My Vision For A Better World

I have been called a "Global Utopian" and a member of an audience once said I was trying to obtain Nirvana.

My goal is NOT to create a perfect world. All I want to do is promote long-term sustainability. I want to keep us from destroying ourselves through violence and environmental destruction. To obtain this goal we must not only change our government laws and policies, but we must also change the way we think. We as humans must reinvent ourselves and create a new attitude.

So, what is my dream?

• I envision a United Earth where there is absolute free movement and free trade. I would like to see the European Union model slowly expanded to encompass the Planet.

• I envision a stable human population. Flattening the human growth curve would at least give us a fighting chance at addressing our worse environmental and social ills. I believe that the population explosion is a root cause in problems ranging from global climate change to terrorism.

• I envision a society that lives sustainably. Rather than harming the World, each generation should strive to leave the Earth in better shape than they found it.

• I envision a human race that lives in harmony with nature, rather than trying to constantly exploit it for short-term gain.

The Challenges...

• Now reaching a sustainable and peaceful world is going to be a great challenge of the next few generations. The great problem is that our economy is based on infinite growth and the Planet we live on is finite. This means we are trying to do the impossible by growing our economy but with the same resources. Eventually, such a flawed economic model will collapse, which will result in much suffering for millions of humans. For the Earth, the "Infinite Growth" model is especially bad because as the world economy and population continue to grow, there will be increased pressure to exploit, rape, and pillage what's left of the natural world. Screw our children and future generations — we must get everything we can now because poor people need jobs and rich people need yachts.

• Another great challenge is addressing our one-sided "ethics" toward life. In the late 1800s we conquered many childhood diseases, and this is the main factor that sent our world population soaring. At the same time, we are now extending life expectancy. Now we face a double whammy — more people are surviving infancy and plus living longer. This is a good thing, but all the "good" can actually contribute to our demise. As more people exploit and deteriorate the environment, the health of the biosphere decreases and then the health of humans decrease. Then the medical establishment pumps us full of drugs to counteract the asthma, cancer, and all the other diseases related to our polluted and poisoned world. So, for example, all the advances we make against cancer are set back by our exposure to all the man-made toxins that CAUSE cancer.

But back to my point: There is a lot of screaming about "sanctity" of life, yet corporate polluters and their minions in government make decisions every day that are killing us, all in the name of profits.

An abortion is considered "murder" and a "sin," yet it becomes a news novelty when a fertility doctor screws up and a woman has premature quintuplets. My question in this case is: Who is the real sinner? Humans in terminal agony wish to take their own lives, but we say that euthanasia is a "sin," so these individuals are kept on life support, running up incredible bills, at the same time that medical insurance is becoming unaffordable for small businesses and millions of Americans. Again, I ask: Who is the real "sinner?"

It seems that our relationship with life and death has changed dramatically in the last century, yet our religious and "moral" values have yet to catch up. We now seem to value life at all costs in the short-term, even if means destroying it in the long-term.

• The last challenge to a sustainable world is the problem with social security. People are living much longer, often kept alive with handfuls of drugs. As we stabilize our population, a smaller pool of workers will be supporting a huge group of retired persons. Eventually, this bubble in the growth curve will even out, but in the mean time we have some difficult years ahead. I have no answer here except that governments will be forced to make hard decisions, such as higher retirement ages and reduced benefits.


For seven years I've organized forums, passed out literature at tabling events, and have given dozens of presentations. When I first became a population activist I thought the light bulb would just come on in people and a domino effect would begin. I mean, hell, it makes so much sense to me. But what I've found is that swimming against the tide of Mother Culture is exhausting. All of us are on a runaway train, and trying to stop it is harder than I imagined. But I remain undaunted. What I've just realized in the past few weeks is that what I believe in is ... well ... I believe in people. And I believe they will ultimately do the right thing.