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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 hav