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Monday, October 13th, 2008 星期一，二零零八年10月13日

TNI印军 | The |的 Schumacher lectures舒马赫讲座 are traditionally held in Bristol but have now branched out so that Schumacher North, based in Leeds, also organises the series.传统上是在布里斯托尔举行，但现在已经支，这样，舒马赫北，总部设在利兹，还举办了系列。 They occupy a day, with three people delivering lectures and a final panel.他们占据了一天， 3人提供讲座和最后的小组。 My companions for this day were Anne Pettifor, well known for her leadership of the Jubilee 2000 Debt campaign and Andrew Simms of the New Economics Foundation.我的同伴这一天被安妮Pettifor ，众所周知，她领导的2000年大庆债务运动和安德鲁西姆斯的新经济学基金会。 My contribution was written in mid-September 2008; the continuation of the financial crisis makes it, I think, all the more pertinent.我的贡献是写在9月中旬2008年的持续的金融危机使，我想，更贴切。

Please first let me congratulate the organisers of Schumacher North for their initiative in bringing this lecture series and other activities of the Schumacher Society to Leeds.请首先请允许我祝贺的组织者舒马赫北的倡议，使这一系列讲座和其他活动的舒马赫社会利兹。 It’s an honour to be here and especially to share the platform with two brilliant people whom I greatly admire.这是一种荣幸地在这里，特别是共用平台的两个辉煌的人我非常钦佩。 I also want to thank the organisers for the privilege of honouring the memory of Dr Schumacher, a man far ahead of his time who bequeathed to us a lasting legacy.我还要感谢主办单位的特权履行的记忆舒马赫博士，一名男子远远超过他的时候谁给我们留下永久的印记。 It’sa challenge to be worthy of that heritage in a lecture bearing his name.这是一个挑战，不辜负这种遗产的演讲中同时他的名字。

But I intend to try.但是，我打算尝试。 My talk today will concern the stage I’ve arrived at in a kind of reflexion in progress—I don’t mean a book, although it may well become that as well—but an effort to make sense of the fast moving events in our battered world and an attempt to think about them in a more unified way.今天我的谈话将关注的阶段我已经抵达的一种反思中进步，我的意思并不是一本书，虽然它很可能成为，作为良好的，但为了使意义上的快速移动的事件在我们的殴打的世界，并企图想在一个更加统一的方式。

Philosophically speaking, the thing-in-itself, the isolated object whether it’s an electron, a human cell, an organism, a single word —even a human being—makes sense only in the context of its relationships, its place in its physical, linguistic or social environment .哲学上说，事情本身，孤立的对象，无论是电子，一个人体细胞，一个有机体，一个字，甚至一个人，才有意义，在其关系，其在其物理，语言或社会环境。 Margaret Thatcher once famously said, “There is no such thing as society”.撒切尔夫人曾经说： “没有这样的东西随着社会的。 ” She thus perfectly embodied the foundations of the neo-liberal ideological programme which should, ideally, prevent us from even thinking about ourselves and others in our natural and social context.因此，她完美地体现了基础的新自由主义意识形态的方案，其中应，最好阻止我们甚至思考自己和别人在我们的自然和社会环境。 We must be taught to believe that we are not citizens or members of a social body but discrete, individual consumers.我们必须学会相信，我们是不是公民或成员的社会团体，但分立，个人消费者等。 We are entirely responsible for our own destinies and if we fall by the wayside for whatever reason—illness, job loss, accident, failure, whatever—it’s our own fault.我们完全负责我们自己的命运，如果我们秋天在一边不管出于什么原因疾病，失去工作，事故，故障，不管，这是我们自己的错。 We should have foreseen the case and planned for it.我们应该预见到的情况和计划的。 We have no responsibility for other people either.我们没有责任或者其他人。 Solidarity is a banished word.团结是一个流放字。 Nor are we accountable for the state of the planet—homo sapiens is the only important species and humans are isolated if not immune from natural, physical laws.我们也不负责的状况行星智人是唯一重要物种和人类是孤立的，如果不能免受自然的，物理定律。 That’s the essence of the neo-liberal spirit: “You’re on your own” as Barack Obama has been saying to Americans to encapsulate the philosophy of his opponents.这是本质的新自由主义的精神： “你自己”作为奥巴马一直对美国人说概括的哲学他的对手。

If you are well-schooled in neo-liberalism, you will never join a social movement, never engage in a struggle against an unjust action of the government, never contribute to an effort to protect the natural world because not only will you make a fool of yourself, not only will your effort fail, but even if successful it will lead eventually to oppression, even totalitarianism, as Thatcher’s mentor Professor Friedrich von Hayek argued.如果您是良好的教育，新自由主义，你绝不会加入一个社会运动，从来没有进行斗争的一个不公正的行动的政府，从来没有作出贡献，努力保护自然世界，因为不仅你一个傻瓜自己，不仅将您的努力失败了，但即使成功，将最终导致压迫，甚至极权主义，作为撒切尔的导师教授弗里德里希冯哈耶克主张。 And, as he also taught, economic freedom is superior to every other kind of freedom, whether political, religious or intellectual.而且，他还教，经济自由是每一个优于其他类型的自由，无论是政治，宗教或知识。

I believe to the contrary that our only hope lies in understanding everything we confront today as a link in an ever-more-complex chain, as an element in a system.我认为恰恰相反，我们唯一的希望是在了解一切我们今天作为一个环节日益复杂的链条，作为一个要素的制度。 The danger with this approach of course is to become lost and frustrated in the syndrome of “Everything is connected to everything”.危险的这种做法，当然是要成为损失和挫折综合征“一切都连接到的一切。 ” That’s true, everything is connected to everything, but we still have an enormous task ahead in trying to identify the priority connections, to understand how they work together and what we can do to change them, because they definitely do need changing.这是真的，一切的一切联系，但我们仍然有一个巨大的任务，试图确定优先连接，以了解它们如何一起工作，我们能做些什么来改变他们，因为他们绝对需要改变。 I will argue that the present connections are dysfunctional, they have become perverse: they form a system that worsens the human condition and irrevocably damages the planet.我会认为，目前的连接功能失调，它们已成为有害的：他们组成一个系统，恶化人类生存条件和不可逆转地损害了地球。 But there is hope, because what has been constructed by humans can also be dismantled by them.但有希望，因为已经建造的人类也可以拆除它们。

All this may sound rather vague so let’s get down to specifics.这一切听起来可能比较含糊，以便让我们到的细节。 To make matters more concrete, I’d like to talk now about the most obvious crises we face collectively today, why they are all linked and why the solutions to them must be linked as well.为了使问题更具体，我想现在谈的最明显的危机，我们今天面临着集体，为什么他们都联系在一起，为什么解决这些问题必须联系在一起的。

