In the face of an "absolutely unprecedented emergency", say the 18 past winners of the Blue Planet prize – the unofficial Nobel for the environment – society has "no choice but to take dramatic action to avert a collapse of civilisation. Either we will change our ways and build an entirely new kind of global society, or they will be changed for us".I could not agree more with this statement and all the recommended in the paper authored by Paul Ehrlich et al and listed in this article. The only hitch is that Vidal, the author in the liberal Guardian, as well as the scientists fail to see the contradictions between the recommendations and the imperatives of the capitalist system.
An "entirely new kind of global society" must replace the dominant system of capitalism that rules the present world. The Occupiers, the Squares activists, and much of the 99 Percent know this. But it is the system of the One Percent, their armies, their police, their media, the propagandists and indoctrinated educators they employ everywhere in society, which gives this class so much wealth and power, who stand in the way of implementing such recommendations, who stand in the way of progress toward a planet that can sustain human and many other life forms.