Waste Reduction
Synergize for Advanced Solutions
What are the next steps in reducing waste? This group is devoted to developing more advanced solutions to reduce, reduce, and recycle more effectively. How does your region reduce, reuse, and recycle plastics, toxics, batteries, techno-trash, and other difficult-to-recycle items? To what extent is the difficulty a product of not having technical people ...learn more
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Created: Dec 04, 2007
Updated: Nov 27, 2009
Membership: Open
Semi-Private
Systemic Economic Instruments for Energy, Climate and Global Security
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This paper was published by the Nato Science for Peace and Security Programme in May 2008 following an Advanced Research Workshop in Naples in 2007. In essence it's about how to reverse major global problems instead of trying (and generally failing over decades) just to reduce them.
Abstract: Energy security, climate stability, sustainable development, economic growth and national security are codependent goals; either all will be achieved or none. This global security goal-set will remain elusive with prevailing ‘patchwork’ policy-making. Irreversible failure with one or more of the goals may be avoidable with a non-reductionist approach to global complexity, using systems thinking and systemic interventions at leverage points, of which two are proposed.
(1). Weapons spending can be deducted from Gross Domestic Product to define a ‘Gross Peaceful Product’ with which nations could align goals for growth and security.
(2). Other global security goals can be approached by a preventive insurance scheme. Significant producers would pay an obligatory premium on all products (including fuels) according to the risk that they become waste in the air, land or water. Premiums would be invested in the capacity of nature, industry and society to reduce that risk. This market-based ‘precycling insurance’ would make many prescriptive instruments redundant. In particular, emissions capping debates need no longer delay international climate agreements.
Comments (1 - 14 of 14)
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Flag comment for removal blindspotter 18 days ago
Thanks Jeff, it's a mega project. Best of luck!
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Here's the paper James
http://www.p-ced.com/1/projects/ukraine/national/
Progress is detailed here: http://people-centered.net/About.aspx
In a couple fo days the Charter for Compassion will launch and being a partner seemed congruent http://charterforcompassion.org/learn/partners/people-centered-economic-development/ |
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Sorry may I have the link for your marshall plan paper?
Glad to see you're working on exposing such horrors. An ideal subject for media attention, told via individual human stories. Best of luck!
Interesting to consider the connection between your local action and work on changing the paradigms for compassion globally. We see how local decision-makers change over the decades but not the scarcity mentality that allows people to keep ignoring kids treated as human waste. I see this as a system problem, where individual decisions follow the prevailing paradigm rather than the human values. It may be possible by campaigning to improve conditions here and there but what's really needed is a whole system global paradigm change - compassion for everyone everywhere. Then the same decision-makers will still follow the prevailing (new) paradigm but the outcomes will be radically different. Funny thing is that the big change would be far easier to do than the small changes needed everywhere - the opposite of what's usually assumed. It just doesn't seem to be intuitive for most people to consider this as an option.
Good to chat with you Jeff - keep up your great work. |
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Liked the Nato presentation notes James. Did you read the microeconomic 'Marshall Plan' paper? The summery and conclusions propose a 'soft' initiative equivalent to spending a week in occupation of Iraq.
We're stepping outside the typical social enterprise approach to tackle governments over corruption and the primary focus in this instance are children in institutions for those with disabilities.
http://eng.maidanua.org/node/581
Jeff |
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If Bill Gates is the model for inclusive capitalism then yes there is more to work on. I saw the 12 year old paper, thanks. How has this been received generally? Evidently you're on the right track yet I can hear BAU scoffing, "yeah, we're about people too" and greens being dismissive, "what about the environment?". What I read in that paper is a call to wider boundaries for compassion, to care globally not just locally. The PCED approach of 1997 "Just changing the way business is done, if only by a few companies, can change the flow of wealth, ease and eliminate poverty" probably needs updating since people are realising that localised solutions cannot scale up meaningfully without attention to the 'rules of the game' that define the paradigm.
Thanks also for the mention on ecademy; have you seen the more recent more ambitious work for nato, also posted on wiserearth? |
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OK Yes James.
P-CED founder Terry Hallman started to do this in 1996 with a white paper proposing a "people-centered" model as an alternate paradigm for a more inclusive capitalism. It began by reasoning the principles
http://www.p-ced.com/1/about/background/
A synopsis of the paper was published on line in January 1997:
http://www.p-ced.com/1/about/history/
To some extent part of this has since shown up in the creation of the CIC business model here and the L3C in the US. and of course Bill Gates and other converts to new forms of capitalism under different names. None have yet attempted to define a formal paradigm.
Jeff
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Thanks Jeff, your economics paper says"The question at hand is what to do next, and how to do it. We all get to invent whatever new economics system that comes next, because we must.". How about wiserearth as a community for doing this?
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A couple of our own papers in this context.
