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Volume 4

THE FOURTH FIVE HUNDRED IDEAS OF

TWO THOUSAND IDEAS FOR A BETTER WORLD

by DR. ROBERT MULLER

Copyright © August, 1997

Portions of this may be copied for nonprofit purposes, provided that credit is given to the author. Please notify Gaughen Global PR of any articles or publications referring to these 500 ideas.
This book may be purchased by sending a check for $21.95 ($16.95 per copy plus $5.00 shipping and handling) to the address below.
Make checks payable to Gaughen Global PR.
Quantity discounts are available.

Dr. Robert Muller is available for presentations regarding the 2000 Ideas, and may be contacted at:

MEDIA 21 *Global Public Relations
Barbara Gaughen-Muller
7456 Evergreen Drive, Santa Barbara, CA 93117 USA
Fax: 805 968-5747
E-mail: Barbara@rain.org

To Barbara Gaughen-Muller who inspired this book, had unstinting faith in it, never allowed me to give up, laboured hard on it, making it the joint product of the global, cosmic couple we consider ourselves to be.

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An Agenda For The Future

Our absolute priorities and objectives
for the 21st century and the third millennium should be:

1. To make this planet a paradise
2. To eradicate from it all the poverty, miseries and errors engendered by power, greed and egotism
3. To make out of all humans one family
4. To create a new social, political world order for the centuries to come
5. To attain a life of fulfillment and happiness for all humans
6. To achieve a human family in harmony with the Earth and the heavens
7. To be the ultimate cosmic success of the Universe and God.

No dream is too big

Barbara Gaughen and Dr. Robert Muller

See the world with global eyes.
Love the world with a global heart.
Understand the world with a global mind.
Merge witht he world through a global spirit.

George Washington said:

"The Republic is a dream.
Nothing happens unless first a dream."

If he lived today, he would say:

The Earth Republic is a dream.
Nothing happens unless first a dream.

Dreams are the touchstone of our character. -Henry Thoreau

Take time to dream
it hitches the soul to the stars. -Patricia Bragg

At the entrance of the UN we should inscribe these words:

Dreams, ideas and speeches are mightier than the sword. -Robert Muller

"The primary cause of all disorders lies in the different state governments and in the tenacity of that power which pervades the whole of their systems." -George Washington

Today he would replace the word "state" by "national".

"With all my heart I believe that the world's present system of sovereign nations can lead only to barbarism, war and inhumanity." -Albert Einstein

"Unless some effective supranational government can be set up and brought quickly into action, the prospects of peace and human progress are dark and doubtful." -Winston Churchill

All great ideas come from the heart. -Proverb

"The age of nations has passed. Now unless we wish to perish, we must shake off our old prejudices and build the Earth. The more scientifically I regard the world, the less can I see any possible biological future for it except in the active consciousness of its unity." -Teilhard de Chardin

"Have I said clearly enough that the European Community we created is not an end in itself? It is a process of change continuing in that same process which in an earlier period produced our national forms of life. The sovereign nations of the past can no longer solve the problems of the present: they cannot ensure their own progress or control their own future. And the Community itself is only a stage on the way of the organized world of tomorrow." -Jean Monnet, Conceiver of the European Community, now the European Union

"Just as the rivers are much less numerous than the underground streams, so the idealism that is visible is minor compared to what men and women carry in their hearts, unreleased and scarcely released. Humankind is waiting and longing for those who can accomplish the task of untying what is knotted and bringing the underground waters to the surface." -Albert Schweitzer

An idea is a being incorporeal which has no substance by itself but gives figure and form unto shapeless matter and becomes the cause of the manifestation. -Plutarch

The first man who raised a fist was a man who ran out of ideas. -H.G. Wells

Great new ideas are always violently opposed by mediocre minds. -Einstein

What is truly great will always be attacked by small minds. -Voltaire

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. -Eleanor Roosevelt

The only way to save the United States is to do the impossible. -Tracy Gross in The Last Word of Power

Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking -Black Elk speaks

Dreams are the seedlings of realities. -As a Man Thinketh

All great ideas, even of scientists and learned people, come from the heart. -Professor Jean-Claude Leonide

Your happiness depends on three things, all of which are within your power:
your will
your ideas concerning the events in which you are involved
the use you make of your ideas -Epictetus

We cannot solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that gave rise to the problem. -Einstein

"The mad open the roads which the wise then follow." -Carlo Rossi

Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.
Dreams are the seedlings of realities. -As a Man Thinketh

To transform dreams into realities that is the truly human vocation. -Robert Muller

Go for it..... and reach for your dreams! -a good wishes card I received on my birthday

It is easier to criticize than to imitate. Please do not criticize me or call me a fool or an irrealist. Write down your own ideas and dreams, spread them and work on them. -Robert Muller

The work, my friends is peace: more than an end of this war &emdash; an end to the beginning of all wars. I ask you to keep up your faith. The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with a strong and active faith. -Franklin D. Roosevelt

Because of the interconnectedness of all minds, affirming a positive vision may be about the most sophisticated action any one of us can take. -Willis Harman

It is not a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace not to have any stars to reach. Not failure but low aims is the real sin. -Benjamin Mays

Each of us has something truly unique to offer the world if only we have the determination to make our dreams come true. -Source Unknown

A Proposal for United Nations Reform

A potentially lethal condition of uncontrolled nuclear proliferation and environmental degradation has enveloped the planet Earth; yet hordes of people, instead of confronting the crisis as a dilemma that offers free-will choice, have become stunned into a sense of futility.

The United Nations, as the supreme organization created to save the world from the scourge of war, is structurally incapable either to save the planet from destruction or prepare its peoples of the Third Millennium.

The nationalistic world of 1945 has now reached a complexity of interdependence in most areas of societal living.

Hope lies in the fact that a group of thinking persons, alert to the crisis, could lead humanity in taking Aurelio Peccei's call for a "quantum leap" that could turn our Earth into a shining place of spiritual health and great beauty.

Therefore, the following proposal is respectfully offered for immediate and serious consideration.

Aim:

Transformation of the United Nations into the effective and democratically acceptable global body needed to stabilize the current world and to help it meet the urgent requirements for entry into the Third Millennium.

Procedure:

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IS IT A COMPASSIONATE SOCIETY?

My theme is that our global society is not a very compassionate society today. We are quite fond of describing ourselves as one world, one planet, one humanity, one global society. But the blunt reality for many of us who come from poorer lands is simply this: we are at least two worlds, two planets, two humanities, two global societies. One embarrassingly rich and the other desperately poor &endash; and the distance between them is widening, not narrowing. Can we really call it a compassionate society when the richest one fifth of the world consumes 80% of the world's nature resources, and when it commands an income 78 times as high as the income of the poorest one-fifth of the world?

Can we call it a compassionate society when there is so much wasted food on the table of the world's rich at the time when 800 million people go hungry every night and 160 million children are severely malnourished?

Can we really call it a compassionate society when 1.3 billion people do not have access to even a simple necessity like safe drinking water? When one billion adults are illiterates and 1.3 billion people survive in absolute poverty on less than one dollar a day? This is below any definition of human existence.

It is certainly not a compassionate society when 134 million children in South Asia alone, which is my region, work for over 16 hours a day in inhumane conditions for a wage of only 8 US cents a day. And when they loose their very childhood to feed the greed for higher profits from the indifferent employers, some of them the most powerful multinationals of the world who exist in your countries?

It is certainly not a compassionate society where over one half of humanity, the women of this world are economically marginalized and politically ignored. When their 11 trillion dollar contribution to household activity is simply forgotten in national income accounts. And when they contribute 50% of the work but they are only less than 10% of world's parliaments.

What kind of a compassionate society is it? The modern jet fighters are parked on the runways while homeless people are parked on city pavements. The many desperately poor nations spent much more on arms than on education and health of the people. Where the five permanent security council members supply 86% of arms to the poor nations giving handsome subsidies to the arms exporters. How brilliantly we have chosen the custodians of our global security.

What kind of a compassionate society is it? We have millions of land mines all over the world waiting for their unsuspecting victims &endash; where it takes only three dollars to plant a mine but over one thousand dollars to remove it. And where the treaty to ban land mines is ready but the US simply refuses to sign it.

What kind of a compassionate society is it? Where we all recognize that nuclear weapons should never be used and yet our leaders refuse to banish them because they are so fond of playing global power games.

And what kind of compassionate society is it? Where a few powerful nations decide the fate of the entire world and the supreme irony is that the powerful democratic nations themselves rule out democratic governance and the running of global institutions; whether the World Bank, the IMF or the United Nations. The simple truth is that we are unwilling to face up to honest truth &endash; that we are far from the ideal of a compassionate society today.

But let us also be realistic. It is true that we may never be able to create a perfect society, it is true that we may never be able to eliminate all social and economical injustices or to provide equality of opportunities to all the people. But we certainly can take a few practical steps to make a global society a little more compassionate, a little more humane. It is in this spirit that I would like to identify for you six of those steps which can become reality if all of you and all the institutions of civil society all around the world organize themselves and create a pressure for these changes.

First Step:

In a compassionate society no newborn child should be doomed to a short life or to a miserable one &endash; merely because the child happens to be born in the wrong country, or the wrong income class or to be of the wrong sex. Universalism of life-claims is the cornerstone of a compassionate society. Equality of opportunities is its real foundation, not only for present generations but for future generations as well. Now, in order to equate the chances of every newborn child let us take a simple step.

Let us treat child immunization and primary education as a birthright of that child &endash; a right to survive and a right to be educated. And let us persuade national governments and international communities to issue birthright vouchers to every newborn child that guarantee at least these two investments in their future. The total cost surprisingly will be very modest. This education can be provided to every child along with immunization at the cost of only 3 billion dollars a year. It can provide a new social contract for our future generations and it will certainly create a more compassionate society.

Second Step:

A "global compact" as reached in March 1995 at the World Social Summit in Copenhagen &endash; that the developing nations will devote at least 20% of the existing nations budgets and the donors will earmark 20% of the existing aid budgets to five human priority concerns: the universal basic education, primary health care for all, safe water drinking for all, adequate nutrition for severely malnourished children and family planning services for all willing couples. This was the famous 2020 compact. It requires no new resources, only a shifting of priorities in existing budgets. Such a compact will remove the worst human deprivations within one decade.

Now, here is a global compact already made. Let us then insure that it is fully implemented, let us get organized, let us monitor the progress of each nation and each donor towards these goals, and let all of us play a role. Let us embarrass those societies if they do not reach these goals and keep pressurizing them &endash; to make sure this compact that was reached two years ago is implemented and it will provide a social safety net for all the poor in the world.

Third Step:

A practical way to empower people is to provide them with micro credits so they can find self employment, self respect. It empowers them and unleashes their creative energies. Access to credit should be regarded as a fundamental human right as Professor Yunus has brilliantly and so convincingly argued. The experience of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh demonstrates that the poor are good savers and good investors, that they are eminently credit worthy, and that the banking system should take a chance on the future creativity and potential of the people &endash; and not on their past wealth. So let us set up this micro credit institution. That doesn't take very much to do that and let us set them up in every country and every community in order to empower people.

Fourth Step:

I believe it is time to establish a new code of conduct for arms sales to poorer nations. Today there are many punishments for drug trafficking and laundering of drug money, but not for arm sales. Yet arms kill no less uncertainly than do drugs. Why are generous export subsidies given by rich nations to their arms exporters? Why is your money, your tax money used to export death and destruction to poor lands?

Oscar Arias, who is a co-chair of the State of the World Forum and Former President of Costa Rica and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has developed a sensible code of conduct for arms sales &endash; proposing a ban on arms sales to authoritarian regimes, to potential trouble spots, to the poorest nations. And this code of conduct has the support of many Nobel Peace Prize winners. He collected together about 15 of them. Yet the reality is that Oscar Arias has not been able to find a single member of the UN General Assembly, not a single member to sponsor such a code of conduct for arms sales.

Why are you seated so quietly? Why cannot we organize public pressure for sponsorship of such a code of conduct which is a responsible code of conduct for arms sales? And let us go further, let us persuade the rich nations to suspend, to abolish, to eliminate the export subsidies for arms sales to the poorer nations &endash; in fact this is your public tax money. Why shouldn't you ensure that it is not used for causes that you do not approve? It's no use coming here making brilliant, eloquent speeches and we are not willing to organize and take even simple steps. Your public tax money is being used today to give subsidies to arms exporters and these subsidies have increased in the last few years because the rich nations felt that these arms exporters, sitting in their air conditioned offices, could not make as much money since defense budgets were going down in the rich nations. So let us give them all subsidies to sell arms to the poorer nations.

We must generate pressure to suspend these subsidies. Persuade the poorer nations whose responsibility it is to start cutting their existing military expenditure of 170 billion dollars a year, which they spend every year on military, let us persuade them to cut it down by at least 5% a year. That alone will be enough to finance the entire social agenda that needs no foreign aide if they are willing to face up to the responsibility themselves and if they are willing to invest in people rather than in arms. That is what will make it a compassionate society.

Fifth Step:

Let us pledge that global poverty will be abolished in the 21st century &endash; much as slavery was abolished a century ago. Poverty is not inevitable. As Professor Yunus so eloquently reminded us just two days ago, poverty degrades human dignity, it does not belong in a civilized society. It belongs to the museum of history.

But let us recognize at the same time before we are carried away by too much emotionalism. Poverty is not a mere flu, it is a body cancer. It requires determined economic and political actions in the poor nations: including redistribution of assets and credits, provision of adequate social services, particularly education and health and generation of real, pro-poor growth. Growth that benefits the poor and does not only increase national income. It also requires a new model of development, a model in which we enlarge human choices &endash; we enrich human lives and not only increase GNP. Use a model whose central purpose is the development of people, for the people, by the people.

And let us remind all nations that abolishing poverty must become a collective international responsibility, because human life is not safe in the rich nations if human despair travels in the poorer nations. Let us recognize that consequences of global poverty today travel across national frontiers without a passport in very ugly forms: in the forms of drugs, in HIV/AIDS, pollution and terrorism. So you are not safe in the rich nations if poverty prevails in the other nations of the world. So let us abolish it.

Sixth Step:

Let us return the United Nations to the people of the world in whose name it was first created. That preamble of the United Nations adopted in this very city; in fact in the Penthouse of this very hotel, started with the historic eloquent words: We the peoples. And yet the UN was highjacked by the governments and today it is an intergovernmental body where the voice of people is seldom heard.

