We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Ecologically Sustainable Development

Click here to access article by Peter Lach-Newinsky (Australian) from his blog memengineering.
Around the time of the UN Rio Conference in 1992 the official four criteria for what was then called ‘Ecologically Sustainable Development’ (ESD) were defined as:
1. Maintaining ecological integrity
2. Intergenerational equity
3. Internalising ecological and social costs
4. The Precautionary Principle
The author then explains how each of these principles are in direct contradiction to capitalism. Hence, they were ignored. For the One Percents of the world, whenever they must choose between the planet and capitalism, the latter always wins. That is simply because most One Percents are addicts. They are drunk on the power and wealth that imbibing the substance of capitalism creates for them.