~
Idea 2001 ~
In
the Introduction to ideas 1901 to 2000 of Volume IV, which reproduces
my statement to the Cagliari Conference in May 1998 on Globalization
and the Future of the Nation-state, I underlined three major periods
of planetary human concerns since the end of World War II:
I. from 1945 to 1970's, a period of unprecedented, all-encompassing Humanism;
II. from 1970 to 1980, humanity and the Environment;
III. from 1980 on, the Earth became priority number one.
Since things go so fast, less than one year later in March 1999 I had to add a fourth, new, unprecedented period in all human history:
IV. from 2000 on, our foremost concern will be the future Evolution of planet Earth and of humanity on it.
~
Idea 2002 ~
In
the same Introduction I had this statement by the Earth:
"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!"
A year later I have to add this new complaint by the Earth:
"Since I see now the poor countries being invaded by western marketing, advertisement and multinational corporations to increase their business and sales, and since the ideal of the poor countries is to attain the western levels of consumption, I see an even greater disaster coming up: if the 4.7 billion people of the poor countries ever reach the levels of consumption of the rich, your population statistics would again have to be changed: multiplied by thirty times, they would represent from my point of view 141 billion people. And since the people of the poor countries are expected to be 7.75 billion in 2050*, they would represent from my point of view a total of 232.5 billion people!
This would mean the end of my evolution, of most of my nature, of many species, including the human one, which it took me millions of years to evolve."
*The UN's latest forecasts of the world population in 2050 are: a total world population of 8.91 billion, of which 1.16 billion (a decline of 40 million) in the rich countries and 7.75 billion (an increase of 3.05 billion) in the poor countries. World population in October 1999: 6 billion people.
~
Idea 2003 ~
From
the preceding excursion into the future follow three major
conclusions:
1. we must absolutely accelerate and intensify our efforts to reduce the world population explosion;
2. we must raise forcefully the necessity to reduce also the consumption explosion;
3. the same way as the UN created a World Population Commission, a Population Division and a UN Population Fund, it must urgently create also a World Consumption Commission, a Consumption Division and a UN Consumption Fund. A World Population Agency and a World Consumption Agency would be even better.
~
Idea 2004 ~
A
new fundamental factor in our society is that the rich countries are
becoming richer and the poor countries poorer. As was reported by the
UN in 1997, 100 nations have become poorer in the last 15 years. And
in all countries of the world the rich people are getting richer and
the poor poorer. This is due to the possession of capital by the rich
and the non-possession of capital and the saving inability of the
poor.
Countries: huge capital of the rich governments, of multinational corporations with seats in these countries, major scientific and technological property rights, advanced scientific research capacities, high levels of education, especially massive business education, ownership of natural resources in poor countries, military power to defend this situation, and use of foreign 'aid' to get their way and exercise pressure on the poor countries.
Individuals: inheritances, accumulated savings, properties and capital of their forebears, family fortunes, higher scientific, technological and business education, often no need to work at all, just letting their capital grow in stock markets, trust funds, mutual funds, deposits in foreign banks and actual or fictitious domicile in foreign tax havens.
In poor countries and for the poor everywhere it is just the contrary. Even immigrants in rich countries cannot make it because their salaries are barely sufficient to pay for their lodging and nourishment.
Among the rich countries and people it is the United States and its citizens who are getting ever richer. This position of the US in the world allows it to rule practically the entire planet and its outer space.
To counter this, the European countries have created a Union of fifteen countries which will be the second richest and powerful community on Earth. The union has created its own currency, the first one to escape from the USA monetary domination and money creation in the world.
I recommend that the poor countries do the same and create a World Union of Poor Countries on the pattern of the European Union, thus creating their own multinational government. They will thus rule over their own natural resources and territories which are their main capital. They will have a base for a collective bargaining power. They will be able to prevent their invasion by foreign capital, by rich dominant multinational corporations, foreign marketing and advertisement. They could create their own common currency in addition to their national ones, as Europe has done. They would be able to define their own ideals, policies, ways of life and preservation of their cultures.
I recommend that they start this process forthwith without waiting for a reform of the United Nations. They have waited for that reform in vain for more than fifty years. Nothing has happened, rather the contrary, namely a constant weakening of the United Nations by the United States, now candidate for sole world power.
~
Idea 2005 ~
In
Idea 190 I said, "In order to save our Earth it is imperative to
disarm and demilitarize the planet and use the 3/4 of a trillion
dollars released for urgent purposes related to our environment and
vital elements of life. The oxygen of our lungs has become our most
important need and security. Carbon dioxide has become a greater
enemy than any foreign country."
Today one now hears the military say that they will be needed to insure the defense of the waters and oxygen of their country and secure free access to the waters and oxygen of other countries, if need be to conquer them. The only answer is the creation of a proper common Earth government equipped to ensure water and oxygen to all humanity and with a central world security system beneficial to all nations.
~
Idea 2006 ~
There
are still so many injustices in this world with new ones coming up
constantly that I propose a new science or discipline called
injustology. University departments under that name would prepare and
train a new profession of injustologists. The subject of injustices
should be regularly covered in newspapers and all medias.
~
Idea 2007 ~
On
each floor of the United Nations, in each of its agencies and in all
institutions on Earth there should be a peasant or an indigenous
elder who would remind the leaders and workers of these agencies to
have common sense and to think of the little people.
~
Idea 2008 ~
We
do not have a single doctorate in the art of living on this planet.
This is astonishing when every human being seeks to be happy, to be
fulfilled and to play a useful role on Earth.
~
Idea 2009 ~
Humanity
is incredibly neglecting the future. Very few people think about it,
care about it. There are no Ministries of the Future in governments,
no Main Committee on the Future in the United Nations. We will have
to pay very dearly for this. We should also be thinking of the
emergencies which we will have to face, one after the other, as a
payment for this neglect.
~
Idea 2010 ~
If
all humans were not smoking, not taking drugs, not drinking alcoholic
and carbonated drinks, drinking only pure water and fruit juices, not
consuming canned, non-natural foods tampered by biological
engineering, what a different peaceful, happy, fulfilled world it
would be! Try it dear reader, and you will be amazed by the results.
You will feel in heaven and be down here on Earth for quite a longer
time.
Governments should help in this process by at least prohibiting advertisement of harmful products.
~
Idea 2011 ~
It
is astonishing that given the manifold adverse effects of
advertisement, no international effort has been made as yet to
control this sector of human activities, to proclaim an ethics for
advertisement and to protect humans against its exaggerations,
non-truths and damaging effects on human life and the
Earth.
~
Idea 2012 ~
Everybody
complains about violence but few dare or make the effort to obtain
government control over violence in the media. We should therefore
not be surprised of the kind of world we have. Peoples' peace and
anti-war movements have succeeded in reducing international wars to
practically zero. We need now anti-militarism, anti-armaments,
anti-religious wars, anti-ethnic wars and every conceivable anti-any
form of violence movements. An anti-violence in the media movement
should be high on the list.
~
Idea 2013 ~
A
mere re-drafting and amending of the United Nations Charter would be
insufficient to respond to the new requirements and urgencies of our
time. Only a new charter, rethought from scratch, can do the job or a
World Union Charter like the European Union or a United States of the
World.
~
Idea 2014 ~
Future
historians will write that at the end of the twentieth century the
United States turned from a world inspiring country into the major
world domineering and destroying country. Its scientific,
technological, economic, financial and business successes went up to
its head, were promoted and imitated blindly by the rest of the
world, impairing further evolution on this planet.
I see only one hope: that US capitalism will now disintegrate as the second obsolete nineteenth century ideology, as was communism.
~
Idea 2015 ~
From
my observations of the incredible, admirable, diverse nature of Costa
Rica I have concluded that the main objective of nature is ever more
perfect, successful reproductions and increased diversity. Every seed
is cared for and enrobed in the necessary nutrients and liquids to
bring forth life. We should therefore never eat fruits which have
been bio-tampered to have no seeds. Nature will not continue to make
an effort and what we eat will no longer be natural or
healthy.
Alas, this bio-tampering is now being practiced on massive scales by most western countries. The attempts to hold a world conference in Colombia to end the scientific tampering of seeds and agricultural products has been killed by the United States for commercial reasons arguing that it would affect fifty billion dollars of yearly exports of US farm products which are biologically 'engineered'. The United States had already rejected the convention on biological diversity drafted at the Rio de Janeiro Conference of the United Nations in 1992.
~
Idea 2016 ~
It
would be very interesting to be informed on how much big,
multinational business corporations on the one hand and national
governments, regional and world organizations on the other hand
practice futurology, i.e. the study, evaluation, forecasting of
future trends, promises, opportunities, dangers and failures of our
evolution.
~
Idea 2017 ~
What
a pity and regret that the United States no longer merits to be the
seat of the United Nations. The world of tomorrow deserves to be
built around the new borderless European Union since the United
States opposes any changes in an obsolete, fifty-five years old
Charter of the United Nations born on US soil from the US dream at
that time. The United Nations has no future if it stays in the United
States unless the United States brings forth a new world vision and
leadership role of the United Nations.
~
Idea 2018 ~
It
would be beneficial for the United States to agree with the move of
the United Nations to another country because then it can complain of
the insufficiencies of the United Nations on foreign soil rather than
get the blame of its inefficiency on United States soil. It would no
longer want to be a member of the United Nations and would be able to
continue its world-wide power dream without having to listen to
anyone else. As for the remaining countries of the world, they would
take cognizance of their own individuality and contribution to a
better world and no longer imitate blindly the United States as the
great model for modern times. The United States, unfortunately is no
longer that model. Forty-five percent of the US population are of
that opinion.
~
Idea 2019 ~
At
the UN Medical Analysis Office where I was sent for a yearly
check-up, I saw a diploma hanging on a wall saying that the lady who
headed the office was a member of the Costa Rican Association of
Microbiologists.
v
I
asked her if she had ever heard of an Association of Macrobiologists.
No, she had never heard of one and doubted that there existed one on
this planet. I said, "Well, that is strange because science never
ceases to dig into the ever smaller but seems to shy away from the
whole. Macrobiology would do for the totality of life forms on this
planet what you do for your individual patients and their blood and
liquids. Macrobiology would deal with the respective life forms,
locations, interdependencies, vegetal and animal, all over the
planet. It could be one of the most essential sciences on this
planet. It would be fascinating to be a macrobiologist."
~
Idea 2020 ~
What
Barbara and I did with our little wooden farmhouse in Costa Rica on a
sacred hill above the UN University for Peace is marvelous: we
achieved good order, harmony and beauty in it with acts of
intelligence, self-interest and deep love for the saintly, marvelous
nature surrounding us.
Why doesn't humanity do the same for our entire home, the Earth: achieve good order, harmony, beauty and love for holy nature. This could be a new, wonderful policy for the 21st century.
It reminds me of the indigenous woman who was asked how the world should be governed. She answered, "If you know how to run a family, you will know how to run the world." Yes, the ultimate, highest task of politics is to achieve a well run human family in a well-preserved planetary home.
~
Idea 2021 ~
The
World Core Curriculum in Volume I, page 18 could serve as a basic
framework for a world employment policy. I could well see the
curriculum reproduced on a wall at the United Nations International
Labor Organization, or in the Director General's Office. Under each
segment there would be actual employment and forecasts: will
employment diminish or increase in that sector? For example, the
environment is a recent field of concern which provides for
increasing employment while militarism and armaments no longer look
so good. The information could be by industries, countries and
regions.
~
Idea 2022 ~
There
are thousands of books published around the world as part of national
literatures, often in collections of huge, complete works of national
authors. But where are the collections of world authors, a true,
badly needed world, global literature? There is none. My global books
find only a haphazard place in certain national literatures. When I
die there will never be a collection of the complete works of Robert
Muller, contrary to the case of so many national authors. I care for
the inspiration, thinking and action results of my works in any
nation where they are published and kept in print. Alas, in the
absence of a global, world literature and publishing houses, they are
mere drops of water in the ocean.
~
Idea 2023 ~
Perhaps
the word government should be suppressed at this stage of our
evolution and replaced by common services. The United Nations would
become the world's common services, with ocean common services, air
and atmosphere common services, world agricultural, educational, etc.
common services corresponding to what are today the 32 United Nations
Specialized Agencies and World Programs. Under them there would
be:
common
services for continents
common
European services
common
American services
common
Asian services
common
Oceanic services
common
services for nations
common
services for provinces
common
services for cities
for
all local communities
for
neighborhood communities
for
people living in the same building
common
services for families.
Nobody would really govern or rule the world, all would be done by cooperation and common interests and services from the local to the global communities.
~
Idea 2024 ~
We
must simplify, purify our western lives from the innumerable,
unceasing, increasing, never ending diversity of outside incursions
into our personal lives by sight, sound and consumption.
I love these words once uttered by Pablo Casals during one of his visits to the United Nations, "Life is simple. Everything must be simple in life. There are too many complicated people. They complicate themselves, they complicate life. We must fashion a simple world in which humans can be happy, not this ugly world of armaments and hatred. Here, in the United Nations, is our home. It stands for humankind. This is why I have never failed to be of help to you. The final word for life, the great secret, is love."
~
Idea 2025 ~
The
forces or laws of evolution will not allow us not to succeed. They
didn't take all the pains to create the extraordinary human species
as the lead species of evolution to let us now destroy its
achievements. Quite the contrary, they will enable, guide and almost
force us, even unwillingly, to make this planet the ultimate success
intended by evolution, the cosmos or God.
~
Idea 2026 ~
Or
might evolution, on the contrary have decided that the human species
has become an evolutionary aberration and will do everything possible
to get rid of us?
In that case, what will be the main factors or means of our destruction: the disappearance of oxygen, the ultra-violet rays going through the ozonosphere, Aids, the giving up of the human immune system, the reciprocal destruction of humans in wars over territories and resources, the nuclearization of the planet, mounting waves of cancer? Only God knows.
~
Idea 2027 ~
It
is not the over-population of the poor countries which is the main
global menace on this planet. Disaster cause number one is the
over-production and over-consumption of unnecessary, wasteful
products and services and needless activities of the peoples of the
western world offered as a model and ideal of 'development' to the
poor countries. Half of the total production of the western countries
consists already of waste.
~
Idea 2028 ~
Yes,
we must start a world crusade against over-consumption, waste,
unnecessary consumption and services, useless activities, unnecessary
transports, tourism and travel, built-in obsolescence in manufactured
products, over-packaging and all other unnecessary-Earth-destroying
productions and activities invented and promoted by the so called
genial western economic system which has become a disaster for the
Earth, the biggest, most monumental war ever in human history. Past
wars were little compared with it.
~
Idea 2029 ~
A
growing number of western youth does not want to have children any
more. How can they renounce this incredible happiness instead of
fighting against the over-consumption, useless consumption and waste
the western society has created as the ultimate ideal for
humans?
If people in the west would live simple and less wasteful lives there would be ample room for more children. How sad that live, miraculous little children have to give way to excessive consumption and possessions of life-less material 'goods'.
The whole western world has become decadent considered from the Earth's point of view and soon also from the people's point of view. Nearly three quarters of Americans believe the world as we know it now will undergo radical and catastrophic changes by an act of God.
~
Idea 2030 ~
The
world's Non-governmental Organizations, under the leadership of those
accredited to the United Nations, should become a second United
Nations. They should deal with all major problems before the United
Nations and group or associate themselves accordingly. I could well
see NGO World Associations on world security, disarmament,
demilitarization, anti-useless development, distribution of world
income, natural resources, the environment, human rights, just
taxation, etc. They should do the basic re-thinking of the twenty-one
human sectors listed in Ideas 527 to 547. They should appoint a
Secretary General of that second United Nations and create a common
secretariat for it. Later the NGWO (Non-governmental World
Organization) could become the World's House of Peoples'
Representatives and the UN its Senate of Government
Representatives.
~
Idea 2031 ~
Dear
God, allow me to be your full servant to make of this Earth a true
paradise of love, peace and beauty and of your children the divine
species which you have created. After thousands of years of efforts,
allow us at long last to succeed and become the ultimate jewel of
Your creation.
~
Idea 2032 ~
The
little Robert Muller farmhouse on sacred Mount Rasur in Costa Rica
and the farm of Sima Mon Amour in St. Gix Divonne-les-Bains, France,
are two of my dreams come true, the two poles of irradiation of a new
world, the centers of peace and happiness for which I labored all my
life. All homes on Earth should be that.
Margarite Gallo and Barbara Gaughen were the two god-sent, wonderful, loving life companions who inspired me, led me and never allowed me to give up the extraordinary, almost impossible mission they saw in my life.
~
Idea 2033 ~
All
humans, all professions, all institutions, all cultures, all
religions, all human groups should have one supreme objective and
question: is what I do or we do an action of love for all this Earth
and all humanity? Is it a contribution to a better world, to an
ultimate, peaceful, perfect success of the will of God and of the
cosmic forces of the universe?
~
Idea 2034 ~
O divine life of mine, never let me do something which is not an act of love, a contribution to a better world and humanity, starting with my own miraculous being, with my divine life companion Barbara, with my family and with all communities of the world up to the highest, first noble universal achievement of all humanity and of this Earth, the United Nations.
~
Idea 2035 ~
How
can this Earth survive when in a small health-restoring community
like Divonne-les-Bains in France one hears already at four o'clock in
the morning an uninterrupted flow of trucks and cars going where?
Doing what? The world of business and busyness?
~
Idea 2036 ~
Why
do I wake up so often in the middle of the night thinking about the
capitalist system which is ruining this Earth and will soon end in
disaster?
Why do I think of a new world monetary system with a new monetary unit, the Terra, replacing the US dollar, following the example of the European Euro?
Why did I meet at the second World Peace Conference in the Hague, a former high official of the International Monetary Fund who has become the head of a religious order instead of offering the world a new world monetary system?
~
Idea 2037 ~
There
is an urgent need to create a group of great world lovers and
thinkers to save the Earth and re-think all major forms of human
activity. We should establish it with the Earth Council which will
move to the UN University for Peace. I will think of its members.
Elizabet Sathouris, the evolutionary biologist, Barbara my wife,
Erika Erdmann, Barbara Marx-Hubbard and Donella Meadows are the first
names that come to my mind, all five women.
~
Idea 2038 ~
I
opened twenty-one files to record ideas for the twenty-one
fundamental segments of human activities, behaviors and concerns on
this planet. Two ideas came to me this morning on human employment. I
am not a voice in the desert. I am a voice in a growing world mess,
human bewilderment and search for answers.
~
Idea 2039 ~
The
new World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality created
by Dr. Karan Singh of India and myself should have its seat at the
University for Peace on sacred Mount Rasur. I must make sure of
it.
~
Idea 2040 ~
My
Alsatian friend, Georges Schmidt, who joined the United Nations the
same year as I in 1948 became the world record holder of world
languages. He knew 115 of them. I probably hold the world record of
the largest number of ideas for a better world: two thousand
published, another 1000 in the works and innumerable ones in my
speeches, journals, articles and sixteen books so
far.
But
I am largely beaten by the flood of ideas produced by businessmen
flocking to the skyscrapers of the world to make more money and the
military inventing more arms to sell them all over the world. It is
an absolute scandal that in the United States the expenses on the
military and armaments are equivalent to all the rest of the US
budget, health, education, foreign affairs and social security
combined. One wonders why the people accept that. I am glad to end my
life in Costa Rica, where the military are prohibited by constitution
since 1949.
~
Idea 2041 ~
When
one reads global newspapers like the International Herald Tribune,
one gets the impression that this is the worst managed planet in the
universe. The nation-state system has become an obsolete political
system. This statement by George Washington applies fully to today's
world political situation: "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." This should be the
priority issue on the world agenda.
~
Idea 2042 ~
It
is as timely and urgent to convene in the year 2001 a World
Conference on the Evolution of the Earth and of Humanity to the Year
3000 as it was to convene in 1972 the first World Conference on the
Environment. It would create a shock as great as did the conference
on the environment. Very substantial changes in human values,
behavior and policies must be made and would follow.
~
Idea 2043 ~
In
view of catastrophes likely to occur in the third millennium
(geological, climatic, biological and manmade) I recommend the early
establishment of a UN World Fund of Prevention endowed with billions
of dollars or Terras to intervene quickly when catastrophes will
occur.
~
Idea 2044 ~
I
recommend that henceforth a new category of nation-states should be
labeled: the group of Earth-irresponsible, insane nations, namely
those possessing and not destroying their nuclear arms. Noone should
admire them. The non-nuclear nations should pity them and tell them
how happy and proud they are not to have nuclear arms.
~
Idea 2045 ~
I
hope that to celebrate the year 2000 and our entry into a new century
and millennium the nuclear powers will destroy at least a few nuclear
arms during that year. The world would applaud and
rejoice.
~
Idea 2046 ~
It
is with thousands of ideas, big and small, from world/global to
individual/local ones that we can save this Earth and make humanity
the peaceful, happy, fulfilled miraculous species intended by God and
by the mysterious evolutionary forces of the universe. Dear readers,
come up with ideas, write them down, promote them and do everything
you can to get them implemented.
~
Idea 2047 ~
I
prayed for health and a long life to do great things and so far I
have been blessed with both. I sometimes feel that God and the
mysterious forces of the universe are amidst us, anxious to help but
we must ask, we must open ourselves to let them in. If we are closed
to them, they cannot enter. "Ask and you shall receive."
~
Idea 2048 ~
The
notions of evil and bad were essential from the beginning of
evolution because the first humans had to experience and communicate
to their children what should be avoided. Later this was used by
groups of humans: local communities, tribes, religions, language
groups and finally nations. The next great step of evolution, which
is in full birthing now, is to define what is good and evil for the
whole of humanity and for the Earth. The only retarding elements are
the former groups which want to keep their fullest possible power,
even increase it.
Another new, dangerous factor is that merchants and business which globalized themselves first, have the upper hand in deciding what is good and bad for the people but not in order to achieve a better humanity and a well-governed planet. The world must challenge the claim of business that with total freedom and more money they will solve all problems of the world. It just is not so. Quite the contrary.
~
Idea 2049 ~
Historically
it will be the privilege of capitalism to destroy the Earth in the
21st century unless government re-establishes its pre-eminent role
and function for the people's and the Earth's fate. The communists
must be glad to have given up their pretense to create a perfect,
just world. Now the issue rests on the shoulders of
capitalism.
~
Idea 2050 ~
Western
countries, especially the United States, have their mouths full of
fundamental human rights and are ready to bomb other countries who do
no fulfill such rights.
But we should claim, at the beginning of the 21st century and third millennium, the basic human right not to be enlisted in an army and to kill other human beings for national or religious causes .
Killing another human being is murder, but nations give medals and honors for it. It is high time to claim that new fundamental human right. Without it the human rights chapter of humanity is incomplete. Anyone being enlisted in an army and being trained to kill should have the right to come before the International Court of Justice and claim that this is the most flagrant injustice on this planet. Conflicts must be solved by peaceful means and not with armaments, bombs, individual and wholesale murders.
~
Idea 2051 ~
The
active, passionate cooperation between all people, groups,
institutions, religions and nations for the survival of our Earth and
of humanity must be our greatest hope and objective in the 21st
century.
~
Idea 2052 ~
It
would be good if the 300 million indigenous people on this planet
would refuse to drive cars, to take airplanes and to go on tourism in
hotels around the world. It would be a lesson to the western people
and a great blessing for the Earth.
~
Idea 2053 ~
Humans
are a strange race. They spend infinitely more time on building
perfectly running airplanes and atomic missiles than on achieving a
perfectly running human society. The latter is almost ignored except
how to get taxes to build more perfectly running airplanes and atomic
missiles. No wonder that our political and social management of the
planet and humanity is a dismal mess of incredible duplications
between 189 nations. Military expenditures alone of humanity are
equal to all other expenditures by governments on this planet! What
an aberration. People are sheep not to revolt against it.
~
Idea 2054 ~
To
conceive great ideas keep your eyes on the stars.
To implement them, keep your feet on Earth.
~
Idea 2055 ~
Why
do groups of humans on this planet continue to believe that they have
the ultimate truth? Why is that so? We had the Roman Empire, they
called it the Pax Romana which they imposed with the Roman legions
all over Europe. We had the Pax Britannica with the British ruling
all their colonies. We have now the United States which rules the
world with its money, corporations and industrial military advance.
Many of the religions continue to assert that they have the ultimate
truth, that there is no other truth than their own Why is it not
possible for all these groups to get together and to work on what
they have in common? The United Nations is a first, very modest but
wonderful attempt to do it for nations. But the United States doesn't
like it because it wants to rule the world. We're now going to have,
thank God, the United Religions which I advocated at the 1993 World
Parliament of Religions. So there is some progress but we're losing
incredible time. Since 1970 we have destroyed one-third of the nature
of this planet. If we continue with the same population and
consumption explosions we will have only seventy years until we have
destroyed all nature. Why do leaders of nations not react against
this? Why do they only think of their nation, their party, their
religion, their constituency? This has become a major disaster. The
merchants are now ruling the world because they were intelligent
enough to rapidly globalize themselves after World War II. This new
global power is supported by the United States and those countries
where the seats of the multinational corporations are located and
bring in money. We have now a coalition of the rulers, the merchants
and the military to support and strengthen this whole system. What a
world! This is the situation which prevails at the beginning of a new
millennium. One has really the impression that we humans are still a
very primitive, underdeveloped species.
~
Idea 2056 ~
We
should not speak only of 'sustainable development' but also of
'unsustainable destruction'. Indeed the Earth, which has been and
could be ignored so far by humans wanting to develop, is now being
destroyed by giant business in the name of economic development and
growth. The new, biggest war ever on this planet is now the war
against the Earth.
~
Idea 2057 ~
Communism
has died. It is now the turn of capitalism to change or die. The new
ideology should be Earthism, the proper management and conservation
of our precious, life-nurturing and sustaining Earth. Capital should
be used to save the Earth and become eco-capitalism.
~
Idea 2058 ~
Where
is the new Andrew Carnegie who will hire scholars to conceive and
draft the statutes of a new world organization, of a proper Earth
government, of a World Constitution? He did it by bringing over to
the United States, two Belgian scholars during World War I who
drafted the statutes of the League of Nations, the first
international organization in world history, forerunner of the United
Nations which must now be replaced by something infinitely better,
commensurate with the new, mind-boggling global needs and problems of
the third millennium.
~
Idea 2059 ~
The
21st century will be the century of world union or there will be no
21st century. It must see the birth of a borderless world on the
model of the successful borderless European Union between fifteen
formerly inimical nations.
Who will create a body of eminent world thinkers and political architects to plan and give birth to a world union? Perhaps since my compatriot from Alsace Lorraine, Robert Schuman fulfilled his dream for a United Europe I must follow his example and try to fulfill my dream for a peaceful World Union. He died and never saw his dream fulfilled. I went to his tomb to report it to him. I will probably die too before I see my dream fulfilled. I hope that someone will be so kind and visit my tomb to report success to me.
~
Idea 2060 ~
The
United Nations and its 32 specialized agencies and world programs
should create an Earth-wide World Investments Fund in which the world
civil servants, families and any people and institutions on Earth
could invest their money and savings. The funds would be invested
only in projects and productions beneficial to the peoples health and
welfare, especially the poor and helpless, and to the preservation of
the Earth. It would be the world's first global ethical investment
fund aimed at world justice, the welfare of the people and the
salvation of the Earth.
~
Idea 2061 ~
On
a bank in San Jose, Costa Rica, I saw for the first time a big sign
saying: "The world population has reached 6 billion people." I hope
the whole business and advertisement world will help in solving our
global problems.
~
Idea 2062 ~
When
I was a child in our province of Alsace Lorraine where we still spoke
a German dialect, I often heard people say, "Geld regiert die Welt,
money rules the world." Today, as an elder, I would say, "Geld
vernichted die Welt, money destroys the world."
~
Idea 2063 ~
UN
world conferences on life and death global issues should be held much
more frequently. Instead of every 20 or 10 years as was the case
until now, such conferences should be held at least every five years,
some even should remain in permanent session until their objectives
are attained.
~
Idea 2064 ~
The
rose garden adjacent to the visitors' entrance of the United Nations
in New York and the vast Parc des Nations of the UN in Geneva should
be transformed into Peace and Human Rights Parks open to people.
Statues and busts of great peacemakers and human rights defenders
should be erected on them, following our example at the UN University
for Peace in Costa Rica. The vaster Park in Geneva could also be made
into an ecological demonstration center for the public.
~
Idea 2065 ~
Given
our slowness to react to many mounting global, evolutionary problems
which might create untold havoc if unattended, I recommend that a
Global Emergencies Unit be created in the office of the UN Secretary
General and of each head of state.
~
Idea 2066 ~
André
Malraux, the French atheist and famous writer said: "The third
millennium will be spiritual or there will be no third millennium." I
would go further and say that the next millennium must be a cosmic,
spiritual millennium, or there will be no third
millennium.
I am glad that I obtained the creation of a World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality. Being a co-chairman of it, I will try to gear its work into the larger framework of evolutionary, cosmic consciousness.
When future historians will look back at our twentieth century they will recognize in it the birth at long last, of a natural, global, celestial consciousness to humanity.
~
Idea 2067 ~
The
dominant political and economic systems of planet Earth are so wrong
that one could cry. If beings from outer space would visit us they
would not believe their eyes.
~
Idea 2068 ~
We
do not have to worry if there will be enough food on this planet to
feed the increasing human population. The packaging industry alone,
through its colossal waste of resources will be able to put an end to
our future.
