PROPOSAL TO THE WORLD
Transition to a Sustainable Civilisation
We, global citizens for peace,
representatives of non governmental, national and international organisations and men and women of goodwill devoted to peace and the prevention of global ecological catastrophe appeal to the Governments of The World and The United Nations and the rest of humankind with the following declaration and concerns for the Establishment of
Global Ministries for peace
Authors: Dr. Michael Ellis and Dr. Pavel Kasyanov
Humankind has reached a state of development in which old modes of thinking and behaving threaten to destroy our civilization
HEADINGS:
THE CRISIS OF VALUES AND ATTITUDES ON THE PLANET
BASIS FOR ACTION - THE EARTH IN BALANCE
The main proposal of Global Citizens For Peace
The Diagnosis
The Genesis of Social, cultural and Environmental Problems
THE CRISIS OF VALUES AND ATTITUDES ON THE PLANET
Humankind has reached a state of development in which old modes of thinking and behaving threaten to destroy our planet. This is becoming patently obvious to people of all political and religious persuasions. We are living through a global crisis in which only a profound revolution can save us from total self-destruction. Those of us who are dedicated to the preservation of life must play a prominent part in this revolution, which calls for a substantial change in our manner of thinking.
On social, environmental and health fronts we are confronting a critical transition. We are facing the results of an epistemology which focuses on material and rational values, human supremacy and competition for domination. Will this transition be into chaos and destruction or will it be into the new paradigm based on spiritual, ecological connectedness and cooperation.
The Global Citizens For Peace aims to contribute towards this next great global step - The Final Frontier, acknowledging the common ground of humanity and its connectedness with all life.
Thomas Kuhn introduced the idea that science functions under the control of a paradigm. For centuries science has been guided by a paradigm based on the intellectual achievements of Newton and Descartes, who saw the world mechanistically and reductively, with its division of inside and outside, subject and object. This has been overturned by the work of Einstein and his theory of relativity, the atomic physicists and others who have discovered laws that don?¯t fit the old paradigm. The new paradigm which is emerging takes into account the observer as well as the thing observed, and the fact that the two cannot be separated. There cannot be objective knowledge without a knowing subject: what we see must be relative to and influenced by where we are and who we are.
In human affairs, objectivity on its own does not work because it contradicts what it means to be a human being. A human being is not an object. He or she is not only a thinking but a feeling person with emotions, values, hunches, intuitions, sensitivities which have a tremendous influence on what they do and how they perceive the world. He or she is both an individual, alone in their own private world, and also a member of a particular society; and, in turn, that society belongs to a wider community, the human family, with which every individual shares common experiences and aspirations and a common global environment.
Basis for Action
We have to re-evaluate ourselves as the prime cause of the problems we are facing, and rediscover the profound value inherent in every single human being. This is something that the United Nations conferences, as yet, have not really addressed.
The suggested process involves:
- Re-evaluate our position as the prime cause of the planetary problems we are facing, and continue to re-evaluate.
- To respect the inherent value in every single human being.
- To respect sacredness of life in all its forms, including humanity
- To create a planetary peace and ecological culture (i.e. a sustainable civilization)
- To create a healing culture involving an integrative medicine
- To positively evolve regarding issues of consumption and economy, via changes in consciousness, value systems, needs, and education with a view to sustainable human development.
- To understand the power of the human potential, including the power of the mind to devise appropriate technologies and enlightened strategies.
- To use communication technology and the media as a strategic vehicle to unite humanity for peace
- To integrate scientific disciplines and scientific knowledge with consciousness
- To create universal access to the world's knowledge and use innovative forms of education, which recapture the essence and heart of education for life.
- Economic empowerment of the developing world, by developed countries, to aid in all human development.as a prerequisite to the development of true civilisation
The Planetary Transnational Peace Culture
The biosphere is a unique culture, which is completely different from the specific characteristics of nations as it is a complex matrix of life where everything supports itself at the expense of everything else.
