by Ashok Khosla and SK Sharma

It is not only the Earth’s atmosphere. During recent years, the political and economic systems have also been warming up. Apprehensions about globalisation and growing terrorism are further fuelling and heating them up. Breakthroughs in technologies such as information, genetics and space appear to offer the possibilities of a better life. But if history is anything to go by, it will be a better life for a very few and a worse one for many others. And in the process, Nature will pay the ultimate cost: depletion, destruction, death and extinction.

Development — sustainable development, which is the only kind of development there is — has to be different. And to make it different, it needs to be grounded in a framework of widely held ethical principles, principles that are fortunately common to the major faiths and religions of our world. Principles of equity, social justice and respect for life.

Human consciousness is on the threshold of either commanding heights or self-annihilation. It now must make fundamental choices on the direction it wants to take. The basis of human consciousness at the top of the evolutionary pyramid falls in the realm of metaphysics. It is a truth that science has not been able to unravel. Science has also not been able to unravel how the earth happens to have an environment that sustains life, especially conscious life, and whether there are other places in the universe that have similar life sustaining systems. Given the magnitude of the cosmos, all we can say is that we need to take care of our earth, presently the only known celestial body that sustains a conscious life form.

Major advances have been made in science and technology during the twentieth century. While these have improved the quality of life for some people, and given hope to all, the disparities they have led to have also fuelled widespread social, environmental, economic and political discord. Wide scale denudation of forests in third word nations and over consumption of energy in rich nations are tending to dislocate the environmental balance. Of course, the industrialised countries used to have vast forests too, and a good part of their current wealth is the result of a Faustian bargain made a couple of centuries ago to convert the natural resources they (and the rest of the world had) into that wealth. Energy, and particularly fossil fuels that are responsible for the bulk of carbon emissions into the atmosphere, has until now been seen to be a right of everyone to use as much of as is possible.

The massive breakdowns in our planet’s life support systems now under way make it impossible for either the North or the South to carry on with business as usual. The North has to cut down on fossil fuel use and material resource consumption generally by a massive amount. The Factor 10 Club has shown that it is not only possible but imperative that the industrialised economies dematerialise their consumption patterns and production systems by at least an order of magnitude.

The South has embarked on a demographic transition that will in due course address the problem of population growth, a problem that can, in fact, only be solved by improving the lives of people. This will mean more energy and resource use, particularly among the poor, but not necessarily in the wasteful manner pioneered by the rich in earlier times. Increased, but much more efficient use of non-renewable resources and growing use of renewable ones is essential if the world is to stabilise into a state where all its citizens are to make for themselves happy and fulfilled lives.

People First is a trust promoted by Development Alternatives dedicated to instituting good governance. Based on intense research, People First has come to the conclusion that in addition to changing the technologies on which we depend and the financing systems that underpin our economies, an ecologically balanced sustainable global society also needs fundamental changes in our institutional systems. First, adoption of true democracy in which power flows upward from the people and second, an egalitarian economic system in which all have equal social, economic and political rights and opportunities through true grassroots empowerment. Fully empowered villages and urban neighbourhoods will then generate values that nurture care of the environment. They will also encourage development of science, technological innovation, entrepreneurship and industry for producing goods and services useful to society and generating wealth for creating productive employment and philanthropy. They will curb ostentatious consumption and needless movement of people and materials presently fostered through globalisation. An egalitarian economic system is truly capitalism with a human face.

At independence, Gandhi advocated such an egalitarian democracy. Sadly, the Indian leadership rejected Gandhi and adopted a centralised system based on exploitative imperial institutions. People First proposes four basic institutional reforms for global sustainability. First, universal democracy as advocated by Jefferson and Gandhi. Second, egalitarian economic system through grassroots empowerment as advocated by Gandhi. Third, Sovereign Rights Commissions with authority to direct referendums so that the people are the ultimate repository of all authority of society. Fourth, based on the recommendations of the Rio Conference, multi-stakeholder councils called Councils for Sustainable Society as the upper house at local, state and national level for moderating decision-making for sustainability.

Einstein made some remarkable discoveries in science that led to further development in technologies such as information, genetic engineering and space. He is truly the man of the second millennium. However, the fact that his discoveries led to further development in science shows that his was not the ultimate truth. Gandhi did not invent anything new but only reiterated the truth that was unravelled in the villages of India, and possibly other cultures, several thousand years ago. His is the ultimate truth. Gandhi is truly the apostle of the third millennium. Only his prescription can save the earth from global warming – and humanity from violence and terrorism. q

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