December | 2015 | The EOS Horizon

The Global Climate Treaty

December 13, 2015 at 8:04 pm (Climate Change, Ecology, Economic Growth, Economics, General News, Politics, Strategic Analysis, The Monetary System, The war against the Earth, Transition)
Tags: 2015, 21st Century. Ecological Crisis, A trillion trees, Alternative Socio-economic systems, Biosphere, Carbon dioxide, Civilization, climate, Climate Change, Co2, Earth, Ecological Collapse, Economic Growth, Geoengineering, Kyoto Protocol, Paris Agreement 2015

by Enrique Lescure

Introduction

And so we came to this day. A global climate treaty has finally been agreed upon by 195 participating countries. World leaders and many activists are celebrating these happy news – in a political year which have not contained much of these.

This treaty represents a morale booster for the western countries – France in particular – which have consistently failed to handle the Ukraine crisis, overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria or save the Schengen Area from an implosion caused by the refugee crisis. The climate treaty should be understood with regards to the failure to manage other crises – if political leaders consistently are mishandling – or perceived as mishandling – crises, their prestige will suffer. If such failures erupt more and more frequently during several administrations, the public morale will decrease and thus the support amongst the masses for the legitimacy of the establishment will weaken.

This created an atmosphere which saw it as paramount that a new treaty would come in place, not only because that the environmental situation is getting more dire, but also because of the aforementioned crises and the needs for political leaders to come back from Paris with successes.

While 1,5 degrees indeed is an ambitious goal, especially as the treaty has arrived so late in the process since this issue became one of global importance.

The purpose of this article is to study the climate treaty in the context of antropogenic global climate change as well as our current socio-economic system, and to discuss some of the actions that can be done to reduce the impact of warming.

TL;DR

The greenhouse effect is not – as you probably know – something sinister brought by our tampering with the environment, but a part of a natural process.
For the last few million years, our climate has gravitated between warm periods and ice ages. The release of CO2 from fossile sources has shifted this balance towards a warmer climate, but the cycle is still existing.
The threats against human civilization are manyfold and serious, and require responses and sacrifices which currently are politically impossible to advocate.
The Paris Treaty consciously leaves a lot regarding implementation to be decided by the signatory powers.
Ultimately, we need to focus on more issues than emissions, one of the most pressing being the protection and expansion of the world’s woodlands.

What is the Greenhouse Effect?

The climate of the Earth is regulated by many factors – the distribution of continents and oceans, tectonic activity, internal heating, the intensity of solar flares, the tilt of the Earth’s axis, the amount of vegetation and the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is the name for a process whereas heat from the Sun is trapped under the Earth’s atmosphere and serves to heat up the Earth. Without it, multi-cellullar life on Earth as we know it would be impossible, and the Earth would have frozen to an ice planet aking to Hoth in Star Wars.

The Greenhouse effect is not caused by humans, but something which has existed since time immemorial. It allows heat from the Sun to warm up the surface of the Earth. Neither is it unique for the Earth, both the other rocky planet’s in the Sun’s Goldilock zone have greenhouse effects, though the greenhouse effect is very weak in Mars and extremely strong in Venus.

The greenhouse effect has also varied under different aeon’s and geological periods during our planet’s turbulent history. During the Silurian era, prior to the Cambrian explosion, the Earth was for thousands of millennia covered by ice. When the Dinosaurs roamed the Earth, the planet was so warm that there were no permanent polar ice caps, and the climate was fairly stable with few fluctuations.

In contrast, the Eocene and Paleocene eras have been dynamic and unstable in regards to the planet’s average temperature. During only the last two dozens of million years, multiple ice ages have seen sheets expand over the hemispheres, the Mediterranean have evaporated several times, leaving a salt desert between Europe and Africa, and the sea levels have shifted hundreds of metres, often within just years.

The Flood myths described in numerous holy texts may have a foundation in reality as several events during the stone age led to the rise of sea levels and (probably) massive floods.

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Ice Age World Map by Fenn-O-maniC (Deviantart)

The human civilization, established in the river valleys of the Nile, of the Euphrates and Tigris, of the Ganges, Indus and the Yangtze, and developed into today’s global civilization, was starting to form following the end of the last global Ice Age.

From the latter half of the 13th century, the warm period reached its peak, and then the planet’s cycle started to move towards an ice age again. From the 1860’s and onward until today, this trend towards a colder climate first stalled and then reversed – today proven to be caused by human intervention due to the burning of coal and oil.