The Planetary Peace Culture
- is life affirming
- transcends national and regional barriers
- is based on the deepest values of humanity
- is the essence of human rights and existence
- speaks for a cosmic law which expresses the oneness of all humanity
- expresses no distinction between creeds and ideologies, cultures or races
- is an expression of a deep respect to the sacredness of all life
When we realise that human suffering in the developing world diminishes us in the developed world, in tangible and intangible ways, we are more likely to decide to help rather than hinder. But this realisation can only come through understanding the nature of human relationships. Once the intention is created on a heartfelt basis, and it is decided in our hearts that we wish to co-operate with each other, and nation with nation, then the problems of the world can be solved. By a wiser and more equitable distribution of medical and other resources and by putting the eco into economics, i.e. persuading governments that it makes economic as well as ecological sense to develop environmental protection programs, we can reverse the trend towards the ultimate destruction of our essential means for survival on our planet
Education, knowledge and wisdom are very powerful tools for the survival of humankind. The more thought we put into our survival, the more solutions we will get. An open dialogue is the key to our success because it addresses differences, difficulties and barriers, and creates co-operation
Although the media tend to sensationalize destruction, exploitation, greed and sexuality, there is a way in which the media can, in fact, exalt ecological culture, peace and the values associated with this.
"Ultimately, this Earth can be saved from mankind only if people are prepared to live with nature, rather than upon nature. We have been taught that this world, and all plants and creatures thereon, were created for man's use: that he was given dominion over all other forms of life and that he must go forth and multiply. It is now clear that if he follows that belief his extinction is inevitable. Therefore, his whole relationship with Earth, with nature, must change rapidly. But relationships between individuals or between man and his environment are intellectual and of the spirit, rather than of material gain or loss." - Sir Mark Oliphant (Father of Australian Science) - personal communication to Dr Michael Ellis
A substantially new manner of thinking is required integrating all sciences and creating a holistic approach which takes into account the inextricable relationship between life and all phenomena. Such a science needs to integrate scientific materialism and consciousness and requires a profound change in human values and attitudes.
"When I went to the Moon, I was as pragmatic a test pilot engineer and scientist as any one of my colleagues ... but there was another aspect to my experience during Apollo 14 ... The first thing that came to mind as I looked at Earth was its incredible beauty ... I knew that life in the Universe was not just an accident based on random processes. This knowledge came to me directly.... It was an experiential cognition. But still as real as the objective data upon which say the navigational programme was based.
Edgar Mitchell (Astronaut, supporter of The Centre)
The main proposal of Global Citizens For Peace is therefore:
To ask the UN, including especially UNEP, UNESCO and UNCSD and the governments of the world, to support ideas and proposals on developing and putting into practice The Global Ministries For Peace where Peace as an issue is given highest priority through the creation of a Department of Peace as part of each Government.
Such a Ministry in conjunction with informed people, Peace Makers and Organisations can develop a new informational and educational policy based on the new scientific and intellectual paradigm, to develop and establish new educational programs for different national, social and age groups. Such programs would be established under the aegis of the UN (directly or under UNEP & UNESCO) institutions, governments and industrial organisations. These proposals concern education, information policy and science based on the new way of thinking that we may prevent the potential global crisis. More details can be seen under ESTABLISHMENT OF DEPARTMENT OF PEACE AND NONVIOLENCE AUSTRALIA
The Diagnosis
Economic, Social and Political State of Affairs
Ten years after the Rio Earth Summit, we are still far from the prevention of a global ecological catastrophe and the creation of a solution to urgent ecological, social, economic and political problems which affect billions of people. No visible and substantial results have been achieved.
We currently live in a global political system, which has changed from the polarisation of USA vs USSR to a monopolar order completed after September 11th. The monopolar system is not sustainable by definition. The process which is known today as globalisation is a mono-polarisation. A genuine globalisation is the transformation of our globalised world to a cooperative, united, human family.
Our world faces a global threat ¨C the danger of ecological catastrophe, which threatens equally every human being, every nation and every social group. The contradictory interests of a multitude of cultures and nations often camouflage and confuse the problems we are facing, because the information is not available through the mass-media.
Macro Environmental Global Issues
The Global ecological threat is apparent in numerous known and unknown phenomena to the extent that we are on an extinction curve, more pronounced than at any time since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The world has been converted in an instant of time from a wild natural state to one in which human beings one of an estimated 10 million species of organisms are consuming, wasting, or diverting an estimated 45% of the total net biological productivity on land, and using more than half of the renewable fresh water. In a matter of a hundred years, we have altered substantially the characteristics of the land, the freshwaters of the Earth, and the seas. We are driving a major proportion of the species which are fundamental for our continued existence, to extinction.