The first of these crises is social—the crisis of mass poverty and growing inequality within individual countries and between the rich and poor countries.第一次危机是社会危机大规模的贫困和日益加剧的不平等在各个国家之间以及富国和穷国。 The second is the financial crisis that Wall Street, the City and the public authorities refused to see coming because they were living in bubble-land.第二个方面是金融危机，华尔街，纽约市和公共当局拒绝看到未来，因为他们生活在泡沫的土地。 It began with the subprime affair in the United States but has spread inexorably like a lava flow in the US and elsewhere, threatening to plunge the global economy into a prolonged period of stagnation as severe as the Great Depression.它始于优的事在美国，而且已经蔓延像一个无情的火山熔岩流在美国和其他国家，威胁要暴跌全球经济陷入长期停滞时期一样严重的大萧条。 Every day while I was writing this lecture at home, a new financial institution went down the drain or on the block and the end is not yet in sight.每天，当我在写这本讲座在家里，一个新的金融机构走下流失或阻止和结束尚未在望。 The third crisis, most ominous of all, is that of climate change and species destruction.第三次危机，最可怕的是，是，气候变化和物种毁灭。 It is accelerating faster than most scientists, much less governments, thought possible, causing many to ask if we have not already entered the era of the runaway greenhouse effect.这是加快速度比大多数科学家，更别说政府，认为有可能，造成了许多要求，如果我们尚未进入的时代失控的温室效应。

Each of these crises—social, financial, environmental—is negatively linked to the others, they intensify each other with negative feedback; they lead to worst-case scenarios.所有这些危机，社会，财政，环境不利与其他一些国家，他们加强彼此负反馈;它们导致的最坏情况。 Let us take just a few examples of these perverse interactions.让我们采取刚才几个例子，这些有害的相互作用。

The poverty-inequality crisis is a good place to start.贫困不平等的危机是一个良好的开端。 This crisis is well documented; no one seriously denies the numbers.这场危机是有据可查的，没有人认真地否认了号码。 The World Bank recently recognised that it had grossly underestimated—by about 400 million—the numbers of the very poor, and even then its figures stop at the year 2005 and don’t include recent upheavals in food and energy costs that have swelled the ranks of the impoverished.世界银行最近承认，它已严重低估，约有400万的数量非常贫困，即使这样的数字停留在2005年不包括最近的动荡食品和能源成本已经肿胀的行列贫困。 Even more important, however, is the fact that for the first time in human history, there is no excuse for mass poverty and deprivation.更重要的是，然而，一个事实，即第一次在人类历史上，没有任何借口，大规模的贫困和匮乏。 Taking this assertion seriously already helps to point us towards a solution.考虑到这一论断已经严重一点有助于我们建立一个解决办法。

Most scholars and institutions concerned with such issues focus on poverty per se but I think it’s more useful and enlightening to focus on wealth.大多数学者和有关机构等问题重点贫困本身，而是我认为这是更为有用和有启发性侧重于财富。 It may not be obvious to everyone that the world is actually awash in money.它可能不是每个人都有目共睹的，世界实际上是充斥着金钱。 Most of it is still in North America and Europe but the numbers of the seriously rich on other continents are catching up fast.大部分仍然是在北美和欧洲，但数量严重丰富的其他各大洲都迅速赶上来。 Those who have the money know very well how to keep it and, with their hired help, the battalions of lawyers, accountants and lobbyists, they are busy salting away their profits in tax havens, finding loopholes and protected investments, lobbying fiercely in parliaments and ministries against regulations on banks and financial markets.这些谁的钱非常清楚地知道如何保持它，并在其租用的帮助下，营的律师，会计师和游说，他们正忙着腌制了他们的利润在避税地，寻找漏洞和保护投资，在激烈的游说议会和部委规章对银行和金融市场。 As you can see, I began by talking about poverty but I am already touching on the links with the financial crisis.正如你所看到的，我开始谈论贫穷，但我已经谈到与金融危机。

How many of you knew that ten million people, according to the latest Merrill-Lynch World Wealth Report, together boast investable, liquid funds of more than $40 trillion?有多少你知道， 1000万人，根据最新美林全球财富报告，同时拥有投资，流动资金超过四十零万亿美元？ That’s 40.000 billion or 40 followed by 12 zeroes.这是40.000亿美元或40其次12个零。 This wealth is above and beyond the value of their houses, cars, yachts, wine or art collections and so on and it is equivalent to about three times the GDP of either the United States or Europe.这财富是超越的价值，他们的房屋，汽车，游艇，葡萄酒或艺术收藏，等等，这是相当于3倍的国内生产总值的美国或欧洲。 You might like another simple calculation.您可能会喜欢另一种简单的计算方法。 Assume that you have one billion dollars, which is the cut-off point for the latest Forbes magazine list of 1125 truly rich individuals in the world.假设您有一个10亿美元，这是切点最新的福布斯杂志1125年名单真正丰富的个人世界。 If despite your billion you are such a dim-witted investor that you get only a five percent return on your fortune, you will still have to spend $137.000 every day of the year in sheer consumption or you will automatically become richer.如果您亿美元，尽管你是这样一个暗淡聪明的投资者，你只有百分之五的回报你的财富，你将需要花137.000美元每天在今年纯粹的消费，或者您将自动成为富裕起来。 My point is that cash is abundant and there’s no shortage of available wealth.我的意思是，现金充裕并没有短缺，现有的财富。

We also know a great deal about inequality.我们也知道了大量的不平等。 The UN World Institute for Development Economic Research, WIDER , estimates total world household assets at about $125 trillion.联合国世界发展经济研究所， 经济学 ，估计占世界家庭资产约为1.25万亿美元。 This is about three times world GDP and unsurprisingly, the top two percent of the world captures more than half of that wealth.这是3倍左右世界国内生产总值和勿庸置疑，前两个占世界捕捉一半以上的财富。 The top 10 percent, which certainly includes many of us here, hold 85 percent, while the bottom half of humanity is obliged to stumble along with barely 1 percent.顶端百分之十，其中当然包括我们许多人在这里，持有百分之八十五，而底部一半的人类必须与失败几乎百分之一。 All you need to be classed in the top half of humanity is a meagre $2200 in total assets—that includes your house, your land or items like your car or your refrigerator—hardly a princely sum.所有您需要被归类在顶端一半的人类是一个贫乏的二二〇 〇美元总资产，包括你的房子，你的土地或项目，如你的车或你的冰箱几乎没有一个王侯的款项。 If all household assets were divided equally—impossible and probably not even desirable to achieve—everyone on earth could have a share of $26.000.如果所有的家庭资产平分，不可能的，而且可能甚至不理想的实现，地球上每个人都可以分享二十六点〇 〇 〇美元。 So again, money as such isn’t the problem.再次，金钱本身不是问题。