~
Idea 2069 ~
I
recommend that during the General Assembly 2000 all countries which
received Marshall Aid after the second World War should give back
this sum to a United Nations Revolving Fund to help the poor
countries. When a poor country becomes rich it will then return the
same sum received to help other poorer countries. I would also like
to see many restitutions of stolen works of art and antiquities as
well as restitutions of assets hoarded by the Nazis abroad. The
Secretary General of the UN should establish a list of specific
actions, misdeeds and injustices committed by governments, religions
and other institutions which should be repaired in the year 2000 or
after.
~
Idea 2070 ~
I
recommend that consideration be given to yearly reports by the United
Nations and all its agencies and world programs on the degree of
globalization in all fields of human concern.
~
Idea 2071 ~
Has
there ever been, will there ever be a country where the prices go
down?
No, at least there was none in the past.
So why speak of economy, economics, higher productivity, economic systems, economic progress and higher standards of living?
An answer should be given by governments and their economists to this basic, legitimate people's question.
~
Idea 2072 ~
What
we call economic progress is in reality in many places and on an
increasing scale an Earth regress. It is not yet called that in our
century. But it will in the 21st century.
Advertisement, the media, the packaging industries, economists, marketing experts, architects and the construction industries will be accused of putting an end to life on this planet. And they in turn will put the blame on Universities and governments.
~
Idea 2073 ~
To
foster a world spiritual renaissance I recommend that all religions
should allow their clergies, male and female, to be married in order
to increase the number of spiritual families and children raised in
such families.
~
Idea 2074 ~
The
21st century must see humanity's transcendence into cosmic
consciousness in space and time. Then human sciences and religions
will come together. Then we will have a peaceful, harmonious,
fulfilled planet and humanity, functioning according to the laws of
the universe. We have already a World Natural Law Party. We must have
next a World Cosmic Laws Party.
~
Idea 2075 ~
The
creation of philanthropic foundations is becoming a strong movement
in the world. I suggest that it should be a new, major subject in
universities. A yearly report and statistics on philanthropy should
be published by the United Nations (see my proposal on philanthropy
in Introduction to Ideas 1701 to 1800 in Volume IV). A World
Philanthropic and Gaiaphilic Organization and University should be
created.
~
Idea 2076 ~
The
western countries have begun to spend monstrous sums for waste
disposal. The UN should publish world statistics on these
expenditures. In the US it has become a 32 billion dollars a year
'industry'. And this sum is entered into the gross national
product!
~
Idea 2077 ~
Humans
should claim the fundamental right not to be buried in a vault of
concrete or in a metal box nor to be burned but to have their body
returned to Mother Earth, preferably with a tree planted on the
ground above them so that they can resurrect into other life forms as
the law of nature wants it. Our bodies are all Earth and must return
to the Earth. The Earth cannot be deprived of the colossal biomass of
dead humans, increasing year after year.
~
Idea 2078 ~
No
humans should accept as gifts T-shirts or head-gears bearing the
advertisement of a commercial firm or product. When offered to them,
people should at least request a few hundred dollars to wear them
instead of giving out free advertisement. The same with business
signs on shops offered 'free' by 'soft drinks' and cigarette firms
all over the world, especially in the poor countries.
~
Idea 2079 ~
The
UN should be enabled to conduct world-wide public opinion polls on
all major world issues. I recommend the creation of a UN World Public
Opinion Bureau. What a boost to democracy and evolution that would
be!
~
Idea 2080 ~
Humanity
has invested enormous efforts and obtained great successes in the
optical science, the knowledge and healing of our miraculous eyesight
capacity.
In the third millennium we must devote as much effort in our human capacity to see with other means:
to
see with our dreams (dreamsight)
to
see with our mind (mindsight)
to
see with our heart (heartsight)
to
see with our soul (soulsight)
to
see with music (musicsight)
to
see with art and writing (artsight, writingsight)
Just think of the Ode to Joy of Beethoven, the Ave Maria of Gounod which bring tears to our eyes, and of the Italian popular O Sole Mio.
I cannot live without writing my visions, dreams and ideas and trying to fashion them into realities. I recommend that a World University of Visions be created on an elevated place, nearer to God and the heavens. Sacred Mt. Rasur in Costa Rica, the seat of the UN University for Peace and the Earth Council.
~
Idea 2081 ~
Henceforth,
during the 21st century and 3rd millennium, the evolution of the
Earth and of humanity must be our foremost priorities: all other
entities and 'sovereignties' must fall into place, into service to
that.
~
Idea 2082 ~
Efforts
and success in demilitarization are more effective than efforts for
disarmament. Why? Because the weapons manufacturers have their lobby
with the military and the government. But if there is
demilitarization there will be no soldiers to use the weapons. Hence,
armaments will disappear.
~
Idea 2083 ~
When
a child begins to walk, you encourage it and do not scold it for its
weaknesses. It is the same with nations' children's steps for world
peace, cooperation and union in the young United Nations, their
kindergarten. Encourage them and say bravo to their first successes
which prepare high school and university.
~
Idea 2084 ~
In
my opinion it is humanity's dreams and
ideas
that
decide our fate
There
is no other kind of fate.
I
do not believe therefore
that
we must necessarily continue
to
follow the path which leads
only
downwards; we may yet turn about
before
we arrive at the very end.
This is an Albert Schweitzer text in which I replaced in the first line "man's temperament" by "humanity's dreams and ideas".
~
Idea 2085 ~
After
a speech at Ames University, in Iowa, I was accompanied in the bus to
the airport by a Professor who told me: "I am a Professor of
Agricultural Mechanics and Engineering. We have reduced agricultural
workers to the minimum. I have invented machines which make bales of
straw and hay as big as a house. We have reduced to a minimum
warehouses to stock agricultural products. We have reduced the length
of the stems of corn and wheat to increase productivity. And what was
the result? To enrich the cities and not the rural areas, to increase
the size of the cities and to reduce the people living on the land.
The Earth is 98% made of air, water and soil, and not of cities. We
have invented poisons to kill the insects feeding on plants and today
my children accuse me of having put such poisons into circulation. I
do not know what to think anymore. My whole life appears now as a
vast error."
More and more people ask themselves the same question, now that the fate of the entire Earth and of all humanity are in peril.
~
Idea 2086 ~
It
would be good if an agency or institute of the United Nations would
undertake a study of how world and global affairs of this planet and
of humanity are being handled by the 189 national governments. At
what level are they handled? At the Prime Minister's level, by a Vice
President for Global Affairs (United States), by a Ministry of
Foreign or External Affairs, regionally or by substance, by each
ministry in its own area of substance, the role of
Parliament?
Such a study would put the finger on some very fundamental questions of our time and would enlighten governments. It would be hailed as a very important document for our new century and millennium when global problems are growing in numbers and in importance and at an accelerated rate endangering or uplifting our entire future.
~
Idea 2087 ~
We
absolutely need a World Agency of Philosophy to look into the meaning
of life on this extraordinary, miraculous planet in the universe. It
would be enlightening for all other world agencies and for
governments.
~
Idea 2088 ~
The
word politics should be abolished. It is an obsolete remnant of the
ancient Greeks who administered at the time only a city (polis).
Today it is a total Earth process, a biological, cosmic phenomenon:
we must take care of the whole biology, life forms and processes on
this planet. Planetics would be my preferred word. But the words are
less important than the actual tasks and responsibilities now
incumbent on the human species. This will mark the whole new century
and millennium.
~
Idea 2089 ~
In
the new world each human being should be recognized as having a
specific role or message that should be read by this person. Each
individual should read himself and find the reason why he or she is
alive, the mission, the role, the duty expected by God, by the
universe, by humanity and the Earth. This will be the foundation of a
new democracy, a government by the people, by the cosmic units, a
cosmocracy.
~
Idea 2090 ~
There
are on our planet innumerable scientists, doctors, institutions and
firms whose main objective is to prolong human longevity, the miracle
of human life, and to postpone death, the end of human
life.
And yet on the same planet the biggest expenditures of nations are on the creation of instruments of death: armaments, bombs of all kinds, and the training and maintenance of millions of militaries prepared to kill other humans, to end lives at any moment on massive scales, hundreds of millions in our civilized twentieth century alone.
I recommend that all doctors, scientists, institutes and firms working for life prolongation should request the disarmament and demilitarization of our planet. They should create a world movement to that effect and menace to go on strike.
~
Idea 2091 ~
My
first deceased Chilean wife, Margarita often accused me and modern
men to be restless dreamers never at real peace, always seeking new
problems, new inventions, new markets, new products, new challenges.
She said, "I never dream. We Latin Americans seldom dream. This
unrest is a characteristic of northern people living in cold, hostile
climates."
Well, in the Foundation for the Future an Australian anthropologist, Dr. Philip Tobias specializing in the world's long-term future came to the conclusion that only Africans and indigenous people will retain their basic humaneness while the western societies will lose theirs (order the video tape Tobias from the Foundation for the Future, 123 105th Ave. SE, Bellevue, Washington USA 98004, Telephone (425) 451-1333. Also ask for more information on the important work of that foundation which has as its time framework the year 3000.)
~
Idea 2092 ~
There
might soon come a day when the distinction between developed and
underdeveloped countries will be replaced by northern unlivable
countries and southern, still livable countries.
~
Idea 2093 ~
God
was very kind to me when he decided that I should leave the northern,
western world and live in demilitarized, nature-rich Costa Rica, an
'island of sanity in the world', 'a remnant of paradise', except San
Jose.
~
Idea 2094 ~
We
absolutely need on this planet a new fundamental field of knowledge,
investigations and concern at all levels of the human society, from
the personal, local to the global level, namely the field of waste.
We need:
a
science of waste and anti-waste
a
strategy of anti-waste
a
methodology of anti-waste
In universities there should be a faculty of anti-waste, in governments a ministry of anti-waste and in the United Nations a Department of Anti-waste. Fifty percent of the whole production of the western countries are already waste! Where will it stop?
~
Idea 2095 ~
The
United Nations should move out of the United States which
persistently refuses to pay its dues to the world organization and
cashes in most of the expenses of the UN and of the 189 delegations
of member countries in New York City.
For the same reason the UN European Office located in Geneva should move out of Switzerland which is not even a member of the United Nations. All specialized agencies of the UN located in Geneva should reconsider their location and make in particular a move to Asia, the most populated continent in the world where practically no United Nations offices are located except one each in overpopulated Tokyo and Bangkok. There should be a more equitable and intelligent distribution of world agencies over this round planet.
~
Idea 2096 ~
We
need a new age on this planet, an age of wanting less, buying less
and accumulating less in order not to devastate our Earth and to
regain our freedom and personality. The US can save itself and become
a new source of inspiration to the world. It has the best thinkers,
scientists and good-hearted people to do it. What a great new page of
history, nay of evolution this would open! The US should prepare and
offer a tremendous, unprecedented plan for our tomorrows everywhere
in the world, in response to the agenda of the Heads of States
General Assembly 2000. (see Introduction)
I have done my duty in my 2000 ideas and dreams especially in my statement at the Cagliari meeting in Sardinia on "The Absolute Urgent Need for Proper Government" (see Volume IV, Introduction to Part II). I pray that many other people and institutions will follow my example. Assailed by plans, ideas, peoples' movements, governments might finally give in and take up seriously the subject.
~
Idea 2097 ~
Due
to wrong human thinking, wrong education, wrong powers, wrong values,
wrong institutions, wrong laws and a very confused, checkered past,
planet Earth is probably the worst run, most uneconomical and
wasteful planet in the universe. May the advent of a new century and
millennium engage our best minds to change very fundamentally our
ways and political and economic systems and make this beautiful
planet a cosmic success instead of a planet of waste.
~
Idea 2098 ~
Henceforth,
anything that goes against the further evolution of the Earth and of
humanity must be considered unethical, sometimes even
criminal.
~
Idea 2099 ~
I
was told that on the advice of two consultants in the field of
philanthropy a US company decided to ask its stockholders to which
causes its philanthropy should go. The answers were eighty percent in
favor of spiritual causes and institutions. All companies should
follow this good example. It would help the practice of democracy and
bring about a better world.
~
Idea 2100 ~
In
the European Union there are countries like Sweden which are much
more advanced in the protection of the people than the United States.
For example, there is an agreement between the government and Swedish
toy manufacturers that they will not produce any war-type or violent
toys for children. This example should be followed by many countries
in the world. Also Sweden prohibits advertisements addressed to
children less than twelve years old, another good example to
follow.
ANNEX
Sample
of letters I send constantly
to
people in high positions who can
do
something for a better world.
23
September 1993
Dear
Mr. President,
I
am so happy to congratulate you on your election to the Presidency of
the General Assembly. I had received your remarkable press kit and I
recognized you immediately from your picture, and your assignment to
the United Nations, where I served for forty years, mostly in the
economic field but also as Director of U Thant's and Kurt Waldheim's
Executive Office. Under Javier Perez de Cuellar I was in charge of
the fortieth anniversary of the UN, extended at his request beyond
retirement age. And three days before actual retirement I was
appointed one-dollar-a-year Chancellor of the UN University for Peace
in Costa Rica.
The
reason why I am writing to you is that I tried to advise and help the
last three Presidents of the General Assembly, but only Samir Shihabi
listened to me and thanked me before leaving, saying that I had
helped him play a historical role in the Assembly, in particular by
getting an early decision for the celebration of the fiftieth
anniversary of the United Nations in 1995. I have asked my publisher
to send you a copy of my Testament to the UN, a contribution to the
fiftieth anniversary, and The Birth of a Global Civilization which
has a chapter on UN celebrations, in particular the 50th anniversary
and the year 2000. Herewith I am sending you also a Peace Plan 2010,
several points of which have already been implemented, but there
remains a lot to do. I was particularly glad that my proposal for a
new Commission of Eminent Persons, after the Brundtland Commission,
has been established under the Chairmanship of Mr. Ingvar Carlson,
the former Prime Minister of Sweden, on the subject of Global
Governance. The members have all my writings and I sent also the
Peace Plan 2010 to the members of the Security Council when they met
at long last at the heads of states level, something we have been
clamoring for during years, with U Thant and Perez de
Cuellar.
I
take the liberty of suggesting to you a few avenues of possible
action which would make your Presidency a historic event, leaving a
mark on the history of the world at the end of this
millennium.
1. As you will see from the peace Plan 2010, right at the beginning I suggest another Commission of Eminent Persons to deal with violence in all its forms in the world, or with non-violence. It is based on remarks by U Thant who often said to me that we westerners knew only how to speak about physical violence, but that there were other forms of violence preceding it, namely verbal violence and violence in the mind. My suggestion is that you may perhaps talk to the Ambassador of India and see if India would not want to call for a World Conference on Non-violence in one of the years to come. He could make the proposal on 5 October, anniversary of Gandhi. I think the world is waiting for a major move on the question of violence which is so wide-spread and rising. The world would applaud such a decision by the General Assembly.
page
2
23
September 1993
2. The fiftieth anniversary of the UN can be a great, unprecedented event. The subject is on the agenda of your Assembly. My impression from the reports of the Preparatory Committee is that things go pretty slowly. You should request that in their report they list the countries which have appointed National Committees and the composition of such committees. At a recent meeting of the First Ladies of Latin America and the Caribbean for the International year of the Family, I exhorted the ladies to get their husbands to appoint very eminent national committees for the anniversary. I hope there will be a substantive debate on what the anniversary can achieve. I remember that for the 25th anniversary, when I worked with U Thant we asked all Secretariat services to give us statistics and reports on the major changes during the last 25 years. The same could be requested of the Secretariat, namely a review of the last fifty years since World War II. Your session of the General Assembly should adopt a substantive resolution on what will be expected from the anniversary, almost an agenda for it, to help progress in history.
3. The celebration of the anniversary in San Francisco will be a big affair, with a majority of heads of states, like during the 40th anniversary where I underestimated the number of them who would come as I tell in my Testament. What preoccupies me is that it will be primarily a ceremonial affair, with big, lofty, philosophical speeches. I think more and more that it should be conceived as a milestone in peace-making. Why not convene in San Francisco in 1995 a world peace conference where heads of states would sit down and settle conflicts and problems as a contribution to the anniversary and to allow the world to move into the third millennium with a clean slate. This would impress the public. Perhaps such an idea would be welcomed by President Clinton who could make the proposal in a speech in the General Assembly. I am sure also that the City of San Francisco would be delighted and contribute to the costs: Rio de Janeiro attracted more than 100 heads of states and 30,000 people I just attended and spoke to the second World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, attended by 6000 people. The San Francisco Conference could be one of the greatest peace gatherings ever, thinking of the presence of so many peace groups. Maurice Strong would be the perfect man to organize it.
4. The enclosed correspondence from some media people shows the interest they may have in UN celebrations. They mention rightly the anniversary of UNICEF. A whole series of UN agencies are going to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary. An assistant could perhaps give you a list of such anniversaries. They might lend themselves to some consideration and thinking by the General Assembly. In this connection you may wish to read the chapter on global celebrations in my Birth of a Global Civilization. The media will certainly do something for these anniversaries. Ted Turner, a good friend of mine, made a film The 'House of Hope' for the 40th anniversary of the UN. It was seen by fifty million people. I suggested to him already two years ago to do some planning for 1995.
page
3
23
September 1993
5. As you will see from my Peace Plan 2010, I attach great importance to the celebration of the year 2000. I have written a poem about it years ago which has circulated around the world. My latest novel First Lady of the World turns around the year 2000. In The Birth of a Global Civilization I suggest that the Preparatory Committee for the fiftieth anniversary of the UN in 1995, should transform itself into the Preparatory Committee for the year 2000. I think it would be great if you could talk around you of the question: what will we do for the year 2000? The earlier the UN thinks about that, the better. After all it is the most universal organization and it should celebrate and take advantage of what is for all practical purposes a universal date. It would be wonderful if you could get something started for the Bimillennium. You could even consider calling for your own committee of eminent persons to prepare the Bimillennium after your term as President of the General Assembly. Your position is so eminent that you should not lose the momentum of it. Very few Presidents have been able to keep that momentum and to do something very visible and historic after their term.
Please do not bother to answer this letter. I know how busy you are. I would like to have the same agreement with you as I had with various Secretaries-Generals: that I write to them, when I have an idea, and that they never have to write back to me, especially when they do what I suggest to them!
I
pray God that He will bless you
Presidency
with
many good things for this beautiful planet
and
for
its genial human race.
Yours
in Peace
Robert
Muller
Chancellor
H.E.Mr.
S.R. Insanally
President
of the General Assembly
United
Nations
"Si
vis pacem, para pacem"
Tels:
506-205-9000. Apartado 138-6100 Ciudad Colón, Costa Rica, C.A.
Fax: 249-1929
e-mail:
upaznego@sol.racsa.co.cr
1
April 1997
(E-mail)
To:
His Excellency, the Honorable President William
Clinton,
From:
Dr. Robert Muller, Chancellor of the University for Peace
Dear President Clinton,
Since you are the President of the most prominent and forward-looking country in the world, may I suggest that you announce on 6 April, the date when 1000 days will be left to the Year 2000, the creation of a US Millennium Committee composed of the best thinkers and visioneers of the US, including youth, to offer the world by the year 2000 a new vision for the 21st century and the third millennium, a vision of peace, justice and well-being for all humanity.
It would be appropriate for you to be the President and Chair of that committee. Other countries would follow your example and the whole world would benefit from your history making initiative.
Peace
to you
Yours
Warmly
Robert
Muller
Chancellor
of the UN University for Peace
Former
UN Assistant Secretary General
"Si
vis pacem, para pacem"
Tels:
506-205-9000. Apartado 138-6100 Ciudad Colón, Costa Rica, C.A.
Fax: 249-1929
e-mail:
upaznego@sol.racsa.co.cr
26
June 1998
Dear
Mikhail Gorbachev,
We
were sorry that due to health impediments you were unable to
participate personally in the conference held under your auspices in
Cagliari, Sardinia. I would have liked to talk to you and to convey
to you an idea of mine. You know me indirectly from my book The Birth
of a Global Civilization which Senator Alan Cranston gave you a
couple of years ago. My feeling and idea is that you should announce
to the world a Mikhail Gorbachev Plan for the proper government of
planet Earth as we enter a new century and millennium. I am a
Frenchman from Alsace-Lorraine who has lived the birth and the
announcement of my compatriot Robert Schuman's Plan which led to the
creation of the European Union. We need a similar bold plan for the
world. If not, we will soon be in deep trouble. It is better to think
and plan for a better international system of world government while
there is peace than to wait for the time of trouble when emergency
measures have to be quickly put together. We can no longer live in
the kindergarten stage of the global age, waiting to react until we
burn our fingers. In the enclosed paper submitted to your conference
you will find several avenues into which we can engage. The world
would not expect you to come out with a fully worked out plan. You
could outline its main features, and announce that you establish a
Gorbachev World Commission of Eminent Persons to work out the needed
Plan and World System for proper government of our beautiful planet
and the happiness and fulfillment of all
humanity.
My
wife Barbara, also a member of the Club of Budapest, sent you a year
ago, on 26 June 1997, a similar message when you received the
Planetary Consciousness Award in the City of Goethe. We reproduce it
herewith.
With
our warmest wishes for good health
and
great happiness as well as to your wife Raissa
Barbara and Robert Muller
"Si
vis pacem, para pacem"
Tels:
506- 205-9000. Apartado 138-6100 Ciudad Colón, Costa Rica,
C.A. Fax: 249-1929
e-mail:
upaznego@sol.racsa.co.cr
26 June 1997
Message to Mikhail Gorbachev on his receipt of the Planetary Consciousness Prize in the City of Frankfurt
We send you our warmest love, congratulations and prayers. May you become the prophet of a united human family, and the global architect who will give the world his vision, plan and proposals how the Earth and humanity can become the ultimate cosmic success of the universe and of God. May we be privileged to see soon a Gorbachev Plan for a World Union or Proper Earth Government as we saw a Robert Schuman Plan for a United Europe, now an astonishing reality. May you, all your co-workers and guests contribute to our entry into a new phase, the cosmic age of our evolution into the 21st century and third millennium.
Let us all heed the advice of the great Goethe, the honor of the City of Frankfurt in which you receive the Planetary Consciousness Prize:
"Whatever
you can do or dream you can begin it,
Boldness
has genius, power and magic in it."
Barbara and Robert Muller
6
March 1999
Dear
Mr. Secretary General,
With the year 2000 you are becoming the most important person on Earth in the entire human history. How can you face this overwhelming challenge in one of the most complex and "messy" (your words used in the latest World Diplomatic Bulletin) human, Earth and evolutionary situations this planet has ever known?
Here are a few advices from a life-time world public servant and direct aide to three former Secretaries General:
1. You cannot count on anyone else but yourself. Every morning you must say to yourself when you wake up: I am the only one who can give the inspiration and ideas to the world regarding our future. You can be helped, but your final proposals and recommendations are yours. Pray God and the invisible forces of the universe to help you.
2. Place heads of national governments squarely before their responsibilities. Advise, inspire and elevate them in your personal Note Verbale to all heads of state as is usual before every General Assembly. This is an extremely important document. Tell them what you expect from them as actions between now and the Millennium General Assembly which they are expected to attend. Issue that Note Verbale as early as possible. Do not wait until we are closer to this year's General Assembly.
3. Mobilize the Administrative Committee of Coordination (your twice yearly World Cabinet Meeting), all substantive Secretariat services (headquarters and regional), and all specialized agencies and world programs to come up with states of the world reports in each of their fields and segments of the human and Earth condition. As part of their input, ask for the following:
-
an inventory of achievements since the creation of that agency (in
the case of the UN it already exists for the last fifty
years)
-
an inventory of major world problems and issues to be solved
according to urgency (immediate, medium-term,
long-term)
-
an inventory of hopes
-
an inventory of proposals, ideas and
recommendations
a.
regarding the need for changes in human
values
b.
regarding the need for changes in institutions and the creation of
new ones
c.
regarding necessary change in laws and implementation
4.
The preceding will provide you with the basic materials for your
personal report to the heads of states at the Millennium Assembly and
make it the most comprehensive, courageous, epoch-making,
forward-looking message in modern human history. It must serve as a
guide and be quoted during the decades to
come.
I
have done my personal duty in producing 2000 Ideas and Dreams for a
Better World based on my fifty years of world experience. They are
finished, the last volume IV having just come out. I am sending it to
you as I did the preceding three volumes. Since they are published
well ahead of the year 2000, I will devote the rest of the current
year to their dissemination and implementation. Being an advisory
member of the newly created Foundation for the Future in Bellevue,
State of Washington, which looks as far as the year 3000, I will
continue to write a thousand more ideas. The Foundation will hold a
conference of the world's 100 best futurologists and evolutionary
scientists in Seattle in the summer of 2000 in time to issue their
report for the Millennium General Assembly.
5. Please appoint one of your officials to read the four volumes and draw your attention to those ideas which you could use in your speeches and recommendations to the Millennium Assembly. He or she can count on my full cooperation.
6. From the 2000 ideas many ideas regarding special fields can be excerpted by computer. I am sending you herewith an excerpt dealing with the Future. In the copy I have marked the ideas which could be of interest to you. For example in idea 500 which lists all the World Commissions held over the years to help the United Nations, I suggest that you ask an official to make a list of all the specific recommendations made by them. The result would be a very remarkable document of interest to governments and to many people. With Dr. Karan Singh of India we have just created a World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality to promote a much needed spiritual Renaissance. I am sending the other members an excerpt of 50 pages of ideas regarding religion and spirituality, similar to the one on the Future.
Last but not least, ask Mrs. Annan to keep the four volumes on her nighttable and to peruse them, drawing your attention to ideas she would like you to make yours. My life's work has been incredibly helped and enhanced by my alas deceased wife Margarita Gallo from Chile, the President of the UN Women's Guild, succeeded now by Mrs. Annan. I have written a novel in her memory First Lady of the World and donated a bust of Eleanor Roosevelt with whom she worked as a delegate of Chile to the Commission on Women's Rights. It was inaugurated last 10th of December at the University for Peace on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Her remains will be transferred next month to a hill, called Mt. Margarita, of the property Mt. Rasur I have acquired on a sacred mountain, adjacent to the UN University for Peace in Costa Rica. God has sent me since then another wonderful life companion who inspires me and helps me enormously. It is she who asked me to write 2000 ideas for the year 2000, which I did.
She
joins me in wishing you and Mrs. Annan a great historical role in the
fate of humanity and of planet Earth.
Yours
in Peace,
Barbara
and Robert Muller
H.E.
Dr. Kofi Annan
Secretary
General of the UN
"Si
vis pacem, para pacem"
Tels:
506- 205-9000. Apartado
138-6100 Ciudad Colón, Costa Rica, C.A. Fax:
249-1929
e-mail:
upaznego@sol.racsa.co.cr
30
November 1999
His
Excellency, The Honorable Theo-Ben Gurirab (UN Interne
1963)
President
of the UN General Assembly
New
York
Dear Mr. President,
From one former UN Interne (1948) to another, may I suggest that you make a recommendation in this General Assembly that the Secretary General of the UN should submit to the General Assembly 2000 his vision of the world and humanity in the next century.
The only great new idea in this century was the creation of the European Union when France and Germany became friends and the borders between 15 European countries were suppressed.
I suggest that in your General Assembly speech next year you propose a World Union or Alliance to eradicate poverty from this planet. No details needed in your speech.
What is needed most in the United Nations is the audacity of great, memorable ideas. So far not a single President of the General Assembly is remembered for a great, new idea or initiative.
As a famous French revolutionary proclaimed: De l'audace, de l'audace et toujours de l'audace. Audacity, audacity and still audacity. We have remembered that appeal when after World War II we got tired of the wars between France and Germany: three wars which made my grandparents change nationality five times without leaving their village. I am proud, as an Alsace-Lorrainer who suffered from this situation to be a member of the canonization committee of Robert Schuman, an Alsace-Lorrainer, who had the audacity to found the European Union. We will make him the first political saint of our time.
I
pray God that He inspire you
to
listen to my appeal,
Robert
Muller
Chancellor
Emeritus
Former
UN Assistant Secretary General
"Si
vis pacem, para pacem"
Tels:
506-205-9000. Apartado
138-6100 Ciudad Colón, Costa Rica, C.A. Fax:
249-1929
e-mail:
upaznego@sol.racsa.co.cr
20 December 1999
Mr.
Ted Turner
President,
CNN
Atlanta,
GA 30348
Dearest Ted,
Herewith a status of nuclear weapons in the world. In your world appeal of 1 January, ask that the year 2000 should be celebrated and remembered in human history as the year of destruction of nuclear weapons. (See my Idea 2153)
I also pray that you will take the initiative to launch and chair a World Commission on the Media. See Idea 2157 which gives you an idea of the World Commissions and their usefulness. No rush, but please keep it in mind.
With
all my love, admiration and heartiest wishes to
you.
May
2000 be the greatest and happiest in your life,
Robert Muller
PS. We must now open our eyes, minds and views to the year 3000 and become the Third Millennium Makers. Someone wrote and sent me a 17 pages paper on Robert Muller: the Millennium Maker, Early Herald of the Bimillennium. I must now start becoming the Third Millennium Maker. One of your TV programs could interview me to launch the wave. The fate of the Earth depends on our vision 3000.
