Short History Future Surviving 2030 Spike

A S HORT H ISTORY OF
THE F UTURE
SURVIVING THE 2030 SPIKE
Colin Mason
London • Sterling, VA
First published by Earthscan in the UK and USA in 2006
First edition published as The 2030 Spike: Countdown to Global Catastrophe by

Earthscan in the UK and USA in 2003
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Mason, Colin J.
A short history of the future: surviving the 2030 Spike/by Colin J. Mason.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-84407-346-7 (pbk.)
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C ONTENTS
About the Author vii

Preface ix
PART ONE: IS THERE A CRISIS?
1 The Drivers 3
2 Running Out of Fuel: The Coming Energy Crunch 14
3 Population and Poverty 32
4 Climate: How Long to Tipping Point? 42
5 Is There Enough Food and Water? 58
6 One World? 72
7 The Fourth Horseman 83
PART TWO: DIRECTIONS
8 Which Way Science? 99

9 In the Genes: New Plants – and People? 108
10 The Values of the Sea 120
11 Multinationals: Good Business or Bad? 129
12 The Trouble with Money 139
vi A SHORT HISTORY OF THE FUTURE
PART THREE: UPGRADING THE INDIVIDUAL
13 The Pursuit of Happiness 153

14 Love, Family and Freedom 161
15 Habitat: The Dilemma of the Cities 166
16 Making Education Work 178
17 Health and Wealth 187
18 Religion: The Cement of Society? 197
PART FOUR: THE NEW SOCIETY?
19 The Mechanics of Change 209

20 Automation and Employment 218
21 Travelling Less? 225
22 Working Online 235
23 The Information Overload 243
24 The Toxic Culture 250
25 Running the Show 257
26 Getting the World We Want 269
Notes 283
Index 299
A BOUT THE A UTHOR
Colin Mason, a former foreign correspondent, broadcaster and

SEATO adviser to the Thai Government, was a senator in the
Australian Federal Parliament for nine years, as deputy leader of
the Australian Democrats. He served on the Senate Standing
Committee for Science and the Environment, a Select Committee
on the effects of Agent Orange on Australian servicemen, and the
first delegation of the Australian Parliament to China, and
initiated the private member’s bill that led to the salvation of the
pristine Franklin River in Tasmania. He has published 12 books
including the international bestselling novel Hostage and, most
recently, A Short History of Asia, now in its second edition and
currently a bestseller in its field around the world.
Comment or discussion on any of the issues raised in this book
are welcomed by the author at www.2030spike.com.
P REFACE
Yes, it is possible, even necessary, to have a history of the future –

the last President of China, Jiang Zemin, remarked: ‘History is a
mirror for the future’. Hence, if we want to find out how to build
an optimal future, we first need an accurate knowledge of what
exists now, and what kind of shadows these things cast ahead.
That is the way this book works.
It is also an update and considerable development of my
earlier book, The 2030 Spike. Although it contains much of the
same material, a great deal has happened in the last four years –
the major issues of the world are developing very fast. What was
written in 2002 can hardly do for 2006, so some fairly extensive
updating and additions have been necessary. The 2030 Spike?
This is the name I gave to the challenging and massive confluence
of at least six influences, natural and manmade, which can either
be controlled by the intelligent efforts of people, or which, if we
elect to do nothing, will visit on the world a degree of catastrophe
far beyond our present experience. On the best available evidence
these six ‘drivers’ are set to spike no later than the 2030 decade, so
there is not much time.
However, you don’t have to be a pessimist. Although in the
years since The 2030 Spike was written most of these drivers have
advanced ominously, and the need to understand and deal with
x A SHORT HISTORY OF THE FUTURE
them has become even more urgent, there is considerable scope

for optimism. There are exciting and radical new developments in
the energy field, which is a major problem area.The world’s first
hydrogen-powered aircraft flew in June 2005. The means to
control malaria should be developed within four years. Many
more people are better informed over major issues and are
becoming more aggressive in forcing their leaders to do necessary
things – for instance, by diverting just half what we spend on
weapons to proven sustainable alternative energy we could
defuse both of our most threatening future problems – energy
availability and climate change. Understanding this massive fact
and seeing that those US$12trillion are made available is an
imperative for everyone on the planet. More people now know
that the best way to control business is through the combined
spending power of large numbers of people, and this is good.
Mass consumer organizations on a global scale are not far off, and
will become a major influence in determining the fate of the
world. Former ‘basket case’ countries are now transforming
themselves, and have contributed largely to reduced poverty and
disadvantage on a world scale. China is a major and classic
example. Regional wars have become somewhat less destructive.
On the other hand, there is still too much poverty, too much
disease, too many weapons, not enough world law, too much
conservatism and denial, not enough concern for the natural
world. I hope what you are about to read will tell you some of
what you need to know, and help you to make up your mind on
what you might do.
C. M.
Sydney,
March, 2006
PART O NE
IS THERE A CRISIS?
C HAPTER 1
T HE D RIVERS
On the edge of the sea, a modern village. Low set houses, built
strong to withstand the severe storms of the near future, each
flowing out into its own open space, grouped around a large,
circular compound. Inside this are the school/youth leisure centre
– for they are the same – the entertainment/community complex,
theatre, tennis courts, swimming pool, whatever. There is a lot of
live theatre, music, art and sport – almost everyone here has an
active talent. All this can be, and has to be, approached on foot, for
no wheeled traffic is allowed inside the village perimeter.
This place is largely autonomous for energy, water and food. If
you looked down from above, you’d see all the roofs are blue –
‘blue denim’ solar collectors – with more than a few small wind
generators spinning silently. Most people grow their own food, but
the village shares its own orchards and community vegetable
gardens. Water recycling is so efficient only that transpired to the
air by growing plants is lost – this economy is necessary in a drier
world.
Housing is quite varied and individual, but the majority
choose the communal grouping – private self-contained accom-
modation within a community of perhaps 30 adults and children
sharing facilities like a library, music room, hobby centre. Here,
stress and tension are minimal – people get support from those
4 IS THERE A CRISIS?
they know and choose to live near, children have easy and regular
contact with their peer group.
The landscape is dominated by one huge feature, a slender tower
rising over half a mile into the air, surrounded by a greenhouse
which drives hot air past generators inside the tower. This, the solar
chimney, provides the baseload electric power for this village and
the 20 others that make up this spacious, dispersed town. From the
ground you can’t see the other villages for the shelter belts of trees
between them, but they are all linked, and to the metropolis, by
high-speed magnetic levitation trains running in a regular,
automated shuttle. Looking out along the single elevated line on its
slender pylons, you see beneath what looks like a shining highway
at ground level – the solar panels that power these trains.
This village – call it Satu – is largely self-sufficient, but it
prospers by operating on a co-operative basis its specialized
industry, in this case making thoughtboards for the world com-
puters now helping to transform the developing world with new
ideas and appropriate technology. The neighbouring village, Dua,
specializes in a world-popular computer game called Ideas.
You can use money or not, as you wish, here. It is possible to
live and be content without it. But those who want to work harder,
be smarter, can get money and use it for luxuries – maybe their
own electric car, rather than a pooled one, works of art, foreign
travel. The money circulates efficiently, because it loses value just
a little each day you hold it.
Work on the International Space Station has been deferred
indefinitely while the problems of this planet are solved. There are
still armed forces and weapons, but they are being progressively
reduced and incorporated into a world police. Nuclear weapons
have been reduced to about 800, with a set programme to eliminate
them all within another 10 years. The technology, the knowhow,
for all this exist. The people in these villages feel secure, they have
everything they need, they have a firm hold on the earth. They are
tranquil and happy.
The midday sun struggles to penetrate a dense brown smog that

has enveloped the city since early morning. But this is nothing
THE DRIVERS 5
new, it happens every day. However, the city is strangling in more

ways than this. Rubbish is uncollected on the streets, which are
choked continuously with motor traffic emitting the severe
pollution from petrol substitutes. And these streets are dangerous
– the absence of community support and breakdown in law and
order have given free scope to large numbers of desperate
unemployed youths, criminal gangs and deranged individuals the
state no longer cares for. Children must stay inside their apart-
ments – traffic problems and the huge cost of running a car make
it almost impossible to reach any facility for them other than the
school, which is drab and conventional. They have little chance to
play with other children, they become silent and withdrawn.
Virtual reality games are popular – they are so much more attract-
ive than real life.
Food on the whole is monotonous and of poor quality – the
economic rationalist imperative to make everything as cheaply as
possible makes sure of that. Almost all the food is manufactured,
with doubtful additives. Most people are unhealthy, big pharm
thrives as never before. The government, which has long since
stopped trying to struggle with these problems, maintains its
authority by continuously frightening people about ‘terror’.
There are some very wealthy people. They live in gated suburbs,
surrounded by high walls and razor wire, protected by armed
guards, in constant fear they, or their children, will be kidnapped.
Almost everyone in this city is unhappy, insecure and frightened.
Yes, there is a crisis – the two contrasting and admittedly extreme

word pictures above hint at its nature, and our responsibilities to
choose. In the decade from 2030 six major forces – the ‘drivers’ –
are set to combine dangerously, a spike on the graph paper of life
that will influence our world for good or ill as never before.
Combating its worst effects will need urgent action, informed by
the clearest possible understanding of where we are now and
where we might go. The history of the future will be profoundly
affected by the way we deal with these drivers over the next 20
years. Our options for reacting to them are, accordingly, a major
theme in this book.
The right choices will lead us to a saner, healthier and safer

society – the not too distant future could be one of unparalleled
peace, prosperity and general well-being. The knowledge and
resources for this are in place, or can be seen not too far away. We
have the best educated generation ever; wealth and potential
wealth, although badly distributed, are at their highest and
increasing, the automation of industry and agriculture promises
almost universally high living standards and an end to the
tyranny of heavy and tedious work. The world’s population may
stabilize – but only if the poverty afflicting most humans can be
alleviated.
Speaking in London in 2001, former American president, Bill
Clinton, called for ‘a truly global consciousness’ to spread the
benefits of the 21st century around the world.1 ‘We have the
means to make the 21st century the most peaceful and prosperous
in human history. The question is whether we have the will.’ That
hope is unlikely to be realized by 2030, no matter what we do. But,
if effective social and economic reform can be started now, we
could see a peaceful and productive transition to a new society
shaped by, and successfully adapted to, the oncoming adverse
influences – the 2030 drivers. Beyond that is a reasonable prospect
of a world order better than the planet has ever seen.
Over the last couple of years there have been some major
breakthroughs in the energy field. If these achieve their promise
there are indeed prospects beyond the end of oil – energy will be
scarcer, more expensive, for several decades at least, but it will be
available. Poverty and avoidable disease are being tackled effect-
ively in a number of places – notably China. There is growing
public awareness of the dangers of climate change, and some
governments are bowing to these. In spite of the negative influence
of much major business, new conservational technologies are
developing.
But if the wrong choices are made – like taking up the nuclear
option, ignoring the reality of climate change, refusing to
acknowledge the links between ‘terrorism’ and poverty, or simple
denial that there must be change – the near future could be bad
enough to kill tens of millions of people in a variety of terrible
THE DRIVERS 7
disasters, even plunge us into a global dark age, and damage the
very foundations of life in ways that would take centuries to repair.
The harbingers of these disasters are already with us; as I write
these words an ugly and costly war is still threatening security in
the Middle East, 10 million people are facing starvation in Africa,
natural disasters like hurricanes and drought are killing more and
more people, while the warnings of severe water shortages and
ecological damage are becoming more urgent. So there is a clear
need to choose, to establish the courses of action that would
contribute to one outcome or the other. Those informed choices
will have to be made quickly, and enforced by public opinion and
by spending power.
For instance: The International Energy Agency (IEA)2 has
forecast that more than $1 trillion ($ refers to US$ throughout this
book) will be spent on non-hydro renewable energy technologies
by 2030 to triple their share of world power generation to 6 per
cent. Not good enough – not nearly good enough. Almost all
climate experts now say that there needs to be at least a 60 per
cent replacement of carbon-based energy to prevent greenhouse
gases reaching dangerous levels. Could we do it? Yes. Using that
IEA costing as a base, it emerges that by spending $12 trillion over
the next 25 years – half what we spend on armaments – the
necessary infrastructure could be built. The money and the means
are there – it’s as simple as that. If we do it, we are controlling our
future. If we don’t, we’re in bad trouble.
There is compelling evidence for the 2030 spike – the combined
effect of at least six adverse drivers. The most reliable estimates set
readily available oil resources at under a trillion barrels – probably
considerably under – and world consumption at 30 billion barrels
a year, indicating exhaustion in, at most, 32 years. Predicted
increases in oil use would reduce this time substantially. If this is
not cushioned by urgent development of alternatives, this will
have major and unexpected consequences, not least a catastrophic
drop in world food supplies for a population that will grow above
8 billion by that time.
Continued nuclear proliferation, policy changes for the use of
atomic weapons by the US and Russia, confrontation in the Middle
East, and political pressures from the drivers, make a nuclear war
of unpredictable intensity only too possible within 20 years. The
consequences of this would seriously aggravate greenhouse
effects, due to become significant by 2030. The ‘war against terror’,
the growing tension between Islam and ‘the West’, the doctrine
that nuclear weapons can safely be used in a ‘limited’ way – all
these will tend to aggravate the effect of the drivers. There needs
to be a clear understanding of these likely consequences with,
unfortunately, little evidence that governments are taking them
into account now.
The International Water Management Institute predicts that a
billion people will face an absolute water shortage by 2025; the
United Nations warns of war over use of the world’s rivers by
2032. Problems of soil degradation, desert spread and salination,
already considerable, will be out of control by 2030 in much of the
world.3 Unless these threats are recognized and effectively
countered, we risk famine and deaths counted in the millions.
Recent research into climate trends warn that severe global
warming associated with carbon release from the Amazon
rainforests, recently afflicted with the worst drought for 40 years,
and methane from hydrates in the Arctic is possible by 2030, with
perhaps catastrophic effects by 2050.4 Even global warming and
sea level rises on a much lesser scale would adversely affect
agricultural land in developing countries.
Failure to redress the poverty most humans live in, and an
almost total lack of political control over globalization – which is
irresponsible in the pure sense of the word – are likely to increase
economic disproportion and the conflict it causes. Populations
will increase most rapidly in the poorest countries, with the West
containing no more than 15 per cent of the world’s people by
2030. The world is anarchic, it urgently needs global law – but the
largest and most powerful nations are backing away from it.
Most people are aware of some of the facts surrounding some
of these issues. However, because the drivers gain force by the
simple fact of their interaction, their coincidence presents unique
dangers. This major cumulative effect of the drivers, if they are
permitted to peak, will be within the lifetime of most of us –
THE DRIVERS 9
certainly within that of our children. Can we avert it, or at least

soften its impact? This is feasible but only as a result of
fundamental changes in technology and society, beginning now.
Unfortunately, there is too little evidence that these dangers have
been recognized. So, who will make the necessary decisions?
Judging by the available demonstrable facts, governments,
political hierarchies, think-tanks, dictators and military juntas are
mostly saying and doing the wrong things – according to Bill
Morrison, retired agricultural scientist and a pioneer of perma-
culture, in the Sydney Sun-Herald in August 2005: ‘We’ve got
suicidal idiots in charge’. Those new holders of power, the multi-
nationals, could play a crucial role, simply because they are global
and so big. But to be useful, including to themselves, their
perception of the dangers of the near future must become clearer,
their accountability guaranteed, their influence more responsible.
And they must stop confusing the issues with slick public relations
exercises, behind which not enough of significance is being done.
For the first time in history, the means are emerging for
individuals to collectively influence the necessary decisions, using
two potent tools – the internet and spending power. It is possible
to discern the beginnings of international networks that could put
decisive pressure on offending corporations simply by the way
consumers spend their money – there have already been a number
of successful exercises along these lines. But such pressure needs
to be well informed by a reliable assessment of the state of the
world and an agenda of reasonable priorities for action.
What follows, then, is an attempt to distil from the formidable
range of information available, a broad picture of the world as it is,
and courses of action that might logically be deduced from this
and which might shape the future we all want. This has taken a lot
of time and effort, because the public record is indeed a minefield,
full of misinformation, spin, lies, call it what you will, often
coming from dishonest think tanks financed by big business. And
to quote Woody Allen: ‘Don’t underestimate the power of
distraction to keep our minds off the truth of our situation.’
Elements of distraction exist in our world as never before – traffic,
television, ‘terrorism’, telephones, computer games…
We all suffer from information overload, which is, in itself, a

distraction. The sheer volume of available information tends not
only to obscure the important issues, but also to dissuade people
from coping with the problem of understanding its relevance to
their lives. Hence this book is planned as a single volume of
reasonable size, accessible to people with no prior knowledge of
the subject, covering the major facts and trends. This objective,
and its necessary limitations, must be my only apology to those
who feel their specialist area has been dealt with too briefly, too
superficially or even omitted – and I am sure there will be many
of those.
If we want change, we must find out what reasonable
conditions it requires. If an interest group, be it students, workers,
Balinese or capitalists, see themselves as threatened by change,
they will fight it. Much of the lack of progress in solving obvious
and urgent world problems can be traced back to a lack of
recognition of this fact. So important and self evident is this, that
I believe it ranks as one of two axioms upon which much of the
argument of this book is based. We might state Axiom One as:
Useful change is likely to come only if it can provide as, equal,

obvious and general a benefit as possible.
Regrettably, much of the recent debate about the future has been
confrontational and extreme. Two of the better known examples,
books published in the 1970s, have without doubt influenced
decision-makers of today. The Limits to Growth5 was typical of the
‘doomsayers’ – those who warned of an imminent crisis because
of population pressures, pollution and the exhaustion of natural
resources. While many of its premises are still valid, its modelling
of world problems has been criticized, and some of its conclusions
– such as the exhaustion of mineral resources like aluminium,
lead, zinc and silver, and ‘a sudden and serious shortage of arable
land’ by 2000 – have not been justified by events.
The Next 200 Years6 took almost exactly the opposite point of
view, aiming, in its own words, ‘to present a plausible scenario for
a “growth” world that leads not to disaster but to prosperity and
THE DRIVERS 11
plenty’. Here again, many of the conclusions have subsequently

been shown to be flawed, especially in regard to the availability of
energy, which, as we shall see, is one of the most important and
imminent areas of crisis now facing the world. Prediction of the
future is notoriously risky, and it is not the purpose of these
comments to criticize the writers of these two books and many
others like them. The essential point is that the world needs plain
facts and balanced, rather than adversarial, points of view, as
tools to shape the future.
At this stage, consider a single issue – ‘planned obsolescence’.
If indeed our sins include ‘building up a vast array of totally
unwarrantable wants’,7 planned obsolescence certainly com-
pounds them. It has created, among other things, the ‘throwaway
society’, which most well intentioned people deplore. Most
manufacturers seem to believe all this is necessary, so ‘producti-
vity’ can be maintained and they and their workers can stay in
business. They may also console themselves with the idea that if
everything is left to ‘market forces’, to the laws of supply and
demand, all will be well. The consequences are familiar enough –
short-lived devices, with service and spare part costs so high that
it is easier and cheaper to throw the thing away and buy another
one, gadgets of illusory appeal, but not much use, too much stuff
for the rich and not enough necessities for the poor. In this way,
the goal of short-term profit is served, but at what cost to the
general good and the longer-term sustainability of our economy?
The system, then, seems at fault. How about a different system,
still competitive, still private enterprise, in which manufacturers
contract with customers to lease them a washing machine, a
refrigerator, a car that works well for as long a period as they
require? The picture immediately changes. As we shall see in
Chapter 11, the beginnings of this transition already exist, and may
well become valuable, even essential, to the new society.
Such considerations bring us to another area. The ‘idealist’
approach – that people should be good, honest, reliable, com-
passionate and thoughtful towards others – is undeniably worthy,
but regrettably unrealistic so far as the majority of humans are
concerned. Most people seem to be motivated by other things –
their own self-interest, a desire for security, a fear of the radical and
unknown. As a result, all proposals for change should recognize
this formidable factor of human nature, which we can rate as
Axiom Two:
If proposed solutions don’t take the lowest common denominators

of human nature realistically into account, they will not work.
One of the mainsprings of human effort is self-interest – it cannot

be argued away or ignored. In the words of pioneer economist
Adam Smith: ‘It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the
brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their
regard for their own interest’.8
This book is not in the business of doomsaying. Its purpose is
to recognize and define the threats of the near future so that
effective action can be mustered against them. In many cases the
solutions are logical and obvious, deriving naturally from the
facts. Hence every chapter ventures ideas for possible solutions. If
these do no more than inspire thought they will have fulfilled
their purpose.
But no one person can credibly put forward his or her ideas
alone as a model for useful change. Compiling this book has been
a search, a reaching out to the ideas of hundreds of other minds in
its subject areas. This ‘borrowing’ of the thoughts of others from
books, the internet and other media has been so extensive,
influencing virtually every paragraph, that to try to acknowledge
them completely would result in a list of notes almost as large as
the book itself. Hence I take the opportunity here to record my
debt to all those who have not been acknowledged, and thank
them collectively. The list of notes exists mainly to amplify points
that may be of special interest, or to indicate sources, especially of
direct quotes. The chapters are fairly independent – if a particular
chapter doesn’t much interest you, go on to what does.
The crisis areas listed earlier – the potential contributors to the
2030 spike – have an obvious priority, and the next six chapters
deal with them one by one. At the end of these chapters, and in
others where appropriate, there is a summary of objectives –
THE DRIVERS 13
optimal future history. I believe that if we could even approach

these requirements we could successfully cope with the challenge
of the drivers – even benefit from them. That is the theme of Part
Four – The New Society. Can we evolve this changed and better
world in the light of the two axioms? Why not? We do have the
power to curb the worst aspects of human nature – we do it all the
time; we train our children to do it. We call that power civilization.
C HAPTER 2
R UNNING O UT OF F UEL :
T HE C OMING E NERGY
C RUNCH
Ice that burns like a candle, the use of light to make hydrogen
from water, huge advances in battery technology, cheaper and
better means of harvesting the energy of the sun, the tides and the
winds – all these are rising above the horizon in the energy field.
And not before time. Unless major efforts are made to develop
these new technologies at the necessary economy of scale, the
coming fuel drought will cripple world trade and economies. But
this, serious though it is, is only one aspect of the problem. The
mechanization of agriculture and dependence on petrochemical
fertilizers and pesticides largely created the green revolution – it
has been said that modern agriculture uses land to convert
petroleum into food. As much as 17 per cent of US energy use is
for growing, processing and transporting food. Some scientists
are predicting that, denied oil, world agriculture will be able to
provide food for many less people1 – on one estimate, only 2
billion, with current corn yields in the US, now 130 bushels an
acre, falling to around 30 bushels.2 The implications of this in a
2030 world of 8 billion people are obvious – billions could go even
hungrier, millions starve to death. And, as the catastrophes of the
new millennium so far have shown us, sadly, most of these dead
will be children.
RUNNING OUT OF FUEL 15
Intensifying world competition for fuel is only too likely to create

an ongoing series of oil wars, such as the bitter and longlasting
conflict in Iraq. John Pilger alleged ‘weapons of mass destruction’
had little to do with the American attack on that country.
‘America wants a more compliant thug to run the world’s second
greatest source of oil.’ A number of recent American policy
documents tend to support this view, warning that the US is
running out of oil, with a painful end to cheap oil already in sight,
and suggesting armed force to secure oil supplies – even ‘painting
over the real US motives for war with a nobly high minded
veneer’ to mobilize public support for war.3 Ironically, US political
philosopher Leo Strauss’ ideas for reinforcing national identity by
promoting ‘powerful and inspiring myths’ – which don’t
necessarily need to be true – seem to have contributed to both
Islamic Jihad extremism and American neo-conservatism. Four
years after the invasion of Iraq, the earlier-stated mythic motive
for war – weapons of mass destruction – has been revealed as
baseless, while Iraq remains in chaos and its oilfields under
effective US and British control.
The influence of this driver is difficult to overestimate. Its
potential to combine with some of the others, among them
accelerated ‘terrorism’ and poverty, is very serious. It is possible
that war or substantial insurrection in the Middle East could cut
off the world’s major oil supplies abruptly. If the Saudi Arabian
oil installations were damaged or sabotaged, as the Iraqi ones
have been repeatedly, there would be intense crises, involving
severe food shortages and mass unemployment , in most parts of
the world.
The outriders of these advancing social and economic problems
are already with us, but so also are possible solutions. There will be
nothing easy or quick about these, but they are available – govern-
ment ‘carrot-and-stick’ tax measures to encourage alternatives at
the necessary economy of scale; community acceptance of
radically changed lifestyles; a much more labour intensive post oil
agriculture; and energy conservation among them. These should
spearhead a crash programme to develop adequate alternative
infrastructures within the 20 to 30 years left to us.
The remaining oil will be needed to fuel the manufacture of this

necessary new infrastructure. Action taken only when the oil
shows signs of running out – and that could be within a decade –
will be too late. After decades of talk and hope about alternative
sources of energy like wind and solar, they still amount to barely 2
per cent of world energy supply. If development is not pressed a
great deal more vigorously, and our remaining oil conserved, we
can expect trouble from now on. Rising fuel prices will impact first
and most severely on developing countries – they provoked major
rioting in Indonesia in 2001, and more unrest in 2005. As home
heating costs rise, people will migrate out of cold winter regions,
with social and economic consequences for Europe, America and
Japan. Predicted ocean current changes could interlock with the
energy crisis, making northern Europe and Britain much colder –
more on this in Chapter 4. Anxiety to reduce its dependence on oil
drove the Japanese government in 2005 to revive a dangerous and
unreliable technology, the fast breeder nuclear reactor, in spite of
major community protests.
At present the ‘old’ hydrocarbons, oil, gas and coal, still provide
80 per cent of the world’s energy, generating most of its electricity
and powering every major form of transport, including more than
two-thirds of a billion cars. Crude oil accounts for 36 per cent; coal,
23 per cent and natural gas 21 per cent. The amount of light and
medium crude oil still available is under 1 trillion barrels,4 about
two-thirds of which is in a politically unstable region, the Middle
East, with much of the rest in the former Soviet Union.
The world is now consuming around 30 billion barrels of
crude oil a year, more than 7 billion of which are used in the US.
Simple arithmetic indicates exhaustion around 2035 if that rate is
maintained. However, consumption will almost certainly increase
to 43 billion barrels a year by 2020, according to an International
Energy Agency estimate.5 This would advance the exhaustion
time to 2028. Even unexpectedly large new finds of oil, and much
more fuel efficient vehicles, would extend that time by no more
than ten years.
Conventional wisdom says we will always find a lot more. Not
so likely. Modern geophysics, associated with satellite observ-
ations, can make informed guesses at the amount of readily

available oil still undiscovered, and it is quite small. For instance,
initial estimates put Caspian Sea reserves at between 8 and 50
billion barrels, later ones at a maximum of 33 billion – enough to
meet present world demand for little more than a year. Proven
reserves there were estimated in 2005 at 10 billion barrels – world
demand for four months. This ‘may well be the largest discovery
in the world for 20 years’.6
After studying data from the world’s 18,000 oilfields, analyst
Colin Campbell concluded, in November 2000, that oil would
start to run out in 2005 and that a 40 per cent shortfall was likely
by 2025. In 2005, Campbell reiterated his assertion that oil would
peak over the next few years, causing regular supply difficulties
and much higher fuel costs, and that ‘this would set the stage for
the second great depression’. Other experts placed the date of
declining supplies at 2008, but almost all estimated it before 2020.
Richard Hardman, vice president with responsibility for explor-
ation at the American Amerada Hess Corporation, said: ‘I think
there will be a real crunch this time. High-tech global X rays now
allow the industry to determine how much oil is left – and it’s not
much. This time the wolf is really at the door.’7
The concept of ‘peak oil’ is very important. As oilfields pass
their peak production, output declines. Now global oil production
is at or closely approaching its peak, after which output is expected
to decline at about 3 per cent a year, while demand will rise at
about the same rate. The peak in world gas production is more
distant, but there will be declines in production within 20 years.
There are large amounts of oil which would be energy expen-
sive, costly and polluting to recover and refine, such as ‘sour’
sulphur high crudes, oil shales and tars. Some is actually solid at
ambient temperatures. Much of it would require more energy to
extract than it would yield. Shale oil extraction requires open cut
mining, crushing and heating rock to 500°C, then water intensive
and polluting extraction not of oil, but of a kerogen, which has to
be further distilled to yield petroleum – a total process which is
expensive in terms of both money and energy and which
Greenpeace says causes massive emissions of greenhouse gases.
A 1980 experiment in the US produced oil which cost $40 a barrel.

Conventional oil yields 30 times the energy it takes to extract,
shale and ‘oil’ sands one to one-and-a-half times.
What about the other sources of energy? Nuclear power –
steady at around 6 per cent – and hydroelectricity – perhaps 5 per
cent – are small by comparison with the hydrocarbons. Even
smaller are the ‘alternates’ – solar, wind, tidal, geothermal,
currently no more than 2 per cent in total. Wood is burned as fuel,
frequently in the form of charcoal, by the majority of humans, and
together with other ‘natural combustibles’ like animal dung,
provides 10 to 12 per cent of world energy,8 and hence is the most
important source of fuel after the hydrocarbons. The growing
shortage of fuel wood is the greatest immediate energy problem
for perhaps the largest number of people, and indicates a need for
planning and special planting to maintain this resource, and a
major effort to provide efficient wood burning stoves to the
developing world to replace the present, wasteful and unhealthy
open hearths.9 Chinese villagers have reduced their use of fuel
wood by building methane pits – more than a million have been
installed since 1997, and 300,000 more are planned. Fed by plant
material and pig manure, these gas producers are providing
cooking fuel and light for millions of people.10
The world still has slightly over 1 trillion tons of coal – enough
for more than 200 years at present consumption rates – but using
more presents serious problems. Burning more coal would aggra-
vate climate change and increase pollution so severely that food
production would be affected in regions inhabited by hundreds of
millions of people, as in China, where approximately 2 billion
tons are now being burned each year, mostly to generate
electricity. Current lines of research include obtaining pure carbon
from coal, eliminating pollutants, conversion of coal to a liquid
fuel, and producing hydrogen from coal. However, whether a
reasonably clean fuel can be economically derived from coal
remains in serious doubt.
Construction of the International Thermonuclear Experi-
mental Reactor at Cadarache, in France has been likened to
‘building a star on earth.’ Thermonuclear fusion, harnessing the
power to the hydrogen bomb, the power of the sun, has been
touted for decades as the fuel of the future, and, to date, more
than $60 billion has been spent on trying to develop it. However,
the research stage of the major international fusion project, ITER,11
is still proceeding after decades of enormously costly experiments
which sought to develop a ‘magnetic bottle’ capable of containing
plasma at the necessary temperature of 100 million degrees
Centigrade. ‘Breakeven’ point, at which more energy is produced
than is actually consumed in the process, has not been reached,
and the reaction has been sustained only momentarily.
Development of the 1998 version of the design, estimated at nine
years, is expected to commence soon. In 2005 a decision was taken
to build the reactor in France, at a cost of 10 million euros. It is
hoped that the reactor, seen as ‘a near-term experiment’, will
prove feasible, but it is not designed to produce useful amounts of
power. Greenpeace criticized ITER as ‘a dangerous toy’, claiming
that the same money could build 10,000 megawatts (generally
abbreviated to MW – one million watts hours) of wind power –
enough for 7.5 million people. It seems safe to predict that there
will be no significant fusion power by 2030.
Methane hydrate is the result of water and natural gas
combining at low temperatures under high pressure. It is located
under the polar icecaps and on deep ocean floors. Mining this
resource is likely to be expensive, damaging to the environment
and dangerous, since explosions can result when the methane is
dissociated from the water. The methane, highly concentrated
within lattice-like cages of water molecules, expands 160 times
when liberated. Because it is 20 times more potent than carbon
dioxide as a greenhouse gas, major releases of methane to the
environment could seriously contribute to global warming.
Nevertheless, this vast reserve, conservatively estimated at 200
thousand trillion cubic feet – at least four times current natural
gas reserves – will be a high priority for research and develop-
ment. Its use as a fuel would release about half as much carbon
dioxide to the air as burning coal or oil.
The Methane Hydrate Research and Development Act was
passed by the US Congress in 2000, and as a result a major
research programme was begun ‘to allow commercial production

of methane from hydrate deposits by 2015. The magnitude of this
previously unconsidered global storehouse of methane is truly
staggering.’13 In 2005, the US voted a further $165 million to this
project. A joint Japanese–Canadian research programme has also
started to establish safe and practicable ways of mining methane
hydrate. In 2002, at its Mallik research wells on the Mackenzie
Delta, in Canada’s northwest, hot water was pumped down to
produce gas from hydrates which was then burned on a flare
tower. However, commercial production, while considered
feasible, is not likely for several decades, with tentative price
estimates of $4 to $6 per thousand cubic feet.
If new areas of sustainable energy production could be created
in the poorest nations of the world, so giving them a source of
income, several major objectives would be served. The use of
hydrogen as a fuel is one suggestion. The developing countries in
the tropics that have deserts – among the poorest of the poor –
could be economically transformed by new energy industries
based on hydrogen. In The Skeptical Environmentalist, Bjørn
Lomborg has calculated that with present solar cell technology, an
area 469 kilometres square – 2.6 per cent of the Sahara Desert –
would provide enough power to meet all world energy require-
ments.14 Solar technologies, which are a permanently renewable
energy source, have the potential to generate electricity to split
water or ammonia. The resultant hydrogen could be carried by
pipeline and existing tanker fleets to the metropolitan powers,
which would benefit from greatly reduced urban air pollution,
since the ‘exhaust’ from using hydrogen in fuel cells consists only
of water.
A pipedream? Not really. One technology has been extensively
developed in Israel and elsewhere. This involves using solar
power to generate electricity to split water into its constituents –
hydrogen and oxygen. But a newer, more exciting prospect offers
the generation of hydrogen from water simply by exposure to
light, with no use of any outside power source and no pollution.
This technology goes by the jaw-cracking name of photoelectro-
chemical production. Hydrogen Solar, a British company, is
developing what it calls the Tandem Cell ™, which uses nano-

