Fifty years ago today three human beings left earth and traveled
three days to the moon, circled it and returned safely back to earth. Centuries
of human study and application of science and technology merged in one nation with
the resources, fear*, and vision blended together to achieve the first truly monumental
human goal -- space travel.
It wasn’t the only great human goal achieved, but it was the
first. And if a person understands the profoundly
extraordinary courage, exactness, genius, and inherent risk involved in this
human effort, tears of joy and pride might be the appropriate response. Especially for those three who saw Earth for
the first time for what it really is, our home planet, alone in the vast cold darkness
of space.
Few people consider the fact that Earth has an expiration
date. It is so distant (we hope) that we
don’t waste time thinking about it. But we
should. As several NASA directors and astronauts
have stated ‘in the long run, no single plant species will survive.”
In the short term (the next 20-50 years), we should devote
our planets best scientists and engineers to preserving earth’s natural systems
and structures that we all depend on for our immediate health, security (clean air,
clean water, adequate food and shelter….) and prosperity. This would include the climate systems and
even the human made systems and structures of governments that are growing in
power but lacking the same values that were used to reach the moon and return
safely.
Unfortunately, today, too many governments have devoted the rigorous
application of the same science and technology and vast amounts of money to maximize
the destruction of other governments and the deaths of human beings within
them. Humanity hasn’t lost its vision
of a sustainable world at peace where all people have equal opportunity to be healthy,
wealthy and wise. But we have lost touch
with, or never understood, the power we do have in influencing our government’s
priorities.
Most Americans today see the United States as a place of
American blood and soil to be protected by a powerful military. Some
think a wall will help. But John McCain’s
farewell letter this summer offered the true genius of our nation. He called the
US “a nation of ideals, not blood and soil”.
And those ideals are universal. The
most profound being the primary mission of any legitimate government -- to
protect the inalienable human rights of “liberty and justice for all”.
I assert that the second greatest human achievement in all
of history was achieved a decade after the moon shot. It was the confirmed global eradication of Smallpox
in 1980. This
viral disease killed humans for thousands of years and killed more people in just
80 years of the last century (over 300 million) than all the wars, revolutions,
and genocides combined (about 250 million) in that full century. But it would never have happened unless every nation and village in the world had participated.
It was the first disease ever eradicated. And so far, the only one. Polio eradication was targeted for the year
2000 but failed because of wars and a lack of political will to reduce the
worst aspects of global poverty. It
remains with us today…and could mutate as all pathogens do and return with a vengeance. Every aspect of humanities bio security requires a comprehensive global effort.
Arguably the next great human achievement (and perhaps the
most urgent and important) will be meeting each of the 17 Sustainable
Development Goals on or before 2030. World
governments have already agreed they are a priority but lack the political will
to insure enough funding will be invested in time. These goals are affordable and achievable with
existing technology and financial resources even if governments offered zero
existing government financing. But they
would need to ensure that sufficient money comes from other sources. There are four potential sources. Millions of voluntary private donations, generous
global corporations, a Robinhood tax on global financial transactions, or freezing
and then seizing some of the illegitimate earnings in offshore accounts stashed
there by kleptocrats, criminal syndicates, tax avoiding capitalists. This estimated stash of $32 trillion seems
like the most likely target for success.
But it would require a ‘Movement of Movements’ (MoM) acting together to pass legislation in the US and other powerful developed nations to make it happen. The biggest barrier in the US to mobilizing such a MoM here is the resistance within the leadership of organizations that remain focused on their own movement (environmental, peace, or social/economic justice) instead of the comprehensive approach that the 17 SDGs offer. The silo effect between (and even within) each of these movements prevents the collective action essential to comprehensively achieving the 17 goals. Each movement (and organizations within each movement) remain focused on their individual missions (continuing to compete with one another for limited private, corporate and government funding) instead of the united effort needed to acquire adequate funding for all.
The environmental movement certainly has the most momentum
and the best motivational point with even the US military agreeing that global warming
is a national security issue. The peace
movement refuses to admit they continue to push the weakest motivation - ‘world
peace’. With the world facing more
threats of nation state violence and aggression combined with the unprecedented
proliferation of WMD and increases in weapon sales and nationalism, there is
little chance governments will stop spending ‘defense funds’ to fund
humanitarian goals. Many within the
peace movement believe this is the only way to fund humanitarian goals and
resist the reality that funding the human humanitarian goals is the best way for
all the world’s governments to improve their national security. The so
called “peace and justice” community puts more attention to disarmament and
cutting defense budgets expecting it to achieve peace (and fund humanitarian
goals) instead of recognizing that peace and security is NOT a function of disarmament or armaments. Peace and most forms
of security are a function of justice.
The so called ‘social/economic justice movement’ correctly believes
that their individual, national and global goals are essential to protecting
the environment and the root of peace and security, but largely remain hesitant
in using the context of national security to push their humanitarian
agenda. Even the Peace movement shies away
from this accurate perception of reality claiming that the US government entities
(DOD, CIA, AID and State Dept) use a ‘humanitarian’ mission to hide its true
goal of world domination.
What each of these movements fail to grasp is the value of a
comprehensive approach needed to achieve anyone of their primary missions. What would happen to the global effort to reduced
carbon emissions if a ‘Spanish flu’ like pandemic or weaponized small pox attack
were suddenly killing millions, even billions of people worldwide in a very
short time. Or an EMP event (solar or human
caused) brought the US to it’s knees by crippling our electrical grid for
months or even years…resulting in tens of millions of dead Americans and the
end of our society as we know it, in the chaos that follows?
“Man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms
of human poverty and all forms of human life.”
President Kennedy’s inaugural address.
We continue to look at the past to predict the future. This is a very bad idea for two reasons. First, it appears the only thing we learn from
history is that we don’t learn from history.
If we did, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights would have been
made enforceable or fully funded by now given the horrors of World War II with
the creation and first use of nuclear weapons. Second, the future will not be like the past given
the evolution of weapons and war since then, primarily driven by the advances
in science and technology that now yield unprecedented killing capacity to clever
individuals, extremist groups, and rogue nations alike at affordable
costs. Imagine drone delivery of bioweapons
or cyber intrusions or attacks on a nation’s critical infrastructures.
What ‘we the people’ lack, is an understanding of the growing
variety, velocity and volume of threats we face and the actual power we have to
influence our elected government policy makers. Yes, democracy rarely yields ‘liberty and
justice for all’, but it can. Our U.S. Constitution’s first amendment gave
us the enormous power to petition our government 365 days a year. Not just
the extremely anemic civic power to vote once every 2, 4 or 6 years.
In the 1960s our nation’s leaders made reaching the moon a
top government priority. Fear of the Soviets
reaching the moon first was a legitimate national security concern motivating
them. Achieving the 17 SDGs before the
year 2030 should be motivated as much by our own national security concerns as
our national spirit and flag pledge of “liberty and justice for all”.
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