"Si
vis pacem, para pacem"
Tels:
506-205-9000. Apartado 138-6100 Ciudad Colón,
Costa Rica, C.A. Fax: 249-1929
e-mail:
upaznego@sol.racsa.co.cr
Nuclear
Weapons at a Glance
from
Project Plougsharers, Canada, 1998
•
Eight countries are known to possess nuclear weapons: the five
acknowledged nuclear weapon states - Russia, the United States,
France, China and the United Kingdom - and three countries - India,
Pakistan and Israel - that are not nuclear weapon states under the
Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty but nonetheless are known to have
developed and stockpiled the components for nuclear weapons. A ninth
country, North Korea, also may have produced a small number of
nuclear weapons. In May 1998 India and Pakistan conducted 5 or 6
nuclear tests respectively, demonstrating extensive nuclear
capabilities and beginning what could become an intense nuclear arms
race in South Asia.
•
South Africa is the only country to have acquired nuclear weapons and
subsequently eliminated its nuclear
arsenal.
•
The total number of nuclear weapons in the world is estimated to be
as many as 35,000.
•
At its peak in 1986, the total number of nuclear weapons in the world
was about 70,000.
•
The explosive power of the world's arsenal is equivalent to
approximately 500,000 bombs of the size that were dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
•
There are currently five major international Nuclear-Weapon-Free
Zones. These zones include all the countries in the Southern
Hemisphere.
Nuclear Arsenals of the Nuclear Weapon States (1998)
Russia
21,000
United
States
11,500
France
450
China
400
United
Kingdom
260
Israel
100-200
India
60-80
Pakistan
15-25
Total
34,000
American and Russian figures include thousands of weapons held in reserve or retired but not yet dismantled. The US strategic nuclear arsenal is estimated to contain about 7,250 operationally deployed warheads. The Russian strategic nuclear arsenal is estimated to contain about 6,240 operationally deployed nuclear warheads. Israeli, Indian and Pakistani figures represent the potential number of weapons, based on estimates of the amount of fissile material those countries have produced.
PART II
IDEAS 2101 TO 2200
INTRODUCTION
A
Great New Step in Evolution
Let me report an enlightenment I had during the night of Friday 13 August 1999. I was wide awake in bed. Barbara also awoke. I briefly said to her how important it was to have the visions of Eric Chaisson, the astro-physicist and Christian De Duve, the Dutch Nobel Prize Winner for biology, namely that we have arrived as a species on this planet at an advanced stage of evolution when we know our planetary home inside out and have a knowledge of the universe from the infinitely large to the infinitely small. Once any species on any planet has reached that stage, then the future evolution of that planet rests in the hands of that species. If that species does not change its values and continues on the lines of the preceding values which led it to that success, then evolution will be ended by that species.
What is needed are new human values geared to the future evolution of life on planet Earth. De Duve calls it the need for wisdom and Chaisson says that we must abandon the Darwinian theory of competition and replace it by cooperation.
This was not new to Barbara. She had heard it before. It was rather a summary to myself in order to draw further conclusions from it. I remembered a paper in which I wrote down the needs for a new global education, global anthropology, global economy, global communications, global business, global governance. That stuck in my mind. I said to myself: look at the complexity of a human being; there are trillions and trillions of cells with their subdivisions, each infinitely smaller. And all these organs function together marvelously and make a whole human being what it is, an incredible living unit of the universe for a number of years then returning into the Earth from which it came.
If this has happened to the evolution of the individual, do we not now witness something similar happening to humanity as a whole, evolving into one body, infinitely more complex than the individual, with a global brain, a global nervous system, a global heart and a global soul? We have global values, global ideas and we seek now global instruments, policies and behaviors within a newborn concept and reality, namely the unity of the human species forming one body with this planet. Progressively that global consciousness and self-organizing will win against the oppositions of those who stick to the values of the past. This is a new phase in evolution of this planet, a very, very important one.
And when we look at the total map of the world, we can see it either from a natural or from a historical, cultural point of view. At the UN University for Peace we have a big map called an ecomap of the word, the natural regions of the world. We begin to understand that we must live within those natural regions and not destroy them. These are fundamental phenomena of the nature of this planet.
For the first time in the entire human history and evolution the total Earth comes first. We recognize that we are born from her and will return to her. Each human being is a living, conscious cell of the Earth, an active part of her life and further evolution. Hence, we must now speak of global evolutionary responsibilities of individuals and of all groups in the immense climatic and ecological diversity of this planet. My God, what momentous new evolutionary thinking and behaviors are required!
The globalization of nature and of humanity must now be the foremost rule. The requirements of the Earth are fundamental to preserve the future of humanity. I am tempted to coin a new word, namely Earthcracy, the rule of the Earth. What is needed is a cooperation of all humans in this incredible globalization of the Earth on top of the incredible diversity of her nature, her species', her human beings and groups.
What an enlightenment and new hope that was!
~
Idea 2101 ~
The
same way as my compatriot Robert Schuman's prayer to God to obtain
the creation of a European Union was fulfilled, I pray God to help us
obtain the creation of a Union of all states of the world. The
following historic decision could do it:
"The heads of states of the peoples' of the world, assembled in the Year 2000 United Nations General Assembly, inspired by the great precedents of the United States of America and of the European Union, request the Secretary General of the UN to prepare proposals for the creation of a Union of all States of the World to be submitted to us meeting again in the General Assembly at the heads of states level in the year 2002. That Assembly shall remain in session until the draft statutes of a Union of all States of the World (USW) are ready for submission to our peoples. "So help us God."
This might be the most important of all my 3000 ideas, dreams and proposals.
~
Idea 2102 ~
The
questions of philanthropy and gaiaphily (love for people and love for
the Earth) should become major items on the agenda of world affairs.
I repeat my recommendation that the United Nations should publish
yearly world statistics, both national and international, on these
subjects. I am sure that such statistics would reveal that
international private philanthropy is bigger than governmental
aid.
~
Idea 2103 ~
Humans
have developed an endless imagination to change the Earth and nature
for our benefit and not yet any real concern to preserve the Earth
and her nature for our benefit. If this relation is not rapidly
reversed it might mean the end of our and of all evolution on this
planet.
~
Idea 2104 ~
If
in the future outer space beings discover our Earth and undertake
research why life disappeared on it, they will discover that it could
have been avoided if the views and recommendations of a strengthened
UN and of its visionaries had been adopted and
implemented.
If they find a successful planet with a healthy, happy, peaceful humanity living in harmony with the Earth, the past, the present and the future they will discover that it was primarily thanks to the United Nations.
~
Idea 2105 ~
We
might not even care any longer whether NATO, SEATO or a UN World
Security System should ensure the security of the world. Why? Because
the United States and its wealth, power, armaments, militaries and
endless so called economic 'progress' are now likely to lead us to
the end of the world. The US is now the new Roman Empire likely to
ruin the Earth and put an end to its evolution.
~
Idea 2106 ~
Only
a world movement for a drastic reduction of purchases and consumption
of unnecessary products and services will be able to save the Earth,
added to a much more rapid world population containment.
~
Idea 2107 ~
Communism
was unable to defeat capitalism. Consumerism will.
~
Idea 2108 ~
On
a road in the United States I saw a sign: End of
Construction.
Placing myself in the position of the Earth the opposite sign came to my mind: End of Destruction.
~
Idea 2109 ~
The
poor countries of the world should:
1.
stop very rapidly their population
increase
2.
stop imitating the western countries
The rich countries should:
1.
stop their overproduction
2.
stop their overconsumption
3.
stop their Earth destruction
4.
stop their frantic, wild marketing and advertisement at home and
abroad
5.
stop re-atomizing planet Earth
~
Idea 2110 ~
During
my youth I heard the slogan:
Deutchland über Alles (Germany above everything).
During my adulthood I heard the slogan:
US über Alles (USA above everything).
At long last I now hear:
Planet Earth and humanity über Alles.
~
Idea 2111 ~
Buddha
in his cosmology held that man would never be able to leave our small
solar system. Whenever U Thant was visited by astronauts or
astrophysicists, he asked them whether Buddha was right and they
always agreed: the star closest to us, Proxima Centauri, is 24
trillion miles away from Earth and at the present maximum speed of
Apollo (25,400 miles per hour), it would take many centuries for a
spaceship to reach it. In order to realize how small we are in the
universe, we must remember that there are billions of galaxies, each
consisting of trillions of stars and suns, burning or extinguished,
with their barren non-life-supporting planets. The farthest galaxies
now visible with giant telescopes are about five billion light-years
away! The largest of the visible specks in Berenice's Hair is
believed to be a giant galaxy of a trillion stars, ten times bigger
than our Milky Way - in which Proxima Centauri is our closest
neighbor!
I wrote this more than twenty years ago. Today the US launches space vehicles like Cassini, fueled with plutonium, which return to the Earth' atmosphere to whirl around it to accelerate their speed of 45,000 miles per hour and go farther into the universe. If an accident should occurred to them during that whirling millions of humans would die!
My view is this:
We need urgently more poverty explorations and Earth saving explorations than space explorations.
A proper Earth government would decree that all costly space explorations be stopped until our urgent human and environmental problems are resolved on Earth.
We should be more concerned and devote more resources to how life might vanish from Earth than why it disappeared from Mars.
~
Idea 2112 ~
Humans
can do wonders if they are inspired or determined to do
so.
Here is an example: When I visited for the first time the land donated by Costa Rica to the United Nations to create on it a University for Peace, I saw such a wild jungle in the hills inhabited by a few very poor people that I exclaimed: we must have our heads examined to consider building a university in such a wild, forlorn place without an access road, electricity and a water system.
Today when I see the beauty, the paradise, the garden of Eden made of this area, I can hardly believe it. It shows what humans can do when they are determined to live in full harmony with nature and to create highest beauty.
We should do the same everywhere on Earth.
~
Idea 2113 ~
People
who migrated from the land to big cities should not brag about it and
induce their families and friends from home to follow their example.
They should tell them about the hard life and troubles in those
cities and say that life on the land is much better.
~
Idea 2114 ~
At
the end of each air trip the passengers should be informed of the
quantity of carbon dioxide emitted by the airplane into the
atmosphere. The International Civil Aviation Organization should
decree and implement that rule.
~
Idea 2115 ~
We
should thank God for countries like Guatemala which has still vast
surfaces of untouched forests and not call them underdeveloped. We
should call the western countries wrongly developed, half-destroyed
countries and countries like Guatemala natural, undestroyed
countries. Their people should be asked to stay on the land and be
given by the rich countries subsidies to do so. It would be in the
interest of the Earth and of everybody.
~
Idea 2116 ~
I
propose a World Marshall Plan to save the Earth. Stay-on-the-Land
help and subsidies should be an important part of it.
~
Idea 2117 ~
We
might be coming to the end of the scientific age. Science and
scientists have become too complicated. They are lost in their
theories. No clarity emerges from their research anymore. They
complicate the world, use excessive resources, teach too many
students and cost the world too much money. Science should confess
its limitations, review itself and better help the world's continued
evolution.
~
Idea 2118 ~
The
statement by a UK pilot in Idea 1986 should be amended. Arriving near
the Miami coast already miles away the Earth is covered by a blanket
of yellow, brown pollution. That is the model, successful United
States which seeks the admiration and emulation by the rest of the
world.
~
Idea 2119 ~
Heads
of big corporations which cause a good deal of pollution and
destruction of the Earth should not be allowed after their retirement
to go and live in unpolluted areas on sea shores or on mountain tops.
They should be compelled to stay in the places they
polluted.
~
Idea 2120 ~
I
am really astonished how heads of states are so little concerned with
their future reputation, with the mark they will leave on history,
even their fame. They believe that to have become a head of state is
the top. It is no longer so when there are 189 nation states. You can
become famous only if you did or proposed something that changed the
world for the better. The world stage is the biggest stage, no longer
the national one, not even that of the biggest countries.
~
Idea 2121 ~
Perhaps
it is not even overpopulation and overconsumption which are the
culprits of the destruction of the Earth. The real culprits are big
corporations and business. At least they should be added to the first
two.
~
Idea 2122 ~
The
whole western gift habit should be reviewed in favor of nature
conserving and embellishing gifts: flowers with roots instead of cut
flowers, seeds and bulbs, little fruit trees to be planted by
children, books on nature preservation, membership in environmental
movements or clubs, peace toys. Avoid violence toys, horror books and
unnecessary objects which required Earth resources to be made.
World-wide this could have a substantial effect.
~
Idea 2123 ~
For
the cost of two fighter aircraft, (45 million dollars), we could
install 300,000 hand pumps and give access to poor people to safe
drinking water in third world countries.
~
Idea 2124 ~
Nature
and humans are the true capital of planet Earth, not money, not stock
markets, not bank accounts. If we do not change our values the Earth
and humanity are doomed.
~
Idea 2125 ~
For
each year and decade of the 3rd millennium we should
establish:
inventories
of achievements
inventories
of hope
inventories
of errors
inventories
of injustices
inventories
of wrong beliefs
inventories
of wrong-doings
~
Idea 2126 ~
In
the Hudson Valley, near New York City there are a good dozen big,
solid, brick built abandoned business buildings along the railroad
track. Why doesn't the US Government or New York state transform them
into low cost homes or homes for the homeless!
~
Idea 2127 ~
Each
of us is a cosmic unit which can grasp the incredible divine meaning
of life and of the miraculous planet on which we live. We need to
seek harmony with the heavens and with our beautiful Earth. We need
to obey the laws of the cosmos. The messages from the universe given
to us by heavenly messengers like Jesus, Mohammed, the Buddha and
others should be heard.
~
Idea 2128 ~
The
Earth:
"Dear
Robert, I cherish and admire your efforts but to tell you the truth I
often wish that the human species, the most intelligent one I have
produced, would vanish from this planet, permitting innumerable other
species to continue to live and to develop."
I:
This
is what my daughter, an ocean biologist often says to me, "Don't
worry Dad, the earlier the human species will disappear from this
planet the better it will be for all other life forms and for
evolution."
That is the conclusion she has drawn from seeing the destruction by humans of life in the seas and oceans.
~
Idea 2129 ~
The
accumulation of wrongnesses on this planet is so much bigger than
goodnesses that it seems almost impossible for humanity to
succeed.
No government on Earth wants to recognize this. It is business as usual which means power, business, national prestige and sovereignty while an entirely new factor has come up in our destiny, namely the fate of the entire Earth.
How to cope with this? How to create a new political and life order on this planet? That is the crucial, overwhelming challenge facing us in the 21st century. We must do it or perish.
~
Idea 2130 ~
If
there existed no cigarettes on this planet it would not occur to
anyone to smoke. Millions of premature deaths, incredible sufferings
and huge sums of health care money would be saved. Human longevity
would be prolonged. The soil needed for tobacco production would be
used for food production. So why not prohibit the production of
cigarettes on this planet? Do we not prohibit already the production,
smuggling and sale of narcotic drugs?
~
Idea 2131 ~
In
the elevator of an apartment building in New York I saw a sign, No
Smoking, under which someone wrote: anywhere in the world. I
congratulate the unknown person who wrote it. More people should
imitate that person. It would be a new form of democracy, a health
democracy. Why not launch a people's advertising movement for what is
good and against what is bad for humans and for the Earth.
~
Idea 2132 ~
It
is with alcohol as it is with cigarettes. If no beer, wines and
alcoholic liquids existed on this planet it would not occur to anyone
to drink. The benefits would be even greater than those from
non-smoking considering the accidents, violence and miseries caused
by alcohol.
Alcohol is a drug, so why not prohibit it and use the released land for the production of food? Why not follow the laws of the Muslim countries where the production, transport, advertisement, sale and consuming of alcohol are prohibited? The word alcohol comes from the Arabic, Al kohol which means the devil. Please remember it.
~
Idea 2133 ~
On
a new fruit juice bottle advertised as a real fruit juice I had the
curiosity to read the minuscule text of the ingredients as required
by law. I read that it contained thirteen percent real fruit juice
and the rest was water, cane sugar and various chemicals. How
wonderful it is to live in Costa Rica where when you ask for a fruit
juice you will get the choice between several of them all squeezed
out in front of you from fruits. Unfortunately these are diminishing
too, soon to be wiped out by the advertisement and marketing of Coca
Cola and other 'soft drink' manufacturers. I recommend that the label
'soft drink' should no longer be allowed and that all these beverages
should be labeled artificial, unnatural.
~
Idea 2134 ~
The
people who oppose any idea of world government have been very badly
defeated: now we have world government by multinational corporations
which have been given almost total world freedom to act as they want
and where they want and often have governments as their obedient
servants while governments should be the servants of the people, of
justice, of the downtrodden, of the helpless and more recently of
nature and of the Earth.
Moreover most corporations do not give a damn about the Earth and its nature which have become priority number one of our survival.
When I wrote to a multi-millionaire that he and his kind were destroying the Earth he answered, "Well the Earth and our solar system will explode anyway in a few million years into the universe so we might as well have fun making money in the meantime."
We need very urgently a proper Earth government in order to control these non-elected masters of the world chosen and kept in power by people who have money to buy shares in stock markets and by banks.
~
Idea 2135 ~
There
is an absolute, urgent need for a World Public Opinion Agency which
must be a public inter-governmental agency not a private one. It
would be a key instrument to stop the decline of democracy in the
world.
~
Idea 2136 ~
There
is an absolute, urgent need to hold a world conference on
overconsumption in the rich countries and underconsumption in the
poor countries.
The Secretary General of the United Nations should create a department or office on consumption. World statistics are as much needed in this field as they are on economic development and population. The concepts of gross and net national consumption and world Earth consumption should be urgently introduced by the United Nations.
~
Idea 2137 ~
When
I called an ecologist today I asked him, "How are you?" He answered,
"I am fine, but every hour the Earth is getting worse." What a sad
comment.
~
Idea 2138 ~
After
its tribal age,
After its national age,
After its global age, humanity is now entering its next most evolutionary age,
the cosmic age.
The first manifestations are:
- the worries of humans for the fate of nature, of all life forms on Earth and for the Earth herself.
- the birth of a Natural Law Party in many countries (100 in October 1999) which recommends a government of the Earth according to the laws of nature. And since nature, humans and all life forms and the Earth herself are solid or flowing forms of cosmic energy, it is now natural that the further evolution of this planet should be the main concern of humanity.
What an incredible new age of human history we are entering!
~
Idea 2139 ~
After
the recent birth of global education still sparsely implemented
around the world we must now give our children a cosmic evolutionary
education as most religions have done already for a long
time.
~
Idea 2140 ~
The
day might come when all humans on Earth will be businessmen and
businesswomen. The cars, the trains, the airplanes, the skyscrapers,
the hotels will be filled with them. Everyone will be busy being a
business person, each others customer. Then there will be no
unemployment. Everybody will be busy except nature and the Earth
which will be destroyed bringing in the wake the end of the human
race.
~
Idea 2141 ~
When
one sees the admirable, historic cultural work done by UNESCO on
world art such as the saving of the Abu Simbel Monuments one remains
really flabbergasted that a great country like the United States is
the only country on Earth that has walked out of that organization.
The United Kingdom, out of friendship with the United States, walked
out of it too, but returned to it soon thereafter. The United States
art museums, art associations, foundations of art and art loving
people should make the United States Government ashamed of
itself.
There might of course, be an advantage in the absence of the United States Government from UNESCO. Quite a number of people say that UNESCO functions much better since the US has left it. Perhaps the same would be true of the United Nations.
~
Idea 2142 ~
In
US airplanes they announce that under federal law it is prohibited to
smoke. I wonder if there will ever be a time when the announcement
will be in the name of a world law. There are millions and millions
of national and local laws on planet Earth but not a single world law
at the crucial time when the whole Earth and humanity are at stake.
Outer space visitors to planet Earth would be totally aghast to learn
that!
Thank God we could tell them that there are now European laws which apply to all fifteen borderless nations of western Europe. My compatriot, Robert Schuman has succeeded doing that for Europe. My generation has not yet succeeded doing it for the world. Hopefully it will come. We are waiting for the Robert Schuman of the world.
~
Idea 2143 ~
The
Secretary General of the United Nations should submit to the Heads of
States UN General Assembly 2000 well worked out proposals for an
intelligent, rational, inspirational and evolutionary world political
system for the proper government of planet Earth and humanity and
they should work on it. If not, he and they will leave no mark on
human history.
~
Idea 2144 ~
During
a conference on Teilhard de Chardin's views of the future of
humankind and the Earth at the famous World War II Memorial of the
city of Caen, Normandy, France I made the following proposals to the
mayor and to the president of the Memorial:
1. that the name of Teilhard de Chardin should be added to the roster of great world philosophers and peacemakers engraved on the wall of the Memorial.
The
idea was implemented.
2.
to invite the Secretary General of the United Nations to visit the
Memorial on the occasion of one of his visits to Europe. The mayor
and president of the memorial will send to him an
invitation.
3. to invite all Nobel Peace Prize winners to the Memorial where there is a Nobel Peace Prize Gallery and express their views, recommendations and ideas for a peaceful world in the 21st century, to be submitted to the United Nations General Assembly 2000 at the Heads of State Level.
4. to create a world association of war and peace memorials around the world such as the Verdun Memorial, the Wall of Berlin Memorial, the Hiroshima Memorial and others, to draw lessons from past wars and help build a warless, peaceful, non-violent world. The association should be accredited to the United Nations and help the UN in its peace efforts as well as those of the UN University for Peace in Costa Rica.
~
Idea 2145 ~
It
is such a marvelous feeling to travel in French trains, the best in
the world, devoid of all advertisements. This example should be
followed by all other public transportation means in the world and on
all public roads and lands.
~
Idea 2146 ~
In
France two families have introduced lawsuits against the national
cigarettes and tobacco manufacturing company. They thus follow in the
footsteps of the American government which is waging lawsuits against
private cigarette companies because its public health system has to
pay for the treatment of cancers produced by smoking.
I suggest that families should also introduce lawsuits against governments which allow advertisements of smoking and alcoholic drinks in order to derive revenues from such products and advertisements. This should be considered totally immoral and contrary to public health interests.
~
Idea 2147 ~
I
recommend that a country like Costa Rica should wage a national
campaign for the consumption of natural fruit juices and against
artificial carbonated drinks. Costa Rica should also have a
systematic policy of exports of natural fruit juices in order to
derive income from such exports and help local producers of its large
variety of wonderful fruits to survive and not be forced to abandon
such cultivation as had a neighbor of ours.
~
Idea 2148 ~
Advertisement
is a one-way programmed communication from business and big
corporations to which the people cannot respond. It is a new form of
domination of the rich over the poor. I recommend that governments
urgently look into this problem and come up with proper legislation.
A World Conference on Advertisement and the Media should be urgently
held. I cannot repeat it enough. Please dear people, request it from
your legislators.
~
Idea 2149 ~
It
is good that France is following the example of Italy and is
determined to put an end to obligatory military service. It wants to
build a professional army by the year 2000. In the meantime any young
people who have a labor or employment contract for at least six
months are exempted from military service.
The United Nations should publish a yearly report on the status of military service and its progressive elimination from the world. What a beautiful progress of humanity this would be. Such a progress report should be submitted to the United Nations General Assembly 2000 at the Heads of States Level.
~
Idea 2150 ~
The
European countries should move out of NATO and create a common
European security system of their own. They should return to the
proposals to create a European army by Robert Schuman and Winston
Churchill when they met in Paris in 1951. Where are the Robert
Schumans and Winston Churchills of today?
~
Idea 2151 ~
In discussions on the evolution of human life on planet Earth there is a lot of talk about 'polar couples', of husbands and wives, of males and females being 'poles of Earth evolution'. I would prefer the words 'cosmic couples', a concept already coined by the Mayan cosmologists and adopted by me and my wife (see Idea 759 in Vol. II). One could speak of cosmic couples as poles of Earth evolution.
~
Idea 2152 ~
I
consider it a major historical irresponsibility to let this century
pass without convening the United Nations Security Council's Military
Staff Committee at the Chiefs of Armies level, an organ created by
the UN Charter to design a common world security system and after
that disarm the world. Even if it should not succeed, it is a sacred
obligation of the Security Council toward the world's people to
convene it. If I were the UN Secretary General I would request it
most emphatically from the Security Council and if not accepted I
would submit my resignation.
~
Idea 2153 ~
The
UN should proclaim the year 2000 World Anti-nuclear Missiles Year.
Announcements of the reduction of nuclear missiles should be made
solemnly by nuclear powers during that year and televised world-wide
from the United Nations. A large map of nuclear missiles in the world
and their progressive elimination should be displayed at the United
Nations on the pathway of delegates and visitors. Ted Turner should
give a prize to the country that destroys most of them.
~
Idea 2154 ~
In
any enclosed place where a number of people gather for a duration of
time, for example movie houses, restaurants, gambling places,
conference halls, theaters, airplanes, etc. the law should require
that architects calculate the volume of oxygen needed by the people,
the carbon dioxide emitted by their lungs and make sure that a
necessary ventilation system exists for proper respiration by all.
The certificate that this has been done should be displayed by law in
all these places. There are already a number of them in the world who
do it, but there should be many more. It is a means to increase the
health, welfare and longevity of people.
~
Idea 2155 ~
The
greatest support to internationalism will be 'internetism'. To my
poem Decide to Network I must now add another, Decide to
Internetwork.
~
Idea 2156 ~
When
most people and institutions have become money crazy the word
democracy should be replaced by moneycracy (moneycrazy?) or
plutocracy from the Latin god Pluto, the god of wealth.
~
Idea 2157 ~
In
the last two or three decades we had nine World Commissions of
Eminent Personalities usually headed by a current or former head of
state and dealing with major world subjects. These commissions
complement and often outdistance usefully the work of the United
Nations. The list of these commissions contained in Idea 500 of my
2000 Ideas is reproduced below. I have proposed myself several more
world commissions (see item World Commissions in Volume V, the Index
of the first 2000 Ideas).
I think it would be very useful if these heads of states and personalities would create a common world office to follow the fate of their recommendations, to republish their reports when they are out of print, to look for ways to have their recommendations implemented, to plan reconvenings and to get more world commissions created on vital global human issues.
A summary of all the concrete proposals made by these commissions would be a remarkable, very useful document for the UN General Assembly at the Heads of States Level in fall of 2000, more eminent and useful than these personal ideas of mine.
List of World Commissions of Eminent Personalities held in recent years:
The World Commission on North-South Relations headed by former Chancellor Willy Brandt of Germany,
The World Commission on Disarmament headed by Mr. Olof Palme, former Prime Minister of Sweden.
The World Commission on the Environment headed by Mrs. Gro Harlan Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway.
The World Commission on Global Governance, headed by Mr. Ingvàr Carlsson, former Prime Minister of Sweden.
The World Commission on Funding of the United Nations, headed by Ms. Hazel Henderson, US economist,
The World Commission on Population and the Quality of Life, headed by Mrs. Maria de Lourdes Pintalsigo, former Prime Minister of Portugal,
The World Commission on Art and Culture, headed by former UN Secretary General Javier Pérez de Cuellar,
The World Commission on Education in the 21st century, headed by Jacques Delors, former President of the European Economic Community,
The World Commission on the Oceans, headed by Mario Soares, Prime Minister of Portugal.
The recently created World Commission on Consciousness and Spirituality co-chaired by Dr. Karan Singh (India), and Robert Muller (France).
~
Idea 2158 ~
Similarly,
there are several former heads of states who individually or in
groups mediate conflicts behind the scenes or launch new ideas, for
example the InterAction Council of 27 former heads of states headed
by Dr. Helmut Schmidt, former Chancellor of the Federal Republic of
Germany, which drafted a remarkable Universal Declaration of Human
Responsibilities.
Why not create a common office for former heads of states similar to the one proposed for the World Commissions of Eminent Personalities?
Again, it would be very remarkable if former heads of states individually or in groups could submit their concrete proposals and ideas to the General Assembly 2000 of the UN at the heads of states level which is "to focus on means of solving our global problems and to reform the means of global governance in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century" (resolution of the 1998 UN General Assembly).
~
Idea 2159 ~
And
why not consider several similar common offices for former Ministers
of Foreign Affairs and any other former Ministers? The world would be
greatly enriched by their exchanges of visions, experience, ideas,
contributions and by their friendships.
~
Idea 2160 ~
I
have suggested to the President of the United Nations Correspondents
Association (UNCA) to ask all retired and active UN journalists and
press correspondents to write down their ideas concerning a better UN
and a better 21st century and 3rd millennium. I am sure that many of
them have ideas which are dear to them. The answers received could be
submitted to the Secretary General of the UN, to the heads of states
of the General Assembly 2000 and to the Peoples' Assembly 2000. Given
the importance of the press, especially the international press, in
world affairs and with the Permanent Missions to the UN, it is quite
possible that at least some if not many good suggestions submitted
might be implemented and have a deep influence on the future of the
world.
~
Idea 2161 ~
The US better wake up and begin to think what kind of Earth government or world federal system they want and discuss it with other nations. If not, I predict that they will wake up some day with a new world government system developed progressively by the European Union behind their back. Remember my words. It will be the same situation as when the United States never believed that the European Union would be created and would succeed.
~
Idea 2162 ~
I
repeat that it is absolutely essential and urgent to create a World
Public Opinion Agency of the United Nations to give world democracy a
real chance by ascertaining the views and wishes of the people. Such
an agency would keep track of all public opinion polls in nations and
would organize world public opinion polls of its own on the global
issues besetting this planet.
~
Idea 2163 ~
I
would like to see the birth of people's movements against
advertisement. For example, how much more beautiful a railroad
station along the magnificent Hudson River would be if it did not
display often ugly, stupid advertisements which are real insults to
God's nature and to human intelligence. To the law of freedom of
enterprise we must oppose the law of the people's opinions, good
taste and true democracy.