In all the countries where 90 percent of the world’s population lives, inequalities have increased especially since the 1980s.在所有的国家，百分之九十的世界人口生活，不平等增加尤其是自20世纪80年代。 At this point in the argument, the neo-liberals usually jump in to remind us that rising tides lifting all boats.在这一点上的观点，在新自由主义者通常上升提醒我们，增加潮汐取消了所有的船只。 They admit that inequalities have grown, but still argue that the poor are better off than they were.他们承认，不平等现象有所增长，但仍认为，穷人更比他们。 It seems almost rude to remind them in turn that falling tides have the opposite effect, they swamp and strand the more fragile boats and that is where the tide of the financial crisis is now taking us.看来几乎粗鲁，提醒他们反过来说，属于潮汐产生相反的效果，他们沼泽和链更加脆弱的船只，这是在潮流的金融危机正在我们。

The real point, however, is not the absolute numbers but the fact that inequality makes the economy and also the natural environment worse for everyone, rich or poor.真正的点，不过，不是绝对数字，但事实上的不平等使经济和自然环境的恶化为每个人，不论贫富。 Two experienced academics, Tony Addison and Giovanni Andrea Cornia, put it this way: “Inequality has risen in many countries over the last two decades [and] little progress can be made in poverty reduction when inequality is high and rising….Contrary to earlier theories of development, high inequality tends to reduce economic growth and therefore poverty reduction through growth.”两名经验丰富的学者，英国艾迪生和乔瓦安德烈Cornia ，这样说： “不平等有上升趋势，许多国家在过去二十年里， [和]没有能够取得进展在减少贫困时，不平等高，上升... 。与早先理论的发展，高度的不平等往往会降低经济增长和减贫因此，通过增长。 “

Although it’s true that economic growth has reduced poverty, particularly in China, one must also ask “At what cost?” China has now overtaken the United States in greenhouse gas emissions and frighteningly has hardly even begun its transition to the automobile society.虽然这是事实，经济增长，减少贫困，尤其是在中国，还必须问“在什么费用？ ”中国现在已经取代美国在温室气体排放量和令人震惊的几乎甚至已开始过渡到汽车社会。 China also requires at least 10 times as much energy as the more mature industrial societies to produce a unit of GDP .中国还需要至少10倍，能源作为更成熟的工业社会产生单位国内生产总值。

Growth certainly isn’t the answer ecologically, but even economically it fails the test because the benefits accrue almost entirely to the top of society.生长肯定不是答案生态，但即使在经济上失败的考验，因为好处几乎完全上方的社会。 That is Cornia and Addison’s main point.这是Cornia和艾迪的要点。

We have also learned in the past few months that it is entirely possible to push tens of millions of poor people off the ledge where they had just gained a foothold and send them back into the depths of poverty.我们还了解到在过去几个月中，这是完全有可能推动数以千万计的贫困人口从知识在他们刚刚站稳脚跟并将其发送到深处的贫困。 Food riots, most of them urban, in at least thirty different countries have revealed another scary new phenomenon: the worldwide food crisis.粮食骚乱，其中大部分是城市，至少在30种不同国家发现另一个可怕的新的现象：在全球粮食危机。 Until now, food shortages and famines tended to be local, but so many societies have accepted neo-liberal trade mantras and become dependent on world markets for their basic daily staples that today a sudden spurt in prices is felt from Haiti to Egypt to Bangladesh.到现在为止，粮食短缺和饥荒往往是地方，但许多社会都接受的新自由主义贸易咒语，并成为依赖于世界市场的基本日常主食，今天突然喷出的价格是认为从海地到埃及，孟加拉国。

The neo-liberal institutions like the World Bank, the WTO and the European Commission continue to pretend that poverty reduction will result from more growth and more trade.新自由主义的机构，如世界银行， 世界贸易组织和欧洲委员会继续假装减贫将产生更多的经济增长和更多的贸易。 They fail to mention that both growth and trade will reinforce the environmental crisis.他们不能不提到这两个增长和贸易将加强环境危机。 The food and energy crises have in turn strong links to the financial crisis, since speculation has been an important factor in both.在食品和能源危机反过来又紧密联系的金融危机，因为投机一直是一个重要的因素，两者兼而有之。 Food and energy are also intimately linked to the climate crisis as one can see instantly when one thinks of carbon-loaded fossil fuels or of agro-fuels taking vast amounts of land away from food production.食品和能源也是密切相关的气候危机，人们可以看到一个即时时认为，碳载入化石燃料或农用燃料采取了大量的土地以外的粮食生产。

At this point in the discussion, especially when one is speaking to concerned, engaged, decent people like those likely to be found at a Schumacher lecture, someone will raise two highly pertinent questions.在这一点上的讨论，尤其是当一个发言关注，参与，体面的人喜欢那些可能会发现在舒马赫演讲，有人会提出两个高度相关的问题。 The first is this: “ Isn’t there a point where people with huge fortunes say ‘enough is enough’ and start sharing?” Some do—Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are oft- cited examples.第一次是这样的： “这不是有一个地方的人巨大的财富说： '够了' ，并开始分享？ ”有些国家，比尔盖茨和沃伦巴菲特都经常引用的例子。 But as a class, I’m sorry to say that the answer is no.但作为一个阶级，我很抱歉地说，答案是否定的。 We know a lot about poverty lines but there is no such thing as a wealth line and the word “ enough “ is not part of the vocabulary of this class.我们知道了很多关于贫困线，但没有这样的东西线和财富改为“足够”不是一部分的词汇这一类。 You needn’t believe me.你不必相信我。 Listen to the expert who said “All for ourselves and nothing for other people seems in every age of the world to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” That was not Karl Marx but Adam Smith, in his classic 1776 treatise on capitalism, the Wealth of Nations.听谁的专家说： “所有为自己和任何其他人似乎在每一个时代的世界一直是邪恶的准则当家作主的人类。 ”这不是卡尔马克思，但亚当斯密，在他1776年的经典论文资本主义国家财富。 Little has changed since then.几乎没有变化从那时起。

The second question is “But why don’t the neo-liberal institutions, like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, the European Commission and the US government recognise that their policies have failed?第二个问题是“为什么不新自由主义的机构，如世界银行，国际货币基金组织，世界贸易组织，欧洲委员会和美国政府认识到，它们的政策已经失败了吗？ Why do they keep on pushing them wherever and whenever they can?” The answer is not just that institutions are always loath to admit their mistakes, especially when these have killed and ruined so many millions.为什么他们继续推动他们无论何时何地，他们可以？ “答案是不只是机构总是不愿意承认自己的错误，特别是当这些死亡和破坏，使数百万。 It is also that these policies have not failed.这也是这些政策并没有失败。