Even in international conferences and summits, the presence of non-governmental organization (NGOs) is token and many dark curtains separate NGO representatives from real decision-making forum. The time has come I believe to raise our voices in favor of at least a two chamber general assembly in the UN. One chamber nominated by the governments as the present, with the exalted ambassadors of the world, but the other chamber elected directly by the people and by institutions of civil society. And this will ensure that the rights of the people are heard in all critical issues which affect their future.

Let me conclude. There are many steps one can map out to make our global society more compassionate. I mentioned only six simple steps because I believe these are eminently realistic. But let me state quite clearly, building a compassionate society is not a technocratic exercise. It requires solid ethical and moral foundations. It requires certainly a new way of thinking &endash; thinking of ourselves as a human family and not just a collection of nation states. And it requires a new concept of human security which is founded on human dignity and not on weapons of war.

In the last analysis human security means a child who did not die, a disease that did not spread, an ethnic tension that did not explode, a dissident who was not silenced, a human spirit that was not crashed. That is human security &endash; and imperatives of this human security have today become universal, indivisible and truly global.

I think it is only appropriate that I should probably end by quoting the same two poets as the previous speaker. John Donne summed up the challenge before us in a simple sentence. He said: "We must love each other or we must all die", and Robert Frost summed up the challenge before us when he said: "Two roads diverge in the woods and I, I took the one less travel by, and that has made all the difference."

So I hope as I conclude that we will show that courage and the wisdom to take the road less travel by, as we build a new compassionate society in the 21st century.

Text prepared by the Dallas Chapter of the United Nations Association with the assistance of the Demographic Data Division of the United Nations.

A Cosmological Vision of the Future*

I will try to condense briefly my thoughts on a cosmic vision of humanity's future. First of all the most fundamental factor determining our time is that in the entire human evolution on this planet, within the last couple of centuries and especially during the last 50 years, the human race has been able to extend its knowledge of this planet and of itself in such incredible ways that a profound transformation has taken place in evolution.

This knowledge has meant incredible benefits for humanity. Longevity has increased to 73 years in the rich countries and to 60 years in the poor countries. A child born in a developing country, has today three times less risk of dying than it had in 1950. All the major epidemics on this planet have been wiped out, including smallpox. The fundamental fact that we know our planet, that we know humanity, that we know how to analyze and recompose matter has produced miracles. Of course, we believed that the progress of science and technology was for the benefit of humanity, in other words that our reason for being on this planet was to get the best for ourselves. This is the great humanistic age in which we are now living.

But we did not know that these great advances would also result in a whole series of crises, due to our global ignorance. Why did we have a population explosion from 2.5 billion in 1952 to 5 billion today?** Because nobody thought in the fifties, when we went to the poor countries to bring them health and sanitation, to tell the mothers not to have 6 or 7 children anymore, because most of them would survive. Statistical ignorance and lack of global foresight caused an unprecedented population explosion on this planet. And when we developed new sciences, products and technologies and built industries around the world, who thought &endash; except a few poets &endash; that this would lead to the mind boggling environmental crisis we have today? No one. When the UN convened the first world environment conference in Stockholm in 1972 it was called "The Bird Watchers Conference"! On energy: at the World's Fair in New York the pavilion of General Electric had a big sign, "Towards a World of Free Energy"! That was the belief years ago. But then we had the energy crisis. Who ever thought of saving energy? Who ever thought of the ozonosphere? Who ever thought of possible climatic changes? Who ever thought of the long-term genetic dangers of nuclear radiation and radio waves? I am asking this question today: What are the things we are doing today, which we think are wonderful, and which in 20 years from now will have the same or worse adverse effects as the few examples I mentioned. Who is thinking of this? Who is heeding the Iroquois precept that we should think of the effects on the seventh generation? We do not even think of the next generation! There is not a single Ministry of the Future on this planet!***

A new danger is coming to the fore. It is the fact that radiation and the chemicalization of this planet, with thousands of new chemicals being put into circulation every year, are possibly leading to a breakdown of the immune system of the human body. Some biologists fear that the human body will be unable to adapt to the rhythm and intensity of environmental changes. Allergies are mushrooming and our built-in immunology may break down. This is the real scare about AIDS, although few people dare to say it. AIDS

might quite possibly be the first manifestation of the breakdown of the immune system of the human body that can no longer respond effectively to so many new, unprecedented, rapid, profound external changes. The human body simply says: I cannot take it anymore, I give up.

**6 billion in November 1998

***The more forwardlooking European Union has created a Commission for the Future

Of late there has been another fundamental change on Earth: until now we thought that this planet was at our disposal, that it was created for us, that it was here for us to exploit and to develop endlessly. Well, we are now in the middle of another Copernican revolution. We thought at the time that the sun was turning around the Earth until we learned from Copernicus that it was not true. Now we're learning that perhaps this planet has not been created for humans, but that humans have been created for the planet. We hear now of the Gaia hypothesis, of the interdependence of all inert and living matter, that we are part and parcel of a living planetary organism. As a matter of fact all of us sitting here are 70 percent water and 30 percent earth which is entirely solar, cosmic condensed energy. When we die where do we go? We return to the Earth as our American Indians and the great religions have all told us. Thus we are temporary living manifestations or incarnations of this Earth. Again, as the American Indians tell us, we are children of the Earth and we must take good care of our mother, and respect her. We are living Earth. Each of us is a cell, a perceptive nervous, active unit of the Earth. We are Earth alive and are beginning to be concerned about the Earth. The living consciousness of the Earth is beginning to operate through us. All over the world a kind of Earth democracy (gaiacracy) is taking shape. We feel the urge to speak for the Earth because we have understood that something very fundamental is going wrong.

This is bringing about changes. The population problem is now understood. In 1970 the world population was forecast to be 7.3 billion in the year 2000. Now this forecast is down to 6.1 billion. But still in the year 2025 we are likely to be 8.5 billion. This is a problem of incredible magnitude. On the environment people are more and more concerned, the problem is in the newspapers, in the media, in the films. The proper consciousness is arising. Even the big powers are seeking peace because they realize that while they are bogged down in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Iran, in the Middle East, in Asia the planet risks going to pieces behind their backs. Mr. Gorbachev seems to be saying let us finish all this nonsense. This is why last year we saw a whole explosion of peace. There is a great new promising consciousness which has seized this planet in the last couple of years.

You, as cosmic and Earth cells, are part of a vast biological and evolutionary phenomenon which is of first importance at this stage, namely humanity as a whole, the whole human species is becoming the brain, the heart, the soul, the expression and the action of the Earth. We have now a global brain which determines what can be dangerous or mortal for this planet: the United Nations and its agencies, and innumerable groups and networks around the world, are part of this brain. We are a world heart: altruism, the concern of people to be of help, the live aid and international programs, etc. All this is a manifestation of the fact that on this planet after having evolved from protozoas to metazoas, we are now becoming what one could call terrazoas. We are living Earth that is beginning to be conscious of its role in the evolution of this particular planet in the universe. This is our newly discovered meaning. It is happening every day and we have to draw the right conclusions from it. The world is changing very fundamentally in terms of consciousness, behavior and action. We know that we are a global family living in a global home. This is more or less where we stand. In other words, we are in the process of becoming a global civilization. And yet this is not all. There is more to come.

I spoke about the global brain which this planet is acquiring. I have noticed during my years in the United Nations that there are sudden flickers of perceptions around the planet: numerous people begin to have the same new perception, thoughts or concern. When I receive in the United Nations two or three letters a week about such new perceptions from various parts of the world I open a file. The world brain has begun to function and what these people perceive is likely to be a main trend or concern a few years later. During the last year I received on the average weekly a new cosmology. I have a growing file of cosmological proposals which come from India, the United States, from England, physicists, biologists, religious people. This is why beyond our global consciousness we are moving into a cosmic consciousness.

In other words we learn to see the Earth process not only as a global planetary process but as a cosmic manifestation and evolution on a given planet in the universe. It is not impossible that the universe has not been able to produce many live planets like ours. We are at the right distance from a sun, we have the right mass to retain an atmosphere and water, and we are very lucky that the force that keeps the atoms together on this planet is just right: a little stronger and we would be a condensed ball; a little weaker and we would be dispersed into the universe. Our planet and its life forms are the result of many miracles and unique phenomena. The religions rightly say that this is a unique planet and that God has a special design on us. Science is now discovering that too. Mathematicians tell us that the conditions required to give birth to life on any planet in the universe are one of the most staggering astronomical improbability figures they can conceive. New cosmologies are being produced by the dozens but I do not think that anyone is as yet the right one. There are many different views &endash; the physicists, the geneticists, the chemists, the spiritualists each have a view. But it shows that there is an active search for a new cosmology, for an understanding of what is happening on this planet where there are many life forms and where one of them, namely the human form, humans are becoming cosmozoas, the main factor of the further evolution, transformation and possibly destruction of the planet, if we do not understand what is going on and act properly.

This is something absolutely extraordinary because it means that each of us is a cosmic unit, that we have the ingredients of the total cosmos in ourselves. The cosmos is giving birth to billions of humans as seeds. Many seeds fall on stone or on infertile ground or do not understand what their duties are. But growing numbers of people understand that they have a cosmic function deep in themselves. If you look over history who are the greatest people, you will find the Mozarts, the Beethovens, the philosophers, the sages, the religious leaders. They were all people of cosmic consciousness. They were conscious of living in the cosmos, in eternity and in the universe at every moment. This is why when we listen to them, when we read them, when we see their works we are deeply moved and elevated. Why? Because they are in tune with the universe and make us feel that way. This is what the religions are trying to tell us: "Be in tune with the Universe. Be in union with God, with eternity. Remember that your temporary lives have a meaning, a duty to fulfill." And when we fulfill this duty the universe recompenses us with happiness and possibly even resurrection. It is not impossible that the Hindu philosophy might be right, that only those who had worthwhile lives contributing to the good and further evolution of this planet will be allowed to live again and that worthless seeds will be left aside to wither away. The religions can be very helpful in understanding these new cosmologies.

In other words humanity, the same way as it has become recently a global family, is also becoming now a cosmic family. We will realize that we are a cosmic species which will find its way on this planet only by following the immanent rules of the cosmos. Some call it God, others a cosmic substratum that is in each of us as the manifestation of the living universe divided and distributed over all reality. It is possible that stars are just living and dying cells of one body the same way as we are living and dying cells of that same body. This realization is of incredible, momentous importance. It will occupy humanity and give us great hope and challenges. The story was told to us in simple forms by the religions but now the scientists have come to the same conclusion that the universe is one in its endless manifestations. The recent scientific literature is replete with this finding.

My proposal is therefore that as we proceed towards the year 2000 we should pack this last decade with visions, dreams, ideas and actions aimed at preparing the next millennium as the cosmic, spiritual millennium of this planet, in order to properly respond to the expectations of the cosmos or God. In order to do this I will propose that a number of major conferences or efforts be undertaken which are not yet considered by the United Nations. Peace, disarmament, population, the environment, economic development etc. are all subjects being dealt with in the UN. But here is a list of others which should be taken up in order to prepare adequately the next millennium.

First:

A major conference should be convened on a new cosmology. One should listen to the physicists, to the biologists, to other scientists and to people who have come up with new cosmologies. From their views one would extract a common denominator. They all have very important perceptions. But these perceptions vary with the point of view of their professions: physical, biological, spiritual, social, political, etc. At the end of such a conference we would have a better understanding of what the cosmos is expecting from us in our next phase of evolution.

Second:

I would recommend a major conference on a new philosophy, a global philosophy. Philosophy is the way of life.* What should be the way of life on this planet in global terms, in the light of our fantastic knowledge? Where are the great sages of our time? Where are the positive philosophies who are giving us an explanation of the meaning of life and hope for the future?

Third:

A new sociology is needed which would help us to understand the meaning and role of all the innumerable groups, entities, professions and institutions we have on this planet. Most of them have a contribution to make to the progress and success of our evolution. Many of them do not know it and have not even asked the fundamental, deeper question why they exist, why they were created, what their ultimate purpose and contribution should be in the total human fabric. Their limited aims and behaviors must be geared to the needs of humanity, of the planet and to the continued success of our cosmic evolution. This is a vast, unexplored, urgent subject.

Fourth:

We need a new anthropology, as Margaret Mead recommended. We need world celebrations as we have them in the family, in religions, in nations. Humans and the world have to develop common paradigms, common ideals and benchmarks for the future. The science of the total human race leaves much to be desired. We do more research on tribal systems than on global humanity, its meaning, evolution and system.

Fifth:

We need an overall human biology, a science of human life on this planet. We study more animals and microbes than we study the functioning of the human species. To the biologist this is political. It should not be so. The biologists should tell us very frankly and honestly how the human species functions from their point of view as experts in life. If they do it for the fishes and the mammals, they can and should also do it for the human species.

*From the Greek phil and sophia, the love of wisdom. It is good that the 20th World Congress of Philosophy will meet in Boston in August 1998 and will take up this subject.

1998: at it the creation of a World Commission Global Consciousness and Spirituality was announced. Dr. Karan Singh of India and I are its co-chairmen.

Sixth:

We need a global cosmic spirituality.1 We have heard religious leaders of various faiths. It was illuminating. I hope that religious leaders will get together and define before the end of this century the cosmic laws which are common to all their faiths. They have been cosmic experts and interpreters of the heavens for a long time. They should tell the politicians what the cosmic laws are, what God, or the gods, or the cosmos are expecting from humans. It is good that we had last year the Oxford Conference of parliamentarians, scientists and religious leaders and that in January 1990 a second conference will be held in Moscow. We must hope also that the Pope will come before the year 2000 to the United Nations, speak for all the religions and spiritualists on the planet and give the world the religious view of how the third millennium should be a spiritual millennium, a millennium which will see the integration and harmony of humanity with creation, with nature, with the planet, with the heavens and with eternity.2

Seventh:

We need a new world policy and political system.3 This planet is mismanaged to an incredible degree. If the United States were managed like the world is managed it would be a disaster. Nobody would understand how fifty states &endash; and the world has 185 &endash; each having a president, a flag, an army, an absolute sovereignty, could ever work together. Imagine the US government in Washington being only a kind of United Nations without any authority, any legislative power, barely any resources! It would be a disaster. Well we have this disaster for the world and it is about time that we recognize it. Ken Keyes' excellent book Planethood makes this point and offers a way for the political reform of this planet. The birth of the European Union which was seen by Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman as the first step towards a World Union is the biggest harbinger of hope.