~
Idea 2164 ~
A
new idea is the Miami's TOP, Tourist Oriented Police, a police
helping the tourists. Why not also a PHP, a Peoples' Helping Police,
an EHP, an Elderly Helping Police, a CHP, a Children's Helping
Police, a YHP, a Youth Helping Police? Why not transform all the
polices of the world into Peace Loving and Protecting Agencies or
Services?
~
Idea 2165 ~
Love?
You want a definition of love?
Just look at a mother and her child.
Regarding Mother Earth, she loves us as her children, but we have not yet learned to love her as our mother. It must come. It will come. It is written all over the Earth.
~
Idea 2166 ~
Do
not watch TV. Do not listen to noisy radio programs. Do not read
newspapers and magazines. They are almost irrelevant and have only
superficial coverage of the main trends and needs of humanity and of
the Earth. Read instead magazines of World Peoples' Associations, the
so called Non-governmental Organizations. There you will find the
real conditions, needs and ideas to obtain a better world. Listen
only to the International Radio of Peace of the United Nations
University for Peace and you will get an astonishing daily briefing
on the deeper conditions, preoccupations and hopes of our world and
of innumerable citizen's efforts. You will be recompensed with untold
happiness instead of the frustrations, pessimism and depressions
created by national TV, radio, newspapers and magazines. None of them
has implemented my Framework for World Media Coverage published in
Volume I, page 59.
~
Idea 2167 ~
The
time will soon come when plain, drinkable water will be sold with the
indication of the year. Stores will offer assortments of water from
the French Alps or other mountains in the world of a given year
accompanied by advertisements regarding purity and health
factors.
And God in heaven will shake once more his head at what humans are doing on Earth.
The day will also come when government will prohibit cows because they drink too much water when more city dwellers need more of it for toilet uses, washing machines, etc.
~
Idea 2168 ~
When
John McDonnell, the President of McDonnell Douglas Aircraft died, he
requested that I should be the first speaker in his memorial
lectures. If he were alive today he would request it again, I am
sure.
Years ago, in a speech to the US Caterpillar Company, I recommended that they should slow down the production of earth-moving equipment. They would be making enough profit anyway with the normal progressive development in the world. They should not advertise the sale of this equipment.
I note with satisfaction, many years later, that I have never seen an advertisement by Caterpillar even on locations where there are new constructions and the need for much earth-moving equipment. I am sure that the Earth must rejoice at such restraint contrary to what most businesses do around the world.
~
Idea 2169 ~
How
can humans with insufficient global education give the right
leadership to government, business, news, TV programs, education and
today's humanity? They cannot. They are unprepared for it. This is
why we have the current confusion in this world. Humans would be
better, more hopeful, more inspired, more exalted about life if they
received the right global education on this planet, the one I propose
in my World Core Curriculum (see the table of its program in Volume
I) used only in thirty-four of the millions of schools in the
world.
~
Idea 2170 ~
I
pray that a great university will re-think from scratch the
twenty-one major human segments listed in Ideas 527 to 547. Indeed
ideas and proposals for a new political world order, for a new
economics, for a new social order, for a new education, for a new
world spirituality etc. are scattered all over the world in numerous
institutions, associations, thinkers and books. Since time is of the
essence it would be of utmost benefit to humanity and to the Earth if
a concentrated, coordinated effort were made to re-think
fundamentally our human and Earth administration.
~
Idea 2171 ~
There
is much debate these days about the phenomenon of globalism:
globalism of business, of US power, of the media, of marketing, of
advertisement, etc. But the most urgent globalism of all is being
ignored: the need for a proper global government and administration
of the Earth and of the human society. For the sake of the Earth, the
well-being and justice of all humans, and the fate of future
generations this crucial problem must receive first, absolute
priority.
~
Idea 2172 ~
There
are growing criticisms against globalism. Rightly so because business
globalism, the most gigantic one, fostered by rich countries which
have an enormous advance in science, technology, patents and capital
accumulations, etc. started its conquest and domination of the world
with a global materialistic culture, consumption promotion,
marketing, advertising, literature and media. As a result globalism
has essentially become business globalism, business gigantism
fostered by US and rich countries' world expansionism and
power.
There are other globalisms which should have precedence: global institutions like the UN, spiritual globalism of all religions, ecological globalism, great world engineering and public service projects, etc. This is now powerfully coming to the fore thanks be to God.
~
Idea 2173 ~
I
think I am one of the few persons on Earth who thinks and worries day
and night about the future of the world and humanity. I am well
prepared to do it by my many years in the United Nations exclusive of
any other service such as national and business service. There should
be many more people like me in the world. I am alone for each 100,000
inhabitants of the world, while there are 85 doctors and 556
militaries.
~
Idea 2174 ~
One
great avenue for capitalism to survive would be to propose and obtain
the creation of a United Earth Government with a World Stock Exchange
in which all peoples of the world could participate and invest for
the good of humanity and of the Earth.
~
Idea 2175 ~
There
is need for much more scientific and academic work on the concept,
problem and practice of cooperation. For example, in a meeting or
conference, hearing other people one has suddenly an idea or is
reminded of an idea one had forgotten. It should be a vast field of
study from cooperation between cells, and all organs of the human
body, to cooperation between big entities like nations and
corporations to cooperation between humanity and the Earth, and
humanity, the Earth and the heavens. What a wonderful era this would
open. It would give us the answers to most of our current
problems.
~
Idea 2176 ~
We
need more words dealing with the future. We have an infinity of words
dealing with the past and the present but not for the future. We have
futurology, the science of the future. That is fine. I would suggest
to introduce also the words 'futurism', 'futuration', to 'futurize'
i.e. to give a future input in what we are doing or planning today.
Many other words need to be coined for the most gigantic and longest
period of time evolving out of our past and present, namely the
future. How extraordinary, how exciting to be part of an infinite
universe and infinite stream of time!
~
Idea 2177 ~
More
money and intellectual resources are spent on the future of our solar
system, on the explosion of the sun in five billion years, on
possible collisions with asteroids, on the return of an ice age in
seventy thousand years than on the effects of current human behavior,
beliefs and values on the next one hundred years and third
millennium. As my son Francois, who works at the United Nations says,
"Humanity should get a triple D for its performance: dumb, disastrous
and dangerous. Instead it should try to earn a triple C: courageous,
creative and cooperative."
~
Idea 2178 ~
Whenever
I destroy something which has not been fully used
Whenever I buy something which is not absolutely necessary
I
hear the Earth cry.
~
Idea 2179 ~
The
building industry now destroys a lot of nature all around the world
to build luxury dwellings principally for rich people who want to
return to nature after having enriched themselves by destroying it.
It is just one more injustice to be denounced on this
planet.
~
Idea 2180 ~
It
is likely that when the Latinos and other immigrants to the United
States will be the majority of the US population then the legislators
elected by that majority will effect a redistribution of wealth in
the USA. It might be the first ever in human history.
~
Idea 2181 ~
Do
not admire the rich people. Most of them are evolutionary failures or
aberrations who have, through their work and lifestyles, damaged a
great deal of the Earth and increased human inequality. Pity them.
Try to help them by giving them good ideas and examples so that they
will be forgiven.
~
Idea 2182 ~
Which
will be the first airport on Earth which will rejoice at a decline of
its air traffic? It will happen some day. Perhaps sooner than we
think.
~
Idea 2183 ~
There
will come a day when people will first be advised and later compelled
to travel less and to buy less in order to save the Earth. People in
the western countries have already started to reduce the number of
their children. The western population will decline by forty million
inhabitants between now and the year 2050. Western people are also
beginning to live more simple and frugal lives (see Ideas 34 and 295
in Volume I). This trend is irresistible. The US will then launch a
vast Marshall Plan of financial aid to poor countries so that western
business will have new outlets and sales in these countries not
caring much about their destruction. But this too will have effects
on the Earth and the environment and restrictions will have to be
imposed there too sooner or later or most probably too
late.
~
Idea 2184 ~
Outer
space visitors to planet Earth would be happy to learn that we have
an International Maritime Organization (IMO) and an International
Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). But they would be astonished that
we do not have a World Road Transport Organization neither for other
means of transportation (railroads, canals, etc.). They would
ask:
"Why don't you have a comprehensive World Transport Organization which would include the IMCO and ICAO and cover all other forms of transportation? Would it not be more logical and world efficient?"
Yes, why, why, why? I would answer: "Why don't you ask this question to the heads of national governments who think they are so intelligent and efficient?"
~
Idea 2185 ~
Until
recently the 'progress' of humanity was not wrong but with
overpopulation and overconsumption it became destructive of the Earth
and from right it became wrong. If we continue on the same course and
make it world-wide as we are now doing it will mean the end of
evolution and of most life forms on Earth.
What species and vegetations will survive and will start a new process of evolution? We will not be alive to see it.
~
Idea 2186 ~
'Sustainable
economic development'? No.
Economic development in the poor countries and areas? Yes.
Earth-preserving, and only indispensable human development in the rich countries and rich areas? Yes.
~
Idea 2187 ~
For
each person working for a better environment and Earth there are at
least one thousand working often unknowingly for its destruction.
This is a basic, fundamental, built-in fault in the economic
capitalistic system which will be acknowledged only when the first
big crises will occur.
~
Idea 2188 ~
Why
don't governments give a credit card to each individual or family and
let them buy what they need up to a certain limit and pay the credit
card instead of the United States giving in one year five hundred
billion dollars to Japan to restore the banks, sixty billion dollars
to the International Monetary Fund to inject money into national
economies in trouble and twenty billion dollars overnight to South
Korea for their stock exchange? And then all these stock exchanges
and banks will lend that money again to industries to continue to
produce increasingly unnecessary products and investments, buildings,
roads and so on which destroy the Earth. Why does the money always go
in the same direction, to big benefiting intermediaries and not
directly to the people who need it? How wrong the world economic
"system" has become!
And how pitiful that a country considers itself great while disbursing almost overnight the colossal sum of 580 billion dollars to save stock exchanges and refuses to pay a mere yearly 1.3 billion dollars contribution to a second infant world organization in human history, the United Nations, after having killed the first one, namely the League of Nations.
~
Idea 2189 ~
It
is the constant injection of new money into society by governments
mainly the United States, directly or indirectly through the
International Monetary Fund, which keeps what is called the world
economy going but at the same time creates inflation as well as
ecological and Earth disaster.
Although I was trained as an economist at Columbia University I have not yet gone into the fundamental task of re-thinking the economic system of this planet because my first priority is the political system. I am glad that there are so many economists who send me books with their proposals for a reform of the world's economic system. All I can do is to indicate certain very fundamental wrongnesses and the absolute need to have a concerted world effort to review from scratch our planet's economic system. It is one of the twenty-one basic segments which require urgent, complete re-thinking as we enter the 21st century and 3rd millennium (Ideas 527 to 547).
~
Idea 2190 ~
Why
in Paris, New York and other capitals and big cities are the banks
always located in the most luxurious buildings which they mostly own?
Is that the way the money has to go and you have to plead with them,
give them all kinds of guarantees to get a loan and pay interest for
an apartment in an almost unlivable suburb high-rise, standardized,
soulless building and compete with millions of other people for a job
polluting the atmosphere? Is that a human economy? Is that a way of
life? Are not indigenous people in their forests and on their lakes
living better lives? Or is there not a possibility to find an
intermediary way of life where people do not lose the fundamental
happiness and peace of living in nature?
~
Idea 2191 ~
It
is interesting that President Clinton has announced that the United
States will no longer act when a stock exchange crisis appears in the
world. He doesn't want these crises to scare the public and therefore
has established a preventive system of giving all these billions of
dollars to stock exchanges on the eve of trouble so that the trouble
will not break out and appear in the press and scare the public. That
is the preventive system of 'free enterprise' capitalism! They might
prevent the collapse of capitalism, but not the collapse of the
Earth. One consolation is that the western population will diminish
by forty million until the year 2050, and a good part of the new US
population will be immigrants who, it is to be hoped, have more
common sense. Also more and more rich Americans are emigrating to
natural, still livable countries of the southern hemisphere, such as
Costa Rica. Perhaps this is how equilibrium will be
restored.
~
Idea 2192 ~
Flying
over the magnificent Rocky Mountains and then over disastrously
overpopulated, polluted Los Angeles I thought that the big building
companies, who for years have already planned the future abandonment
of big cities, must now have detailed plans for building human
settlements on those high mountains for people to move there and be
saved from deadly pollution. Mark my prophecy.
~
Idea 2193 ~
Governments
should close all stock exchanges and create national stock exchanges
or a new institution to receive the savings of the people and to
invest the money into businesses and projects which will not be Earth
destroying and detrimental to the well-being and health of the
population. The investment decisions should be guided by a national
Earth council of eminent, ethical personalities in each country and
at the world level by the UN Earth Council created by the Rio de
Janeiro Conference in Costa Rica.
~
Idea 2194 ~
All
Ministries of National Education in the world should be transformed
and renamed Ministries of Human Education. All systems of education
on this planet must be rethought from scratch as I have recommended
several times in these 3000 ideas. On that aspect of human activities
I have done my duty by recommending the World Core Curriculum
published in Volume I, page 18.
~
Idea 2195 ~
If
a taxpayer in any country of the world does not pay his due taxes by
a certain date he will have to pay a fine within another deadline and
if he still doesn't pay there will be a legal action against him.
Well, when it comes to the organization that is concerned with the
Earth's and the people's vast global problems, namely the United
Nations, a government is quite able not to pay for a number of years
without any penalties and if it still does not pay, all that
government will lose is its right to vote. Why is this rule not
applied also to people so that if they do not pay their taxes within
a certain deadline all they would lose is their right to vote? A
peoples' movement should be created to obtain that.
~
Idea 2196 ~
I
recommend that the celebration of the year 2000 should make a big
room to the visionaries, philosophers, prophets and leading minds of
this planet. The UN Secretary General should solicit their visions
and publish them in a major world report to all nations. Rare are
indeed the national leaders who have the time to think about the
long-term future of the Earth and humanity, absorbed as they are by
daily, immediate problems and national interests.
~
Idea 2197 ~
It
is such a tragedy to see the US Congress repeat toward the United
Nations almost the same error it committed after World War I by not
ratifying and joining the League of Nations: it opposes practically
all measures and effectiveness of the United Nations. With the
non-joining of the United States of the League of Nations we had as a
result Hitler and Mussolini who got away with their misdeeds for
quite a number of years leading to World War II. What will historians
write in fifty years on what happened to the world and humanity
because the United States began to disregard the United Nations and
took it upon itself to rule the world and intervene anywhere
according to its own interests? But this time there will be no
Hitlers, Mussolinis and communism to make the culprits. Who will be
labeled the new culprit? Probably the United Nations.
~
Idea 2198 ~
The
Earth:
"Dear
Robert, ecological movements might as well abandon the illusion that
they will be able to save me. They can only get some improvements
here and there, but globally for each ecologist there are thousands
of business people who will continue to seek profit, even at my
expense. It might be better for ecologists to give up so that
disaster can come sooner for it is only ecological disaster which
will move governments to act."
~
Idea 2199 ~
There
should be obligatory daily air pollutions information published in
all cities of the world. This should become a fundamental human right
of all city inhabitants. The world-wide recognition of that right
should be raised in the United Nations. Many rich people are quite
able to destroy nature with their business, industry, marketing and
advertisement but make sure to have a beautiful dwelling somewhere in
nature to enjoy fresh air. As a builder of New York skyscrapers once
said to me when I asked him why he was building such monstrosities,
"I'm not crazy. I do not live in New York. I commute every weekend
from my home in the suburbs of Madrid." Not all rich people and
businessmen do this of course, but it would be an interesting
statistics to know how many of them do. Why not publish statistics on
multiple dwellings of people and their locations?
~
Idea 2200 ~
When
business and money making are concerned everything is perfectly
organized in the western society, especially in the United States.
When the Earth and nature are concerned very little is decently
organized and this happens at the time in our evolution when the
Earth and nature have become priority number one of human
concerns.
When outer space beings someday will visit planet Earth they will wonder how the human species became extinct. Their research will reveal that humans invented money as a means of exchange. It did wonders for many centuries, but then it became the objective of life and it was the end of that species.
ANNEX
Rashmi
Mayur,
famous
Hindu peace activist
Rashmi Mayur and I have met many times and have been involved in many common efforts to bring about more peace, justice, well-being, happiness and spirituality on our miraculous planet Earth.
Thinking about his life and efforts, it occurred to me that he is the perfect example of a new kind of human being as well as of an old one.
A new kind of human being:
He
is what I would call a One-person World Organization by himself with
the following characteristics:
-
he creates his own vision, ideology and objectives of what needs to
be done on this planet, constantly revising his views from what he
learns;
-
he uses every capacity of his to get it done: meditation, thought,
speech, writing, preaching, inspiring, passionately elevating
everyone he meets or any audience he
addresses;
-
he uses every opportunity to get others to contribute: proposing and
attending conferences, creating thinking groups, new associations and
movements, being part of every effort by world institutions like the
United Nations and its specialized agencies and world programs, and
closely associating himself with many non-governmental
organizations;
-
he contributes as many articles as he can to books written by others
on world subjects and writing his own;
-
he is always ready for media interviews, radio and television
programs;
-
he writes innumerable letters to persons in high positions and
answers letters from the poorest and humblest
ones;
-
he has constantly new ideas, concerns and
dreams;
-
he leads a simple, frugal life to be in the best physical condition
to do his considerable work and live
longer;
-
he has no staff, no organization of his own, he is a one-man
operation;
-
he turns always to the heavens and God for help and
guidance.
A member of an old invisible nation of world servers:
"For generations an invisible nation of world servers has been slowly forming all over the planet, an invisible web of individuals who share distinctive traits and attitudes, the dominant one being a sense of service toward their neighbor, their community and the world at large. This self-constituting 'nation without any territory' is an expression of the progressive opening up of humanity to a more holistic and unified view of reality."
"One meets these people of goodwill all over the planet. They have existed since time immemorial. Although they have never heard of 'a serving nation' they belong to it by their spirit of disinterested service and by their way of life. They have pledged themselves to a certain quality of beingness and living. They have made a commitment to human rights, not always verbally, but by the integrity of their thoughts, actions and existence. They strive to 'walk their talk'."
These words are textually from a proposal to create a Serving Nation Without Territory, by a wonderful couple of such servers in Geneva, Switzerland, Elly and Pierre Pradervand. The idea was launched at The Hague Appeal for Peace Conference in May 1999. It is open to a public dialogue for one year and then meetings to elaborate further developments will be held at the NGO Millennium Forum in New York, end of May 2000, and in Geneva end of June of the same year.
I hope that Rashmi Mayur will join in this effort and be a major force in the recognition and growth of this vast invisible community of world servers.
I would like to conclude by making two proposals to him:
-
Write down all your specific ideas and dreams for a better world,
derived from your many years of action, observation and dreaming. I
am doing it in my Three Thousand Ideas and Dreams for a Better World.
It is a great rewarding experience and a potential path-breaking
contribution to a better world.
-
please place yourself in the shoes of a head of state who wants to
become a great world leader and describe in your words the world and
humanity you would like to see flourish in the next century and
millennium. It could be a great document for the UN General Assembly
of heads of states in the fall of 2000 whose task it will be "to
focus on means to solve our primary global problems and to reform the
means of global governance in order to meet the challenges of the
21st century."
I wish Rashmi Mayur a very long life in order to bless humanity and the Earth with many more good undertakings and actions on his part. I beg many people in the world to follow his inspiring example and to be like him.
Robert Muller
PART III
IDEAS 2201 TO 2300
INTRODUCTION
What One Idea Can Do
In
1996 during an airtrip over the US a stewardess had a chat with me.
She said that she had a very strong desire to do something for world
peace. During our talk an idea arose, the results of which are
reported in the following letter.
Airline
Ambassadors
Caring
and Sharing for
Each
Other and the Earth
19
March 1999
Dear Robert,
Thank you so much for your note of February 2 and the inspiring articles and comments you sent. Do you know you are one of the first individuals to inspire me with a vision of the travel industry playing a more fundamental role in building a better world - and really the "Grandfather of Airline Ambassadors"!
Since 1996 our accomplishments are as follows:
• Provided over 400 travel escorts for Third World disadvantaged orphans and children in need of medical life changing medical care.
• Coordinated the donation and delivery of over $3.7 million worth of humanitarian aid to disaster areas, orphanages and medical clinics in need.
• Assisted regularly at shelters for the homeless, schools for disadvantaged children and homes for battered women in 10 US cities.
• Presented or assisted at over 50 events or conferences focused on global issues including 14 United Nations' official meetings.
• Involved over 62,000 children in 54 countries in youth education projects and humanitarian outreach programs.
Flight attendants are just ordinary people. Our goal is to focus attention on the worldwide need for humanitarian aid. We want to inspire thousands of others with opportunities to volunteer their own skills in the alleviation of human suffering.
I opened my Executive Council meeting last week with a quote from the article you sent on a Global Peace Service. We also decided we would like to have some day our Executive Council Meeting in Costa Rica at the UN University for Peace! Is there a nearby place to stay and what would be the costs involved? Also, we would love for you and Barbara to be there and share with us the inspiration of your experience and breadth of vision and perspective.
Again Robert thank you so much for your note of encouragement. Congratulations on your new book - 2000 Ideas for Peace. I'm sure it will be an inspiration to thousands.
Love,
Light and a Big Hug,
Nancy
Rivard
Founder
and President
P.O.
Box 117321
Burlingame,
CA 94011-7321
~
Idea 2201 ~
Businesscism
has become the most sophisticated, good looking new empireship in
human history. If past emperors would resurrect they would exclaim:
"My God, they are doing it without being hated by the people who even
love them and they do it world-wide without any resistance. We were
children compared to them."
~
Idea 2202 ~
Of late I have observed that animals like dogs and cats and our cows in Costa Rica have a deep sense of love for me which was not the case in the past. I think I have found the explanation: they feel that I have come closer to them as one animal in direct relation with other animals and nature. Their eyes and mine reflect it all. They are eyes smiling at each other. The same must become true of all humanity's relations with each other and with nature. Love for nature will be returned to us by her love. And both humans and nature will be happy. Women have always known that. Love must become the main factor of human civilization.
~
Idea 2203 ~
I
will never understand why there was not a single country of NATO
which had the courage to leave NATO after the cold war was over and
even less that not a single country had the courage to refuse
participating in the NATO military actions in Yugoslavia. Did not any
of these countries know that this was a vast strategy and occasion
for the United States to prevent a European Union cohesion like that
of their own states, to prevent the creation of a European army and
that now the US is co-ruling Europe militarily? No, I will never
understand it. The Pentagon is still strategist number one in the
world. Question: Would the US accept an intervention of NATO on
American territory?
~
Idea 2204 ~
Philanthropy
(love for humankind) and gaiaphily (love for Gaia, the Earth) should
start at the very beginning. You do not rob people and destroy nature
to get rich and then you give a little or a lot of philanthropy back
to look better. Philanthropy and gaiaphily are daily human duties.
They both must start right away at the personal level and throughout
our life.
~
Idea 2205 ~
At
a meeting of the personnel of the UN Earth Council at the UN
University for Peace and the visit of the Ambassadors of Ecuador and
Peru who deposited a border peace agreement between the two countries
it was announced that Costa Rica might propose to the United Nations
the creation of Green Helmets to help defend and protect the
environment. Bravo! They would be a welcome addition to the UN's Blue
Helmets of peacekeeping services and White Helmets helping in the
case of natural disasters.
~
Idea 2206 ~
Several
years ago already, Mr. Federico Mayor, Director General of UNESCO, at
a conference on water, recommended that there should be a water
ethics. How right he was! Humanity should adopt at the United Nations
a whole series, a true World Code of Earth Ethics
including
water
ethics
air
ethics
forestry
ethics
vegetation
ethics
animal
species ethics
river
ethics
mountain
ethics
soil
ethics
etc.
~
Idea 2207 ~
Note
to the Captain of an American Airlines from Chicago to
Seattle
Dear Captain,
We greatly enjoyed this flight without television. We could think, be ourselves, dream, make a balance sheet of our lives, write down ideas and plans for our future and for a peaceful, happier, better world.
Airplanes can be the monasteries of modern times. High up in the skies one can better see and judge our Earth and one is closer to God. Thank you for making this possible.
I am glad that years ago, at the United Nations, I was able to obtain an international convention against airplane highjacking.
We wish you and your family a great, happy life.
Robert Muller and Barbara Gaughen Muller
~
Idea 2208 ~
If
the US government does not redirect the plutonium-loaded Cassini
space vehicle into the sun and if an accident should occur during its
orbiting around the Earth at a speed of 46,000 miles an hour, all
nations afflicted by millions of cases of cancer and destructions up
to billions of dollars, should indict the United States before the
International Court of Justice and request for reparations far beyond
the total reparations of 100 million dollars foreseen in the
Price-Anderson Act. Many nations should consider severing their
diplomatic relations with the United States, which should be declared
an irresponsible country by the United Nations.
~
Idea 2209 ~
In
November 1863 Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United
States delivered the now famous Gettysburg Address. One newspaper
called it at the time, "silly, flat and dishwatery
utterances".
I hope and pray that in September 2000 at the opening of the UN General Assembly of heads of state Mr. Kofi Annan, the seventh Secretary General of the United Nations will deliver an address which will be remembered by the whole world with the same fame and fondness as is the Gettysburg Address by the American people.
As we enter a new century and millennium we need a new world order and thinking. As Einstein said, "we shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. We cannot solve a problem with the same kind of thinking that gave rise to the problem." And as the famous French revolutionary Mirabeau proclaimed at the time: "De l'audace, de l'audace et encore de l'audace." "Audacity, audacity, and still more audacity."
~
Idea 2210 ~
Competition
as a main rule of life must be replaced by cooperation to preserve
the precious air, waters, vegetation and other natural resources
which are the fundamental elements of our life. Those are the supreme
values, not the commercial values advertised by an obsolete,
condemned, non-natural capitalism.
~
Idea 2211 ~
The
capitals and offices of the heads of states of all countries should
be moved to mountains, sea shores or other places of beautiful, pure
nature so that our leaders can remain sane and be inspired by the
laws of nature and the common sense of the inhabitants of these
regions. A popular wisdom states it: in nature one is closest to
God.
The same transfer should be considered for the United Nations and its 32 specialized agencies and world programs, all located in capitals or big cities.
Thank God the UN University for Peace and the Earth Council are located in a paradise of nature in a peaceful, demilitarized country.
~
Idea 2212 ~
As
a result of the globalization, gigantism, immense money power of
business corporations, marketing and advertisement firms uncontrolled
by national governments, I recommend the multiplication, spread and
mushrooming of World Peoples' Movements, associations and
non-governmental organizations.
A first WPM which comes to my mind is a World Peoples' Movement Against Soft Drinks which increasingly monopolize drinking water, produce unhealthy drinks, create incredible wastes of plastic bottles and metal cans, displace local natural fruit juices and fruit production both in poor and in rich countries, charge outrageous prices and become more powerful than many governments. Visitors from outer space would consider this totally incomprehensible.
The second is a WPM Against Improper Advertisements of cigarettes, smoking and alcoholic beverages. The WPMs and non-governmental organizations should request the creation, in all governments, of a Ministries of Proper Ethical Marketing and Customer Information.
~
Idea 2213 ~
It
is not only with wars that people are disgusted. It is also with the
crass business injustices and doings permitted by governments which
no longer govern to help the poor and helpless but have become the
servants of big business. It is this that creates violence in so many
forms. They are also disgusted with the destruction of nature, of the
Earth by big business. This is why in big countries, the militaries
and the media are so happy with the Kosovo affair because any ethnic,
or religious troubles in the world divert the attention of the people
from their own miseries and injustices. This is also why there is
such intensive reporting in the western world media of any ethnic and
religious troubles in the world.
The alliance between giant business, governments and the militaries has become a big curse for the Earth and might lead to her demise. That is the biggest, most preoccupying, worst globalization we witness these days on this planet.
~
Idea 2214 ~
The
words non-governmental organizations should be abandoned. They
reflect a subordinate, lower level of institutions, governments being
higher to them.
I would propose the words Peoples' Associations and World Peoples' Movements (WPMs). They should create a United Peoples' Organization parallel to the United Nations, have a world Secretariat and a Secretary General. It is only with the menace of such a creation that governments will give in and allow a peoples' representation, or a peoples' assembly in the United Nations.
~
Idea 2215 ~
What
a planet are we on which not a single government has a Ministry for
Peace, Ministry of Happiness and a Ministry of the Future! What is
government for if it is not for peace, happiness and a better future
of the people and the Earth?
~
Idea 2216 ~
Soon
the most profitable and busiest business on Earth will be the
building of new airports. This new 'need' is coming up everywhere.
Soon there will be as many airplanes in the air as there are cars and
trucks on the roads of the Earth. Today already they are a main
contributor to the production of carbon dioxide which amounts to
twelve thousand tons every minute that passes!
That thought came to me at Newark Airport, one of the biggest and newest in the world; at 7pm we were informed that there were still seventeen airplanes to take off before ours to Costa Rica.
I took the decision no longer to accept speeches around the world and attend conferences abroad. I will limit my air travels to visits to my family.
~
Idea 2217 ~
Humanity
has rightly created years ago in the United Nations at my suggestion
an office to deal with natural disasters in the world.