Effects of antropogenic climate change

By altering the amount of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere, we are strengthening the effects of the greenhouse effect and therefore increasing the Earth’s average temperature gradually, though at a higher speed than previously done.

This will not mean that we won’t have cold winters any more, or that temperatures in some regions cannot actually can become colder over time, but it means that we are shifting and altering the Earth’s climate cycle towards on-average warmer temperatures.

Such a climate alteration will have effects on crop harvests, monsoon rain patterns, sea currents, vegetation and species, and also on the Greenlandic Ice Sheet – the last large remnant from the recent Ice Age. If it partially or completely collapses, which can happen within a few centuries, it will affect the sea levels of the Earth globally, drowning coastal areas, amongst which are some of the most populated regions on Earth.

Another single factor that can create havoc for human civilization globally, is the end of the Himalayan glaciers. They supply the great rivers of India and China with water, and if they melt there could be a permanent shift of these regions towards a drier climate, which would increase the cost of living. The Middle East could become more dry, as well as the United States.

Since Civilization first was established, most of humanity has lived in an east-west band stretching from East Asia to Western Europe. The 21st and 22nd centuries may correspondingly see China, India and the Mediterranean basin becoming more desert-like, whereas other regions on the other hand can become more hospitable, for example Scandinavia, Northern Canada, Siberia and parts of the southern hemisphere.

Thus, a shift in the habitability of the Earth’s regions could lead to a mass migration of hundreds of millions to billions of people, which forever could alter the geographic distribution of the human race.

Climate change as a political issue

Between the beginning phase of the Kyoto negotiations and the signing of the Paris Agreement in December 2015, two decades have passed by. During that time, more emissions have been added on, as the debt-based monetary system requires growth and the technologies available today which creates the fastest growth rates are based on non-renewable energies. Thence, while indeed the usage of green technologies have grown, they have not grown at the expense of fossil fuel-technologies, but rather their growth have been concurrent.

There are two problems with legislation aiming to curb climate change. The first one is the aforementioned fact that our leaders are bound to a growth paradigm, and the second is the fact that the Earth consists of 195 countries. Regarding some issues, like for example a failure to abide to the needs of economic globalization, sovereignty is seen mostly as a matter of inconvenience, while other issues, such as keeping up emission rates, are met with far more understanding than not wanting to partake in international trade agreements.

Ultimately, the absolute majority of the states on Earth, to not speak of businesses, are invested in a global socio-economic system based on fractional reserve banking, which means that in order to pay off ever increasing debts, we find ourselves in continuous need to create conditions so favourable as possible to exponential economic growth. This system is also seen as the best potential system we can have, and economic growth has also an ideological foundation. Most of the states on Earth are not nation-states but rather former colonial territories, composed of multi-ethnic, multi-religious communities. In such states, the main legitimising factor for governments that are both simultaneously weak and authoritarian, is economic growth. You may have to long for buying new shoes, but your son may buy himself a bike.

This means that climate agreements are meeting far more resistance from both business, lobbyist groups and governments keen to keep up economic growth, than for example free trade agreements. The Kyoto Protocol failed because the Bush Administration refused to ratify it. The Copenhagen Summit is widely considered a failure. The French government therefore decided on a strategy where the emphasis was put on the goal – that the temperature may not increase with more than 1,5 degrees Celsius (0,5 degrees under the 2 degrees Celsius seen as the threshold for global warming). All countries partaking under the Paris Agreement have bound themselves to find ways to reduce their emission rates, but the Agreement doesn’t specify how or with what means, and does not at all install any controls or punishments for participants violating the agreement.

On the other hand, if the agreement had contained more binding resolutions, specifications and relinquishment of controls, it would have been rejected by a significant number of countries.

So in short, the choice was between a broad-sweeping but shallow agreement, or no agreement at all. Most analysts hope that green energy and green technology can help making the shift towards sustainability while economic growth is preserved.

The Elephant in the Room

While we have reasons to be hopeful due to the increase of the usage of solar panels, wind turbines and other forms of green energy, green energy is only a part of the puzzle. Most of the emissions today are within the meat industry and transport, and the growth of green energy has not contributed so much to the decline of the price of oil.