Eighth:

We need a proper planetary management. Private firms and the multinationals must face up to their responsibilities for the management of the planet. They consider themselves responsible only to profits and stockholders. Well it is becoming increasingly manifest that this planet was not created for the purpose of making money. We urgently need a science, a strategy and a methodology of proper management of planet Earth.

Ninth:

We need a new world philanthropy. People are giving their wealth and moneys to a hospital, to a local university, to a national foundation or purpose. And the world gets little or nothing. The University for Peace here in demilitarized Costa Rica is one of the most beautiful and useful projects on Earth. But where are the philanthropists who are taking an interest in it with the exception of one or two? And yet it is here in this University where a new Science of Peace must be developed for this planet and thousands of peacemakers educated for a whole series of professions. The people have to take the financing of the world's care into their own hands. We do not even have an intergovernmental world budget! Well, if governments do not want to have a world budget let the philanthropists and the people do it in their own way. A new world democracy will thus be born.

Tenth:

We need a new world education. Global education, namely the education of the children into our global home and into the human family is making good progress. But we have to go beyond. We need the cosmic education foreseen by the religions and by people like Maria Montessori. We need a holistic education teaching the holism of the universe and of the planet. I am glad that one of the first graduates of the Robert Muller School in Arlington, Texas, which teaches my world core curriculum, will take the floor during this conference to announce the creation of a United Nations of Youth. How beautiful!4

Eleventh:

We need a new world information. Outer-space inspectors would be shocked by the wrong information that is being spread around this world. We need honest, objective, truthful information to guide our way and behavior and not manipulate information for all kinds of purposes. Proper world information, communications and media are another subject of paramount importance. The UN and its 32 specialized agencies and world programs come closest to what such an information system should be.

Twelfth:

We need a new world ethics. What is good for the United States, Russia or any other country like having atomic bombs (there are 40,000 in the world!) can be awfully bad for our planet. I'm sure that God or the cosmos has not created this planet to have all these nuclear detonators in its flesh, in its waters, in its air and in the stars. Our political leaders must be given to understand that they have not only a responsibility towards their people and towards humanity but towards the success of the extraordinary cosmic process, perhaps unique in the whole universe, unfolding on this planet. They might finish it or they might help and foster it.

Thirteenth:

We need a new world science and technology. The scientists and the technologists must assume a cosmic responsibility. What they are doing might be right or wrong for humanity and for our further evolution. They have to think of the seventh generation and should place Oren Lyons' prayer on their desk (see idea 899).

Fourteenth:

We need a new world economy. Oikos, nomos means the management of the home. At long last we recognize that planet Earth is our home. We need a world economy in which all people have decent cosmic lives and perform the functions for which they were born. It goes far beyond the new international economic order. It is a restructuring of the economy based on the ecology (oikos, logos), the knowledge of our planet. We have to put our house, which is the planet, in good evolutionary order, to become a planet of extraordinary beauty, conservation, renewal, happiness and justice for all.

Fifteenth:

We need a new world art. (see the table Framework for the Planetary Cosmic Role of Art and Culture). We need a renaissance of art similar to the Italian Renaissance which put things into harmony again. Modern art was the expression of our analytical period. We dissected everything. We have now to put everything into harmony again. We need a holistic, universal art expressing our faith, sense of beauty, happiness and planetary, humanistic, cosmic consciousness as all great poets, writers, painters, musicians and sculptors have done in the past. The classic book by Richard Burke on Cosmic Consciousness gives a whole list of such people. We also need world anthems like the one we heard this morning. Some of the sanguinary, violent national anthems need to be rewritten. I have a new text of the Marseillaise written by young people which starts with the words, "Allons enfants de la planète" (Come children of the planet). Why not? It is beautiful. I hope that the young people in Strasbourg will sing it on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. Several national anthems have similarly been rewritten by young people. I have a whole file of them.

Sixteenth:

We need a new world psychology. We must learn to love our wonderful Earth and miraculous humanity above anything else. Now we are taught to love a nation or a group or a religion and to kill other human beings, other divine beings for them. This is contrary to nature and to cosmic, divine laws. We have to love humanity, we have to love the planet, we have to love the universe and to be their instruments during our short years on this Earth. If we do not, life on this planet will come to an end. A completely new world psychology must lay down our right sentimental priorities. This is what Freud told Einstein (see idea 1020) in their famous exchange of views.

Seventeenth:

Seventeenth but not last, we must teach the children of this planet a new art of living, show them how great life is, how thankful they should be to live today at this time of magnificent consciousness and incredible knowledge of the universe, that it will be their role to be the right managers of the planet, that each of them is a cosmic unit, or as Pablo Casals said, "a true miracle, a potential Leonardo or Beethoven. Therefore you cannot hurt, you cannot kill another miracle." Yes, we are miracles, microcosms, cosmozoas of the universe. This must be taught to the children so that they can flower to the responsibility for which they were born. We also have to teach frugality and simple living in order not to destroy or tax unduly the beautiful Creation of God. We should follow in the footsteps of St. Francis who preached this 800 years ago. We should read Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin. Simple frugal lives of five billion people are the most monumental contribution to the environment of this planet. Every human being should know that he or she is an instrument of God or the universe, be it as a mother who gives life to a child as a new divine being, or a father who in the family is raising new cosmic units, or an educator who is educating new cosmigens, or doctors who heal cosmic patients, or public servants, or artists, etc.

Then we will fully validate life and make children and people proud to be alive. Then humans will respect their own miraculous, divine cosmicity as Buckminster Fuller said when he was offered cigarettes, "I will never do anything that might impair the functioning of the perfect cosmic unit I have been given by the Universe." This is the language which we should hold to children. This would be the real fight against drugs, alcohol and violent television and literature. You do not damage your incredible cosmic entity by introducing poisonous materials and images into its functioning. We can validate life to an unprecedented degree and extend it to the largest and smallest manifestations of the universe. This should be the philosophy of the next century. I would like to conclude by saying that perhaps we should replace the popular recent saying, "Think globally, act locally," by "Think cosmically, act locally wherever you live on this miraculous planet".

Thank you very much for giving me some of your precious cosmic time.

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Framework for the Planetary Cosmic Role of Art and Culture

My Earth Alphabet

A APPRECIATE nature and know we are all responsible for its future

B BE joyful as we live our life on magnificent Planet Earth

C CONSUME less, buy only those things that I really need

D DECIDE to make the Earth a Better Place for all humans and life

E ENERGY CONSUMPTION at home and in transportation can be reduced

F FINANCIAL SYSTEMS and business that protect nature serve Humanity

G GLOBAL COOPERATION rather than competition serves humanity best

H HUMANITY working together can make this a sustainable, well-managed, heavenly planet

I INDIGENOUS PEOPLE have many ideas on preserving Earth to teach us

J JUICES from fresh fruits and vegetables give us health direct from nature

K KINDNESS begins with me and spreads from person to person and to the world

L LOVE and respect humanity and all species

M MEDIA truth telling begins with the Framework for World Media Coverage*

N NATURE uses all resources, there is no waste, business can learn from nature

O ONLY I can inspire others by my example to preserve Earth

P PEACE through proper global education is my right

Q QUIETLY walk in nature daily and breathe deeply to be renewed and refreshed

R RESPECT all religions

S SUSTAINABLE FUTURE of our planet is possible

T THE EARTH CHARTER provides an ethical vision for our future

U UNITED NATURE is possible because I protect all living things

V VOICE my thoughts, tell the truth and act responsibly toward Earth

W WATER is precious, never waste one drop

X EXCUSE no waste, no greed, no destruction of Nature

Y YOU AND I are miracles with unique talents, we must use them to save the Earth

Z ZERO POPULATION GROWTH at this stage helps preserve Planet Earth

* Volume 1, page 60

PROPOSALS ON WORLD PHILANTHROPY*

After the laudatory introduction I have just received I would only like to add that I am in reality a very simple, down-to-earth, human being from the province of Alsace-Lorraine in France where my father was once a German soldier in World War I and then a French soldier in World War II and my grandparents had five successive nationalities without leaving their village! I myself was in the French underground and my cousins were French or German soldiers in World War II. We could have killed each other in different uniforms. I saw the most incredible horrors between the French and the Germans, and when the war was over I decided to devote my life to peace. I joined the United Nations where I spent all my adult life. At retirement I was appointed one-dollar-a-year Chancellor of the first University for Peace created by the United Nations in demilitarized Costa Rica, where I continue to pursue my work. It is basically what I saw in my youth which supports my efforts.

Since there are many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) represented in the congress, I would like to make these preliminary remarks:

In the light of the above, I would like to recommend:

Here are my recommendations concerning more directly the subject of world philanthropy.

According to UNESCO only 15% of philanthropy is international, and most of it is bilateral. As a result, when the world and humanity are in greatest need, they are the orphans of philanthropy. At the 1989 Rockefeller conference on philanthropy in the 21st century, David Rockefeller said that this was an opportune time for international philanthropy. Peter Goldmark, in his final recommendations had this to say: "Every major foundation should have an international dimension to its program. In a period of planetary environmental danger, global communications, intercontinental missiles, a world economy, and an international marketplace of ideas and arts and political trends, there is simply no excuse not to."

*28,000 in 1998

At the same conference, the Bernard van Leer Foundation of the Netherlands pointed out that in 1981 several American and European foundation leaders considered but then rejected a proposal that 5% of their income be earmarked for the poor countries.

As an outsider to world philanthropy, having attended only two conferences and read a few writings on the subject, I have the impression that there is a need for a basic rethinking of philanthropy in our global age. It should be holistic, all-encompassing, not only financial. It should include voluntary services and the contributions of individuals and organizations all around the world, i.e. the contributions of all those who love humanity and the Earth. Phil anthropos is a Greek word which means to love humans. Such a broader concept of philanthropy in our days should be holistic in several respects:

holistic in contributions:

• not only contributions in money, but also
• of services
• of land and premises
• of retirement*
• of art

holistic in destination:

• philanthropy to the world (e.g. directly or through world organizations)
• philanthropy to regional organizations
• philanthropy to national causes
• philanthropy to transnational causes
• philanthropy to provincial causes
• philanthropy to local causes
• philanthropy to individuals

holistic in origin:

• from world organizations
• from multinational associations and corporations
• from nations
• from national associations, corporations and other institutions
• from families
• from individuals

Over my forty years in the United Nations I have observed that from 1945 to about 1970 the whole work of the United Nations was geared to humanism: avoid wars, save the children, improve health world-wide, increase longevity, provide better standards of life through economic development, etc. From 1970 to the 1980s, the two major concerns became humanity and the environment. And since the 1980s, the survival and care of our planet have moved to the forefront, so that today the UN can be said to be geared to the Earth and to humanity. This had an effect on philanthropy, since a growing part of it goes now to the environment and the care of the Earth. This of course is of primary benefit to humanity, but I would like to propose that a special branch of philanthropy should be called Gaiaphily, or the love of the Earth (from the Greek goddess Gaia, the Earth, from which were derived the words geology, geometry, geography, etc.) Hence:

Carrying the above a step further I wonder if the time has not come to envisage the development of a true science of philanthropy, which would study philanthropy from the manifold aspects of which only a few were outlined above.

The creation of the first University for Peace on Earth by the United Nations in Costa Rica has led to the discovery that humanity had never developed a true science of peace. This is now being elaborated in that University. Hence a further recommendation:

A participant in the congress suggested that philanthropy should be taught in schools. I wholeheartedly agree with her. What has happened with the creation of the University for Peace could happen too in the case of philanthropy: a University of Philanthropy would soon be asked to develop curricula for the teaching of philanthropy in all schools, the same way as we do in the field of peace education. Hence:

My long experience in the United Nations, coping with one new global problem after the other during the last forty years, leads me to recommend that consideration be given to the establishment of a world organization of philanthropy. I have recommended to UNESCO to convene a world conference on philanthropy which would consider the creation of proper global institutional arrangements. The world congress of philanthropy could be that conference.

Many kinds of institutional arrangements could be considered. For example there is an International Chamber of Commerce. There could well be a World Chamber of Philanthropy with an adequate secretarial which would study and publish information on many aspects of world philanthropy such as legal regimes, tax exemption, etc. Hence:

During the last decades a new form of dealing with new global problems and avenues has appeared with considerable success: the convening of World Commissions of Eminent Personalities, including heads of states or governments. Thus we had the Commission of Eminent Personalities headed by Willy Brandt on North-South Relations, the Commission headed by Olof Palme on disarmament, and the Commission headed by Mrs. Brundtland on the environment and development. The next one under the Swedish Initiative called by the Prime Minister of Sweden, Mr. Ingvar Carlson, will deal with world governance. Why not consider the convening of a Commission of Eminent Personalities to review world-wide the question of philanthropy? Hence:

Representing the University for Peace at the first meeting of the Ministers of Culture of Central America in December 1990, I learned that these countries are poorly equipped to effectively seek and obtain funds from foreign sources for the preservation of a cultural past which is of interest to all humanity. I suggested therefore the creation of a Central American Foundation which would be equipped with the information, experience, expertise and proper personnel to obtain philanthropic aid locally, regionally and from foreign sources. Hence:

The Rockefeller conference held on the occasion of John K. Rockefeller's 150th anniversary, dealing with the subject of philanthropy in the twenty-first century was extremely useful. On the basis of its findings, I would recommend:

Having coordinated the work of the UN and of its 32 specialized agencies and world programs for several years, I know the wealth of world knowledge on global issues which is available in the UN system. All too often the early warnings of the UN, e.g. the population explosion, the environmental crisis, the energy crisis, the food crisis, the climatic changes were not heard in time and the situation got increasingly worse. I strongly recommend that all foundations tap into this information in order to help stave off new dangers and contribute to a better world. Hence:

I would even go further and draw your attention that each year the Secretary-General of the UN and the heads of the 32 specialized agencies and world programs meet in Geneva and in New York in a remarkable world cabinet meeting where the world and human situation is reviewed in its entirety, priorities of action devised and future outlooks assessed. The UN would have a lot to say to respond to the preoccupation of Peter Goldmark with new global problems. Hence:

One form of philanthropy is the awarding of prizes to meritorious individuals or institutions. Such prizes are given in innumerable fields and are a great leverage of human progress. But it will surprise you that it is almost impossible to find either national or world information on existing prizes. I have tried to obtain it in the field of peace. It simply does not exist. Not even the Nobel Prize Committee possesses such information. If world philanthropy were well organized such information would be gathered and brought to the attention of the public, preferably in paperbacks for mass distribution. At the University for Peace we have begun to collect information on peace prizes in the world, and UNESCO has started to establish a data base on prizes in its fields or concern. Hence, a further recommendation:

There is another subject which I would call "inspirational philanthropy". Nowadays all too many people are depressed, hopeless, giving up their creative energy. Philanthropy could be more directed to inspiring people and institutions not to give up hope. For example at the University for Peace we have on the campus busts of some of the great peacemakers and philosophers of history: Thomas Payne, Tolstoy, Gandhi, Teilhard de Chardin, the Presidents of Costa Rica who contributed most to peace, foremost among them Jose Figueres who had the courage to demilitarize the country in 1949, making it a model of peace and prosperity in Central America, now being followed by other countries. Not only students, but innumerable visitors, including heads of states are inspired by our great peace monument, devoted to known and unknown peacemakers in the world. One President of a Central American country pledged on the inspiring hills of the University to make peace in his country, and he did. Hence:

Finally, there is one new subject coming to the fore, namely the birth of a true global philanthropy, the fact that the new world organizations are becoming increasingly the recipients, the channels and providers of world philanthropy. Here are briefly a few aspects of this new phenomenon:

1. the lands of the UN in New York and in Geneva, and their libraries were donated by private philanthropists. So was the huge land and primeval forest of the University for Peace in Costa Rica. Innumerable works of art have also been donated to the UN and to its agencies. The instruments of Eve Curie, the inventor of X-rays, were donated by her family to the World Health Organization. Many movie actors and singers are donating their talents to UNICEF, the Refugee Organization, the University for Peace, etc.