But this is not enough. That office's functions should be extended to disasters caused by humans to nature and to human-produced social disasters.
~
Idea 2218 ~
Darwin's
theory of competition and survival of the fittest was right in the
19th century when the human population was small and the resources of
the planet barely exploited but it has become obsolete in the
20th.
Today it is the survival of the Earth and of the human species which are the primary challenges. The new requisites of evolution are henceforth cooperation and service to the Earth and humanity.
~
Idea 2219 ~
We
have too many individuals in the world, especially males, who think
and act primarily to become famous, 'recognized', rich, remembered
and even immortalized. Why?
And we have too few individuals who place their service to the Earth and to humanity above their personal fate. Why not more?
This is a major problem of humanity today.
~
Idea 2220 ~
We
have too many social, racial and ethnic groups in the world which
want to be recognized, famous, powerful and rich. Why?
And we have too few social groups who place their service to the Earth and humanity as their foremost duty, pride and priority. Why not more?
That too is a major problem of humanity today.
~
Idea 2221 ~
We
have too many institutions in the world, especially national
governments, corporations and religions which want to be famous,
recognized, rich, bigger, more powerful and remain in existence
forever. Why?
And we have too few institutions which have the welfare of the Earth, her nature and of all humanity as their primary objectives, want to be of service to them and are quite ready to be only temporary. Why not more?
That too is a major problem of humanity today.
~
Idea 2222 ~
5:30
in the morning, looking at the incredible beauty of Mt. Rasur and
admiring my beautiful wife Barbara, the thought came to me: what a
miracle it is to live as a couple in a peaceful, disarmed, nature
protecting, demilitarized country like Costa Rica. Why do not more
countries do it?
I see the two crosses on top of Mt. Rasur, the crucifixion cross and the cross of hope and resurrection. What an uplifting task Barbara and I still have on this planet! Yesterday, after I spoke to a group of Latin American military officers, one of them came to see me and said: "I pray that you will never lose the passion that possesses you." Several of them asked to be photographed with me. One of them said, "You are expressing the message of Christ." The tears came to my eyes. I thought that I had unjustly challenged these militaries and it was just the contrary. I opened their eyes, not only in my speech but in the rejoinder when one of them asked, "How could you say that you hated borders and that you hated militaries in your youth?" And I told them why. I'm sure they will accept my invitation to come to this university, sit down with us, make it a peaceful world and transform all militaries into agents of peace, protectors of peace and make out of SEATO and NATO a UN World Security System. I told them that I had just given a telephone call to Betty Williams, the Nobel Prize winner for peace and asked her to create a world movement of mothers to claim the fundamental human right that the flesh of the flesh of a mother will never be asked to kill the flesh of the flesh of another mother.
~
Idea 2223 ~
All
people living in a warring, conflictual country of the world should
remind governments of their sacred human right to peace proclaimed by
the United Nations General Assembly in a declaration of 12 November
1984. It reads: "Aware that the establishment of a lasting peace on
Earth represents the primary condition for the preservation of human
civilization and the survival of humankind, recognizing that the
maintenance of a peaceful life for peoples is a sacred duty of each
state, solemnly proclaims that the peoples of our planet have a
sacred right to peace."
(UN General Assembly resolution 39/11 of 12 November 1984)
~
Idea 2224 ~
Humanity
has become one of the wrongest species on Earth, in full process of
destroying instead of loving the Earth, our home. A real revolution
is needed to redefine our proper place, role, fulfillment and
cooperation with our miraculous planet.
~
Idea 2225 ~
I
do not understand why governments have not created a Main Commission
on Democracy in the UN General Assembly. This, together with a Main
Commission on the Future, is one of the most missing central organs
in the world organization. Please let us request both from the Year
2000 Heads of States General Assembly.
~
Idea 2226 ~
Before
having even achieved a proper democracy on planet Earth (from the
individual through all groups to humanity as a whole) we are faced
now with the needs and cries of an Earthcracy or Ecocracy, the rule
of the Earth, of all its Ecoregions around the planet, the airs, the
oceans, the climate, the species, the vegetation etc. My God, what a
turning point this is at the end of our century and
millennium!
~
Idea 2227 ~
Minorities
often want to pull out of a dominant culture and obtain independence.
The individual can do that too. I can pull out of the whole human
current society or my wrong doing nation to be purely myself and
become a co-creator, an interdependent cosmic unit of a new global
species on an Earth understood as a cosmic entity and home. More
people could and should do that.
~
Idea 2228 ~
We
speak a lot of human justice. But where is Earth justice? Where are
the laws which would protect the Earth against excessive, needless
destruction by money-makers, business and developers?
~
Idea 2229 ~
There
might come a day on this planet when there will be stockpiles of
books on butterflies but no living butterflies anymore.
~
Idea 2230 ~
Visiting
the Costa Rican hill locality of Escazu, I could not believe my eyes:
several skyscrapers are being built at the mercy of the first
earthquake, but it enriches the architects, builders, insurance
companies and capital holders. I sometimes wish that capitalism had
capitulated together with communism. The Earth would have benefited.
Visiting the monstrous shopping centers, even now in poor countries,
provokes in me the same rage.
~
Idea 2231 ~
Seen
in one of the Costa Rican shopping centers, this ultimate corruption
by marketing, namely big displays offering a full bottle of rum and a
'free' two liters of Coca Cola. Surely this must be the strike of
genius of a US marketing expert who reasoned as follows: the kids
will want their mother to get that Coca Cola and their mother will
think that her husband will be happy if she brings home a bottle of
rum for him as a result of a good deal. And thus, after having added
drugs to Coca Cola for many years to make people addicted to it, now
alcohol is used as an incentive!
Hence my recommendations that a World Peoples' Movement (WPM) be created against unethical advertisement and marketing, and a Ministry on Marketing and Consumer Information created in each government.
~
Idea 2232 ~
For
the first time in my life I feel tempted to read Karl Marx's, Das
Kapital.. He might have predicted in the 19th century what we see
today and what is still more to come. In East Germany they tell now
this joke: What Russia told us about socialism were all lies, but
what they told us about capitalism was the truth.
Someone should write a book with the title Kaputalism.
Humanism and Earthism should become the new two-pronged ideologies of our time.
~
Idea 2233 ~
"A
person's life purpose is nothing more than the rediscovery, through
the detours of art, or love, or passionate work, those one or two
images in the presence of which that person's heart first
opened." Albert
Camus
Yes, he is so right. My own dominating images in early childhood were: the beauty of nature, the miracle of human life, the ugliness of the border with the neighboring country, and the elevation towards God and the heavens at mass.
Please remember what were yours when you were a child. It will make a miracle of your life and bring you the incredible help of the invisible forces of the universe.
~
Idea 2234 ~
In
Idea 1611 I said that the proposal of the government of Malta to
agree on a Law of the Seas, a commons of the Earth (70 percent of it)
which nations had forgotten to 'sovereignize', except for a distance
reached by a canon shot, took about 30 years to negotiate. The US
Government over the years watered it down to almost irrelevance. And
when its demands were met and the Law of the Sea was opened to
ratification, the US simply did not ratify it!
The US Government uses this tactic in any effort or world conference which does not suit its interests. It would use it in any effort or conference dealing with a UN Charter reform or strengthening or with the creation of a proper Earth Government or World Union or World Constitution.
I recommend therefore that in any world conference or effort on a new political world order between governments, the US Peoples' Non-governmental Association suggested in Idea 2030 or the new Global Peoples' Assembly should have a seat. The US Association could organize a peoples' poll which might show that US citizens support an idea which their government opposes. It would be progress toward a true democracy.
~
Idea 2235 ~
There
can be progress on this planet: in the early 1970's, of all Central
American countries only Costa Rica had a democratic government. All
others were run by generals or dictators. Today all five republics
have democratic governments and the militaries are on the decline or
way out.
~
Idea 2236 ~
We
must absolutely deciticize and renaturize the places where humans
live on this planet. Deciticization and renaturization must become
two major movements on planet Earth. Big cities do not know what to
invent anymore to continue to grow, to attract more people,
activities, institutions, conferences, hotels, entertainments,
sports, arts, etc. It has attained a state of folly and contributes
significantly to the destruction of the planet. Outer space beings
would tell us that immediately.
~
Idea 2237 ~
To
stop the advance of NATO due to US pressure and substantial bribes to
former Soviet Block satellites, I recommend that the European
countries should urgently leave NATO and construct an all European
security system based on the European army which Winston Churchill
and Robert Schuman planned already in 1951.
The European Union should simultaneously reactivate the creation of a world security system as foreseen in the Charter of the United Nations. Such a system would render NATO and SEATO obsolete or would integrate them into the new system. The UN World Security System could not be created because of the cold war. Now that the cold war is over, the subject should be actively re-opened in the United Nations. If President Eisenhower were alive he would request it immediately. And he was a general!
~
Idea 2238 ~
The
same way as the security of the fifty-one states of the United States
is ensured by the Federal Government's US Armed Forces, the security
of the 189 nations of the world should be insured by the United
Nations or a Federal United States of the World and not by the armies
of 170 armed, militarized nations. The savings from demilitarization
and disarmament derived from a central World Security System would be
colossal. They would be sufficient to eradicate all poverty from the
Earth. What a pity that the United States, which was one of the great
leaders for a world civilization at the times of George Washington
and Franklin Roosevelt, has now become the main undertaker of the
world. But this has been the case of all great empires as was shown
by Arnold Toynbee in his historical survey.
~
Idea 2239 ~
I
am sure that God wanted me to retire, to write, to teach and to live
in a paradise of nature and get me far away from New York to recover
and champion a world common sense from the midst of the magnificence
of His miraculous natural creation and in a demilitarized
country.
~
Idea 2240 ~
In
the year 2000, a World Peoples' Assembly will meet as well as a
United Nations General Assembly at the heads of state level. If youth
is not well represented in that Peoples' Assembly, I recommend that a
separate Youth Assembly be convened. It is essential that youth tell
world leaders what kind of a world and future they want. I hope that
world youth associations will join their efforts to make sure of it.
I did let them know.
~
Idea 2241 ~
The
Mothers of the Earth for World Peace Summit proposed by Nobel Peace
Prize winner Betty Williams to be held at the United Nations in 2000
is a most vital and timely event: mothers should be given a world
floor to say what future they want for their children in the 21st
century and 3rd millennium, and claim the fundamental mothers' right
not to see the flesh of their flesh forced by nations or religions or
ethnic groups to kill the flesh of the flesh of other mothers.
Peaceful means and not murder should be the ways to peace. I hope
that the summit will create a World Mothers' Movement for
Peace.
~
Idea 2242 ~
During
the Summit General Assembly 2000 of the United Nations I hope that
the heads of state will do two things for the future citizens of the
21st century: transform the United Nations International Children's
Emergency Fund (UNICEF) into a UN World Children's Organization and
create for youth which has no institution in the international system
a UN World Youth Organization.
~
Idea 2243 ~
In
the 21st century and 3rd millennium competition must be limited to
doing good, to good causes and to good results beneficial to the
Earth and to all humanity.
~
Idea 2244 ~
Each
step forward in evolution begins with an idea, a dream or a
vision.
I recommend the creation of a World Association of Visionaries, Dreamers, Idea People and Prophets for a Better World. It would be a blessing for the future of our evolution and of planet Earth.
~
Idea 2245 ~
It
is wonderful that in airplanes passengers are given UNICEF envelopes
to put in them their coin or other money left over from their trips
abroad and donate it for the help of poor children in the world by
UNICEF. It is a simple, great, beautiful, idea.
I recommend the further idea that people in the rich countries should send to UNICEF dolls, teddy bears and other toys with which their houses are filled, for children in the poor world. The Association of Airline Ambassadors (see page 65) could arrange for their free transportation by airplanes. There could be a UNICFF World Dolls and Toys Collection Day.
What joy and happiness this would bring to many poor children.
~
Idea 2246 ~
We
should reduce our consumption to goods really needed. In order to do
that we should no longer invest our money in banks, in speculative
shares, in the stock market but instead invest it in local small
businesses, in farms which produce our food, and in local public
services we need. Local peoples' associations should be created to do
that. And governments should no longer be allowed to issue huge
quantities of money to stimulate businesses which produce often huge
quantities of unnecessary products and services. This is an entire
new field of proper management of our planet and of reformed
capitalism which must absolutely be studied and opened.
~
Idea 2247 ~
Thirty
years ago we needed a new education, a global education.
Twenty years ago we needed a new education for the protection of the environment.
Today we need a new education to save the Earth and our future evolution.
What new educations will we need in the decades ahead? My predictions are:
A new education to reduce unnecessary, excessive consumption and to live more simple and frugal lives.
A new education to reduce substantially the use of cars, of airplanes and tourism.
A new education to live in more modest houses, to abandon big cities and to return to rural, natural areas.
What educations will we need in fifty years, in a hundred, in a thousand years from now?
These are questions which should be raised in UNESCO and in the Foundation for the Future which looks as far as the year 3000.
I have done my duty by having fathered global education and produced the World Core Curriculum for the teaching of our tremendous cosmic, global knowledge in all schools of the world prior to national education (Table in Volume I, page 18).
~
Idea 2248 ~
All
realities and phenomena in the universe must be seen from the point
of view of the past, the present and the future.
Humanity is doing pretty well regarding the knowledge of the past: history, archeology, anthropology, biology, etc.
Humanity has recently made substantial progress in evaluating every year the state of the world globally and in an increasing number of sectors.
Humanity, except in a few sectors like population, food and the climate has paid very insufficient attention to the future at a time when everything is changing so rapidly that our future evolution and that of the Earth might be in jeopardy.
Please United Nations, please all governments, all institutions, all human groups and all humans do pay henceforth utmost attention to the future. We must have the intelligence and courage to look as far as the year 3000.
~
Idea 2249 ~
Outbursts
of youth participants at a conference in Holland on the future
evolution of the world:
"What intelligent species is it that sends tomatoes from Holland to China and French water to the United States?"
Other participant: "And Coca Cola to poor countries where a worker has to work a whole day to pay for one bottle of that artificial drink for his children who have been programmed through advertisement to want it?"
~
Idea 2250 ~
A
participant coined a good new word, namely that of advertised human
beings. Yes, we are not well informed and educated human beings. We
are advertised beings, targets, subjects and victims of colossal,
ever growing advertisements. The 20th century might not be remembered
solely as a great scientific century, but also as the golden age of
business, marketing and advertisement.
~
Idea 2251 ~
Gigantic
western cigarette, alcohol and Coca Cola advertisements in the poor
countries are a flagrant demonstration of the decadent capitalistic
system. The business world should establish its own rules of ethics
to stop that scandalous situation. But can it? Will it? I doubt
it.
~
Idea 2252 ~
The
United Nations and its world agencies should be strengthened and
expanded a hundred times to be able to deal effectively with the host
of global problems increasing in numbers, intensity and gravity
facing this Earth and humanity as has never been the case before in
all human history.
The accusations of bureaucracy, waste and communist infiltration launched by the US extreme right since the very birth of the United Nations have only one objective: to see the world ruled by the United States.
The US people should vigorously and effectively react against this situation. If not their country will be more and more isolated and depreciated in the world. They should request from their leaders a great new, positive, ethical, inspiring vision of the world.
~
Idea 2253 ~
Humanity
should request from the United Nations and its world agencies the
following yearly reports:
1) What has become better in the world: economic well-being, health, lower children mortality, longer life expectation, diminishing wars and conflicts, reduction of smoking, etc.?
2) What has become worse but at a slower rate: population increase, illiteracy, certain accidents, etc.?
3) What has become worse at a greater rate: the environment, climatic changes, internal violence, alcoholism, drugs, suicides, homelessness, etc.?
4) What new phenomena must we watch out for: terrorism, corruption, mafias, hopelessness, insurrections, political and actual wars over resources and the environment etc.?
~
Idea 2254 ~
My
dreams and ideas are important because they are the result of a very
unique adult life of more than fifty years in the first world-wide
organization. There I was like a tree nourished by the entire Earth
and humanity. But my fruits are not yet the good, perfect ones. They
will require innumerable more trees like me all over the Earth.
Please, dear educators, be the loving gardeners of such trees. I will
watch you and thank you from heaven.
~
Idea 2255 ~
In
the 21st century the age of freedom and rights must be accompanied by
a new age of duties and responsibilities. If not, freedom and rights
of the powerful and rich will lead to their domination over the poor
and almost certainly to revolutions.
~
Idea 2256 ~
Margaret
Mead said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed
citizens can change the world. We need a new social
invention."
I would add: "And never doubt that one thoughtful, committed human being can change the world. It starts with an idea whose time has come." We need innumerable new ideas and social inventions. Please, dear reader, write yours down, send them out and act on them.
~
Idea 2257 ~
While
I have thousands of ideas for a better, more peaceful, happier and
well-preserved world businessmen, marketers and advertisers have
millions of them to produce more and sell more irrespective of the
environment and of the people's real wants. For example, some
gasoline stations, where many people have to stop, have become picnic
and playgrounds and places to buy all sorts of goods. The latest
inventions are advertisements in large revolving doors at airports,
in hotels and shopping centers. Where will it stop? We will some day
see an enormous Coca Cola sign in the night on the moon.
~
Idea 2258 ~
By
what will the current decultured western so called civilization be
replaced?
We should give a lot of thought to a new, better one to replace it. Let us have a world competition among people to design the next better, peaceful, Earth-preserving, cultured and happy peoples' civilization. The UN or UNESCO should organize that as we enter into a new century and millennium.
~
Idea 2259 ~
Capitalism
and communism were both born from the industrial revolution.
Communism did not succeed and collapsed. Capitalism did wonders as
long as the world's population was small and its natural resources
were abundant and unexploited. Now that these conditions have
drastically changed capitalism will collapse too. Big businesses and
capitalists should be grateful to David Korten for showing them a way
to avoid collapse in his new book The Post Corporate World which he
wrote after the famous book Corporations Rule the World.
~
Idea 2260 ~
As
a joke I said to the passport control officer for citizens of the
European Union at Amsterdam airport as I passed it with my American
wife, Barbara:
"Why don't you annex the United States to the European Union and you would not need two separate lines."
He and his colleagues in the other line made the most disbelieving, bewildered faces thinking that I was mad.
But then I discovered that my joke was a brilliant idea.
Indeed the US wanted and has obtained that NATO become the European-United States institution for defense. Well, why not go a step further and broaden the European Union by including in it the United States and all other NATO countries? Among the benefits: we would gain a Court of Human Rights, an Environmental Agency and a Commission of the Future for this vaster area of twenty-six countries.
And since the European Union is far superior to the United Nations as an international organization why not open its membership to all democratic countries of the world and progressively make it the true, more effective world union which humanity and the Earth need so urgently?
I therefore recommend the creation of a World Commission of Eminent Persons to transform the European Union into a World Union.
~
Idea 2261 ~
The
word education (Latin educare, to lead out...of ignorance) should be
suppressed and replaced by 'inducation' i.e. leading children into
the broad, knowledge of the universe, the Earth, humanity and time,
down to the local community, the family and their miraculous
self.
The following should be suppressed:
Nationalism
Patriotism
Militarism
Heroism
Unreserved
admiration for science and technology
Money-making
as the main purpose of life
To
ignore other countries, the world and its global
agencies
To
compete instead of cooperating
To
be hyper-intelligent ignoring the heart and the
soul
To
ignore family history, local history and most of world history and
concentrate only on national history
The
same with geography, literature, the arts, etc.
~
Idea 2262 ~
The
news about accidents, murders, conflicts, violence, bad events with
which the front pages and insides of newspapers and images of
television are filled must have as one of their main purposes to
distract the attention of the people from the monstrous destructions
of nature and of the Earth by businesses, big corporations, power and
militaries all around the world. On capitalism the news on front
pages are that the stock market has jumped etc. In other words,
capitalism is good. Let us not forget that the media are to a large
extent owned by capitalists. What then can we expect? The way out is
to have only a glance at newspapers and not to watch television. That
is the way of my wife and I. And we are one of the happiest couples
on Earth.
~
Idea 2263 ~
We
should immensely cherish our planet Earth which is our home. We
should preserve her, beautify her and do every good we can for her.
She should be the object of our constant concern and love. Never has
this happened before in all human history. It will require from us a
totally different attitude toward the Earth. We can become, if we
want, the most extraordinary, advanced civilization in the universe,
a United Earth and Humanity.
~
Idea 2264 ~
If
the Fiscal and Financial Commission of the United Nations is not
re-established a World Association of Taxpayers should be created to
collect information and study tax evasion, tax injustices and tax
havens in the world. The association would become one of the most
important non-governmental organizations on Earth.
~
Idea 2265 ~
In
1989, during the bicentennial of the French Revolution, a movement of
French youth wanted the UN to draft a new Declaration of Human Rights
for the 21st century and to create a World Organization of Human
Rights. These were excellent ideas to be considered by the United
Nations. The issue of human rights is so central to human ideals and
affairs that the United Nations Office of the Commissioner for Human
Rights should indeed become a full specialized agency of the UN or a
World Organization of Human Rights. I still have a file with the
letters received from these young people. I helped them in every way
I could but without success.
~
Idea 2266 ~
If
I were a philanthropist I would finance radio and TV stations which
give no advertisements and concentrate on providing useful, inspiring
information, joy and happiness to the people. The International Radio
for Peace of the UN University for Peace provides a model.
~
Idea 2267 ~
In
the year 2000 a special celebration of all demilitarized and
denuclearized countries should take place in the world. The place of
the celebration could be the United Nations University for Peace in
Costa Rica.
~
Idea 2268 ~
According
to the famous German economist Schumpeter, economic crises are
necessary from time to time to wipe out run away activities and
products born in a period of excessive economic growth. This rule
might now apply to most of the world economy and create serious
havoc.
~
Idea 2269 ~
A
halt in the growth of monstrous cities must take place before the
people will be forced to leave them for lack of oxygen and in many
cases of sufficient water.
~
Idea 2270 ~
My
God, how many things will we have to stop growing in the 21st
century! It is likely to become the century of voluntary and forced
non-growth.
~
Idea 2271 ~
The
number of big passenger airplanes will sooner or later have to be
limited. They grow in numbers year after year and destroy the
atmosphere. Their main passengers are business people and tourists.
They should be allowed only for urgencies and important occasions to
be defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization. The time
will soon come when this will be unavoidable.
~
Idea 2272 ~
The
International Civil Aviation Organization should decree that all
passengers of airplanes be informed at the end of their flight of the
quantity of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere by the
aircraft during that flight. There should be a little booklet for
frequent passengers showing the total carbon dioxide production in
which they have been involved during their total mileages flown.
'Carbon dioxide mileage meters' should be installed and lawful in all
airplanes and automobiles.
~
Idea 2273 ~
All
institutions and firms on Earth which use the adjective 'united'
should become members of a world association accredited to the United
Nations and support the unitedness of humanity and of humanity with
the Earth, nature, the heavens and time.
~
Idea 2274 ~
Einstein
was right when he underlined the perfection of means used by humans
and the confusion of purposes. Yes, the most perfect airplanes have
been created to transport people around the world, two thirds of them
being only 'tourists'.
~
Idea 2275 ~
People
in the poor countries may not feel at all the need to take airplanes
and are even scared of them but their country has to build an airport
and create an airline in order not to remain behind the times and in
order to enter the international market race for air
transportation.
Which country on Earth will have the courage not to have an airline and an airport? It should receive a world Nobel or other prize.
~
Idea 2276 ~
When
seventy percent of the US people state that the UN does a useful,
important and satisfactory job and an extreme right minority gets the
US government to refuse to pay its obligatory contribution to the UN
budget then there must be something wrong with US democracy. I
therefore recommend that the subject of democracy be placed as one of
the top items on the agenda of the United Nations and that a high
level commission of eminent US citizens be convened by the United
States President to review the entire question of democracy. This is
most needed for a new century and millennium. The US must continue to
be a guiding light of democracy and human rights in the
world.
~
Idea 2277 ~
If
I were the governor of the State of New York and Mayor of the city of
New York I would not risk losing the seat of the United Nations which
makes that state and that city the capital state and the capital city
of the world.
I would address a joint appeal to the philanthropists, businesses, institutions and peoples of the state and city of New York to pay the 1.3 billion dollars which the US Congress refuses to pay in arrears to the United Nations.
I would also, if necessary, consider levying a tax of the State and City of New York to help the institution which brings in billions of dollars to the state and the city through its expenses as well as those of the 189 countries who have permanent ambassadorial missions located in New York. I would ask my best brains to come up with very original ideas which would link the peoples directly to the United Nations and not leave the monopoly of that important organization to the central US government. The United Nations Charter starts with "We the peoples," not "We the governments". We must thank the Secretary General of the United Nations for having proposed that the General Assembly 2000 of Heads of States of the United Nations be accompanied by a World Peoples' Assembly.
~
Idea 2278 ~
The
same as smoking is a pollution of our lungs, alcohol (Arabic: the
devil) is a pollution of our body. If we want to achieve a healthy,
happy and more peaceful humanity more and more persons should stop
consuming alcohol. What God and nature gave us is pure water. Let us
stick to it. This is one of the most important recommendations of
these 3,000 ideas and everyone can do it.
~
Idea 2279 ~
For
everything on Earth we should establish a list of advantages and
disadvantages.
For example:
What
are the advantages and disadvantages of
nations?
What
are the advantages and disadvantages of big
cities?
What
are the advantages and disadvantages of big
business?
What
are the advantages and disadvantages of the various means of
transportation?
etc.
The trouble is that those who own or head these institutions or ways of life speak a lot of the advantages and little, if at all, of the disadvantages.
For example turning around in an aircraft for a long time over a city, waiting for an open channel to land is something that contributes greatly to air pollution. It should therefore be mentioned in the columns 'disadvantages of big cities' and 'disadvantages of air transportation'. This is a proper subject for good Earth and city government.
~
Idea 2280 ~
We
speak a lot about the world's overpopulation but should we not also
speak of the overpopulation of aircrafts and motor vehicles? Also,
there are efforts to stabilize the world population but I've never
heard of a stabilization of motor vehicles and aircrafts. Their
overpopulation is called progress and development. In the years to
come these overpopulations might do more damage to the Earth than the
peoples' overpopulation. It does not occur to the leaders of this
planet to visualize what the consequences will be in the next few
decades, not to speak of centuries.
~
Idea 2281 ~
Governments,
museums, galleries and collectors pay fortunes for antiquities and
artifacts from the past but it does not occur to many to preserve the
living cultures and ways of life of indigenous people. They are a
great treasure of the living diversity and evolution of the human
species. We should spend fortunes to preserve them. I recommend the
creation of a World Indigenous Marshall Plan to preserve ancient
living cultures and traditions. Their living natural languages would
merit alone at least the same funds as those allocated to studies of
the Sanskrit origin of Indo-European languages. Here we have
languages which are straight perceptions of nature and life. This
would be so precious for a better understanding of the meaning of our
planetary reality and of human life.
~
Idea 2282 ~
Further
Earth and human evolution will become our absolute, foremost
preoccupation in the 21st century.
A new world system of government, administration and education must therefore be conceived as an Evolutionary Earth Government open to constant changes, orientations and adaptations to new evolutionary requirements. All existing human institutions on this planet must become evolutionary or they will perish or make us perish.
~
Idea 2283 ~
I
am surprised that there is not more violence in the world, given the
extreme poverty of 1.3 billion people and the cultivated unhappiness
of the well to do. Cultivated? Yes, by business, by marketing and by
advertisement which one should really call propaganda to make people
unhappy with what they have and make them want constantly more. The
media, advertisement propaganda, television and radio alone will be
able to finish this planet. Why is there not a single Ministry of
Happiness on this Earth to look into all this?
~
Idea 2284 ~
Every
day the Earth dies a little. If we do not change our values and
habits she will die a lot and faster. What a sad 'civilization' we
have become!
~
Idea 2285 ~
We
are living in invisible force fields like speed, thoughts, dreams,
ideas, inspiration, love, meditation, prayers, mystical elevation,
etc. They are perhaps the forces which will save us and our planet.
Let us open ourselves widely to them.
~
Idea 2286 ~
Free
market economy has to a large extent become a plunder-destructive
economy of the Earth. In order to gain more profit, wealth and power
any trick is good enough. To gain further ground government has to be
'deregulated', 'privatized' to become a servant or the property of
'free enterprise'. Democracy must be replaced by
businesscracy.
~
Idea 2287 ~
We
should cease to admire big cities and rush to them to visit their
museums, monuments, festivals, theaters, sports events and
conferences. We should consider them as outdated, polluted human
concentrations whose air we will not breathe and expensive hotels not
subsidize. We should support instead and enjoy healthier smaller
communities in nature, replete with oxygen, peace and sanity. Please
dear reader, follow this advice. It will help save the world and
preserve your health, sanity and happiness.
~
Idea 2288 ~
In
Idea 1882 I said that after the industrial and scientific revolution
we have entered the age of return to nature. A year later I must say
that we are now entering the age of further evolution or
non-evolution of the entire Earth and humanity.
~
Idea 2289 ~
Among
the world conferences needed in the year 2001 and 2002 I recommend
these four:
- a World Conference on Excessive, Unnecessary Consumption
- a World Conference on Unnecessary Destruction of the Earth
- a World Conference on Democracy
- a World Conference on the Long-term Future
~
Idea 2290 ~
The
further evolution of planet Earth and of life on it must become the
new, overriding supreme sovereignty on this planet, no longer
national sovereignties of 189 cut up parts of it. The Earth, her
survival and our own have become item number one of the agenda of
world affairs.