Rather, while the demand of oil has grown, the supply has grown even quicker due to the ascent of North American shale oil and the response of the Gulf States to dump the price of oil by increasing their supply. What we are seeing behind the curtains is an oil war initiated by Saudi Arabia and directed against both the USA and Russia. While this has hurt all oil-producing states, oil consumption overall is increasing.

What stands clear is that emissions may be reduced regionally, but globally they will still pose a threat. The kind of exponential economic growth intrinsically connected to the current system is – through the invisible hand of the market – seeking the paths of least resistance. Innovations and ambitions can alter this balance, but the balance in itself under the current paradigm is problematic.

Therefore, while supportive of green technologies and aims to curb emissions, I remain skeptical of the ability of achieving the objectives of 1,5 degrees without putting under question the ideological predominance of the current socio-economic system.

The current system is collapsing, or rather in its very design it is a system under constant collapse, threatened to be choked by the mountains of debts that it is pushing before itself. It can only survive by cannibalising the Earth, generating economic growth, but the more growth it generates, the more growth it has to generate. Thus, growth numbers tend to decline as demand shrinks and the economy grows, creating stagnation which means that new markets have to emerge in order to fuel the constant need to pay interest rates to the banks which simultaneously function as both the parasites and the creators of the system.

If we do not question the wisdom of this, we will continue to destroy the Earth. The problem is that arrangements like the Paris Agreement, the surprisingly – in relation to the scope of the challenges before us – toothless and impotent treaty, are not only unable to criticise the system which all participants have invested themselves in, but also to propose far-sweeping efficient measures to combat climate change.

Actions that can be undertaken

Of course, for maximum efficiency, most of the transformation must necessarily occur at the grassroot level, though the creation of municipal solar panels, neighbourhood greenhouses, car pools, the upgrading and upcycling of means of transportation, increased consumption of locally produced goods and services, and increasing the autonomy and resilience of local communities overall. Education of both young and adults is also necessary.

However, we cannot move towards that and a globalized economy of the kind the proponents of free trade agreements like the TTP and the TTIP are dreaming of. One particular thing that definitely is conflicting between the kind of free trade agreements that are proposed today and long-term sustainability is transportation. If we want to reduce emissions, we need to install carbon pricing on goods and services, so the price starts to reflect the environmental cost. Goods that are produced far away would need an additional price tag. This is not the same as a punitive tariff as it will be imposed in relation to distance rather than national borders in themselves.

Massive investments need to occur in public transit systems (and in sea walls). We need to gradually shift ourselves away from Suburbia and create more concentrated urban habitats which also should have an ability to sustain at least a part of their own food production potential through vertical farming.

We need to massively reduce our dependency on meat, and then especially red meat, since it stands for a significant chunk of the emissions. This means that meat must become far more expensive, to pay for its share of the environmental damage which it causes.

More trees will have to be planted, at the expense of mono-cultures and grasslands. We should probably even build floating platforms on the seas and grow trees on them. All plants are breathing carbon dioxide and binding it before releasing it and returning it to the cycle when they die. Trees have the benefit that they can live for centuries, and therefore they can bind carbon for significantly longer amounts of time. The ideal would be if we could approach the number of trees which the Earth contained during the Stone Age, meaning that we would have to double the amount of trees to 6 billion.

These are but some of the actions that should be considered, and where governments on the local and national level could play a significant role (and should play it, especially regarding preparations for moving entire cities).

Long term Geo-engineering

Ultimately, we have shifted the Earth’s climate development. What we need to do after we have stabilised it is to establish a long-term strategy to manage it, using carbon dioxide, oxygen, vegetation and technology to both monitor and gently steer the climate, both to prevent future disasters generated by us as well as managing the human civilization and the eco-systems through large-scale natural disasters such as meteorite impacts and super-volcano eruptions.

This would require some form of global administrative system, and signals that we are moving towards a Type-1 civilization if we manage to answer to the challenges of this century. Therefore, the public discourse should not focus on the coming five years, but the coming five decades at least.

On politics

December 11, 2015 at 12:31 pm (EOS, Politics, Strategic Analysis, Uncategorized)
Tags: Clickbaits, Culture, Democracy, Establishment, Mass Media, politics

By Enrique Lescure

Introduction

With regular intervals, we are contacted by people who appreciate the EOS very much, but wonder why we are not forming a party and engage ourselves in parliamentary politics. I feel that these concerns merit a response, since I’ve heard these questions numerous times.