To the contrary, they have produced exactly the results they were intended to produce.相反，它们产生的结果正是他们的目的是要生产。 They have made a tiny fraction of international society rich beyond imagining, they have kept many dependent countries dependent in a new, less visible sort of colonial relationship and they have made so-called free trade, privatisation and unfettered capitalism the rule in countries that previously wanted little or nothing to do with them.他们已作出的一小部分国际社会的丰富的想象之外，他们一直依赖国家的许多依赖于一个新的，不太明显，排序的殖民关系，并已作出的所谓自由贸易，私有化和不受约束的资本主义法治的国家，以前想很少或几乎没有与他们无关。 Furthermore, they have imposed their policies with relatively little organised protest because their ideology has been expertly produced, packaged and delivered.此外，他们实行的政策相对较少举办的抗议，因为他们的意识形态已经熟练地制作，包装和交付。 Ideology can alas have a far stronger influence than facts.不幸的思想可以有一个更强大的影响力远远超过事实。 This is why we must fight on the practical front, of course, but also — I happen to believe primarily — fight the battle of ideas.这就是我们为什么必须进行斗争的实际方面，当然还有-我相信主要-作战的思想。

In any event, the massive funds belonging to rich people who already have most of the material goods they need or want are generally devoted to more or less speculative investments.在任何情况下，大量资金属于富人谁已经大部分物资需要或想一般用于或多或少投机性投资。 Hedge funds, for example, are estimated to be sitting on about three trillion dollars, even today when so many investments have suffered melt-down.对冲基金，例如，据估计，坐在约3万亿美元，即使在今天当如此众多的投资遭受了熔体下来。 The financial institutions have been frantically innovating, particularly over the last decade.各金融机构已疯狂地创新，尤其是在过去十年。 The entire incentive structure of the banking and finance industry has become perverse: the large institutions know perfectly well that they are “too big to fail”, consequently they also know that no matter how risky their actions, they will be bailed out by the public purse and has become all too plain.全体激励结构的银行和金融产业已成为有害：大型机构都非常清楚，他们是“大失败” ，因此他们也知道，无论怎样他们的行动风险，他们将被保释外出的市民钱包，并已成为所有太简单了。 Beforehand, top management takes the money and runs.事前，高层管理人员需要的资金和运行。

Between the years 2000 and 2006, average annual profits of the financial sector in Great Britain averaged 20 percent—that is, two or three times the profit rate of other sectors of the economy.在2000年和2006年，平均每年的利润，财政部门在大不列颠平均百分之二十，也就是说，两次或三次收益率的其他经济部门。 Huge bonuses, especially in the US and the UK, went to a handful of people, intensifying inequalities, whereas millions further down the ladder have lost their jobs and often their homes.巨额奖金，特别是在美国和英国，去了几个人，强化不平等，而进一步下跌数以百万计的阶梯失去了工作，而且往往他们的家园。 Such profits were themselves clearly not sustainable because at some point, financial gain must be based not just on speculation but on the real economy.这些利润是自己显然不是可持续的，因为在某些时候，财政收益的基础必须是不只是猜测，但对实际经济。

Now that the bailouts are coming thick and fast, we have before us a singular example of socialism for the rich, the well-connected and Wall Street, in which the profits are grabbed by the usual suspects and the losses, tremendous losses, are billed to taxpayers.现在，救助来厚，速度快，摆在我们面前的一个独特的例子，社会主义的丰富，以及连接和华尔街，其中利润抓住了犯罪嫌疑人和平常的损失，巨大损失，结算给纳税人。 The United States has in effect nationalised these institutions and their debts—without getting anything from the financial industry in exchange.美国已在国有化的影响，这些机构和它们的债务，没有得到任何来自金融业的交流。

As the sub-prime crisis has continued to ooze like a giant oil spill over the whole economy, speculators have searched for alternative profitable areas and created the food-price bubble trouble in which we now find ourselves.随着次贷危机继续软泥就像一个巨大的石油泄漏事件对整个经济，投机者寻找替代有利可图的领域，并建立了食品价格的泡沫问题我们现在所处。 What happens then?会怎么样呢？ The resource-poor, the world’s hungry, grab whatever they can, they chop down trees, kill animals and overexploit what little land they may have.在资源贫乏，世界饥饿，抓不管他们可以，他们砍树木，杀死动物和过度的少量土地，他们可能有。 Poverty is bad news for nature.贫困是坏消息的性质。 But so is wealth.但是，就是财富。 Even though there are far fewer of them, the rich cause much greater environmental damage with their dinosaurian ecological footprints.即使有少得多，其中，富国造成更大的环境破坏与恐龙生态足迹。 People who use the population argument to explain the multiple crises and who see in population control the solution are missing a crucial point—it’s not so much the number of people, although numbers are important, as their relative weight.人们谁使用人口的论点来解释多重危机，谁看到人口控制的解决方案缺少一个关键的时刻，它不是这么多的人的数目，但数目是重要的，因为它们的相对比重。

Furthermore, as we have repeatedly witnessed, the frequency and the fury of storms provoked by global warming hit the poor and the poorer regions of the globe hardest.此外，我们已多次看到，频率和愤怒的风暴挑起全球变暖打击穷人和贫困地区的全球最大。 There is worse to come.还有更糟糕的是未来。 We have not even begun to comprehend the perils of climate change, including vastly increased numbers of environmental refugees who will crowd the planet due to droughts, flooding and crop failures.我们甚至还没有开始理解的危险的气候变化，包括数量大大增加的环境难民将人群谁地球由于旱灾，水灾和农作物歉收。 The Pentagon is already working on how to stem this tide by countering by whatever means necessary the refugees frantic efforts to reach more favourable lands.美国国防部已经着手对如何制止这种反潮流的一切必要手段的难民疯狂的努力，达成更有利的土地。 Government planning for this perfectly predictable phenomenon is limited to increased surveillance and security responses, not attempts to make outmigration less necessary.政府规划，这完全可预见的现象是有限的，以加强监督和安全对策，而不是企图使外流不到必要的。 And yet the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] which is probably the most respected scientific body in the world, has already warned us that in Africa, the yields of rain-fed agriculture are likely to be reduced by 50 percent, deserts will gain ground, species destruction has already reached such proportions that we are in the midst of the sixth geological extinction of the planet’s four and a half billion-year history.然而，联合国政府间气候变化专门委员会[警监]这可能是最受人尊敬的科学机构在世界上，已经告诫我们，在非洲，产量的雨水灌溉的农业很可能是减少了百分之五十，将沙漠获得地面，物种的破坏已经达到这种地步，我们正处于第六地质灭绝这个星球上的四个半亿年的历史。 The fifth extinction was the one that put paid to the dinosaurs.第五灭绝是一个把支付给恐龙。