2. substantial monetary donations have been made by various individuals, foundations and corporations to the UN system's efforts and activities in the fields of population, the environment, development, drug abuse, children, women, the handicapped, etc. The Sasakawa Foundation in Japan is making average donations of 2 to 3 million dollars a year to the UN system. (see footnote on next page)

3. a sizable group of individuals interested in the promotion of peace has financed through individual donations a modern and powerful International Radio for Peace short-wave station at the University for Peace.

4. an increasing number of world prizes are being established by philanthropists with the UN system as their base: scientific, cultural and education* with UNESCO, a World Environment Prize with the UN Environment Program, a World Disaster Prevention Prize with the Office of the UN Disaster Relief Coordination, medical prizes with the World Health Organization, etc. The Sasakawa Foundation by means of such prizes established with the UN system gives the international organization the task of selecting the most meritorious individuals in the world in their fields.

5. the UN, its agencies and its officers are often the recipients of world prizes. Thus no less than 18 Nobel Prizes have been given to individuals and organizations of the UN system.

6. the UN and its agencies are often used as the place where major world prizes or philanthropic projects are being announced and awarded. This gives particular solemnity and visibility to such events.

7. member governments often request that voluntary, philanthropic financing be granted to a host of UN and specialized activities for which the Secretary-General is asked to establish individual trust funds. This applies also to International Years of the Handicapped, for Children and to UN celebrations and anniversaries. They should be known to individual philanthropists and foundations.

8. some UN agencies have been allowed by governments to give grants or financial help to NGOs. This is the case of UNESCO and of UNICEF, but the UN and most agencies are unauthorized.

9. I take pride for having proposed the first world foundation, namely the Banyan Foundation for the elderly, approved by the UN General Assembly, located in Paris. It provides in particular the great pharmaceutical firms the opportunity to strengthen the United Nation's work in a field of growing concern. It could be the model for the creation of similar world foundations in a number of fields of growing global concern.

10. I have also made the proposal and designed the structure for a true World Foundation under UN auspices. In order to promote the idea I have included it in a recently published novel, First Lady of the World, unfolding at the United Nations and at the University for Peace. When the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces were awarded

*e.g. the Sasakawa UNESCO Yearly Peace Education Prize which I received in 1986 for my World Core Curriculum and Robert Muller Schools.

the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988, the Secretary-General regretted that there was no UN or World Foundation into which he would have deposited the funds.

11. at the end of his mandate, Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, in recognition of the services rendered to him by the University for Peace to exercise his private diplomacy in Central America, announced to the General Assembly the creation of a major foundation, "The Secretary-General's Fund for Peace", administered by the UN Development Program, with a target capital of 250 million dollars. The interests of the Fund would help finance the University for Peace and the private mediation of other activities of the Secretary-General favor of peace. The text of this Fund was circulated to the General Assembly together with document A/46/580 on the Tenth Anniversary of the University for Peace. This major decision by one of the great peacemakers of recent times offers golden opportunities to philanthropists to show their appreciation and to strengthen the work of the United Nations in the field of peace.

To all of you present here at this Congress, may I say that you are a wonderful group of people, the image of new humans of the 21st century. You are doing good, you are trying to redress injustices and inequities, you are trying to help build a better world in many fields and in many ways. I have met several of you in fields such as blindness prevention, the handicapped, drug addiction, women's rights, the environment, etc. Personal happiness for a job well done will be your recompense. Please never give up, never despair, never become hopeless and negative. Do not make your efforts dependent on immediate, visible results. Many will come to fruition only after our death.

There is an enormous need for love, for heart, for vision, for inspiration, for ideas, for creativity, for self-esteem, for altruism, for validation of the people. We must be co-creators, true models of the new cosmic leaders needed for the wonderful global journey of this beautiful planet and its genial human race in the vast, star-studded universe. If we decide so, we can make this planet a true paradise in the universe.

Update 1998:

Ted Turner's creation of a United Nations Foundation with funding of a billion dollars for UN primary needs over a period of five years, is a wonderful step ahead. So is the decision of the UN Secretary General to create a United Nations International Partnership Trust Fund (UNFIP) open to philanthropy (why not call it UNiphily?) from all around the world. May these actions lead to the birth, at long last, of a well-conceived and well-structured global philanthropy and gaiaphily. 

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A COPERNICAN FRAMEWORK FOR PHILANTHROPY,

The following framework is used in the UN as a comprehensive presentation of all world concerns, problems and fields of action by the UN and its 32 specialized agencies and world programs. I devised it when I was Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Council which is in charge of the coordination of the entire UN system. I couched it also into a World Core Curriculum proposed to educators around the world. Its first application was in the Robert Muller School in Arlington, Texas.* The framework can have beneficial application in other fields especially proper world information by the media. Artists are also using it to select the expression through art of their love for humanity and the Earth. Concerned citizens and institutions can read priorities into the framework and select areas of their preferred action. Private firms can use it as a comprehensive framework for marketing, e.g. for the application of computers.

Concern and love for humanity (philanthropy) and for the planet (gaiaphily, from Gaia, Greek name of the goddess Earth) being the two most potent emerging imperatives at this stage of our evolution, the framework could also be used by philanthropists and gaiaphilists to canvass the areas of possible concern and select their preferred action.

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SUMMARY OF THE WORLD CORE CURRICULUM

UN International Agencies Cooperating on Categories of Segment I of World Core Curriculum

These agencies often are humanity's best resource for world-wide statistics, information, recommendations, and teaching materials. They all have information services to whom you can write.

Astrophysics and outer space Our relations with the sun The Earth's geophysics The Earth's climate The atmosphere The biosphere The seas and oceans The polar caps The arable lands The deserts The mountains The Earth's water Plant life Animal life Human life The Earth's energy The Earth's crust The Earth's minerals Microbial life The world of the atom

UN, UNESCO, ITU UN, UNESCO, FAO, WMO UNESCO, WMO WMO, UNEP WMO, UNEP, UNESCO, ICAO UNEP, UNESCO, FAO UN, FAO, IMO, UNESCO UNEP, UNESCO FAO, IFAD UNEP, FAO, UNESCO UNEP, UNESCO, FAO UN, UNESCO, FAO, WMO, WHO UNEP, FAO UNEP, FAO UN, WHO, FAO, UNESCO, ILO, IBRD UN, UNESCO, IAEA UN, UNESCO UN, UNESCO, IBRD UNESCO, WHO IAEA

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THE UN SYSTEM

The mere list of the eighteen United Nations specialized agencies and fourteen world programs which compose the UN system illustrates the vastness of today's international cooperation. No other living species has ever so equipped itself with global instruments designed to study, observe, monitor and preserve its habitat. In innumerable organs, meetings and conferences, through thousands of experts and delegates, backed by forty thousand world servants, humankind is today probing its entire biosphere and condition, trying to augment peace, to reduce conflicts and tensions, to build bridges and to seek ways for a greater fulfillment of human life on a well preserved planet to an extent which no philosopher, prophet or social reformer would have ever dreamt possible.

Here is a quick overview of this incipient world system: The eighteen UN specialized agencies : International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); International Labor Organization (ILO); Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO); United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); World Health Organization (WHO); International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD); International Development Association (IDA); International Finance Corporation (IFC); International Monetary Fund (IMF); International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO); Universal Postal Union (UPU); International Telecommunication Union (ITU); World Meteorological Organization (WMO); International Maritime Organization (IMO); General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT); World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO); International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD); World Tourism Organization (WTO), linked with the UN under a novel type of agreement.

The fourteen world programs : United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF); United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD); United Nations Development Program (UNDP); Office of UN Disaster Relief Co-ordinator (UNDRO); United Nations Environment Program (UNEP); United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control (UNFDAC); Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO); United Nations Institute for training and Research (UNITAR); United Nations Fund for Population (UNRWA); United Nations University (UNU)*; United Nations Volunteers (UNV); World Food Program (WFP).

The UN itself is concerned with a multitude of global problems, such as peace, disarmament, outer space, the seas and oceans, natural resources, human rights, racial equality, women, multinational corporations, criminality, etc.

There also exists a first world ministerial council: the World Food Council. Hopefully, similar ministerial councils will be established in other crucial fields, energy, the atmosphere, water, transport in particular.

I am proud that I was at the origin of the creation of eleven of these 32 UN agencies and world programs.

*Also: the University for Peace in Costa Rica; the World Maritime University in Malmö, Sweden; the Institute for Nuclear Physics of the IAEA in Trieste, Italy, and the Training Institute (now recognized as a European University) for Labor Relations of the ILO.

A Visit from Outer Space

At this point of the 2000 ideas, let me give again the floor to the extraterrestrial committee of experts on planetary management who spoke in the Introduction to ideas 101 to 200 of the first volume of 500 ideas:

I suggested to them this time to pay a visit to the Untied Nations in New York to see that we were trying to do our best on this planet.

After a prolonged visit they came back and to my surprise were all upset. They almost shouted at me:

"You humans must be kidding. You are even more insane than we thought after our first visit."

I expressed astonishment: "Why do you say that? In my view, after having spent all my adult life at the UN, I consider it to be one of the greatest blessings in all human history."

"Well, then you must be even crazier than your fellow-humans. Let us tell you what we found out, just to give you a few examples.

• The budget for the UN's main functions and Secretariat in New York, Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna and five Regional Commissions &emdash; is $1.25 billion a year. This is 4 per cent of New York City's annual budget &emdash; and a billion dollars less than the yearly cost of the Tokyo Fire Department! It is $3.7 billion less than the annual budget of New York's State University system!

• The USA's share of the UN's regular budget for 1998 is $298 million &emdash; the equivalent of $1.11 per American. Tiny San Marino, by comparison, pays $4.26 per citizen to the UN.

• The UN has no army. Governments voluntarily supply troops and other personnel to halt conflicts that threaten peace and security. The United States and other Member States of the Security Council &emdash; not the Secretary General &emdash; decide when and where to deploy peace-keeping troops.

• The New York Headquarters of the UN employs 4,700 people. The Swedish capital of Stockholm, by contrast, has 60,000 municipal employees.

• Some 53,300 people work in the UN system, which includes the Secretariat and 32 other organizations such as UNICEF. Three times as many people work for McDonald's in the US!

• Eighty per cent of the work of the UN system is devoted to helping developing countries build the capacity to help themselves. This includes promoting and protecting democracy and human rights; saving children from starvation and disease; providing relief assistance to refugees and disaster victims; countering global crime, drugs and disease; and assisting countries devastated by war and the long-term threat of land-mines.

• The UN and its agencies, funds and programs &emdash; mainly UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA, WFP and WHO 1 &emdash; have $4.8 billion of voluntary aid a year to spend on economic and social assistance to poor countries in such areas as health, sanitation, agriculture and hunger. This is the equivalent of 81 cents per human being. In 1996, the world's governments spent $797 billion in military expenditures &emdash; the equivalent of $135 per human being!

• The total cost of all UN peacekeeping operations in 1997 was $1.3 billion &emdash; the equivalent of less than 0.5 per cent of the US military budget, and less than 0.2 per cent of global military spending.

• The United States' assessed share of UN peacekeeping expense &emdash; 30 per cent of the yearly total &emdash; has dropped by half, from about $1 billion in 1995 to some $400 million in 1997. This is less than one-quarter of 1 per cent of the annual US military budget.

"And after all this we learned that the US has not paid its contributions for several years and that in the last three years the number of world servants of the UN has been reduced by one quarter! A planet on which there are 556 soldiers, 85 doctors and only one world servant per 100,000 inhabitants, is an improperly managed planet. We give you grade F.

They shook sadly their heads, looking totally dismayed and ready to leave without the thought of ever returning.

Then one of them took out a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to me with these words:

"This is the only decent, hopeful item we found when perusing books sold at the UN Bookshop."

And it was

---

My Dream 2000

I dream
That on 1 January 2000
The whole world will stand still
In prayer, awe and gratitude
For our beautiful, heavenly Earth
And for the miracle of human life.

I dream
That young and old, rich and poor,
Black and white,
People from North and South,
From East and West,
From all beliefs and cultures
Will join their hands, minds and hearts
in an unprecedented, universal
Bimillennium Celebration of Life.

I dream
That during the year 2000
Innumerable celebrations and events
Will take place all over the globe
To gauge the long road covered by humanity
To study our mistakes
And to plan the feats
Still to be accomplished
For the full flowering of the human race
In peace, justice and happiness.

I dream
That the few remaining years
To the Bimillennium
Be devoted by all humans, nations and institutions
To unparalleled thinking, action,
Inspiration, elevations,
Determination and love
To solve our remaining problems
And to achieve
A peaceful, united human family on Earth.

I dream
That the year 2000
Will be declared World Year of Thanksgiving
By the United Nations.