crystalline materials. The company claims that a domestic double
garage roof covered with Tandem Cells would produce enough
hydrogen to run a car 11,000 miles a year on a completely sustain-
able basis. Using low-cost materials, it is expected that the
technology will provide hydrogen fuel at about a third the current
price of petrol. Construction of a 100 square metre demonstration
facility was announced in 2005, in cooperation with a major
energy company, the BOC Group. Other active research areas
include engineering bacteria to produce hydrogen and product-
ion of hydrogen from sunflower oil.
Desert land, at present regarded as having little value, and
constant, strong sunlight are potent raw materials for some of
these technologies. Such a world programme would offer an
investment opportunity for money now devoted to weaponry,
would provide work for many of the unemployed of the develop-
ing world, and would generate income for governments of the
producing nations in the form of royalties. Spin-offs would
include: a cheap source of electricity for the domestic needs of the
producing nation; a reduction in the demand for firewood; better
control of advancing deserts; and a rising consumer market in the
developing world.
Already trucks, buses and cars in Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik,
are running on hydrogen, and plans are well advanced to convert
its large fleet of fishing boats. Iceland’s ambition to end all
dependence on fossil fuels by 205015 will make it the first country
to move to a pollution free hydrogen economy. In the words of
Professor Bragi Amason, the original proponent of the idea: ‘I
think we are living a vision of the world to come’.16 This nation of
fewer than 300,000 people has the natural resources ideally suited
to the transition. Demand is met by only 10 per cent of Iceland’s
hydroelectric potential, hence there is abundant surplus power
available. Four international companies with considerable
resources signed an agreement with Iceland early in 1999 to carry
out the nationwide experiment.17 It has been known for 160 years
that reconstituting oxygen and hydrogen to water in a cell with a
platinum catalyst will produce electricity. Fuel cells have long been
used in specialist ways where cost is not a prime consideration, for

example, in spacecraft. However, one obstacle to their widespread
use is the cost of the cells, mainly due to the use of platinum, a rare
and costly metal. The first two Mercedes Benz fuel cell buses, now
running in Reykjavik, cost over $1.5 million each. In 2005, a major
breakthrough seemed possible with the production of nano
particles of nickel. It is now considered likely that the vastly less
expensive nanonickel can replace platinum as the fuel cell catalyst,
so making fuel cells as much as 70 per cent cheaper.
One of the more important and controversial decisions for the
future is whether or not to return to the nuclear option, and there
is already considerable pressure to do so, including a major public
relations campaign in 2004 and 2005, promoting fission power as
clean, cheap and safe, and consequently ‘green’. In 2002, the
Finnish Parliament voted 107 to 92 to build western Europe’s first
new reactor in more than 10 years to meet their energy demand,
in spite of vigorous protests from environmental groups.
Construction began in 2005, and the reactor is due for completion
in 2009. According to the New Scientist, the British government
has ‘secret plans to push through a major programme of new
nuclear power stations’.18 This kind of pressure could involve not
only nuclear power stations, but nuclear shipping, possibly even
nuclear aircraft. The problems with nuclear technology are too
well known to spell out here, other than merely to note the high
risk of serious accidents like Chernobyl, very expensive power in
real terms, and the unsolved problem of disposing of nuclear
waste.
There are more than 400 power generating nuclear reactors in
30 countries, which have accumulated hundreds of thousands of
tons of spent fuel and other dangerous waste. This amount is
being increased by around 10,000 tons a year. All this material is
radioactive to some extent. High level waste is very hazardous –
plutonium 239, for instance, generally resulting from nuclear
power production, has a half life of 24,000 years – this means that
in that time it is half as dangerous as it is now. These huge time
spans reaching into the future exacerbate the waste problem.
Much of it is being held in tanks, ponds and other storage
designed to be used for only a few decades. Some of this storage

has already deteriorated to an alarming extent. Even low-level
waste can explode dangerously – in 1972 the US Atomic Energy
Commission reported that low-level waste dumped into unlined
trenches had spontaneously created a layer of concentrated
plutonium, which could have resulted in an explosive nuclear
chain reaction. A major nuclear disaster in Kyshtym, in Russia in
1957, is considered to have resulted from such an explosion in
nuclear waste, and nearby Lake Karachay is so polluted Russian
scientists have warned that to stand on its shores for even a few
hours would risk dangerous radiation sickness. There is a very
high rate of cancer, sterility and deformed children in this region.
Germany plans to phase out its reactors over the next two
decades, and eight older ones are due for decommissioning in the
United Kingdom, but three are being built in China, two in Japan,
and two in South Korea. Both India and Japan are committed to
fast neutron breeders, which can produce more plutonium than
the fuel they actually consume, but which have a record of high
cost and unreliability, and a potential for supercritical accidents at
a catastrophic level.
The true cost of nuclear power must factor in huge amounts –
as much as $1 trillion worldwide – for subsidies and cleaning up
and decommissioning obsolete facilities – for instance, for the
closed down Superphenix fast breeder and the Marcoule
reprocessing plants in France, about $5 billion each. Such costs
have typically been deferred by delaying total decommissioning
until far in the future – in the case of British facilities, 130 years. It
will cost almost $100 billion to clean up 20 nuclear sites in Britain.
These vast amounts, the unknown cost of permanently disposing
of nuclear waste, and very considerable government subsidies, in
the US $150 billion over the past 60 years, are generally not
factored into the industry’s estimates of the real cost of the power
produced, or they are under-estimated. Hence claims that nuclear
power is cheap need to be looked at rather carefully.
Cheap and safe is the claim. So how safe are the new generation
of fission power reactors? The new designs, still in the research
stage, use over 300,000 billiard-ball sized ‘pebbles’ made of
uranium and graphite which fuel the reactor, greatly reducing the
risk of ‘meltdown’. However, unless all of these are perfectly
shaped they will jam – such a jamming caused the West German
government to close down its programme in 1986 as too
dangerous. Graphite is inflammable – it has been involved in a
number of reactor accidents in the past, so there is a fire risk.
Because of a requirement to be open to natural convectional air
cooling some pebble bed reactor designs have no containment
vessel, giving easier access to sabotage or terrorists. And the
reactors produce a larger amount of somewhat less potent, but still
dangerous, nuclear waste. The technology appeals to investors
because these reactors are cheaper to build.
But perhaps the most alarming manifestation of the new drive
for nuclear power is the Russian government’s programme to
build small nuclear power plants on barges, which can be towed to
remote locations or sold to developing world countries. These
reactors, the first of which will be available in 2008, will use highly
enriched uranium, which could readily be applied to making
bombs. Their vulnerability to sabotage, rogue state or terrorist
activity is potentially disastrous.
What then, are the sustainable alternatives, and how can they
be developed? Biomass is one of the more promising sources of
permanently renewable fuels. It has been used in many parts of the
world for some decades – Brazil, for instance, produces ethanol
from sugarcane, and many of its road vehicles are designed to use
it. In the US around 7 per cent of the corn crop is used to produce
almost 2 billion gallons of ethanol, heavily subsidized, a year.
However, ethanol production from food crops has been criticized,
both on humanitarian grounds and because its production often
demands more energy than it yields.
Vegetable oils can be readily converted into diesel fuel. Such a
fuel made from rapeseed (canola) has been in use in Europe for
some time. A German plant even produces 4000 litres of diesel
fuel a day from waste water from restaurants and food factories,
reclaiming the oil and grease in a centrifuge, and delivering clean
water to the environment. Trees are an important source of
biomass – the United States Department of Energy is working
with a hardy, high yielding hybrid poplar that will grow 60 feet
(20 metres) high in 6 years. The most promising biomass plant
may well turn out to be seaweed, specifically Macrocystis, a giant
kelp which grows very quickly on the coasts of most of the
world’s continents in temperate waters under 20°C. Using
nothing more than the nutrients in seawater and the sun’s energy,
this giant kelp is the fastest growing plant on Earth.
Every day, solar energy amounting to around 200,000 times
present global electricity generating capacity falls on the planet.
This has long induced speculation and research into means of
harvesting it. Probably the most dramatic concept is the solar
chimney – a vast concrete tower as high as a kilometre in which
an updraught of heated air drives a succession of generators. At
the base of the huge cylinder is a ‘greenhouse’ – a massive solar
collector made of glass sheets which directs superheated air into
the chimney.19 Heat banks inside the greenhouse allow operation
for 24 hours a day, so in some areas such a greenhouse might also
be used for agriculture. Solar towers are proposed for Rajasthan,
in India, China and rural Victoria, in Australia.
At a cost of around $600 million, the Mildura tower in Victoria
is in the final stages of technical development. The technology has
gained flexibility, and is said to be adaptable to power stations
ranging from 50 to 200MW. The original kilometre-high tower
will now be somewhat smaller. It will produce power 24 hours a
day. The glass ‘skirt’ around it will have a diameter of several
kilometres. Although the height of these proposed towers will
make them the world’s tallest buildings, their sponsors are
confident the technology and materials are available to build
them, and that they will be justified by low maintenance costs and
a long operating life – as much as 100 years.
New, simpler and high output technology is developing in
solar thermal systems in which mirrors focus sunlight on pipes
for steam electricity generation. An initial Australian system,
using a mirror array 300 metres long, is under construction to
preheat water for a coal-fired power station, but according to
Solar Heat and Power Pty future projects will generate power
directly without the use of fossil fuel – a demonstration plant is
under construction in southern Portugal. The chairman of the

company, Dr David Mills, says these systems become most cost
effective in the 500–1000MW range, similar to moderate-sized
nuclear plants, and added: ‘The technology can be expanded to
meet any conceivable power demand. Expansion can be faster
than the nuclear option because of inherent environmental safety.
The global solar electric resource is huge at 600 terawatts – current
human use is 13 TW.’
A TV screen converts electrons – electricity – into photons –
light. This process operates in reverse in photovoltaic cells. Most
people own one of these, powering a pocket calculator or a watch.
This technology has advanced considerably in recent years, and
its usage is increasing, especially in remote localities far from
transmission lines, which were previously dependent on diesel
generators. The power-producing element in one type of cell is
applied like paint to a surface, and can be coated onto roof tiles.
These ‘amorphous’ solar cells are now being used for generators
in the megawatt range. Several manufacturers are working on
thin, lightweight flexible materials that deliver power from the
sun, among them Spheral Solar and Iowa Thin Film Technologies,
who are producing such materials for army tents and cladding for
solar powered airships. An American firm called HelioVolt is
developing solar technology it says can be built into roofing
materials and which could reduce the cost of solar panels by more
than 50 per cent. Very small nanocrystals called Quantam Dots
may be used for much more efficient solar panels. Solar power is
especially important because it can be installed where it is to be
used, that is, on rooftops, so eliminating the huge costs of
transmission lines, and line loss of power when it has to be
reticulated over long distances. For these reasons and for those of
business profitability consumers pay far higher retail prices for
power than its production cost. This means that in many areas
solar power is already competitive in real terms with power
coming in from the grid.
Where towns are located on or near rivers, hydroelectricity is
an important practical resource. The most striking, and also the
largest engineering project in the world, is the $25 billion Three
Gorges Dam on China’s Yangsi River, which will generate 18,200

MW of electricity. It is by far the largest power generator in
existence, equal to the burning of 50 million tons of coal a year. It
will also make the river navigable 1800 kilometres from the coast,
conserve water in a vast lake, and control flooding on the Yangsi
Plain that has caused millions of deaths over the millennia. It is
due for completion in 2009.20 However, such large schemes can
have adverse environmental effects and involve high energy
losses along lengthy transmission lines. There is a case for small,
local plants, as simple as combined impellor generator units
which float on the surface of a river, driven by the current.
In order for alternates to provide a stable and reliable supply
of energy, the various forms will probably have to be used in
combination – utilizing water, wave, tidal, wind and solar power
as appropriate, and, where possible, feeding them into a common
grid. These are the main forms of alternate energy, and all are
being developed, although not yet at anything like sufficient
levels to meet the 2030 energy shortfalls. Wind generators are
clearly only economically viable in places where the wind blows
strongly and fairly constantly, although in favourable locations
they are now very close to being competitive in price with fossil
fuels – about 3.5 US cents a kilowatt hour. Modern wind
generators, which can be as large as 5MW with a blade span of
120 metres, can use direct induction to generate power. This
eliminates complex gearing systems, and makes the machines
simpler, cheaper and quieter.
However, even at this level of efficiency, they must still be
regarded as complementary to other sources of power, such as
hydroelectricity, other than in those few places where the wind
blows constantly. It is salutary to remember that while the amount
of wind-generated power is increasing rapidly – to 47,000MW
worldwide in 2005,21 it still amounts to little over half of 1 per cent
of world energy use. In 2001, Germany announced plans to build
4000 wind generators in the North Sea – part of a programme
intended to eventually provide half the nation’s electricity and to
phase out nuclear power. In 2002, the British government
announced plans to produce 10 per cent of the nation’s electricity
by renewable means by 2010 – mostly through wind generators,

one of which, planned for Lowestoft, will be 150 metres high.
The movements of the sea – tides and waves – and also the
temperature difference between the depths and the ocean surface,
are being used to generate electricity. A Canadian power plant at
Annapolis, in the Bay of Fundy, generates 20MW. It is a pilot for a
huge project which would generate 5000MW– roughly equivalent
to five nuclear power stations or the burning of 15 million tons of
coal a year. South Korea is building the world’s biggest tidal
power generator on a 300-metre-wide channel between the sea
and Shihwa Lake. Due for completion in 2008, it will generate
254MW – the total requirement for 500,000 people in the adjacent
city of Ansan. Geothermal energy, using hot springs or steam
plumes of volcanic origin, is in use in many countries, including
the US, Japan, New Zealand and Iceland, to generate electricity
and to heat buildings. In many parts of the world there are areas
of hot subsurface rock, and several countries are researching ways
to use this heat for energy generation.
Conservation, at all levels, must be a major factor in current
strategies, and this is how the average householder and business
can influence events. Given even the most effective and dedicated
efforts, it is unlikely that alternates will be able to replace oil
completely in the short term. The most important and promising
aspect of energy research is therefore conservation, intimately
associated with evolving low energy devices, such as LED (light-
emitting diode) lighting and ‘passive’ solar technology, which
involves the best possible design of buildings to utilize the sun’s
energy. Passive techniques are generally simple, requiring few
moving parts other than small capacity electric fans. There are a
number of techniques which can be employed, for example, siting
part or all of a building underground, providing massive masonry
‘heat banks’, or running pipe loops a few feet under the ground,
where temperatures are almost constant, to provide air to a
building to help warm or cool it. Other means are as simple as
designing buildings so that they are warmed by the winter sun but
sheltered from the summer sun. However, sophisticated tech-
nology now emerging could exert an enormous conservational
influence if it is applied reasonably. For example, LED lamps,

providing an acceptable white light that is considered superior to
that of fluorescent tubes, are now available, use 80 per cent less
power than a conventional light bulb and have a life of at least 10
years. Philips is planning a major conversion to this technology,
with light bulbs that look just like conventional incandescent
bulbs, and another, called Chameleon, which can sense the colour
of objects around it, then change its own colour to match. It has
been estimated that if every lamp in the US could be converted to
LED or other low use technology, no new power stations would be
needed for 20 years.22
Major changes in lifestyle, especially in forms of habitat,
consumption and transport, could do much to counter, even
overcome, the energy crisis. These changes are scarcely likely to
be achieved by governments alone, although governments have it
in their power to apply tax incentives and penalties sufficient to
deter the use of hydrocarbons, especially oil, and, in terms of
Axiom One, make it profitable for multinational and national
energy companies to cooperate in the development of alter-
natives. Granted this, these businesses are likely to respond to
determined and informed public opinion. As with so much of the
necessary new society, change must come from an intelligent
appreciation of the facts by individual humans, and maximum
pressure from the grassroots. This will be especially important as
major pressure increases, as it will, for much larger use of nuclear
power as ‘the obvious answer’ to a growing world hunger for
energy.
And speaking of this, how about what I am calling the Coal
Burners’ Club – otherwise the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean
Development and Climate – entered into by the six nations who
are indeed the world’s biggest coal users? The US, Australia,
China, India, Japan and South Korea in 2005 signed an ‘under-
standing’ as an alternative to the Kyoto Protocol. The proposals are
vague indeed, with no target dates and no firm commitments, but
basically the idea seems to be to burn much more coal – the dirtiest
fuel – and install more nuclear power – the most dangerous – and
somehow clean them up. The message is that we can continue
‘development’ pretty much as now, and that ‘technology’ will

solve all the problems.
But can it, and in time?
One idea is somehow to capture the greenhouse gas carbon
dioxide and ‘sequester’ it – a magic word that really means getting
the stuff away underground somewhere. Is this a good idea? – a
‘bubble’ of CO2 that emerged from Lake Nyos in the Cameroons in
1986 killed 2000 people. Next, no-one knows how to do it in
significant quantities, where to put such huge amounts or what it
will cost.
However, it is estimated that to retrofit the world’s existing coal-
fired plants with equipment to capture the gas would cost around
$40 a ton – a total for six billion tons a year from powerhouses of a
staggering $240billion. You could build a lot of windfarms for that.
On top of this would be another enormous bill for ‘sequestering’ it.
Scientific American (14 February 2005) estimates total CO2 emissions
at 25 billion tons a year and present costs of sequestering at $40 to
$100 a ton. And even these prodigious costs do not take into
account the additional emissions which will result from plans to
build 560 new coal-fired plants in China and 213 in India, which do
not appear to include gas scrubbers. Beyond this, sequestration
would be very energy expensive.
Clean coal? Over the last 30 years billions have been spent
trying for this, with very limited success – powdered coal, gas-
making – all these have been tried with slight results in terms of
the problem. Most coal-burning power stations waste 70 per cent
of the energy in the coal, with best new technology only getting
this down to 60 per cent. Integrated gasification combined cycle?
Two existing plants operate at under 40 per cent efficiency.
However, if we made the charitable assumption that miracles
could be achieved, on the most optimistic lead time estimates
their effect could only become manifest at a sufficient scale by
perhaps 2070, 2080 – much too late to avert the 2030 crisis. And on
present showing they would still involve massive pollution, more
rapid climate change and astronomical costs.
Unless the sponsors of this programme can do better than this,
it can scarcely be taken seriously.
OPTIMAL FUTURE HISTORY

• Fossil fuel and nuclear powerhouses replaced with estab-
lished renewable technology like solar towers, wind
farms, large-scale solar thermal, small-scale hydroelectrics,
all on a massive scale – the sooner the better. We must do
it while we still have oil left to fuel making the necessary
infrastructure, and before climate change gets out of
hand.
• People live, work and play in ways that are conser-
vational and sustainable, with houses that use less power
and can provide at least some of their own, in habitat
forms that do not require the constant use of cars.
• Government imposes major penalties and incentives to
switch transport forms to fuel cells and electric drive, plus
a sustainable hydrogen fuelling infrastructure, as fast as
possible. This could be financed by an immediate doub-
ling in taxes on oil-based fuels, and a progressive super-
tax on all vehicles with petrol engines over two litres.
• Mandatory provision for all new buildings, and all new
appliances, to use minimal energy, and for all buildings
to generate at least half of their electricity through on-
site sustainable means, like wind or solar.
• Government subsidies on the retail price of low energy
use light bulbs, as has been the case in New Zealand.
C HAPTER 3
P OPULATION AND
P OVERTY
A significant area of US policy expounded at an international

forum in 2004 is a major contributor to the death of eight times
more people, every day, than were killed in the World Trade
Center in New York. Yes, read that again. Consider it.
The 110 nations represented at this UN sponsored meeting
endorsed a campaign to raise an additional $50billion to combat
world hunger, declaring: ‘The greatest scandal is not that hunger
exists, but that it persists, even when we have the means to
eliminate it. It is time to take action.‘ The declaration proposed a
global tax on financial transactions, a tax on the sale of heavy
armaments, and a credit card scheme that would direct a small
amount of transaction charges to a hunger fund.
However, the US opposed these ideas, its delegation leader,
Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, saying ‘Economic growth is
the long-term solution to hunger and poverty … there is too much
emphasis on schemes such as global taxes to raise external
resources. Global taxes are inherently undemocratic. Implement-
ation is impossible.’
Granted that economic growth is really desirable, how is it
possible for the sick and starving to start viable businesses from
nothing? And there are plenty of the sick and starving. More than
9 million people, three-quarters of them children under 5, are
POPULATION AND POVERTY 33
killed by hunger every year, 25,000 every day.1 This compares with
12.5 million 10 years ago, 15 million 20 years ago. Almost a billion
are classified as ‘desperately hungry’.2 There are over a billion
people with incomes lower than $1 a day – just how many, no-one
seems to know, with estimates from respectable sources ranging
from 1.2 to 1.8 billion. Three billion people – half the global
population – live on $2 a day, and get less protein daily than the
average domestic cat in the Western world. Around 800 million are
severely malnourished, while 600 million are overweight.
The raw statistics in this area are deceptive because apparent
improvements largely reflect better living conditions in China.
According to Per Pinstrup-Andersen, former director general of
the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington,
DC, the situation elsewhere has deteriorated overall, with the
number of ‘insecure and chronically malnourished people’
increasing by 40 million during the 1990s.3
Billions of individuals suffer from a variety of endemic
diseases, mostly due to infected water supplies and similar inade-
quate infrastructure. At least half of the population of the world
has never used a telephone. One estimate states that 1.5 billion
people are unemployed in the sense that they do not have paid
work.4 All these statistics relate particularly to the great majority of
the human race who live in the developing world, especially those
living outside the cities.
The world’s population is projected to grow from 6 to 8.2 billion
by 2030, with almost all of this growth taking place in the develop-
ing nations. As many as half of the world’s people will be living in
areas which will not be able to sustain them, substantially due to
dwindling water resources.5 Rapidly growing global population
and its attendant problems remain a threat to the world for several
reasons. In his final interview retiring president of the World Bank
James Wolfensohn forecast a ‘tsunami’, a great wave of instability,
threatening world peace and causing great suffering around the
globe, if the problems of world poverty and equity were not
urgently addressed. Why, in the face of such an informed warning,
do these problems continue? Can they be controlled before 2030?
Here again, the means and resources are available, if we choose to
use them. There is a close and well documented association of high

birth rates with poverty and illiteracy, yet the US has turned its back
on this problem, cancelling its contribution to the UN Population
Fund in 2002 under pressure from the pseudo-Christian right.
Surely real Christians have no wish to see millions of children
brought into the world who will die horribly before they are five?
Where everyone is well educated and adequately fed and
housed, the rate of growth is generally a little above, or even
below, replacement level. The average world population growth
is 1.2 per cent a year; in India it is 1.5 per cent, but in the US it is
0.9 per cent, and in Britain a low 0.2 per cent. The populations of
Italy and Japan are actually falling. Between 1950 and 2000, the
population of ‘the West’ grew by two-thirds to 1.25 billion; in
Asia, Africa and South America it grew more than two and a half
times to 4.75 billion. Effectively, the population of the West
dwindled over that period from a little under a half to less than a
quarter of the world’s total population. On present trends, in
which future population growth will almost all be in the
developing world, the ‘more developed’ nations are likely to
represent only 15 per cent of world population by 2030. The best
estimate here is 7 billion in the developing world, 1.2 billion in the
developed world.
There are certainly implications here for the West – is it on the
way to opting out of the human race? Research in a number of
countries has noted that birth rates at or below replacement level
seem to be due to the financial cost of having children in econo-
mies where women are expected to work. Such birth rates are
causing concern in Singapore, Japan and Italy.
The need to improve the lives of the world’s poor is obvious
on compassionate grounds alone. No less important are the
catastrophic demographic, economic, environmental and social
consequences if the remedies are delayed. The world’s population
increased from 5 to 6 billion in only 12 years to 1999. Since then,
there has been some slowing in the rate of population increase,
but this is mainly due to the one child policy in China – although
this is becoming increasingly unpopular and difficult to police –
low birth rates in Western countries, and rising death rates from
diseases like malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis and stomach infections

in infants, which kill millions every year.
Demographic history makes very plain the perils of attempting
to predict future outcomes from current trends. There is no
guarantee that the world’s population is on its way to stabilizing,
quite apart from the fact that lower growth rates are largely due to
unacceptable reasons. Population equilibrium is most unlikely by
2030, when 8.2 billion people on the planet seems to be the likeliest
outcome. That means that for every three people on the Earth now
there will be four in 2030. And what will happen in the crucial
decades beyond 2030? In 1998, United Nations’ demographers set
out three scenarios for future population growth. In the worst
scenario, in which poverty in developing countries continues to
increase, the world would have a catastrophic 15 billion people
before the end of the century, associated with an appalling rate of
infant mortality.
Most humans still live in villages – there are more than 2 million
in India and China alone. In theory these villages are self sufficient
but, in reality, they are becoming increasingly impoverished. Huge
numbers now also live in city slums. The needs of these people, for
many decades at least, will be quite different from those of people
in the Western world, and may seem simple to the point of being
primitive. Nevertheless, these needs are real and pressing, and are
frequently and disastrously misunderstood, even ignored, by
decision-makers administering foreign aid.
A conventional view of history places the end of the colonial era
about halfway through the 20th century, when most of the former
Asian, African and American colonies became independent states.
This is, however, only partly true. During the ensuing half century,
economic dominance of much of the developing world by the West
continued, as the ability of new nations to govern themselves
effectively diminished. ‘Government’ by military juntas became
the rule rather than the exception. In many cases such oppressors
have been supported by Western powers for muddled political
and economic reasons. These military regimes have seriously
impeded even well intentioned efforts by Western countries to
assist developing countries. Financial grants have too often ended
up in the Swiss bank accounts of authoritarian ‘leaders’ and their

hangers-on. Other ‘aid’ has been dissipated on inappropriate
infrastructure, such as golf courses and city office buildings, and
on weapons systems mainly designed to allow regimes to oppress
their own people.
Speaking of mass deaths, how do you feel about a financial
instrument that is killing thousands of children every day? This is
just one cost of the crippling burden of developing world debt –
variously estimated at between $1.5 and 2 trillion – which is
preventing proper health care, education and poverty alleviation
programmes in developing countries. In addition to aid and
grants, Western countries and financial institutions have also
offered loans to developing nations – many of them ‘odious’
debts. These consist of money paid over to support tyrannical
regimes, or in some cases, debts inherited from the colonial era.
Over the last three decades the relentless progress of compound
interest has worsened this growing problem of debt, leaving
many poorer countries obliged to meet interest payments greater
than their spending on education or health services. For instance,
40 per cent of Ecuador’s annual budget in 1999 was used to pay
interest on a $16 billion debt. Two-thirds of its people live in
poverty, even though Ecuador has major oil and other mineral
reserves and is well endowed with fertile land. Some movement
was made late in 1999, with an International Monetary Fund and
World Bank decision to write off $60 billion, with special attention
being given to the most disadvantaged countries. For instance, 85
per cent of Nicaragua’s debt was cancelled. However, these
concessions came with strings attached, and had little immediate
effect on the payments required of the debtor countries, who were
obliged to accept IMF directions on how to run their economies.
These constraints typically involved even harsher restrictions on
budgets for health and education, and the elimination of food
subsidies. Similar restrictions accompanied a much publicized
write-off of $40 billion in 2005. This represents barely 2.5 per cent
of total developing world debt.
A major campaign by a non-governmental global charity,
Jubilee 2000 – aimed at the elimination of developing-world debt –
organized a petition of 17 million signatures which was presented

to a meeting of the G8, the world’s richest nations, in Cologne in
1999. However, to offer some perspective, the following year
almost a billion dollars were spent organizing the G8 summit on
the Japanese island of Okinawa, including construction of a replica
of then US President Clinton’s Arkansas home, at a cost of three-
quarters of a million dollars, for his use during the conference.
Meanwhile, the obligation to pay the interest on the remaining
debts, many of which are plainly unmeetable, is responsible for
hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths in developing
countries, mostly of children, and contrasts badly with the
growing affluence of some areas of the West. According to the
Worldwatch Institute, the complete cancellation of debt in African
countries would save the lives of millions of children each year
and provide access to basic education for approximately 90 million
young women.6 The effects of AIDS, internal conflicts in six African
countries and crop failures due to drought had brought additional
urgency to this issue by 2005, when the United Nations declared a
humanitarian disaster affecting at least 10 million people who
were facing acute food shortages.
A gloomy enough picture, but it does point up the issue of
how aid funds should be channelled to the people in developing
countries and how they can best be spent. There is evidence that
aid supplied by non-governmental organizations – charities such
as Oxfam Community Aid Abroad – is the most effective in terms
of getting maximum results per dollar spent and in directing aid
to the people who really need it. Aid money gets better results
when advisers from the donor country are actually on the ground,
and can discuss practical needs with the people, rather than with
the governing officials of the recipient country.
I lived for a time in northeast Thailand in a region where a new
hydroelectric scheme, the Nampong Dam, was built, largely
financed by foreign aid. The only suitable place for the dam was
a shallow basin surrounded by low hills. This flat area also
happened to be one of the few areas of good arable soil in that
region. When it was flooded, hundreds of families who had
farmed there for generations were forced off their land. With the
small amounts of money they had been given as compensation

they could not afford to buy other land – nothing else as good was
available anyway. When the scheme began to operate it did so at
only a limited capacity. It provided power for a few towns and a
small minority of wealthy people. In that area the hundreds of
villages and their people could not afford to pay for connecting
lines or electrical appliances. Most villages did not even have a
road. This was inappropriate technology.
Appropriate technology can only be assessed by looking at the
conditions of the lives of the people concerned. Most village
headmen and councils in northeast Thailand knew what would
have been appropriate, but they were seldom asked. Huge infra-
structure projects are ‘easier’ – a stroke of a pen in London,
Washington or Paris can allocate money in one large dollop to
achieve a highly visible end, the consequences of which have
frequently not been thought through. In most village areas around
the world, appropriate technology is more likely to take the
following forms, in order of priority:
• The means to supply safe, non-infected drinking water –

deep tube wells or impervious roofing to collect rainwater in
tanks. According to one estimate, contaminated water kills 2
million people a year.7
• Water pumps driven by sustainable means, such as
windmills, solar panels and hydraulic motors, or at least by
fuel economical engines, perhaps diesel. Billions of people in
the developing world have to spend hours of backbreaking
and monotonous labour raising water into irrigation
channels. An intriguing development here for village use is
the promotion by a South African company of a childrens’
roundabout connected to a pump capable of raising 1400
litres of water an hour from a depth of 40 metres as the
children play.
• Simple agricultural implements made of good steel,
preferably stainless, that are easy to use and maintain. In
most places the economy and ecology are dependent on the
use of draught animals, which automatically fertilize the
soil. Appropriate technology would be designed to mesh

with this situation, not seek to replace it with motor vehicles,
artificial fertilizers and patented genetically modified seeds.
• Efficient stoves to replace fuel hungry open hearths. Solar
cooking appliances would not only be convenient, but
would also help to arrest the destruction of trees and the
attendant loss of soil fertility, and at the same time reduce
deaths from indoor smoke pollution. Such simple cookers,
using parabolic metal mirrors, are in regular use in India.
• A road and bridges connecting the village to the outside
world; carts with rubber pneumatic tyres and sealed low
friction wheel bearings.
• Permanent roofing to remove the constant repetitive work of
thatching and to catch rainwater.
• Grafted higher producing fruit trees, better breeding stock
for poultry, and higher producing livestock generally.
• A travelling medical clinic specialized in birth control
mechanisms, control of endemic disease, and pain allev-
iation, with staff having sufficient diagnostic skills to decide
which cases should be referred to hospitals.
• A school, using modern methods to achieve literacy and
numeracy, and teaching practical engineering and science
relevant to the appropriate technology for that region.
If possible, artifacts should be low tech, low cost, and able to be

made and repaired locally with local materials. A good example
of this is the prosthetic Jaipur foot, developed in India. A
thousand of these were sent to Afghanistan in 2002 to benefit
people who had had their feet blown off by one of the West’s
major exports to the developing world – landmines.8 Appropriate
technology then, involves studying what is already there, and
building on it progressively. This should allow a modest
industrial base to evolve naturally, providing added value to local
products for export – goods such as prepared and packaged
foods, woven goods, wooden furniture and other handicrafts.
There are research and aid agencies which understand the
problems of the developing countries, which are collectively
achieving ‘sustainable agriculture’ techniques that have drama-

tically increased food crop yields for millions of poor farmers.
One Madagascan venture that has greatly increased rice yields
through quite simple changes to crop management9 has since
been extended to China, Indonesia and Cambodia.
The International Centre for Research in Agroforestry is
tackling the serious problem of a loss of soil fertility in equatorial
Africa – not with increasing fertilizer use, which the farmers
cannot afford anyway, but by natural and sustainable means.
Farmers have been introduced to a selection of leguminous plants
that add nitrogen to the soil, and to cover crops which can be
ploughed in. Mexican sunflower, which is already being used
extensively, has in some cases trebled maize crops sown
subsequently. Another of the centre’s rapidly expanding concepts
is ‘living fences’ of suitable growing shrubs and trees, to enclose
fields where crops of higher value than maize, such as vegetables,
are grown to protect them from animals. Much higher yields of
food crops can be achieved when several varieties are planted
together, rather than operating a monoculture. Millions of farmers
have abandoned ploughing, using zero tillage methods instead. A
major survey in 2001 of 208 sustainable agriculture projects in 52
countries, indicated that some small farms were achieving
increasing yields of 50 to 100 per cent, without using artificial
fertilizers or pesticides.10
Among the more elegant applications of postmodern appro-
priate technologies is a huge ‘seawater greenhouse’ on an arid
island off Abu Dhabi. This project has successfully tested a low
energy technology that irrigates the desert and grows vegetables
in a giant ‘dew making machine that produces fresh water and
cool air from sun and seawater’.11 Described as ‘a truly original
idea which has the potential to impact on the lives of millions of
people living in coastal water-starved areas around the world’,12
the seawater greenhouse will surely take its place in the new
society. It serves as evidence that raising the poor from their misery
and poverty by frugal and renewable means is feasible and
affordable, and also as a reminder that any idea of influencing
developing countries into becoming clones of the consumerist
West should be forgotten immediately. Even granted major

concessions of affluence by the West, the natural resources and
environment of the planet could not support the pollution created
and energy and resources demanded, which has been estimated at
five times present use. That estimate alone indicates how different
the new society must be if it is to be truly global.

