Earth Paradise Goals

Image courtesy of NASA

EARTH PARADISE GOALS
Number 2 in a series
by Robert Burke

Why shouldn't the Earth be the best possible place it can be?

The name of this Blog is "How We Win," so it's reasonable to ask, "How we win WHAT?" Here are the goals of achieving an Earth Paradise as previously delineated in Our Paradise in the Void.

1. Clean air.

2. Clean water.

3. Minimal man-made pollutants.

4. Replacement of fossil fuel energy sources with alternative resources.

5. Personal freedom to become our best possible selves.

6. Appreciation of the diversity of culture, ethnic origin, and gender that enrich our societies.

7. Societal and international disagreements are resolved without violence or force.

8. Non-participation and passive resistance become the highest expression of opposition and dissent.

9. Societies and nations recognize the necessity to contribute to the common good.

10. Human beings become the true stewards of the Earth, for all its creatures.

In short, the Earth becomes the best possible place it can be, for all of its inhabitants.

Skeptics should be doubled-over with laughter about now. Are these goals naive, or impossible?

IT IS NAIVE to believe that everyone will simply begin to play together nicely. That is not going to happen.

The truth is, people and nations, respect strength and exploit weakness. That's part of who we are and it is not going to change. Alpha dogs lead the way, and the rest of us follow, fear, compete, or cooperate with them. Human beings are not dogs, but nor can we dismiss the evolutionary forces of natural selection.

There is no peace without strength, and no one should be naive about that.

For that reason I don't see disarmament occurring anytime in the foreseeable future. Perhaps when a "Earth Paradise" becomes more of a reality the need for standing armies will go away. Or perhaps armies themselves will transform into armies of engineers, workers, and relief personnel who go out and provide construction and emergency services wherever they are needed. No matter how much our societies improve, accidents and natural disasters will still occur, and environmental challenges will be with us for generations, if not forever.

THE ALTERNATIVES

Will we keep burning every fossil fuel we can get our hands on? Will we continue to pump unprecedented amounts of carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the Earth's atmosphere? Will we compete against other nations, and make war, to obtain those fossil fuels? Will we continue "business as usual," while the environmental consequences of our activities grow ever more perilous?

The alternatives to solving our problems are Worse, Much Worse, and Extinction. The goals of achieving an Earth Paradise are not naive or impossible, they are essential to any reasonable quality of life on this planet, and perhaps to our very survival!

We really have no other choice. We must solve our problems.

It doesn't matter that at this time we may not know how to solve our problems and achieve our goals. That's usually how it works. At the beginning you don't know what to do or how to do it.

In 1961, United States President John F. Kennedy announced a ten-year plan to put a man on the Moon. We didn't know how to do that either. We figured it out as we went along, and we accomplished that goal.

There have always been challenges to our survival. It's always been something, hasn't it? Predators, disease, drought, starvation, wars--whatever the challenges we have always overcome them.

We do not have any other choice than to solve our problems. We have to be smart. We have to be determined. We have to work together. Intelligence, Determination, Teamwork, that's how human beings solve problems and achieve goals.

We will also solve the challenges of our day. There is no other choice.

Copyright Robert Burke 2009