~
Idea 2291 ~
Earth
Day must become one of the most important yearly events of humanity.
The UN should publish for it every year a State of the Earth
Report.
~
Idea 2292 ~
Peace
must be the new patriotism or matriotism for the Earth, no longer
killing in the name of a nation.
Pater, from which patriotism, in Latin means father. A father of a family would not ask a son to kill in the name of the family but nations do.
~
Idea 2293 ~
We
speak a lot these days of endangered species'. We should also speak
of endangered evolution, of the endangered Earth, of the endangered
human species and of the future.
After world government we speak now of proper Earth government. We should even go a step further and speak of right Evolutionary government, of government and institutions constantly adapted to the new requirements of evolution.
~
Idea 2294 ~
The
main challenge to humanity in the 21st century will be the
continuance of evolution and the main ideal will be a peaceful, happy
humanity living in harmony with a well-preserved, beautiful,
ever-renewed nature.
~
Idea 2295 ~
In
the early 1970's humanity got a shock from a famous book The Limits
of Growth.. As a result the world now speaks of sustainable
development or growth.
As two new progresses in human awareness we need now two further best selling books: "The Limits of Consumption" and "The Limits of Evolution".
~
Idea 2296 ~
'Planet
Garbagia', the United Nations should publish yearly world statistics
on garbage produced and rank nations according to the total and per
capita garbage they produce. The United States would come out as
number one, outdistancing by far all other countries. The statistics
should be reproduced by the media world-wide. Half of the entire
production by the western world is waste which they call economic
progress.
The US President in his yearly State of the Union should not forget to report that the US holds the world record of garbage production.
~
Idea 2297 ~
Nature,
our wonderful Mother Earth is humans' real friend not the male-run
multinational corporations who have become the new warriors
destroying her.
~
Idea 2298 ~
Solitude
even disappears in planes and in trains: television has invaded
planes and in trains most people are absorbed by newspapers,
magazines, portable telephones and computers.
The only two refuges left on this planet are unspoiled nature and churches. Alas, both are more and more on the retreat.
Where will all this end? To more happiness? No. To losing our human nature in favor of business, the media, marketing, advertisement, tourism, sensationalism and bad news. The World Party of Natural Law better look into this.
~
Idea 2299 ~
I
am determined to live as long as possible in order to denounce the
stupidities, injustices, misdoings, insanities and destructions which
are persistently committed against this marvelous planet by
insatiable wealth and power holders and seekers.
~
Idea 2300 ~
Dear
heads of states, if you want to be remembered, honored and loved by
future generations you must be for politics what Beethoven was for
composers and the French Revolution was for humanity: de l' audace,
de l' audace et encore de l' audace; boldness, boldness and still
more boldness. Dare to make this beautiful planet and its marvelous
humanity a jewel, a ninth symphony, a just republic in the vast
universe: start in the year 2000 the process of giving us a proper
Earth and Human Government.
ANNEX
A Point in History
A letter to the Ambassador of Sweden to the UN
14 March 1994
Dear Mr. Ambassador,
Please
forgive me to write to you out of the blue, unknown to you, about
events which are a quarter of a century old, but which still have a
great relevance to the fate of humanity
today.
In
1969, when I was Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Council, I
received the visit of the Ambassador of Sweden during the Council
session in Geneva. He told me that Sweden, the most advanced
industrial country in the world had discovered that something was
going wrong, namely that your lakes were increasingly polluted and
that your trees suffered from acid rain. In order to warn the world
that one should look into that situation, you obtained the convening
of a Biosphere Conference by UNESCO in 1968. Alas, the conference did
not have the visibility and the effects on other governments and on
public opinion which Sweden expected. "There was no response to our
preoccupations and warnings that something was getting wrong," he
said. He asked me if the United Nations could do something. I
answered him that the main thing we could offer was a big warning
instrument, a big drum, namely to hold a world conference, as we did
in the case of population. He agreed immediately. I asked him: on
what do you want that conference to be held? He said: I do not know.
I told him that if it was held on the biosphere, it would have the
same non-effect as the conference at UNESCO, because few people, not
even heads of states knew what the biosphere was. We agreed that we
would both think about it. Thereafter I held a meeting in my office
to raise the question. I was personally in favor of a world
conference on pollution, because this was already a popular concern.
With my colleagues we were all against biosphere. Someone, I do not
remember who it was, came up with the word 'environment'. I was
against it because in French it means the neighborhood, and in
Spanish it does not even exist (the word medio ambiente had to be
invented, the milieu around us). Well, environment was agreed to as a
compromise. Sweden agreed and made the proposal for such a
conference. On the day when the resolution was adopted, I recall that
at a diplomatic dinner in the evening, one of the diplomats said: "Do
you know the ridiculous thing that happened today in the UN Economic
and Social Council?" All guests looked at him, and he said: "The UN
has opened its doors to the bird watchers. The Council has decided to
convene a world conference on the
environment!"
When
I heard this, I slammed my fist on the table, spilling a glass of red
wine, to the consternation of my Chilean wife who was a real
diplomat, and declared to the guests: "From today on the world will
never be the same. You better mark my
words."
Well,
my prophecy was right. The UN Conference on the Environment in
Stockholm in 1972 was a turning point in the history of this planet
and of humanity.
Later
on, when I was a direct Aide to the UN Secretary General I always
insisted that we should have repeat conferences at least every ten or
twenty years to see what the world situation was. I convinced my good
friend Maurice Strong in whose recruitment as Secretary General of
the Stockholm Conference I was involved, to hold another world
conference twenty years later in 1992. It took place in Rio de
Janeiro. I had retired from the UN in 1986, but was invited to it as
a kind of elder, as convener of the wisdom keepers of the Earth, the
indigenous people. I could see in Rio how the world had changed in
twenty years: at the Stockholm Conference there were only two heads
of states, Mr. Olof Palme, the convener, and Mrs. Indhira Gandhi who
happened to be visiting Sweden. In Rio there were 114 heads of
states. In 1972 there did not exist a single Ministry of the
Environment on this Earth. In 1992, every government had a Ministry
of the Environment! 40,000 people were present at the Rio Conference,
mostly from environmental non-governmental
organizations.
Well,
as with the population explosion, once a global problem has been
identified the situation continues to worsen for quite some time,
although at a lower rate. Many other actions to accelerate the new
'progress' are needed.
This
short history, dear Mr. Ambassador, has one objective: I think that
the government of Sweden could render another great historic,
evolutionary service to the world if it requested the convening of a
second world Biosphere Conference under the auspices of UNESCO, the
scientific agency of the UN. The word biosphere (sphere of life) is
much better understood today and is more accurate than environment
which distinguishes humans on one side and nature and the Earth
around us. We are part of the Earth, we are living earth. The
biosphere, a small membrane surrounding our planet only a few miles
into the atmosphere and into the seas and oceans, contains all the
life forms in our solar system. At the time I had in my office at the
UN a map of the Earth with a one meter diameter drawn by the UN
cartographers. On it they showed the biosphere not thicker than an
egg shell and I could say to politicians and businessmen visiting me:
that is what you are playing with.
I
leave these thoughts with you, dear Mr. Ambassador. Perhaps Sweden
can render another great service to humanity with a repeat
performance on the biosphere, especially at the onset of a new
century and millennium. The report of the conference on this most
vital aspect of the fate of our planet and of all living beings on
it, including ourselves, could be one of the most important
contributions to the thinking needed regarding the further fate and
evolution of the Earth and the human
species.
Please
forgive me this long letter with its historical overview of one of
the most important events in recent history of which Sweden can be
very proud.
With
warmest greetings and very best wishes for
great
success
and happiness in your important functions.
Robert
Muller
Chancellor
Former
UN Assistant Secretary General
H.E.
Mr. Peter Oswald
Ambassador,
Permament
Representative
of Sweden to the UN
One
Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza
885
Second Avenue, 46th floor
New
York, NY 10017-2201
PART IV
IDEAS 2301 TO 2400
INTRODUCTION
An Appeal for the United Nations Foundation
Dear billionaires, millionaires and very rich people of planet Earth who were blessed with wealth, please devote yourself to the causes of peace, human well-being for all and the preservation of our miraculous planetary home which has become priority number one of our concerns.
There exists now a United Nations Foundation endowed with the billion dollars donated by Ted Turner to the United Nations. Its address is: United Nations Foundation, 1301 Connecticut Avenue, Suite 700, Washington DC 20036. The Foundation administers the Ted Turner donation and can receive more contributions from people all over the world to be channeled to the great, urgent tasks of the United Nations: the fight against poverty and illiteracy, for human rights, peace, children, women, the handicapped, the environment and the salvation of our Earth, etc. Please make your generous contribution, specifying the cause to which it should be allocated: if it is children, UNICEF; if it is poverty, the United Nations Development Program; if it is peace, the United Nations; if it is peace education, the UN University for Peace in Costa Rica; if it is the environment, the UN Environment Program, etc. The list covers practically all the miseries of our planet and of the human family which require your help. This is a new, glorious, hopeful page of philanthropy, pressingly needed by the preservation of our Earth and the further progress of humanity.
Let us make this planet and human evolution a tremendous success in the next century and millennium. We are all human cosmic brothers and sisters endowed with incredible potentials and love in each of us.
May
God bless you and recompense your generosity
and
good
you are doing for world peace and human happiness.
Robert
Muller
Chancellor
Emeritus
Former
Assistant General Secretary
of
the United Nations
PS. Call Washington DC, telephone (202) 887-9040 for information and the publications of the UNITED NATIONS FOUNDATION.
~
Idea 2301 ~
I
could never understand why the poor third world countries have not
coalesced and decided to plan a world government of their own. They
have the vast majority of the world's population, the greatest
forests left, the vastest natural and mineral resources of the Earth.
The mere decision to do so would scare the western world which would
counter-propose, were it only for tactical reasons, that all nations
should get together and discuss the feasibility of a proper Earth
government.
Perhaps it is not too late for the third world to do it. They could announce it at the year 2000 UN General Assembly of heads of states.
~
Idea 2302 ~
When
the Reagan administration launched a first assail against communism,
raising armaments, especially nuclear missiles to the sky, a
commission was created in Washington to look at 'The World After
Communism'.
Now that capitalism is under assail by its internal contradictions, for the destruction of the Earth and increasing the gulf between the rich and the poor, someone should create a commission on 'The World After Capitalism'.
~
Idea 2303 ~
Business
is endlessly looking for more business and assails governmental
public services accusing them of bureaucracy and impeding free
enterprise. This all out campaign is called privatization.
Well the public should ask for more publicization in order not to have to pay for the costly competition between private firms when a public service is privatized. The total world cost of the competition, duplication and constant new advertised, often unnecessary services and products of private enterprises must be colossal but no one speaks about it, the media and even some governments having generally become the beneficiaries, the servants of big business.
~
Idea 2304 ~
There
is a wonderful association of airline pilots and stewardesses called
Airline Ambassadors which has done a lot of good in the world since
it was born (See Introduction to Ideas 2201 to 2300).
I recommend that similar ambassadors associations be created by many professions and human groups.
E.g.:
Lawyer's
Ambassadors
Doctor's
Ambassadors
Engineer's
Ambassadors
Teacher's
Ambassadors
Children's
Ambassadors
Youth
Ambassadors
Mother's
Ambassadors
Women's
Ambassadors
Families'
Ambassadors
Elder's
Ambassadors, etc.
What a difference it would make in the world. How much happiness it would provide to both the receivers and givers of aid across borders from people to people, from profession to profession, and not only from government to government. It would be a new form of world democracy. Write for advice to Nancy Rivard, President, Founder Airline Ambassadors, World Trade Center, Suite 268, San Francisco, CA 94111.
~
Idea 2305 ~
What a strange planet it is where one country with four percent of the world population, the United States, tells the rest of the world what to like, what to seek, what to value, what to believe and what to do and on top of it all speaks constantly of democracy.
~
Idea 2306 ~
Newspapers
should begin to publish an obituary page for planet Earth listing the
species which have died, the nature destroyed, the airs and waters of
the Earth become unbreatheable and undrinkable and many other Earth
and life funeral cases.
~
Idea 2307 ~
Increasing
aviation, air travel and air transportation will be enough to finish
this planet. The shareholders of airline companies might end up rich
but on a dead planet. Just project the current yearly airline traffic
increase to the year 3000. It is totally impossible.
~
Idea 2308 ~
We
should declare planet Earth in peril, in a state of siege. Economic
growth is often Earth destruction. The stock exchanges have become
the funeral homes of the Earth. Why cannot intelligent, enlightened
leaders change and remedy this course?
~
Idea 2309 ~
The
materialistic, commercial, advertising, noisy, irritating,
unsatisfied American society is no longer admirable. It is unnatural.
It is severed from the Earth and is devastating it. I am catching
glimpses of a horrible monster show on a US airplane television
program. In it the beauty of nature and of humans is totally replaced
by monsters and yet most passengers are watching this.
~
Idea 2310 ~
On
11 July 1994, when there remained two thousand days to the year 2000,
a US public opinion survey reported that forty-one percent of
Americans believed their nation was in decline. I wonder what the
percentage is in the year 2000.
~
Idea 2311 ~
Some
day we will see a classification of countries and regions into
oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor, deficient countries. This will change
the map of human settlements on the planet.
~
Idea 2312 ~
The
peoples of the world should menace having no children anymore until
governments have put order in world affairs, preserved the future of
the Earth, eliminated militaries and armaments, and solved the
conflicts and crass human injustices still prevailing on this
planet.
~
Idea 2313 ~
At
one point of evolution, humans created groups, communities and
institutions to cooperate for their survival and the betterment of
their lives. Nations and national institutions are the latest
manifestations of that evolution, followed by big business. Today
evolution demands world cooperation of all humans and institutions.
But national governments, institutions and businesses are against it.
They want to keep their existing power.
Arnold Toynbee, the British historian, studied all great empires of the past and came to the conclusion that they all collapsed or vanished because they did not adapt to the new requirements of evolution.
The same will happen today, but since the necessary new values and world institutions are not created or strengthened, the evolution of the planet is likely to come to an end. This might happen because of our increasing population, consumption and growing interference with the natural processes of the Earth.
~
Idea 2314 ~
A
man of a group of Elderhostels visiting the University for Peace
asked me this question: "How come that we still have so many ethnic
wars of hatred like the one in Yugoslavia?"
I answered: "It is because they have not been educated in peace but in hatred, hyper-patriotism, pledges of allegiance and readiness to go to war for their ethnic group, religion or nation. This is what national education does in practically all countries of the world. This is why the UN University for Peace is so important and should be well supported by UN member countries and not ignored by them as is the case now. Only 34 countries of the 189 member countries of the UN have ratified its statutes and only three have given it any resources. The United States government was the first to oppose it followed by most western countries."
~
Idea 2315 ~
I
was educated by the French under the motto: France above everything
else in the world. Then came the Germans who occupied our region,
called the French education decadent and re-educated us under the
motto: Germany above everything. And each time we were given a rifle
to shoot the people on the other side of the border.
Well, I decided later to throw these educations overboard and to take the Earth and humanity as my prime subjects of education and concerns, not a nation, not a religion, not an ideology nor any ethnic group. The United Nations became my school for that.
And I decided to donate my retirement to the first University for Peace on this planet for one dollar a year to propose a new education for all humanity taught already in 34 Robert Muller schools around the world. But these are only drops of water in a sea of national schools.
~
Idea 2316 ~
I
must live as long as possible in order to do maximum good for this
Earth and humanity. We all must try to live as long as possible to do
our best for a peaceful, better, wonderful, beautiful
world.
~
Idea 2317 ~
It
would be a good idea if at the end of any human meeting there should
not be only a conclusion or a summary of the debates but a specific
list of ideas formulated during that meeting. I have seldom seen such
reports in the United Nations. It is a great pity because if
delegates knew that ideas and dreams would be recorded, they would be
prone to formulate them. I recommend that in all meetings in the
world people should be exhorted to have specific, concrete ideas and
that a list of them should be published at the end of the
meeting.
~
Idea 2318 ~
The
indigenous people, the chiefs, the elders when they speak have in
front of them a 'talking stick' to remind them to talk with the
heart. I have one which I adopted years ago. It is a wonderful
tradition. It might be good also to have a 'dream and idea stick',
reminding us to come up with dreams and concrete, good ideas. One
never knows, it might help. When I was a direct aide to three
Secretary Generals I established a rule that no draft text of a
speech for the Secretary General would be accepted if it did not
contain ideas. Today I would add that in each of the speeches of the
Secretary General there should also be the word love. That would be
the message of the indigenous people. Yes, the word love. I must make
sure that in all my speeches I never forget love. One of the students
at the end of a course that had lasted several weeks at the UN
University for Peace said to me after I spoke at the graduation, "I
am so grateful that you used the word love because in this entire
course on communications and peace I heard it only once and you used
it twice in your speech." If only all heads of states would speak
from their hearts and even once in a while cry a little.
~
Idea 2319 ~
I
noted in Volume I, pages. 140-141 the main periods I have lived since
the end of World War II and the creation of the United Nations, have
been namely: from 1945 to 1970 an incredible, intensive concern with
human issues; from 1970 to 1980 the upcoming concern for the nature
around us, the environment; a third period from 1980 to 1990, during
which the Earth became priority number one; and then since 1990 it is
the whole future evolution of the Earth and humanity which is at
stake. Regarding this last period I recommend the
following:
1. That a World Commission of Eminent Personalities on the Long-term Future of the Earth and Humanity be created.
2. That for every continent there should be regional consultations or conferences regarding the future of that continent.
3. That all professions on Earth should have a long-term view and concern for the long-term future of each profession.
4. That every human being should have a long-term view and concern for his life on Earth, for his descendants and leave his dreams for a better world.
~
Idea 2320 ~
A
dream, an idea has no body, no concrete reality. It is an assemblage
of immaterial images but it can be made into a very concrete,
powerful reality. Dreams and ideas are the moving forces shaping the
future.
~
Idea 2321 ~
My
book Most of All They Taught Me Happiness has been published in Italy
under the title: Battersi per la felicitá, To Fight for
Happiness. Yes, we have to do that for ourselves, for the whole
humanity, the whole Earth and all life on it.
~
Idea 2322 ~
On
the eve of the 21st century and third millennium the Secretary
General of the United Nations should prepare and propose a New Deal
for the Earth and Humanity. One of them exists already called Agenda
21 for the environment adopted by the Rio de Janeiro Conference in
1992.
~
Idea 2323 ~
I
have prepared an excerpt from my 2000 ideas of all those which should
be implemented or proposed to the world by the UN Secretary General.
I will address it to all heads of state who will meet in the UN
General Assembly 2000. I pray God that a few will read
them.
~
Idea 2324 ~
I
wish that someone would conceive, collect and publish 2000 Ideas for
a World Spiritual Renaissance. It might have wonderful results. I
will recommend that it be undertaken by the United Religions
Organization when it is created in the year 2000. I felt that I
should start one myself and extract from my 2000 ideas those which
deal with religion and spirituality. The result was a 59 pages
document! I will send it to all the members of the new World
Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality created with Dr.
Karan Singh of India.
~
Idea 2325 ~
I
recommend the creation of the following additional world commissions
of eminent personalities:
A
World Commission on Business
Corporations
A
World Commission on Love
A
World Commission on Hope
A
World Commission on Forgiveness
A
World Commission on Compassion
A
World Commission on Philanthropy and
Gaiaphily
A
World Commission on Optimism
A
World Commission on Justice
A
World Commission on Democracy
A
World Commission on Public Service, especially World Public
Service
A
World Commission on World Institutions and the
Future
A
World Commission on Universities, especially World
Universities
A
World Commission on the Media
A
World Commission on Advertising
A
World Commission on Human Migrations and proper human
settlements
~
Idea 2326 ~
There
should be a Dreams and Ideas Box for the public visiting the United
Nations to deposit their dreams and ideas for a better world. Next to
it there should be a Donation or Contribution Box in which they can
deposit money or checks to their United Nations (the Peoples') or to
a specific project like UNICEF, Refugees, etc.
~
Idea 2327 ~
The
United States considers itself to be the great defender of human
rights and enemy of genocide which means the killing of entire groups
of people.
But
what about the potential genocide if there is an accident of the
Cassini outer space craft when it returns to turn around the Earth to
gain velocity and go further into the universe? Millions of people
would die. It was revealed recently that a rocket which was the same
as one of the rockets of the Cassini craft had a serious accident and
failed.
We
should add a new category to genocides, namely potential genocides
caused by scientific and technological adventures.
Also to be taken into account are the 2000 tons of solid materials of human origin, resulting from explosions and collisions, which are floating already in outer space. We will end up even spoiling the heavens with our refuse and garbage.
~
Idea 2328 ~
All
thinking and planning on Earth must now go far beyond the current
yearly states of the world reports and reach as far as the year
3000.
~
Idea 2329 ~
Land
belonging to universities, university parks, land endowments to
universities should be the object of world statistics. Donations of
land to educational establishments can be an important way of saving
nature. It is a subject worth submitting to the International
Association of University Presidents.
Similarly religious and ecclesiastical lands should be inventorized. Sometimes entire mountains belong to religions, for example, Mt. Abu in India as well as other sacred places and pilgrimages around the world. This again would represent a substantial area of nature preservation.
I also insist again that the UN World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) should vastly extend its competence and be transformed into the UN World Intellectual and Land Property Organization (WILPO). We need a World Register (Cadastre) of all land properties on this planet.
~
Idea 2330 ~
It
is high time that we create a new profession of happiness advisors.
They could be of great help to many people who, despite all their
material welfare, have not found happiness. Further to my book Most
of All They Taught Me Happiness I should open a file of 2000 ideas on
happiness. One could coin two new words: happinesscracy, the rule of
happiness and beautycracy, the rule of beauty.
~
Idea 2331 ~
When
we speak of non-violence against nature we could define it as the
need to respect this extraordinary result of evolution. We speak of
enemies of nations, of ethnic groups, of religions. We should also
identify the enemies of nature.
~
Idea 2332 ~
More people in the world should write stories showing how success and results can be achieved if one never gives up. There should be a whole literature on this. It could be called a literature of perseverance. I am telling many of my own stories in my books. See for example how I got the United Nations Development Program created through perseverance (Idea 1924).
~
Idea 2333 ~
I
sent this message to Mr. Gustave Speth, the Administrator of the
United Nations Development Program who is leaving this
position:
"Having been a member of the first group of United Nations interns in 1948 which celebrates this year its 50th anniversary;
Having been a founder of the United Nations Development Program, one of the first staff members of Mr. Paul Hoffman, first Administrator of the United Nations Development Program, and the Secretary of the first governing council of the UNDP
Two of my views today are these:
I rejoice that after many years a long summary of the world report of the UNDP has for the first time been published in the New York Times.
You should become a great thinker and conceiver of audacious, new great ideas for a better Earth and human future, the biggest gap in human leadership and preoccupations today."
~
Idea 2334 ~
Since
the United Nations Charter starts with the words "We the peoples",
all letterheads and documents of the United Nations should bear the
words: "We the peoples of the United Nations". The Secretary General
of the UN should take that decision.
~
Idea 2335 ~
Nowadays
fifty million people die each year. Suppose the average weight of
them, taking into account children, is one hundred pounds. This would
mean five billion pounds of human matter which is all Earth matter.
This biological mass should be returned to the Earth. We should stop
locking the dead in coffins, concrete vaults or burning them. We must
return them to Mother Earth. She knows how to give them birth again
from her flesh into other life forms, vegetal or animal, grasses,
insects or fruits. It is a crime against her to withhold what came
from her and belongs to her.
~
Idea 2336 ~
We
should examine very carefully the contribution of language to the
solution of world problems. Very often we use negative words which
make problems worse. Before we use the word violence we should
hesitate. Instead of speaking of conflict resolution, we should speak
of disagreement solving or lack of agreement resolution.
~
Idea 2337 ~
There
is an absolute need for a World Commission of Eminent Personalities
to review world democracy. I wish for example that all parliamentary
elections in the world should be held on the same day or in the same
week or month and for the same duration so that we do not always hear
that a problem cannot be solved because there are going to be
elections in such and such a country. This was the case when I was
political advisor to the United Nations troops in Cyprus. A
forthcoming Greek election or Turkish election or American election
put everything to a standstill. The report of a World Commission on
Democracy would be most revealing.
~
Idea 2338 ~
There
are in the United Nations and in its specialized agencies and world
programs the following groups of people:
World
Servants
Experts
Consultants
Delegates
Officials
Interns
Volunteers
Non-governmental
Organizations
The
Press Corps
These people have a lot to say, to remember, to propose, to contribute to world history, to the future and to a better world. Alas, few are those who can find a publisher among the traditional publishers who give usually the answer, "The United Nations is not a popular item. We cannot publish you." Why not therefore create a United Nations Publishing House? This could be a tremendous step ahead in human progress and history. And most likely be a source of income for the United Nations. The United Nations should become the greatest publisher on Earth.
~
Idea 2339 ~
I
urge all heads of states, of world agencies, institutions, and
corporations, etc. never to deliver a speech written by someone else.
Better say simply and most sincerely what you have on your heart and
on your mind. The audience will never forget you.
~
Idea 2340 ~
The
best compliment I sometimes receive after speaking is when someone
says, "I was moved to tears when you spoke." As a matter of fact,
when speaking of the beauty of our planet, of the miracle of human
life and the wonderful, peaceful, heavenly world we could be I often
come close to crying myself and sometimes cannot hold my
tears.
~
Idea 2341 ~
A
Swedish educator, after hearing me speak, said to the audience that I
was the ideal to which all educators should aim, namely a contributor
of knowledge, dreams, ideas, concrete proposals and
emotions.
~
Idea 2342 ~
I
hope that someday we will have a Nobel Peace Prize Hall of Fame at
the UN University for Peace. It would be wonderful. At the United
Nations there should be a place where all the Nobel Peace Prizes
received by the United Nations and by its officials should be
displayed to be seen by the public.
~
Idea 2343 ~
I
would like to see a list of fields of human affairs in which there
exist already regulations close to world laws. The laws of the seas
and oceans, laws on the environment, laws of transportation, laws of
human rights and laws against international crimes are those that
come to my mind but there might be others. It would be interesting to
have a compendium of already existing near-world laws.
~
Idea 2344 ~
I'm
afraid that business and the free market are unable to understand the
process of evolution on this planet. They are thinking mainly of
producing, transforming, selling and making profits. Well, this is
the last conceivable purpose of evolution. It is so fundamentally
wrong that if humanity sticks to it as the dominant value we will see
an end of evolution. A total re-thinking, a new paradigm, new values
are absolutely necessary. The human species must get its evolutionary
values straight.
~
Idea 2345 ~
Reading
on the terrace of our farmlet in Costa Rica the Ode to Joy written by
the German poet Schiller for Beethoven, I suddenly felt a gush of
fresh soul from the universe expand my breast and nourish my heart.
It was the air of Costa Rica, an ocean of peace. And this thought
came to my mind: the United Nations should move out of New York City
to sacred Mt. Rasur from which the Indian God of the children, Rasur
prophecized that a civilization of peace will extend to the entire
world.
~
Idea 2346 ~
The
Secretary General of the UN should create an Implementation Unit in
the United Nations and obtain from each United Nations agency a
report on implementation. He would then report to the yearly General
Assembly on the degree of implementation of decisions which were
taken by humanity's collective bodies and addressed to governments
for implementation. These reports would show the great weakness of
the United Nations as a proper world organization, a large number of
its decisions and recommendations not being fulfilled by
governments.
~
Idea 2347 ~
The
time has come to seriously envisage a world-wide prohibition of oil
exploration and exploitation from the sea bottoms in order to save
the environment, and promote vigorously electric cars and the use of
other sources of energy like solar, wind, sea and geothermal
energy.
~
Idea 2348 ~
The
time has come when on the agenda of world affairs one should raise
the question of the excessive, constant accumulation of wealth in
rich countries, rich institutions and rich people and the need for
redistribution. One could use a new word, namely decumulation of
wealth.
~
Idea 2349 ~
I
will propose to the government of Costa Rica that it should consider
seriously the matter of taxation of advertisements, e.g.:
- the taxation of the huge advertisements of American cigarette companies and other products along the highways, damaging the views of the beautiful Costa Rican natural landscapes;
- the taxation of multiple years long free advertisement gained by big firms like Coca Cola when giving shopkeepers free outdoor signs with their advertisement;
- the taxation of advertisements on signs for bus waiting stations given freely by big firms who then have a cheap, free advertisement for many years. And the same is done with poor shopkeepers by giving them implements free of charge but wearing the Coca Cola or other similar advertisements.
~
Idea 2350 ~
The
word advertisement should be abolished and replaced by information.
The public should be informed that such and such a product or service
is available and be given its true characteristics and value. Most of
the time advertisement is pure propaganda and non-ethical.
Public institutions and services on the other hand are usually not advertised. The United Nations cannot advertise its activities. It can only inform the public. But more and more public services begin to advertise too. Governments sometimes use sheer propaganda. Cities advertise, etc. Advertisement, together with the media, has become a major world disease, an unethical deformity of the human condition, a farce to true democracy.
And when UNESCO wanted to hold a world conference on advertisement and the media the United States walked out of UNESCO, giving of course other reasons like bureaucracy, overspending, except the real one. Thus, a major government that offers itself as a model of democracy, human rights and ethics uses lies to protect its business interests. That is the world in which we live!