• The developing nations need to have money put into
them, not taken out. This demands immediate cancel-
lation of debts which are longstanding and plainly
oppressive – this would mean most developing-world debt
and large infusions of money as grants , not loans.
• Mass production methods developed to provide new
appropriate technology, and experts appointed to
explain its use. This could be achieved by establishing a
new world agency for appropriate agriculture and tech-
nology, with financial backing in the order of $100
billion a year.
• Provision of basic schooling throughout the world,
mainly through the internet, available at the village
level, especially to young women and children forced to
labour in inefficient agricultural systems.
• Recognition that deaths, illness and blindness from
preventable causes are inexcusable in world terms, and
provision of enough money to control them. It is
communally disgraceful – although greatly to his indivi-
dual credit – that Bill Gates, last year provided more than
three-quarters of the research funds to fight malaria,
which kills more than two million people every year.
C HAPTER 4
C LIMATE : H OW L ONG
TO T IPPING P OINT ?
We must take climate change – and indeed the apocalyptic ‘tipping

point’ concept – very seriously. The evidence is fast growing that it
will be highly dangerous if the current disinclination to do much
about it continues.
The year 2005 was the hottest, driest and stormiest on record
in many places, setting a new record damage cost of more than
$200 billion as a result of extreme weather. Hurricane Katrina in
the US accounted for well over $100 billion of this. The previous
record year for disaster damage was 2004.
Paradoxically, a little ice age severely affecting western
Europe, especially the UK, seems likely quite soon. Temper-
atures would drop as much as 8°C, London would be snow-
bound for many months, huge areas of cropland would no
longer produce food. This would result from disruption of the
Atlantic Conveyor system of sea currents, which includes the
Gulf Stream. This disastrous event could occur abruptly, within
a decade, and last for decades, if not centuries. It could co-exist
with global warming in other areas, indeed mainstream
scientists consider that warming would be a major factor
influencing the shutdown. Larger amounts of fresh water in the
North Atlantic have disrupted the conveyor several times
before, and this is starting to happen again now. Fresh water is
CLIMATE: HOW LONG TO TIPPING POINT? 43
increased in the sea as ice melts and higher rainfall is increasing

river flows.
These are some of the conclusions of a briefing paper delivered
to the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2003 by the Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US. In 2005, Ruth Curry of
that institution and Cecilie Mauritzen of the Norwegian
Meteorological Institute, reported repeated major pulses of fresh
water from the Arctic to the North Atlantic over each of the last
four decades. Late in 2005 British researchers at the National
Oceanographic Centre in Southampton released the results of a
study showing that the conveyor had indeed weakened by 30 per
cent since 1992. When the earth began to warm after the last ice
age 12,300 years ago the conveyor was disrupted, resulting in an
abrupt temperature fall of about 5°C. This renewed cold phase,
known as the Younger Dryas, lasted for 1300 years.
Glaciologists at a Royal Society meeting in London late in 2005
reversed earlier opinions that Antarctica was not contributing to
climate change. Two big glaciers, Pine Island and Thwaites, are
sliding into the sea much faster – these two glaciers alone could
raise sea levels by more than a metre. Since they deposit more than
100 cubic kilometres of ice into the ocean each year, they will
almost certainly contribute to the sea level rises already causing
concern as Arctic ice melts. A vast area of permafrost in Siberia – a
million hectares – is melting for the first time since the last ice age.
This is likely to release huge amounts of methane, a greenhouse
gas 20 times as potent as CO2, and could result in an irreversible
‘tipping point’ for the world’s climate. More CO2 in the air is
making the sea more acid and this is likely to result in a ‘potentially
gigantic’ disturbance of fish populations, according to Carol
Turley, head of science at Plymouth Marine Laboratory in
Plymouth, England. And according to Janos Bogardi, director of
environment and human society studies at the UN University in
Bonn, there are likely to be as many as 50 million ‘environmental
refugees’ by the end of this decade.
Climate change ranks as a principal driver for these and many
other reasons, including one not always given due prominence –
its potential to severely reduce world food supplies, especially in
poor and heavily populated areas. Food, water and energy

resources are now at the stage where, by 2030, even quite small
changes in climate could cause major famine. Health is also an
issue. The World Health Organization in 2005 predicted that by
2030 global warming could cause 300,000 deaths and 10 million
illnesses in the developing world over and above very high
present disease rates. There were already signs of this in that year,
when mosquito-borne dengue fever reached epidemic propor-
tions in south Asia, infecting 120,000 people and killing 1000.
Researchers made the point that it is the developed world that is
driving global warming, but it is the undeveloped world that will
suffer most.
Hotter, wilder, less predictable weather is indeed the early
prospect, and is likely to increase progressively over the next 30
years. There is now almost complete consensus among scientists
that it will happen, and that human activities, especially burning
coal and oil, that increase the amount of greenhouse gases in the
air are the trigger.
These points were made by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change in a major assessment of the problem.1 That
report predicted average global temperature increases between
1.4°C and 5.8°C during this century, the most rapid warming the
world has experienced in 10,000 years. The worst case scenario of
a rise of 5.8°C would result if efforts to resolve the problem
continue to be as ineffectual as they have been over the past
decade. The panel’s fourth major report is due in 2007.
However, other scientists consider that on the evidence of recent
research a rise of as much as 15°C is possible, with huge and
unforeseeable consequences. This prediction is based on two
factors. The first is the possibility that the Amazon rainforest, now
believed to be operating as a major carbon sink, could in
circumstances such as protracted drought or major forest fires,
return huge amounts of carbon to the atmosphere, creating a
temperature rise of as much as 8°C. The Amazon forest was at the
time of writing severely affected by its worst drought in 40 years,
with satellites recording more than 150 fires. Cattle ranchers,
loggers and soy bean farmers are cutting down more than 25,000
square kilometres of the Amazon every year, a rate that would

destroy the entire forest in 50 years. The cattle herd has increased
since 1990 by 20 million to 60 million, and is the largest in the world.
Soy farms have doubled to 20 million hectares. The Peruvian
glaciers, which provide 50 per cent of the water to the upper
Amazon, are fast shrinking and may disappear totally within 40
years, with potentially devastating consequences for the forest.
The effect at the poles of an 8°C temperature rise could be a
major release of methane from the methane hydrate (clathrate) on
the shallow seabed of the Arctic, currently frozen in place. Past ice
core and sediment records indicate that something like this might
happen in as little as 50 years. A phase of rapid and intense global
warming 55 million years ago may have been caused by a
methane release.2 In late 2002, Arctic sea ice was at its lowest since
records were first taken in the 1950s, and was perhaps the lowest
for several centuries, due to a warm summer and unusual air
circulation patterns, and by 2005 it became so low it was predicted
that the fabled and much-sought north-west passage through the
Arctic seas would soon be open to shipping.
Climatologists, like economists, have many and divergent
opinions about their subject. Most claim the world will continue
getting hotter and that this will be catastrophic. A few still
consider that this is not yet proven – that warmer temperatures,
the retreat of glaciers, and the melting of polar ice over the past
three decades might be a passing fluctuation. The concept of
global warming is a fairly simple one: that increasing emissions of
‘greenhouse gases’, mainly carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and
methane, are thickening the insulating blanket that prevents heat
– specifically infrared radiation – escaping from the planet.
Increased carbon dioxide emissions result from industry,
especially the burning of fossil fuels for transport and generating
electric power. Emissions of nitrous oxide, a very potent
greenhouse gas, are increasing with the greater use of nitrogenous
fertilizers. Over 20 per cent of greenhouse emissions come from
the US, which has under 5 per cent of the world’s population.
However, on a per capita basis, Australia is the worst offender,
emitting 25 per cent more carbon dioxide per capita than the US,
and twice that of Europe.4 Exxon Mobil, the world’s biggest oil
conglomerate, is actually increasing its greenhouse emissions.
Twenty per cent more gas was ‘flared’ – burned off – in 2003 than
in 2002, and this is, of course, both pollutant and wasteful.
The major likely consequence of global warming is higher
temperatures everywhere, but the change will be greater at the
poles than in equatorial and temperate regions. Mainstream
theorists believe there will be gradual global warming, perhaps
above 5°C, over the next century. While this may not sound
much, dire consequences have been predicted with any rise
above 2°C, including more frequent and severe hurricanes,
typhoons, cyclones and flood rains in some areas, drought in
others. Weather conditions extreme enough to destroy buildings
could become more prevalent. There are strong indications that
this process is already with us. Damage from natural catas-
trophes was estimated at over $200 billion for 2005, the most
costly total ever.5
Much warmer conditions – temperatures up to 10°C higher –
are predicted for the polar regions. It is this difference between
that figure and the smaller increases in the tropics that will drive
violent weather fluctuations. It will also result in greater melting
of the Arctic and Antarctic ice, potentially increasing sea levels by
as much as 8 feet (2.5 metres). There is already evidence of
increased summer melting in the Arctic icecap, up approximately
40 per cent in half a century. If this continues it could trigger the
massive releases of methane mentioned earlier. Most of the
world’s 33 island nations would be affected by flooding,
especially some smaller countries on low lying coral based islands
in the Pacific. In 2005, a decision was taken to permanently
evacuate the 980 people living on the Carteret atolls in Papua
New Guinea because sea level rises and more violent weather had
rendered the islands uninhabitable. The islands are expected to be
completely submerged by 2015. The 40,000 people of Tuvalu will
soon be flooded out. A serious loss of arable land in one large
nation, Bangladesh, where 140 million people live on the low
lying delta of the Ganges River, is also predicted. Major problems
could also result in the Netherlands, Belgium and Egypt.
There are already reports that early thawing in the Arctic

region of Canada is adversely affecting the lifestyle and hunting
patterns among the 25,000 Inuit – formerly known as Eskimo –
people there.6 A three-year study, released late in 1999, estimated
that an unchecked increase in greenhouse gas emissions, to 750
parts per million of carbon dioxide in the air – around double the
current levels of 380ppm – would kill most of the world’s forests,
including the rainforest of the Amazon.7 This would trigger an
immense additional release of carbon dioxide into the atmo-
sphere, with uncontrollable knock-on effects.
Limiting the increase to 550ppm might save the forests, but
would not avert sea level rises. Anything beyond 400ppm is
considered dangerous. However, if the polar ice caps started to
break up – the fragile West Antarctic shelf appears to be the most
vulnerable – sea level rises as high as 20 feet (6 metres) could
happen relatively quickly, probably within a century. According
to one estimate even a 3 feet (1 metre) rise could adversely affect
one billion people and a third of the world’s cropland.8 Most of
the world’s big cities are near the coast and the low lying fertile
valleys or deltas of the great rivers are densely populated. The
Netherlands has already estimated that it must spend at least $5
billion in the 21st century to protect reclaimed land from rising
sea levels. New York, Miami, London, Tokyo, Venice and Bangkok
would be among the cities severely affected.
Warmer conditions are expected to affect plant life in quite
complex ways. Major changes in plant distribution would be
likely. Some places would become more fertile, others less so.
There is a considerable difference of opinion on just how this
might happen, but there is some consensus that the industrialized
nations may become more food productive, the developing world
less productive. Although much semi desert could become useful
land, productive and forested land in tropical areas could be
affected by severe drought. Global warming increases the amount
of water vapour in the air, and water vapour is itself a potent
greenhouse gas.
On balance, a disturbing bill of consequences, even more so in
view of global warming’s likely influence in combination with the
other 2030 drivers. Will it really happen? Can it be avoided? The

answer to the first question is probably yes, and to the second,
probably no. Refusal by the US and Australia to sign the 1997
Kyoto Protocol on climate change and the massive and increasing
use of coal-fired power stations in China and India make
continued high rates of carbon dioxide emissions almost
inevitable. In any case, it is now generally acknowledged that the
Kyoto target of reducing greenhouse gases 5 per cent by 2012
from 1990 levels is grossly inadequate – as much as 50 per cent
would be necessary to check global warming. While US President
George W Bush announced some measures to combat climate
change in 2002, these seem unlikely to reduce actual carbon
dioxide emissions, which critics claim may rise as much as 14 per
cent by 2010. At the 2002 meeting of the Kyoto signatories in
Delhi, developing countries criticized the developed world’s
performance on greenhouse gas reduction and called on it to
reduce emissions before they were expected to do so.
In 1999 research evidence resulting from the study of fossil
leaves indicated that a massive extinction of plants at the end of
the Triassic period more than 200 million years ago was
associated with a phase of global warming.9 The fossil studies
indicate a temperature rise of as much as 4°C associated with a
near trebling of carbon dioxide levels.
Late in 1999 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
seriously questioned the value of forests as ‘carbon sinks’. These
findings have considerable implications for a new worldwide
industry which arose from decisions in the Kyoto Protocol. The
proposal was to give nations and businesses ‘carbon credits’ for
new tree planting; credits which could be bought and sold. The
rationale has it that industries prepared to pay for forest planting
anywhere on the planet should be permitted to cause greater
carbon emissions. However, it is now considered that such
planting would result only in short-term advantages, since the
carbon in them would be returned to the atmosphere when the
trees died and decayed – a cycle of around 40 years is suggested.
Vegetation in any case emits huge amounts of methane – a
previously unsuspected factor only revealed in 2006 following
research at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in

Germany. The clean, green credentials of hydro-electric power are
in question for similar reasons – considerable amounts of
methane created by rotting material at the bottom of large dams
are released to the atmosphere when the water goes through the
generating turbines.
There are proposals10 to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmos-
phere by ‘ocean nourishment’ with nitrogen fixed from the air.
The theory is that nitrogen pumped into the sea would increase
the growth of phytoplankton, which would, in turn, extract
carbon dioxide from the air. The resultant ‘carbon credits’ could
be sold. Although this idea appears attractive to businesses and
governments, there are others who oppose ocean nourishment,
believing that it would pose unacceptable risks to natural systems
in the ocean.11 They cite several computer models that indicate
that ocean nourishment is not the answer to global warming.
To try to put the issue into a clearer focus, there are a few facts
that should be taken into account:
• Recent weather fluctuations have been more noticeable

because the planet enjoyed a ‘benign’ phase of unusually
good weather from around 1890 to 1970 – the most stable
and warmest period for almost 1000 years.
• There has always been a belt of ‘greenhouse gases’. Without
them we would either freeze to death, or perhaps just manage
to survive in greatly reduced numbers. It is the volume of
‘greenhouse gases’, not their existence, that is the issue.
• A significant quantity of the emissions come from natural
sources, including the metabolic processes of ruminant
animals or, to put this less politically correctly, the belching
and farting of cows and sheep. There is evidence this could
be substantially reduced by feeding the animals a modified
diet, which could be natural – herbs like thyme and mint
have been suggested.12 A stomach bacteria in kangaroos
causes them to emit hydrogen, not methane, and there are
hopes that this can be transferred to cud chewing animals.
Whatever conferences are held, whatever decisions are taken,

carbon dioxide emissions will almost certainly increase at least
until 2030. This is partly because developing nations, especially
the world’s two largest, China and India, want more of what the
West has. They are industrializing, burning huge amounts of coal,
crowding their cities with motor vehicles, doing what they can to
satisfy the rising expectations of their populations. While it must
be noted that China has made vigorous, and to an extent
successful, attempts to address this problem, the overall world
situation is not encouraging.
This is, of course, regrettable, but it is difficult to foresee any
change for some time to come. It is worth noting that asking the
developing nations to adapt their industries without major help
from the rest of the world runs counter to both of our axioms. To
allow the situation to conform to the axioms a great deal of money
must be spent, and some very elaborate rethinking and
technology shaping must occur. This will take a considerable
amount of time, which increasingly we do not have, but it must
necessarily be part of a broad world plan.
Global warming is sometimes confused with damage to the
ozone layer, and this is understandable. Indeed, very recent
research shows there is probably an association. However, the
first concerns the blocking of infrared radiation returned from
the Earth into space, the second is about the amount of
ultraviolet (UV) radiation coming in. Ozone, created by the
effects of the UV component of sunlight on oxygen, provides a
protective blanket about 20 miles above the Earth’s surface
against this searing radiation. This – as those white skinned
people who expose their bodies on beaches in the summer know
only too well – can soon turn you pink. Much worse, it can cause
dangerous skin cancers, including deadly melanoma. The
thinner the ozone layer, the stronger the radiation, and the
greater these risks become. Higher UV levels can also affect
phytoplankton, which are at the bottom of the marine food chain,
and may also damage other marine life. Reduction of
phytoplankton numbers is particularly serious, since they take
up massive amounts of carbon. Yields from plants like soybeans,
peas and beans are reduced if they are exposed to excessive UV

radiation.
During the last quarter of the 20th century a hole appeared in
the ozone layer above the Antarctic. Almost every year it became
larger. Then a similar effect threatened to occur in the northern
hemisphere. In temperate zone areas, first in Australia, then
elsewhere, the effects were soon evident. It became dangerous to
stay out in the midday sun, even for short periods. The incidence
of skin cancer and melanoma increased. Manmade chemicals
caused this effect: the offenders are chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs),
which are used as a propellant gas in aerosol spray cans, in
refrigeration and air conditioning equipment, in dry cleaning and
the manufacture of foam plastics; halons, which are used for fire
fighting; and the pesticide methyl bromide. These gases, once
released into the air, can persist there for as long as 120 years.
When they eventually reach the ozone atoms they attack and
destroy them.
The remedy here is obvious: stop using these gases. This has
already been achieved in many parts of the world, but in other
cases, particularly in developing countries, the cost of converting
the industries involved is too great. Both axioms come into play
again here, and must be taken into account. If the loss of the ozone
layer is not halted, most people in the world will eventually
suffer. Indeed in the 13 years after the world’s governments
agreed to phase out ozone-destroying substances – that is to 1999
– production of them actually increased, due almost entirely to
higher levels in China.13 While a major worldwide co-operative
effort has brought them under control since then, the ozone layers
at both poles remained alarmingly fragile in 2005. It is thought
that aspects of climate change, such as high-level clouds, are also
involved, and this has prompted an £11 million study by the
European Union. Hence the ozone layer problem will not be
solved by 2030 – scientists warn the effects are likely to remain
severe for at least half a century.
Even though global warming is a major concern at present, the
possibility of human action triggering another ice age is also
worth bearing in mind. If there were even a ‘limited’ nuclear war,
would a disastrous ‘little ice age’, like that which caused famine
and hardship between the 14th and 19th centuries, onset? This
speculation arises from a study postulating a ‘nuclear’ winter14
caused by planet-wide dust and smoke clouds resulting from
atomic war. That study, predicting massive famines and millions
of deaths, nevertheless considered that an ice age would not
result because the immense reserves of heat stored in the oceans
would act as a sufficient buffer.
However, the point is far from definite. There are many
variable factors, including the duration of the war, the volume of
weapons used, and natural climatic conditions at the time. If there
were an extended ‘nuclear winter’ – perhaps two years – dust
clouds obscuring the sun might lower temperatures enough to
increase the ice sheets, resulting in a raised ‘albedo’ for our planet.
Albedo is the ratio of light and heat a planet reflects back into
space compared to the levels received from the sun. If the Earth’s
albedo increases due to greater ice and snow cover, more of the
sun’s heat will be reflected back into space rather than being
retained, causing temperatures on Earth to drop even further.
Climatologists point out that a colder world would be much
more dangerous and more difficult to adjust to. We happen to be
going through a warm weather phase, but for most of the last 2
million years the world was much colder than it is now, and, at
times, very much colder. Through this Quaternary Period there
have been at least 50 significant climate fluctuations. These
changes have been cyclic: intermittent periods of warmth and
cold – cold sometimes so intense that as much as a third of the
Earth was covered with ice. Humankind survived the last ice age,
which ended around 10,000 years ago, by the skin of its teeth, and
in very small numbers.
Will there be another such ice age? The climatologists say yes,
but it is almost impossible to say when it will be. There is no
conclusive body of knowledge about how these glacial periods
are triggered. One area of speculation is that they are caused by
variations in the Earth’s axis and in the Earth’s orbit around the
sun. The tilt of the Earth, now 23.5°, is gradually reducing,
favouring the growth of ice sheets. There are respectable estimates
of a cycle of around 20,000 years, with the four previous inter-

glacials averaging about 10,000 years in duration. The present
interglacial began around 10,000 years ago, and was at its
warmest from roughly 4000BC to 2000BC – a time of virtually ideal
conditions for emerging human societies based on agriculture. On
this evidence, a world becoming colder during Millennium 3 is
feasible. Whether the current phase of global warming is simply
an overlay on this general trend remains to be seen.
However, it is thought that a wide range of events, especially
those involving sea temperature and currents, might help to
induce the next ice age. Higher polar temperatures will lead to
increased Arctic ice melting which could affect the warm northern
currents. Evidence of this increasing ice melting is provided
among others by Norwegian polar research scientists Tore
Furevik and Ola Johannessen15 who reported in July 2000 that
north polar ice melting was much more rapid than had been
previously predicted, and that the ice may disappear entirely
during the summer months in as little as 50 years.
Relatively small events could have much larger repercussions.
There are theories concerning the albedo effect – snowfields
reflect at least 70 per cent of sunlight, while dense tropical forest
reflects as little as 10 per cent. Studies of satellite photographs of
Siberia and North America16 have indicated that large scale
clearing of forest could be a significant climate factor.
But if there is another ice age surely it will develop so
gradually that we will be able to accommodate ourselves to it?
This idea has such important implications that it must be tested –
and there is evidence that it may not be valid. During the last half
century improved technology has made it possible for the first
time to obtain ‘cores’ – drill samples – providing accurate inform-
ation about climate patterns going back several million years. A
major finding of this research has been, in Professor Andrew
Goudie’s words,17 ‘that the onset of climatic changes could be
more sudden and rapid than had previously been thought’.
Pollen samples taken from the seabed indicate that glacials have
onset in the past in as little as 70 years. Studies of a peat bog in
Alsace by Belgian botanist Genevieve Woillard have shown
dramatic and rapid vegetation changes during the final three

centuries of an interglacial about 115,000 years ago, with a climax
of rapid cooling over just a few decades. She considers a similar
event could be imminent.
The passage of our solar system through a galactic dust cloud,
dust from a major series of volcanic eruptions, or very large areas
of manmade clouding – pollution – could trigger a glaciation. The
Toba super eruption in Sumatra 73,500 years ago, which put
approximately 20 times more dust into the air than Krakatoa in
1883, is thought to have caused a protracted reduction of sunlight
– possibly for as long as five years – that triggered a glacial at
about that time. A $25 million research programme – the Indian
Ocean Experiment18 – has identified a huge cloud of pollution
covering virtually all of Asia. Almost all the harmful pollutants
are part of this brown haze – mineral dust, soot, nitrates,
sulphates and carbon monoxide gas – and derive from the
burning of fossil fuels. The cloud is at its worst for three or four
months a year, and usually peaks in January. According to the
leader of the research team, Professor Paul Grutzen, the cloud
blocks out 15 per cent of sunlight, reducing sea evaporation, and
hence rainfall. Drought, already severe in many parts of Asia,
could be aggravated by it, leading to mass starvation because of
reduced food production. NASA observation of the cloud in 2004
indicated that it was affecting areas as far away as China, south-
east Asia, and the Middle East. This vast pall of pollutants, two
miles thick, is now suspected of being a major influence on global
climate. It is one of a number of brown clouds – there are others
originating in China and the eastern US. One observer remarked
that he noticed that Chinese schoolchildren colouring in the sky
reached for the grey pencil.
Can climate change onset quickly? This is a matter of serious
importance. A report by 11 climate scientists in 200119 described
past occasions on which climate changes were rapid. A major
instance was the Earth’s initial recovery from the last ice age
12,000 years ago, followed by a sudden drop of 5°C, which
persisted for more than 1000 years. It was ended by an abrupt rise
in temperatures over a period of a decade.
The world’s situation is such that, under present conditions of

land use, we have just enough arable land to feed everyone, with
future problems likely even if there is no early onset of an ice age.
But what if there were? A large proportion of our major croplands,
especially for food grains, are in high latitudes and would be
destroyed by the advance of the ice. There are vastly more
humans now in the world than during the last ice age. Billions
would starve to death, many millions more would die in
desperate wars for possession of those areas of the world where
food could still be grown. One writer on the subject in 1974
estimated deaths from starvation as high as 2 billion, almost half
of the world’s population at the time.20 These deaths would
predominantly be in what are now the wealthiest and most
developed parts of the world. More likely in the short term are
climate ‘blips’ within the larger cycle of ice ages. Greenland,
around the end of Millennium 1, was indeed green – it had
pastures that accommodated grazing animals. The onset of colder
weather in Europe saw these disappear, and the Norse migrants
living in Greenland were forced to move to warmer places. The
weather was unusually cold in Europe and the US between 1617
and 1650. Stalagmite records in New Zealand suggest the 17th
century was also colder than usual there. These conditions were
part of the ‘little ice age’ from about 1400 to 1850, which caused
crop failures and famines in many parts of the world. Glaciers in
Europe reached their greatest extent in 1670, but historically best
remembered is the ‘great winter’ of 1708/1709. Even the fast
flowing Rhone River in southern France froze over, vines and
olive orchards were destroyed, wolves became a major danger,
and the price of bread quadrupled. Another such climate blip
could affect world food supplies even more disastrously in our
current situation. Sooner or later an ice age of unknown severity
will occur. Whether or not we prepare for it will determine to
what extent our civilization – inevitably much reduced – will
survive 20,000 cold years.
Meanwhile, the damaging and much more immediate
prospect of global warming requires protective action being taken
that goes far beyond what is now in existence or even planned.
Perhaps the only hope would be an effective global authority with

considerable powers designed to avert the consequences of global
warming as much as possible, especially the ‘knock-on’ effects
from forest death and methane release from the Arctic. Such an
authority might be in a position to undertake realistic efforts to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to create carbon ‘sinks’ in
the oceans and forests, if research shows these to be feasible.
However, since there seems little prospect of international
cooperation to control greenhouse gas before 2030, a practical
fallback position must be established.

Since climate change is probably inevitable, inception of
emergency measures to keep the effects short of disaster,
including:
• Every possible effort to keep greenhouse emissions as

low as possible. This involves every person – low energy
lightbulbs to replace incandescent as soon as possible,
walk or bicycle rather than drive, fly only when this is
necessary, replace your dinosaur with a hybrid or electric
car, introduce passive solar elements into your house, get
appliances off standby mode. This is one area where the
individual householder can really make their influence
felt. Remember the weather is likely to get much worse
– design your new house or business to withstand this.
• Major pressure by any means, including trade boycotts,
to get heavy industrial polluters to improve their act.
• Exertion of further major pressure, via the ballot box and
continuous lobbying, on members of governments to
work for effective international efforts to minimize the
effects of climate change.
• Sea temperature and methane hydrate monitoring to
assess the risk of major methane releases to the atmos-
phere.
• Technical and financial help to nations likely to be
flooded, and decisions on where their people are to be
shifted to.
• Government-financed reinsurance to buffer much higher
costs from natural calamities.
• Careful, continuous monitoring of food crop yields, and
the creation of ‘warehouses’ able to provide large
amounts of food to populations hit by natural disasters.
C HAPTER 5
I S T HERE E NOUGH F OOD

AND W ATER ?
One often reads or hears the comforting generalization that there

is plenty of food in the world – the real problem is that many
people can’t afford it. While this remains true at present we are
rapidly approaching the stage where it might not be so. As the
foregoing chapters have indicated, the oil drought, population
growth and climate change will severely impact on food
production – just one instance of the combined effect of several
drivers. At the time of writing, water shortages and soil
degradation are causing famine conditions in much of Africa that
are putting millions of people at risk of death from starvation;
tens of millions more around the world can no longer persuade
their exhausted soil to provide them with enough to eat. Between
1950 and 1996 the amount of grain land per person in the world
dropped by almost half, according to the United Nations
Population Fund’s report, State of World Population 2001.1 This
report estimated that 40 per cent more grain would be needed as
early as 2020. How it is to be provided remains an unanswered
question. A 2003 World Bank statement said: ‘With an extra two
billion people to feed over the next quarter-century, food
production will have to double on less land and water.’ But by
2004, grainland per person in the world had fallen by more than
half since 1950, to about a tenth of a hectare, and the total had
IS THERE ENOUGH FOOD AND WATER? 59
fallen to 670 million hectares from a peak of 730 million in l981.

USAID estimates the number of chronically malnourished people
now at 800 million.2 Much of that undernourishment involves
protein deficiency, which is the most lethal form of starvation.
Starvation and lack of hope are almost guaranteed to generate
extreme anger and resentment in any human being – even worse,
it may incline them towards desperate measures to find a
solution. This is why the advance of the world towards more and
more disastrous food and water shortages is one of the 2030
drivers – in the event, it might turn out to be the most dangerous.
Granted this, it becomes both necessary and politic to make
adequate provision for all the world’s people, and to do so
sustainably.
However, this is not happening – the pressure we are putting
on the environment is becoming increasingly damaging. Human
influences are now changing the world’s natural systems in
ways that have not happened in half a million years. Such
changes could ‘switch the Earth system to modes of operation
that might prove irreversible and less hospitable to humans and
other life’; these changes, including those to climate, might
happen quickly, perhaps within a decade.3 In Global Environment
Outlook 3 – a massive and comprehensive document aimed
primarily at policy-makers – the United Nations Environment
Programme forecasts a bleak prospect for 2032, stressing the
disastrous effect soil degradation could have on food supplies,
and predicting severe water shortages affecting more than half
the people of the world.4 This report is quite clear on one point
– only a massive move towards sustainable development can
avert global disaster, and this will need ‘political courage and
innovating financing’.5 More than a thousand experts contri-
buted to the report, adding considerable authority to its view
that the problems identified are fundamental and serious. While
some farming methods are improving, most are currently not
sustainable. The Worldwatch Institute commented in its State of
the World 2002 report: ‘Farms have become more technologically
sophisticated … but they have become ecologically dys-
functional and socially destructive.’6
The fundamental problems are the loss and degradation of the

very bases of life – the sparse layer of topsoil, and increasingly
scarce fresh water – on which the existence of every living thing
depends. The unhappy facts are that every year more than 20
billion tons of topsoil are lost through water and wind erosion,
and millions of acres of arable land are destroyed by
overcropping, waterlogging and salination. Two-thirds of all the
world’s arable land is damaged to some extent. One-third will be
dangerously depleted by 2030 if this disastrous trend continues.
The ‘green revolution’ of the l960s, heavily dependent on
chemical insecticides and fertilizers, had virtually run its course
by the turn of the millennium. While it produced more food and
made some farmers richer, ‘as a solution to global hunger it was
an expensive failure. In most places it has widened the gap
between rich and poor, has been the cause of social upheavals in
peasant cultures … and has caused widespread ecological
problems.’7 In what is perhaps one of the most significant areas,
India, overuse of chemical fertilizers and depletion of ground-
water has created major problems in the two largest grain
producing states, the Punjab and Haryana. According to one
Indian observer, ‘The cultivable lands have become sick through
over-application of fertilizers, and yet the government is still
encouraging farmers to apply more of them. This is a hopelessly
short-term solution.’8 Severe famines, he predicted, were likely in
the future, due to the fact that ‘food security in India is
precariously balanced’.
Population growth, intensive farming, drought, overcropping,
inappropriate irrigation methods and increasing urbanization are
all contributing to this problem. In Europe, soil compaction by
heavy farm machinery can cause crop yields to fall by as much as
80 per cent, and affects 70 million acres of agricultural land.9 Cities
consume huge quantities of organic matter in the form of foods,
paper and other packaging products, and this generates what is
generally described, quite opaquely, as waste. Billions of humans
are perfectly content to dispatch this ‘waste’ to deep burial in
landfills or into the ocean via sewage disposal outfalls. What is
being disposed of is the fuel of life – virtually irreplaceable
organic material which, under more natural conditions, would

return to the earth and so maintain the nutrient cycle. For more
than a century, these aberrations have been ‘corrected’ through
the massive application of artificial fertilizers, which in the long
term degrade the soil, cause other environmental problems, and
reduce the nutritional value and flavour of food.
The deserts, which make up about 12 per cent of the Earth’s
land surface, are getting bigger. Millions of Africans are at risk of
starvation as a result.10 Desertification threatens more than one-
third of the African continent.11 The largest desert, the Sahara,
occupies almost all of a 1000-mile wide strip across the north of
Africa. More than half of that third of the world that is arid is at
risk.12 Part of the tragedy is that this endangered land is home to
more than 1 billion people. Twenty-five African countries, in
which 200 million people live, are in a state of crisis, which is
accelerating into major drought and famine. The relentless
poverty in which these people live drives them to abuse poor soils
to extract as much food from them as possible, and to remove the
trees – the leaves to feed starving animals and, often enough,
people – and the trunks and branches for firewood. Whole
villages and towns in countries like Chad have been abandoned
as billions of tons of sand drift southwards. The advance of the
Sahara is not uniform – it is rapid during years of drought,
arrested when there is high rainfall. And there is evidence that in
many places local farmers are fighting effectively to keep their soil
healthy with natural methods, for example, through greater use of
animal manure and the planting of leguminous crops which fix
nitrogen from the air and transfer it to the soil. Aid money
devoted to such sustainable methods would be well spent, paying
major dividends not only for the land but also for the people
living on it.
China is fighting a major battle with the deserts encroaching
from its west. A 2002 study estimated that just under one-third of
China’s land was affected, with more than 10,000 square
kilometres of arable land being lost to sand every year.13 China is
short of arable land for its population size, and the threat of actual
food shortages in the future still informs many of its policies. By
2005 villages 60 miles from Beijing had been overwhelmed by

sand, with major dunes only 40 miles northwest of the capital.
Millions of acres elsewhere fall victim to erosion or salination
because of overcropping, unsuitable cropping or overuse of water
for irrigation. In India 7 million acres have been affected, 6 million
in China and 4 million in Pakistan.14 When forest is cleared to
accommodate ‘productive’ farming, there can be some alarming
consequences. Large areas of monoculture, such as wheat fields,
are most prone to both wind and water erosion. Trees are an
important factor in limiting flooding when heavy rain falls. The
disastrous floods that regularly kill millions of people in
Bangladesh are due substantially to the destruction of forests
along the upper course of the Ganges River and its tributaries. In
the arid southwestern region of the US, in Canada and in
Australia, rising water tables have brought salt to the surface, so
that nothing can grow. Such salination occurs in many parts of the
world that are lying on ancient marine sediments, and is due
mainly to overclearing of trees from the land.
The lines of battle are already being drawn for the water wars
of the future. Due to population pressures, one estimate puts the
number of people facing water stress at 3 billion by 2025. I can
recall an Israeli minister of state telling me, 25 years ago in his
office in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, that one of his most
compelling concerns was the dwindling resource of water in the
Middle East. ‘Future wars,’ he said, ‘may be about water. They
might not seem to be, but they will.’ In 2001 the Israeli water
commissioner, Shimon Tal, warned of the country’s ‘deepest and
most severe water crisis’, forecasting a need for 2 billion cubic
metres by 2020. Of this, one-quarter would need to be
desalinated. Israel began building mass production desalination
plants in 2002, with the aim of providing a huge 250 million cubic
metres via this method by 2005. Most fresh water in the region is
in the long valley that includes the Kinneret – the Biblical Sea of
Galilee – and the Jordan River, which peters out in the intensely
salty waters of the Dead Sea. In these places I have seen for myself
some of the causes of concern. At the Allenby Bridge near the
Jordanian border, the Jordan was no more than a mere trickle,

which I was told was now normal. The Dead Sea was surrounded
by wide verges of blinding white – salt deposited as the lake has
steadily become smaller. That long, narrow lake, the Kinneret, is
also dwindling. Late in 2002 it fell to 214.37 metres below sea
level, a point at which permanent damage to water quality and
the ecosystem became likely. One of the biggest canal systems in
the world is proposed to link the Red Sea and the Dead Sea, at a
cost of $3.9billion. Because the Dead Sea is 400 metres below sea
level this will create an artificial ’river’ which will drive electricity
generators, which, in their turn, will power desalination plants.
While the ten nations dependent on the waters of the Nile now
consult over its use, this cooperation is on uneasy terms at best.
Ethiopia, in the upstream sector, wants more water, but Egypt will
also need vast quantities more to service the New Valley Project,
an ambitious system of canals and pumping stations which aims
to quadruple the nation’s habitable area by turning desert into
farmland. The first such new area, at Toshka, close to Lake Nasser,
will require more than 5 billion cubic metres a year, around 10 per
cent of Egypt’s current quota of Nile water. Worldwatch estimates
see the population doubling in this region by 2025, resulting in
intense competition for water.15 According to Worldwatch,
‘spreading water scarcity may soon translate into world food
scarcity’. Water represents ‘the most unappreciated of the global
challenges of our time… Water tables are falling on every
continent, rivers are draining dry before they reach the sea.’
Tension is increasing between India and Pakistan over use of the
Indus River waters, which Pakistan depends on for the world’s
largest irrigated area.
The world’s available fresh water is quite limited and
unevenly distributed. Of the quintillions of gallons in the sea and
the polar icecaps, less than 2 per cent is available as fresh water. A
billion people worldwide lack clean drinking water.16 More than a
billion will be living in countries facing an absolute water
shortage by 2025.17 China is spending $60 billion on a massive
canal system to move water from the south to the north of the
country. Its projected 3500 kilometres of waterways will be almost
twice the length of the Grand Canal in its heyday. In 2005, Chinese
Deputy-construction Minister Qiu Baoxing warned that 100 of
China’s 660 cities were facing a water supply crisis. One actually
reached it when the water supply to the 9 million people of
Harbin was shut off for five days because of dangerous river
pollution. Seventy per cent of the water in China’s rivers is too
polluted to drink, and the problem is expected to intensify ‘four
to five times’ as the population grows from 1.3 billion to a peak of
1.6 billion in 2030.
There is a huge natural reserve of fresh water that is at present
unused – the 75 per cent locked up in polar ice, covering around
11 per cent of the world’s land surface. The idea of moving
icebergs to regions that are short of water has been investigated
many times over the years. The problems of towing such large
and unwieldy objects against adverse winds and currents will be
solved when the water problem becomes compelling enough.
One option is to ‘mine’ this water by melting the ice on site, and
then transporting it, perhaps in semi submersible barges.
Desalination of seawater is a viable but expensive technology –
more than 2 billion gallons of fresh water a day are produced in this
way at around 3500 plants, mostly in the Middle East. The
technologies are energy hungry – around 5MW of electricity per
million litres a day produced – but they could become more useful
if and when cheap, renewable energy forms are developed. At
present desalination provides about one-quarter of 1 per cent of
human water needs. The world’s largest such facility is planned for
Sydney, Australia, because of steady depletion of water reserves,
another under construction in the West Australian city of Perth is to
be powered by wind generators. Meanwhile, underground
reserves of water – aquifers – are being depleted worldwide. In
some of China’s most productive land the water table is falling 5
feet (1.6 metres) a year, and in India water is being taken from the
aquifers at a rate twice that of their recharge, making a drop in
India’s grain production of 25 per cent likely.18 Aquifer depletion is
not only causing water shortages for the 22 million people of the
world’s largest city – Mexico City – but is also resulting in massive
and continuing damage to the city’s infrastructure.
What, then, is needed? Here again, the remedies can be

defined, but they will require much hard work and money, and
considerable time. Sustainable means to arrest soil degradation
and improve soil that is already damaged are well known, and
need only money and effort if they are to be introduced
extensively. Many are low technology, involving the planting of
nitrogen-producing legumes, conservation and controlled use of
animal manures, community composting, the restoration of
forests and reductions in the need for fuel wood. Most rainwater
runs uselessly into the oceans. The countries that are likely to
suffer most from water famines need help to progressively
increase their water storage capacity, and the solar powered
pumps proposed as part of the Billion Artifacts programme
canvassed in Chapter 26. Nations with very large fresh water
reserves may feel an obligation to help those who do not –
although this is not generally happening at the time of writing.
Canada is the world’s best endowed nation in terms of fresh
water. Early in 1999 its House of Commons adopted a motion to
ban water exports and, significantly, to avoid international
treaties that might compel Canada to export water against her
will. The international trade minister, Mr Sergio Marchi,
commented: ‘There is clearly a feeling across the land that not
only is water important today, it will be doubly so tomorrow. We
need to be extremely cautious about large extractions.’
Appreciation of the problems of the environment is,
fortunately, growing, and some of the answers are already
known, or are being investigated. Around the world, millions of
people are recycling organic material in their compost bins or
using worm farms. Thousands of cities, partly because they are
running out of sites for landfill, are encouraging recycling by
limiting their garbage collections, even providing households
with free or subsidized compost makers. More than one-third of
sewage sludge is returned to the land in Europe and the US.
More and more farmers all over the world are understanding
that it is in their interests to plant trees, conserve water and
topsoil, and convert to an agriculture suited to their environ-
ment.
Agenda 21, the blueprint for action adopted at the Earth

Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, set out strategies to combat
desertification, including soil conservation programmes, drought
relief and afforestation.19 However, actual achievement in world
terms is still inadequate except in China, where massive tree-
planting has mitigated, but not yet halted, the movement of sand
eastwards from the dunes of the Gobi. According to a statement
by the Chinese Ministry of Forestry in 1995 an Agenda 21
afforestion programme is flourishing.20 China, almost completely
denuded of trees when the People’s Republic began 55 years ago,
now has 19 per cent forest cover. The almost incredible forest
programme – it is claimed 550 million people planted 44 billion
trees between 1982 and 2004 – is driven by a directive for every
Chinese person between the ages of 11 and 60 to plant at least 3
trees a year. In 2002 China announced a $12 billion project to plant
440,000 square kilometres of forest – an area bigger than Germany
– over the next 10 years.
Tree planting programmes like this are helping to balance the
loss of natural forests – FAO’s forest resources assessment in 2000
estimated that world tree cover had diminished by about 9
million hectares a year in the last decade of Millennium 2. This
represents a reduction of 2.4 per cent in existing world forest,
covering almost 4 billion hectares, around one-third of global land
area. Of the timber cut and used in the world – around 3.5 billion
tons a year – rather more than half is burned in developing
nations as fuel. Papermaking uses around one-quarter of a billion
tons a year, although the real figure in terms of trees destroyed is
greater. This is because wood chipping for paper and cardboard
making is wasteful, much of the wood being discarded or burned.
Large areas of forest are destroyed by slash and burn cultivators
in the developing world, or by developers clearing new land for
agriculture. This has reduced, in particular, the huge forests of the
Amazon in South America. Such big ‘development’ projects have
often been financed by the World Bank. FAO’s 2005 report was
disquieting – 50 thousand square miles of forest had been cleared
or logged every year since 2000. The only bright spot was China’s
huge tree-planting programme, the largest in the world.
There is a real threat to the rainforests, which once covered 12

per cent of the world’s land, but are now not much over 5 per cent
and still falling. These forests nurture more than half of the
world’s species – gorillas, golden crested birds of paradise, the
brilliant red fruit of the zebra wood tree of the Cameroons, teak,
mahogany wood, thousands of different butterflies, sources of
potentially valuable pharmaceuticals among them. More than
1500 rainforest plants have potential as vegetables and fruits not
yet widely used. The sap of one Amazon basin tree, Copaifera
langsdorfia, is so similar to diesel fuel that trucks can be run on it
in its pure unprocessed form.
Within these watery, beautiful tangles of vegetation, which
most people would recognize as ‘jungle’, and which have been
evolving in one way or another for almost 200 million years, are
assets we can only guess at. The circle of rainforest around the
world is virtually all tropical, in regions that are almost constantly
wet, with rainfall of more than 80 inches (2 metres) fairly
consistently distributed through the year. Tall tree trunks reach up
competitively for the sunlight at the canopy 150 feet (45 metres)
above. Lower down, in perpetual shade, hundreds of different
vines, lianas, shrubs and ferns struggle for space and nutrients.
The basins of the Amazon and Zaire Rivers have the largest
remaining areas of undisturbed rainforest – more than 5 million
square kilometres – although even here significant inroads are
being made by human clearing and burning.
Clearing of rainforest for agriculture and cattle ranching has
been based on a tragic misconception – that the soil sustaining all
this lush growth must be very fertile. This happens not to be the
case. The topsoil is thin, the subsoil almost devoid of nutrients
because of centuries of heavy rain leaching it. Almost all the
nutrients are held in the plants and trees, and under natural
conditions these are regularly recycled. The dense mat of roots
which covers the entire forest floor holds this fragile soil together;
falling leaves and dead plants sustain it. Brazil’s emerging status
as the world’s agricultural superpower is prompting a rate of land
clearing which, if continued, would destroy the Amazon
rainforest totally in 50 years. Brazil is now the world’s largest
exporter of beef, coffee, orange juice and sugar, and its soy and
fuel alcohol industries are booming. The world’s rapidly growing
need for more food can only drive this expansion of agriculture
faster and faster – on the other hand destruction of the forest
would have dire consequences for the world’s climate. While in
some areas clear felled rainforest will regenerate, in most areas it
will not. A 1991–1998 study in the Gunung Palung rainforest in
Indonesian Borneo showed that depletion of the forests resulted
in virtually no new seedlings over that period.21 This was because
vast amounts of seed are eaten by birds and animals. This study
concluded that only the prolific seeding from large areas of
untouched forest could ensure that enough is left for new
seedlings to emerge.
The loss of trees to farming is already provoking a disastrous
natural backlash. More than 10 thousand people died when a
cyclone struck the coast of the Indian state of Orissa late in 1999.
Coming in from the Bay of Bengal with 200 mile per hour winds,
the cyclone combined with high tides and torrential rain to flood
flat country as far as 10 miles from the coast. This flooding was so
extensive because the mangrove forests that had previously lined
the coast had been cleared to make way for ponds to raise tiger
prawns commercially.22 An appalling loss of life caused by
mudslides in coastal Venezuela was the result of forests being
cleared from mountainsides, and the proliferation of slum
housing on flat land below these slopes. In Thailand, in 1988, a
sudden flood killed 450 people and damaged millions of dollars
worth of property. When it became obvious that this was due to
the clearing of steep hillsides for timber and for the establishment
of rubber plantations, the Thai government imposed a ban on
logging such areas.
The really destructive element of logging is that landless
settlers follow logging roads into rainforest areas and complete
the destruction of the forests for agricultural use – although this
can only be short term. As with many other issues we have looked
at, this one is complicated by major social and economic factors.
The main threat to the rainforest is the population explosion in the
regions in which it grows. Almost all of these people are likely to
be landless and poverty stricken. The pressure they must exert on

their environment is likely to be irresistible unless other means of
livelihood can be provided. If significant areas of rainforest are to
be preserved, the issues of poverty, landlessness and major
population growth, already important in themselves, must be
addressed effectively. This will plainly not be done quickly or
easily, but the world does have the resources to do it. In the
interim period, more large protected wilderness areas will be
necessary. In view of the importance of the rainforest in
maintaining potential genetic material of importance, the cost of
establishing and maintaining these nature reserves should be
shared on a global basis.
New technologies are emerging which provide workable and
sustainable solutions. A natural process developed by an
Australian company, Vermitech, uses a highly mechanized and
automated system to expose sewage solids to the humble
earthworm, converting them into a potent, odourless, natural
fertilizer that returns all the nutrients to the earth. Vermitech
systems can be adapted to treat sewage from units as small as a
household or a camping ground to as large as whole cities. A $2.5
million project, approved by the New South Wales government
early in 2000 to convert Sydney sewage, will employ 40 million
worms. A second innovation is the product Driwater, which
consists of 98 per cent water and 2 per cent biodegradable gel.
Driwater conserves water and delivers it accurately to the roots of
plants. It has made it possible to plant millions of trees in the
Sahara Desert outside Cairo, and is increasingly being used in
other desert areas and on hillsides that are too steep to be watered
in any other way.
Human influences on the ecosystem have resulted in a faster
rate of species loss than ever before – and there is no sign of this
being reversed. It has been said that 99 per cent of all species that
have ever lived are extinct, that the coming and going of life forms
is normal. However, according to the World Conservation Union,
the current extinction rate is ‘1000 to 10,000 times what it would
naturally be’, and is apparently increasing. The Union adds that
the spread of ‘alien, invasive species’ to habitats not natural to
them, and climate change, are aggravating the situation. Rivers

and islands seem to be the parts of the Earth worst affected.
According to the recently retired World Bank president, James
Wolfensohn, particular attention needs to be given to the
‘hotspots’ – the 1.6 per cent of the planet’s land surface that
houses 60 per cent of its biodiversity.
The United Nations Global Environment Outlook 3 considers
that almost one-quarter of all mammals will be extinct by 2030.
The World Wildlife Fund says that ‘at present rates of extinction
as much as 20 per cent of the world’s species will be gone by
2030.’ The fund lists human activity as the major cause. Animals
facing extinction include the blue whale, most of the primates,
and the black and white giant panda, whose numbers have
dropped to less than 1000. The numbers of rhinoceros in the wild
have dropped from 100,000 in 1960 to less than 2600 today –
although there are some signs of recovery in black rhinoceros
numbers. The situation is little better for plants. A 2002 survey of
400 scientists by the American Museum of Natural History
concluded that about one-eighth of plant species face extinction –
a rate of loss greater than at any time in history. Worldwatch calls
it the greatest mass extinction since the dinosaurs perished 65
million years ago. A recurring theme in all these statements has
been concern that the larger public are still not aware of the extent
of what might yet come to be called the 2030 extinction, and as a
result there is too little pressure on governments to control the
rate of species loss.
The compelling need for some form of effective world govern-
ment is discussed in Chapter 6. The current state of the ecosystem
suggests the need for a world ‘green’ authority, to coordinate
extensive reforestation, especially in desert fringe, rainforest and
irrigation areas, to preserve species diversity, and to control soil
loss, desert spread and salinity.
Regional plant nurseries to provide seedling trees for planting
by individuals and community groups, world standards for irri-
gated areas, including controlled drip irrigation and planting of
deep rooted trees, genetic engineering of food crops tolerant of high
salt levels, continued encouragement of domestic composting of
organic and human wastes where this is practicable – all these are
achievable objectives, and if implemented on a large enough scale,
would do much to reverse and correct the damage to the ecosystem.
But the basic need is for radical changes in human behaviour. This
will only be achieved when a significantly large number of humans
understand what is at stake, and what might be done. Meanwhile,
the odds for catastrophe are shortening with every day that passes.

• Identification of world trouble spots for famine, disease,
land degradation, water shortage, so these things can be
fixed by defined courses of action that make sense –
based on adequate finance, sound technology and the
work of professional experts.
• Agreed common and enforceable world policies to
protect all aspects of the environment.
• A world debate on water policy, to work towards fair
distribution of the world’s fresh water resources.
• Research into and communication of methods for a post-
oil agriculture that is sustainable, and which gives food
quality and flavour a clear priority.
• Promotion, design research and funding for appropriate
developing world technology.
C HAPTER 6
O NE W ORLD ?
Two minority gangs of thugs, wearing military uniforms,

grievously oppress the nations they affect to govern. In Sudan
their instruments are the irregulars known as the janjaweed, who
have killed 200,000 people in the province of Darfur – men,
women and children, even small babies are not spared – raped
women indiscriminately and burned thousands of homes, driving
more than two million people into exile and penury. In Burma the
junta refused to accept the will of the people expressed in
elections, still imprisons the woman who should be prime
minister, shot down in thousands people who dared to protest,
forced hundreds of others into slavery to work for the military
and reduced a once wealthy country to one of the poorest in the
world. These tyrannies are now well entrenched – 3 years and 15
years respectively. In spite of massive international disapproval
both of these ‘governments’ persist in evil. Attempts to effectively
control events in Darfur have been blocked in the UN Security
Council by China, which does not want to lose its access to
Sudanese oil. Burma is able to ignore sanctions against her
because one country – again China – maintains trade and econo-
mic links.
Is there a need for an effective international authority, with
police powers and the muscle to maintain a coherent and just
ONE WORLD? 73
body of world law? Ask the women of Darfur, the conscripted

slaves of Burma – and for that matter the starved and stunted
children of North Korea, denied the very means of life to maintain
a privileged, heavily regimented minority in the capital,
Pyongyang, supporting the military autocracy. And these are not
the only ‘rogue states’, there is a long list of others and more crop
up every year.
But even so, the majority of countries have some form of rule
of law – so why can’t we have it for the world? World anarchy is
one of the most dangerous of the 2030 drivers – whether or not we
can control it will have a profound effect on the history of the
future. As more and more nations get nuclear weapons, and as the
drivers force a steady decline in overall prosperity, the precarious
balance of power in the world will become less effective. Less and
less will be done for the starving and afflicted, there will be no
coordinated care of the oceans and the air, the ‘fortress’ mentality
in the dwindling populations of the West will become more
entrenched. All of these things are bad, so it becomes necessary to
consider – and carefully – whether, when and how a body of
world law can become effective.
It certainly won’t happen quickly – most considered thinking
about world government suggests a slow, progressive evolution,
a time during which nations surrender some of their powers by
careful multilateral agreement. Plainly the world’s major powers,
Europe, the US, China, Japan, India and Russia, could scarcely
entertain any other approach. But at present some are not even
doing that. Opposition to the establishment of the International
Criminal Court and other international agreements indicates that
most of the world’s biggest powers are against new global
initiatives.
Nevertheless, the steady advance of the 2030 drivers will
sharpen the alternatives for the big powers – to become self
sufficient, heavily armed fortresses, or to undertake serious
engagement with the problems of the planet as a whole. The point
then arises that if the drivers proceed unchecked, no ‘fortress’
nation, no matter how wealthy and well armed, will be able to
protect itself against the consequences of say, a global plague like
H5N1, extreme global warming or major contamination and a

‘winter’ resulting from large scale nuclear conflict or extensive air
pollution. Readjustment of their policies at that point would
surely prove expensive, painful and perhaps unsuccessful. A
general worldview is needed now.
It is tempting to envisage a global community with a common
language, in which people who are citizens of the world move
freely around, allied more by common interests than nationality,
taking peace and prosperity for granted. In many ways the stage
is set for that, the technology is rapidly becoming available. There
are, after all, no essential reasons against the extension of the rule
of law from the national to the international scene. A society
without crime, without dissension, is scarcely possible in terms of
Axiom Two, but a reasonable global rule of law should not be out
of reach. But do we really want to lose regional cultures and
languages? Many of those participating in a lively debate on
world government on the internet and elsewhere do not – or at
least not yet. A unilaterally imposed world government would
almost certainly offend Axiom One. Most of those who favour
world government tend more towards a federation, allowing
regional governments to deal with local matters.
If a comprehensive world authority could be achieved – even
approached – before 2030, the trauma of the transitional stage
could be greatly reduced. Such an authority might coordinate
global standards for working conditions, wages, ecology,
productive capacity and the use of energy; evolve a world law,
running a world police to enforce that law and to control war,
‘rogue’ states and terrorism; and, not least, provide a check on the
unfettered and less than responsible economic power of the
multinationals. Perhaps we might give it a name, a little more
specific and pointed than the United Nations – Oneworld.
At the end of World War II Albert Einstein urged the victorious
Allies to set up a world government to avoid a nuclear arms race.
He admitted he feared the tyranny of a world government – ‘any
government is certain to be evil to some extent’– but this would
be ‘preferable to the greater evil of wars’.1 Princeton University
primatologist, Alison Jolly, believes in a future human super
ONE WORLD? 75
organism, ‘a highly structured global society in which the lives of

everyone on the planet will become so interdependent that they
may grow and develop with a common purpose’.2 Our task now
is to do what we can to influence the outcome, she says. The
design will require somse sacrifices, ‘nationalism and religious
fanaticism, those twin enemies of cooperation, for starters’.
Sociologist Anthony Giddens remarks: ‘To me the goal is develop-
ing a cosmopolitan global society, based on ecologically
acceptable principles, in which wealth generation and control of
inequality are reconciled. I don’t see this as wholly Utopian.’3
Can the United Nations evolve into Oneworld? Perhaps, in
time. The World Commission on Environment and Development
(commonly known as the Brundtland Commission) advocated
this, saying: ‘The UN, as the only intergovernmental organization
with universal membership, should clearly be the locus for new
institutional initiatives of a global character.’4 However, the reality
is that the United Nations is restricted by deliberate withholding
of funds, the veto powers of Security Council members, and a
naive and impracticable system of voting in the General
Assembly where each nation, regardless of its size, gets one vote.
The US, which accounts for 31 per cent of global income, was $1.3
billion in arrears in its dues to the UN in 2000. While most of this
has been paid since, the US persists in paying its dues ten months,
or even a year, late, using this financial weapon to urge changes
in the world body. Governments ignore the International Court of
Justice at will – this means among other things, that crimes
against humanity, as in Sudan, cannot be prosecuted effectively.
The UN, nevertheless, has established agencies that have a global
reach, and although these have been much criticized, often justly
enough, they have assembled a vast volume of experience and
expertise, and a dedicated staff who are well aware of world
problems.
The difficulties of a single central issue – the eventual
surrender by nation states of the right to make war, and to depend
instead on world policing – are immense, and would take much
time to overcome. US President George W Bush stated that ‘the
American way of life is not negotiable’, and yet that way of life is
so plainly based on inequality and an unfairly large share of the

world’s resources. Such a philosophy, when held in a world that
also witnesses events as awful as the attack on the World Trade
Center, and the ensuing ‘war against terror’ serves to suggest that
violence such as suicide bombings and subsequent armed
retaliation by nation states are likely to become a regular, rather
than an occasional, part of life. But do the ordinary people of the
US, Britain and Australia, want this, even after the intense prop-
aganda conditioning their governments have subjected them to?
There are plenty of other controversial areas – whether the
nation state is outdated, whether special taxes should be imposed
on the developed world to effectively assist the least advantaged,
whether there ought to be massive population transfers between
the rich and poor regions. All these ideas have their adherents in
varying degrees.
It does seem reasonable that Oneworld should evolve within a
federal system, in which present day nations remain responsible
for their internal affairs, provided these conform with world law.
Many national boundaries, however, need adjustment in the
interest of avoiding future conflict. The Afghan–Pakistan border
divides the Pashtun people; there is strong justification for a
Kurdish state; the conflict between the Tamils and Sinhalese in Sri
Lanka may perhaps only be brought to an end by dividing the
island into two states. These are only a few of many frontier
anomalies, most of them the result of boundaries having been set
by the colonial powers and inherited by independent successor
states. Modern adjustments, which would prove difficult in any
case, would only be acceptable if they complied with Axiom One.
This would almost certainly only be possible through the good
offices of a world authority.
Oneworld’s most important function would be to maintain
global peace, but it could also set standards for human rights,
transparent government and reasonably equal opportunities for
economic and educational advancement. This would leave local
government and domestic issues to regions, which might be
much smaller than the nations of today, ensuring, among other
things, that individual cultures were not smothered by a global
ONE WORLD? 77
monolith, and that racial minorities were protected and allowed

the right of self determination.
Oneworld would need specialized agencies, dealing among
other things with science, genetic engineering and the sea. There
is a clear need for a balancing global economic authority, with
political and policing powers covering the entire planet. These
areas are dealt with in more detail in other chapters but one
example can be canvassed here – that of maritime flags of conven-
ience. A number of small countries that have little merchant
shipping of their own allow shipowners of other nations to
register their fleets there – often this is done to avoid the home
country’s regulations on shipping safety, manning, wages and
working conditions. Approximately 70 per cent of the world’s
merchant shipping is registered in countries other than the one
where they are owned. The International Transport Workers’
Federation claims that flags of convenience ships are twice as
likely to sink than others, that crews are recruited in countries like
the Philippines where poverty is extreme, that these crews will be
blacklisted if they complain about conditions such as long
working hours, poor food and ship safety. Ships and crews are
said to be generally underinsured or not insured. Attempts to
bring these irregularities under control have been made for many
years, but there has been little progress, due to the lack of an
effective world authority. If the world does resort to nuclear
powered cargo and passenger ships, this questionable approach
to safety could make disasters and severe ocean contamination
inevitable.
It is a curious irony that there is a global economic authority
which, however, is widely accused of conniving in multinational
domination of the world rather than seeking to balance it. This is
the World Trade Organization, the target of massive and furious
opposition from all parts of the planet. Formed in 1995, it
describes its objective as to ‘help trade flow smoothly, freely, fairly
and predictably’.5 The World Trade Organization has 148 member
nations, with almost 30 more seeking entry, allowing it to
influence 97 per cent of world trade. On its own account it claims
to operate on a consensus basis, but how this is achieved is cast
into doubt by the fact that all negotiations are held in secret. The
major point about the World Trade Organization in this context is
the fact of its existence and its considerable global influence. If the
nations of the world can get together over trade they should be
able to work together for other global objectives, hopefully with
less controversy than the World Trade Organization attracts. But
given this, how do we avoid cumbersome, even tyrannical
bureaucracies? This issue makes the institution of global refer-
enda attractive. These, administered by an elected independent
Consultation Commission, could set broad lines of policy, and
provide effective checks and balances through mechanisms that
could put controversial bureaucratic decisions to the vote if
sufficiently large world citizen petitions required this.
How would an effective Oneworld work? Think back briefly
to the cases at the beginning of this chapter. The crimes in Darfur
and Burma would clearly be against world law. Given evidence,
and there is plenty of that in both cases, a World Court would
issue warrants. The World Police would then enter the country
concerned and restore legality – as other police do, by force if
necessary. If crimes against humanity had occurred, they would
arrest those responsible. It is unlikely that this would have to
happen more than once or twice. Once ‘rogue’ governments knew
they were on notice for their crimes, they would change their
ways quickly. It is only world anarchy, and the enthroning of the
principle of ‘nationalism’ as a sacred cow, that let them get away
with it now.
Nationalism has recently indeed had a bad track record. The
world learned a new and unpleasant phrase late in the 20th
century – ethnic cleansing. In 1994 in the African nation of
Rwanda, a carefully planned pattern of mass killing of the minor-
ity Tutsi people by elements of the Hutu government resulted in
the murder of 800,000 people. In Cambodia during 4 nightmare
years of Khmer Rouge government from 1975, more than 1.5
million were killed in a frenzy of ‘class struggle’.
In 1946, the first international tribunal designed to deal with
such crimes was established – the court at Nuremberg after the
Nazi holocaust against the Jews. Thus was introduced the
ONE WORLD? 79
principle of crimes against humanity, in the words of Geoffrey

Robertson, ‘the logic that future state agents who authorized
torture or genocide against their own populations, were
criminally responsible, in international law, and might be
punished by any court capable of catching them’.6 However, again
in Robertson’s words, ‘the movement for global justice has been a
struggle against sovereignty’. The human rights issue remains
controversial into Millennium 3, with little agreement on what
human rights might be, or how they should be enforced. When
120 nations voted in Rome in 1998 for an International Criminal
Court to punish those violating ‘fundamental freedoms’, the
world’s four largest nations, China, India, the US and Indonesia,
opposed it and continued to do so when it was ratified by 66
countries and established on 1 July 2002.
Not surprisingly, a large number of people and organizations
are thinking about possible world government. There are
numerous websites claiming that a shadowy conspiracy already
exists for a sinister world dictatorship. All sorts of candidates are
proposed – Jews, Chinese, black people, multinationals, churches,
to name but a few. High on the list is the Bilderberg Group, a
secretive collection of politicians, businessmen and princes
formed 50 years ago to consider world events. This group, with-
out doubt extremely influential, is closed to the media and is
unwilling to disclose the result of its deliberations. It has been
accused of planning world government, its farthest-out critics
claiming it is controlled by intergalactic lizards!
The chief anxiety is that the world state could be author-
itarian, and not necessarily benevolent. Since there are plenty of
precedents for this in the nation states – 120 states torture people
systematically – this fear is far from irrational.7 But at least in the
case of rogue nations it has sometimes been possible to escape
elsewhere. There could be no escape from an oppressive world
government.
Both axioms, then, suggest a gradual and cautious approach. The
early stages could involve globalizing segments of existing national
authority – such things as the coordination of energy resources, the
development of a code of conduct for multinationals, a reduction in
spending on weapons, and the transformation of war industries to

the production of things we really do need, like alternative energy
infrastructure. The evolution of de facto world ‘zones’ by 2030 is
likely – Europe, the Americas, Russia/China/East Asia are fairly
obvious early candidates. A practical working relationship between
these zones, however wary, must be preferable to hostility and the
threat of war.
Oneworld’s initial powers would ideally be agreed by consen-
sus, preferably after consulting the people of the participating
states by electronic referenda. Of interest are the comments of
IBM chairman Lou Gerster, envisioning a day ‘when issues are
presented to all the people of the world and we vote as a global
statement of individual preference without regard for
conventions like political parties or national boundaries’, while
executive director of the Campaign for Digital Democracy, Marc
Strassman, foresees ‘a global aggregation and merging of like
minded individuals and groups to form global parties’, which
‘would eventually undermine the authority of nation states’.8 The
idea that human society may become more like an integrated
organism, and that this is controversial, is conceded by artificial
intelligence researcher Francis Heylighen.9 Nevertheless, he
believes that a ‘global brain’ will develop, and that the internet is
its embryo. If we accept that developments along these lines are
possible, it becomes no more than an assumption that national
cultures, traditions and languages can continue in the long term.
Universal teaching of a world language could be a preparatory
step to a process of peaceful transition. Such a world language
exists. Esperanto10 is now spoken by more than 100,000 people in
83 countries. Its main disadvantage is that its words derive from
European languages, although this could readily be modified.
Otherwise it has many advantages. Words are pronounced as they
are spelled, grammar is consistent, verbs are regular. Meanwhile
English, estimated to be understood by 1 billion people
worldwide, remains an obvious contender for world language
status – a consideration which must suggest its revision to simpler
and more consistent spelling and grammatical forms, and the
continued evolution of ‘quasi English’ dialects such as Papua
ONE WORLD? 81
New Guinea pidgin. Nevertheless, the language most commonly

and fluently used is Mandarin Chinese, with over 1 billion
speakers.
Oneworld would need to have the means to enforce the law.
This would not necessarily involve an immediate surrender of all
armed force by nation states. They would, however, eventually
have to accept that the only major armed force would be that of
the world government, while local police forces would continue
to deal with internal crime. Professional soldiers from all nation
states could enlist in this world police, and reasonable quantities
of armaments would still need to be purchased, thus satisfying
Axiom One. Control and direction of this force would be a major
test of the ability of nations to work together. It would somehow
have to reconcile two apparently opposed requirements – the
need for international agreement on action, and the need for the
armed force to act quickly in emergency situations. It was the
failure of the United Nations to achieve this that contributed to
the Rwandan tragedy.
The answer might be a previously agreed and detailed code of
action, possibly along these lines: offending states would attract
an established and escalating series of sanctions. Trade sanctions
could be an initial penalty – they would be the more effective if
imposed by all other governments. If these failed, the second level
of penalty could be military measures to disable services rather
than to destroy infrastructure or to injure or kill people.
Ultimately, commando forces could have the power to enter a
nation state, arrest offending government officials, and maintain
a de facto authority until the people of the state could be consulted
about their future.
Oneworld would need its own financial resources, and should
not be dependent on voluntary contributions from member states.
This became evident when, late in 1999, nations contributing to
the United Nations owed it $3 billion in unpaid dues. Since one of
its major activities would be dealing with multinationals, and
evolving areas of world law covering their operations, a small tax
on their turnover, allowing no deductible items, would seem
appropriate. However, Oneworld could well be in the business of
servicing, from which it would derive an income. International

trade, tourism and promotion of new technology seem obvious
areas. The World Commission on Environment and Development
put forward another interesting possibility, ‘revenue from the use
of international commons, from ocean fishing and transportation,
from seabed mining, from Antarctic resources, or from parking
charges for geo-stationary satellites’, also suggesting taxes on
international trade.