The foremost response is that we do not at this point know whether The Design will work in its current form. We need to focus on being able to test it on a limited scale before attempting to implement any transitional plan in society at large.

That’s the main reason.

However, even if we for certain knew that The Design would work, there are still many factors that we must weigh in when deciding what strategies we should pursue when interacting with society. We need to establish a list of available options considering our resources and our ethical guidelines, and apply them wisely.

Overall, all indicators point that forming a party and entering parliamentary politics is one of the least effective ways of distributing time, energy and resources for a movement.

TL;DR

Politics is by definition a zero-sum game.
Party systems with 2-10 parties tend to form and to become fairly stable and contain a predictable stage of parties.
Political parties are in today’s society generally prisoners of the concerns of their own membership base and the general public.
Mass media has taken over the role in mobilizing the masses in general.
By forming a party, you will marginalise yourself, but there are other strategies to attain political influence.

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Politics in western countries

Since the EOS as an organisation is based in Western Europe, we would definitely encounter the logics of Western politics if we decide to form a political party and stand in elections.

There are several different types of electoral systems in western countries, most of which implicitly seeks to create manageable parliamentary systems. In the Anglo-American sphere, the usual manner in which politicians are elected is through First Past the Post, a system which almost deliberately serves to reduce the amount of choice and force through situations where voters primarily seek to block the candidate they don’t like.

Other countries either use proportional systems, or mixed systems, usually with a limit for entrance into parliamentary politics of around 3 – 5% of the active electorate in every election.

That could sound like a small amount, but in a country with circa 10 million people, 7 million of whom are eligible voters of whom six in seven are voting makes for hundreds of thousands of votes. A quick glance on this chart shows how many votes parties in Sweden (a relatively small country) would need to get to be represented.

Moreover, the same kind of parties tend to emerge in most western countries. There tends to be a large left-of-centre party and a large right-of-centre party in most countries, whether they are two-party or multi-party systems. Even the smaller parties tend to have a similar role distribution in multi-party systems. You will always be able to find an ex-communist party, a farmer’s party, smaller liberal or conservative parties, a green party and a xenophobic party.

Coalition-building

There are several dilemmas of parliamentary systems, the foremost which is that politicians are supposed to be elected to carry out the promises to their constituents, but only are able to carry out said promises with the support of a parliamentary majority. I think we all have seen US presidents aiming to install reforms that have stalled in a Congress dominated by the opposing party.

In multi-party systems, minor parties usually have to choose between using their parliamentary platform as a stage ground for political campaigns, or to become the junior coalition partner in a government. The latter option often means that they have to give up 70-80% of what they desire in return for achieving 20-30%. It also means that they would have to accept things which are really detested by their voters (one example being how many green voters in Sweden reacted to the recent migration deal).

Ultimately, most western states (by which I mean European states) are run by coalition governments, headed by either a large left-centrist party or a large right-centrist party, supported by one or several minor parties to lock down the necessary parliamentary majority.

That is because most voters – unless there would be a complete crisis as in Greece – generally vote for the parties which are deemed most respectable and moderate. Most voters are as a rule supportive of the political consensus and want to believe in it since they have invested their mortgages and loans into the system.

PAY-Miley-Cyrus

The Role of Media

Most people still are receiving their main source of information regarding the world from Television, Newspapers and online representations of mainstream media. Due to competition between privately owned media corporations, these sources are compelled to sell in “clickbaits”. Such clickbaits are often characterised by images of scantily clad representatives of the female gender, news about gruesome murders and celebrity news (the ideal is probably all three combined), all marked by deceptively attractive headlines.

These tendencies have increased in frequency and intensity since the mass consumption society was formed during the 1950’s. Nowadays, newspapers directed towards the working class mostly contain celebrity gossip, sex and violence. It becomes ironic when said newspapers in the same time present themselves as the defenders of human rights, decency, minorities and democracy, while they play an important role in desensitizing human beings regarding violence.

I would claim that the way in which mainstream media and “celebrity news media” choose and present their material for distribution is one of the greatest threats against the civic ideals necessary to uphold a functioning liberal democracy. Instead of striving to create a public spirit characterised by moderation, skepticism and critical thinking, this methodology strives to engage the baser urges of humanity, namely sex, violence and gossip – presenting it in an uncritical manner. The great danger is that it sends a message that it is not only “ok” to be anti-intellectual and driven entirely by impulses, but that it is somehow virtuous.