I dream
That the third millennium
Will be declared
And made
Humanity's First Millennium of Peace

They left, embraced me with tears in their eyes, saying: "May your dream come true. This beautiful Earth, all its living beings, all mothers and children, all the poor and desperate peoples endowed with the miracle of life deserve it."

It is only in the 1998 Human Development Report of the Untied Nations Development Program that one finds for the first time three and a half pages on the subject of consumption in the world. More than half of it deals with underconsumption in poor countries. Well, at least it is a first recognition that in addition to the population explosion (which is decelerating) we have an accelerating overconsumption explosion which is even more dangerous than the population one. Here is the essential of the report:

Eight-six percent of expenditures for personal consumption are made by just 20 percent of the world's people.

Global consumption of goods and services will top US$24 trillion in 1998, six times the figure for 1975. People are consuming more in food, energy, education, transportation, communication and entertainment than ever before. People are also living longer and enjoying greater personal freedom because of better access to health services and education, productive resources, credit and technologies.

But the human consequences of current consumption patterns are unacceptably high. Gross inequalities in consumption opportunities have excluded over one billion people who fail to meet even their basic consumption requirements.

Among the 4.4 billion people who live in developing countries, almost three-fifths live in communities without basic sanitation; almost one-third are without safe drinking water; one-quarter lack adequate housing; one-fifth live beyond reach of modern health services; one-fifth of the children do not get as far as grade five in school, and an equal percentage are undernourished. For most of the world's very poor, transportation for every day chores, including the gathering of fuel and water, is by foot.

Abundance of consumption is no crime. But it is scandalous that the poor are unable to consume enough to meet even their most basic needs.

With the globalization of markets demand for luxury items and services is exploding, even in traditionally poor communities. What was considered a luxury 20 years ago is now a necessity &endash; a private car for every middle-class family in France, a wristwatch for every rural family in India, a refrigerator for every family in China.

Between 1975 and 1995, the number of radios sold in Africa increased by more than 400 percent; television sets in Latin America by more than 500 percent; automobiles in East Asia by 1,400 percent. Personal computer sales in the Republic of Korea are more than double those of Norway. Annual sales of televisions in Brazil, Chile and the Republic of Korea are at or above the levels of most industrialized countries. Cable TV subscriptions in China increased from 1.1 million in 1990 to 3.5 million in 1995.

Despite these high growth rates in consumption, developing countries are nowhere near catching up with levels of consumption in the world's richest nations. The wealthiest one-fifth of the world's people:

Unequal income distribution translates into social exclusion when a society's value system places too much importance on what a person possesses rather than what a person is or can do. "A teenager without fashionable brand-name shoes may feel ashamed among his peers at school. In rural India, a young woman can be excluded from marriage where standards for dowry are beyond the means of her family."

When social standards rise faster than incomes, consumption patterns become unbalanced. Household spending for conspicuous consumption can crowd out such essentials as food, education, health care, child care and saving for a secure future.

Runaway growth in consumption is placing unprecedented pressure on the environment and putting those who consume the least in double jeopardy. In developing countries, while rising consumption is also stressing the environment, levels are not even close to those in industrialized countries. The burning of fossil fuels has almost quintupled since 1950 and the wealthiest one-fifth of the world's people consume about 53 percent of the total. Per capita carbon dioxide emissions are 21 metric tons a year in the Untied States compared with three metric tons in China.

The poorest one-fifth of the world's people, who are responsible for just three percent of carbon dioxide emissions, live in low-lying regions that are most vulnerable to the rising sea levels associated with global warming. With a one-meter rise in sea level, Bangladesh would lose 17 percent of its land area. Egypt would lose 12 percent and seven million Egyptians would lose their homes. Much of the landmass of small island nations, such as Maldives and Tuvalu, would also disappear beneath the waves.

The global marine fish catch has quadrupled since 1950 and the consumption of fresh water has almost doubled since 1960. Wood consumption for industrial and domestic fuel is 40 percent higher than it was 25 years ago. But poor people benefit least and suffer the most painful consequences of unsustainable consumption habits. Fish is the main source of protein for almost one billion people in developing countries, but wasteful practices by industrialized nations have depleted many fish stocks and pushed prices beyond the reach of the poor. Scarcity of safe drinking water forces many millions of poor people to rely on unclean supplies that are the main source of some two billion cases of diarrhea each year, and a leading cause of death among infants and small children. The high cost and shortage of modern fuels in poor communities forces many millions of people, mostly women, to cook their food over smoky fires fueled by wood and animal dung. The report notes that almost two-thirds of the 2.7 million global deaths related to air pollution each year are caused by indoor smoke and fumes in poor households.

The good news is that while consumption has reached record levels, the use of non-renewable resources has slowed, new reserves have been discovered, consumption has shifted in favor of products and services that are less material-intensive, energy efficiency has improved and recycling has gained popularity. Vocal alliances for protection of the eco-system have also helped to make some consumers more concerned about their impact on the environment.

Consumers, civil society and governments must forge alliances for new patterns of consumption. The world needs patterns of consumption that share resources, not divide societies; that strengthen peoples' capacities, not diminish them; that are socially responsible, not destructive of the well-being of others; that are sustainable and do not degrade the natural resource base and environment for present and future generations.

Consumption is the life-blood of much human progress and the real issue is not consumption, but its patterns and effects. Some suggest that developing countries should restrain their consumption in order to limit environmental damage, but this would mean prolonging the already scandalously deep and extensive deprivation for future generations.

The report sets five goals.

To achieve these goals the report proposes action to: ensure adequate levels of consumption for all; support technological innovations that enable developing countries to leapfrog polluting industrial processes; tackle market distortions by eliminating perverse subsidies and by taxation; improve public awareness of the impact of present consumption patterns; establish and enforce adequate regulations; and strengthen mechanisms for international cooperation.

Personal footnote by Robert Muller:

My own main recommendations are:

1. the creation of a World Consumption Agency, advocated several times in the 2000 ideas;

2. the yearly publication of a very substantial report by the United Nations on World Consumption;

3. the refusal of people in the rich countries to buy unnecessary products.

For more ideas and details, see Volume V "Index of the 2000 Ideas" and request a printout of my ideas and proposals on the subjects of consumption and simple, frugal lives.

THE ABSOLUTE, URGENT NEED FOR
PROPER EARTH GOVERNMENT*

* A paper submitted to The International Roundtable of the Gorbachev Foundation, the Club of Budapest and the Grauso Foundation, Globalization and the Future of the Nation-State, in Cagliari, Sardinia, 26-27 May 1998. Parts of that speech were used in Volume II, Ideas 502 to 564. In view of its popularity the whole paper is reproduced here.

During my fifty years of global service with the United Nations I was particularly struck by the following factors in the world situation:

The accelerated development of the human species into a global species through the multiplication and extension:

• of hands by machines
• of legs by transportation
• of eyesight by microscopes, telescopes, television
• of hearing by telephone
• of the nervous system by telecommunications
• of the brain through the birth of a global brain (science, global knowledge, the United Nations, the media, computers)

Still missing or underdeveloped are:

• a global heart: love stops at the nation or at an ethnic group. Beginning of global love for peace, for nature and for the preservation of the Earth.
• a global soul: stops at a religion. Not yet a global spirituality in which all humans would be in tune with the universe and eternity.

From 1945 to the early 1970's: a comprehensive, unprecedented period of Humanism (avoid wars, prevent early childhood deaths, eradicate epidemics, increase the well-being of all humans, defend universal human rights, put an end to colonialism, apartheid and racism, increase literacy, longevity and good health, etc.)

1970's: while the agendas of the preceding period were still unfulfilled and were overtaken by the world population explosion, a new major world concern came to the fore, namely the Environment (UNESCO's World Biosphere Conference in 1968 and the UN World Conference on the Environment in Stockholm in 1972), in other words: we humans on one side and the Earth and nature around us.

1980's: the new phenomenon of the depletion of the ozonosphere and menacing climate changes made the Earth priority No. 1 of our concerns and reduced economic development to "sustainable economic development".

This represents a fundamental change in the evolution of this planet. From now on the world will never be the same. This is why we should no longer speak of World Government, but of Earth Government, the wise management, saving and preservation of our planetary home of which we are an integral part and whose further evolution now depends largely on us.

The UN Charter of 1945 does not use the words Earth, nature, natural resources and the environment. Why? Because at that time we considered the Earth to be unlimited in resources for a relatively small world population. The western countries also saw, and still see humanity as separate and superior to the natural world. This view has accomplished wonders for the human race. But humanity must now change its course, dominant objectives, values, institutions and laws if we want to prevent disasters in the further evolution of the Earth and of the human race.

- humanity rushed into economics (oikos, nomos) changing our home, before ecology (oikos, logos) the knowledge of that home;

- capitalism and business became the dominant ideals of the human society and not the environment and preservation of our Earth and nature;

- business globalized itself very rapidly and became the master of the world and of our lives, while governments, the entrusted defenders of justice, of the poor and the downtrodden, globalized themselves only timidly in the United Nations and even became the servants of business;

- religions did not globalize themselves at all.

There were excuses for the above:

- capitalism did wonders for humanity at the beginning when the world population was small and the resources of the Earth unexploited and seemingly unlimited;

- governments were still in the era of consolidating nations recently born from ethnic groups or provinces fighting each other;

- religions still believed that their truths were absolute, immortal and meant to spread to the entire world.

Today our objectives and efforts must be:

1. to see the religions globalize themselves into a global spiritual Renaissance in order to give us a universal, cosmic meaning of life on Earth and give birth to the first global, cosmic, universal civilization. The United Religions Organization which is in the process of being created can do that;

2. national governments must absolutely globalize themselves significantly in a new, second generation United Nations with much more power, especially power of implementation, legislation and vastly increased resources commensurate with the tasks of the 21st century, or a United States of the World with proper balance of powers in a world democracy, or a World Union on the model of the recent European Union;

3. business must be put in its right place as a servant of the peoples' needs within a properly preserved Earth and renewed natural resources, and no longer be an instrument of unlimited power, profit and enrichment and the sole objective of life;

4. more generally we have come to the moment in evolution when we must give second place to the Darwinian theory of competition and survival of the fittest, and first place to a new ideology, science, strategy and methodology of cooperation for our evolutionary survival and continued progress on this perhaps unique, life-endowed planet in the universe.

During this period the rich countries and the rich in all countries became richer and the poor countries and the poor in all countries became poorer for the following reasons:*

The rich people thanks to savings, inheritance and business can invest their money in banks, stock-markets, mutual funds, retirement plans or in business ventures; many people do not have to work anymore to get richer;

The poor cannot save much or anything to put in banks, stock markets, mutual funds, retirement plans or to engage in business, and as a result remain poor.

The rich countries have the monopoly of inventions and patents, huge capitals accumulated over the years, sell highly elaborated, sophisticated goods at high prices to the poor countries from which they buy primary products at low prices. Investments, marketing techniques and advertisement are also used in the latter countries to make huge profits and gain new consumer markets for the rich countries.

Moreover poor countries and poor people have the highest number of children. Poverty elimination must therefore become a major factor in stemming the population explosion and vice versa.

Since 1945 the needs, injustices and complaints of humanity, especially of the poor countries, have been high on the agenda of the United Nations. Recently the UN has held a World Social Summit on all these problems in Copenhagen and launched a United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty, 1997-2006.

Regarding the newcomer in the age of global preoccupations, namely the Earth, we must listen to her too and respond to her complaints. If the Earth could speak she would say:

Why did I have to take all of a sudden a population increase from 2.5 billion people in 1952 to 5.9 billion today, more than a doubling in less than fifty years?

We could answer as an excuse: it happened out of sheer ignorance. After the war the rich countries and the United Nations wanted to prevent the early death of innumerable children in the poor countries. They died young because of epidemics, bad health conditions, malnutrition and hunger. But having no population statistics for the world and for most of these countries, we did not tell the parents that they would no longer need to give birth to an average of six children per family to have at least two left to till the land and to take care of their old age. Until 1952 we did not even know what the world population was! When the UN organized for the first time in human history decent global statistics and world censuses, we discovered that women did not have more children, but that children no longer died early (the mortality rate fell from 34 per thousand to 14 per thousand). When this was discovered it was too late, the children were born and a young population is highly reproductive. The UN warned nations and humanity by means of world population conferences and every other possible means that a world population explosion was upon us. But religions and other factors opposed it. Nevertheless, these efforts saved you from 2.2 billion more humans on your surface by the year 2000. Instead of 8.3 billion human beings in that year there will be only 6.1 billion.

The Earth:

Yes, but I hear that at the present rate you will be 9.3 billion in the year 2050 and stabilize only at 10.7 billion in the year 2,200, which means 4.8 billion more people than today! You still increase by 80 million people every year. You will end by destroying me.

Our answer:

We continue to do our utmost. Each year the figure of population growth decreases by a few more millions. On 12 October 1999 we will be 6 billion people. The increase during the preceding twelve months was 78 million. To change the course of global phenomena takes time. Humanity which is in the kindergarten of the global age has not learned it yet.

The Earth:

You better learn it fast. I have another major complaint, namely while there is a population explosion in the poor countries you have also triggered off a wild inventions, production, business, marketing, advertising and overconsumption explosion in the rich countries. In these countries an individual consumes 30 times more of my resources than in the poor countries. From my point of view, namely the damages you do to my body, your population statistics are wrong: while the less developed countries count 4.7 billion people, the more developed countries' 1.2 billion should be multiplied by 30, i.e. they represent in my eyes 36 billion people!

The Earth would have other complaints, she could ask for example:

WHY EACH MINUTE

- do you destroy 21 hectares (52 acres) of my tropical forests (38 million acres a year) after having destroyed most of the forests in your "rich" countries?

- do you consume 35,725 barrels of oil to run around in cars and fly around me in airplanes?

- do you let 50 tons of fertile soil be blown off my cropland?

- do you add 12,000 tons of carbon dioxide to my atmosphere, to the air you breathe, a staggering total of 6.3 billion tons in 1997?

WHY EACH HOUR

- do you let 685 hectares of productive dryland become desert?

- do you spend 120 million dollars on military expenditures, a trillion a year, which you could use for the good of your poor and for my preservation?

- are 55 people poisoned and 5 killed by pesticides?

- are 60 new cases of cancer diagnosed in the United States alone, over 5,000,000 cases each year with 20,000 cases leading to death, because of the thinning of my ozonosphere which protected you from the ultra-violet rays of the sun?