• An international convention to devise changes that
would give the UN real power as a world force, and
define areas where nation states could initially surrender
powers such as control of shipping, fisheries, genetic
engineering, clean air and clean seas, to the world
authority. Eventual authority of world government and
world law.
• Turn swords into ploughshares – gradual multilateral
evolution of annual reductions of all armed forces in the
world, with particular reference to eliminating nuclear
weapons, and the allocation of funds saved to the world
authority for constructive purposes like alternate energy,
poverty alleviation and disease control.
• Evolution of a body of world law, and a world police to
enforce it.
• Development of a simple, easily learned world language,
to be taught in all schools.
• Massive international exchange of young people as
teachers, technicians, students and artists.
• Extensive development of internet ‘communities’, such
as consumer organizations and experts of all kinds.
• Massive nagging, by email, mail and telephone, of those
in authority, by people, to see these things get done. This
means you!
C HAPTER 7
T HE F OURTH H ORSEMAN
Be warned. Much of what is in this chapter about war and

weapons is unpleasant and frightening – nevertheless they are
things you really need to know. But first, some good news.
According to War and Peace in the 21st Century, by Professor
Andrew Mack, of the Human Security Center in Vancouver,
there has been a considerable decrease in the number of
regional conflicts since the end of the Cold War. And a little
publicized event of great importance took place late in 2005,
when US president George W Bush removed funding for a new
kind of nuclear weapon, the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator,
so ending the programme, at least for the time being. It is
tempting to hope that this may mark the beginning of a
withdrawal from atomic weapons, and their eventual abolition.
If you wonder whether this is prudent or necessary, remember
that extinction of the human race remains an active possibility.
All it would take would be the detonation of less than half the
nuclear weapons now in the world, and a deadly cloud would
extend to every corner of the globe and kill most of us from
radiation sickness. The rest would succumb to famine as the
sun dimmed and photosynthesis stopped. Our art, our
buildings, our bridges and roads would crumble and return to
the forests, our languages, writing and music would be
forgotten, as indeed would be the human race, as if it had never

existed.
This apocalyptic vision describes something that is possible –
and soon. It indicates a need to consider the consequences of war
coolly and rationally, with emotive issues like racial integrity,
nationhood, ethnic cleansing, belief in religious exclusivity and
narrow ‘patriotism’ resolutely discounted.
But plainly, reducing weaponry and limiting war will not be
easy. Is it, indeed, possible? ‘We have remained individually too
greedy to distribute the surplus above our simple needs, and
collectively too stupid to pile it up in any more useful form than
the traditional mountains of arms.’1 Jacob Bronowski’s words
remain as true of the human condition now as they were when
they were written half a century ago.
The early years of Millennium 3 brought new and dangerous
implications of war. The killing of almost 3000 people in New
York’s World Trade Center towers on 11 September 2001 revealed
new kinds of enemies with which 21st century military forces
seemed ill equipped to deal. Subsequent hostilities in Afghanistan
and Iraq brought new and frightening weapons into prominence
– among them devastating and controversial incendiary weapons
of almost unimaginable ferocity, and aerial bombs each of which
spawn 200 ‘bomblets’ exploding into hundreds of fragments of
shrapnel.
Are these kinds of weapons the ideal way to deal with the
situation? The fact that ‘the war against terror’, according to most
estimates, has killed more innocent Afghan and Iraqi civilians
than combatants, at a time when many civilians were dying in
Palestine, has led most of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims to see it
as a war against Islam, and it is possible that a significant
proportion of the world’s population see it as a war against the
poor. Whether either of these perceptions is rational or justifiable
is beside the point – the evidence that they exist is so massive that
they must be taken seriously. Given this situation, perhaps the
most potent weapons in ‘the war against terror’ might not be
military ones at all. Social and economic measures, designed to
alleviate the poverty and despair afflicting the majority of
THE FOURTH HORSEMAN 85
humans, could prove far more effective. Speaking at a world

forum on poverty in 2005 Pakistani President Pervez Mushurraf
remarked: ‘We are only involved at the moment in fighting
terrorism frontally, the military perspective, the immediate
response. But we are not addressing the root causes … political
disputes, poverty and illiteracy. ‘
During the closing decades of Millennium 2, armed forces
were used increasingly in peacekeeping roles, and there was an
appreciable reduction in the number of atomic weapons
deployed. Even so there were still 27,000 in existence in 2005. An
agreement concluded between Presidents Bush and Putin in 2002
proposes a reduction to around 4000 deployed by 2012 – a
quantity still able to destroy all life on Earth many times over.
Weapons withdrawn from deployment will, however, be stored
rather than destroyed. This agreement appeared to exclude so
called ‘tactical’ weapons, the numbers of which are estimated at
between 5000 and 20,000. These, in the form of artillery shells,
aircraft bombs and landmines, range in destructiveness from the
equivalent of 100 tons of TNT to 50 times that of the 1945
Hiroshima bomb.
The de facto renunciation by the world’s five major nuclear
states – the US, the UK, Russia, China and France – of their
obligations under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty is a cause
for major concern. More countries signed this treaty 36 years ago
than any other international agreement – only India, Pakistan and
Israel refused. It obliged nations without nuclear arms not to
make them, and those with them to get rid of them. At the five-
yearly review conference of the treaty in 2005 the US made it plain
that, while it expected other nations, specifically Iran and North
Korea, to abide by the treaty, it was not prepared to do so itself. In
1995, 173 nations agreed to reject nuclear weapons if the ‘big five’
agreed to work towards total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.
Ten years later they have not done so. This ‘double standard’ is
why there are still so many nuclear weapons in the world, and
why, according to the British MI5 in a 2005 document Companies
and Organisations of Proliferation Concern, at least 360 private
companies, and government and tertiary organizations in 8
countries have bought goods or technology to make nuclear

weapons.
Several recent events seem likely to guarantee their perpet-
uation. In January 2000, the Russian government indicated
changes in its military doctrine which, for the first time, gave
notice that it would use nuclear weapons when other methods
had proved unsuccessful and not, as previously, only when the
survival of the state was threatened. In 2002, a US Pentagon report
to Congress indicated a dramatic increase in contingencies in
which the US plans to use nuclear weapons.3 Seven nations,
including Russia and China, were named as potential nuclear
targets. One nuclear arms specialist said the US shifting position
on ‘limited use’ of nuclear weapons was encouraging other
nations, like India and Pakistan, to consider them as part of their
regular arsenal.4 He commented: ‘The Bush administration is
reinvigorating the nuclear weapons force and the vast research
and industrial complex that supports it.’ In October 1999 the US
Senate rejected the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, so
signalling a renewed long-term escalation in atomic weapons. US
plans to build a national missile defence system were widely
regarded around the world as a contributor to a renewed arms
race – ‘a nuclear chain reaction among nations’.5
Nuclear arsenals represent such a serious threat to life – even
to civilization – because of a ‘modernized’ array of specialized
weapons, such as the neutron bomb, improvements in delivery
systems, and the availability of atomic weapons to more and more
states, including some in the ‘rogue’ category. A conference in
Stockholm late in 2001 reported that a disturbing amount of the
world’s 4000 tons of weapons grade uranium and plutonium is
going missing, that internal security over nuclear materials is
generally lax, border controls inefficient, and that it would be
relatively easy for terrorist groups to acquire radioactive
materials.6 Huge quantities of weapons grade material in the
former Soviet Union – more than 600 tons – are the most
vulnerable.
The problem of eliminating nuclear weapons is intimately
associated with issues of security – even survival – in several
parts of the world. The position of Israel, surrounded by Islamic

enemies, is perhaps particularly eloquent. This small country of
6.3 million persons has built up a nuclear deterrent capability
approaching Britain’s – at least 100 bombs capable of being
delivered up to 1100 miles by its Black air squadrons and Jericho
1 and 2 missiles – as a threat to any who may consider an all out
attack on its territory. Pakistan fears India, therefore both
countries are increasing their nuclear capability. China and the
US, global rivals in spite of the rhetoric, are building up their
nuclear armouries for the same kind of reasons. North Korea,
distrustful of the US, is believed to have as many as ten nuclear
weapons, and the capability to build more.
The ‘refinement’ of nuclear weaponry, that is, missiles
designed for specialized purposes, appears to have been a
reaction by planners to the perception that unspecialized
weapons, especially hydrogen bombs, represent a chilling degree
of overkill, with likely consequences, such as ‘nuclear winters’,
that must rebound on those who use them. Something ‘better’
seemed necessary. What about, for instance, something that
would kill everyone in a city, but leave it largely intact so it could
easily be taken over later? Such a weapon would have to be
designed to do minimal damage to infrastructure, have limited
residual radiation, but be lethal over wide areas. Although it has
had little publicity over recent decades, the enhanced radiation
warhead, or neutron bomb, which does just this, is very much
alive and well. These weapons, effectively small hydrogen bombs,
are specialized so as to emit relatively small amounts of heat and
destructive blast together with large amounts of deadly, but short-
lived radiation.
Neutron bombing of cities, however, would have effects that
are far from surgical neatness. It would result in millions of
painful, undignified and unassisted deaths from radiation
sickness, protracted over one to three weeks. Details of the bomb’s
effects are highly secret wherever it has been developed – and that
is, probably, within all the nuclear powers. It is a matter of record
that the US suspended development of the neutron bomb in 1978,
but resumed it in 1981. China revealed in 1999 that it is
developing it – it was stated to be among the nuclear secrets

China had ‘stolen’ from the US, although China has denied this –
and according to a recent statement by one of its scientists, India
has the capability to build a neutron bomb.7 According to
antinuclear activist Helen Caldicott, the US is devoting $45 billion
over the next 10–15 years to design, build and test new nuclear
weapons.8 Much of the emphasis will be on ‘faster, stealthier,
longer range delivery platforms, fully integrated into a 21st
century “battlefield” controlled by satellite surveillance, remotely
deployed sensor arrays and precision targeting’. According to
Caldicott, England, France, China and Russia are already
following a similar course, the British government in 2005
announcing a near tripling in funding of its Atomic Weapons
Establishment at Aldermaston to more than £800 million by 2007.
Caldicott believes ‘within a decade, 10 more nations will have
developed nuclear weapons, and, within 20 years, there will be
nuclear war’. If this happens, it will largely be a war against
people by machines, with no capacity for pity or mercy.
The increasingly dangerous proliferation of nuclear weapons
is of course, closely associated with the nuclear power industry,
which has produced as a by-product much of the world’s 1855
tonnes of plutonium – enough to fuel almost half a million atomic
bombs. This ‘usefulness’ to the weapons industry is without
doubt the reason why governments have subsidized and
protected the nuclear power industry, in spite of its dangers and
inefficiencies. This deadly partnership, which continues to place
the entire world and its inhabitants at risk, could probably only be
checked by a Oneworld agency militarily strong enough to
guarantee the security of individual states, and at least an
approach towards this is needed before 2030. If not, it is more than
possible that it will finally be an experience of nuclear war that
shocks the remnants of humankind into a serious attempt at
effective disarmament and world government.
If this does not sound forbidding enough, there are biological
weapons. Perhaps most terrifying is the possibility that before
2030, genetic engineering will allow weapons to be developed
that can kill only specific ethnic groups. This would mean that the
main strategic argument against biological weapons – the

likelihood that they could rebound on the user – would be
removed.9 Ironically, these ‘designer diseases’ could evolve as a
spin-off from research into controlling cancer by identifying
‘marker’ genes on diseased cells, which can then be targeted
while normal surrounding cells are not affected. Research on the
human genome has already shown that ethnic groups can have
distinctive ‘marker’ genes, making possible the development of
disease weapons which would attack only those groups with the
designated marker. The possibility of virus diseases being
adapted to become almost universally lethal emerged in 2001
when a gene modification that greatly increases the amount of
interleukin 4 in the body yielded an unexpected result – it totally
suppressed the part of the immune system that protects against
viral infection.
As many as 2.5 million Americans in uniform are being given
vaccines against anthrax. Anthrax is normally communicated by
contact between animals, or between animals and humans. As a
biological weapon it would be dropped over armies or cities as an
aerosol, or, as happened in the US in 2001, as a white powder sent
in the mail. Everyone breathing it in would be infected. Its deadly
spores can remain in the soil for as long as 40 years. In 1988, the
Soviet Union attempted to destroy a stockpile of many tons of
anthrax bacteria by soaking them in hydrogen peroxide, and then
putting them into storage at an abandoned biological research
station on Vozrozhdenuye Island in the Aral Sea, 1000 miles east
of Moscow. Recent testing by US scientists given access to the
stockpile showed that in spite of all attempts to render it
harmless, many of the anthrax spores were still alive, with the
potential to escape into the environment.
Former Soviet germ weapons specialist, Dr Kanatjan Alibekov,
identified anthrax specially developed to be unusually virulent, a
strain of plague resistant to antibiotics, botulism, smallpox and
encephalitis as being among the disease weapons still under
development by Russia as late as 1992.10 In spite of an agreement
with the US in 1972 not to develop biological weapons, the Soviet
Union persisted with a major and secret programme during the
1980s. This included genetic modification of existing diseases to

make them incurable and almost universally lethal. After the
breakup of the Soviet Union and the economic difficulties that
followed, almost all of the 25,000 scientists who specialized in
biological warfare became unemployed. The whereabouts of
many of them is unknown.
The idea that aerial bombing is now a precise science, using
‘smart’ weapons that can select targets with surgical precision,
was heavily propagandized during the 1991 American war with
Iraq – Operation Desert Storm. According to one writer, John
Pilger, only 7 per cent of the 88,500 tons of bombs dropped were
‘smart’.11 Seventy per cent, mostly old fashioned ‘dump’ bombs,
missed military targets and fell in populated areas, such as the
strike on the Al-Amiriya bunker in Baghdad, in which 300 people,
mostly women and children, were incinerated. According to one
source, up to 250,000 Iraqis were killed in the American assault.
Many were soldiers buried alive in their trenches by armoured
bulldozers.12 These machines are the forerunners of a totally new
army of robots planned by the US which ‘would give our forces
concentrated lethality, available immediately’, and which could
be deployed by 2010.13 Try and see past the Newspeak. That really
means: ‘Our forces will be able to kill far more people than ever
before, without warning.’ The nature of these metre high robotic
soldiers, which go by the acronym of SWORDS, was revealed in
2005. They are mounted on tank tracks, have night vision, and
mount automatic weapons able to fire more than 300 rounds a
minute. Their efficiency is quite deadly – in quick firing tests they
scored 70 out of a possible 70 bull’s eyes.
It would therefore appear that our world faces potential
military horrors which no reasonable person can consider
acceptable. Almost any effort, almost any sacrifice, seems
justifiable to achieve world disarmament and, especially, effective
control of weapons designed for the mass killing of populations.
The position of the arms manufacturers is central. Somehow, the
power of the military industrial complex must be redirected to
peaceful ends, and the uncontrolled supply of arms to whoever
will pay for them must cease, since large numbers go to criminal
and quasi-criminal interests and to those who want guns to

terrorize and oppress their own people. ‘There are 500 million
illegally acquired guns and light weapons around the world, in
the hands of everyone from child soldiers in Sierra Leone to drug
traffickers in Colombia.’14 This situation is made no better by the
fact that the world’s largest countries, including the
‘democracies’, are the major arms pedlars. The US was the largest
provider, selling $12 billion worth of arms, almost half the world
total, in 2005, with Russia next, at $5.8 billion.15
What do the war machines cost the world? The most
conservative estimates are around a trillion dollars a year, almost
half of this spent in the US: $421 billion in 2005, with plans for this
to rise to $451 billion in 2007, according to the Center for Defense
Information. The argument has been advanced that defence
spending is justified because overproductive economies need an
area of ‘waste’ outside the economy of supply and demand, to
balance them. The huge costs of space research are seen as another
such ‘balance wheel’. Even if we accept the need for these ‘balance
wheels’, it can be argued, just as persuasively, that this money
could be more usefully devoted to a fund to combat world
poverty, or to develop alternative energy systems. This issue is
discussed further in Chapter 26.
The question of the cost of war cannot be left without a
consideration of the cheapest and most prolific weapon of all – the
estimated 200 million landmines which infest the world, and
which every year cause thousands of deaths, and many more
thousands of serious injuries, usually involving the loss of a limb.
Children are probably the most numerous victims. In Cambodia
alone there are 35,000 amputees as a result of landmines – the
world figure is over a quarter of a million. Death and injury are not
the only consequences of these weapons. Large tracts of
agricultural land become unusable because they are too dangerous
to enter. Mines cost only a few dollars to make, but it costs between
$300 and $1000 to render each one safe and remove it. Modern
developments, such as the plastic bodied mine, aggravate the
difficulties of making them safe because they cannot be located by
metal detectors. Hundreds of compassionate and courageous
people are working to deactivate landmines, but with the facilities

and technology now available it would take 1000 years and $33
billion to clear all the existing mines. Meanwhile, every year,
between 5 and 10 million more are produced.
It is now considerably safer to be a soldier than a civilian in a
war zone. The proportion of civilians killed grew from 52 per cent
of all war deaths during World War II to 84 per cent during
regional wars at the close of Millennium 2. In an article about the
future of war, General Wesley Clark, who commanded Operation
Allied Force in Kosovo, conceded that war has become potentially
more lethal, and predicted that ‘political restraints will be relaxed,
and control of the actions will be delegated to on scene
commanders. Unfortunately, significantly greater casualty rates
can be expected among both military and civilian populations.’16
However, he also remarked that due to ‘global village’ concepts
‘war is increasingly constrained by law and the public’s
assessment of just causes and acceptable costs’ and that there is
also the option of a cyber war, able to ‘scramble an enemy’s
military command or disrupt electricity systems without
bloodshed’. Weapons researchers are currently developing the E-
bomb, a device that produces a momentary flash of microwaves
or radio waves powerful enough to disrupt or destroy the
electronic systems on which almost all modern machines –
military and civil – rely. Computers are especially vulnerable, and
damage to them would generally be permanent. By 2005 it had
become apparent that such weapons are feasible, relatively cheap
and easy to produce. There also seem to be no possible
mechanisms to control their proliferation. Being non-lethal, they
will also attract less public fear and disapproval. Also under
investigation is a microwave cannon, designed to inflict severe
pain, but not to kill. Stun lasers are also being developed.
Behind war lie some of the most complex and destructive
aspects of human nature – insecurity, an overweening desire for
power, greed, nationalism, selfishness, a chilling lack of
compassion, and the opportunity for warped mentalities to
indulge in what would be unspeakable crimes within any normal
rule of law. Those items might be regarded as fuel for the fire, but
the match that so reliably lights it may come from a particular

form of aggression, associated with a pleasure in killing,
experienced by a minority of men. This is an area most people do
not want to know about, but if it is close to the truth, careful
thought is needed about just how extensive this pleasurable
killing pattern is, who has it, and why.
Murders by people who take pleasure in killing and torturing
their victims – often women – occur regularly all over the world.
Is it then not reasonable to assume that armies, which are a cross
section of society, also include such people? A highly
controversial book by English scholar, Dr Joanna Bourke,
indicates that this is so.17 During her research, Bourke studied the
large numbers of letters and diaries written by soldiers, held in
the Imperial War Museum, and found in them many accounts of
an intense pleasure at the time of killing. To stick someone with a
bayonet, for example, was described as ‘gorgeously satisfying’. A
careful study of the history of conflicts, such as those in Bosnia,
Rwanda and Cambodia, suggests that quite small minorities of
humans plan and start them. The activities of these people in a
normal state ruled by law would be regarded as criminal. They
would be arrested and punished before their plans could become
as destructive as they were in those regions.
If some kind of control mechanism does not exist, then indeed
the fire can spread. Hence it is not enough to turn one’s back on
the fact that deliberate killers who find pleasure in murder exist.
We now come into violently controversial territory. To what extent
are such people the ‘spark plugs’ that fire up major wars and
massacres? Should we attempt to influence this area, and seek the
means of correcting the situation? Is it a genetic trait, which
humanity should seek to eliminate? Is it, as has been suggested,
associated with excessively high testosterone levels? Several
studies of prisoners have shown an association of high plasma
testosterone with chronic aggressive behaviour and with violent
rape, but there seems no certainty of such a connection in the
general community.
Most importantly, does such a ‘killing class’ exist? University
of Iowa psychiatrist, Donald Black, believes it does, that it is
different from the normal run of humans, and that its character-
istics can be defined.18 This ‘antisocial mind’, which results in cold
blooded, depraved crime, is found in individuals who have had a
lifelong pattern of bad behaviour, a willingness to break rules and
hurt others, a lack of remorse and empathy towards others, and
no sense of responsibility or guilt. The pattern is likely to have
been manifest since childhood. Black estimated that there are
probably 7 million Americans with this psychiatric condition,
around 90 per cent of them men, and it is reasonable to conclude
that they are just as numerous elsewhere. They seldom seek
treatment, since they believe there is nothing wrong with them.
Since men with this condition might well be attracted to military
life, where they may find themselves free to indulge in atrocities
against the civilians of an occupied country, a filtering mechanism
which would ensure they did not become soldiers could be
necessary.
Konrad Lorenz has shown that reasonable control of
aggression is a major social bond for a wide range of species,
including man.19 Considering its potential, this control is one of
the highest and most important attributes of a species. Its
extension to abolish war must be an important area of study and
action. However, there is nothing new about humans killing each
other. Indeed we are the only species – except for rats in some
circumstances – that kills its own kind in such numbers. Efficient
modern societies have been able to control this powerful and
unpleasant human quality, at least to tolerable levels within their
own borders, through the rule of law. This law does not succeed
only because of the sanctions it can force on individuals, but
because the overwhelming majority of humans are ‘law abiding’
– they accept the rule of law, and allow it to override their basic
aggressive and acquisitive instincts, because of perceived
advantages in this to society as a whole and to them in particular.
When a husband travels home from his workplace in the
evening, he can be confident that his house has not been sacked
and burned, his wife has not been raped, and his children have
not been murdered. Like all human institutions, the rule of law
does not operate perfectly. An office worker might well come
home one day and find that some of these unpleasant possibilities
have happened. Crime continues to exist, but, in general, it is
contained to the extent that most people can feel reasonably
secure as they go about their day-to-day activities. Why, then,
does this not happen outside national boundaries? What are the
reasons for a significant majority of Londoners normally
accepting that it would be wrong to bomb Oxford, Edinburgh or
Cardiff, while at the same time considering that to do so to Paris,
Berlin, Tokyo or Beijing in certain circumstances would not only
be perfectly all right, but even laudable?
The answer to this is primarily nationalism – the idea that
humans must be arbitrarily split up into regional groups who
have linguistic and cultural differences that are so important that
they justify dying for, in millions if necessary, and killing other
people – women, children, even babies – in the most unpleasantly
possible ways, such as burning to death, a normal consequence of
aerial bombing.
Looked at coolly and rationally, in the ‘global village’, this
concept must appear increasingly dangerous and absurd. War has
traditionally been furthered by what is called ‘patriotism’, which
means a belief that your segment of the human race is superior in
all respects to the others. There can be no doubt that war has
brought the most unselfish sacrifices from the many young men
called upon to fight, and in no way should such heroism and
devotion be undervalued. The tragedy is that almost invariably it
has been betrayed by the ignoble purposes of those who
committed their community to war, and who, for the most part,
emerged from it unscathed and a good deal wealthier than when
they went in.
These people have always touted patriotism as one of the
highest human virtues. So it would be if it were directed to the
human race as a whole – better still, to the planet as a whole.

• A progressive annual reduction of funding for war and
weapons on a multilateral basis by all nations – the
money saved to be devoted to more useful purposes like
the reduction of world poverty and disease, and alter-
nate energy infrastructure.
• Since there will not be another review conference on
nuclear proliferation until 2010 some other world
conference or organization will be necessary to see that
nuclear weapons are at least substantially reduced each
year. Immediate objectives could include an end to the
production of highly enriched uranium and the repro-
cessing of plutonium. This objective could well be
assisted by citizen organizations everywhere who
regularly remind their fellow citizens of the catastrophic
dangers of even limited nuclear war, and petition their
governments to work towards these objectives and the
eventual elimination of atomic weapons. I realize that
this objective seems so large and forbidding it becomes
daunting, but the issue is so important it warrants every
possible effort.
• Abolition of the manufacture and sale of landmines, and
major allocation of money and people to clear up what
are there now.
• Scrupulous attention by military recruiters to the need to
‘winnow out’ psychopaths and those with a criminal
record of violence and cruelty, at the enlisting stage.
PART T WO
DIRECTIONS
C HAPTER 8
W HICH WAY S CIENCE ?
There is no doubt that the world has the skills and resources to
cope with the 2030 drivers. The real issue is whether our
productive institutions are moving in the right directions. If they
are not, what do we need to do about it? The world’s financial
systems, the policies of the multinationals, the directions of
science, the applications of technology, constructive and sustain-
able use of the land and the sea – all these things need to be
assessed for their ability to recognize and cope with the drivers.
This question applies perhaps most importantly to science
and technology. Their application must be decisive in coping
with the drivers and carrying out the necessary reshaping before
2030. But are they being used to the best effect? For instance, it is
claimed that almost half the world’s scientists – some half a
million people – are engaged in weapons research and
production.1 The Soviet Union maintained an establishment of
25,000 scientists working solely on biological weapons – such
things as smallpox, especially virulent anthrax and antibiotic
resistant plague. The words of David Suzuki and Peter Knudtson
define an important part of the problem: ‘The power to apply
new scientific knowledge tends to reside not in the individual
but in vast corporate and military organizations that possess the
resources and expertise to harness novel techniques … Motives
100 DIRECTIONS
of profit and military power should not be allowed to shape our

society’s technological priorities.’2
Genetic engineering seems to generate almost as many
disadvantages as advantages. Even though more money and
effort than ever before are devoted to medical research and the
production of drugs, the benefits of these are heavily weighted
towards the world’s affluent minority, while major diseases like
tuberculosis and malaria are killing millions. Huge and expensive
particle accelerators, like the CERN Large Hadron Collider near
Geneva, have cost billions of dollars. The International Space
Station, the most expensive construction project in human history,
has cost $40 billion already, with the final bill likely to reach $100
billion. The benefits of both of these projects to the immediate
problems of most humans are doubtful.
Every 3.6 seconds someone in the world dies from starvation.
Three-quarters of these deaths are children under the age of five.
They do not die because the world is short of food – for the
moment it is not – but because they can’t afford to buy it. Millions
die from preventable diseases, at least a billion more are made
miserable and ineffective by chronic illnesses like malaria, AIDS
and waterborne parasites. There is little room for complacency
here. It is a fair conclusion that in spite of the ‘progress’ of science
over the last century, more people die needlessly early, are ill, in
poverty, ill housed or subjected to massive pollution than ever
before.
However, any immediate conclusion that pure science should
be abandoned for a crash programme of applied science to
remedy the overall human condition is oversimplistic and needs
to be viewed with suspicion. The history of science, with so many
examples of important and practical results deriving from pure
research, shows that the individual scientist thinking through a
new idea can be of incalculable value to the world. If anything,
the pendulum is swinging too far the other way, with increasing
university dependence on business, and increasing pressure to
deliver immediately marketable results. The new society might
best be served by providing more facilities in terms of research
institutes, perhaps within universities, that are immune from
WHICH WAY SCIENCE? 101
financial and other pressures from government and business, and

are subject only to a reasonable audit from their peers.
In a world increasingly enamoured with materialism and
gadgets, it may seem strange that growing numbers of people are
tending to become less interested in things – in American ‘stuff’ –
and are more interested in ideas, creativity, even what is now
called spirituality. The necessarily more frugal use of energy must
encourage this change in individual attitudes, but it will come
mainly from lifestyles influenced – and altered – by 21st century
science. It is well beyond the scope of this book to review relativity,
quantum physics, chaos theory and modern cosmology in any
depth. This, in any case, has been done very well already by Paul
Davies and others.3 The essential point is that modern physics has
upset the materialist view that matter is inert and passive,
governed by immutable laws – the ‘clockwork universe’.
Nevertheless, 17th century ‘machine science’ still informs our
attitudes and conventional wisdom, in the words of Dr S J Goerner
it ‘changed the entire structure of western civilization, including
the way everyday people lived their lives and experienced their
world’.4 Goerner and Davies contend persuasively that the
‘clockwork universe’ concept helped to shape our materialistic
world, formed on the belief that everything proceeds in the cosmos
according to fixed laws. The job of science was to establish just
what these laws were and to learn how to manipulate them. This
mechanistic view, still very much alive and preoccupied with
material productivity, largely disavows creativity and free will, the
mysterious, the spiritual. It works within broad, but limited, areas.
Science as a discipline has, of course, changed. Einstein
provided totally new perceptions of space, time and gravity.
Quantum physics implies that the apparently solid does not exist,
except as energy, and perhaps as looped one-dimensional strings
vibrating in 10, or 26, dimensions. ‘Particles’ appear to come into
existence out of nothing and as mysteriously disappear again.
Chaos theory, contending that systems which normally appear to
be ordered can be perturbed by factors impossible to assess,
depicts a universe partly of ordered events, partly of unpredict-
able ones.
102 DIRECTIONS
A major part of the scientific view is toward the idea that the
cosmos is organized on apparently random (dare we say it?) lines
which may best be understood intuitively, rather than by
reductionism and linear thinking. As Richard Dawkins points out,
the best way to understand how a motor car engine works is to
break it down into its component parts and understand those.5
Whether this ‘reductionist’ principle is a tool one can apply to all
areas of enquiry is now seriously in question. Many studies have
been carried out into ‘unconscious thinking’ – intuition – leaving
little doubt that the brain can sort information and present
answers to problems without the owner of that brain being
consciously aware of what is going on.6
The manufacture and ownership of material things is
becoming less valued, partly because of individual alarm at high
rates of pollution and the drain on the world’s resources. The
world’s wealthiest man, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, is
now said to have more money than all but 25 world economies –
and it is worth noting that he has given back billions to the world
in a series of charitable foundations. This huge fortune stemmed
from the development of the abstractions that lie behind modern
computer science. The creative, the intangible, rather than the
material, is coming to represent wealth.
Developments in cosmology and practical experience in space
travel are bringing a greater humility and a saner realism to those
areas. The science fiction concept of spaceships roaming to far off
worlds, zapping aliens, terraforming planets, now appears more
improbable and indecent than ever. Until ‘warp drives’ and the
like begin to emerge from the purely fictional – and they show
little sign of doing so – and assuming that the speed of light is the
fastest that anything can move, journeys very far into space
would require travel times of thousands or even millions of years.
At current space shuttle speeds it would take 13,000 years to
travel the 4.3 light years to Alpha Centauri, the star system
nearest to us, and much longer to reach another habitable planet,
if one exists, deeper in space. This would mean that thousands of
generations of travellers would have to be bred aboard the
spaceship. But research has already established that human
reproduction over many generations could be severely impaired

in space conditions, if indeed it were possible at all.7
Detailed research has shown space to be ‘a sick environment’,
seriously affecting human muscle tone and the circulatory system,
and exposing humans in space to huge dosages of cosmic rays,
which cannot be stopped or avoided, and which cause genes to
mutate.8 This has already cast serious doubt on whether a projected
human mission to Mars, lasting three years, is actually feasible.
Is there anything habitable for humans out there anyway? Two
authors with respectable qualifications believe that there is
probably not – the Earth is a rare ‘Garden of Eden’ among a
myriad of environments that are ‘terrible for life’.9 Erratic energy
sources, deadly cosmic ray bombardment, unstable or irregular
orbits, unsuitable distances from their sun, and an almost certain
lack of water, characterize most of the planets discovered so far
outside our solar system. These seem mostly to be gas giants that
could never be colonized by humans. Hence, the two authors say,
we have a special responsibility to recognize the perhaps unique
nature of the Earth and to give priority to preserving its welfare
and its environment.
This matter then, comes down to one of priorities, and a
general change in mindsets able to assist the most favourable
outcomes. Viewed in this way, the idea that it is the destiny of
humankind to ‘reach for the stars’ seems at best premature and
unrealistic, and distracts our attention from the pressing but less
spectacular problems of this world. Also, some silly but
potentially dangerous notions have ridden on its back, such as the
idea that it doesn’t matter how overcrowded and ecologically
damaged our world gets – we shall simply hop into spaceships
and search for planets somewhere out there, and, having zapped
the natives, will ‘terraform’ these places to suit ourselves.
With the passing of 30 years from the Apollo landings in 1969
without any further human landings on the moon or the planets,
a more realistic assessment has evolved about what space
technology is likely to achieve – certainly in the run up to 2030.
This process has been assisted by the remarkable dispatching of a
series of unmanned probes which have given us an accurate idea
104 DIRECTIONS
of what the other planets in our solar system are like. Mars seems,
like the moon, a dead world, rocky, barren and pockmarked with
craters which are generally assumed to be the result of meteor
impacts on its surface, with huge dust storms driven by 200 mile
an hour winds. It probably has water, locked into ice. Whether
some form of bacterial life may exist there is still an open
question. Under its shroud of yellow clouds, highly toxic with
concentrated sulphuric acid, Venus is much the same, except that
its surface is hellishly hot. Earlier ideas that our nearer neighbours
might be inhabited, or might once have been inhabited, now seem
unlikely. The huge outer planets are gas or ice giants.
Other bodies in our solar system which excite interest are two
satellites of Jupiter, the intensely hot and volcanically active Io
and the ice covered Europa. Is there a warm sea under the ice of
Europa? There is some evidence that this might be so. Could there
be, at the bottom of this sea, volcanic vents which might warm
parts of the sea enough to sustain some primitive form of life, as
they do at the bottom of Earth’s oceans? A Europa Lander probe
is scheduled for 2010.
Fascinating as all this effort and ingenuity is, the bottom line
seems to be that little more can be learned or achieved by sending
manned space missions to the other planets. In most cases the
conditions are too harsh or toxic for humans to survive there.
Mars remains the only possibility, but even there the technical
requirements are huge, and even worse, colonizing the dead
planet would require vast amounts of effort and energy which
would have to be drawn from the scarce resources of Earth.
When, in 1989, the then American president George Bush senior
asked NASA about the practicalities of putting men on Mars, the
space agency came up with a 30 year programme costing $450
billion. One shuttle journey to the International Space Station
costs at least $250 million. Then there are the physical stresses on
the astronaut – rapid bone and muscle loss, nausea, erratic
heartbeat, displacement of body fluids and possibly fatal
exposure to solar radiation among them.
In the light of the urgent needs of Earth for major scientific and
technological fixes, it would seem reasonable to make space
exploration less of a priority, at least until the major problems

facing us before 2030 have been assessed and tackled, unless
radical and at present unknown developments turn up that would
make it feasible and useful. Such developments might include the
capture and mining of asteroids – or the moon – for minerals,
certain forms of manufacture which work better in space, and
mechanisms to divert or destroy a space object on a collision
course with Earth. The moon, for instance has considerable
resources of helium 3, which is rare on Earth, and which could be
a fuel for fusion reactors if that technology develops. There are also
huge reserves of the rare earth metal titanium on the moon.
Developments in the areas of genetics and climatology are
immediately important – these rate individual treatment in
Chapters 4 and 9. But there are others areas – right at the front end
of possibility – that warrant a hard look. Take, for instance,
molecular nanotechnology. This jaw cracking label describes
engineering measured in nanometres – one billionth of a metre –
which, if it can be achieved, will amount to nothing less than
modern alchemy – the ability to create almost anything by
assembling atoms to make new molecules planned for specific
purposes. These could be very tough and cheap photovoltaic
cells, artificial antibodies and, on the downside, destructive new
weapons so small they are almost impossible to detect.
The rapidly growing literature in this area claims the new
technology could make diamonds from carbon – even windows
might be sheets of diamond rather than glass. It could create
microscopic ‘submarines’, capable of attacking bacteria, viruses,
even cancer cells, while swimming in the bloodstream, and so
supplementing and assisting the human immune system. The
new photovoltaic materials might coat the surface of every sealed
road or highway, providing all the electric power the world
needs, other products dismembering dangerous pollutants like
dioxins. Nothing would be impossible. Food, water, wood, gold
and other metals, any physical substance could be synthesized
from its component atoms.
The machinery which might achieve these things is visualized
as molecular assemblers – minuscule devices themselves made
106 DIRECTIONS
from artificial molecules – resembling the manipulating arms of

larger industrial robots. They already have a name: ‘nanobots’.
Nanobots are foreseen as machines with ‘fingers’ so tiny they can
handle and assemble atoms into molecules. Miniature electronic
brains would tell them how to do it. Right out at the leading edge
are plans to make nanobots self replicating, so they could
duplicate themselves in millions. Even grouped in those numbers
they would still be invisible to the naked eye.
While manipulation of individual atoms has been carried out,
whether it will ever be possible to make materials to order at the
atomic level remains an open question.10 Nevertheless, the
possibilities of molecular nanotechnology are being given serious
consideration – for instance, the powerful coordinating Japanese
Department of Economics, Trade and Industry, METI, has
identified ‘control technologies for the precise arrangement of
molecules’ as a 21st century priority. Early in 2000, President
Clinton announced American government grants of half a billion
dollars for nanotechnology research, a White House statement at
that time declaring: ‘Nanotechnology is the new frontier, and its
potential impact is compelling.’
If what is claimed for this possible new technology is barely
half true, it would clearly represent a leap forward of the same
order as the agricultural and industrial revolutions. Its potential
to solve the 2030 problems would be immense. However,
proponents of the idea also point out that new biological – and
possibly physical – weapons of the most sinister kind, could just
as easily result. There has been not unreasonable speculation
about new areas of weaponry capable of destroying whole
national populations. Such weapons are foreseen as being so tiny
that they would be next to impossible to detect – hence defensive
measures against them would be hardly feasible. Their
construction, once the technologies were established, would also
be very cheap. Large factories would not be necessary, and the
amount of raw materials required would be minute by ordinary
industrial standards.
Since the envisaged potential of nanotechology for good or ill is
so great as to be almost unimaginable, what are we to make of all
this? One option – that frequently favoured by modern govern-

ments – would simply be to wait and see what comes of it. The
danger then might be that the technology had already been
directed into destructive areas that, once established, could not
readily be removed, as has already happened with nuclear science.

