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Gaia United
This wiki is a stepping-stone template for GaiaUnited.org. Its purpose it to spread awareness and invite critique to improve GaiaUnited in its infancy.
Gaia United Is
Open minds in open conversation about practical ways to achieve a healthy, sustainable and enjoyable future for all.
Love is the reason
Dreams are our guide
Knowledge and Wisdom are the tools
Collective will is the power
United we co-create our future
Gaia United.org is a platform to host discussion about how to solve the global social, economic, and environmental crisis. It is our belief that the best tools for change are awareness and effective communication. Gaia United.com provides both of these, making it an excellent method of approaching our problem. Please join us in vibrant discussion on how to improve our shared vision and make it a reality.
Thank you for your time, thought and passion.
Yours truly and sincerely, Gaian Povu
Manifesto summary
Gaia United is a method of approach to solving the majority of the problems in our world. It is an attempt at having a good conversation about how to cooperate with others and manage the Earth’s resources to ensure a healthy biosphere whilst avoiding the challenge of communication between different languages and cultures. The idea is that if we live within a reasonable global ecological footprint, then our world will be healthy. If we agree to divide that footprint among everyone equally, then we may all have an equal right to resources and the freedom to live in the manner of our own choosing. Limiting ourselves to an annual energetic budget forces us to prioritize our needs over our wants, and to see how we can make compromises to get the most out of what we have. By using a global communication system to manage the ‘vote’, people may participate whilst using their own language in their own time. By sharing human knowledge and applying it in a method known as ‘Sociocyberneering’, we can pragmatically determine the most efficient and appropriate methods for solving problems without being retarded by profit driven economic systems and the red tape of liability and bureaucracy that comes with it. The detailed structure of Gaia United is presented in the short manifesto: ‘Gaia United, a pragmatic path to a healthy future,’ and is available on this website under the ‘manifesto’ link. The manifesto is equipped with a streamlined ‘comment and edit’ system that allows members to take an active role in refining our vision. Once the majority of humanity has joined Gaia United, then the vision it holds will stabilize into the global consensus. Only then, when the vast majority of humanity has a clear vision of the sustainable future that it wants, can we begin to shed the current economic system that keeps us alive by following the step by step transition plan that we have cocreated and agreed to. Like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, the whole being must be in harmony and ready for the change before the metamorphosis can begin. When we are through we will not be stagnant, but we will have a global network of self-sufficient, free individuals who can take advantage of their global connections to utilize the resources they need to live the lives of their dreams.
The Problem:
We live in a system where those who control the means of production get rich off the work of those who are dependant on selling their labour for survival. So long as suffering is an inherent part of the system, the system cannot be stable.
No matter where you live, if you wish to participate in international trade, you must adhere to the rules of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization. These institutions uphold neoliberal economic policies. These policies favour an unregulated market as the best solution to any problem. The concept of free market economics is based on the premise that all participants are rational, free agents. Human beings are emotional creatures, and, when one does not own the means of producing one’s own livelihood, then one is not a free agent – as is the case with the vast majority of humanity.
We are currently facing a global crisis. Our planet is polluted and damaged, and our biosphere is being degraded at ever increasing rates of intensity. Currently our only means of attempting to solve our problems – to clean up our air and water, to re-grow our forests, to curb species extinction and stop disease epidemics, and starvation- is by working within the resource management framework outlined by the W.B., I.M.F. and W.T.O..
When we consider that our system is not designed around the people that live in it, and that it severely limits our capacity to act, and that it is one that favours the spoils of war and destruction over altruism and long term ecological health, it should be clear that our system is out of date, is inappropriate and needs to be replaced.
The Solution:
Gaia United is a Non-Governmental-Organization with the mandate to create a viable path for all people to live a healthy, sustainable and enjoyable life in the style of their own choosing. It is founded on the principle that if we all agree to live within the limits of our biosphere, share our collective knowledge and wisdom, and respect the differences in our cultures and traditions, we can create a diverse, beautiful and sustainable world.
We accept our present situation as the natural course of history, but refuse to knowingly continue on a path that is obviously incapable of success.
We do not fight against the current system; we work together to co-create a better one.
Our detailed vision and action plan is called ‘Gaia United: a pragmatic path to a healthy future’.
Join us on GaiaUnited.org to take part in improving and implementing our plan for a better future.
The plan so far:
Gaia United: a pragmatic path to a healthy future, is a manifesto in two parts.
Part One outlines the vision – the ‘wouldn’t it be nice ‘if’’, along with the assumptions that would have to be true before such a vision could come true, why they aren’t true yet, and why they might be true in the near future. Part Two outlines a five-fold action-plan to get the vision of Part One out to the masses and to educate them about our options for survival.
In a nutshell, the core premise is that before anyone can enjoy anything in this physical world, they must first be alive in order to experience it. It follows then, that for anyone to be happy, we need to preserve the integrity of our biosphere so that we can stay alive and so that future generations may live.
