a result, we have to continue battling our governance system to correct the problems we see and that they ignore because they can’t afford to address. Clearly, if we are to avoid the emergence of newer problems in the future and our continued clash with our

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Summer, 2007

governance system, we ought to change governance and economics altogether by framing our different issues as symptoms of the flaws found in these. We can’t keep dealing with separate problems as if their only solution is action without significant, continuous improvement to what runs our society: governance and economics.

Vision With growing widespread recognition of local, regional, and global problems, in particular the environmental crisis, poverty, conflicts, and health, we must frame our relevant issues in terms of consequences of flawed economic and political systems that are exclusive of highly important components that, if placed into these systems, would likely ensure that global progress is sustainable, just, and inclusive. Fixing these flaws in full will ensure influence-free decisionmaking, global financial, technical, and informative collaboration, and long-term sustainability. 8-Point Plan Each campaign will be run under the proposed vision, and will call for a set of actions to address political and economic flaws. Campaigns will likely be modified to allow for flexibility for decision-makers and local realities, but they will generally have points along the following goals (must be changed where appropriate): 1. Reduce global warming pollution 90% below 1990 levels by the year 2030 or earlier. 2. Reduce the ecological footprint to that which the Earth can sustain or the maximum possible in the locality by the year 2030 (see WWF). 3. Develop an economic indicator to measure optimal economic, environmental, and social performance. 4. Fully price natural and human capital as part of local markets, shifting taxes so as to ensure the economically disadvantaged are not affected. 5. Change the current political/decision-making system by law to ensure that external influences are eliminated. 6. Ensure that environmentally and socially degrading businesses do not lose current market share by subsidizing them to change in order to do what is environmentally and socially required while maintaining a fairly competitive market.

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Summer, 2007

7. Fully fund the most innovative ideas and developments about how to reach sustainability (meaning sustainable economic, environmental, and social performance). 8. Change governance structure so as to ensure that different communities within an entity (school, business, municipality, etc.) have representatives that contribute to decisionmaking. Regional Units The organization would be voluntarily staffed (unless funds for full-time staff appear), and would be represented regionally throughout the state. Each regional unit would be led by the different communities in that region, including campus movements, local movements, businesses, and even local politicians. The communities would agree to either run campaigns with different plans (under the same vision) or run a regional campaign to get all entities to endorse the vision and approve some kind of plan that will fully or partially address economic and political flaws. It is suggested that the organization has 8 regional units, each representing 5 districts. The regional units would converge annually to present progress, train new members, propose changes to anything about the organization, and share information and ideas. Each regional unit would have to report to the main organizational staff tri-monthly, and would be supervised with the following regional staff (all voluntary initially): •

Regional Coordinators: These individuals would be in charge of coordinating all efforts within a region and reporting to the main organizational staff.

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District Coordinators: These individuals would be in charge of coordinating all efforts within a district in collaboration with regional coordinators, and would report to regional coordinators.

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Local Coordinators: These would have the same job as the district coordinator, but locally.

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Campaign Coordinators: These would lead the specific campaigns in schools, municipalities, businesses, or other places where appropriate.

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Regional, District, and Local Assistants/Secretaries/Treasurers/etc: These would be regionally or locally designed and appointed.

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Regional Webmasters: Would work with the main webmaster to update the website on regional progress and announcements.

Carlos Rymer

Summer, 2007

Main Staff The organization would have a main staff that would collaborate with regional units and all members of the organization to advance the main vision. The main staff would also create and distribute resources, make important announcements, and eventually work to push state legislation that will embrace the vision. All staff will be elected at the state convergence (though in the meantime there will be key coordinators). A sample main staff would be as follows: •

Coordinator(s): Would be in charge of coordinating organizational work across all levels.

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Community Coordinator(s): Would be in charge of coordinating a specific set of communities (i.e. movements or people)

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Media Coordinator(s): Would be in charge of coordinating media work.

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Webmaster(s): Would be in charge of maintaining main website.

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Coordinating Assistant(s): Would be in charge of assisting in all main staff efforts.

Proposed State Convergence The organization will be formally announced and established at a state convergence. This will be a place to clarify the vision to members, train members about campaign skills, and mutually endorse the vision and the launch of the statewide campaign. I propose that the convergence occurs on January 5-7, 2008, unless there is support for an earlier date. I also propose that, beginning in late August, we begin weekly or bi-weekly statewide or regional conference calls to begin discussing the convergence and the organization. To Do Right Away Beginning as soon as possible this Summer, we should do the following: •

Choose a temporary name.

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Create a Google group list to discuss this proposal.

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Invite people within our networks to the emerging organization.

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Explain the vision and the proposal to anybody invited.

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Create a website.

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Frame our messages well so that they capture the vision and are clear and appealing.

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Begin planning the state convergence and needed work for Fall, 2007.

ote About Author: The author, Carlos Rymer, is a student at Cornell University and a native from New Jersey (of Dominican ethnicity). He co-led the New Jersey Climate March and the

Carlos Rymer

Summer, 2007

recent Global Warming Lobby Day in Trenton. He currently works with the Sierra Student Coalition, the New Jersey Climate March Team, and the Energy Action Coalition. He can be contacted at [email protected] or 551-556-0189 (cellphone number until June 1st).