Klaus Toephler, Director of the UN Environment program, Nairobi, Kenya in the United Nations Environmental Study 2002 Report states, ??the Planet is poised on a precipice, and time is running out for making tough, economic and political choices that can pull it back from disaster."
This report, made by contributions from more than 1,000 scientists associated with UNEP shows that within 30 years:
- 55% of the global population will suffer severe water shortages
- 11,000 plant and animal species will be dead or dying
- 30% of the biodiversity will be erased by the middle of the century
- There will be increased emissions of carbon dioxide doubling to 16 billion pounds per year since the 19th century.
The Military Industrial Complex
No threat is greater than the threat of nuclear war. There are still between 40,000-50,000 nuclear warheads in the world today ¨C enough to destroy 60 times the Earth?¯s population. In addition to India and Pakistan, 15-20 developing countries will have nuclear capability in the next 10 years.
For a fracture of arms spending, (over $1trillion dollars annually), sanitation and clean water could be supplied to all the deprived peoples of the world. Wide spread diseases could be prevented and schooling and medicine provided.
The global military complex which has emerged for the defense of nations and people has become more dangerous that the threat it should prevent. If only a fraction of the financial and scientific resources it consumes were used to prevent the potential ecological catastrophe a sustainable civilisation could be built.
The Medical System
The domination of the pharmaceutical industry in the health system ignores nutritional, environmental, preventative and lifestyle management of illness through health promotion. Due to inequities in global health care, a child dies of avoidable disease every three seconds. The global community faces morbidity from the growth of AIDS, a resurgence of other infectious diseases such as Hepatitis, and Malaria, particularly in the developing world.
The developed world is faced with cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes.
The Consumptive Society
Modern society with its excessive emphasis on commercial return, economic growth, wealth and material success, subordinates and distorts peoples minds, mentalities and ultimately, real needs. The people are victims of surrogate values and needs forced on them by informational and economic sub-systems of society.
Our survival has to be seen from on overview of planetary sustainability and transboundary environmental issues. The old system that says we have to dominate, cultivate fear, and exploit in order to survive, is no longer tenable.
A positive change in new world outlook requires the cultivation of genuine human values and the acknowledgement of the interconnectedness and interdependence between humans, the natural environment and the Universe. The cultivation of Self knowledge, self esteem and spiritual growth, would lead paradoxically to a reallocation of consumer resources, conservation of nature and new, more sustainable, technological and scientific advances.
A Global Crisis of Social Values
The global crisis is symptomatic of the inadequacies of our social values. Ethical and moral value systems have not evolved properly to keep up the balance with our growing material needs and technological inventiveness. We are living through a civilisation crisis in which only a profound social epiphany leading to a paradigmatic shift, unlike any other in history, can save us from total self destruction.
The environmental problems that we face are because humankind does not see itself as a species, whose role is as a subsystem of the biosphere. Humanity?¯s role is, in our opinion, to develop a deep understanding and wisdom based on our alignment with the Universal Laws and the co-evolution of human society with nature.
Our basic requirement is for ecological peace and health which means a complete shift of the paradigm involving science, education and health to a complete understanding of humanity and its relationship with the cosmos.
The Genesis of Social, cultural and Environmental Problems
The Loss of Values and the Loss of Dreams
The most underused and misused resource on the planet is the human mind. Although we may have finite natural, ecological resources, we have one infinite resource, which is the human mind and spirit. This may be the only resource which will save our planet.
The famous Russian scientist and Academician, Dr Vladimir Vernadsky in the first half of the 20th Century, saw the future of humanity linked to a model of reality called the Noosphere, which is a noetic science of consciousness and the world of inner experience. The noetic science, reappraises the nature of the human being and its relationship with the cosmos, integrating western science with eastern wisdom.
The root problem is that our social life and our economic and technological development is grounded in the old, but still predominant paradigm based on the intellectual achievements of Newton and Descartes, who saw the world mechanistically and reductively. This has been overturned by the work of Einstein who showed that the new paradigm is based on the relationship and connection with the thing observed. What we see must be relative and influenced by what we are, how we are and where we are. The old paradigm works well for mechanisms and technology, but does not work when we try and understand consciousness and psychosocial issues.
Tolstoy, in War and Peace, said "the highest wisdom has but one science, the science of the whole Cthe science explaining the whole of creation and man's placement."