• Major diversion of money and expertise to practical
world needs rather than to weapons systems and space
travel.
• Establishment of a global authority to set priorities in
this direction and advise on their inplementation.
• Assembly of a body of ‘censors’ to examine proposed
new technology and identify areas that might be harm-
ful, and of a world court to determine whether certain
technologies can proceed.
• Establishment of research institutes for specific and
practical purposes, with inalienable funding.
C HAPTER 9
I N THE G ENES : N EW
P LANTS – AND P EOPLE ?
While the long-term promise of genetic engineering is

considerable, the decades until 2030 are likely to present more
problems than solutions. Forewarning people of a genetic
predisposition to illness has been possible for some years, and
will become more common. Finding and developing reliable
genetically engineered cures is likely to take several decades.
Genetic engineering of plants may provide more food in the
developing world, but concerns remain about its consequences in
the long term. After much discussion, UNESCO produced a
Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights
which was endorsed by the United Nations in 1999, but support
for it in many countries is conditional at best. These were among
the issues raised at a major international conference of bioethicists
in Salzburg in 2000, one of literally hundreds of meetings around
the world presenting a remarkably diverse collection of views and
attitudes.
Following the development of techniques to alter the basic
nature of living things through genetic engineering, by removing
or rearranging genes, or even by adding new genes to produce
offspring with new characteristics, biology has become the
science attracting the liveliest public interest. Since the discovery
of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick in 1953, intensive
IN THE GENES 109
research has gone into mapping the genetic structure of the 23

pairs of human chromosomes present in every cell. Humans have
about 35,000 genes, which have to be identified within 3.2 billion
genetic ‘letters’. The remaining 95 per cent – so-called ‘junk’ DNA,
may well have meaning and importance, but this has yet to be
researched. Genes, which are strings of four different molecular
bases, are a code of instructions to the cell to make specialized
proteins. These control the body’s structure, development and
maintenance. Physicist Freeman Dyson said that DNA can be
considered, in computer terms, as software, whereas proteins are
the hardware.1
When a gene is faulty or missing, the abnormal or missing
protein can cause illness. The identification of genes which appear
to trigger or predispose people to illnesses, such as osteoporosis,
has already been achieved. Nevertheless, reading the ‘letters’ in
this complex genetic alphabet is proving difficult and time
consuming. Mapping the human genome, a massive task
completed in 2000, was a necessary start to the even more
formidable one of unravelling the human genetic code and
establishing its significance – and its potential for improving
health. An important area of this work involves identifying
genetic ‘markers’, places where the genetic codes of different
people vary by just one ‘letter’. These single nucleotide
polymorphisms, as they are called, are needed to trace genetic
variations, which are often very complex, and which can
predispose people to disease.
Nevertheless, Barbara Katz Rothman has noted the risk that
‘we might be carried off to places we might very well choose not
to go’ – such as to developments of biological weapons which
target particular racial groups.2 ‘Profit driven’ genetic screening,
especially for untreatable conditions, has attracted critics, who
cite discrimination in the workplace or from insurers as an
undesirable outcome. A simple mouth swab test to detect
haemochromatosis, a condition in which iron builds up to deadly
levels in the body, seems of obvious value, since this can be
treated with blood transfusions. But is there any virtue in telling
individuals, and their families, that they may lose their minds in
110 DIRECTIONS
20 years’ time because they have the gene for Huntington’s

disease, which is incurable?
These are just two of many lively controversies that genetic
engineering has produced. Will genetic modifications simply
carry out what scientists intend, or will they result in unintended,
possibly dangerous, consequences? Will genetic crops ‘contam-
inate’ traditional or organic crops growing nearby through cross
pollination? Will insecticides genetically introduced into food
crops poison species other than insects, perhaps even humans?
Will huge agrochemical companies acquire dangerous political
power by controlling food production? To what extent do they
already influence governments to protect them from opposition to
their products? Could the power to choose the sex of a
prospective baby create serious population imbalances? Could
cloned humans be made in different lines, specialized as workers,
prostitutes or soldiers, or be genetically altered to be unnaturally
compliant, brutal or aggressive? Will a divorcement of sex from
reproduction become common, causing profound social changes?
All these possibilities have been canvassed.
The science of genetics has some doubtful antecedents. Eight-

eenth century botanist, Carolus Linnaeus, wrote of ‘a great chain
of being’, a divinely ordained and immutable hierarchy of life
which among other things, established white Europeans as a
superior race, with the right, even the mission, to dominate
‘inferior’ races.3 Racism, thus apparently sanctified by science, led
on to the forcible shipping of 6 million Africans to America as
slaves, and to the colonial empires which provided Europe with
its power and prosperity as it entered the 20th century.
During the first decade of the 20th century a new ‘science’
called eugenics became fashionable. It evolved the ideas that
super people might be created by selective breeding, and that
some kinds of people were inferior to others. A number of
American states passed laws forbidding marriage between differ-
ent racial types; eugenics acts permitted sterilization of people in
mental hospitals, many of whose problems had nothing to do
with inherited qualities. The Nazi dictatorship in Germany
IN THE GENES 111
carried eugenics to its ugly extremes, killing millions of Jews,

sterilizing 400,000 Germans, and promoting breeding of pure
‘Aryan’ types – blonde haired and blue eyed – in a mission to
create a eugenically ‘ideal’ German population. Hitler asserted
that Aryans were ‘the highest image of God among his creatures
– it is the iron law of nature that the weak, diseased and wavering,
be eliminated’.4 Very similar sentiments extolling a need to foster
‘the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks’ were expressed by
Winston Churchill when he was Home Secretary in 1910, but
these beliefs ‘were considered so inflammatory by succeeding
British governments they were not made public until 1992’.5
It is important to keep this history of eugenics in mind, since
modern genetic determinism can mirror it in significant respects,
and because its ideas still appeal to some religious and racial
extremists.6 The problems of 2030 will be severe enough without
the added complication of eugenic experimentation. However,
genetic engineering does have the power to make eugenic
‘experiments’ more feasible and more extreme. For instance, some
people are prepared to pay large sums of money to have
‘attractive’ children, as a 1999 auction of embryos from a selection
of good looking models in the US demonstrates. By 2003,
American companies were seeking ‘eggs’ from attractive, intelli-
gent Australian women.
Controversies about genetics are concentrated in two main areas
– manipulated changes in food plants, and in humans. An early
technique in the field of plants was the addition of genes to major
crop varieties that provide them with a built-in insecticide, or the
ability to resist a herbicide that would destroy all other growing
things in the sprayed area. These are seen by their proponents as
valuable, because they eliminate or reduce the volume of crop
spraying. In areas growing cotton, which is notoriously subject to
pest attack, it has been possible to reduce aerial insecticide spraying
by as much as 60 per cent. However, GM crops generally involve
users buying seeds as part of a package that includes the same
company’s herbicides. Almost 80 per cent of those developed in the
West are of this type. The policies of the giant agrochemical multi-
nationals have been summarized this way: ‘Today 70 per cent of
112 DIRECTIONS
genetically modified crops are engineered not to improve their

food value, but to make them more dependent on the seed
companies’ own brand agrochemicals.’7
Opponents of genetic modification claim that the genetic
changes might spread to other plants, including those grown by
natural or organic growers, who do not use chemical fertilizers or
poisons. Cases of weeds becoming immune to weedkillers by
picking up genes from modified canola were reported in Canada
in 2000. Just how high is the risk into the future? Jeremy Rifkin
considers ‘It is likely that we will be plagued by genetic pollution
… because of the volume of new introductions and because the
introductions are so novel… My bet is that agricultural
biotechnology is going to be one of the great disasters of corporate
capitalist history.’8 Among the products under consideration is a
new class of seeds labelled ‘terminators’ – possibly the most
disastrous choice of a product name in history. The objective is to
create plants which sterilize their own seeds. Other seeds have
had genes added from deadly venom-producing spiders, to create
plants capable of poisoning insect predators.
At the root of much of the opposition to GM food has been the
possibility that a few multinationals might come to control
decisive areas of food production, because they, and only they, can
provide the chemicals necessary to grow that food. The top five
companies, controlling almost the entire Western market for
genetically modified food, have the power to manipulate plants
so they must be grown with the fertilizers and insecticides for
which these conglomerates hold the patents. The possibility
therefore exists of the price and supply of GM crops being
manipulated if they come to be grown extensively – many voices
have expressed the fear of an enormous and dangerous accretion
of global political power to these multinationals.
These areas of concern became qualified by disclosures in 2002
that China already has a major independent genetic engineering
capacity, second only to the US, with 600 workers and 80 DNA
sequencing machines. China’s completion of a draft sequence for
rice was announced in that year. China plans to export GM seeds
to other developing countries – a development of huge
IN THE GENES 113
importance because by 2005, China was on the point of officially

deciding to adopt mass production of genetically modified rice.
Rice is the world’s most important and most consumed food-
grain. Experimental plots planted over the last few years are said
to have improved yields 6 to 9 per cent, and reduced pesticide use
by 80 per cent.
Cotton modified to resist pests and diseases is already being
grown by millions of Chinese farmers. The fact that aquifers in
many parts of the world have water too saline for food crops has
opened up an important area of research. Salt tolerant tomatoes
have been created, and work is proceeding on other plants. This
includes the transfer of genes from plants that are already salt
tolerant, such as mangroves. Technology of this kind is highly
advanced in China, where scientists are working on plants
resistant to salt, pests and cold; it represents a significant part of
the total world effort on plant biotechnology.
GM crops may indeed help to alleviate malnutrition and
disease in the developing world – provided the new crops are
designed with that end in mind, and not to meet self-interested
commercial motivations. This issue reached an uneasy stalemate
early in 2000 with the Biosafety Protocol, the first significant
treaty controlling international trade in GM organisms. This
treaty recognizes the right of individual nations to ban imports of
GM food, seeds and animal feed they consider might have an
adverse effect on health or biological diversity.
But do we risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater?
Trees that grow faster, leaner meat, food freed from its allergy
causing qualities, useful crops able to withstand heat, salinity and
drought, animals and plants more resistant to viral or parasitic
predators, and above all, the promise of crops yielding bigger
harvests – all these things have been promised by the proponents
of genetic engineering. At the Hebrew University in Israel
researchers have developed a gene which they believe may speed
up the growth rate of food crops by more than 50 per cent. An
American developer has bred genetically modified salmon that
grow ten times faster than ordinary fish, and can become as heavy
as an average man.9
114 DIRECTIONS
One of the more remarkable and potentially most valuable

successes has been a bright yellow rice grain which contains beta
carotene – so called ‘golden rice’. Beta carotene, the precursor of
vitamin A, is present in the leaves and stalk of the rice plant, but
is normally absent in the grain. Vitamin A deficiency, which
reduces resistance to infection, is a widespread condition, leading
in severe cases to blindness and subsequent early death of
hundreds of thousands of children in rice growing areas. In 2005
golden rice2 was announced, a new strain that provides 23 times
more beta-carotene than the earlier one.
All these developments indicate that the genetic engineering
of food is here to stay, and that it could be useful if it is properly
controlled and directed. But is it the only way? Hans Herren
argues that the huge sums being spent on genetic changes to
make plants pest resistant are reducing funding for the study of
natural predators, which would do the same job at less cost.10
Herren was responsible for finding a natural predator to control
the mealy bug, which had severely reduced the yield of cassava,
a major source of carbohydrates in Africa.
Three of the most controversial possibilities of genetic
engineering of humans are the manipulation of genes to create
‘designer’ babies of the sex and characteristics stipulated by the
parents on an order form, the creation of human clones, and
genetic changes which may alter human behaviour. Whether or
not any of these things happen, legally or illegally, will be a matter
of the greatest concern. There is a considerable risk that by 2030,
they will take place illegally unless there is effective international
policing of the technologies. The possibilities are endless and spill
over into the wildest conjectures of science fiction – the creation of
slave classes, even armies, made up of identical individuals, new
individuals of strange, even bizarre, appearance and personality
created for specific purposes, such as mindless repetitive work,
prostitution, killing. Those who dismiss such conjectures as
totally fanciful might be given pause for thought by some other
apparently improbable happenings in genetic engineering which
are already facts. University of Hawaii scientists have created
mice from freeze dried sperm which can be stored, perhaps
IN THE GENES 115
indefinitely, then used by simply adding water. By adding genes

which make certain jellyfish glow green to this dried sperm, they
created green mice.11
The much publicized ‘designer baby’ seems unlikely, since
many desired attributes like intelligence and beauty have no single
gene. Providing them reliably would prove immensely complex,
and well beyond present technology. However, changing the
‘germ line’ of families in specific ways to eliminate hereditary
defects, is a live issue. For instance: a technique called ICSI, intra-
cytoplasmic sperm injection, developed in the early 1990s, makes
parenthood possible for men unable to produce sperm in
quantities likely to achieve natural insemination. Single sperm can
be taken from the testicles and injected into the mother’s egg in a
laboratory. The danger comes from the fact that this basic
infertility can be passed on to any son born of ICSI, due to defects
in the transmitted Y chromosome, which only men can convey to
male offspring. How will that son feel when he grows up, marries,
and finds he and his partner are unable to have children?
This could be corrected by ‘germ line gene repair’, according
to a leading reproductive specialist, Professor Roger Short, so that
the defect in the Y chromosome conveyed to the son would be
corrected by adding the missing genes.12 This, unfortunately,
brings us to the very edge of the taboo. Once particular germ line
changes are accepted, the path lies ahead to others aimed at
‘designing’ children.
However, persuasive arguments for germ line gene repair
have been advanced by the Professor of Fertility Studies at the
University of London, Robert Winston.13 Lord Winston points to
the possibility of eliminating diseases with hereditary elements,
like diabetes, Alzheimer’s, even heart disease, by removing the
causative genes. The fact that some people carry powerful
protective genes against many diseases has opened up a whole
new potential for medical treatment, based on transferring these
‘protectors’ to the germ line of people who lack them, so their
offspring can be born free of the potential for those illnesses.
Professor Winston has also identified factors that are likely to
make ‘designer children’ a less than attractive proposition,
116 DIRECTIONS
including uncertainty as to the results, the imposition of traits

which might seem attractive now, but which may not seem so in
the future of that family, and the complexity of the genetic basis to
‘desirable’ qualities such as beauty and intelligence.
The provision of children of the sex required by the parents is
already on offer in several countries. The sex of the foetus can be
determined in time to permit early abortion. This has already
caused trouble in the world’s two most populous countries, India
and China, where cultural influences make boy children
preferable. Indeed, such testing is now illegal in India, where the
proportion of girls in the total number of births has dropped
significantly in recent decades. There is already a shortage of
women of marriageable age in China, for similar reasons.
The whole issue of children being conceived other than by
sexual joining has been controversial on a fairly general and
emotive basis – ‘scientists should not play God’ – since the birth of
the first ‘test tube baby’, Louise Brown, in 1978. But since then
more than half a million children have resulted from the tech-
nology, to the benefit of parents who would otherwise have
remained childless. These procedures involve treating the woman
with hormones that result in her producing perhaps 15 eggs. These
are fertilized with sperm from the father or a donor, and produce
embryonic human beings, several of which are implanted into the
mother’s womb several days later. A normal pregnancy then
ensues, and all being well the mother gives birth to a healthy child,
or in many cases, several children. The unused embryos are frozen,
a state in which they remain viable. If the initial pregnancy does
not succeed, or the couple want more children later, the spare
embryos can then be used. However, in almost every case not all of
the frozen embryos are required. Should they be returned to room
temperature, and allowed to die, or should they be kept for other
purposes, for example to be donated, or sold, to another couple?
The embryos could also be used for research, such as to provide
‘lines’ for stem cell research, but whether or not this should be
permitted is a source of major controversy.
Prenatal genetic diagnosis is now becoming common. Its
purpose is to establish whether an embryo in the womb has
IN THE GENES 117
serious abnormalities, for example, Down’s Syndrome, to allow

parents the option of informed early termination. Selection of
embryos for in vitro fertilization procedures are also possible to
ensure ‘disease free’ children. The evolution of DNA ‘chips’ to
screen hundreds of genes at a time will allow such a check to
become much more comprehensive. The world will need to
decide at what point rejection of an embryo is acceptable. Where
a disability like Down’s Syndrome is involved the issue seems
fairly straightforward, but what about the presence of genes
considered to predispose for suicide or alcoholism? Studies of
twins who have been brought up separately indicate that as much
as half of human behaviour has genetic origins.14 Could such traits
in individuals be altered by genetic engineering and, if so, should
they be? Genetic engineering modifying behaviour in an animal
was achieved in 2002.15 Mice, which tend to be cautious and not
particularly social in their behaviour, were made bolder and more
sociable by transferring a single gene from another rodent, the
prairie vole, which is gregarious.
Genetic research opens up the possibility of cloning – a clone
is an individual genetically identical to another individual, as is
the case with identical twins. The successful production of the
world’s first artificially cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep, in 1997,
immediately aroused extensive controversy, and the banning of
experiments into human cloning in most countries. The process of
cloning turned out to be relatively simple technology, requiring
the removal of the nucleus from the egg cell and its replacement
by a fragment of material from the animal to be cloned – in the
case of Dolly, from the ‘mother’s’ udder. It became apparent that
cloning other animals, including humans, was feasible.
But, on present knowledge, cloning is done at an enormous
cost – there were 276 failures before Dolly was produced – and
she began to show signs of premature aging in 1999. Her life was
ended in February 2003 after being diagnosed with progressive
lung disease; she had only reached half the lifespan of a typical
sheep. Later experiments in animal cloning have also resulted in
a high wastage of embryos, a high spontaneous abortion rate, a
large number of malformed foetuses – so much so that a veteran
118 DIRECTIONS
of cloning described it as ‘incredibly inefficient, and also

dangerous’.16 According to some estimates, as many as 400 eggs
might be needed to produce enough embryos to create a human
clone. Fifty surrogate mothers would be required. Perhaps eight
to ten pregnancies would result – and one normal baby ‘might’
eventuate. Also, as Lord Winston points out, the exact cloning of
humans may not be possible in any case, since significant
amounts of DNA in the cell occur outside the nucleus, and
because nurture and environment play such a large part in the
development of an individual.17
Perhaps the most promising and exciting area of cloning does
not seek to reproduce individual humans or animals at all. This
therapeutic cloning uses embryonic stem cells, which can develop
into almost any of the specialized cells that make up the human
body. In theory this technique may be able to provide
replacements for diseased or malfunctioning organs – kidneys, a
liver, or more immediately, specialized tissues such as the
dopamine producing cells of the brain, the lack of which appears
to cause Parkinson’s disease. The area has been controversial
because the stem cells have had to be extracted from week old
aborted human embryos. However, it is now possible to
reproduce stem cells in a culture, and they have been found to
exist in adults, taking much of the force from this objection. The
technique involves taking the nucleus of a non-reproductive cell
from the patient, and placing this in an unfertilized egg from
which the nucleus has been removed. The resulting embryo will
begin to produce stem cells, which can be reproduced and
perhaps specialized. The big advantage of these tissues grown
from stem cells is that they are unlikely to be rejected by the
recipient. Research is already well advanced in Finland, the US
and Brazil, into the means of directing stem cells to produce
human teeth. Persons otherwise forced to use dental plates or
implants may be able, quite literally, to grow a third set of teeth.
Nevertheless, it is fair to say that this work has a long way to go,
and that, based on the rate of success by 2005, it would be
premature to predict the successful manufacture of replacement
organs from embryonic stem cells in the foreseeable future. The
IN THE GENES 119
first are likely to be dopamine producing brain cells designed to

treat Parkinsonism – ‘we are talking a five to ten year timeframe’.18
This science needs time and room to develop. Because of this,
any attempt to set priorities ‘what needs doing’, would be
inappropriate and presumptuous. However, it is not too difficult
to imagine dangerous and grotesque consequences from
uncontrolled genetic engineering – and great advantages from the
science if it is well directed. Lay women and men ought at least to
know something about it – because it has such huge implications
for the future world. A body of knowledge in society could help
ensure a proper degree of transparency in the technologies, and
the necessary controls, which could both be most efficiently
organized at the international level.
C HAPTER 10
T HE VALUES OF THE S EA
Fish populations are declining in most parts of the world, but as

with other problems, there is a feasible answer. According to Dr
Colin Roberts of York University, when fishing is forbidden in
about a third of the area of a fishing ground, populations recover
– so much so that yields can double in as little as seven years.
Speaking at an international conference on marine protected areas
in Melbourne in 2005, Dr Roberts said research had established
that it was worthwhile for governments to subsidize fishermen
while fish stocks recovered in these protection areas. And indeed,
in 2003, an earlier conference had advocated protecting a third of
the world’s oceans by 2012. The bad news is that barely 1 per cent
of marine habitats are so protected, and there has been a major
increase in the number of large boats, many registered under flags
of convenience, carrying out illegal fishing. Humanity seems
determined to maltreat the oceans and their denizens.
This is not good enough – recent discoveries and research are
signalling that much needed materials for the infrastructure of
sustainability, and perhaps much of the additional food protein
the world will need, could come from that 70 per cent of the
planet’s surface which is sea. Hence there are very good reasons
to protect it from further damage, and exploit it responsibly. The
idea that we know more about the outer planets than about the
THE VALUES OF THE SEA 121
ocean deeps is now due for change with the development of robot
drilling and exploration probes, which can operate miles deep in
toxic environments no human miner could approach. Investi-
gations using modern machinery already indicate that a great
deal of the world’s mineral reserves are under the sea1 – global
assets that can only be valued at trillions of dollars. At least three
submerged sites ‘probably have values in the billions of dollars’.2
These assets, and the increasing feasibility of mining them, bring
into question earlier predictions that the world is within decades
of exhausting its stocks of essential minerals.
Nevertheless, most undersea minerals will be expensive to
mine, requiring technologies yet to be developed, able to operate
in oceans as much as 2 miles deep. It will be some time before
these new mineral and energy reserves can come on stream, but
there is no doubt they will be needed. Because of this, they
warrant major development as soon as possible. It has long been
known that virtually every mineral, including the rare and
precious metals, occurs in minute quantities in seawater. There
are rich deposits in the silts in deep pools in the Red Sea. One of
these alone, the Atlantis 2 Deep, is estimated to contain billions of
dollars worth of gold, silver, zinc and copper in 94 million tons of
metal rich muds. More concentrated resources exist in millions of
sea nodules, mineral laden objects typically about the size of a
tennis ball. These, containing up to 35 per cent manganese, as well
as copper, nickel and cobalt, litter the sea bed in huge quantities,
but at great depths – as much as 3 miles. Those in the Pacific
Ocean alone have been estimated at 1.5 trillion tons.
But most promising of all are the fantastic environments where
submarine volcanic vents create tower-like seabed structures rich
in minerals. In parts of the Pacific rim, such as Indonesia, chains
of active volcanoes frequently extend beyond the coast onto the
ocean floor. Mineral deposits, silver, copper, zinc and gold among
them, are formed when very hot mineral laden water emerges
into deep seawater that is close to freezing point. The minerals
have accumulated into towers and chimney-like structures,
sometimes as high as 200 feet (65 metres). No human diver could
stay alive in these sulphurous, toxic areas, bubbling with methane
122 DIRECTIONS
gas, where mineral eating microbes may have been the first life on
Earth. However, mining using robot machinery remotely
controlled from a ship on the surface may be possible, and if so,
will help to maintain the world’s supply of the scarcer metals. The
prototypes for such robot machinery already exist.
It is not yet possible to assess the quantities of minerals
available around volcanic vents on the ocean floor, other than the
general statement that they must be very large, and that most
have not yet been located. However, two large deposits near
Japan are estimated to contain minerals worth $16 billion. Other
big resources are being investigated around seabed volcanoes
northeast of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi,3 and in waters
around Papua New Guinea. The richest concentration of minerals
ever seen has been reported in a field in the Bismarck Sea, which
contains gold and concentrations as high as 10 per cent of copper
and 20 per cent of zinc.
Submarine volcanic activity arises from the fact that the ocean
floors are not static. Movements of the tectonic plates on which
the continents float are continuous, creating not only earthquakes
but also volcanic emissions – magma, smoke, even geysers – miles
below the surface. These have brought, and will continue to bring,
minerals to the ocean floor – a perpetual metal factory.
Much of this vast mineral wealth exists under the high seas –
ocean areas outside national territorial waters. Who should be
entitled to mine them, and on what terms? This could only be
decided by a world authority – indeed, the 1982 Law of the Sea
agreements, which extended the exclusive use of the seas to 200
miles off the coasts of maritime nations, also foreshadowed the
necessity for some form of global authority over high seas mineral
deposits which are the ‘common heritage of mankind’. As a result,
the International Seabed Authority, representing 135 nations, was
established and in 2001 began ‘to organize and control all mineral
related activities in the international seabed areas beyond the
limits of national jurisdiction’.4 Formulating regulations for
prospecting deep seabed metals was well advanced by 2005, with
an implementing target set for the following year. Interested
contractors will be required to respect the marine environment.
Coordinated use of this huge asset could be vital to the

construction of the new energy infrastructure which will be
needed before 2030.
The increasing level of pollution and exploitation of the sea
and the creatures that live in it remains one of the more alarming
attacks by humans on nature. For instance:
• Around 700 million gallons of oil get into the oceans each
year. Tanker accidents are always big news because they can
cause heavy pollution and disproportionate damage to the
environment in limited areas. However, they are responsible
for only a small percentage of ocean pollution – around 40
million gallons. Three times as much comes from tankers
illegally washing out their tanks at sea. The largest single
source of pollution is from industrial activity on the land, oil
runoff from roads and improperly disposed of motor oils –
well over 300 million gallons.5 Oil well explosions and
blowouts are also a major cause.
• An estimated 1 million seabirds and 100,000 whales,
dolphins and seals are killed each year when they try to eat,
or are entangled in, the hundreds of thousands of tons of
plastic dumped into the sea annually. Since most of this
plastic is not biodegradable, it continues to be a permanent
danger. Discarded plastic fishing nets and lines account for
150,000 tons of this. About half the world’s salt marshes and
mangrove forests, major fish breeding areas, have already
been destroyed,6 and as much as 30 per cent of coral reefs are
in a critical condition.
• Current fishing practices result in the waste of about a quarter
of the world’s fishing catch of around 90 million tons a year,
and cause the destruction of hundreds of thousands more
dolphins, turtles and seabirds. More than half the marine fish
populations in US waters is overfished – this means they are
depleting faster than they can replace themselves, even
though the US imports 40 per cent of its fish.
• ‘Toxic tides’ all over the world are resulting in warnings that
fish caught on coastlines are too poisonous to eat because of
124 DIRECTIONS
high concentrations of contaminants like mercury, DDT and

PCBs (polychlorinated byphenyls).7
The planet’s smaller seas, generally bordered by highly

populated areas, suffer most from pollution. The Mediterranean,
which is almost tideless and has little natural self cleansing
capacity, remains heavily polluted, in spite of an extraordinary
plethora of plans and commissions of enquiry. The North Sea is
another problem area. The nations bordering the North Sea are
concerned, but there is little evidence of adequate practical
efforts to improve matters. Large quantities of pollution are still
carried into the sea by the Rhine River. Russia’s Aral Sea is
considered virtually dead, its fishing boats are rusting skeletons
in the lifeless shallows, its waters are heavily polluted by
pesticides and fertilizers.
The dumping of nuclear waste in the sea was banned in 1983
when it became evident that radioactive plumes in the oceans
did not remain localized, but could spread immense distances.
The classic case is that revealed by the Sellafield Study. During
the 1970s the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Britain
discharged caesium 137 and iodine 129 into the Irish Sea. This
was later identified in large amounts – greater than the back-
ground level from nuclear weapons testing – in Arctic waters as
far east as Canada. The plume had been spread by the
Norwegian current north of Scandinavia into the Barents Sea.
Pollution of the sea has driven some marine species to
extinction or close to it, although efforts have been mustered to
protect and breed endangered species in captivity. Probably the
most important development in marine species preservation has
been the international agreement in 1985 to prevent whaling,
although some nations, such as Russia and Japan, still hunt
whales, allegedly for ‘research’ reasons.
Commercial fishing demonstrates a need for much more
rigorous control by an international authority than is the case at
present. Properly managed, fish are the best way to provide
adequate protein food for the world. Already 25 per cent of the
world’s fish comes from controllable fish farms, and a large
extension of this figure is desirable, provided it is not maintained

by unsustainable exploitation of small sea fish to feed the farmed
fish. It has been estimated that sustainable fishing of the oceans
for food might be approximately 100 million tons a year – not a
great deal more than the 90 million tons now extracted. However,
that figure could only be maintained by careful evaluation of the
breeding stock of commercial fish species, and especially by
eliminating present wasteful methods of fishing.
In mid 2003, a review of several studies concluded that the
world’s fisheries were ‘in a far worse state than anyone thought’.
Each study ‘told a similar story of fish stocks crashing within
years of the arrival of industrial fishing’.8 These conclusions
derive in part from a 10 year research study showing that fish
caught now are much smaller than those taken 50 years ago –
typically as little as half the weight.9
Tuna often swim in close association with dolphin. When the
less scrupulous commercial tuna fishermen see dolphin they put
out large areas of nets to catch the tuna swimming beneath and
behind them. The dolphin are caught with the tuna – more than a
100,000 dolphins a year are killed this way in the east Pacific
fisheries. Huge nets and ‘longlines’ – as much as 80 miles long
with tens of thousands of hooks – are undiscriminating killers of
fish, mammal and bird life. Overfishing of North Sea herring
brought stocks almost to extinction by 1975, resulting in the
necessity to shut down the fishery until breeding could provide a
natural recovery. The cod fishery, producing 300,000 tons a year in
the 1980s, had fallen to around 100,000 tons in 1999 due to stricter
fishing quotas, but in spite of that, and possibly partly due to
climatic reasons, cod numbers continued to decline. By 2002 the
European Union Fisheries Commission was forecasting the
probability of a virtual shutdown of the cod fishery, although by
2005 it had been decided the fishery could continue with reduced
quotas. These diminishing catches represent an economic disaster
for the villages and towns that have relied on fishing as an
industry for centuries. Forty years ago there were 50,000
fishermen in Britain – by 2002 this had declined to 16,000, with
further heavy reductions imminent. Overfishing of the Atlantic
126 DIRECTIONS
cod cost the jobs of 30,000 Canadian fishermen after the Grand
Banks fishery was shut down in 1992.
Unfortunately the lessons from these fishery failures have not
really been learned. Governments set fishing quotas, but these are
regularly exceeded. Modern methods – using heavily capitalized
and mechanized fishing boats – can destroy entire fish
populations in large areas of the sea. Many use fine mesh nets,
which kill small fish as well as large, severely restricting the
quantities remaining to breed for the future. There are twice as
many fishing boats than the world’s fisheries can support.10
Is the answer to ‘farm’ the oceans, simply by dropping
nutrients into the water, and waiting for plankton, and the food
chain stemming from it, to increase? Would this be a lavish source
of cheap protein for the developing world and at the same time
help to sequester carbon dioxide in the oceans? At least seven
patents and four initial experiments in this area existed by 2002.
Research groups in Norway and Japan are studying this idea, and
three major universities are working on it.11 The spokesperson for
one group claimed that each floating factory, designed to make
ammonia from the air and ocean water using solar technology,
could stimulate the growth of 370,000 tons of sardines a year. This
would provide adequate protein for 3 million people at a cost of
about 8 cents ($0.08) a day per person.12
Michael Markels, an American chemical engineer, says that 60
per cent of marine life occurs in the 2 per cent of the ocean
surfaces that is nutrient rich.13 He estimates that 25,000 tons of
fertilizer – iron, trace elements, nitrogen and phosphorus – would
result in increased fish production of 50 million tons. Markels has
concluded an agreement with the government of the Marshall
Islands, in the south Pacific, to lease almost 2 million square miles
of its exclusive economic zone, an area virtually devoid of fish, to
experiment with the technology.
It has, however, already proved controversial. While phyto-
plankton in the seas do absorb as much carbon dioxide as all the
trees on Earth, and could be vastly increased by fertilization, some
ecologists warn of decreased biodiversity in the oceans and the
possibility of a depletion of fish in the tropics if the Southern
Ocean, perhaps the most promising area, is fertilized extensively.