I could go on drawing out relationships between the poverty, financial and ecological crises but I’m sure you need no more.我可以继续掏之间的关系，贫困，财政和生态危机，但我相信你不再需要。 The question is what we can do about all this and by “we” , I mean people everywhere who understand that the triple crisis is real and urgent.现在的问题是我们能做些什么有关这一切的“我们” ，我的意思是谁各地人民理解，这三重危机是真实的和紧迫的。

Knowing that I will doubtless offend a great many people here, let me say straight away that there is an exit strategy, a genuine solution exists, but it is not in my view the one that many well-meaning environmentalists have long advocated.知道，我无疑将得罪了许多人在这里，请允许我说马上有一个退出战略，真正解决存在的，但它并不是我认为的一个，许多善意的环保人士长期以来一直主张。 I’m sorry, but the time has passed for telling people to change their behaviour and their lightbulbs; that if enough people do this, then together “we” can save the planet.我很抱歉，但时间已经过去了告诉人们改变他们的行为和他们的灯泡; ，如果足够多的人做到这一点，然后一起“我们”可以拯救地球。 I’m sorry, but “we” can’t.我很抱歉，但“我们”不能。 Obviously I’m not suggesting that people shouldn’t change their behaviour and their lightbulbs—but even if the entire population of Europe does so—a most unlikely scenario—it’s not going to be enough.显然，我不认为人们不应当改变他们的行为和他们的灯泡，但即使在整个欧洲人口这样做一个最不可能的情况，也不会是不够的。 I agree as well with proposals for localisation and scaling down, but we have also got to scale up.我同意并提出建议本地化和缩小，但我们也得到扩大。

We need large-scale solutions, sophisticated, industrial solutions and huge involvement of governments in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions drastically enough to save our future.我们需要大规模的解决方案，技术先进，工业解决方案和巨大的参与政府，以减少温室气体排放量急剧足以拯救我们的未来。 In other words, we must have the courage to challenge not just our political leadership but the entire neo-liberal, unregulated, privatised, capitalist economic system in place in order to provoke and promote a quantitative and qualitative leap in the scale of environmental action.换句话说，我们必须有勇气挑战不只是我们的政治领导人，而且对整个新自由主义的，不受管制，私有化，资本主义经济制度，以刺激和促进定量和定性的飞跃规模的环境行动。 Dare I say it here?我敢说在这里？ Sometimes big can be beautiful and right now is one of those times.有时，大可美丽和现在的问题是其中的一个时代。

Since I believe that individual and local solutions are necessary but tragically insufficient to address the seriousness and the urgency of the ecological crisis, I will use the rest of my time to discuss the twin problems of how to deal with governments and with the capitalist corporate production and financial system.自从我认为，个人和地方的解决方案是必要的，但不幸的不足以解决的严重性和紧迫性的生态危机，我将利用剩余的时间来讨论这两个问题如何处理政府与企业的资本主义生产和金融体系。 The dilemma I wrestle with is this: Can we save the planet while international capitalism remains the dominant system, with its focus on profit, share-holder value, predatory resource capture and with no-holds-barred finance capital making more and more decisions?我的困境与摔跤是这样的：我们能拯救地球，而国际资本主义仍然占主导地位的制度，把重点放在利润，股东价值，掠夺资源的采集和无持有限制金融资本使越来越多的决定？ Can we rescue our natural home when confronted with a powerful caste that does not know the meaning of “enough” and is allergic to the kind of fundamental change a New Ecological Economic Order requires?我们能不能拯救我们的自然家园时，面对的是一个强大的种姓，不知道什么是“足够” ，是过敏的一种根本性的变化一种新的生态经济秩序的需要？ Can we move forward when governments basically work for the interests of that class?我们能否向前迈进时，政府工作的基本利益，是一流的？

On bad days I reply No: We can’t save the planet.在坏几天，我没有回答：我们不能拯救地球。 It’s impossible to reverse the climate crisis under capitalism.这是不可能的，以扭转气候危机下的资本主义。 But that is a despairing answer and if true, it means there is virtually no hope.但是，这是一个绝望的答案，如果报道属实，这意味着几乎没有希望。 No hope, because I do not see how even the most convinced, most determined people could replace, much less overthrow capitalism fast enough to carry out the necessary systemic change before a runaway climate effect takes hold—always assuming it hasn’t done so already.没有希望，因为我不知道如何即使是最相信，最有决心的人可以取代，更推翻资本主义的速度不够快进行必要的制度变革面前失控气候效应掌握，总是假定它没有这样做。 First of all, there are not that many convinced and determined people prepared to act against the dominant economic system and there is nothing that resembles in the smallest degree an avant-garde revolutionary party that might lead them even if they existed.首先，有没有那么多的确信和坚定的人准备采取行动对占主导地位的经济体制和有没有类似的最小程度的前卫革命党有可能导致他们，即使他们的存在。 There is no one-size-fits-all replacement solution for capitalism.有没有一个一刀切的替代解决方案资本主义。 Considering the historical record and role of such parties and such solutions, I consider this an unmistakably good thing.考虑到历史记录和作用等政党和这种解决办法，我认为这是一个明白无误一件好事。

. 。

But there are other obstacles to once-for-all revolutionary change.但也有其他障碍，一旦为所有的革命性变革。 Nobody knows, figuratively speaking, who the Tsar is that we would have to overthrow today and nobody has a clue where to find the Winter Palace we would have to storm.没有人知道，形象地讲，谁是皇帝的是，我们将不得不推翻今天没有人知道在哪里可以找到冬宫，我们将不得不风暴。 We know the Winter Palace isn’t on Wall Street which was up and running again a few days after 11 September and is now taking full advantage of the bailouts.我们知道冬宫不是在华尔街这是启动和运行再次几天后9月11日，现在充分利用救助。 The US is only one of many world capitalist centres.美国是唯一世界上许多资本主义的中心。 Even if we were to win in one place, the nomadic money-moguls would simply mount their camels and head for another.即使我们赢在一个地方，游牧洗钱巨头将其简单地装入骆驼和另一头。 The worlds of 1917 and of 2007 are utterly different, so we must try to move beyond this revolutionary impasse, this dead-end and find a new synthesis.世界的1917年和2007年完全不同，所以我们必须超越这个革命性的僵局，这死胡同，并找到一种新的合成。