WHY EACH FIVE HOURS

- do you let a species die out on this planet? This would mean a loss of 84,000 species in the next 50 years.

WHY EACH DAY

- do 25,000 people die of water shortage and contamination?

- are 10 tons of nuclear waste produced by 437 and a constantly increasing number of nuclear plants? How can you let my body be reatomized when it took millions of years for me to loose the nuclear radiations I had when being born from the sun, and it was only when that atomized condition ended that I was able to give birth to life and to you?

- do 250,000 tons of sulfuric acid fall as acid rain in the northern hemisphere, killing lakes and devastating remaining forests?

- are 60 tons of plastic packages and 372 tons of fishing nets dumped into the seas and oceans by commercial fishermen, killing fishes, sea birds and sea mammals?

- why each day are tens of thousands of men rushing to skyscrapers around the world to invent more, to produce more, to market more, to advertise more, to sell more, while only a few are concerned with my preservation? You cannot say, as you say for the population explosion, that each year that explosion diminishes somewhat. On the contrary I consider that it gets worse every day.

WHY SINCE 1970

- have you destroyed more than thirty per cent of my nature and the destruction is accelerating, not decelerating as is the population explosion?

WHY DURING A HUMAN LIFETIME

- do you dump so much garbage and waste on me: while the average is 150 times of the weight of a person in a poor country over a lifetime, why does the average American leave behind a mountain of waste 4,000 times his own weight?

And the Earth could go on. She could say:

"I regret to have no total figure on what you dump into the seas and oceans which cover 71 percent of my body and contain the largest number of longest living of my species. US industries and cities dump an estimated 6.4 trillion gallons of waste and sewage into the oceans every year.

I heard her also murmur:

"I almost wish that you humans would put coloring materials in the exhausts of your cars and airplanes to see what you add to the air which goes into your lungs and which I made so pure for you. Thank God, it begins to show in the form of smog over your cities."

The UN Charter does not even mention me or my nature, natural resources, or the environment. But since the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the environment and the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit you have begun to look into my miseries. You have created a UN Environment Program and an Earth Council, and you are drafting an Earth Charter, a Declaration of my rights. I hear that next you will take up the drafting of a universal declaration of human responsibilities. Ministries of the Environment have sprung up in almost all countries. I thank you for that. But alas, the UN's recommendations have been often ignored and most poorly implemented, as was revealed by your 1997 Special General Assembly to review the situation. Why don't you transform the UN into an Earth Organization, in which humans and nature would cooperate for the optimum fulfillment and survival of both, and make me the most beautiful and flourishing planet in the whole universe?

She would add:

I have just read a statement by Mr. Mario Soares, the Prime Minister of Portugal and Chairman of a World Commission on the Oceans, who says: "the action taken for the seas and oceans since the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit have been quite depressing." May I warn you: if the ultra-violet rays going through the vast hole in my ozonosphere (it has reached the size of continental China) kill the plankton and diatoms of my seas and oceans you might lose 2/3rds of your oxygen!

Yes, why, why, why...

It is to these fundamental global Earth challenges, in addition to the unresolved human ones, that the world community must address itself as we enter the 21st century and new millennium.

It is a vast subject which reaches from the individual to local, city, provincial, state, national, regional, continental and international, global levels, including the world's commons (the seas and oceans, the atmosphere, the ozonosphere, the moon and outer-space).

It is a vast subject also regarding the means of action: institutions, law, financial resources, taxation, human talent and resources, and the proper education and cooperation of 5.9 billion human individuals on this planet.

As requested, the present paper deals only with the subject: next development of the international system.

Since globalization is the primary evolutionary phenomenon, challenge and opportunity of our time, it obviously raises the extremely important question of the type, role, structure, strength and resources of the international system.

And since the Earth is in peril and the greatest part of humanity is still in misery, the remedies must be audacious and strong, even if they seem irrealistic or difficult to accept by those in power. We must stretch our minds and hearts to the dimension of the problems. As President Roosevelt wrote in his own hand on the day before his death for the speech he was to deliver at the opening of the San Francisco Conference convened to give birth to the United Nations:

In my view, after fifty years of service in the United Nations system, all the above points to the utmost urgency and absolute necessity for proper Earth government.

This should become the priority item on the agenda of world affairs for the year 2000. The poor countries who have been waiting so long for world justice should be the first to request it after 50 years of promises from the rich countries.

There is no shadow of a doubt that the present political and economic systems &emdash; if systems they are &emdash; are no longer appropriate and will lead to the end of life evolution on this planet. We must therefore absolutely and urgently look for new ways. The less we loose time, the less species' and nature will be destroyed.

I would urge therefore that consideration be given to the following avenues:

to hold a World Conference on Proper Earth Government through the Free Market System

Since business was the first to globalize itself world-wide, far beyond governments, and since corporations are now for all practical purposes ruling the world, we should give them the opportunity, even request them to assess their full responsibility for the future of all humanity, all living species and of the Earth itself and prove to us the validity of their claim that the free market can do it all.

The world corporate community should be asked to answer how they would take care of the above complaints of the Earth, how they would provide for a well-preserved planet and the well-being of all humanity, full employment, the renewal of natural resources, the long-term evolution of the planet and continuation of life on it, the real democracy of the consumers in a corporate power and wealth economy.

Such a conference would bring together the heads of the major world companies, banks and stock-exchanges, the World Bank, the IMF, the GATT, the new World Trade Organization, the International Chamber of Commerce and similar organizations.

to ensure proper Earth government through a second generation United Nations for the 21st century

Since the United Nations is the only world-wide, universal organization at present available, since it had fifty years of valuable experience and many successes, since it paved the way to proper Earth government, instead of putting it on the defensive, unjustified attacks and criticism, reduction of resources and non-payment of obligatory contributions, governments should honestly ask themselves if a better way would not be to consider a second generation United Nations upgraded by a true quantum jump into a proper Earth preserving and human well-being and justice ensuring organization of our planet.

Such a conference would have at its disposal many proposals and ideas for the strengthening of the UN made by various UN bodies, governments, Secretaries General, outside organizations and retired elders like myself. I have formulated many of them in my 2000 ideas and dreams for a better world and will provide samples at the conference.

I recommend the urgent holding of a UN Charter Review Conference and second Bretton Woods Conference to assess the United Nations system's role, potentialities and substantial strengthening to cope with the critical issues and needs of the Earth and of humanity in the future. A Charter review conference would moreover give a voice to 134 governments of the present 185 members, which did not participate in the drafting of the Charter and creation of the UN.

The UN Secretary General, a member government or a group of governments should request the inscription of this item on the agenda of the next UN General Assembly.

There is no doubt that given the massive changes which have taken place since 1945, an Organization created 53 years ago can simply not be adequate to deal effectively with the mounting, unprecedented and massive world problems of a new century and new evolutionary phase of our planet.

a New Philadelphia World Convention for the Creation of the United States of the World

The star-performance, often called "miracle" of the American States in the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia 200 years ago which put an end to a similar political chaos in North America between numerous, sovereign independent states at the time, should be repeated.

Such a Convention of all nations would review the state of world democracy and would have to add to the system of balance of powers the new dominant power of business.

"Philadelphia II" is a project of US Senator Mike Gravel who proposes a convention for the writing of a charter for a Global Constitution.

In this regard, we might well apply to the present world these words by George Washington concerning the political chaos which reigned in North America at his time:

A dear friend of mine, Captain Tom Hudgens who created in Washington after World War II the Association to Unite the Democracies, after laboring without success to get the governments of the NATO democracies to create a federal union is convening a Citizens' Constitutional Convention in Holland in 1998 to draft a Constitution for Democracies and to propose it to all democracies of the world.

a World Conference of all world federalist and world government associations and movements, to propose a federal constitution and system for the Earth

An immense work has been accomplished by the World Federalist Association headed by Sir Peter Ustinov, by its national associations and many other world government movements. There exist already several draft World Constitutions. World philanthropists should sponsor a World Conference or other ways to come up with a world constitution for the 21st century. We may remember that during World War I, Andrew Carnegie brought over to the US two Belgian scholars who drafted the statutes of the League of Nations and earned the Nobel Prize for it. Contemporary philanthropists should be inspired by such examples. According to UNESCO only 15 percent of philanthropy is international and most of it is bilateral. When the global world and the human family are in greatest need, they are the orphans of philanthropy.

And is it so inconceivable that two big federal countries like the United States and Russia might take the initiative of calling a world conference for the establishment of a global federal government in their image? After the cold war, what a warm spring, a spring of truly united nations this would be for our precious planet!

a World Conference for the creation of a World Union on the pattern of the European Union

The world has recently witnessed another political miracle, similar to the American miracle in Philadelphia: the miracle of Strasbourg, the birth of the European Union of 16 European countries which have finally put an end to their antagonisms and wars, decided to unite and cooperate and have abolished the borders between them. Every European can now settle anywhere in the Union, elect a European Parliament at the same time when electing his national Parliament, and can have his government condemned by a supra-national European Court of Human Rights when his rights are violated. Also, the European Union has its own European budget and tax system and is not dependent on national contributions as is the United Nations. In 1990 the European Economic Community had already a budget of 7.4 billion dollars, ten times the UN budget for all its world activities. This example is so hopeful, so powerful, so novel and inspiring that I recommend it as an outstanding guidelight for more regional communities and for the entire globe.

It is significant that the European Parliament has called for the setting up under the auspices of the United Nations, of an International Environmental Court and a World Environment Agency, of which the European Environment Agency would be a regional branch. It also wants that consideration be given to the setting up of a Parliamentary Consultative Assembly within the UN. We should wholeheartedly support these proposals.

I recommend that the European Union organize meetings and conferences with outside countries to show them how they can move towards regional unions and how a World Union can be established. This would render a great service to the world and to the UN General Assembly.

a World Conference of the planet's five continents for a Proper Earth Government through continental Unions and a World Union

About ten years ago or more, I suggested to President Bush that in view of the creation of the European Union, the American countries from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego should create an all-American community or union. He listened to me but instead of creating that community in a common, joint effort of all American countries, as was done in Europe, the US negotiated separate trade agreements first with Canada, then with Mexico, and now the Latin American countries created their own Mercosur (the Southern Latin American market) and the future of an American Union is in doubt.

It might be noteworthy that indigenous people of the Americas believe in a prophecy according to which the Eagle and the Condor will meet on sacred Mount Rasur in Costa Rica from which a civilization of peace and nature will spread to the entire world. It is on that hill that the dream of the demilitarization of Costa Rica was born, and where the United Nations created the first University for Peace on this planet, as well as an International Radio for Peace*. Simon Bolivar, for his part, in his dreams, prophecized that someday the capital of the world will be located in Central America.

The continental approach to a world union remains an important avenue. One could conceive five continental unions: the European Union, an American, an African, an Asian, and an Australian Union. A World Union could be constructed as a super-structure and common political system of the five continents.

* The Earth Council created by the Rio de Janeiro Conference will also move to it.

a World Conference on Earth and Human Government through new bio-political modes patterned on examples from nature

A very novel approach to the organization of humanity and its proper relations with the Earth and nature is to follow the biological models offered by the formation and admirable functioning of numerous colonies of cells, bacteria and living species observable in nature and now well studied. This is a very advanced science which opens up the most interesting and promising vistas. A bio-political science can and should now be rapidly developed on its basis. It would offer a very much needed bio-political revolution of the Earth' political system and science. Here the Earth and nature would come to their full preeminence and rights. All other world governmental avenues will sooner or later lead to it. First models are already the bio-regional approaches existing in certain areas of the world such as the Arctic Forum and the big river basins and mountain chains cooperative agreements.

Beyond this bio-regional vision and approach is the idea and proposal of Barbara Gaughen-Muller to create a United Nature, a transformed United Nations to respond to the fundamental unity of nature of which humans are part. Humans would not dominate nature but cooperate with it and learn from it. It is probably the most advanced, timely and imaginative vision of the total, proper functioning of planet Earth.

The Natural Law Party created by British scientists, which exists already in 85 countries and has become the third largest party in the United States could be the spearhead of this new approach. See the book by the President of the US Natural Law Party, physicist Dr. John Hagelin: Manual for a Perfect Government. How to harness the laws of nature to bring maximum success to governmental administration. Maharishi University, Fairfield, Iowa 52557

a World Conference on proper Earth government through what the world's religions have in common in terms of universal, global spirituality and world-wide human experience

Last, but not least, humanity has reached a point when we must consider our human presence, past, present and future on this particular planet in the universe. We have now a tremendous information on the universe in which we live. In addition to our total consciousness of our Earth and its global evolution we are also now acquiring and developing a cosmic consciousness of the universe. This is one of the greatest advances in human history. But the mysteries of infinity and eternity will probably remain beyond human and scientific grasp. This has the result of bringing together the spirituality or basic "faiths" of all religions and science. God, the gods or the Great Spirit or Spirits and their emissaries, prophets and human incarnations like Jesus gave humanity at its early stages a cosmic, universal, all-encompassing faith or feeling for the mysteries of the cosmos, for the norms of love and for the miracle of life and norms of behavior between all humans, other species and nature. These messages or "revelations" should not be neglected. They contain some of the profoundest answers to human behavior, fulfillment and survival. Great was our astonishment in the environmental crisis to discover the wisdom and rules of behavior towards nature dictated by the Great Spirit to the indigenous people of this planet, and towards Creation in practically all religions. The world's 5000 religions are filled with incredible wisdom regarding human morality, belief in life, environmental adaptations, survival and future evolution. This is strongly coming to the fore at this time in the following:

In recent years, Erika Erdmann, the research aide and Librarian of Nobel Prize winner Roger Sperry, and Professor Jean-Claude Leonide, a reputed French anthropologist undertook a survey of long-term evolutionary scientists which showed that scientists were becoming more optimistic as a result of the birth of a global consciousness which makes us humans aware of our mistakes and problems and helps us solve them by changing course and adapting to evolutionary requirements. Their survey revealed that the theory of "chaos" according to which the universe and human life make no sense is losing ground. The new theory is that on any planet having life in the cosmos one species sooner or later evolves to a point of gaining a total knowledge of the planet it lives on. It will then be in its power either to continue evolution or to bring it to an end. The first course will require that the former values of that species, values not respectful of the new phase of evolution, must be replaced by new ones which take that evolution into account. These new values are a major new evolutionary imperative.