One study says: ‘If implemented on a large scale ocean fertilization
would, by design, change the ecology of the oceans … the long
term consequences of which are a cause for great concern.’14 Some
marine scientists warn that fertilization could create domination of
algae that produce toxins, or reduce oxygen in seawater, resulting
in the mass death of fish. Nevertheless, the potential to dramat-
ically and cheaply increase the world’s supplies of protein –
always a scarce commodity – seems so great that this technology,
if it can be properly controlled, could be important. Meanwhile
ocean warming has resulted in a significant drop in the number of
phytoplankton in the world’s oceans.
All these concerns return us to a recurring theme, the need for
proper international supervision of human affairs – in this case a
global Authority of the Sea. Among other things, it could regulate
and control present areas of sea pollution, establish mandatory
minimum standards for oil tanker design, closely supervise
nuclear facilities and other industrial sources of pollution,
establish safe and sustainable standards, if possible, for large scale
fish farming by adding nutrients in present ‘barren’ sea regions,
and farming of krill at levels which do not deprive species higher
up the food chain. Such requirements suggest the diversion of
much of the world’s navies into a maritime police force,
Oceanguard. And there is one other – like slavery, sea piracy is
very much back in the world today, so much so that the US
deputy assistant secretary of state, Matthew Daley, in 2005
referred to the sea as ‘the most unregulated of spaces’. In that year
there were more than 200 attacks on merchant ships, and 300
seamen were killed, kidnapped or disappeared. Ships, their crews
and cargo, regularly vanish completely as a result of attacks by
organized pirates, using fast motor-boats and modern weapons.
128 DIRECTIONS

• Establishment of a Oneworld agency with access to a sea
force – Oceanguard – made up of elements seconded
from the world’s navies. This might be an extension of
the International Seabed Authority with greater powers,
including control of illegal oil dumping from tankers and
illegal fishing, and prevention of piracy on merchant
shipping.
• Supervision of fish and krill populations and effective
control of takes to maintain sustainability.
• Development of fish farming technology and ocean
fertilization at sustainable and safe levels.
• Control and eventual repair of ocean pollution.
• Financing and establishing extensive marine protection
areas with the objective of increasing current fish stocks.
C HAPTER 11
M ULTINATIONALS : G OOD
B USINESS OR B AD ?
Multinational corporations have the power and resources to

introduce the sustainable manufacture required for necessary
change. How much are they likely to cooperate? On present
showing, not much, other than some elaborate public relations
exercises. The world power groupings of which they are such a
significant part seem more inclined to push their own short-term
interests, to favour ‘islands’ of prosperity, rather than engage the
needs of humanity as a whole. In this area, perhaps more than any
other, a fresh start is necessary, using strategies compliant with
both axioms.
One doesn’t have to research too far to find that multinationals
generally get a bad press. It is a part of conventional wisdom that
there are faceless management hierarchies out there that are
interested only in dominating as much business as possible
worldwide, making as much money as possible, and doing as
little as possible to the benefit of the world in the meantime.
Crimes ranging from harassment, massive tax evasion and even
murder are convincingly attributed to them. If there is doom to
come, then in the popular view the multinationals are probably
hastening its arrival. Novelist David Cornwall – who writes
under the name of John le Carre – after considerable research into
the area, said: ‘The biggest delusion of our times is that great
130 DIRECTIONS
corporations have an ethical centre. They have absolutely no

ethical or moral centre. I think we are dealing with an octopus
that really must be attacked by public opinion. Multinational
companies are beginning to replace nations.’1
There is substantial evidence to support these views, and
evidence also of limited and essentially self damaging business
policies. Is this due to insufficiently trained management? Too
much specialization? While a cost accountant is perhaps good at
changing three brass screws to three steel ones and saving a few
cents in a $100 appliance, he may not have enough knowledge of,
or interest in, long-term issues that affect the organization’s
future. So what? If the steel screws rust out and the gadget falls
apart, why … that’s good for business! But is it, in the long term?
Perhaps corporations are so large, so amorphous, that they are
unmanageable. Is there any other reason why some multi-
nationals adopt policies that effectively increase poverty and
damage the environment, when good management would see
that, even in the shorter term, these might affect their own
interests, among many other things, by steadily eroding their
markets? This was regarded as a factor in the decision by Coca-
Cola to cut its staff globally to an unprecedented extent early in
2000 – thereby reducing the market even further for its product,
and other products. Falling demand in many places, but notably
in Russia, was one factor in the dismissal of 13 per cent of Coca-
Cola’s 29,000 staff. ‘Downsizing’ in a host of other enterprises has
been attributed to falling markets. A move by British soap giant
Unilever into home cleaning and other services was in part
ascribed to ‘markets in the developing world [that] are not
growing fast enough to compensate for stagnating performance
in the developed world’.2
Large industry in its present state can scarcely be described as
efficient. The world is awash with overproduction – for instance,
at the turn of the millennium, many car makers were operating
well under capacity. An unkind, but perhaps just, assessment
could be that many multinationals are keeping afloat by having
things made cheaply in the developing world and selling them
with very high markups in their home markets.
MULTINATIONALS: GOOD BUSINESS OR BAD? 131
A little later in this chapter we shall look at some of the bad and
good manifestations of transnational corporations. But there is an
initial caveat: while it is human nature to seek something
generalized – and preferably mysterious – to hate or to blame, it is
misleading to look on the world’s 500 plus multinationals as birds
of a feather. They vary widely in their size, their usefulness, their
rapacity and their degree of concern for public welfare. But one
and all they are concerned with making money. Grant them that,
and assured and growing markets, and much might be done.
Of the 150 largest global economies in 2005, 95 were multi-
national corporations, although the top 21 are governments.
Topping the corporations is the American Walmart Stores, worth
almost $300 billion.3 Multinationals are, accordingly, businesses
with the power to influence the world decisively, and no amount
of demonstrations, banner waving and fulmination is likely to
change that. If they are capable of the degree of flexibility
necessary through self regulation, so much the better – if not,
control by a global economic authority would become necessary,
and would be absolutely justified. This authority would need to
be very tough, with clear and definite powers, but in terms of
Axiom One it would need to be structured to benefit the multi-
nationals, coordinate their work, help find them new business,
and offer them subsidies where needed to make sure useful things
are done which might not otherwise be done. The huge Japanese
instrumentality METI could provide a structural model.4 Such an
authority could make a careful assessment of world needs, not
only at present but also in the future, and ensure efficient meshing
of supply and demand through the development of new and
useful areas of manufacture. Since predictable and reliable
demand drives business, this does not seem unreasonable.
How then, might Axiom One apply in a detailed case? In
Chapter 2 the possibility of a major new industry for poor
countries producing fuel hydrogen via solar generated electricity
is canvassed. If Axiom One is to be taken into account, the extent
to which the financial interests of oil companies – among the
world’s most powerful multinationals – are affected is likely to be
critical. Existing pipelines could be converted to move hydrogen
132 DIRECTIONS
gas, and existing oil tanker fleets modified to ship it to markets in

the metropolitan powers in liquefied form. Planned shifts in
direction, say from defence weaponry to alternate energy tech-
nology, carefully managed and executed, are therefore feasible if
multinational corporations do not see themselves as threatened
by the necessary social and economic changes.
Highly ambiguous in this context are the factories built by
multinationals in the hundreds of ‘free trade zones’ around the
world. Along the Mexican side of the border with the US, in Latin
American states like Honduras and Guatemala, and in Asian
countries like Sri Lanka, huge industrial complexes have sprung up
in which millions of workers, mostly young women, work long
hours in bad conditions for wages that are only a fraction of those
paid to workers in the home states of those multinationals. Typical
examples are the maquillas of Latin America, where wages are as low
as $50 a month for 12 hour working days. These zones are
characteristically in ‘poverty belts’ where a lot of cheap labour is
available – cheap labour that is expected to work without complaint,
often in crowded, unhealthy, even dangerous conditions. As many
as 20 million people are now employed in the free trade zones.
According to John Pilger, an Indonesian worker is paid 40 pence to
make a pair of fashionable sports shoes that sell in London for £100.5
Apologists for the system make one simple point in justifi-
cation: if it were not for the free trade zones these people would
have no work and no money at all. They are not compelled to
work there, they do so by their own choice. The argument is
plainly not unreasonable. However, the further consequences
must be considered. People working for low wages compete with
others elsewhere, contributing to unemployment, falling wages
and falling demand in real terms globally. Mandatory doubling of
wages and improved working conditions in these places would
add very little to the eventual retail prices of the products. A
ruling such as this would necessarily have to apply equally to all
corporations throughout the world. It might be done by self
regulation, assisted by trade boycotts against offenders, but on
present showing this seems unlikely. Probably only a world trade
authority able to show its teeth could do it.
While it has been said that any publicity is good publicity, this
is not really true, as events in Italy in l976, and in India in 1984,
demonstrate. Driving north out of the industrial tangle of Milan
towards the lakes and the mountains one passes an exit from the
autostrada to the town of Seveso, where, on 10 July 1976 a
chemical reactor at a company called ICMESA – a subsidiary of
the Swiss chemical multinational Hoffman La Roche – over-
heated. That reactor was used to produce TCP (trichlorophenol),
from which was made hexachlorophene, a proven harmful
disinfectant, the use of which had by then been restricted in many
parts of the world. TCP was also used to make a weedkiller, 245T,
which was to become notorious as one of the main ingredients in
Agent Orange, used by the US during the Vietnam war to destroy
vast areas of Vietnamese forest. TCP is very toxic and is still
causing horrendous birth defects in the third generation after the
war in Vietnam. But when it is overheated, it produces a dioxin
which is far more dangerous still.
As the Seveso reactor overheated a safety valve opened,
releasing a huge light grey cloud into the air. Very soon, dust-like
particles dropped from it on to everything below, condensing into
minute white crystals.6 Meanwhile, the cloud also settled over
much of Seveso and the surrounding countryside, causing an
intense acrid smell, and burning the eyes and throats of the
people exposed to it. It was nearly a week before it became known
that the harmful element was a dioxin that is the most toxic
substance known, more dangerous than cyanide or arsenic. It is
odourless, invisible and tasteless. Soon hundreds of people were
ill. Children developed masses of ugly skin rashes – chloroacne –
others had blinding headaches, nausea and dizziness. Domestic
animals and fowls began to die in the hundreds. Large areas had
to be evacuated. A medical survey in 2000 revealed that men
exposed to high levels of dioxin in Seveso had fathered only 44
per cent of male births, compared with the normal 51.3 per cent.
For men younger than 19 at the time of the accident, the
percentage of sons born was only 38.
In December 1984, 40 tons of a poisonous gas, methyl
isocyanate, were released from a factory in the central Indian
134 DIRECTIONS
industrial city of Bhopal, run by a subsidiary of Union Carbide.

The consequences of this, the worst industrial accident in history,
were appalling. As the poisonous gas drifted through the densely
populated residential areas around the factory, as many as 8000
people were killed, according to one estimate.7 Around 50,000
more were disabled by breathing problems and temporary blind-
ness, and by 2000 as many as half a million people were considered
to have suffered some after effect. Investigations revealed the
insecticide plant to be understaffed, with substandard safety and
operating procedures. Union Carbide was ordered to pay $470
million in compensation.
These are by no means isolated incidents. There have been
many others, among the more notorious the poisoning of
thousands of people in the Japanese coastal town of Minamata by
mercury wastes from industry, and the Love Canal contamination
in the US.
By contrast, the Merck and Co drug company has, over the last
18 years, given free treatment to 40 million people in 35 countries
against a major developing world scourge – river blindness. Bites
from a small black fly infect humans with millions of tiny
parasites, which sooner or later affect the eyes and cause blind-
ness. When a Merck researcher found a drug, Mectizan, that could
combat the condition, the company decided, in 1987, to provide it
free for as long as it took to control river blindness worldwide.
Since then more than a billion Mectizan tablets have been
provided free. As a result perhaps 2 million people have escaped
blindness, and areas of agricultural land estimated to be as large as
Britain can be used again. In 2001 Merck announced that it would
donate $50 million towards HIV/AIDS control and care in
Botswana, in coordination with a donation of the same amount by
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – one of many such from
the Gates family.
Ray Anderson was the co-chair of President Clinton’s Council
on Sustainable Development. He is also chairman and chief
executive of a multinational corporation, Interface Inc, which is
one of the world’s largest carpet makers, manufacturing in 33
centres in 6 countries and selling into 110 countries. Speaking on
an Australian radio programme in 1999 Anderson said: ‘The

economy is the wholly owned subsidiary of the environment and
there’s no way the economy, the child, can prosper without a
healthy parent. The parent is constantly infusing capital into the
child. The economy draws natural capital from the environment,
from the Earth. No CEO with a subsidiary that required a
constant infusion of capital would keep that subsidiary very long,
and nature is a better manager than any CEO I know, and capable
of being far more ruthless.’8
Anderson defined seven objectives his companies were
working towards:
1 To eliminate waste.
2 To ensure that any manufacturing emissions were benign.
3 To close the loop on materials – basically to recycle materials,
to ‘harvest yesteryear’s carpets and bring back … those
previous organic molecules’.
4 To drive all these processes with renewable energy.
5 To make transportation services more efficient.
6 To involve customers and distributors in the recycling
process.
7 To literally reinvent commerce itself.
Toward this final objective, Interface uses a business device

mentioned in the introductory chapter of this book – to lease
goods rather than sell them, and in doing this make recycling
virtually automatic. Its EverGreen Lease ‘sells the surface the
carpet delivers. The colour, the texture, the comfort underfoot, the
acoustics, the cleanliness, the functionality, those are the reasons
that people want carpet.’ So ‘we retain ownership and ultimate
liability for the product, intending to convert that liability into an
asset … bringing those carpets back at the end of their useful lives
and giving them life after life’.
Anderson estimated that ‘in our supply chain over the last
four years the amount of material taken from the earth and
processed to produce a dollar income has declined almost 26 per
cent … but the hard part still lies ahead’. Much of this hard part
136 DIRECTIONS
involves replacing materials derived from the petrochemical

industry with natural products. However: ‘We think there’s been
enough carpet already made and we should not have to take
another drop of oil from the earth, once we learn to recycle those
molecules… We want to mine the landfills instead of fill the
landfills because there’s a vast source of feedstock from carpet
that’s already been produced.’
He concluded: ‘Business is the largest, most powerful and most
pervasive, wealthiest, most influential institution on earth and the
one doing the most damage. It’s incumbent on business to take the
leadership and begin to undo the damage to restore the earth.’
The Japanese multinational Fuji-Xerox has also embarked on a
programme in which it leases photocopiers, fax machines and
computer printers rather than sells them, and reconditions worn
out machines to ‘new or better’ in the interest of conservation. The
programme, which guarantees spare parts to keep machines in
use indefinitely, is consciously designed towards sustainability,
but also resulted in significant cost savings to the company
during 2000 and 2001.
There are indeed signs that some major multinationals are
beginning to respond to public concerns – if only because the
general population has the power to affect their finances through
mass boycotts. Millions of people worldwide still refuse to buy
any Nestlé product because of its campaign to persuade mothers
in developing countries to give up protective breast feeding in
favour of a Nestlé bottle feeding product. Boycotts throughout
Europe and elsewhere of service stations owned by Europe’s
biggest business enterprise, Royal Dutch Shell, resulted from its
proposal in 1995 to dump a redundant oil rig, Brent Spar, into the
North Sea. Shell was also involved in controversy because its
oilfields in Nigeria were having a detrimental effect on people
living in Ogoniland, in southern Nigeria, and because of the
suppression of protest by the military government of Nigeria.
This culminated in worldwide concern over the execution of
writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other people, and
claims that Shell had not sufficiently used its influence over the
Nigerian government to save them.
The Nike shoe organization has conceded that it found it

necessary to respond to consumer criticism of its manufacturing
operation.9 Nike began taking global steps to improve its work
environment: ‘Changes have been put in place partly because of
the negative publicity the company received.’ Nike had been
subjected to a massive consumer boycott because of bad working
conditions in factories making its product, especially in
Indonesia.
Consumers of coffee, the world’s largest selling commodity
after oil, can now identify whether it has been grown under
economically just conditions or otherwise. More than 300 demo-
cratically run cooperatives, involving more than half a million of
the world’s four million growers, are part of a non-profit network
in 41 countries which polices the coffee market and controls Fair
Trade Certified labelling. Fair Trade Certified coffee is sold
directly by growers rather than through middlemen, at prices that
are at least twice as profitable to the farmer. After discussions
with Friends of the Earth and other consumer organizations
America’s largest gourmet coffee chain, Starbucks, like hundreds
of smaller outlets, decided in 2000 to market Fair Trade Certified
beans. This followed earlier and similar initiatives in Europe,
where trade certification is also being applied to cocoa, tea and
bananas. However, by September 2002, when the price of coffee
slumped to 43 cents a pound, well below production costs of
about 80 cents, fair trade coffee amounted to less than 1 per cent
of world sales. It has since grown to 3 per cent, and two of the four
global coffee majors, Nestlé and Proctor and Gamble, have
launched fair trade products in some areas.
Use your spending power as a vote. Business, after all, is
competitive – there is little sympathy for rivals for whom things
go wrong. The stick, then, can be wielded effectively by
consumers who have organized themselves to do so, by concen-
trated boycotts on businesses which offend. The world already
has hundreds of consumer organizations, small and large, who
are exerting considerable influence. The internet offers them the
opportunity to exert a great deal more influence, provided they
can combine to that end. Combined internet ‘power buying’ deals
138 DIRECTIONS
(see Chapter 22) offer a powerful weapon. These could be promo-

ted very readily by consumer organizations.
It is up to governments, local and world, to serve up the carrot
– a judicious mix of tax incentives and penalties, subsidies for
useful research and even price subsidies for good products
finding their way on to the market, benefits and security for
companies ready to take part in major coordinated programmes.
The concept of ‘the greater good’ has been raised from time to
time in this book. This is not seen as a moral attitude, but rather
as a hardheaded measurement of ideas, actions and commodities
in terms of their long-term value to the majority of people. A
confederation of citizen and consumer groups could post a
greater good index, graded from one to ten, on the internet, to
help people choose where and how to spend their money.
Consumer action can indeed provide both the carrot and the
stick – the good business gets the action and prospers, the bad one
goes to the wall.

• Establishment of a world coordinating body with decisive
authority over multinational corporations, designed to
promote fair wage and industrial policies, but also to
direct industry towards products likely to benefit the
majority of humans; these measures to be taken in ways
that assist the profitability and productivity of industry
globally.
• Establishment of a coordinating body for consumer
organizations with a responsibility to maintain a ‘com-
mon good’ index, rating manufacturers on such things as
value for money, reliability, durability and utility of
product and costs of service and spare parts.
C HAPTER 12
T HE T ROUBLE WITH
M ONEY
Money is the key to solving most of the problems of the planet,

the universal solvent, the fluid connecting global productive
effort. Plainly, the way money is used and distributed is basic to
the task of eliminating poverty, but most money use seems to
increase poverty rather than otherwise. Is this inevitable, or are
there better ways of using money?
In 1976 a practical idealist who happened to be a Bangladeshi,
the professor of economics at Chittagong University, decided to
do something about poverty. Muhammad Yusuf founded and
developed the Grameen Bank – Grameen means village – with the
simple gesture of making capital totalling $27 available to 42
hardworking and competent people who were, in spite of their
efforts, living on the edge of poverty. Yes, that figure was $27.
Their poverty, as is the case with millions in the developing
world, was due to their oppression by petty but extortionate
moneylenders who exact interest rates as high as 10 per cent a
week. It all began when Yusuf talked with a young woman,
supporting a family of three children, whose livelihood was
making bamboo stools. He found she depended on a petty
capitalist to supply her with materials, which she could not afford
to buy, on the basis that he bought the finished product back from
her. Her ‘profit’ from continuous and unremitting hard and
140 DIRECTIONS
skilled work was the equivalent of 2 cents a day. This pittance, just
enough for the bare necessities of life, ensured her continued
poverty and quasi-slavelike state.
Yusuf’s conviction that small amounts of capital made
available to the very poor could transform their lives got scant
support from conventional bankers. The poor would not repay
the loans, they said; the poor have no collateral. But Yusuf’s faith
was amply justified. In 2004 the Grameen Bank had 3.7 million
borrowers, with average loans of $150. Of these, most are women.
Its repayment record – around 98 per cent – is better than most
conventional banks. It operates in 46,000 villages, more than two-
thirds of all the villages in Bangladesh, with a staff of 12,000.1 It
has inspired almost 200 similar banks in 58 countries. An
important aspect of these banks is the provision of support
networks, including business advice and training, to the people
given loans.
However, Yusuf’s vision did not end with the Grameen Bank.
His declared objective is nothing less than the elimination of
poverty throughout the world by 2050. A first step in this
direction was the Microcredit Summit in Washington in 1997,
attended by 3000 people from 137 countries, designed to reach
and help 100 million of the world’s poorest families by 2005 – that
is, those with an income of less than $1 a day. While this objective
was not quite reached, spectacular progress was made, with 2931
micro-credit institutions established, providing for more than 92
million clients, by the end of 2004. The next summit meeting is
due in 2006. Yusuf firmly declares that charity is no solution to
poverty. It is necessary to give every human being a fair and equal
chance. In a 1998 report2 the United Nations acknowledged the
value of Grameen type schemes, but pointed out difficulties
reaching ‘the poorest of the poor’, including the relatively high
interest rates and rapid repayment times required by many
grassroots banking institutions.
We are at rock bottom here when it comes to assessing
necessity. Death, disease, blindness come only too easily and early
to the world’s poorest. Millions die each year before they reach
the age of five. Consider the desperation that drives hundreds of
THE TROUBLE WITH MONEY 141
thousands into selling their children into bonded labour or

prostitution. These things are, or should be, unacceptable in the
world of the 21st century – they should disappear from our
history of the future.
Access to economic building blocks – the material facilities to
help villagers out of their abject poverty – seems a necessary first
step. This is the rationale behind the Billion Artifacts programme
described in Chapter 26. Beyond this ‘pump priming’, interest
free loans to individuals – even outright grants – could bring the
kind of economic freedom provided by the Grameen Bank and
others like it. Each amount would probably be quite modest in
Western terms.
Using money in these ways plainly has useful and humane
results. Contrast it with money’s predominant influence now. Its
political impact, now greater than ever before in the world, is
perhaps its most dangerous aspect, because it is fundamentally
irresponsible. Big business freely acknowledges that its basic
concern is not public welfare, but to increase profits to share-
holders. Yet even this limited objective is often betrayed.
Concealing or misrepresenting the movement and use of money
has become a major industry, resulting in mass transfers of funds
from the public and shareholders to insider traders.
The collapse of the American energy giant Enron in 2002
prompted this comment: ‘Enron hid billions of dollars in debts
and operating losses inside private partnerships and dizzyingly
complex accounting schemes that were intended to pump up the
buzz about the company and support its inflated stock price.’3
‘Greed is good’, as they say on Wall Street. However, the only true
wealth of the world comes from someone, somewhere, making,
creating or growing something. The tendency for such people to
get less and less money, and for the manipulators and middlemen
to get more and more, has caused severe economic and social
distortions at a time when innovation and rapid material
development in new directions are becoming very important. The
Economist in an article on February 19, 2005, discussed attempts to
make business practice into an academic discipline, with special
emphasis on MBA degrees, and quoted Canadian business
142 DIRECTIONS
professor Henry Mintzberg as saying ‘the MBA trains the wrong

people in the wrong way with the wrong consequences.’ This and
other academic criticisms in the article revolved around the idea
that modern business teaching is for mechanistic, immoral
attitudes based on low standards of corporate responsibility.
If the current bias toward the finance, insurance, distribution
and service sections of economies continues, with vast accretions
of ‘paper’ wealth, the damage will become painfully obvious. The
new society must be efficient and innovative, yet frugal enough to
keep pace with the need for rapid and constructive change. Its use
of money will almost certainly need to be rechannelled and
modified. This might include controls on currency and share
market trading, bimonetarism – in which money as a means of
exchange and as a means of investment are separated – the
provision of capital loans and grants without collateral to poor
nations and people, and new approaches to company financing.
There is increasing support for the ideas of economist Silvio
Gessell, with a number of successful experiments in the issue of
‘local money’ which, instead of attracting interest, depreciates in
value over time so there is an incentive to spend and circulate it,
rather than saving it. This has already proved to be a potent
accelerator of local economies.
‘This new order has no democratic mechanisms for represent-
ation, as nation states do, no elections, no public forum for debate.
The rulers are effectively blind and deaf to the ruled. Protesters
take to the streets because this is the form of expression available
to them.’4 The phenomenon thus described – globalization –
attracts major criticism because of the problems it causes in
national and individual finances. The essential nature of global-
ization is perhaps best expressed in these words of billionaire
George Soros: ‘It’s not trade that makes it global, it is the
movement of capital . . . There is a need for some international
political cooperation to match the globalization of markets.’5
Writing in 2002, Soros remarked on the need for ‘powerful
international institutions devoted to . . . social goals such as
poverty reduction and the provision of public goods on a global
scale’.6
Even in the world’s wealthiest countries, most of the pile is

going to very small groups of people, often enough by question-
able means. For instance, executives of Enron sold more than 1
billion dollars worth of share options they had been granted in the
2 years before Enron collapsed, while thousands of shareholders
lost money as the same shares became almost valueless.7 One of
America’s biggest and most respected auditors and some of the
biggest US banks were complicit in the Enron affair.
The gap between top executive’s rewards and their workers
is growing steadily – business executives are regularly voting
themselves incomes that are huge by any previous standards.
The vast majority – 84.5 per cent – of the wealth in the US is in
the hands of the top 20 per cent of the population, compared
with 3.6 per cent at the disposal of the poorest 20 per cent.8
Much of the wealthiest business is in the retail and service areas.
The US retail chain Wal-Mart was the world’s largest, turning
over almost $220 billion in revenues and sales in 2001, at times
over $1 billion in a single day. The richest people in the world in
2005 were the Walton family, of the Wal-Mart chain, with $97
billion, Bill Gates, of Microsoft, with $46.6 billion, and Warren
Buffet with $44 billion.9 There are almost 587 billionaires, with
total assets worth $2.2 trillion, well over the annual income of
half the global population living in the 48 least developed
countries – a situation described by UN planners as ‘grotesque
inequality’.
In Asia, the financial crisis of l997–1998 barely touched the
elite,10 a group estimated at 3.4 million and located in the major
capitals. This figure represents less than 0.1 per cent of the Asian
population and contrasts with severe disadvantage, often
amounting to poverty, among the remaining 99.9 per cent. This
financial elite was almost entirely urban, ranging from 17.5 per
cent of the population in Hong Kong to 4 per cent in Djakarta. In
the US during the last years of Millennium 2, according to
economics professor, Robert Frank, of Cornell University11 ‘the
people at the top are getting most of the growth in income’.
Approximately 36 million people in the US go hungry regularly.
They are mostly working poor on the minimum wage.12
144 DIRECTIONS
During the 1990s, large American corporations cut their tax

payments by $70 billion through the use of tax havens and other
evasion systems – money which had to be raised by increased taxes
on individuals.13 In 1992, corporations paid 23 per cent of total
corporate and individual tax. By 1999 this had fallen to 20 per cent.
The basic ideas behind an economic system transcending
national boundaries seemed persuasive when they became
influential three decades ago. Free market forces and the laws of
supply and demand would set prices, wages and working
conditions. There would be ‘a level playing field’, protectionist
policies such as tariff barriers would disappear, and the country
best equipped and specialized to make certain things would do
so, and sell them to the rest of the world. In the long run, everyone
would be better off.
A yawning gap in this reasoning has been that while
economies have become more and more globalized, there has
been no global political system able to counterbalance and control
them. The proposition that more money at the top creates a ‘filter
down’ effect to the poor has not been realized – the reverse has
happened. ‘Market forces’ have made industry less efficient in
terms of the real needs of the world, and its products increasingly
inappropriate. Fewer and fewer people are working longer and
longer hours under increasing pressures, while the numbers
unemployed or underemployed worldwide are growing steadily.
The free market concept has also lost credibility because its
main advocate and the world’s largest economy, the US, has
persisted with protection of its own industry, notoriously its
agriculture. By mid 2002 this protection had increased to the point
where almost half of American farmers’ income was coming from
other taxpayers. These subsidies, totalling many billions of
dollars a year, allow US farm products to compete unfairly on the
world market, to the detriment of farmers elsewhere, and
especially in the developing world. Huge agribusinesses are
getting the lion’s share of this transfusion from the American
taxpayer.
In l997, the spectacular collapse of the economies of Korea and
almost every southeast Asian country, an enormous run of
bankruptcies, a fall in the value of Asian stock markets of $2

trillion, and an increase of tens of millions unemployed, brought
the issue to a head. Although this catastrophe was due in large
measure to cronyism and inappropriate spending of borrowed
money in the Asian countries, it was seen in those countries as
being due to meddling by Western ‘free market’ interests in their
currencies. Such transactions make it possible for interests
controlling enough money to use ‘market forces’ to alter the value
of a national currency up or down to the benefit of the
manipulator, and to the detriment of that nation and its people.
Some estimates place the value of this ‘wandering money’ as high
as $4 trillion.
The idea that market forces, if left to themselves, can solve
economic problems is not new – it lost credibility in the 1930s
during a long and seemingly intractable world depression. An
alternative economic theory was put forward by John Maynard
Keynes, who said that what he called ‘aggregate demand’ was the
determinant of business prosperity and employment rates.
Aggregate demand, the total spending of governments, business
and individuals, could be increased by greater government
spending, financed by budget deficits. Monetary policies, making
credit available at low interest rates, would stimulate business
spending. Thus overall prosperity would be increased, encour-
aging individual consumer spending.
Probably the most famous Keynesian enterprise was the
American New Deal, designed to lift the US from the
consequences of the 1929 stock market crash which led to massive
bank and business failures and huge unemployment. When he
took office as American president in 1933, Franklin D Roosevelt
put forward a radical new package of legislation during the ‘first
hundred days’ of his presidency, setting out an unprecedented
level of government intervention in the economy. Failing banks
were assisted, farmers subsidized, and massive public works,
such as the Tennessee Valley hydroelectric scheme, commenced.
Millions of the unemployed were given work in government
financed public works and conservation schemes, the Works
Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps.
146 DIRECTIONS
Keynesian solutions nevertheless came to develop their own

problems – a tendency for governments to prefer deficits to less
popular economic solutions, thus adding to national debt, and,
typically, high inflation and high interest rates – stagflation. These
factors led to extensive abandonment of Keynesianism in the 1980s
in favour of the current ‘free market’ system or monetarism, which
was promoted by two economists, Austrian Nobel Prize winner
Freidrich von Hayek and Chicago academic Milton Friedman. It
has been criticized as effectively a reversion to unfettered
capitalism, ‘the respectable economic excuse for removing
protections and benefits exacted painfully from unwilling
governments after decades of struggle by the labour movements’.14
This is one point of view. An advocate of the free market would
claim, with validity, that it broke the chains of high inflation which
had brought stagnation to many world economies, and has made
business more efficient with the reduction of state regulation.
‘Planned’ economies – especially those in the former
Communist world – involved close government supervision, and
generally included state ownership of the means of production.
These typically led to low standards of living and scarcity, poor
quality commodities, and crippling inflation. On the other hand,
free market capitalism typically leads to high unemployment,
large income disparities, and the creation of what will sell rather
than what is needed. Because its gurus insist that state enterprises
must be ‘privatized’, this has often resulted in assets being almost
given away, as with the extraordinary loans for shares deals done
between private capital and the Russian government in 1996. Free
market economic practices have also had a regrettable tendency
to impoverish large numbers of people, as has notoriously been
the case in the former Soviet Union and Argentina. In these
countries, much of the community was reduced to poverty at
virtually developing world standards following conversion to
‘free markets’ directed by American advisers.
So do we damn both planned and free market economics out
of hand? Not necessarily. The ill effects listed above arose from the
regrettable tendency of humans – especially ‘experts’ – to favour
extremes. All this indicates that successful economic policy, like
much other policy, is unlikely to succeed if it is driven by narrow

or extreme philosophies. The market needs to be free enough to
move and work efficiently, but controlled enough to prevent the
inevitable urge to loot. This Axiom Two tendency must be
restrained from damaging reasonable social and economic
standards. One thing is certain – a better world economic system
is needed than the one we have now. Granted a balanced
approach and compliance with the axioms, it should not be too
difficult to achieve.
Perhaps the kindest overall assessment of modern economics
is that it is classically reductionist, concerned with money in one
form or another, with little regard to who possesses it or the social
consequences of that, with gross domestic product (GDP) no
matter how it is distributed, and with ‘market forces’ no matter
how destructive or irresponsible their effects might be. The
advocates of globalization point to a growth of 500 per cent in
world production of goods and services in the second half of the
20th century, without apparent regard to the fact that almost all of
these economic advantages have been to the benefit of a minority
of humans – probably well under 20 per cent – and have
contributed to high pollution rates and an alarming and massive
wastage of natural resources. ‘Productivity’ levels, if they are
made up largely of luxury or wasteful artifacts, or driven by
planned obsolescence, harm the world rather than helping it.
Accurate and realistic perceptions of economic matters seem
necessary. Are they available? How honest, for instance, is the
concept of GDP, generally touted as the standard yardstick of
economic prosperity? According to three American economists15
GDP ‘is a crazy mismeasure of the economy that portrays disaster
as gain … by the curious standards of the GDP, the nation’s
economic hero is a terminal cancer patient who is going through
a costly divorce. The happiest event is an earthquake or a
divorce.’ Since GDP is a simplistic measure of all goods and
services output, without taking into account the reasons for this,
these criticisms seem apt enough. Further distortion results from
allocating manufacturing income in a developing country to that
country’s GDP, when in fact most of that money returns to a major
148 DIRECTIONS
industrial power as profits or dividends. Apparently dramatic

rises in GDP in Asian ‘tiger economies’ were largely due to this
method of calculation.
But is there a better way? Is it possible to cure massive
unemployment, unused industrial capacity, weak consumer
confidence – all basic world economic problems at the time of
writing? Looking back through history, the example of Germany
after Hitler came to power in 1933 is interesting. Germany, by the
winter of 1932, had an unemployment rate of 30 per cent – some
6 million out of work – and industry, hard hit by the onset of the
world depression, was operating at under 50 per cent capacity.
Germany’s foreign trade declined by two-thirds between 1929
and 1932. Three years later gross domestic product had doubled,
unemployment was under a million. Germany actually had a
labour shortage by 1937.
This apparent miracle was wrought by two things – the
financial abilities of the Minister for Economics, Dr Hjalmar
Schacht, and the rigid authoritarianism of the Third Reich.16
Schacht, an admirer of Keynes and the New Deal, persuaded
Hitler to throw money into the economy in huge amounts – this
was the time when the great autobahns were built, Ferdinand
Porsche designed the Volkswagen – the people’s car – and German
armed forces were hugely increased. These were Keynesian
solutions, and, initially at least, were financed by printing new
money. Conventional wisdom would assert that this should have
created a major wave of inflation. However, this did not happen
because the ‘slack’ was taken up by unused industrial capacity and
by reducing unemployment. Prices and wages were controlled,
taxation remained high. As earnings increased, so did government
tax revenue. Industry was subsidized, the labour force was strictly
controlled. One lesson for the new society to learn from this
example could be that massive new investment in reasonably
labour intensive programmes to benefit the developing world
could result in greater prosperity and falling unemployment
worldwide, without undue inflation.
Since a massive diversion of money towards real needs will
plainly be necessary to avert the worst effects of the 2030 drivers,
let alone serve the purposes of the ensuing new society, how
might this be achieved within the terms of Axiom One? A self
regulating decision by multinational corporations to return
agreed, standard and adequate proportions of their profits to the
nation in which they operate by way of tax, to their workforce in
the form of higher wages, and to a global fund to address world
problems, would be a good start. Provided this applied to all
corporations, there would be no competitive disadvantage to any
– rather the prospect of rapidly expanding markets in a higher
income world. Organizing such a system ought not to be beyond
the powers of the World Trade Organization. If effective self
regulation is not forthcoming, mandatory payment of a turnover
tax, not subject to deductions, to a world fund, could have the
same result.
Strict international regulation of tax evasion schemes such as
tax havens and transfer pricing, the global imposition of a wealth
tax on all personal income beyond $1 million a year, and on all
proceeds of currency speculation pending world controls on
predatory currency trading, and a guaranteed UN income stream
from global commons, would also serve to provide necessary
revenue. Cancellation of developing countries’ debt, readily
financed by small reductions in armament spending on an agreed
and uniform worldwide basis, would permit poor nations, now
struggling, to make progress – there would be a stable base on
which to build decent societies.
150 DIRECTIONS