Yes, there exists now a new world-wide business 'unethics' which has never existed before on this planet. Cigarettes and alcohol advertisements are the most flagrant examples.
~
Idea 2351 ~
It
is probable that the natural oxygen production of the Earth cannot
keep up with the carbon dioxide production by humans. Data on both
should therefore be published monthly by all nations and globally by
the United Nations.
~
Idea 2352 ~
Together
with gross national product (GNP) statistics, all nations should be
required to publish also gross nature destruction (GND)
statistics.
~
Idea 2353 ~
Ever
more frequent grass cutting with machines using gasoline should be
thoroughly studied and its effects published and reported in the
press. We need the oxygen produced by high grasses and the diversity
of their vegetation. The interests of the grass mowing machine
producers is such that expansion of this new way of handling nature
might become a disaster in the years to come. To deforestation we
should add the evil of degrassification.
~
Idea 2354 ~
The
United Religions Initiative (Organization) should collect information
and publish statistics on abandoned, empty, disaffected churches and
places of worship all around the world as well as on new
constructions. It might be an interesting, revealing information on
the state of spirituality in the world.
~
Idea 2355 ~
Ministries
of Labor should be transformed into Ministries of Employment with an
emphasis on good, useful employment and happiness in employment. As I
have recommended several times, a Ministry of Happiness should be
created in all governments to insure that all other ministries will
include happiness as one of their concerns and objectives. I cannot
see how a Ministry of War can have happy students by teaching them to
kill other human youngsters of their age and bomb civilian
populations of mothers and children in cities.
~
Idea 2356 ~
If
someone like me, who has spent most of his life in world positions to
figure out the meaning of human life on this planet and has not
succeeded, how can I expect the other six billion people to
understand it? One billion are excused because they never had an
education. How about the others? Isn't it the role, the duty, the
purpose of education to give humans that meaning? Why does it not do
so? Why does it not succeed?
I will address that question to the Director General of UNESCO. I got the 1986 World Peace Education Prize of that organization but that is not enough. There should also be a world prize for the education of the meaning of life.
~
Idea 2357 ~
When
will we see on this planet a World No Newspapers Day or Week and a
World No Television Day or Week? What a relief it would be for
people. They would rediscover themselves.
~
Idea 2358 ~
The
United Nations should publish information on what effects there are
on the future of nature and of the Earth when one new human being is
not added to the world population, distinguishing between a rich and
a poor country. Similarly the United Nations should study the effects
of a decline in consumption on the preservation and future of the
Earth.
~
Idea 2359 ~
There
should be a World Memorial Day to replace all national Memorial Days.
UNESCO should publish a list of all national days and see which ones
should become world days. Memorializing should become a subject of
study, perhaps even a science.
~
Idea 2360 ~
The
same way as there exists already a Peace Corps, there should be a
whole series of corps in the following fields:
Art
Corps
Health
Corps
Environment
Corps
Prison
Corps
Handicap
Corps
Poverty
Corps
Earth
Corps
Etc.
All these corps should be organized at the local, national, continental and world levels. A World Corps Association or Organization should be created.
~
Idea 2361 ~
There
should be a World Association of Non-activists and Non-doers, of
people who do nothing with enthusiasm, who do not seek wealth,
business, who have no television, no newspapers, who do not run
around, who really love only nature, our Mother Earth and cultivate
their gardens and own life.
~
Idea 2362 ~
I
wish that someone would collect and publish the views and feelings of
all those humans who have seen our entire Earth from the moon or from
farther distances in outer space, astronauts of whom there were many.
This could be an enlightenment for us humans on Earth as we enter the
new millennium. The indigenous people are so right when they consider
their two main relationships to be with the Earth and with the
heavens. Their views, cosmologies and prophecies should be also
collected, publicized and studied.
~
Idea 2363 ~
It
is good that Harvard University has recently published several
volumes of surveys of the views and contributions of the world's
religions to the environment. The same should be done for the views
and traditions of the indigenous people.
~
Idea 2364 ~
If
I were the UN Secretary General I would create somewhere in the world
on a hill a place of encounter of visionaries from around the Earth
who would give their prophecies, visions, hopes and warnings to
humanity. Sacred Mt. Rasur above the UN University for Peace in Costa
Rica would be a good place for a World Group of
Visionaries.
~
Idea 2365 ~
One
of the great recommendations of the General Assembly 2000 of heads of
state would be that a Ministry of the Future should be created in all
governments and that commissions or offices of the future should be
created from the top of the world in the United Nations and its
specialized agencies down to continents, the seas and oceans,
nations, provinces, local cities and communities.
~
Idea 2366 ~
Global
education should not be merely an addition to national education. It
should be the most comprehensive education including continental,
national, local and family education. Family education should play an
important role, the fathers, mothers and grandparents having had life
experience and being the basic cosmic units of evolution, as will be
the children.
~
Idea 2367 ~
In
all the media of the world, newspapers, radios, television, etc.
there should be a daily report on the state of the Earth and of its
vital resources like air and water.
~
Idea 2368 ~
I
noticed that there are very few benches in the city of Paris. People
have to sit outdoors of restaurants and consume beer or other drinks
to sit down. In every city of the world there should be a given
percentage of benches and sitting opportunities per thousand
inhabitants. They could be labeled "Benches of Dreams".
~
Idea 2369 ~
Dear
people who love the Earth and nature, do not give your money so
easily to the merchants who have the upper hand and will not hesitate
to damage the Earth. Do not buy anything which you do not really
need. The less you are surrounded by so called goods (let us call
them things and some of them 'bads') the more you will be yourself
and find increasing happiness in the depth, width, mystery, reason
and miracle of your own life. Also go out into nature and you will
find paradise, the real one, not the artificial one ceaselessly
modified and invented by economists, the media, businesses and
capital holders.
~
Idea 2370 ~
We
need to cultivate as much individual, social, environmental, cultural
and evolutionary diversity as one finds in nature. This should be one
of the principles of the upcoming United Nature as the proper
government of the Earth.
~
Idea 2371 ~
Why
is there today such an incredible inventiveness in science,
technology, industry, production, merchandising, selling and
advertising and so little in the social sciences, in philosophy, in
the science and art of living? This is an upside down period of human
history which might cost us dearly. Future generations will wonder
why we stuck so long to it.
~
Idea 2372 ~
The
United Nations must urgently convene a World Conference on
Consumption to deal with the pathetic underconsumption of 1.3 billion
poor people and the staggering, monumental, often wasteful
overconsumption of most western people.
~
Idea 2373 ~
The
western world is afflicted not only with sexual exhibitionism but
also with a much more Earth damaging commercial and selling
exhibitionism. It is called more elegantly marketing, advertisement,
products display, etc. and is being taught extensively in academic
institutions. We should scoff at these new so called sciences or
disciplines. We live in a distorted world totally ruled by business.
How right is the title of David Korten's book Corporations Rule the
World!
~
Idea 2374 ~
We
must absolutely make the peace, beauty and preservation of our
heavenly Earth and the peace, happiness and well-being of the entire
human family our two topmost priorities in the third millennium. Most
of our past goals, cravings and ideals have become obsolete,
outdated. All human groups, be it races, sexes, nations, religions,
institutions, ethnic groups, cities, villages, families and last but
not least all individuals must contribute and give priority to these
two over-riding challenges of evolution.
~
Idea 2375 ~
If
every human being would clean a mile on Earth, since we are six
billion people there would not be enough miles to clean! Think even
beyond that: if every human being would beautify a mile on
Earth...
~
Idea 2376 ~
Of
the population explosion and the overconsumption explosion which one
is the easiest to cope with? Not the population explosion because you
cannot kill people, only slow down reproduction. As for
overconsumption you can stop immediately buying unnecessary things.
Let us work on both of them with more immediate, concrete results
from the second.
~
Idea 2377 ~
I
will have the lay out the strategy, plans and ideas for all
twenty-one segments of major human concerns outlined in Ideas 527 to
547. Why? Because few if any people are doing it, most people being
concerned with immediate, daily affairs..
~
Idea 2378 ~
The
US tries to obtain a lot of clout from its NATO military intervention
in Yugoslavia for the defense of human minority rights.
But the same virtuous country refuses to remove the land mines it left in the soil of Vietnam and which continue to kill many innocent people, especially children. It would be interesting to see comparative statistics of the people killed by the Milosevich regime and those killed by US land mines. The United States too should be indicted by the new International Criminal Court. I hope with all my heart that a peoples' movement will introduce such a lawsuit against the US Government.
~
Idea 2379 ~
We
speak a lot about privatization but why not about worldilization and
humanization?
To make war is dehumanizing not humanizing.
To radically change nature is not development, it is denaturing, often outright nature destruction.
The human species might have become, to a large extent, a destructive species of nature. The greatest cause of destruction and violence on this planet might become obsolete capitalism.
~
Idea 2380 ~
The
United Nations or a World Democracy Agency should publish yearly
statistics on parliamentarism, democracy and political elections in
all countries.
It would be interesting to learn:
- in how many and in which countries there are no elections at all
- the sex and age composition of parliaments, how many women, youth, elderly
-
which countries allow the financing of political campaigns and
contributions by business?
etc.
~
Idea 2381 ~
There
is a much delayed urgent need for humanity on this planet: the need
for feminization and lovenization, the acceptance and use of the
virtues of love which are best known and practiced by women since
they give life and raise children. All military schools on Earth
should be run by women, by mothers. They would soon close
them.
~
Idea 2382 ~
I
wish that one country in the world would decide that one national
election would elect only women into office for a mandate to see what
different ways of government would emerge and to draw proper
conclusions and reforms from the experience.
~
Idea 2383 ~
Humanity
is so lost in its wealth and complexity of knowledge, beliefs,
ideals, ideas, institutions, sentiments and actions that it risks to
perish as the dominant species of this planet taking along with it
many other life forms and most of nature.
I recommend that the UN should convene a World Emergency Conference on the Future of Humanity and of the Earth. This could be one of the decisions of the Year 2000 Heads of States UN General Assembly.
~
Idea 2384 ~
Another
idea would be to create a World Commission of Eminent Personalities
on that subject.
~
Idea 2385 ~
World
thinkers and religious leaders should make an effort to see how the
United Nations could become the world implementor of the precepts of
the Bible and other sacred religious texts:
- to be the jubillennium of humanity, the place to rejoice at humanity's successes and progress,;
- to be the wall of lamentations where people, nations and institutions can lament their defeats, sins and miseries;
- to be a place of forgiveness;
- to write a new global Bible and sacred texts for the future of humanity and of the Earth.
~
Idea 2386 ~
I
hope that at some point on this planet there will be a new category
of women called the non-buying women whose concern for the Earth will
overrule their innate nature of buying. Since the Earth is a mother,
all mothers of Earth should make her their primary concern and object
of love.
~
Idea 2387~
Which
will be the first big city in the world to declare that it has become
unlivable, unmanageable, that no more people should come to live in
it and that many inhabitants should leave it?
~
Idea 2388 ~
There
is an absolutely constant, up to date, urgent need for global
education at all levels of humans on this planet, from individuals,
families, neighborhoods, villages, cities, provinces, nations,
continents, to the world as a whole. Leaders in all institutions
should make such education their foremost preoccupation. All that is
needed is to use in all schools, media and institutions the World
Core Curriculum I derived from humanity's first global organization,
the United Nations. It presents in simple form the incredible
knowledge we have acquired of our planetary home in the universe, of
the human family in its totality, down to the family and the miracle
of human life, all of this in the stream of time from the past into
the future. If we give this basic information to all schoolchildren
we will save the future of this planet. For adults there is similarly
an absolute need for constant, up to date global information from the
media and proper actions at all levels of government and by all
institutions on this planet. (See the two tables on education and the
media published in Volume I.)
~
Idea 2389 ~
I
dream of the creation of many communities of simple, frugal living
respectful of the miraculous nature of our Earth. 'Eco-villages'
exist already in many places of the world. They should spread
extensively and be created also in big cities and their
suburbs.
~
Idea 2390 ~
Each
time the Wall Street Dow Jones Index soars by a number of points the
Earth-preservation Index plummets by the equivalent if not greater
number of points. But where on Earth is there an Earth-preservation
Index?
~
Idea 2391 ~
The
notion and ideal of free enterprise was perfect in the 19th and early
20th century when the world population was small and natural
resources were plentiful and unexploited. Now in the new
circumstances of an exploding population and a beleaguered Earth it
has all too often become damaging and destructive to both. It should
be replaced by the notion and ideal of human fulfillment and
Earth-conservation enterprises. Can we expect at least some
businesses to call themselves humanity and Earth loving enterprises
and to work for it?
~
Idea 2392 ~
The
notions of sustainable development and growth should be replaced by
Earth conservation and human fulfillment. All local, national,
continental and world economic statistics (oikos nomos, Earth
management) and indexes should reflect these two evolutionary
imperatives.
~
Idea 2393 ~
The
same way as the notion interstate is part and parcel of the larger
notion of nation, international should become part and parcel of the
larger notions of global, world and planet Earth.
And the time will also come when the notions of global, world and planet Earth will become parts of the larger concept of cosmic, universal.
~
Idea 2394 ~
In
a new world terminology we must also insert at its right place the
concept of biosphere, the sphere of life, the small layer or membrane
around the Earth which reaches only a few miles into the atmosphere,
a few miles into the seas and oceans and a few meters into the crust
of the Earth and contains all life on our planet and in our solar
system.
This is what we are dangerously playing with these days with wars, violence, overpopulation, overconsumption, excessive travel and transportation, etc. The UN must absolutely publish a yearly report on the state of the biosphere showing in particular the losses of pure air, pure water, soils, forest covers and the number of species vanished (the current rate is one every five hours).
~
Idea 2395 ~
We
see less and less birds and wild animals on this planet, only more
and more cars and airplanes carrying human animals around in all
directions, to do what?
~
Idea 2396 ~
The
capitalist world is no longer inspiring. It is dispiring, depressing
because it needs ever more dissatisfaction and unhappiness of humans
in order to sell them endlessly more and more products, services and
'entertainments'.
~
Idea 2397 ~
The
time might come when laws will be adopted in some poor countries that
no couple should have more than two children while in the western
countries allowances will be given for more children.
~
Idea 2398 ~
I
propose to former Secretary General Boutros Ghali, who has been asked
to prepare a report on world democracy by UNESCO, to include a
chapter on demo-ideology or people's ideology which would reflect
people's ideas and dreams for a better world. It could produce
surprising results.
~
Idea 2399 ~
To
the throw-away consumers' society a throw-away producers society has
been added recently: if new products do not sell fast and well enough
they are simply thrown away if they cannot be recycled. The size and
diversity of this new Earth disaster added to the preceding one is
relentlessly increasing.
~
Idea 2400 ~
In
my life as a dreamer and world improver, I have been endlessly
astonished by the notable events, people and incredible coincidences
that come constantly my way. It is as if God, the saints and
invisible forces of the universe want to help me, guide me and make
things happen. There is a text by the famous German writer Goethe
which describes this situation well:
Until
one is committed
there
is hesitancy, the chance to draw back,
always
ineffectiveness.
Concerning
all acts of initiative and creation,
there
is one elementary truth,
the
ignorance of which kills countless ideas
and
splendid plans:
That
the moment one definitely commits
oneself,
then
Providence moves too.
All
sorts of things occur to help one
that
would never otherwise have occurred.
A
whole stream of events issues from the
decision,
raising
in one's favor all manner
of
unforeseen incidents and meetings
and
material assistance,
which
no one could have dreamt
would
have come his way.
Whatever
you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness
has genius, power, and magic in it.
ANNEX
Encouragement from a Young Man
The following poem which I received in 1979 from a young admirer Sanford Hinden, living in Long Island, New York has helped me for the rest of my UN career and life to never lose hope. Whenever I am depressed and ready to give up I read it and I am reminded of the expectations and hopes of youth when they look up to adults in positions where they can do something for a better world and happier humanity. Thank you dear Sandy Hinden from the innermost of my heart. (see also Ideas 239, 240 and 1391)
Man of Optimism - Man of Grace - Man of Service
Man
of optimism,
Man
of grace
Man of service,
Unifier of All-Time and All-Space
He
speaks of Love,
In
social and economic terms.
Glimpsing the not too distant peace
dove,
His vision-heart so yearns...
Seeking
and questing,
He
finds his night's peace,
In dreams and hopes,
Of Universal release.
This
man of optimism,
This
man of grace.
This man of world service,
Unifier of the human race.
Blessed
is
The
road this server treads,
And by the food of Love's substance
His soul's hunger is eternally fed.
Deeply
behold, this man of inspiration,
This
man of God's graces,
This man of natural service,
This man for all-seasons and all-places.
Learn
by his daily truths,
Made
known to him through his day.
Learn from this teacher of karmic
wisdom,
Through the action of his deeds and whole-souled
worldly-way.
Students
of Life,
From
all the world around,
Hear in his secular benedictions,
A keynote of Godly interrelatedness
Therein to be found.
With
them he leaves
A
resonating new-start.
An attunement to
Mankind's new Planetary-Heart.
Therein
they all do find,
His
heavenly Story of Life:
"The Ending, Forever,
Of Bitterness, and Strife".
Great
being of hopefulness,
Great
man of the Lord's grace,
Great being of our United Nations
Organization,
Great manifestor of this Holy-Planet-Place.
With
you our hopes
Are
rekindled each time,
As we listen to you weave your tale
Of the Radiant-God message, so fine:
"God
of our fathers and mothers,
God of Divine,
God of all nations
And peoples throughout time...
God of Wisdom's light,
And God of Love,
God in All-Forms,
And God as the Holy-Aspiration-Dove...
God by all man-made names,
And God of all earthly natures,
God of all eternally infinite
And infinitesimally small life-producing
creatures...
God beyond all words,
And God beyond all boundaries and war,
God of all good(s)
In the vast Universal Store...
God of the co-evolving
Holy realization,
Of the God inside
Our mundane-human situation...
God of our actions,
And God of all nations,
God of our complete
And wholly Integration...
God of our structures,
And social organization,
God of fulfillment
Through the harmonization of all
nations...
God of Service,
In the form of Dedication
To the Holy-Manifestation,
Of the eternally evolving Plan of God's Creation..."
This
is the story,
His
weaving of words thus tells,
For those who seek to quench their
aspiration-thirst,
To drink from this wise man's well.
He
mends their hearts
With
the miracle of creation,
And works to heal
The painful cleavages between nations.
This
is the man optimistic about global-love,
He
is the man in the State of Godly Grace,
The holy man uniting nation-hearts,
The weaver of the new social and economic lace.
He
is the builder of hope,
In
the House of Creation,
Wherein can be found
The room of infinite, and eternal, emanation.
Man
of optimism,
Man
of grace.
Man of service,
Unifier of All-Time and All-Space.
Sanford
Hinden
October
1979
PART V
IDEAS 2401 TO 2500
INTRODUCTION
Never Give Up
In Idea 1924 I told how the United Nations Development Program, one of the biggest if not the biggest world aid program was created in 1959. I reproduce hereafter forty year old documents which I found in a file followed by more recent letters to successive heads of the United Nations Development Program.
Now that as a result of very rapid technological developments enormous quantities of equipment and machinery are being abandoned or discarded in the western world, I recommend that a new UN World Fund be created similar to the World Food Program entitled World Equipment and Machinery Aid Fund (WEMAF). The UNDP which has representative offices in practically all poor countries could take care of such a fund, transferring to these countries abandoned western equipment and machinery which would still be a blessed, highly welcomed gift to them.
24 January 1991
I gave the scribbled diagram attached to the following letter in 1959 to Paul Hoffman, former administrator of the Marshall Plan and Managing Director of the newly established Special Fund of the UN. I asked him why the US had not conceived the Marshall Plan as a revolving fund: the countries receiving the huge sums of money from the US would have to reimburse that money without interest after several years, once they would be recovered, to an international revolving fund, which then would continue to give it to poor countries with the same provision, etc. He answered me that when he was Administrator of the Marshall Plan a crazy Frenchman was running after him trying to sell him the same idea. He regretted that he did not accept it at the time.
I dug out this paper in January 1991 when asked to speak to the 30th anniversary ceremony of the creation of the UNDP and donated a bust of Paul Hoffman.
31
March 1996
Dear
Mr. Speth,
I read recently an excellent speech or paper in which you underline that the resources given by the UNDP match those given by the IMF and World Bank. What remembrances this brought back to me as I remembered the several years long battle we had to wage to get finally as a compromise the Special Fund, later the UNDP, created. With Hans Singer I was one of the two first officials of Paul Hoffman. I said good-bye to him after a few weeks, because I never like to stay with something I helped to create, looking always towards new avenues, as I am still today. Going through some old papers I found the enclosed which I gave at the time to Paul Hoffman, regretting that the Marshall Plan had not been conceived as a permanent revolving fund. I see in the lower note that it was not too late to do so at the time, and consider some bilateral aid as reimbursable in time, without any interest payments. Why not revive that idea today? It could be additional to the international and bilateral aid given today. It is never too late to do good.
When
you were appointed, I believe I wrote to you about that and told you
about two seemingly crazy ideas I had in the early times of the UN.
One was that we always spoke of capital aid in terms of finance but
in reality capital is savings, i.e. non-consumption of goods. Why not
propose to the rich countries to channel the surplus foods they were
burning to the poor countries? Well, this led to the creation of the
World Food Program, which is even bigger than the UNDP. The only
condition of the rich countries was that the food would go to the
hungry and to children, in order not to interfere with the holy rules
of the market. This was done. On another occasion, when Raymond
Scheyven, a Belgian, was appointed on the Committee trying to create
a UN Revolving Development Fund (SUNFED), before he paid his first
visit to the Bank, I said to him: Tell the Bank that the time will
come when they will be in bad need for concessional aid to go along
with their normal loans, especially to construct roads and
infrastructure projects. Well that was the birth of the International
Development Association (IDA). Why not have some novel ideas today?
Is it normal to let pass decades without new ideas? For example, if
one is capable of transferring surplus foods, why not consider
transferring also second hand machinery instead of scrapping it?
Also, if one would calculate all the aid, voluntary and private, by
religions, goodwill associations from the rich countries, one would
probably come to staggering figures. Why not have a new look at the
whole field. Even if nothing comes out of it, it would nevertheless
be worthwhile. I have decided myself to come out with 2000 ideas as
my contribution to the year 2000. Some of them are already being
implemented.
With
my warmest greetings,
Robert
Muller
Mr.
James Gustave Speth
Head
of United Nations Development Program
~
Idea 2401 ~
There
are increasing numbers of people, groups and communities around the
world, which practice simple and frugal living for their personal
reward and happiness and for the preservation of the Earth. I believe
the time has come to create a World Association for Simple and Frugal
Living, a non-governmental organization (NGO) to be accredited with
the United Nations.
~
Idea 2402 ~
There
should also be a World Council on simple and frugal living working
with the United Nations Earth Council created in Costa Rica by the
1992 UN Rio de Janeiro Conference on the Environment.
~
Idea 2403 ~
The
current 20th century distinction between developed and undeveloped
countries must be replaced in the 21st century by Earth destroying
and Earth non-destroying countries.
~
Idea 2404 ~
On
our current, beleaguered, endangered Earth for anyone to become
extremely rich is no longer a successful, admirable, enviable fact,
but a rather deplorable one.
The rich people and countries should take an outright decision to give away most of their wealth to the poor in their countries and in the world. We need to achieve a world of satisfactory well-being for all humans on Earth, a world of justice without excessive disparities. Economists and sociologists should work out ideas, plans and a world strategy to that effect.
~
Idea 2405 ~
Capitalism
and communism are both two outdated extreme experiments, born from
19th century conditions. We need moderation. As the Romans said, "in
medio stat virtus", virtue is a middle course. What word should one
use for a new world ideology? Moderationism could be one; moderation
in wealth, power and ownership, moderation toward the Earth, of
population increase, of consumption, of the size of cities, of
buildings, of houses, etc.
The age of competition, of the survival of the fittest, strongest and smartest is over. It would lead to our destruction. It is as simple as that. The new evolutionary phase of this planet must be cooperation.
Let us become a planet of cooperation and moderation, of love, of Earth-preservation, of beautification, of a satisfactory well-being and happiness for all humans blessed with the miracle of life.
~
Idea 2406 ~
One
country at least on Earth should have the courage to decree that no
skyscrapers will be built anymore. It would set limits to the number
of floors allowed in any building.
~
Idea 2407 ~
The
human species is terminally ill. Its sickness is
capitalism.
We are in World War III, the biggest, most destructive war on this planet, the war against the Earth led by the obsolete, outdated, western capitalist system.
The people must come to the rescue of the Earth.
~
Idea 2408 ~
At
a meeting of the advisory board of the Foundation for the Future, in
Bellevue, Washington, which reaches with its work as far as the year
3000, I insisted that there was urgent need to transform the United
Nations into an Evolutionary Earth Government to prevent the end of
evolution on this planet.
~
Idea 2409 ~
Do
we always have to buy more, to consume more, to want more, to
accumulate more? Can't we be satisfied ever and live in peace and
harmony with our inner self, with few goods, with our wonderful
nature and Earth for the sake of her and of our
descendants?
~
Idea 2410 ~
I
pray for the creation of numerous eco-indigenous communities in which
indigenous and non-indigenous people would live together, learn from
each other, improve the ways of living of the indigenous people and
ecologize, dematerialize and demonitize the ways of life of the
western people. It would be a middle way, a less destructive way of
living in harmony with our perishable nature.
~
Idea 2411 ~
There
is need to create a United Nations Agency of Sports. It would render
great services to the cooperation of all humans in sports
competitions instead of military and war competitions. The World
Olympics would be its General Assembly. Periods of armistice are
already declared by the UN, renewing the Greek tradition that during
the Olympic Games all conflicts and violence were prohibited. A UN
Agency of Sports would contribute to the greater unity and diversity
of the human species.
~
Idea 2412 ~
I
recommend that everywhere in the world there should be a renaissance
of ancient, local, indigenous names replacing many modern, western
names of natural areas, communities, villages and roads. What a great
contribution this would be to the ecology and unity in diversity of
our planet and human family!
~
Idea 2413 ~
Development
of what? Of the stock markets, banks, armaments, militarization,
overpopulation, overproduction, overconsumption and deterioration of
our air, water, soil and nature?
In the year 3000 the indigenous peoples in their forests, hills and villages might still be alive while the great cities proudly built by arrogant western man will be deserted cemeteries of airports, parking places, concrete, empty, meaningless skyscrapers, warehouses and houses filled with mountains of abandoned 'goods'.
~
Idea 2414 ~
At
the end of the second millennium some of the biggest stepping stones
to the third millennium were:
1. The creation and work of the United Nations and of its 32 specialized agencies and world programs which provided an indispensable, comprehensive inventory of our planet and of humanity, the first ever in human history. This paved the way to the possibility of a proper planetary management of our Earth and of its further evolution.
2. The end of the cold war, the continuance of which would have meant irremediable disaster for the planet and humanity.
We must build on both.
~
Idea 2415 ~
We
have become a very wrong, chaotic, disorderly, destructive human
society on one of the richest, most beautiful, stabilized, perhaps
unique life endowed planets in the universe.
It would be good if politicians, businessmen, capital holders and militaries would imagine that soon they will live on a planet devoid of all the basic resources needed for life, to begin with oxygen and water, and to imagine a different future, different ideals, values and behaviors.
~
Idea 2416 ~
Immortal
can become on this planet only those who have an immeasurable love
and concern for the Earth and for the entire human family. All others
will be forgotten.
~
Idea 2417 ~
The
Earth should be our precious garden, our temple, our paradise. Our
passion should be to preserve it, to embellish it and to see peace,
love and happiness rein everywhere.
~
Idea 2418 ~
The
more I live the more I cherish life, and the more I love it the more
life loves me. My relation with life and with the Earth is that of a
couple, a very happy couple in love. Romeo and Juliet. Robert and
Eartha. Please do the same.
~
Idea 2419 ~
Emigration
and immigration are no longer known to the citizens of the fifteen
countries of the new European Union. They can settle anywhere in
these countries without any restrictions. When will come the day when
this will be true for the entire world? Should it not? Goods can now
move freely around the world under the World Trade Organization. Why
not people under a borderless World Peoples' Organization?
~
Idea 2420 ~
May
the thunder of God strike me if I should ever cease to think, to
dream, to plan, to speak, to write, to work for a better, peaceful,
happy, marvelous world. I want even to do it as a spirit after my
death.
~
Idea 2421 ~
I
was reading a copy of my novel Sima Mon Amour which I will give to
the mayor of Divonne Les Bains in France where this love novel
unfolds in part. The tears came to my eyes. What incredible love I
have for this planet and for its people, a truly magical life and
love affair for which I am so grateful to God. Perhaps love for the
Earth and its magnificent nature and love for humanity starting with
one's own life, love for our spouse and family are the greatest
fountains of happiness on this planet.
~
Idea 2422 ~
All
human beings, all institutions, corporations, religions should ask
themselves these questions every day, at the end of each year and at
the end of their life:
What have I done to help the further evolution of planet Earth, its beauty, its peace, the fulfillment of all its species, especially the most advanced, most knowledgeable, the human one?
What have I done that caused it damage, destruction or regress?
We badly need such examinations of conscience toward the Earth and humanity. The present western beliefs, values, institutions and ways of life are harming, if not killing the regenerative capacity of the Earth, its waters, species, air, soils, vegetation, climate. We must ask ourselves: how long can this last on such a colossal scale?
