THE NEXT MAJOR STEP

The following OPED article was about to be submitted to the NY Times when I discovered WonderVoice "Op-Ed Submissions made easy". It has been now been submitted with a couple of clicks to over 500 publications in the USA and abroad: exactly the audience for this type of challenge of integrating both the social and ecological financing accounting systems on the ides of October 08 when the social financial system seems to be improved, particularly in Britain.

Consider this post of a length of about 1000 words one of the PILLAR POSTS of this blog!!!

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

THE NEXT MAJOR STEP

While leaders in both Washington and Paris during the weekend of October 12 were busily engaged to bring some stability into the global financial system, some four dozen New York City residents were busily engaged to fuse the integrated social and ecological values of the Earth Charter into the life of the City and its climate crisis challenge.

While the financial discussions will have led to some success, particularly in Britain where the citizens became in control of their banking system, the New York City discussions resulted in The New York City Earth Charter Declaration on the Climate Crisis and its associated organization The New York City Earth Charter Alliance.

How are these two very different discussions related and how can the NYC one show what next major step is to be taking by the leaders in government, business and civil society in the interest of people and planet or the community of life?

The two discussions are related because the financial system not only deals with issues of social finance—financial relations of humans with humans—but also of ecological finance—relations of humans with Earth. We not only have financial debts between nations, but also ecological debts between nations. We not only have financial creditors, we also have ecological creditors. As a matter of fact, generally speaking, the nations in the global South are financial debtors, and ecological creditors, while nations in the global North are financial creditors and ecological debtors.

In the big scheme of things, i.e. the sustainability of the planet and her community of life upon which all human life and human communities depend, the present and ever deepening climate crisis overshadows all human financial activities and discussions. Thus, in any globally sustainable financial system an integration of both the social and ecological financial systems has to take place.

How can such integrated financial system with a common currency which might be called terra, Latin for Earth, come about? This is the next major step to be taken by humanity to assure a healthy planet, a healthy community of life, a health human community.

The greatest obstacle in taking this major step is humanity’s frame of mind where humans are still placed in the center of things. This anthropocentric worldview is to be transformed into a biocentric worldview where the community of life or life—bios—is placed in the center of things. Once such transformation takes place not only in the leaders of government, business and civil society, but in a critical number of humans, the stage is set to devise such new integrated financial systems.
The good news is that humanity is building a biocentric value system that places great stock on the integration of social and ecological values. In March of 2000 a benchmark a charter was adopted that was the outcome of 5 years intense discussions in all continents, by all social groups. This people’s covenant is called the Earth Charter. (Because many people believe that this charter is environmental charter on account of the term Earth, I prefer to call it the Community of Life Charter.) This process was set in motion by the Earth Council founded by the 1992 Earth Summit Secretary General Maurice Strong, Mikhail Gorbachev and the Dutch premier Ruud Luubers.

It is this Earth or Community of Life Charter that was taken in the NYC discussions above as our guiding principle in dealing with the climate crisis and resulted in The New York City Earth Charter Declaration on the Climate Crisis and its associated The New York City Earth Charter Alliance with its dozen Earth Charter Task Forces.

It is the integrated social and ecological values of this Earth Charter can also remove the greatest obstacle to taking the next step of an integrated financial system. This value system has the same significance for the 21st century, as had the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the 20th century, the Rights of Man and Citizen in 18th century France and the Magna Carta in 13th century Britain.

It is biocentric value system that is to inform and guide humanity’s progress towards social, economic and ecological sustainability. It is not only the “foresight that science can provide” in humanity’s sustainability revolution which William Ruckelshaus considers the third revolution after the agricultural and industrial revolutions, it is also humanity’s values development over the centuries, which are not necessarily religious values.

Humanity cannot take this “next major step” which is part of that sustainability revolution unless it gives priority to principles over methods. It is to heed the wise words of one of the greatest American thinkers in the 19th century who stated:
“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man, who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Frans C. Verhagen, M.Div., M.I.A., Ph.D. is a sustainability sociologist with Earth and Peace Education Associates International (EPE) who recently organized an Earth Charter summit in New York City about the climate crisis with world famous climatologist James Hansen as one of the two keynoters.

Contact information: www.globalepe.org. gaia1@rcn.com; 718 275-3932(voice and fax); 917 617 6217 (cell)