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Who Speaks for Earth?

Jeff & Susan • December 30, 2021

A view of the earth from space at night.

“It costs too much.”

In survival terms, anything is affordable, if it is necessary.

However, when solutions to longstanding societal damage (e.g., poverty, food scarcity, homelessness, lack of healthcare, forced migration, failing infrastructure) are suggested, they are put aside with the statement, “It costs too much.”

Do they? What is money worth? What is Humanity worth? What is Life worth? If we cannot insist on defending life-sustaining solutions, then what is worth insisting upon?

Only we can save Earth

As one of the main perpetrators of climate change, we are also the only ones able to fix it. However, we drag our feet, claim it “costs too much,” and argue that it’s too complicated to save Earth. Yet, there is no other option.

Buckminster Fuller from Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth stated, “But it costs too much. This too narrow treatment of the problem never faces the inexorably-evolving and solution-insistent problem of what it will cost when we don’t have air and water with which to survive.”

Instead of the present ‘fear of the other’ and ‘they don’t think like us’, which forces misunderstanding, conflict and wars, shouldn’t we be promoting and funding systems that deliver basic needs like, food, shelter, education, and healthcare? Do we want our legacy to be that we funded fear and war instead of life? Of course not.

We must speak for Earth. No one is coming to rescue us from the Dementors. As Carl Sagan said in Cosmos , “If we do not speak for Earth, who will? If we are not committed to our own survival, who will be?”

There is a way

There is a way to save our planet and roll back the impact of climate change. Plus, it doesn’t have to “cost too much.”

On a daily basis, we create humanitarian wealth, backed by our minds and labor. That wealth can help provide basic needs worldwide.

Renew the Earth suggests that a dedicated parallel currency stream can turn us on a better course. We call this Energy Currency – issued to every person at birth, (with specially printed currency, debit cards, bit coin, whatever is most efficient) used on a monthly basis by an individual for needs only and cannot be saved or speculated. Expiring at the end of the month and renewed every new month at the amount that affords basic needs where each person lives, this will not “cost too much.”

How much will it cost to construct and perpetuate indefinitely a system that alleviates social distress and protects nature? Just a fraction of what it is costing countries to maintain military defense structures that promise “mutually assured destruction,” if ever used in a moment of unclear thinking. Production and distribution of basic needs are inexpensive and use low tech methods by comparison to military technology and spending.

To quote Carl Sagan once again, “In our tenure on this planet we have accumulated dangerous evolutionary baggage, hereditary propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders and hostility to outsiders, which place our survival in some question. But we have acquired compassion for others, love for our children and our children’s children, a desire to learn from history and a great soaring passionate intelligence – the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity.”

To learn more about Energy Currency, contact Renew the Earth today.

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