The question we face is not so much what to do — I think that is reasonably clear and I’m about to spell it out—but whether we will have the intelligence and the strength to seize the great opportunity with which we are now presented.这个问题我们所面临的与其说是做什么-我认为这是相当清楚，我的拼写出来，但我们是否将拥有智慧和力量，抓住这个大好机会，我们现。 Perhaps the words “great opportunity” strike you as wildly optimistic considering the long and dire preamble you’ve just listened to.也许用“巨大的机会”严打你乐观考虑到长期和可怕的序言您刚刚听。 However, I am now going to argue that not only are individual solutions insufficient but that the remedies offered by Kyoto, Bali, Bonn or whatever timid future agreements may be negotiated are tragically inadequate, Once more—I cannot stress this enough—the scale is crucial.不过，我现在认为，不仅是个人的解决办法，但不足的补救措施所提供的京都，巴厘，波恩或任何胆怯的未来协定谈判可能会是可悲的不足，一旦更不能强调这一点不够，规模至关重要的。 And the great opportunity is to be found in the financial crisis itself.和巨大的机会可能是在金融危机本身。 Properly targeted and used, it could open the door to the quantitative and qualitative leap we must make.正确配置和使用，它可以打开大门的数量和质量的飞跃，我们必须。

Some progressive people will reject the solution I propose, but I would then ask them what alternative they offer.一些进步人士将拒绝解决，我建议，但我会问他们什么替代它们提供的。 The ecological crisis is of a different nature from the financial and poverty crises in the sense that once climate change is underway, as it is now, it is irreversible and we haven’t time for theoretically perfect solutions.生态危机是性质不同的金融和贫困的危机感，一旦气候变化正在进行，因为它是现在，这是不可逆转的，我们没有时间进行理论上完美的解决方案。 With politics you can sometimes turn back and start over, but not where nature is concerned.与政治有时你可以回头，并开始了，但不是自然的问题。 So you can accuse me if you like of suggesting a way to give capitalism a new lease on life and I will plead guilty.因此，你可以指责我，如果你想暗示的方式向资本主义的一个新的生命，我会认罪。

Let’s take first the slightly easier question “How can we deal with governments?” at least in the more or less democratic countries.让我们先稍微轻松的问题“我们怎样才能处理政府？ ”至少在或多或少的民主国家。 China is another matter.中国又是另一回事。 People are generally way ahead of their governments in recognising the emergency.人们普遍前进的道路他们的政府认识到紧急情况。 The political issue is not simply to “throw the rascals out” because they would be replaced by other rascals just as bad, just as beholden to the corporations, their lobbies and the financial markets.政治问题不是简单的“坏蛋赶下台，扔了” ，因为它们将取代其他坏蛋赶下台一样糟糕，就像依赖于企业，其大堂和金融市场。 The trick is to convince politicians that ecological transformation and environmental practices can pay off politically.诀窍是说服政治家，生态改造和环境方面的做法可以还清政治。

This means that citizens, activists and experts, whether they like it or not, have got to work with local, regional and national politicians and governments; help them to find like-minded partners and formulate ambitious projects they can undertake on the broadest possible scale.这意味着，公民，活动家和专家，他们是否喜欢还是不喜欢，必须与地方，区域和国家的政治家和政府帮助他们找到志同道合的合作伙伴，并制定雄心勃勃的项目，他们可以进行尽可能广泛的规模。 Citizens, activists and experts must furthermore help these politicians and governments to become shining ecological examples with the electorate by publicising their efforts and their successes.公民，活动家和专家必须进一步帮助这些政治家和政府，成为光辉的范例生态与选民的宣传他们的努力和成就。 Could the Schumacher Society become a kind of nexus for an ongoing forum of best-standards/best practice, bringing together political decision makers at every level with citizens groups and experts to discuss and carry out the best public-sector initiatives?舒马赫可能会成为一种关系的一个持续的论坛best-standards/best实践，汇集政治决策者在每一级与公民团体和专家讨论并进行最佳的公共部门的举措？ Politicians must be convinced that these policies will not just work but also be highly popular with their constituencies.政治家必须确信，这些政策将不只是工作，而且也极受欢迎的选区。

Now let’s take the more difficult question of confronting the economic system as a whole.现在，让我们采取更困难的问题面对经济体制作为一个整体。 In his book Collapse, Jared Diamond examines several historical cases of social extinction due to over-exploitation of the environment.在他的书中崩溃，贾里德戴蒙德研究一些历史案件的社会灭绝由于过度开采环境。 He identifies several common characteristics.他列出几个共同特点。 One of these is the isolation of the elites, giving them the capacity to keep on consuming way above ecologically sustainable limits long after the crisis has already struck the poorer, more vulnerable members of society.其中之一是孤立的精英，使他们的能力，不断消耗大大高于生态可持续限制在危机结束后很久已经击中了穷，较脆弱的社会成员。 That is where we are now globally, not just in isolated places like Easter Island or Greenland.这就是我们现在正在全球范围内，不仅在偏僻的地方像复活节岛或格陵兰。

So how can we realistically combat the ecological footprints of our dinosaur elites, recognising that we don’t have the option of shouting “Off with their heads” in some imagined, world-wide revolution.因此，我们如何能够切实打击生态足迹的恐龙精英，认识到我们没有选择，高喊“砍掉他们的头”在一些想像，世界各地的革命。 Nor can we force them to change both themselves and the system that serves them so well, whereas we know that we must change that system because it is raping the planet and its inherent logic is to keep on doing so.我们也不能强迫他们改变自己和本系统，可他们这么好，而我们知道，我们必须改变这种制度，因为这是强奸地球和其内在的逻辑是继续这样做。

I can see only one way out: the coming together of people, business and government in a new incarnation of the Keynesian war economy strategy.我可以看到出路只有一条：在今后的人民一道，企业和政府在新的化身的凯恩斯主义的经济战略战争。 I was born in the United States in 1934 and I remember well when the US switched massively to a war economy, converting all the rubber plants in my native city [Akron, Ohio] to production not for private cars and trucks but for the military.我出生在美国于1934年，我记得当时美国转向大规模的战争经济，转换所有的橡胶厂在我的故乡[俄亥俄州阿克伦]生产而不是私人小汽车和卡车，但军事。 There was huge citizen involvement and support.有巨大的公民参与和支持。 Thousands of factories, research labs, housing projects, military bases, day care centres, and schools were built or expanded during the war.成千上万的工厂，研究实验室，住房项目，基地，日间护理中心，与学校建立或扩大了在战争期间。 Public transport was improved and worked overtime to move millions of men and women to Army bases or new defence jobs.公共交通是改善和加班将数以百万计的男子和妇女在陆军基地或新的防御工作。