To ensure that we maintain a healthy biosphere in the long run, we must live within the bio-capacity budget, or the carrying capacity of our planet. One way to measure this budget is with ecological footprints, using units called arable hectares. One arable hectare is the amount of energy that can be stored in the biomass produced on a plot of land 100 meters by 100 meters, in a hypothetically perfect climate, with perfect soil. Thus, the energy produced in the average hectare of desert is far less than an arable hectare. The great thing about this unit of measurement is that it is so adaptable. One could measure the amount of food a population requires in terms of arable hectares, and one could also represent the ecological impact of a coal-powered power plant in the same terms. This means that as a unit of measurement, it is a very useful one.
At the current carrying capacity of the Earth, at the current human population, we consume an average of 2.5 arable hectares per person. This exceeds our biocapacity of 1.8 arable hectares per person. We can exceed carrying capacity today because we are using fossil fuels and nuclear power. In fact, of actual biocapacity, we currently use only about 40%. If however, we attempted to switch all our cars and power plants over to bio-fuels (fuels made from agricultural products), we would not be able to grow enough corn or sugar cane to meet our needs. Even using every life-form on the planet as a commodity, we would still be forced to reduce our consumption by roughly a third of its current level.
What Gaia United advocates is that we all agree to leave a portion of the planet to wilderness (the exact portion to be determined by direct democratic vote), and then equally divide the rest up among all humanity. Each of us would then ‘vote’ with our ecological footprint. Essentially, it would be a direct democracy where we each get an equal say in what industries exist and in what proportions. All government and economic systems necessary to make use of those industries can then arise naturally afterwards, but no matter how wealthy one might become, one could never ‘buy’ land, or ‘earn’ the right to create an industry that was not supported by an adequate ecological footprint budget.
This idea may seem very complicated at first, but one you have had a chance to consider the online voting process, you may find that it is actually quite fun, liberating and personally empowering.
This system also provides incredible flexibility; for if one wished to live in a traditional tribal manner in the Amazonian rainforest or the Kalahari Desert or the Australian outback, one could easily see how large of an area of land one’s tribe would have the right to roam and make use of. Furthermore, if we consider that one arable hectare is enough to feed a family of 10 at a subsistence level, then each individual would have access to far more energy and area than he or she would need. In such instances, there need be no interaction between these tribes and the rest of the world, outside of the brief moment each tribe member takes to say “I wish to live my way”.
There is one major challenge to this idea, which is this: Currently, the average person in Afghanistan consumes 0.2 arable hectares, whilst the average person in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, consumes 9.86 arable hectares. This outlines the disparity in our world with a 50 to 1 difference in consumption, and raises an alarm. For people living below the one arable hectare mark, which is a large portion of our global population, they would be excited to adopt a system that gave each of them the right to more energy. However, convincing those in the affluent world to reduce consumption dramatically – for some by 90%, is a major challenge. Gaia United aims to alleviate that challenge by pointing out that for one, our current infrastructure and way of life is ridiculously inefficient, excessiveness aside, and that we have had for decades, the technology and knowledge required to create vastly superior cities with better qualities of life, whilst still maintaining a sustainable ecological footprint; by following a method of design known as ‘Sociocyberneering’.
The fine details of the decision making process being determined later, a rough model is described in the manifesto with an example ‘vote’ included. Essentially it would involve everyone filling out a preference and priority form online, in their own language. Open source computer programs would then use the latest real world data on available resources and combine it with a best-fit model of everyone’s choices. The result would be a realistically achievable vision of a sustainable future, a vision cocreated equally by everyone. The program would then also provide multiple transition scenarios of explicitly how to get from today’s state of affairs to that vision, with reasonable margins of error. If we like the vision then we may choose which path to take to get to it. If we don’t like it, or when we change our minds about some of the things we want, then we can change our vote until we find a vision we do like. This way, no matter what language you choose to speak or how your culture expresses itself, so long as it is done within a reasonable ecological impact, then everyone else can also live freely and we don’t have to worry about destroying our planet.
Another major challenge to this idea is that until the vast majority of the world is online and decides to embrace Gaia United, we will not be able to implement our vision. The issue is that we can create a new, healthy, enjoyable world, but we cannot do it within our current economic system. Furthermore, we cannot just abandon our current economic system mid-stride. We need to transition from one system to the next in a well planned out, concerted manner; a manner that cannot be achieved if we do not all agree with what that plan should be. This is where the true power of Gaia United.org comes out, for the manifesto will be equipped with an online comment and edit option so that we may all take part in shaping our collective vision so that we may achieve content consensus before we decide to act.
We hope you have many questions about what you have just considered, and we hope you will take the time to find the answers by reading our in-depth, thoroughly researched and well referenced manifesto, ‘Gaia United: a pragmatic path to a healthy future’.
We look forward to sharing the future with you.
Sincerely,
Gaian Povu
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