Of course, I am interested in any realistic transition plan for the evolution of RBE (resource-based economy). This “blueprint” has to answer this important question: How do we smoothly transition from our current system to RBE?

I invite you to write a guest post about this subject. If the post will be of enough quality, I will post it on this blog, even though I may not agree with it. Exposing yourself to a wide range of views and discussing them is what makes us grow.

I cannot pay for guest posts, but you can add a link to your website, if you want.

P.S.: Obviously you have read my post “Review of Zeitgeist: Moving Forward” where I mention RBE. Check other parts of that series here:

http://thechangingways.com/manifesto/

Let me know if you are interested. I am staring and devoting much time to the RBE blue prints.

Bill Jennings

To answer some of your specific concerns, let me first stress that I am aware of alternative indicators of welfare, beyond GDP. One of them, Human Development Index (HDI), encompasses fields of wealth, health and education, but lacks any environmental aspect. There are other indicators that try to address environmental sustainability as well. In my opinion, there will never be one single indicator that measures our well-being perfectly. The world is too complex for that. But, this applies to GDP as well! So the first thing we can do is to stop pretending that GDP is much more than a measure of how much money changes hands in one year.

I also do not expect that localization of the production can be achieved 100 %. This applies to food as well. When I wrote that we should strive for localization of food production, I didn’t mean that no food should be shipped anywhere. But if we could greatly reduce the average distance that our food travels before ending on our plates, that would be a good thing.

Furthermore, when I wrote that fossil fuels should be “gradually” replaced with alternative energy sources, maybe I should be more specific: I don’t think that this transition can be achieved in a few years or even a few decades. It will take a few generations to completely replace fossil fuels with cleaner energy sources. But that doesn’t mean that we can afford to wait and do nothing today! The sooner we start this transition, the better.

The gap between developing countries and developed world is indeed a great problem that my manifesto didn’t address at all! That is because I do not have any all-inclusive answers to offer. The disparity is colossal: developed countries have stabilized their population (more or less), but have also reached unsustainable consumption levels (not just from environmental perspective, but also in terms of accumulation of consumer and government debt), while developing countries still have a substantial population growth and at the same time they have a legitimate aspiration to improve the lives of their people, many of whom live in an absolute poverty.

So, one could say, that my manifesto predominately addresses readers from developed, industrialized countries. I don’t see anything wrong with that, though! The Western way of life has become a target lifestyle for people in developing parts of the world as well. If the ideal in the West gets changed from a consumer society to a more sustainable lifestyle, then there is a good chance that the goal for the rest of the world will change as well. In my opinion, developing countries don’t have to follow the path of the West: they can skip the overconsumption phase and go straight for sustainable development. Yes, that includes improving material conditions and helping people out of poverty. But it does NOT include having 812 motor vehicles per 1000 inhabitants, which is the case in the United States.

Lastly, there is an issue of genetic and technological interventions (such as genetic engineering and nuclear energy). I do not oppose these technologies for the sake of opposing, or because of some spiritual beliefs. My main concern is safety (we all still remember Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011). Nuclear fission will probably stay with us for some time to come and there may even be some breakthrough in nuclear fusion, but we should not take these technologies lightly. The same goes with genetic engineering: there may be a time in the future when genetic engineering is warranted, but it should be done to solve real problems that cannot be solved otherwise (and only after long-term consequences have been studied carefully). It should not be done solely to increase profit for some multinational corporations who bribe legislators and get their way.

I will try to incorporate all of the above into Part 3: Final Remarks. In the meantime, I invite readers to check your blog “Utopia or Dystopia” (http://utopiaordystopia.com).