Yes, there were still worker-management conflicts and yes, big corporations rather than small business got most of the government contracts but on the whole the workers were well paid, African-Americans and women began making a few modest gains and the whole war effort finally pulled the United States out of the Depression—it was Keynesianism on a huge scale.是的，还有工人，管理冲突和肯定的，大企业，而不是小企业获得的大部分政府合同，但总体上工人工资，非洲裔和妇女开始进行一些温和上涨和整个战争的努力最终退出美国走出萧条这是凯恩斯主义的一个巨大的规模。 There was also an elite group of businessmen called “Dollar-a-Year Men” on loan from their companies to the government, who were charged with making sure that military production and quality targets were met.还有一个精英组的商人所谓的“美元一年度男人”的贷款，他们的公司向政府，谁被指控犯有保证军事生产和质量目标得到满足。 They had enormous prestige—my godfather was one and I was doubtless insufferable bragging to my little school friends about him.他们拥有巨大的威望，我干爹是一个和我无疑是难以忍受吹嘘为我的小同学对他的。

Why am I going back over this ancient history?为什么我会回到这个古老的历史？ Because I think we have a similar opportunity today.因为我认为我们也有类似今天的机会。 The US and the world economy are heading downhill fast and the fallout for ordinary people in terms of jobs, housing, consumption and future welfare is going to be grave.美国和世界经济正在走向下坡速度快，影响普通百姓而言，就业，住房，消费和未来的福利将是严重的。 If this diagnosis is right, then some new economic tools will have to be used to combat recession and stagnation, simply because the old ones have already been pushed to their limits and have little or nothing left to give.如果这个诊断是正确的，然后一些新的经济工具将被用来对付衰退和停滞，只是因为旧的已经被推到了极限，并很少或几乎没有离开给。

The way Central Banks and Treasuries usually try to solve financial recession or depression is through standard remedies like interest rate cuts, currency devaluations or incurring new debt—but the United States has reached the end of its leash on that score.该方式银行和中央国债通常试图解决金融衰退或萧条是通过标准的补救措施一样降低利率，货币贬值或承担新的债务，但美国已经结束的皮带上评分。 Interest rates are already extremely low—although not in Europe, where the European Central Bank and its hidebound president are ideologically committed to the same sorts of monetary policies that prolonged the Great Depression in the 1930s.利率已经非常低，虽然没有在欧洲，欧洲中央银行和保守思想总统致力于同各种各样的货币政策，长期大萧条的1930年。 The dollar is already weak, which makes US exports cheaper, but it can’t be devalued much further without risk.美元已弱，这使得美国出口产品更便宜，但不能进一步贬值风险。 Deficit spending is already beyond belief.赤字开支已经是难以置信的。 With the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Federal Reserve in effect took on their bad debt and added hugely to the liabilities of the United States Treasury.随着救助的Fannie Mae和Freddie Mac ，联邦储备委员会在上影响了他们的不良债务和增加巨大的负债的美国财政部。 It risks doing so again.它的风险这样做了。 Households too are over-indebted and are losing more equity every day as the value of their dwellings deteriorates.家庭也过度负债和正在失去更多的股权每天的价值，他们的住所恶化。

Since the traditional tools are worn out, the only new tool I can think of to pull the world out economic ruin and social chaos is a new Keynesianism, not military this time, but environmental; a push for massive investment in energy conversion, eco-friendly industry, new materials, efficient public transport; the green construction industry and so on.由于传统的工具是破旧的，唯一的新工具，我能想到的撤出了在世界经济崩溃和社会动乱是一个新的凯恩斯主义，而不是军事这个时间，但环境;推进大规模投资能源转换，生态友好产业，新材料，高效的公共交通工具;的绿色建筑行业等等。

Stringent standards for new buildings must become the norm; older ones can be “retro-fitted” on easy financial terms; families and commercial property-owners can receive financial incentives for installing green roofs and solar panels and sell excess energy to the grid.严格的标准，新建筑物必须成为规范;旧的可以是“逆向装配”的简单的财务条款;家庭和商业财产的所有者可以得到财政奖励安装绿色屋顶和太阳能电池板和出售多余的能量发车。 Research and development can be oriented towards alternative energies and strong, ultra-light materials for airplanes and vehicles.研究与发展可以面向替代能源和强有力的，超轻型材料，飞机和车辆。 Technically speaking, we already know how to do such things, although some clean solutions are still more costly than dirty ones.从技术上讲，我们已经知道如何做这些事情，但也有一些干净的解决方案，更是昂贵的脏的。 Mass-produced, they would become less so.大规模生产，他们将变得不那么做。

All these new, eco-friendly industries, products and processes would have huge export value and could quickly become the world standard.所有这些新的环保产业，产品和工艺将产生巨大的出口值可能很快成为世界标准。 I am trying to describe a scenario that can be sold to the elites because I don’t think they will embrace genuine environmental values and conversion if there’s nothing in it for them.我想描述的情况，可以出售的精英，因为我不认为他们会接受真正的环境价值观和转换，如果没有什么在为他们。 But this approach is not merely a cynical attempt to get the elites to move in their own interests.但是，这种做法不仅是一个玩世不恭地企图让精英将在自己的利益。 There are also plenty of advantages in such an economy for working people.也有许多优势在这样一个经济的劳动人民。 A huge ecological conversion is a job for a high-tech, high-skills, high-productivity, high-employment society.巨大的生态转换是一个工作，一个高技术，高技能，高生产率，高就业的社会。 It would be supported, I believe, by the entire population because it would mean not just a better, cleaner, healthier, more climate-friendly environment, but also full employment, better wages, and new skills, as well as a humanitarian purpose and an ethical justification—just like World War II.这将是支持的，我相信，通过全体人民，因为这不仅意味着一个更美好，更清洁，更健康，更气候友好的环境，而且还充分就业，更好的工资和新的技能，以及人道主义的宗旨和一个道德理由，就像第二次世界大战。

How could one finance such a huge effort?人们怎能金融如此巨大的努力？ It would have to involve targeted government spending in the traditional Keynesian sense and governments are bound to complain that they haven’t the means to carry out such a policy.它将涉及政府开支的目标在传统的凯恩斯主义意识和政府一定抱怨说，他们没有办法进行这样的政策。

The financial crisis provides the ideal opportunity both to finance the conversion and to get the runaway global financial system under control.金融危机提供了理想的机会，以资助这两个转换，并获得巨大的全球金融体系受到控制。

At present, taxes almost always stop at national borders. The secret is to take taxes up to the European level and to the international one through currency and other financial transaction taxes. People who oppose such schemes pretend they are not feasible because one would need to obtain the consent of every national jurisdiction in the world, but that is not correct. In fact, currency and other transaction taxes would require nothing more than political determination, the cooperation of the Central Bank and a few lines of software. For the currency transaction tax first proposed by James Tobin in the 1970s and now considerably refined, the tax base is the currency itself, not the place it’s traded. Thus the European Central Bank could easily collect the taxes on any transactions involving euros, the Bank of England the same for the pound, the Fed for the dollar and so on. Since currency trades now amount to $3.2 trillion dollars every day, a tax of one basis point, that is, a levy of one per thousand could raise a tidy sum for ecological conversion and poverty reduction. Britain already imposes a tax on stock market transactions but other European countries do not and should imitate Britain.