The clickbait culture also fuels a tendency to reduce one’s attention span (probably as an unconscious defence mechanism for one’s sanity) until most people have an attention span for less than a minute (which is damning for any political programme which demands five minutes or more to be explained).

This tendency has also crept into politics, leading to an individualization and celebritization of political discourse. It means that instead of focusing on important issues that will determine the future of our society, media is generally pre-occupied with emotionally engaging issues and demanding that politicians act immediately based entirely on emotional factors. This fosters a view on politics where politicians are assumed to just be able to make decisions whether we should have good or bad weather – which de-facto means that mass media is spreading an image of our systems in the west which has no relation with how our systems actually are built.

One example is when Barack Obama fails to pass legislation through Congress, and media is consequently painting him as ineffectual, omitting that the Congress is run by the Republican Party which had as a policy to try to make him fail in his reform programme during his first tenure in office.

Media also often reacts impulsively and generalises reality out of single cases. For example, if an immigrant is murdering two people, suddenly “all immigrants are coming to our shores and murdering people with knives and axes, and we need to close our borders otherwise we’ll be overrun by Islam”. The next week, maybe an immigrant child is drowning in the Mediterranean, and then the message is “we need to open up our borders and put down all Identity and health controls, for otherwise children will drown in the Mediterranean”.

If the perception is that the public wants emotional leaders who make decisions in relation to what mass media is presenting every week, politicians will adapt their public rhetoric and appearances with the discourse presented by media. This is a very tragic process and undermines the spirit of democracy.

In short, mass media creates a culture of clickbaits to stimulate the baser cravings of the public. The public rewards media by buying newspapers, watching TV channels and clicking on articles. Since mass media also takes on the role of presenting reality, this gives them a legitimacy which they can use to influence the political discourse.

Often, mass media chooses to put the spotlight on certain protest groups, which may or may not represent a majority of the electorate. The politicians – which have learnt that their careers could stand or fall on the whim of the media houses – usually cave in to the demands of mass media, thereby awarding mass media extra legitimacy points.

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On the surface, this means that we live in a “Spin City democracy”, where the main concern of decision-makers is to be presented in good spotlight by mass media rather than to try to serve the electorate with some kind of consistent vision and fulfilling the spirit of their promises. Often, symbolical issues like religious clothing, nudity on bath houses, a student being discriminated against or males that are breast-feeding become more hot topics than really important subjects that will affect everyone. It can be discussed of whether such a discourse is an unintentional effect of the nature of the media landscape or a form of intentional conspiracy.

Really important issues

Really important issues, such as the European Union reforms, new surveillance programmes, international free trade agreements and foreign policy issues that regard the Middle East and Europe-Russia-relations… are simply not covered extensively.

That means that if a new political party would emerge and put emphasis on such issues, the public would simply not be able to comprehend such a programme since it doesn’t have the frames of reference provided by the media. It is not important whether it is an intentional design to keep the public away from important issues, or if it’s an unintentional consequence.

The Pirate Parties have suffered this fate, since the public perception of them is that they just are populist parties that want to legalize pirating of copyrighted material and pot, rather than that they engage in an important struggle against an emerging international surveillance state.

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Another way to affect politically

An observant reader might criticise my statements regarding western politics for being pessimistic. I mean that it is almost impossible for a new party based around serious issues that cannot easily be reduced to clickbaits to emerge as a serious player in national politics.

Also, it is nearly impossible for a smaller party to become a large party. If it refuses to partake in coalition governments, it cannot attract the moderate centrist voters needed to grow. If it partakes in coalition governments, it will either lose core supporters or attract supporters to the senior partner in the coalition.

It will also have to deal with a hostile, indifferent mass media which want information consumers to be impulsive and have the attention span of fruit flies.

There is however a far superior way to engage with politics, and that is to form think tanks.

Think tanks act as political research facilities, political consultants and framers of political discourses. Parties try to contain some of the same functions within them, but are constrained by the need to win votes and pander to mass media. Think tanks can operate independently, and paradoxically engage larger groups of the electorate by courting political parties that already are established.