In my view and in theirs, humanity has reached that stage on Planet Earth: we must revise our basic values dating from the 19th and early twentieth century and acquire a new evolutionary wisdom which respects nature, the Earth and their basic laws. If nature has produced the incredible, sophisticated variety of innumerable living species around us, each one a true miracle, it is simply not possible that the human species is not a miracle too, perhaps the most advanced of all. We are no longer our own objective. We have become the caretakers, the trustees, the shapers of future evolution, the instruments of the cosmos, integral parts of it, as we have already recognized of late to be to of the Earth.

The future of the Earth will be bright and life will not become extinct if we decide so on the eve of a new century and millennium. We are entering a thrilling, transcending new global, cosmic phase of evolution in the line indicated by Teilhard de Chardin, the anthropologist, if the human species understands its suddenly momentous, incredibly important evolutionary role and responsibility.

The preceding requires that all basic segments of human life on Earth be reviewed and rethought from scratch as we enter the 21st century. These are:

• a new political system for planet Earth
• a new economics
• a new education
• a new media and communications
• a new democracy
• a new global leadership
• a spiritual Renaissance and inter-religious cooperation
• a non-violent human society
• a well preserved planet
• a decent well-being for all humans
• a stabilization of the world population
• right human settlements on the planet
• the disarmament, demilitarization, denuclearization and global security of the planet
• a new science and technology
• a new anthropology, sociology and new ways of life
• a new human biology
• a new philosophy, cosmology and long-term view of evolution
• a new world ethics and justice
• a new world psychology
• a new science and art of planetary management
• an art and culture Renaissance

Such reconsideration is taking place currently in a whole series of institutions and conferences around the world. We can therefore be optimistic about our future as we enter a new century and millennium.

With our human concern for the phenomenon of globalization must also come a growing concern for the future, a long-term future, a new phenomenon which I would call "futurization".

Having recently attended as a member of an international advisory board, a conference on Humanity and the Earth in the year 3000 by a new Foundation for the Future created in Bellevue, Washington by two firms of outer space satellite and stations construction, I was deeply impressed how all things earthly and human must be seen in their globality and interdependence when considered from a long-term point of view. Alas, political thinking today most of the time does not go beyond the next elections. We do not heed the Iroquois' custom not to take any decision without thinking of its effects on the seventh generation.

I therefore recommend that all governments should create a Ministry of the Future and that the United Nations should create a main committee on the Future in the General Assembly to receive yearly reports from all UN specialized agencies and world programs on the long-term future. The Foundation for the Future will hold in the year 2000 a meeting of 100 eminent long-term scientists and visionaries to provide a view of what the Earth and humanity are likely to be in the year 3000 under various conditions. Such long-term thinking and envisioning must become an important component of proper Earth government.

Also to be noted is the prestigious Millennium Project of the United Nations University in Tokyo designed to assist in organizing futurists, scholars and policy makers in 60 countries who work for UN organizations, corporations, governments, universities and non-governmental organizations.

Also, the Club of Budapest will convene in 1999 in Cagliari a Conference of Long-term Evolutionary Scientists to give the world their news on our long-term future.

After my many years as a global servant I have come to believe that our future peace, justice, fulfillment, happiness and harmony on this planet will depend in the 21st century and third millennium, beyond proper Earth government, on divine or cosmic government, meaning that we must seek and apply the "natural", "evolutionary", "divine", "universal", "cosmic" laws which must rule our journey on this particular, miraculous planet in the vast universe. After global government, we will discover government according to the laws of nature, and will then discover that these are solar laws which themselves are the cosmic laws of the universe. We are on the threshold of an extraordinary, mind-boggling, new age of our human progress and evolution on planet Earth if we do not stick to obsolete beliefs, values, systems institutions and laws.

As Leibniz said when the exact sciences were born: "Humanity will now be busy dissecting and analyzing reality for hundreds of years, but the time will come when it will be lost in so much detail and findings that it will have to acquire again a total, global view of reality." That "holistic" age has come.

The table which follows, derived from the Copernican, meta-biological, almost cosmic work of the United Nations, gives a glance of this total view in space and in time.

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A World Framework
for
Planetary and Cosmic Consciousness

I joined the United Nations world service in 1948 as a young man who had been in a German Gestapo prison, a French Resistance fighter and had seen the most horrible atrocities of war and destruction. I came from Alsace-Lorraine, a province of France bordering Germany, where my grandparents knew three wars and changed nationality five times between France and Germany, without leaving their village. I was a very pessimistic young man. If this had happened between two highly civilized white countries, how could I expect white and black countries, communists and capitalists, rich and poor nations, thousands of religions and ethnic groups to be able to live together in peace? Surely there would be an incident which would trigger off another world war within twenty years. Well, there was no third world war.

In the empty war factory in Lake Success where the United Nations was first located, a British delegate asked me what I was doing there. I answered: "I came here to work for peace, because I do not want my children and grandchildren to know the horrors I saw in the war." He answered, "I pity you, young man because you will lose your job. This organization will not last more than five years." Well, it celebrates this year its 53 birthday. Founded by 51 nations it has now a universal membership of 185 countries.

I was also told in Lake Success that decolonization was the priority item on the agenda of world affairs and that it would take the United Nations from one hundred to one hundred fifty years to solve the problem. Well, the UN did it in forty years. I was told the same about apartheid, women's rights, indigenous people, the cold war, and I could cite other examples.

I have been involved in the creation of several new UN specialized agencies and world programs in the economic and social fields, including the world-wide United Nations Development Program where I was the lonely first UN official working with Paul Hoffman, the former Administrator of the Marshall Plan. The UN listened to me when I suggested to channel the surplus food of the rich countries which burned them, to children and hungry people in the poor countries, and created the World Food Program. The World Bank listened to my idea to give low-interest loans to infrastructure projects in the poor countries and created the International Development Agency. When I look at the list of 32 UN specialized agencies and the world programs, I am astonished that I played a role in the creation of eleven of them!

I have seen the UN system assemble information on practically every aspect of our Earth and of the human family. Who remembers that until 1952 we did not even know what the world population was?

Through the United Nations I have seen the seas and oceans, the moon and outer space become legally the commons of humanity. I have seen the birth of the first concerns for the environment, a word coined in the UN when it convened the first world conference on the environment in Sweden in 1972. And the UN did the same for the world's waters, deserts, oceans, climate, atomic energy, children, women, the aging, the handicapped, etc.

I entered the UN as an intern and was privileged to rise over the years to Assistant Secretary General working directly with three Secretaries General. When I look back, I thank the UN for a truly magical life.

And retirement was not the end. Three days before I retired from the UN in 1986, after 38 years of service, Rodrigo Carazo, the President of Costa Rica, a man whom I greatly admire, proposed that I should become the one-dollar-a-year Chancellor of the recently created University of Peace in Costa Rica. I accepted with delight to continue to work for a UN agency in a peaceful, demilitarized country to which I would give the highest mark for its initiatives and successes at the UN: the creation of the post of High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Nobel Peace Prize to President Oscar Arias, the celebration of the International Day of Peace and the world cease-fire proposed by Costa Rica for the week of the fiftieth anniversary of the UN. And how could I have ever dreamt that I would some day be appointed a member of a world commission of eminent persons to prepare a better future for the UN? And that all the borders in western Europe would be suppressed, a European Union created, and that in 1994 I could, for the first time, cross without any controls the border between France and Germany in my hometown of Sarreguemines in Alsace-Lorraine? And that there would exist today in the world 34 schools bearing my name, using a new education which I derived from the United Nations.

In brief: from a very pessimistic young man after World War II, I have been transformed by the UN into an optimistic elder who deeply believes in humanity. I am infinitely grateful to the UN for having taught me that planet Earth is my home, that humanity is my family and that it was worthwhile to devote my life with enthusiasm and faith to the great objectives for which this Organization, a truly unprecedented ominous meta-biological organism of the Earth and of the human species was created. In the face of colossal obstacles and the shortsightedness of most nations, the UN has created many miracles.

After all these years, I asked myself the question: what would be my further expectations and dreams for the future? A host of answers and ideas upwelled in me. On July 11, 1994, there were 2000 days left to the year 2000, I began to write 2000 ideas for a better world as a countdown to the bimillennium. I started with my Dream 2000 and the following agenda:

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AN AGENDA FOR THE FUTURE

Our absolute priorities and objectives for the 21st century and the third millennium must be:

My most recent conviction is that the world's survival requires an enormously strengthened second generation United Nations, or a UN transformed progressively into a World Union on the model of the European Union, or a United States of the World on the great precedent of the United States or a United Nature without precedent. On the eve of a new century and millennium it is a matter of utmost urgency, of life or death.

Fifty years later we should remember these lines which Franklin Roosevelt wrote to the San Francisco Conference creating the United Nations.

"The work, my friends is peace: more than an end of this war &emdash; and end to the beginning of all wars. I ask you to keep up your faith. The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with a strong and active faith."

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The Magic of Sacred Mount Rasur
by Dr. Robert Muller

The indigenous Manhattan people who lived on Turtle Bay on the River of the Rising Sun (now the East River) in New York City received from Manitou the Great Spirit this prophecy:

that at this place rivers of blood will flow but that someday a tall house of Mica (the glass of their time) will be built in which all nations will meet and bring peace to the world.

This is where the slaughter houses of New York were later located creating rivers of blood. The area was bought after World War II by John D. Rockefeller who donated it for the building of the United Nations, the tall Glass House prophecized by the Manhattans.

Thousands of miles away in a mountain village of Costa Rica, named Quisur, the children one day all disappeared under the ground. The parents could not understand it. They were a little less worried as they heard the children laughing and singing. The children moved underground towards a nearby hill and the parents followed them above the ground. Suddenly they were stopped by a strong magnetic force: the children then reappeared from below the Earth as well as a being of light, Rasur, the God of the indigenous children. The God never looked at the parents. He addressed the children and said to them, pointing at the marvelous tropical nature surrounding them:

"Dear children, the Great Spirit and Creator is in every animal, in every bird, butterfly, flower, insect, leaf and grass you see. He is also in you, His children. Please take good care of this wonderful nature created by Him, and some day you will see a civilization of peace be born here which will spread to the entire world."

Many years later, a world servant was sitting in his office as aide to the Secretary General of the United Nations on the 38th, highest floor of the House of Mica (Glass) on Turtle Bay in Manhattan. While working he was listening to the speeches being delivered by nations in the General Assembly. Suddenly he heard the President of a country offer a vast piece of tropical land in a demilitarized country on which the United Nations should build a University for Peace.

The world servant dropped everything and hastened down to the General Assembly to embrace the man who had made this proposal: Mr. Rodrigo Carazo, the President of Costa Rica. He told him: "You are fulfilling the dream of U Thant, the preceding Secretary General of the UN, a former school headmaster in his country Burma, who often said to me: 'Robert, there will never be peace on this Earth if there is not a new education.'" And he dreamt that someday a UN University for Peace would be created somewhere in the world.

The world servant, Robert Muller was put in charge of having the University created by an act of the United Nations General Assembly, which was done.

Sometime later he had the visit of a former Japanese armaments manufacturer who had been imprisoned by General MacArthur as a war criminal. The man did not consider himself a war criminal, he was merely the product of the education he had received from his country. He decided to make a fortune which he would spend for the birth of a new education of all children on Earth. Having heard of the creation of a UN University for Peace he came to see me and handed me a check of one million dollars for its construction. Ryoichi Sasakawa, the donor also endowed a peace education prize awarded yearly by UNESCO which I was honored to receive in 1989, in the illustrious company of other winners like Mother Teresa and President Carter. Today on the Peace Monument of the University one can read these words by Mr. Sasakawa which have moved many people:

"Happy the Costa Rican mother who when she gives birth to a son knows that he will never be a soldier,"

I have expressed the dream that someday soon all mothers of this Earth will be able to say the same words.

Years later, a few days before my retirement from the United Nations after forty years of service, I was offered to be the Chancellor Emeritus of the University for Peace at one-dollar-a-year in Costa Rica. I accepted and moved from the House of Glass to the University for Peace on Mt. Rasur.

Often, living there in an old peoples' retirement home after the loss of my dear Chilean wife, Margarita Gallo Muller, a prominent women's rights activist at the UN with Eleanor Roosevelt and Gabriela Mistral, I loved to walk on the higher part of the hill overlooking the University for Peace. I loved to sit on a bench in front of an abandoned dilapidated old farmlet in midst of pastures and magnificent primeval tropical forests, with a breath-taking view of the central valley and volcanoes. The hill and the cabin had a sign that they were for sale. I sometimes dreamt of buying it, but thought that I was too old to embark on a new venture. Then one day when reading my UN Journal, I came across these lines which I wrote a few days before my retirement from the UN:

"I dream that someday, as a sort of elder of the United Nations, I will live on a hill with a breathtaking view and spend my last days writing the beautiful stories of my life and my visions of a better world."

I considered this to be unmistakenly a message from Rasur: one must never fail to fulfill one's dreams and destiny. And on the same day I bought the farm.

It was the beginning of one miracle after another. I discovered that I had bought the top of Mount Rasur, I found in the forests the place where Jose Figueres camped with his insurgent troops and decided to demilitarize Costa Rica, I was waking up in the middle of the night with visions of a better world, with ideas and messages to do certain things. God Rasur then made me meet a beautiful woman much younger than I, with the same dreams and passion for a better world. We fell in love, decided to be married and to live in the holy peace of Mt. Rasur. Barbara's first task was to invite me to write from 11 July 1994 to the first of January of the 21st century 2000 Ideas and Dreams for a Better World.

Well, on this 20 December 1998, the 2000 ideas are all written, with the first three volumes of 500 ideas each already published by Barbara Gaughen Muller, my heavenly wife and cosmic companion.

What will happen next? What will be the next miracles on Turtle Bay and on Mount Rasur?

Could it be that some or many or all of these dreams and ideas will be fulfilled and that indeed from the House of Mica and Mt. Rasur a civilization of peace will extend to the entire world?

I received this message during the night while women and children were being killed by bombs thrown from heaven over Bagdad:

to never give up, whatever the state of the world might be. I was told that innumerable people around the world will help us and that we will still see the civilization of peace and love I dreamt of become a reality on this planet before I die.

I pledged to God Rasur and all the mothers and children of the world to work relentlessly at it until all mothers will be happy, when they give birth to a son, that he will never be a soldier, and until this Universal Declaration of the Rights of Children, just received from Betty Williams, Nobel Peace Prize winner, will be adopted by all nations.