The first is a call for economic development through social enterprise for the repatriated Tatar community in Crimea which advocates the deployment of economic "smart bombs"
http://www.p-ced.com/1/projects/ukraine/crimea/
The second, a national scale proposal for Ukraine. In the summary and conclusions, the case is made for social investment at the equivalent cost of a week in Iraq.
http://www.p-ced.com/1/projects/ukraine/national/
This swords to ploughshares appproach is discussed in an interview marking the year of P-CEDs incorporation in the UK as a social enterprise.
http://www.iccrimea.org/scholarly/economicdev.html
Earlier this year we delivered a paper for the Economics for Ecology conference in Sumy
http://www.p-ced.com/1/projects/ukraine/sumy/
In recent weeks we've learned that Crimea is to benefit from EU funded economic development assistance.
Jeff
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I agree Thomas, thanks. People seem to assume that climate chaos can be tackled by just trying harder along the same trajectory of ideas and campaigning that's always been tried. The decades of haggling about capping have been pointlessly lost since this simple new economic tool can rapidly sort out all material waste including waste in the air. No capping, no conflict with economic growth, no reason to delay.
BTW there was a techie glitch with this page blocking connections with it so it's been replaced with this one. Please see also the new work for nato with more systemic solutions to global problems. |
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Market based precycling insurance on all products according to environmental risk may be the answer we have been seeking in climate control. This kind of out-of-the-box thinking may certainly be what's needed to hasten the implementation of an immediate international plan to combat global warming. Surely a plan such as this needs our immediate attention! |
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Hi Bowo, GPP is proposed as a replacement for GDP, not a shadow. Section 2.3 looks at how aiming at the direct cause (such as diversion into war) hasn't worked and suggests leverage points instead, which are often non-obvious and missed by campaigners. The power of GPP is that politicians have no choice about striving for economic growth and must do whatever it takes to get it, even if it conflicts with obsolete habits of macho military posturing and global geo-politics. So it would indirectly but rapidly achieve the aim of gathering resources for peaceful productive uses.
Precycling insurance is the strongest implementation of the precautionary principle that I know of. Its power reflects the power of markets to achieve change, rather than the 'power' of controls over markets that typically exist only as wordplay. The economic benefit is to pay the fixed costs of avoiding externalities rather than the unaffordable costs of suffering them. So it's a new approach to internalising. Producers would pay but the cost would be distributed across the market according to the distributed decisions to 'pollute'. All participants would find it's more profitable not to 'pollute', first cutting and then reversing the accumulation of wastes in ecosystems (including GHG). Thanks for your helpful questions! James
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Hi James, Some quick comments after reading only the short intro in the About section above. For point 1, shouldn't we be trying to divert resources spent on war to be used for peace purposes instead of just creating a shadow measurement instrument where the war spending itself is not the issue? For point 2, if all polluters pay, i.e. all externalized costs (money) are internalized, but we neglect the precautionary principle (waste not / do no harm to nature), would that be safe enough? i.e. would that be enough insurance to steer us away from more trouble (more pollution and depletion of nature)? Best, |
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Thank you for sharing this work James
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Regarding: "Systemic Economic Instruments for Energy, Climate and Global Security"
This is an outstanding piece of work by James Greyson.
Making The World A Better Place
FYI - James, my own work requires me to facilitate Higher Level Thinking and also to employ Whole Systems Thinking in order to identify ruly effective solutions to a huge range of problems faced by indviduals, groups, organizations, communities, even nations and the world as a whole.
Just over 21 years ago, with a completely open mind, I began to explore the major problems facing the world, and, more importantly, I set out to discover what the solutions might be that would eradicate those problems, or even prevent such problems from arising in the future.
One of the inescapable conclusions I quickly came to was that if we as individuals, organizations, nations or even as an entire species were to apply advanced Whole Systems Thinking to solve any Man-made problems, then there is one vitally important factor that we need to take into account, which is:
Whether or not God actually exists.
If God does not exist, then The Whole System works without God’s involvement.
If God does exist, however, then The Whole System must work with God being infinitely involved in absolutely everything.
The reasons that this is so crucial to where we all go from here, are as follows:
Even though I am not an especially religious man, the nature of my research and my work over the past 21 years has confirmed to me time and time and time again that God does indeed exist and actually is infinitely and eternally involved in absolutely everything.
So I have written a book about all of this, entitled, "Letter To The Leader" ~ if you want to read it, or download the full version of it as an e-book, you may do so completely free of charge, and share it with whomever you wish, so long as you also do so free of charge. It is published via Scribd.com at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/8357130/Letter-to-the-Leader
The book is absolutely NOT a religious thesis, and I do not attempt to go into detail about WHO or WHAT God actually is.
First and foremost, this is a book of very practical solutions to Man-made problems, and it explains some extremely important GOD-INCLUDED SOLUTIONS, to the myriad economic, political, ecological and human problems that we are facing right now as individuals, as nations and as a species.
So far as I can tell, my findings entirely complement your own findings James.
If, after having read my book, you wish to collaborate on trying to help the world to change gear, I would be delighted to join with you on that.
Best wishes - Ray Murray (UK) (West Midlands) |