Carbon taxes are another much mooted and equally feasible idea. So is a unitary profits tax on transnational corporations, which would require knowing the total sales of the company, the total taxes paid, the sales realised in each jurisdiction and the tax paid in each jurisdiction. If, for example, a TNC reported that in country X, a particularly low-tax jurisdiction, it made 5 percent of its sales yet paid 50 percent of its taxes, the authorities would find it a bit fishy. I’m presenting an extremely crude summary here but believe me, there are experts—bankers, corporate lawyers, fiscal experts and accountants—who know exactly how to do such things. Perhaps to encourage more local consumption, one could also think about taxing the miles travelled by the food we eat and the clothes we wear.

We would not forget the poor countries of the South which are the major terrain of the poverty crisis. Debt cancellation for poor countries that the G-8 has been promising for a decade must finally happen but against the requirement that these countries also contribute to the planetary environmental effort through re-forestation, soil conservation, species protection and the like. They would also be required to involve their own people in democratic decision-making and the funds would be carefully monitored by independent auditors.

Tax havens that allow affluent individuals and corporations to avoid paying their fair share of the conversion should be shut down: it would be cheaper to pay the inhabitants of the Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein and the rest a living wage for twenty years. Plenty of cash would remain for eco-investments, job-creation and poverty relief.

In exchange for their bailouts, the banks and investment houses have to accept regulation—not just regulations to insure transparency and eliminate the incentives for stupid behaviour but also more stringent ones forcing them to participate in the ecological offensive. They should be obliged to devote X percent of their loan portfolios to eco-projects at below market interest rates—which they could make up by charging much higher rates on loans to dirty or otherwise anti-ecological projects. Low or no-cost financing for home conversion projects should be another compulsory priority for banks. This could give a huge spurt to the construction industry.

Nobody is asking for the moon here. Banks would still make loans, finance investments and earn a fair return for their services. Taxes on currency transactions at one basis point are not going to ruin anyone. Unitary profits taxes on large corporations would simply return us to the era when the companies paid their taxes because they couldn’t avoid them. The point is that a Keynesian taxation and redistribution system would be invested, nationally and internationally, both ecologically and socially, in education, health care, clean, green energy, efficient water distribution, communications technology, public transport, and various other things the world needs and that we already know how to do. These measures would, in turn go a very long way to creating opportunities for far more people to participate in the new green economy through jobs, life-long education, more social protection and reduced inequality. Getting the present financial crisis-producing, free-flowing, unregulated financial system under public and citizen control is the prerequisite for solving both the environmental and the poverty crises.

In other words, it’sa Public Relations dream. Whichever political parties understand this can win on such a programme without anyone having to bring down the entire capitalist system as a prior condition for saving the planet.

A Keynesian ecological programme would furthermore bring many constituencies together in a common cause. As matters now stand, politically speaking, no single interest group can solve the problem that concerns it most. By this I mean that, by themselves, ecologists can’t save the environment; farmers alone can’t save family farms; trade unions alone can’t save well-paid jobs in industry and so on. Broad alliances are the only way to go, the only strategy that pays. The Global Justice Movement, as international social activists call it, has begun to have some success in working democratically and making alliances with partners who come from different constituencies but are basically on the same wavelength.

Now we must go beyond this stage and attempt something more difficult: to forge alliances also with people we don’t necessarily agree with on quite major questions—for example, with business. This can only be accomplished by recognising that disagreements, even conflicts, can be fruitful and positive so long as the areas where it is possible to agree are sought out, identified and built upon. We must find where the circles of our concerns overlap. At least one of those overlaps ought to be saving our common home. I don’t see any other way of generating citizen enthusiasm, involvement and the qualitative and quantitative leap in scale that is now required.

I haven’t time to elaborate on all the technical details concerning the content and the financing of necessary environmental investments. What I can do is guarantee you that the conversion to a green economy is technically feasible. The schemes for new taxes have been thought through; the industrial prototypes already exist; the machinery is ready to hum into action the moment people can make their politicians accept the challenge. Getting the financial system under control and taxing international capital at quite ridiculously low rates in order to redistribute it institutionally and internationally would be enormously popular. We could seriously attack climate change and eliminate the worst of world poverty within a decade. We are talking politics, not technical aspects here and trying to figure out a way to tame the raging beast, the crisis-producing, free-flowing, unregulated financial system and putting it under public and citizen control.

Capitalism is not sane in the sense that most people understand sanity. We humans normally think about our future, that of our children and the future of our countries and the world. The market, on the contrary, operates in the eternal present which, by definition, cannot even entertain the notion of the future and therefore excludes safeguards against future, looming destruction unless these safeguards are imposed upon it by law.

We need law, for sure, and political forces with the backbone to propose and to vote the law into existence, but we also need to think about human motivation. Remember the prestigious Dollar-a-Year Men of the 1940s and imagine what might happen if we could transpose them into the world of 21st century capitalism. A significant number of contemporary captains of capitalism, all of them with bloated, unimaginable salaries, might be brought to believe that money is all very well, but is there nothing more? Why not found an extremely exclusive Order of the Earth Defenders, or the Environmental Knights or the Carbon Conquerors who alone, in recognition of their special contributions to the national and international environmental conversion effort. They would have the right to display a highly visible emblem on a banner in front of their homes; a fanion on their cars, a green and gold rosette in their buttonholes like the French Legion d’Honneur or a Congressional Medal of Ecological Honour. They would belong to the small assembly of the anointed; those who provide the means and have the honour of saving the earth. Becoming a member ought to appeal to their competitive spirit.

In conclusion, let me say that myth has always been the driving force of every great human achievement, from Greek democracy to the Renaissance to the Enlightenment and the American and French Revolutions. So must it be in the coming age of Ecological Stewardship. To save the planet, we must change, quickly and profoundly, the way the majority thinks and feels and acts, and we must start with the social forces we have right here and right now, and no others. It’s no use wishing they were different ones or stronger, or wiser. We must play the hand history deals us.

For such a change, we will need six “Ms”, starting with Money, Management and Media. But even more important than these three “Ms”, we must try to create a new sense of Mission and Motivation and Myth at the noblest level. “Myth” in this sense has nothing to do with story-telling or lies. It is the grand narrative that empowers us to believe that we can accomplish what we must accomplish. It speaks to the deepest motivations of human consciousness and inspires the desire for honour and for a life’s work which transcends death. The elites already have Money, Management, Media. On our side, we have Mission, Motivation and Myth. If we can bring together all these, the future will take care of itself.

And wouldn’t that be nicer than having another war?

Have Your Say: Solutions for a Sustainable World
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