One example is how the libertarian activist group “the Freedom Front” in Sweden inspired the formation of both a libertarian political party and a libertarian think tank. The party at this day (the Klassiskt Liberala Partiet) have gathered less than a thousand votes, whereas the think tank during one period remote-controlled the Centre Party, a party with hundreds of thousands of votes.

The ethics of such politics are discussable, but then again, the ethics of the entire political system as it works today in a liberal western democracy is discussable.

If we engage in politics, we should definitely do so in a form similar to a think tank, not a political party. That means that we would be able to communicate with all parties in parliaments and operate trans-nationally as well.

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What does the EOS want?

December 2, 2015 at 3:45 pm (Energy Accounting, EOS, Future)
Tags: Alternative Socio-economic systems, Civilization, Earth Organisation for Sustainability, Energy Accounting, Energy Units, EOS, Holonic systems theory, Holons, Resource-Based Economy, The Design

Galaxy

By Enrique Lescure

Introduction

The Earth Organisation for Sustainability is sometimes very hard to define as an organisation. We are aiming to engage ourselves in research, application of research and socio-ecological projects on local, regional and global levels.

Our end-goal is to help the Earth transition towards a sustainable civilization based on the foundations of the Three Criteria. The basis of our critique of our current system is how Fractional Reserve Banking is creating an addiction to exponential economic growth. We have also created a hypothesis for a post FRB-system called Energy Accounting, which you may read more about in the freely available book The Design.

However, even if you do agree with our goals, you may be skeptical of our ability to reach them.

What is our plan really?

This article will briefly summarize how we believe it should be done.

TL:DR summary

Before implementing Energy Accounting, we will have to test it.
We will apply a holonic model when we test our hypothesis, so that different groups will test different versions.
This will be done within the framework of a network of holons – a proto-technate.
A successful initiation of the proto-technate will be presented to the public as a step towards the future.
A mass movement must be formed demanding a transition towards a realistic alternative to the current system.
A compromise must be reached with the powers-that-be, but only on the condition that the three criteria are fulfilled.

adamappleseed.wordpress.com

How to test Energy Accounting?

There will be several different types of testing. The first and simplest model is computer simulations, which can simulate simple to complex socio-economic environments utilizing EA, as well as provide indicators on how well the system will perform under conditions of stress. There could also be arranged simulators were actual users are acting under an EA system.

No computer simulation, no matter how advanced it is, can however account for the complexity of the real world. Therefore, it is essential that aspects of EA are tested in real world-environments. This poses ethical and logistical challenges.

Ethical challenges

Since the tests will involve real human beings, it is essential that all participants are taking part of the experiment in a voluntary manner, are fully informed on what Energy Accounting is and what EOS have for aims with it. It also means that the EOS must cooperate on an equal and respectful basis with the participants, that the participants should have the opportunity to end the experiment, and that action plans must be produced to deal with harassment issues, labour rights issues and environmental issues.

Logistical challenges

Energy Accounting will, if ever implemented, represent one of the greatest changes in how the human being relates to the surrounding environment. Local environments behave different from the global economy, and performance rates will probably be artificially increased by the genuine enthusiasm of the participants (compare for example the voluntary Kibbutzes in Israel with the forcefully collectivized Kolkhoz system in the old USSR).

One of the greatest challenges, however, is the fact that we are going to test a system designed for usage on global scale on local scale. That means that there would need to be several types of tests, relating to various aspects of Energy Accounting. The Energy Survey for example could not easily be crammed into local experiments, but different types of Energy Survey systems could be tested through computer simulations.

The remainder of the Design can be differentiated into several aspects, namely Energy Units, types of distribution, the incentivization issue, the bottleneck issue and the time factor issue, as well as other aspects which we have not thought of but which will appear from beneath the surface when the first experiment results are coming in.

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The Holonic way of solving things

Dr Andrew Wallace therefore suggested that the best model for testing the hypothesis of Energy Accounting would be to run several tests simultaneously. This would necessitate that various different groups test the model in different parts of the world. Many of the groups, if not most, will fail to reach satisfactory results – and that is good, since it will pinpoint us towards problems with The Design. Those groups which are successful will see their methodologies be copied and applied throughout the wider network. Voxel8-Printer

Practically speaking, the different groups will organise actual production, of energy, food, small-scale industry and large-scale industry, using environmentally friendly technologies to achieve their aims.