~
Idea 2423 ~
Extreme
liberalism and individualism and extreme communism are both wrong.
Humans must cooperate in one humanity, one family the same way as
cells and organs cooperate in the human body. Peace on Earth among
all humans is still a priority. But peace with the Earth has become
an even greater one. We must see the Earth and humanity cooperate as
one vast entity with all cells and organs cooperating
together.
~
Idea 2424 ~
The
International Standardization Organization must become a full
specialized agency of the United Nations. World-wide standardization
can prevent colossal wastes, duplications, costly expenditures,
dis-economies and accidents.
~
Idea 2425 ~
Mother
Earth might become less and less proud of us and less loving. The
time might come when she will rejoice when humans kill each other in
wars, die in accidents or from environmental diseases and
evolutionary degradations such as cancer, Aids, etc. The less humans
there will be, the less the Earth will be destroyed and can keep
other species alive and continue her incredible, marvelous
diversified evolution. Just look at a butterfly, at a bird or at a
flower to grasp her miracles.
~
Idea 2426 ~
The
Earth Council created in Costa Rica by the second United Nations
World Conference on the Environment in Rio de Janeiro is as
important, if not more, than the UN University for Peace also created
in that demilitarized country and paradise of nature. The two
together on the same miraculous tropical grounds of sacred Mt. Rasur
can do wonders and become the new Athens of the world. Endowed with
vast freedom, they can become the brain, the heart and the soul of
the United Nations, of humanity and of the Earth.
~
Idea 2427 ~
The
more I advance in life as a world servant, the more I feel that the
word politics should be eliminated from human language. It meant in
Greek the administration of the polis, the city. Today we are far
beyond cities and states. We have the major task of governing,
administering and fulfilling the entire Earth and
humanity.
We should therefore agree on new words for the sciences, skills, institutions and professions dealing with the Earth and humanity. Here are a few suggestions:
Earthology:
the science of the Earth; humanology, the science of
humanity
Earthologists:
the scientists of the Earth;
humanologists
Earth
Management, Earth Managers; humanity management,
managers
Earth
Organizations, Earth Organizers; humanity organization,
organizers
Earth
Institutions, Earth Servants; humanity institutions,
servants
Earth
Futurology, Earth Futurologists: evolutionary scientists; humanity
futurology, futurologists
Earth
Bio-regions, Bio-regional scientists; human bio-regions; bio-human
scientists
Etc.
Let us work on new words and come up with a comprehensive Earthology and Humanology much deeper and further reaching than politics.
~
Idea 2428 ~
Most
visionaries and prophets were voices in the desert. I am such a voice
too but in a paradise of nature on a sacred mountain wherefrom
invisible, mysterious forces give birth to my dreams and ideas
identical with theirs.
~
Idea 2429 ~
We
are all extremely important cosmic units in the evolution of the
universe, of the Earth and of humanity. We are living cells of the
universe, of the Earth and of humanity. Please never forget it. You
have an enormous, extraordinarily important role to play for a better
world, in your daily life, in your entire life and even after
death.
~
Idea 2430 ~
Only
in solitude, silence and nature can we find answers to the mysteries
of life, of the heavens, of a better world and of
ourselves.
~
Idea 2431 ~
People
are sick and tired of wars and violence. Dear heads of states, you
better take notice of it if you want to be loved and remembered. Pure
nationalism no longer pays. Peace, please.
~
Idea 2432 ~
I
dream of the time when beautiful peace and love stories will be more
interesting, popular, acclaimed and loved than war, horror and
violence stories.
~
Idea 2433 ~
We
can be proud of our human intelligence only if we can conceive and
properly mold our future on this planet without destroying it. We
might be a tremendous evolutionary success or a dismal
failure.
~
Idea 2434 ~
A
so called primitive species which does not destroy the Earth and
itself might be smarter than the western human one fully involved in
doing that. Full consciousness of the damages we do to the Earth
might be our only salvation. It is a deliberate choice to make. The
main difference between animals and humans is that animals live in
harmony with nature and do not destroy her while we are now doing
that on a world-wide scale. We scratch, dig, wound, misconstruct
progressively the Earth to her death and call it economic
development.
~
Idea 2435 ~
The
Earth and humanity are being boycotted by national
governments:
- there is not supposed to be a proper Earth government
- there are not supposed to be any world laws, only national laws
- there is not supposed to be a world democracy and voices
- there are not supposed to be a World Court of Justice and court system
- there is not supposed to be any world taxation and world lending to provide resources for crucial common, global human and Earth public services.
As a result we continue to have wars, mind-boggling duplications of expenditures between 189 carved out nations and the whole Earth and some nations are going to pieces.
How long will this disastrous situation and blindness last? Perhaps a first few catastrophies will wake us up.
~
Idea 2436 ~
The
US government does not want any more UN world conferences considered
to be obstacles to US political and economic dreams for the
world.
There is need for many more world-wide conferences on how to save the Earth which has become the life and death priority of humans on this planet. The UN should move out of the United States if the current adverse US policies towards it go on.
~
Idea 2437 ~
I
would like to see statistics on meetings and conferences held around
the world. I am sure that for each thousand conferences on
production, business, marketing, advertisement and scientific and
technological advances there is barely one on how to save the Earth,
her nature and the future of humanity. What kind of an 'advanced'
species and society are we?
~
Idea 2438 ~
The
Chief Executive Officers of business corporations have to work for
the stock market and the shareholders, not for a better world. They
cannot help it.
Similarly
heads of state have to work for the nation, for their government,
their people, their voters, not for the Earth, humanity and the
future. They cannot help it.
The
drama of our time is that with the exception of a weak, powerless,
almost resourcesless United Nations no institutions, no leadership
and no resources exist providing for the care of the entire Earth and
human family and their future.
This is so serious that it will most likely mean the end of the further evolution of this planet. Corporate business chiefs and heads of state will make strange, sorry faces when this will happen.
~
Idea 2439 ~
World
waste has reached such colossal proportions that I recommend the
urgent creation of a World Organization on Waste Avoidance and
Disposal with continental, regional and national branches. Among its
first subjects would be wasteful technological processes, inventions,
marketing, packaging devices in all professions and walks of life, to
begin with architecture and construction. It is estimated that the
United States collects 210 billion tons of wastes each year. This
represents a 32 billion dollars waste disposal industry. And all
these 32 billion dollars are included in the national product! I
recommend that the United Nations request statistics on waste
production and waste disposals in all countries on Earth, to furnish
global statistics and a yearly world report and to exclude them from
the world product.
~
Idea 2440 ~
Humanity
has learned to work with its hands, to construct, to
produce;
Humanity has learned to think, to invent, to create;
Humanity has not yet learned to really cooperate;
Humanity has not yet learned to love;
Humanity has dislearned to pray, to dream, to believe in its miraculous destiny and to care for this marvelous planet in the incredible, breathtaking universe.
All this must be corrected with a global Earth and human philosophy.
~
Idea 2441 ~
Since
elderly French people have less and less grandchildren, the pets
population of dogs and cats has substantially increased in France, to
the delight of the producers of dog and cat foods.
Comment of the Earth: this is good because dogs and cats consume less of my resources and do not accumulate 'goods' as do humans; also the elderly people travel less and stay at home in order to take care of their pets. This is also good for me.
~
Idea 2442 ~
Humanity
has become a disoriented species on planet Earth. A thinking
revolution is needed to re-define our proper place, role and future
on our still unique, miraculous, life-endowed planet in the universe.
Also new institutions must be created, for example a World
Environment Court to deal with major Earth destructions, as
recommended by the Parliament of the European Union.
~
Idea 2443 ~
A
World Media Tribunal should be created to receive complaints against
campaigns of lies, rumors and false informations paid by governments
and big business to achieve their purposes. What an unethical world
it would reveal! From my United Nations experience I could cite
glaring cases.
~
Idea 2444 ~
I
hope and pray that the Pope will speak in the name of spirituality
and of all religions at the Year 2000 Heads of States General
Assembly. He has the right to speak there because he is the head of a
small state, the Vatican State.
~
Idea 2445 ~
I
do not understand why governments have not created a Main Commission
on Democracy as part of the UN General Assembly's Main Commissions.
Together with a Main Commission on the Future, it is one of the most
glaringly missing central organs of the UN. I hope that the Year 2000
Heads of States General Assembly will correct this
situation.
~
Idea 2446 ~
The
only great people whose memory was saved and survived on this planet
were those who celebrated or contributed to the miracle of human life
and to a better world. All other glories, especially national ones,
are outdated and will not survive because they were out of step with
the new trends, needs and laws of evolution.
~
Idea 2447 ~
Business
and the fanatic belief in business have become the funeral home of
this planet. Noone should admire rich business people, big
corporations and stock markets any more. The American dream is
becoming a world nightmare, mark my words.
~
Idea 2448 ~
We
need basically four guiding spirits in our lives; personal, family,
political and universal:
A spirit of the self
A spirit of all communities from the family, the profession, ethnic, religious community to the whole human family
A spirit of the Earth
A spirit of the universe and eternity, named also the spirit of God
~
Idea 2449 ~
In
a KLM plane from Geneva to Amsterdam they distributed, in wasteful
plastic bags, wet towelets in other plastic bags with this
advertisement:
"Avis is proud to be featured in the new James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies," and under it in big letters, Avis. Well, I wrote this note to the pilot of the plane:
Dear Captain,
Having been the UN Assistant Secretary General who obtained years ago from the UN Security Council the International Treaty Against Highjacking I beg you to obtain from KLM that they should no longer distribute advertisements like the Avis one showing a man aiming a gun. I thank you for your consideration.
Robert
Muller
One-dollar-a-year
Chancellor of
the
University for Peace in Costa Rica
And I will write a letter to Avis that for the rest of my life I will never rent an Avis car. Barbara commented to me, "Avis probably had to pay a million dollars to get Avis cars shown in the James Bond film."
~
Idea 2450 ~
For
every idea I formulate for a better world there are at least one
thousand ideas for new forms of advertisement, more useless 'goods',
more wasteful packaging, more unneeded services, more shows of
violence. What a world!
~
Idea 2451 ~
At
the Geneva airport I saw an advertisement of a firm offering its
services as a 'master of complications'. Well, what the world needs
much more today are masters of simplification and common
sense.
~
Idea 2452 ~
An
idea for advertisers: do what private firms do in Geneva, namely
provide free baggage carriers at airports instead of paying ones,
each carriage bearing the name of the firm. At least this will be a
service to passengers.
~
Idea 2453 ~
If
only the 300 million indigenous people of this planet would decide
not to drive cars and board airplanes, what a satisfaction for Mother
Earth this would be! While the rest of humans are 'enmechanizing' and
dehumanizing themselves they would remain the only natural race of
humans.
~
Idea 2454 ~
When
I see crowds of travelers at the airports of poor countries like San
Jose, Costa Rica I have these thoughts:
The faces of most of these people are not happy. Yes, there is the prospect of visiting family members who emigrated to the US or Canada, but it is a very costly trip which requires much sacrifice.
As for US tourists, they are mostly old people who seem to ask themselves why they came here at all. They saw a beautifully preserved nature, but they wonder about the meaning of their life. When they visit the University for Peace they often complain that they have no longer any aim in life, that all this is merely passive tourism.
And then you have the businessmen, the public officials, the diplomats who are all bent on their mission.
My feeling is that all this is a rather contrived, not really happy society. If I saw such scenes on another planet I would say, "Something is not right here."
I recommend that the World Tourism Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization look into this by issuing questionnaires and public opinion surveys to come up with answers and remedies.
~
Idea 2455 ~
Instead
of an idea, here is a question: What preoccupying, if not frightening
new global problems will beset humanity in the years and century to
come for lack of foresight today? We are not dealing with the future
and we call ourselves an intelligent species capable to run a
planet.
~
Idea 2456 ~
I
was brought to a sacred place of the world, Mt. Rasur in Costa Rica
to tell my human brothers and sisters that none of us was born for a
specific corner or nation of the Earth, but that the whole world and
universe are our home, the incredible, breathtaking temple of our
life.
We are all transient but very vital cosmic agents in the evolution of the universe. We are all living cells of the total heavens, of the Earth and of humanity. This is what all great prophets and founders of religions have told us. What a great, incredible privilege it is to be alive and human, especially on the eve of a new century and millennium.
~
Idea 2457 ~
Basically
I remain optimistic on my own will.
I overcome pessimisms and dark moments by writing down my ideas and dreams in the morning and reading my books in the evening.
I continue to try to do the impossible by remembering my past successes.
In one way or another I enter into action and never give up.
~
Idea 2458 ~
Never
forget that you are living Earth made of seventy percent water and
thirty percent matter. You are a living cell, a unit of the Earth's
body. You receive from the Earth and you contribute to the Earth but
become a sick, cancerous cell when destroying it. That is the truth
and not the wrong banners of misguided, manipulated political
leaders, innumerable 'special interest groups' and insatiable, profit
hungry businesses, media and advertisement. It is high time for a
world reaction against this situation.
~
Idea 2459 ~
When
we came back from the second World Peace Conference in the Hague,
Holland on the 8th of May 1999, I wrote this text which I affixed on
a wall of our wooden, little farmhouse. "We have been brought here,
on sacred Mt. Rasur for one reason, to save the Earth and to fulfill
the indigenous prophecy that from here a civilization of peace will
extend to the entire world." Yes, this must remain our
mission.
~
Idea 2460 ~
Please
dear reader, build your own little paradise wherever you live on
Earth. Do not let others pretend to build it for you. And if we all
do it we will make the whole world a paradise.
A clean mile on Earth and a little paradise multiplied by 6 billions, what a wonderful planet it will be!
~
Idea 2461 ~
We
should never downgrade and despise the material, the touchable,
seeable reality. Remember the incredible love and happiness that
arise from the touching, the kissing, the caressing, the union of man
and woman.
The Earth's body-reality must also be dearly loved by us, well understood and cared for.
This global material reality is acquiring now also, thanks to humanity, a global brain which is growing very rapidly. We are the advanced species which is giving the Earth that brain and receiving from her messages in return.
There is also the beginning of a global heart: love and respect and care for nature, beauty, cleanliness, love for life which is sacred, for peace, for harmony, for the past, present and the future.
Last but not least, a global, cosmic soul is now in formation: most religions begin to cooperate on spirituality in a United Religions Initiative, in a World Parliament of Religions and in innumerable religious encounters and cooperation on cosmic, global, human and Earth problems.
These are all great signs of hope for the future of the Earth and of the human species. The 3rd millennium might be an unprecedented, unthinkable, miraculous one.
~
Idea 2462 ~
No
head of state of this end of century and millennium will be
remembered in history if he or she does not take a step for the
creation of a proper Earth government. Most prominent so far will be
Robert Schuman, the father of the European Union. He will be
canonized as the first political saint. I am proud to be a member of
his canonization committee. The question is, who will be the next
Robert Schumans who will unite the entire world?
~
Idea 2463 ~
I
often heard this slogan in my life: Geld regiert die Welt, money
rules the world. Today I would say, money, debts, banks, stock
exchanges and credit cards rule the world.
~
Idea 2464 ~
Economists
will soon be considered as one of the most dismal professions on
Earth because nothing stops them from destroying the Earth. Popular
wisdom knows this. As they say in Germany, "Wer nichts wird wird
Volkswirt: Who does not become anything becomes an
economist."
~
Idea 2465 ~
The
United Nations should create a Main Commission or organ to report
yearly to humanity on the non-ratification, non-implementation and
violations of international treaties and agreements. It would be a
very sad, revealing document. The only field in which this is being
done is human rights which as a result has progressed significantly
in the world. Why not therefore follow this good example more
generally?
~
Idea 2466 ~
I
am so glad to have obtained from the UN General Assembly to proclaim
the year 2000 International Year of Thanksgiving. The whole humanity
should make a list of what we should be thankful for and a list of
further thanks to be aimed at. We need next a yearly world
thanksgiving day.
~
Idea 2467 ~
In
the year 2000 there should be a universal alliance of saints, spirits
and souls of humans killed in all past wars to work with the living
and bring about at long last a permanent, unbroken peace on this
magnificent planet in the heavens.
~
Idea 2468 ~
How
is it that so often in the middle of the night I wake up with this
obsessive thought: why are we humans destroying this Earth? What can
I do to help prevent it? After my obsession with peace in the world
since World War II this has become my new main obsession since the
United Nations Stockholm Conference on the Environment in 1972.
Humans born from the Earth, all made of Earth, instead of taking good
care of their mother, seem to have taken a wrong way. See her
complaints, her laments in many of my ideas. We must urgently change
course if we don't want to bring to an end the further incredible
potential evolution of this planet and of ourselves.
~
Idea 2469 ~
In
all schools of the world there should be a new field of education on
advertisement and how children and youth can defend themselves
against it.
~
Idea 2470 ~
The
3rd millennium must be the millennium of world-wide human cooperation
for the conservation of planet Earth and the peace and fulfillment of
all humanity.
This should be the objective of the World Conference on the Future Evolution of the Earth and of Humanity which I recommend to be convened in 2001 or 2002 by the United Nations as a result of the heads of states meeting in 2000 and ten years after 1992 Rio de Janeiro second world conference on the environment.
There cannot be any other more urgent, vital task for humanity.
~
Idea 2471 ~
Without
the more than 30,000 non-governmental international peoples'
associations there would be even less world democracy and
cooperation. I am astonished that governments let them be
established. They probably thought that they would be irrelevant and
not numerous.
Well, I recommend that in the year 2000 they should constitute themselves into a World Peoples' Organization with its own world Secretariat and Secretary General.* The seat could be the 3/4 empty beautiful Andrew Carnegie Peace Palace in The Hague.
*They met in a World Peoples' Assembly in Samoa in April 2000 and appointed me Lifelong President of the Global Peoples' Assembly they created!
~
Idea 2472 ~
There
should be a World Criminal Court to judge crimes against the Earth.
Atomic tests should be first to be judged as such crimes.
~
Idea 2473 ~
In
the year 2000 a new fundamental human right should be adopted by the
United Nations:
The right to the further life and evolution of this planet, humanity's home, and its non-destruction by armaments, militaries, business and undue profit by capitalists.
~
Idea 2474 ~
United
Nations?
189 cut up territories of this planet who declare themselves 'sovereign' and do not unite their brains, their hearts, their souls, their resources and actions for a better, peaceful humanity and a well-preserved Earth, probably the most illogical, ineffective, costliest, most duplicated system on any planet in the universe. It must absolutely and urgently be replaced by an entirely new, efficient evolutionary Earth government.
There exist many plans for that so let us look into them urgently.
~
Idea 2475 ~
One
of the greatest gaps in philanthropy and gaiaphily is a lack of help
to publishing and vastly disseminating writings, books, magazines,
radio and television programs on ideas and actions to save the Earth
and bring peace and justice to humanity. Also missing is an
education, a teaching of philanthropy.
~
Idea 2476 ~
The
world needs more than a United Nations reform, it needs an outright,
proper Earth and human government still non-existent after thousands
of years. Our forefathers had at least the excuse that they didn't
even know that the Earth was round, but we have no excuses whatsoever
anymore.
~
Idea 2477 ~
The
United Nations is preparing an Earth Covenant. That is wonderful
progress.
But let us not leave the United Nations alone up there. Let each of us have his or her Earth Covenant in our daily relations with our Mother Earth. Let us be Earth-stewards, Earth-trustees. Multiplied by 6 billion we can preserve the Earth and make it the greatest, cleanest, most beautiful heavenly body in the universe.
~
Idea 2478 ~
Innumerable
'centers' for good causes are being created around the world. I am
invited to join new ones almost every day.
That is just and good but we must not forget to be our own center, a center of good ideas and actions, of radiation of happiness, optimism and goodness all around us. Over a lifetime this can represent a lot. Let us all be wonderful highways of clean, simple, frugal living and good actions. God and the Earth will recompense us for it.
~
Idea 2479 ~
There
are 34 Robert Muller Schools in the world giving a new world
education to children based on my many years of experience in the
United Nations.
But when will governments ever accept that their national education should not be superior to global education but should be an integrated part of it?
When will that miracle happen? Which will be the first country to do it?
~
Idea 2480 ~
Life
would really be wonderful if we agreed to cut out all the nonsenses.
Let us do it at all levels:
at the personal level
at the family level
at the local, community level
at the national level
at the world level
How wonderful it would be to have an item at all levels of society at least once a year entitled, What Nonsenses Have We Eliminated? I would like to see such an item at meetings of heads of states with their ministers entitled, What Nonsenses Have We Eliminated? What More Nonsenses Can We Cut Out? How about a yearly World No Nonsense Day?
~
Idea 2481 ~
A
dream shared by all humanity becomes a reality. What are the dreams
of humanity on the eve of a new century and millennium?
Total peace on this planet
No nuclear armaments, no arms at all
No militaries
No violence in any forms anywhere
A decent well-being for all humans
A respect, love and care for our beautiful Earth
A celebration of gratitude for the miracle of life on our planet
This should be the agenda of the heads of states meeting at the UN General Assembly in September 2000.
~
Idea 2482 ~
Children
are born on this planet for living and loving not for killing and
hating. We must therefore work toward a total elimination of all
armaments, killings and hatred from this Earth. There were none in
God's paradise. We therefore cannot visualize a paradise 2100 with
any armaments, killing, hating and militaries. This is an absolute
must.
~
Idea 2483 ~
The
greatest friends of the Earth are the poor, the indigenous people and
the monks who consume the least of her flesh.
~
Idea 2484 ~
All
humans must be educated as well-informed, highly sensitive,
perceptive, cooperating units of the total body of the living Earth.
This turn of a century and millennium can be the birth of a totally
well-evolved planet. The consequences would be mind boggling and
wonderful.
~
Idea 2485 ~
Our
incredible Earth is able to recycle everything into new life: the
excrements of animals, the dead leaves, plants and bodies of all
living beings on her surface and in her waters and oceans.
But now she faces an unprecedented, perhaps mortal challenge: will she be able to recycle the monstrous skyscrapers, dwellings, highways and growing mountains of products and wastes of humans, including atomic wastes?
She might give up. There would then be one more dead celestial body floating in the universe, an object of curiosity where someday beings from other planets might land and study the reasons of its demise.
The Earth Council created in Costa Rica by the UN Second World Conference on the Environment 1992 should study the major sicknesses and alterations of planet Earth, its likely demise or restoration to good health and functioning.
~
Idea 2486 ~
Until
recently the human species was counted upon by the Earth to be its
most advanced form of life, its greatest success. Alas, by ignoring
her we have become a major misfit and factor of destruction. Let us
change course quickly and regain her confidence. How? Through loving
her and caring for her which will give us all the answers.
~
Idea 2487 ~
We
needed and had in the past revolutions against kings, slave owners,
Napoleons, dictators, etc. We need today revolutions against the
militarized, heavily armed, sovereign nations and their equally, if
not more powerful allies: the giant world corporations.
~
Idea 2488 ~
Our
natural loves are being completely distorted by the powerful and
wealthy of today: national governments, the military and the
merchants, the new trilateral power.
Our real, central, never-changing love should be for the Earth and for our children.
~
Idea 2489 ~
We
have been able to solve racial apartheid since the end of World War
II, but a new, immensely wider and deeper apartheid has grown
world-wide between nations and inside nations: the economic apartheid
between rich and poor everywhere on this planet. I recommend that
economic apartheid be inscribed as a priority item on the agenda of
the United Nations.
~
Idea 2490 ~
On
the occasion of the visit of President Clinton to Costa Rica I
launched the idea that the people who own forests in poor countries
should receive from the rich countries a compensation or subsidy for
keeping their forests intact which produce oxygen for the world. The
idea has made some progress. Costa Rica is levying an additional tax
on gasoline to finance such subsidies
More generally I think that the western tax systems should be radically changed in favor of the environment. Thus in the United States the owner of a home with a garden has to pay a property tax. The city or community uses the revenue to build more roads and buildings, thus destroying the Earth. Owners of gardens and forests should not be taxed at all on such property. They should even be given a deduction from their income taxation for preserving a part of the Earth. The whole tax systems of the world must be revised in favor of whatever can be done for our Earth. So far there exists nothing or very little of this sort.
~
Idea 2491 ~
This
has become a world in which the supermarkets are full and the
churches are empty. What a pity. What would Jesus, Mohammed, the
Buddha and other great religious leaders say visiting the western
world and its supermarkets?
Women have a certain responsibility in this situation. Just look at their happy faces when they push a full shopping cart in a supermarket.
~
Idea 2492 ~
Speaking
of human rights, in Idea 1694 I say that, "No human being on this
planet should be forced to become a murderer in the name of a
nation."
Under the category of Non-rights the people should request it as follows:
"No nation has the right to draft young people into military service or duty in order to kill other young people, thus becoming murderers."
~
Idea 2493 ~
Do
not deliver speeches in far away places anymore. They require travel,
a lot of time of your life and a lot of carbon dioxide emitted in the
air.
Do not write big books which are read less and less by people in leadership and influence who have little time to read.
Write down ideas and concrete proposals and send them to people and institutions which can implement them.
~
Idea 2494 ~
When
I watched the sun rise over the Costa Rican volcanoes this morning
from our bench of visions on sacred Mt. Rasur I heard the sun say to
me:
"If I stopped rising everyday what would happen to you all? I'm watching you. You destroy the Earth so rapidly that indeed someday I will stop rising over you."
I was dismayed, but when I looked at the bust of Teilhard de Chardin on the bench and saw his divine smile I knew that it would not happen, that a few great visionaries will prevent it and save the Earth.
~
Idea 2495 ~
The
Earth said to me, "You have all kinds of human rights on my surface,
fundamental human rights, rights of the children, rights of women, of
the indigenous people, etc. but where are my fundamental rights, the
rights of the Earth?"
I answered her, "Well, the UN is now disseminating an Earth Charter. Since I have decided a long time ago that I want to be buried into your soil without a coffin so that I can be resurrected by you into other vegetal and life forms, I will propose the following right to be included in that Charter.
I, the Earth have the right that all humans who are seventy percent of my water and thirty percent of my solid elements be returned to me, to my body without a coffin so that I can resurrect them into other vegetal and life forms for as long as I will live.
~
Idea 2496 ~
One
of the main objectives, if not the objective of the Peoples' Assembly
2000 should be to lay the foundations and obtain the creation or the
transformation of the United Nations into a United Peoples' and Earth
Organization.
~
Idea 2497 ~
I
wish that someone would study the patterns, numbers, strengths,
objectives and effects of the blanket of institutions covering this
planet. We have statistics on anything else but not on institutions.
We sorely need a world observatory, information and study center of
institutions, an institutional science. It should pay particular
attention to institutions for the entire humanity and the entire
Earth. These are the latest born, the weakest but most needed for our
future evolution.
Yes, we urgently need a major institutional reform, an institutional revolution on this planet. God said to me this morning, "The trouble with the institutions you create on planet Earth for many good social, wonderful causes is that they become more and more self-centered. The institution often becomes more important than the laudable objective for which it was
See what they have done to me. The church created to disseminate my message killed millions of innocent people around the world who loved and revered me under a different name in another religion.
Why don't you recommend that there should be a world-wide review of all institutions on Earth especially the political and religious ones. I and the Earth, which I created for you, would bless you for it."
My answer to God, "Okay, I will propose that the United Nations should publish such a review in 2001 to be reviewed every second or third year thereafter."
~
Idea 2498 ~
The
word government derives from the notion of governing a ship. It
covers many things:
The self
The family
The local community
The city
The state or province
The nation
The continent
The whole Earth and humanity
Unfortunately the two last categories, namely the continents and the whole Earth and humanity which have become the most important ones are not really governed, nor welcomed nor strengthened as they should be.
We urgently need world institutions which would deal with the Earth commons: outer space, the ozonosphere, the atmosphere, the biosphere, the seas and oceans, the waters, the mountains, our climate, the poor, etc.
We need sorely new world-wide evolution-oriented institutions. Nations continue to be opposed to proper institutions for a total Earth and humanity. They are the most retarding, obsolete obstacles to the evolution of this planet. They have become a blemish, a retarding factor by refusing to consider a proper, global, common institutional system to govern, to administer well our planet.
~
Idea 2499 ~
We
need an institutional science which could be called institutionology.
We need a proper evolutionary institutional strategy for our planet,
an institutional methodology and adequate means of action,
adaptation, constant reform and implementation.
We should heed these words of Thomas Jefferson when there was need to transform the Confederate American States into the Federal United States:
Laws
and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human
mind. As that becomes more enlightened, as new discoveries are made
and manners and opinions change, with the change in circumstances,
institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. One might
as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a
boy, as civilized society to remain forever under the regimen of
their barbarous ancestors.
Thomas
Jefferson
We would loose immensely, it would be a crime if, at this onset of a new century and millennium, if heads of states would not decide to review the fifty-five years old Charter of the United Nations and offer the world proper new, improved global institutions.
~
Idea 2500 ~
In
the newsletter of an international youth organization accredited to
the UN, the World Youth and Service Organization, I found this
heart-warming text from a participant in a youth assembly on Inner
Peace in the cathedral of Rotterdam on the occasion of the second
World Peace Conference in 1999 in The Hague:
"Amongst
my treasured memories are the sight of Dr. Robert Muller, former
Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and now in his late
seventies, leading us on his harmonica in a rendering of Beethoven's
Ode to Joy and urging us to see the universe from the cosmically huge
to the infinitesimally small as a wonder to be enjoyed but not ours
to destroy."
Janice
Dolley