The measures aimed at preventing ecological catastrophe and transition to sustainable development, whether it be technological, economic and or ecological, will be doomed to failure unless we free ourselves from the old scientific, intellectual paradigm.
In our printed and visual media we find sensationalism, and no integration of news or proper analysis, as news tends to serve political purposes . Our news media tends to create an erroneous picture of reality and draw people away from serious reflection. There is no public voice. Even in Universities there seems to be no integration between different specialties and information is narrowly focussed.
It is no wonder that our young people are worried and often angry. Their lives are changing, but they feel there is no future, as they feel there is nothing left. Our young people nowadays grow up so quickly due to the influence of the media, particularly television. The destructive influence of mass media on the developing psyche of children and teenagers has a deleterious effect on the creation of the integrated personality. Parental care is lost as parents go out to work under the increasingly stressful working environment. In this situation, they are not able to substitute money, property, social status, and material needs with the creation of values.
SOLUTIONS
TOTAL HEALING - A new peace consciousness - The New Paradigm Integrating Spirituality and Science
Einstein, 50 years ago, said "if humanity is to survive, there has to be a substantially new manner of thinking." He also said "A human being is part of the whole that we call the universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences in himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest a kind of optical illusion of his consciousness. This illusion is a prison for us restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for only the few people nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living beings and all of nature."
Vaclav Havel, echoed this statement when he became President of Czechoslovakia, stating that there needs to be a massive change in consciousness if humankind is to survive.
The root problem is that although we have made great leaps in technological science, and our physical knowledge has expanded, our development, is based on an inadequate understanding of the world generally, as well as of human beings and human life. Our science serves technological development, but it is incapable of predicting the consequences of the interaction of technology with nature.
The new vision of reality requires us to review our origins, the nature of evolution and the basic cause behind the need of healing for the individual, society and the global civilisation We have to reevaluate ourselves and our mode of development as the prime cause of the problems we are facing
In this respect, the new frontier is the new paradigm which is the new spirituality that encompasses a consciousness of oneness where all of life on Earth is connected and not separate.
The great Copernican revolution of the 21st Century is to realise the nature of universal consciousness spirit and soul.
Great inventions, great thought and creativity come from a higher order of intelligence and consciousness. Education, in our view should be based on this concept of human potential and the hidden abilities within all human beings. Particularly we would emphasise the power of the sub-conscious and conscious mind and the ability of the individual to find expression in a unique and whole way.
A new ethos implies a belief in universal abundance actualised by the creative potential of human minds. The key to this abundance is the creation of a new kind of non-polluting energy, which gives humanitythe opportunity to meet all of humanity's needs.
Our civilization is changing rapidly. As a result, we are entering the so called post-industrial or the information society.
The computer information and technological revolution now occurring should be accompanied by new ways that actualise the global mind and vastly enhance the creative potential and access to freedom for all humanity.
Now is the time that millions of people need to awaken to their sense of truth, freedom, co-operation and connectedness with all of life ¨C an expression of connected humanity.
What is needed, we believe, is a new science that can integrate the mind and its abilities with the whole phenomenon of human productiveness, technology and the environment. This means that we have integration instead of fragmentation into the various subjects that are taught in universities, which are differentiated and separated into various disciplines. This means that we produce graduates versed in the whole phenomenon of life.
This is possible because science already has come to a new level of understanding of the new paradigm. This paradigm should become the basis for new education systems, new information policies, and a means to building relationships between people, nations, social groups etc.
Education, in this sense, is giving to people throughout the planet an understanding of what they have in common despite their races, religions, ideologies, cultures, traditions, beliefs and spiritualities - enabling them to realise their backgrounds, their origins and potential and individual destinies within the common ground of human life and existence.
Openness is a prerequisite of education. It is also the prerequisite of communication.
New forms of communication are needed, involving the media, which will help to educate people by enabling them to realise the depth and power of the human spirit and the ability of people to heal themselves and to create peace.
Our aim is to promote a dialogue to impact human consciousness on a deep and profound level through ROUND TABLES FOR PEACE
"All that man has here in multiplicity is intrinsically One. Here all blades of grass, wood and stone, all things are One. This is the deepest depth. And thereby am I completely captivated."
Meister Eckhart (1260-1327)