Robert Muller
Written at dawn on Sacred Mt. Rasur
Sunday 20 December 1998

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Universal Declaration of the
Rights of the World's Children

We, the Children of the World, assert our inalienable right to be heard and to have a political voice at the United Nations and at the highest levels of governments world-wide.

We, the Children of the World, must live with justice, with peace and freedom, but above all, with the dignity we deserve.

We, the Children of the World, require a Marshall Plan, a Geneva Convention, and a World Children's Court of Human Rights which meets regularly to listen to the testimonies as to what is actually happening to us. We intend to provide our own testimony.

We, the Children of the World, demand the right to be taken to safe shelters in situations of war. We, the Children of the World, until this day, June 20th, 1997, in the city of Vienna, Austria, have had no political voice. We demand such a voice.

We, the Children of the World, will develop our own leadership, and set an example that will show governments how to live in peace and freedom.

We, the Children of the World, serve notice on our abusers and exploiters, whoever they may be, that from this day hence we will begin the process of holding you responsible for our suffering.

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NEW OR UNUSUAL WORDS USED OR COINED

Arbology science of trees

Arbologist specialist in trees

Arbologism movement in favor of trees

Arboldestruction destruction, not only of forests

Biophily (from Greek bios, life and phil, love) love for life

Corporatecracy the rule by corporations

Cosmic couple couplehood

Cosmicity the cosmic character of something

Cosmizen a citizen (from city) of the cosmos

Cosmocracy the rule, the laws of the cosmos

Cosmopause the pause in cosmic evolution

Cosmozoas most advanced stage of living beings

Cosmosphere the sphere of the cosmos

Note: Words starting with de, or di, meaning reversing or doing the contrary, like demilitarization, disarmament, deforestation

Deplanktonization losing the oxygen-producing plankton of the seas and oceans

Denuclearization elimination of nuclear arms and energy plants

Deadvertisement reducing advertisement

Depolltization eliminating political

Note: Words starting with demo (Greek demos, the people) like democracy, the rule by the people (Greek, krateen, to rule)

Demoneeds needs of the people

Demowishes wishes of the people

Demoideas ideas of the people

Demopreferences preferences of the people

Demodreams dreams of the people

Dreamology the science of dreams

Devolution a decline in evolution

Devolutionize to decrease evolution

Devolutionist a destroyer of evolution

Denaturalize to destroy, to reduce nature

Demerits,

Demeritology to give demerits

Decorruption to reduce corruption

Desecretization to eliminate, to reduce secrets

Desacraliztation to reduce the sacred character of something

Earthcracy the rule by the Earth, by Earth laws

Earthdemocracy the people ruling the world

Earthism positive attitude and work for the Earth (like humanism, towards humanity)

Earthist Party e.g. the Greens, who work for the Earth

Earthology science of the Earth

Earthriotism allegiance to the Earth, like patriotism (allegiance to the nation)

Earthscaping art of beautifying the Earth, like landscaping

Earthonomics the management of the Earth

Ecolonomics

Ecolonomist joint study or profession of ecology and economics

Evolutionism

Evolutionist ideology of evolution, dealing professionally with evolution

Evolutionology the science of evolution

Evolutionomics the management of Earth evolution, Earth management according to evolutionary laws

Ecohomes, ecovillages, econeighbourhoods, ecoschools, ecoarchitecture, etc.

Ecogovernment Earth government (the government of oikos, our home)

Fugalism leading of frugal lives in order not to destroy or overtax the Earth

Futurstory study of the future, like history, the study of the past

Garbology the science of garbage

Geocracy

Gayacracy the rule by the Earth, government according to the laws of the Earth

Geophily

Gayaphily love for Gaya, the Earth (like philanthropy, love for humanity)

Geomanagement

Gayamanagement the management of Gaya, the Earth

Globology science, study of the globe

Globologist person concerned with the study, science or the Earth

Gayaparties parties primarily concerned about the Earth

Hatriotism an attitude, a philosophy of hatred

Heartsphere the sphere of the heart, of love (like atmosphere, the sphere of air)

Heavenologist a specialist in heavenly matters

Humanologist a specialist in human affairs, concerned with human life

Happinizing to improve the happiness of the people

Happinizer someone devoted to increasing happiness

Ideaying to produce ideas

Ideayer one who produces ideas

Inlovian a person in love, with another person, with humanity, with the Earth, with life, etc.

Kaputalism from the German word kaput, broken, capitalism that is broken or that destroys

Macrocephalus the big brain (Latin, macro, big and cephalus, the brain, originally from Greek, kephalos)

Meritology science of merits

Moneycracy the ruling by money

Materiology the science of matter, of materials

Materology the science of motherhood

Planetics the art of managing the planet (beyond politics, Greek polis, the city)

Planetic Science instead of political science

Planeticism attitude towards planetary management

Planetology the science and art of planetary management

Plutocracy the ruling by money (from the Latin God Pluto, the god of money)

Powercracy the ruling by the powerful

Polyethnic involving several ethnic groups (from Greek, ploy, many)

Polynational involving several nations

Polyreligious involving several religions

Paradising making a paradise

Paradiser one who makes a paradise

Presentologist one who deals with the present

Sciencecracy ruling by science, like technocracy, plutocracy, etc.

Soulcracy the ruling by the soul

Soulsphere the sphere of the soul (Greek noos, hence the word noosphere)

Spiritology the science of the soul, of the spirit

Sentimentology the science of sentiments

Technocracy the rule by technology

Technosphere the sphere of technology

Terralogy the science of the Earth (Latin terra)

Terrazoas all living species on Earth

Uneconomics the science and study of what is uneconomic

Visioneering conceiving visions

Visioneer one who conceives visions

Wastology the science of waste

Whyology the science of the whys, of asking why

Wordology the science, the use of words

Wordologist a specialist in words

Worldologist a person specializing in the whole world

The father of world peace
A man to be canonized like his compatriot Robert Schuman
A man with a prophetic vision
A marvelous story teller to whom one could listen for hours
A man with unbelievable accomplishments
A man who radiates eternal wisdom
A Thanksgiving Angel who when things are rough says: "Fear not" and shows the way
A man with more ideas than any other human on the planet
A prophet of dreams
A first globologist
A rearranger of ideas
A desperate optimist
An enfleshment of the United Nations
One of the world's great spiritual leaders and teachers
A tireless crusader for world peace
The quintessence of peacemaker and prophet
A man who belongs to the saints
The only man who can save the world because of his unique knowledge of the Earth and humanity gained during a life-time of world service
One of the most important people of the century
A man who dedicated his life in service to our human family and God
A fool
A man to be cloned many times
The father of proper global government
An Earth elder
An electrifying speaker who fires up an audience
If only the world would have more people like Robert Muller
The brain of the UN, not its power
A man who has inspired thousands of people on the local, national and international levels
The old institutions challenger and new institutions builder
One of the outstanding men in the world
The millennium maker
A man who makes radiate the soul, the heart and the intelligence of life
My dearest peaceman
An extraordinary, unique man, a fascinating, inspiring individual in the economic and social field
The UN's main idea person
The most famous world optimist of this century
An irrealist
A man who receives numerous letters each week and yet answers them all personally warmly with invaluable suggestions and encouragement
A magnificent anomaly
A man completely free of nihilism
A dedicated confident internationalist
A channeler of cosmic truths and energy
A man who radiates eternal wisdom
A human working out the divine Plan
A man of heavenly destiny
A man who is thirty years ahead of his time
A lighthouse personality
Dag Hammarskjöld and Robert Muller, the two greatest United Nationists
An optimist by choice
A great inspiration to people all over the world
An early herald of the Bimillennium
A gift of joy to the world
Overseer of the world
A man who brings the world to people's life
The patriarch of the first University for Peace on Earth
Number one in the world
The most incredible man on Earth
God knew what he was doing when He created Robert Muller
A man whose birthday is celebrated by the entire cosmos
The father of a true global world literature
An inspired voice of the United Nations
A brilliant, illuminating global diplomat
An optimistic outlaw
The Beethoven of peace and world affairs
An irrepressible, cosmic optimist
An untiring optimist
The elder of the United Nations
An ebullient optimist
One of the greatest citizens of the world
A world mason
A man for all nations
A messenger of peace who has expanded his aura and maintained alive the flame of peace in the world
An effective, undeviating optimist
A peacemaker whose echo resonates in the entire atmosphere of the planet
To get in touch with Robert Muller's work and books is one of the extraordinary gifts one can receive
A man who gives the strength to go ahead and fulfill one's destiny
The earthly manifestation of a big cosmic soul
A representative of the vibration of peace to be greeted with admiration and respect from the center of the heart
A man whose incredible optimism leaves all whom he contacts renewed and inspired
A man who justifies the gift of life in his daily encounters with himself, with others, with his universe.
A man who sanctifies life by savoring it
A man who gives freely of a primal energy, an integrative wisdom and a wondrous reverence for life that is surely the essence of human survival and ascent
One of humanity's greatest heroes
A pathfinder for the next century
A one-person motivating force for millions of people
An incredible instrument of God for peace, reason and justice
There is no other Robert Muller on the planet. He is unique.
A mountain climber to reach the vision of a beautiful world and humanity
A prophet and artisan of peace
A man who knows how to listen to Providence guiding his path
A man whose output is breathtaking and its importance cannot be overestimated
A triumphant victor changing the world with his focus only on positive factors
A man whose productivity borders on magic
A man who planetizes everything that comes near him
A man who lives beyond us far ahead in the 21st century and third millennium
A man with an audience who absolutely loves him
A man whose presence on Earth has meaning to millions of people
A mover and shaker
A lighthouse for humanity
The Zeus of planet Earth
My Princess Diana, my magical gift from God
A man whose books have been an inspiration to many throughout the world
The philosopher of peace
The father of peace
A world statesman
One of the world's great contemporary writers
A practicing optimist
An exuding optimist
Faithkeeper Robert Muller
The St. Paul of the United Nations
A personal fulfillment of the ideal of Christian humanism
A mystic deeply involved in matters of the world
One of the great peacemakers of our time
An example for youth in all countries of the world
The prophet of sacred Mount Rasur
The first global anthropologist, as dreamt by Margaret Mead

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Who is Robert Muller?

Many try to figure this man out
Is he a prophet, a seer, an optimist
for lost causes, or simply a clown?
He is all these and more &emdash;
He is a walking encyclopedia,
A funny narrator of life's human foibles
But also a veritable
chronicler of important events.

What makes Robert Muller tick?
Is it his passion for writing,
For seeing things beyond appearances,
his philosophy of happiness?
Perhaps, but more than these:
It is his love of humanity,
His firm belief, that everyone and everything counts
That experiences are stepping stones in the
beautiful evolution of life.
When we make good use of them
To better ourselves and help others cope,
Then we certainly widen the scope
That the world be a better place because of our hope.

This then is what Robert Muller is all about &emdash;
A man who has joy in his heart,
And a talent of imparting to others
the secret of a happy life.

---

Awards Received by Robert Muller

1944: Doctorate of Law, suma cum lauda, University of Strasbourg, France

1946: Winner of the national essay contest award on world government by the French Association for the United Nations

1947: Winner of the UN Internship in Geneva, Switzerland

1948: Winner of the UN Internship at the United Nations in Lake Success and hired by the UN in the professional category

1960's: Artisan of the creation of the UN Development Program and appointed Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Council

1970's: Appointed Assistant Secretary General and direct collaborator to three Secretaries General until retirement in 1986. Appointed one-dollar-a-year Chancellor Emeritus of the University for Peace in Costa Rica

1974: Sea Citizen Award by the Sea Citizens Organization, USA

1975: Doctor honoris causa in Human Letters, University of Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA

1979: Bridgeport University Doctorate of Human Letters Honoris causa

1983: Erckman-Chatrian Literary Prize his international novel SIMA MON AMOUR, France

1983: John Roger Foundation International Integrity Award

1985: Teilhard de Chardin Prize, Visionaries of World Peace, Wassenaar, Holland

Distinguished Service Award of the United Nations Association of the USA

Distinguished Recognition Award of the World Education Congress, San Francisco

First World Citizen Award, 1985 UN Medal of Peace, by the Communications Coordination Committee of NGO's for the UN

1986: Grand Officer du Mérite Diplomatiuqe de l'Institut des Relations Diplomatique de Bruxelles

1986: Grand Officier du Mérite Diplomatique de l'Institut des Relations deplomatiques, European Community, Belgium

World Peace Award of the World Federalists of Canada

Verites Medal of the Dominican College of Blauveld, USA

1986: First Distinguished Service Award of the Pax Romana Foundation, USA

Zamenhof Award of the Universal Esperanto Association, Holland

Honorary Doctor of Humanities, Allentown College of St. Francis of Sales, USA

1987: Distinguished Service Award of the United Nations Association of the USA

1988: Honorary Doctor of Humanities, United Church of Religious Science, Los Angeles, USA

1988: Distinguished Service Award of the World Association of former United Nations Interns and Fellows

Honorary Doctor of Humanities, United Church of Religious Science, USA

United Nations Golden Balloon Award of the World Children's Day Foundation, Washington, DC, USA

Doctor of Divine Wisdom, The New Seminary Institute for Personal Religion, New York, USA

1989: UNESCO Peace Education Prize for his World Core Curriculum and Robert Muller Schools

1990: Music Therapist For Peace Award, New York, USA

1991: Humanitarian Award of the International New Thought Alliance, USA

1992: Faithkeeper Award of the US National Thanksgiving Commission

Peace Ambassador Award by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Santa Barbara, USA

New World Academy Luminary, New World Academy, London, England

1993: Tree planted in Costa Rica in honor of Robert Muller by Pax World Services, USA

Albert Schweitzer International Prize for the Humanities

1994: Eleanor Roosevelt Man of Vision Award

1995: 50th Anniversary Christopher's Prize, USA

Poverello Award of Mt. St. Clare College, Clinton, Iowa USA

Citizen of Planet Earth, by Citizens of Planet Earth Corporation, USA

1996: Minister of Divine Wisdom, Interfaith Seminary, USA

1997: Sewa Chakra Award to Purushottam Robert Muller by the Indian Board of Alternative Medicines

1998: Certification of Appreciation by the Global Elementary Model United Nations, Dallas, Texas, USA

Global Understanding and World Peace Award by the Milwaukee Journal of Education Corporation, USA