After that point, the groups can interconnect with one another, forming larger holons coordinating certain of their features, yet again in an organic, voluntary manner. That means that for example a solar power plant holon may provide electricity to a group of biodomes cheaper than the market, and in return receive back food to offset the cost for staff meals.

While still a long way towards Energy Accounting, that is a step in the right direction. Not all holons may test Energy Accounting either, some may instead aim to test Time Factor Economics or Labor credits. The important thing is that all experiments aim to achieve the goals stated by the three criteria.

Wallace-2

The Proto-technate

The Proto-technate is simply the network of holons operating within the wider project.

In order for this system to be able to operate, it must during the first few years be operating entirely within the context of Capitalism, in order to garner revenue that can be invested into the first core holons. That also means that the ethical and ideological guidelines, as well as the structure of the early proto-technate, must be designed to take into account that there is a risk that the project can forget its aims.

Even at the medium time prospect, the proto-technate will be dependent on items produced within the current system. The interaction at that point will be conducted by specialised holons known as Interface Companies, which will be responsible for transacting capital and administering certain trade operations.

If external organisations want to join the proto-technate, they would be welcome to do so as long as they fulfill basic human rights and either fulfill or aim to fulfill the three criteria.

The goal is that as many things as possible which today are produced outside of the proto-technate should be produced inside, which would improve on our ability to test Energy Accounting.

Occupy Wall Street

The next step is in the hands of the people

The next logical step – following the development of a successful alternative socio-economic system – is that we should communicate it with the public and show them an alternative to the more and more collapsing Debt-based Monetary System.

At that point, political alternative should coalesce, and we should make sure to present our results to these alternatives and uphold an open communication with all parties within the global opposition, provided they are upholding basic human rights and the three criteria.

We will not need all 7-9 billion people of the future to have a transformation. We will “just” need 700-900 million people. That is why we must improve our ability to communicate through social media and to build a vast contact network of activists and practivists, aiming to demand a transition towards a sustainable system. This movement has to comprise the poor and the middle class, people from the first world and the developing world, first nations-organisations, women’s rights organisations, progressive religious groups, secularists and climate activists.

Last step: Reaching a consensus with the establishment

The last step of an initial transition towards a world fulfilling the Three Criteria is to establish communication with the elites. Ultimately, the global elite are people too. This means that they have an interest in a world that is sustainable for their children too. While a lot of their powers and privileges are tied up to the current system, the system is gradually self-destroying at the same time as it is destroying the planet, with a mountain of debt growing every second. There is literally no money on Earth which will not be engulfed by debt, which means that even according to the logic of the current system, we are all functionally bankcrupt.

EOS is not a revolutionary political party, but an applied research group aiming to protect life on Earth. That means that we have a duty to communicate with everyone and try to reach a consensus. The consensus however must be rooted in a future where we can safeguard the three criteria, which is impossible by having Fractional Reserve Banking running rampant on Earth.

That is why it is essential to – when there is a realistic alternative system ready to be implemented and a mass movement advocating it – to negotiate about the future of this our Earth. Most likely, the end result will be a hybrid system, holding traits of both the old and new systems. That does not mean that our side should not make its outmost to try to win as many concessions as possible, but within a framework of a civilized compromise.

Throwing the Earth into more chaos will be the last thing we would want for the future.

Future city, by Alain Descamps

In the really long perspective

We should follow our hearts, and aim to begin the transition towards a future sustainable civilization. But we must do so with cool heads and in a realistic manner. I know that the situation is perilous, and it grows ever more perilous every day. But that is no reason for panic, but rather to become even cooler and more level-headed.

Even if the end-result is just a hybrid system, that is not problematic. As long as it solves the problems with the unsustainability of the current global socio-economic system, fulfills the three criteria, as well as begins restoring the Earth’s biosphere, we should be able to live with it.

Especially as there are no end-results. No system is ever static. If we have established a hybrid system by the year 2050-2060, it can be gradually turned into a form of full Energy Accounting by the year 2150-2160, and from that towards an Abundance System where costs have shrunk so low and efficiency increased so much that everything produced is virtually free by 2250-2260.

And it can happen even faster.

For this to happen, we need you however.

Our new website will soon be launched. That will mark a new beginning for the EOS. We have a new Board of Directors, elected this May 2015, and it is time that you soon will meet them. We have many on-going operations. We have a growing presence on Facebook. We have a vibrant group in Umea, Sweden.

Join our Facebook group here.

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