• Get money diverted to developing world needs in large
chunks – immediate reallocation of 10 per cent of World
Bank funds to micro-credit schemes would be a good
start.
• Start a subsidy fund to generate income producing busi-
nesses in the worst poverty ‘hotspots’, especially in
regions where the sale of children to bonded labour and
prostitution is demonstrably common.
• Get rid of tax havens, currency trading, developing world
debt, agricultural subsidies and any other legal but
immoral devices which channel money unfairly from the
poor to the rich. The world could be transformed by this
one measure alone, which national governments, acting
in consultation, could readily legislate for.
• Replace GDP with quality of life indices.
• Audit of company accounts by a statutory authority, not
private firms.
• Senior executive salaries determined by vote of share-
holders.
PART T HREE
UPGRADING THE
INDIVIDUAL
C HAPTER 13
T HE P URSUIT OF
H APPINESS
In 2004 The Economist Intelligence Unit used a complex formula

in an ambitious attempt to rate quality of life – happiness – in 111
countries. Ireland came out on top, but perhaps the most
illuminating result was that the top seven nations were all small
ones – Ireland, Switzerland, Norway, Luxembourg, Sweden,
Australia and Iceland. Of the world’s largest nations the only one
to rate reasonably high was the US, in 17th place. The UK was
29th, China 60th, India 73rd and Russia a dismal 105th. Why is
this so? Is it because the circumstances of the basic unit of
humanity – the individual – seem to be taken into consideration
by planners less and less, especially in bigger countries? If so, this
must be recognized as an important negative tendency, if only
because future needs will require balanced, competent and
motivated people.
For several decades, some futurists have held that a ‘remake’
of the human species will be necessary if we are to cope
successfully with the era of great and rapid change on which we
are already embarked. Charles A Reich called for ‘a new way of
living – a new man, a higher transcendent reason’, promising ‘a
life that is more liberated and more beautiful than any man has
known’.1 The much maligned behavioural psychologist B F
Skinner believed ‘we need a technology of behaviour … we need
154 UPGRADING THE INDIVIDUAL
to make vast changes in human behaviour’, because ‘things grow

steadily worse, and it is disheartening to find that technology
itself is increasingly at fault’.2
Neither of these theorists express very clear ideas about how
this transformation is to be made. Nevertheless, the central idea,
that the state of the overall human condition depends on the
individual, her or his stability, his or her happiness, is important.
A more practical approach came from philosopher Bertrand
Russell and his wife Dora, who opened a ‘progressive’ school in
1927 at Beacon Hill in Sussex to demonstrate that children learn
better when they are free, happy and non compliant. This school,
with its contemporary, Summerhill, was widely criticized by the
establishment of the time – it is alleged that a visiting clergyman
was met at the door by a little girl, stark naked, who shouted ‘God
does not exist!’, then slammed the door – but was the forerunner
of many established since.3
These people, among many others, saw that somehow we are
failing at the individual level; our educational methods are
producing large numbers of illiterate, unbalanced or unhappy
people; our medicine is orientated towards the affluent Westerner,
while the major killing diseases are gaining ground; our gadgets
are delivering disappointing results. Our complex technology, its
unforgiving speed, the dilemmas of population, war and peace,
government, pollution, productivity – all these things require
management by balanced, self confident, healthy individuals, yet
as time goes by we demonstrably have fewer and fewer such
people. Instead, depression rates have increased worldwide to
epidemic proportions.
Negotiating the perilous course to 2030 is, then, involved at the
most basic level with the welfare and happiness of individuals.
There are abundant research results that link creative productivity
and a positive approach to problems with individual happiness
and welfare. Hence there is a huge and demonstrable economic
benefit for the world if as many people as possible are happy,
healthy and well adjusted.
What is it then, to be happy? The Concise Oxford Dictionary
gives a fairly cursory ‘lucky, fortunate; contented with one’s lot’.
THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 155
Much of the popular media view of happiness equates it with

personal and immediate sensual and material gratification,
although there is plenty of evidence that satiation frequently
results in discontent and unhappiness. The Dalai Lama believes
the basic purpose of existence is ‘a happy life, happiness, joy’.4
This would not come from material goods, but from the use of
intelligence to understand and resolve problems.
A 2001 study showed a consistent view that self esteem,
connections to other people, personal competence and autonomy
are regarded as major ingredients of happiness.5 The safest
definition is perhaps the absence of depression. Viewed this way,
happiness becomes of massive human importance. Depression
rates are increasing – it is soon likely to be the world’s most
common ailment after heart disease.
Is it regrettable that a lot of people don’t feel cheerful? Rather
more than that. According to some research even mild
depression can be a killer.6 This research has established a clear
link between depression and heart attacks, indicating that
healthy people with no history of heart disease are twice as likely
to have a heart attack if they are depressed, even if the
depression is at mild levels. However, death from heart disease
is by no means the only depression killer – suicide, a disabled
immune system and an unhealthy influence on a whole range of
diseases, including cancer, are part of a 1999 World Health
Organization prediction that by 2020 depression will be the
second largest killing disease.
Happiness is a commodity sought in the world as never
before. Drugs are developed and eagerly used which, it is hoped,
may deliver happiness. Psychologists earnestly study the
physiological effects of laughter. Write a book entitled ‘How to be
Happy’ and you can be pretty sure it will sell, regardless of its
content. The extent to which happiness is desired and pursued
confirms that a great many people are not happy. It also shows a
lack of understanding of the fact – and it is well documented –
that the elusive happy state is indeed just that – elusive. It is
unlikely to derive from taking a pill, it cannot be bought
regardless of the amount of money spent, it does not necessarily
follow success or achievement. Sexual love, it would appear, is

by no means a guaranteed source.
Indeed, the experience of falling madly in love shows such
strong correlations with some forms of mental illness as to
confirm the time honoured label of ‘love sickness’. Research
showed biological parallels between the love sick and those who
suffer obsessive compulsive disorder, a condition in which
sufferers feel compelled to go on repeating certain actions, like
checking that doors are locked or washing their hands.7 In both
cases, low levels of the brain ‘feel good’ neurotransmitter,
seratonin, were observed – around 40 per cent less than in normal
people. The same Italian subjects observed a year later, after they
had become sexually accustomed, appeared to have recovered –
the levels of seratonin in their blood were back to normal.
There is evidence that in stressful situations optimism
strengthens the human immune system, and extends life. A study
of 839 Americans over 30 years to 1999 has shown that pessimists
– defined through a careful selection process over several years –
had a 19 per cent higher death rate.8 University of California
psychologists studied 90 young law students.9 Those who had an
optimistic attitude towards their studies showed higher counts of
protective T cells and killer cells than the pessimists. Optimism in
this case amounted to expectations that they would succeed, and
a positive belief in their own abilities.
Laughter, commonly regarded as an outward expression of
happiness, is now recognized by most hospitals as a positive
factor influencing healing, to the extent that there are now
specialized laughter therapists. Laughter has recognized
physiological benefits – stimulating the immune system by
activating the T cells that kill viruses and cancer cells, reducing
the ‘stress’ hormone cortisol, releasing ‘feel good’ endorphins and
improving respiration.
It has frequently been observed that the people who make an
effort to help the world are often happy – those who are unhappy
are likely to be too preoccupied with their own affairs, too inward
looking. Research in this area suggests that people who are happy
don’t think about happiness much. Being happy, they simply take
that condition for granted. American social psychologist David

Myers describes the experience of happy people as an
‘unselfconscious “flow” state’ and warns that a self preoccupied
pursuit of happiness can detract from that.10 Happy people, he
says, are ‘flow’ absorbed in a task that challenges them without
overwhelming them.
So it becomes important to enquire why all this should be so.
Are the depressed people ‘constitutionally’ unhappy, in the sense
that it has always been their normal state? Do their conditions of
life make them unhappy? Is there some physiological basis for
their condition? Or is it just because they are much too concerned
with themselves and not enough with things outside them? Most
modern research into happiness – as opposed to unhappiness, or
now more popularly, depression – shows that people who say
they are happy are almost always doing something. They are
enthusiasts, caught up in what they are doing. There are countless
autobiographical testimonies that the act of creation, of
achievement, tends to be more valued than the result. Happy
people tend to be realists – Bertrand Russell commented: ‘The key
to happiness is accepting one unpleasant reality every day.’11
An American researcher, Robert Franks, believes that
increasing affluence contributes to unhappiness.12 Things that
once were luxuries reach the stage where they are everyday
occurrences. Broadly the same area of research in Britain also
indicates that increasing affluence does not bring happiness.13 On
the contrary, mild depression has become more prevalent in
Britain, affecting almost one-third of the population.
Some theorists believe children can learn unhappiness from
their parents – if they see their parents in a permanently unhappy
state they may well conclude that unhappiness is something you
can do nothing about. And because children tend to see
everything in terms of themselves they might blame themselves
for their parents’ unhappiness. American psychologist Martin
Seligman used experiments with dogs to demonstrate what he
calls ‘learned helplessness’. Faced with unpleasant experiences –
mild electric shocks – about which they could do nothing, the
dogs simply gave up, and passively accepted the pain. Seligman
and others evolved a theory that human depression comes from a

confirmed pessimism about life and its events.
There is abundant evidence that physical activity induces a
sense of well-being, even to the extent of increasing ‘happiness’
endorphins. Creativity also has a strong association with
happiness. A study of the autobiographies of creative people
confirms that a deep sense of satisfaction comes from the act of
creation – even belief in a link with an inscrutable outside power,
sometimes identified as the divine.
How does creativity start? Chapter 16 discusses the effect of
schools on native creativity, and the evidence that it can be
suppressed or nurtured early in life. Children and their toys
become relevant here. It is likely that the child who painfully
hammers three sticks together into an ‘aeroplane’ may become a
happier person than the child who is given a bagful of plastic
toys. Although the first child might acquire a few sore thumbs, the
basic creative urge has been nurtured. The aeroplane, once made,
brings a sense of achievement, and the urge to create things in
childhood is likely to be carried forward into adulthood. Dora
Russell observed this at Beacon Hill. All this suggests that those
attitudes towards life which could be collectively called
happiness may well be set in childhood and substantially
maintained throughout adulthood. A child who is, for instance,
subjected to constant bullying in school without any apparent
recourse or means of escape may well react like Seligman’s dogs.
Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert consulted
more than 100 academics about their emotional state of mind,
specifically their degree of happiness. He found that good and
bad things that happened to them had no permanent effect on
their usual happiness level, which fairly quickly returned to
what was normal for them. A University of Illinois researcher,
Edward Diener, noted that for events like being promoted or
losing a lover, most of the effect on mood had gone in three
months, with not a trace left in six months. Lottery winners were
found to be no happier a year after their win. It becomes, then,
important to investigate how and why that ‘default’ happiness
level is set.
There is some consensus that a genetic element is involved, but

opinions differ about how important this inheritance factor is. A
behavioural geneticist, following research involving 1500 pairs of
twins, considers that about half the happiness default is due to
genetic influences.14 Other psychologists say the size of that factor
is not yet reliably assessable.
Those seriously mistreated by life usually – but not always –
feel less happy. Ill health, poverty and unemployment can cause
depression, rather than the other way round, and it is probable
that those with a low ‘default’ happiness level suffer most. Young
people who can’t find work feel rejected, their self esteem drops;
divorce and relationship breakups often lower the happiness level
of almost all the people involved. Modern conditions of living,
especially urban living, can generate stress and unhappiness.
There is a relentless association between unhappiness and prone-
ness to illnesses, and between unhappiness, social disadvantage
and crime.
Nowhere is this evidenced so starkly as in the position of
Australian aborigines. Although indigenous people comprise
only 2 per cent of the New South Wales population, they account
for around one-third of the number of juveniles in detention, one
fifth of women prisoners, and one-seventh of adult male
prisoners. Outrageous statistics of this kind, which are echoed
elsewhere in the world, are evidence of the disposition of
governments to lock people up, and build, at high cost, more and
more prisons, rather than make any serious effort to deal with the
underlying social stresses we are considering in this part of the
book.
Have those who seek to remake humanity, to create ‘new
women and men’, got the right idea? Probably not. Most of the
evidence shows that human nature has a remarkable resistance to
such basic, rapid and dramatic change. But there is another
possible approach: to look critically at the conditions in which
humanity lives – its habitat, education, relationships, religion and
work – to assess what imperfections lie there. It seems an obvious
requirement to identify and seek the means of mitigating the
miseries, deficiencies, perversities and adversities which society
somehow seems to inflict at the personal level. There are a

number of reasons why these things happen. Many of them are
readily identifiable and therefore susceptible to correction.
Since such an effort is unlikely to come from governments or
bureaucracies, which generally remain obsessed with narrow
economic considerations – and, more recently, ‘terror’ – the res-
ponsibility may well rest with you. Improvements in law,
housing, education and conditions of work will probably emerge
from what look at first like small individual efforts. Perhaps 20
families might be prepared to avail themselves of the high prices
of urban properties to sell out, pool their resources, and attempt
social structures similar to those we shall now go on to consider.
One shopping cooperative might decide to boycott the goods of a
corporation that offends the greater good. One group of parents
will seek for their children a different and more creative
education. Such things are already happening, and must be
nurtured, since these groups then cease being powerless and
ineffective, and instead exert a positive influence. Provided they
can muster the intelligence and determination to succeed, they
will, in time, seed others like them.
The rest of this section of the book then, deals with those social
areas which impinge on the life, welfare and happiness of
individual people, and what might be done about them.
C HAPTER 14
L OVE , F AMILY
AND F REEDOM
Perhaps the most significant, and often disruptive, changes going

on at the individual level are in relationships between men,
women and their children. ‘None of the changes now are as
important as those going on in our personal lives – the most
difficult and disturbing changes of all’, British sociologist
Anthony Giddens has remarked.1 The conventional family, in
which the man is the master and leader, respected and obeyed by
his wife and children, is fast disappearing. It was a creation of
social and economic conditions now almost superseded in the
Western world, and becoming so elsewhere.
When life was physically harder, and the accumulation of
property usually slow and difficult, family coherence and
loyalties were in everyone’s long-term interest. Sex and fertility
were closely linked. Because of this, sexual relations had major
social and economic implications – so much so that in most
societies the choice of marriage partners was not left to the
individuals, but was arranged or heavily influenced by families.
This remains the case in much of the developing world. ‘Love’ in
the sense of spontaneous sexual attraction became especially
suspect as a basis for marriage, because of its often ephemeral
nature. The marriage, which was intended to last throughout life,
must be based on more permanent things – family allegiances,
money, property. Such marriages attempted to ‘protect’ women

from extramarital affairs, because of the importance of property
being inherited by ‘legitimate’ heirs.
The new system of cohabitation has been described by Giddens
as ‘coupledom’, based on emotional attachment and requiring
‘emotional democracy’, an equality not only between the man and
the woman, but also between them and their children. ‘Coupledom’
acknowledges the often short-term nature of sexual attraction. The
relationship may well not be for life – it probably won’t be.
The ‘breakup’ between partners is now a familiar aspect of
many societies, and can cause a great deal of pain where expectat-
ions and early conditioning in one or both partners has been for a
permanent, marriage-like state. Social and legal frameworks are
still, in many ways, geared to the traditional family system,
habitat is still substantially based on one man, one woman and
children living together. There are still traditional families like this
which are apparently successful, still powerful elements of
government and society which stress ‘family values’, which see a
return to those values as the answer to the problems of society.
Does the implicit contract of ‘coupledom’, that the relationship
lasts as long as ‘love’ lasts, conflict with the needs of any children
of the union for a continuous, stable and reassuring background
with adequate material support for as much as two decades?
There is considerable evidence that it may do so. Research from
Britain indicates that families with cohabiting parents break up
four times as often as married ones.2 In Australia the rate of
relationship breakdown in cohabiting couples has been assessed
at about double that of married couples. One researcher found
that a quarter of cohabiting relationships lasted a year, and that
three quarters had ended in four years.3
There is a prolific amount of research indicating that the
children of single parents can become disadvantaged education-
ally and socially, and suffer higher levels of personal danger. A
1999 study in the US, Canada and Australia indicated that children
of divorced parents end up with around one year’s less education,
with a dropout rate in high school about 60 per cent higher than in
children in stable married relationships.4 Children seem to do
LOVE, FAMILY AND FREEDOM 163
better if the sole parent is working, with one survey showing that
40 per cent of the offspring of welfare dependent single parents
showed low learning skills, compared with 20 per cent of the
children of working parents.
There are those, however, who have a different view. After
surveying more than 1000 major studies of divorce, Australian
National University academic Bryan Rogers objects to simple
statistical associations leading to assumptions that it is divorce
that causes the problems.5 Rogers’ assertion is that it is rather the
problems within the family that led to the divorce that should be
blamed, and that conflict, physical violence, sexual abuse, mental
health problems, substance abuse and poverty are likely to be
more damaging than divorce itself.
However, research in two countries does suggest that children
in cohabitational families are likely to be in higher personal
danger. A British study found that children living with unmarried
biological parents were 20 times more likely to be subject to child
abuse than those with married parents; in those living with a
mother and a de facto boyfriend the rate rose to 33 times.6 In
Australia, child murder figures in 1994 showed that ‘the
proportion of suspected child killers in de facto relationships was
six and a half times higher than in the general population’.7
Barbara Ehrenreich remarks: ‘The real paradigm shift will
come when we stop trying to base our entire society on the
wavering sexual connection between individuals. Romantic love
ebbs and surges unaccountably; it’s the bond between parents
and children that remains rocklike year after year.’8 Ehrenreich
suggests the establishment of adult contracts, not to live or sleep
together, but to take joint responsibility for children. In view of
the crucial role of children as heirs and eventual controllers of the
new society, this suggests automatic and adequate financial
levying of both parents from the birth of their child to 18 years as
a minimal requirement. Disputes over male parentage would be
resolved by mandatory paternity testing, now cheap, easy and
readily available.
Despite its problems, coupledom, with all its implicit social
mobility, appears to be here to stay, and with the imminent arrival
of an effective male hormonal contraceptive pill, sexual

‘wandering’ can only increase. In most parts of the Western
world, coupling now normally precedes marriage – that is, when
marriage occurs at all. Marriage, as a later phase in a relationship
rather than the beginning of it, has become very different. Its
social, extended family element is much reduced; it is a more
personal affair, motivated by an intimacy and sense of rightness
demonstrated in the preceding coupling, and acknowledged by
both parties. The eventual marriage is also less overtly a ‘till death
do us part’ contract in most cases. It is tacitly accepted that if love
goes, the relationship ends. This is an acknowledged part of
‘handfasting’, the marriage ceremony used by the burgeoning
Wiccan spirituality, where couples ‘vow to remain in partnership
as long as love lasts, after which each is permitted to leave the
relationship and go their separate ways’.9
Traditional marriages, of course, often at least, seem to be
successful, although almost all careful and apparently honest
accounts of family life within them reveal many tensions – and
that goes for almost all cultures. Popular Chinese traditional
novels, such as the Chin P’ing Mei, which was written in the 16th
century, make this abundantly clear. That novel, the story of a
mandarin and his six wives, describes almost every conceivable
form of chicanery and villainy from false witness to murder
within that single large family.
In the past there has been a strong inculcation of family values
into children. Religions have typically stressed them. There are
many picture books for small children showing ‘families’ of
animals – and this brings us to an interesting point. The modern
science of ethology – the study of animals in the wild – has
evidence indicating that the ‘family’ does not exist among most
other living creatures. If there were to be any comparison with
human affairs, the lives of other primates would seem most
useful. According to Robert Ardrey, there is no sign of a family
unit among the higher primates – and many live in elaborate,
conscious societies.10 He points to observations of many life forms
– even schools of fish – where the individuals are nearly all the
same size, and presumed to be much the same age. Ardrey quotes
LOVE, FAMILY AND FREEDOM 165
well documented and respectable research concerning the other

primates indicating that the bond between mother and infant is
broken quite soon after a younger sibling is born, and that the
elder offspring then becomes a member of its peer group. Large
troops of baboons studied in southern Africa all seem to have
been very much of the same age. Young animals need their peer
group, and their ‘play’ is an important part of their maturing to
normal adulthood. Ardrey quotes experiments in which primates
deprived of peer contacts grew up to be ‘neurotic’ and sexually
inadequate.
The work of the ethologists indicates that human behaviour is
much closer to that of other animals – especially other primates –
than has been popularly acknowledged, in many ways. But more
of this later. For the moment, the peer group research ought to
make us stop and think, especially those who shake their heads
forebodingly when the human child begins to shun the influence
of its family for that of its peers. Is this a ‘natural law’? The
evidence seems strong enough to support strengthening, reinfor-
cing and helping the peer bond rather than deploring it as a
disloyal, ungrateful and transitory part of growing up.
C HAPTER 15
H ABITAT: T HE D ILEMMA
OF THE C ITIES
One in three of all city dwellers in the world lives in a slum, and
the number is growing fast. These points were made by the UN
secretary-general, Kofi Annan, in a statement on World Environ-
ment Day, 5 June, 2005. By 2020, according to the UN Environment
Programme, more than two billion people – at least a quarter of all
mankind – are likely to be in ‘improvised slums and informal
squatter settlements which are neither legally recognised nor
serviced by city authorities’. But even in the prosperous Western
cities some ominous hints of a chaotic future are emerging, such as
the virtually uncontrolled violence, including the burning of more
than 7000 cars and scores of public buildings and businesses in
Paris and other French cities, during several weeks of rioting in
2005. Even in these more ‘developed’ cities, high housing costs,
transport bottlenecks, air pollution, noise, urban crime, difficult
and stressful child raising, abrasive contacts with neighbours who
are close – all these and more are only too familiar.
Nevertheless, the urban problem is at its worst in the develop-
ing world. In most of the world’s biggest cities, as many as half
the inhabitants live in an untidy skirt of unspeakable slums.1 In
Kolkata, in India, a third of the population literally live, eat and
sleep on the streets, often renting small areas of pavement from
criminal gangs.2 Other cities with populations of over 10 million
HABITAT: THE DILEMMA OF THE CITIES 167
that have similar problems are Sao Paulo, Djakarta, Manila, Dakar
and Karachi.
These consequences have arisen from a tenfold increase in the
urban populations of the developing world since 1940, combined
with a lack of the resources to maintain infrastructure even at
inadequate existing levels. Natural disasters combined with
dense urban development and inadequate construction standards
can make the increasing numbers of high rise apartment
buildings in some of these cities lethal traps. Such was the case
when a major earthquake struck Gujarat state in India in January
2001, killing more than 20,000 people. In another earthquake in a
highly populated area in Turkey in August 1999, tens of
thousands of people died when their apartment blocks collapsed
around them at three in the morning. About 27,000 buildings –
half of those damaged – had to be demolished completely.3
Subsequent government reports estimated that more than half of
the deaths were due to buildings having inadequate foundations
and steel reinforcing, and too little cement in the concrete.
Buildings, including, tragically, many schools, collapsed in
hundreds when an earthquake and its aftermath struck Kashmir
in 2005, killing as many as 100,000 people.
Such deathtrap buildings are common in much of the world,
due to economic pressures and inefficient governments, which
are usually authoritarian. However, they even occur in densely
populated, earthquake prone Japan, according to a Japanese
professor of concrete engineering, as a result of a longstanding
corrupt conspiracy between some Japanese parliamentarians,
bureaucrats and a cartel of big construction companies.4 This
circumstance prompted a major scandal in 2005, when many
apartment blocks and seven hotels, including a 260-room Tokyo
tower, were closed because cost cutting and shoddy building
made them liable to collapse in even a moderate earthquake.
Cities, then, are highly vulnerable to natural disasters, and in
times of war. The higher the rate of urbanization the more
dangerous this factor becomes. Air pollution, so severe that it
presents a major health hazard, has become characteristic of most
major cities, although many have been forced to regulate the
causes of pollution simply to remain habitable. Such was the case

in London after four terrible days in December 1952, when smog
laden with sulphur dioxide became so thick that air, road and
river traffic could scarcely move. Visibility was reduced in some
parts of London to as little as one foot, buses had to be guided by
a man walking in front with a lighted flare. Those four days of
pollution killed at least 4000 people.
As energy becomes more restricted and expensive, can we
actually afford to maintain the cities? In most of them, basic
infrastructure like water supply and sewerage, much of it built
100 years ago or more, has not kept pace with population growth,
or is in increasing disrepair. Fewer than 300 of India’s 2500 cities
and towns have sewer systems, and most of these lack treatment
plants – sewage simply flows into lakes, rivers or the sea. Two-
thirds of urban dwellers lack sewerage.5 As energy becomes more
expensive, the cost of such infrastructure, and of ‘urban renewal’
projects, escalates. Yet as cities grow larger, they become
increasingly vulnerable to the consequences of the breakdown of
these facilities. And even modern Western cities have an average
reserve of food for only five days.
Predictions that the mega-cities will continue to expand may,
however, now have to be qualified. UN census statistics in 2002
indicated that urban growth may now be faltering, apparently
because of inadequate infrastructure and the appallingly
unpleasant conditions of life in so many cities. In Mexico City,
Kolkata and Buenos Aires, more people are leaving than arriving,
although high birth rates will continue to push their populations
higher.
Architects and designers see the need for changes in the nature
of buildings. With the liberation provided by computer assisted
design, the ‘monolith’ type building is giving place to structures
of formerly impracticable shapes and proportions, like Gehry’s
Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, Libeskind’s addition to
the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the National
Museum in Canberra. The ability of modern automated manu-
facture to build complex computer designed shapes should allow
this freedom to extend to housing. Already, mass produced
composite panels and prefabricated concrete modules that slot

into each other can accommodate an almost indefinitely varied
range of houses, in which the straight line and the right angle are
no longer obligatory. Automated housing systems now in use
employ fibre reinforced modular panels with wiring and
plumbing already in place for walls and roofs, contain no timber
or steel, claim to be vermin, fire, earthquake, corrosion and
hurricane resistant, and can be put in place more quickly and
cheaply than conventional housing. The pressure on land is
becoming so extreme in The Netherlands that plans are in hand
for housing, businesses and even roads floating on water. At least
100 such houses will be built in Ijburg, a new up-market suburb
of Amsterdam, and a floating city to house 12,000 people near
Schiphol Airport is at the planning stage.
An almost universal opinion is that living spaces must become
smaller, and thus need to be more flexible. The concept of
apartments or houses being a set of rooms is giving place to one
of neutral containers into which pre-manufactured modules, like
bathrooms, kitchens and sleeping quarters can be located, and
even moved around to suit the whim of the occupant. Even
furniture is envisaged as being multipurpose – curtains might
contain solar cells that would charge during the day, and emit
light at night. Light switches would turn on and off as you looked
at them; materials such as bedding could sense variations in
temperature and change their molecular structure to become
denser or lighter.
Much of this is speculative, but it has one major point of
interest: there is an expectation of a radical change in the nature
of habitat, so radical that it is difficult to see how it could be
accommodated in most existing city infrastructures, which can
barely cope with present population densities. Most architects
realize the need to get away from grey suburbs of uniform
apartment blocks that almost totally lack anything that grows
naturally. Some contemplate buildings in which whole floors are
devoted to manmade forests or parks; others attempt, by going
ever higher upward, to devote more of the available ground space
to gardens and sporting facilities such as pools and tennis courts.6
There are a number of problems with these ideas. Because

their economic rationale is based on an artificial but only too
influential factor – the high cost of urban land – they turn out to
be expensive, attainable only by the wealthy. Such schemes are
likely to be built in any quantity only in a small minority of the
world’s cities, and they cannot solve the basic intractable
problems outlined earlier in this chapter. It is more reasonable to
seek those solutions in totally new habitat areas.
A high priority, then, is to evolve at least some decentralization
from the large cities and into carefully planned regional
complexes that can offer living conditions less demanding than
those in the cities, and that are more suited to groups and families.
Away with everyone then, to arboreal villages? This idealistic
view, which one comes across in one form or another in hundreds
of comments in all the media, seems to be one answer – and
indeed many people actually do it. Waiheke Island at the entrance
to Auckland Harbour in New Zealand has large areas virtually
denuded of native vegetation after decades of sheep farming.
Here 15 families have established, on 300 acres, ‘a place where we
live in harmony with the land, conserving and enhancing the land
and its ecosystems’.7 Agriculture is to be organic – no artificial
fertilizers or insecticides – and sustainable. To protect native
wildlife, no dogs or cats will be permitted. The internal politics of
the community will be based on consensus, not majority voting.
Dwellings are planned in three clusters around a community
house. This is a rural variation of the urban ‘co-housing’ concept
which is popular in Europe, and is rapidly gaining adherents
around the world.
Such ideas also exist within the ‘voluntary simplicity’ move-
ment, which has attracted hundreds of thousands of people,
especially in the US. Its principles include a reduction in the
amount of time spent working for material possessions, in order
to make time for better personal relationships and individual
accomplishments, closer communion with nature, and living
more frugally and sustainably so there is enough for all to share.
One popular US bumper sticker reads: ‘Live simply, that others
may simply live.’ ‘Common cause economics’, in which
individuals take into account the community interest as well as

their own, is seen as part of this, and perceived as being easier to
achieve in small communities than large ones.
Business likes people to be in cities because business is there,
and it is convenient to have the workforce, like other commodities,
neatly packaged in boxes nearby. The urban jungles of today are
indeed a product of industrialization. When mass production of
goods developed it was economically desirable to have workers
conveniently near. So whole new suburbs, rows of terraced houses
in the main, were built to accommodate them. Blocks of modern
high rise apartments are designed for the same purpose.
Is this pattern of life natural, and does it have to be
permanent? It is worth remembering that it evolved quite recently
in terms of human history. Before the industrial era, men
generally worked on the land where they lived, along with their
wives and families. In many parts of the world this is still so, and
it could become possible again in Western societies. Nevertheless,
community size is important – very small habitat areas languish
for lack of facilities and social interest. The challenge is to create
urban areas which are optimal in size, providing lifestyles at least
as attractive as those in large cities. For most people, the work
element is vital. Their job is in the city. If they don’t want to take
on the arduous burden of commuting long distances, it is easiest
to live near their work. Then there is fun. The big entertainment
and sporting venues, the places people want to be seen, are
usually in cities.
Yet even these considerations are receding. Millions already
work from home – telecommuting – without being close to, or
even visiting, ‘the office’. ‘Outsourcing’ is creating millions of
small contract businesses which are replacing the huge factories
of the past. For most people, electronic media are fast becoming
the major source of entertainment, and these can be enjoyed
anywhere. Gardening is becoming immensely popular –
surveys have shown that in many countries it is the preferred
hobby. Such influences tend to favour smaller, more
decentralized habitat areas specialized to suit modern needs
and preferences.
A second difficult area is the physical infrastructure of the

megapolis. Many of these problems are simply due to the fact that
almost all cities are old, can no longer cope with modern
conditions and exploding populations, and are no longer suitable
for modern lifestyles. Narrow streets block traffic, but the
surrounding property is so valuable it becomes uneconomic to
widen them. Even if widening does become possible, traffic levels
soon seem to be as bad again. There are problems with other
infrastructure. Sewerage, water supply, electricity, gas, telephones
– all these services become increasingly difficult to repair or
extend to cope with rising populations. These are almost
universally acknowledged problems. Can the cities solve them,
and provide a genuine habitat to the individual – I use this word
in this context to mean circumstances that give an adequate and
satisfying quality at all stages of life – from childhood to old age?
The answer seems that, without considerable modifications,
the city probably will not offer an adequate habitat, except for
specialized groups, such as the very wealthy and childless, and
perhaps for young people who have not yet started families. A
major retarding influence is the increasing cost, in real terms, of
even minimal urban housing. A 20th century phenomenon almost
everywhere was a large increase in the cost of the land component
of urban housing. This means that dwellings become less and less
affordable, smaller, closer together, and more isolated from
nature. This economic factor is perhaps most evident in Tokyo,
where the majority of people live in tiny apartments, where
businessmen sleep through the week in capsule hotel ‘rooms’
which are tubes not much larger than a coffin, and go home only
at weekends because of the pressures on public transport. Such
developments bring to mind the science fiction nightmare of
individual humans conditioned to living in isolated cocoons,
surrounded not by real things, but by virtual reality.
The fact that urban living has already commenced that
conditioning is disturbing. The small size of most apartments,
their closeness to neighbours, the frequently poor sound
insulation, polluted air and generally unnatural surroundings,
their difficulty of access to schools, playgrounds and other
children, all militate against the normal development of our

children. There is nowhere for them to wander and play
experimentally except the street, which is too dangerous, and the
apartment is too small for many indoor play opportunities. Noisy
games – and all children need to be noisy sometimes – are
impossible because the neighbours will complain. Parents have
little time to relax with their children because they are too busy
making a living, ferrying the children through dense traffic to
school or some activity centre. Traffic gridlock, lack of parking
places, pressures on time – these things conspire to make the
apparent advantages of urban life less and less attractive.
Inevitably, children are forced from the earliest age to watch TV,
play electronic games and tinker with computers. The road
toward the isolated cocoon is already under our feet.
So where do these considerations lead us? Toward forms of
housing that do not have a high land cost component, that are
large enough to provide all the necessities for a natural and
creative childhood, that encourage peer group activity among
children, that can accommodate modern ‘coupledoms’, that can
help to absorb the shock of relationship breakups, that can
provide effective social reinforcement, that can provide habitat of
the highest order, and which are energy efficient. A large order,
but not impossible – although it should be said that the last thing
habitat planning should do is to force people into set lifestyles.
Modern urban development is doing that too often now. If
families want to live in their own house, houseboat, tree house, or
whatever, that should be possible.
Less than two centuries ago the village, consisting of a number
of mostly small houses and at least one central communal
gathering place – perhaps a pub, perhaps a church, perhaps a
community hall – was the normal dwelling place for most
humans. In those communities everyone knew everyone else. But
satellite towns, designed to provide cheaper land, with more open
space, have not been notably successful. Most of them have been
mere ‘housing estates’, providing pretty minimal housing at that,
with little thought for the social infrastructure, both behavioural
and physical, that is most desirable for any community. The
village concept seems more promising, and is becoming more

feasible with the development of new technologies, better and
faster public transport, and the opportunity for more people to
work from their homes at computer terminals. More than 100
years ago Ebenezer Howard published an immensely popular
book describing in detail proposals for ‘garden cities’ –
decentralized habitats which nevertheless offered the advantages
of concentrated urban life.8 Many of his ideas have more force
now than when they were written.
Envisage a wide circle of large ‘houses’, each big enough to
accommodate, say, 20 adults and as many children, each group
within it occupying its own self-contained module, in comfort
and privacy, but sharing facilities like a swimming pool, a music
room, a library. Each house could be added to at need with low
cost modules mass produced on robotized production lines.
The people living here might be couples, with or without
children, unattached adults, grandparents, even orphans, who live
close to each other because they want to. The accent would be
strongly on flexibility, especially within the modules, which would
offer as much or as little space and facilities as the occupant
wanted or could afford. The location would be an attractive
seacoast or country area, and the town is one of a number linked to
an urban, largely automated, industrial, mass entertainment and
storage centre by fast maglev trains.
Because good quality land would be cheap and freely
available, much of the food used by the community could be
‘homegrown’, fresh, wholesome, and probably organic, produced
either by individuals as a business or cooperatively. Drinking
water would come from roofs; sewerage systems might be
replaced by composting toilets, which are now a well established
and successful technology, ‘waste’ water would be recycled into
gardens. Much, if not all of the community’s electricity would
come from renewable sources, including amorphous photovoltaic
cells on roofs and other surfaces, perhaps even the roads and
lanes that serve the community.
Each ‘household’, because of its cooperative financing and low
land costs, could afford virtually any leisure, sporting or cultural
facility, to the especial benefit of the children. These children

would have at all times the support of their peer group, as well as
access to proxy ‘mothers and fathers’ and a wide range of
educational, sport and hobby activities. Relationship changes
would be cushioned by the existence of a supportive network of
friends. It would remain possible for both parents to continue in
the same habitat after a relationship break. The young mother
suffering from postnatal depression would have readily available
help, as well as the means of relief from 24-hour-a-day baby care.
Most people’s work would be carried out without leaving the
town.
Within the perimeter, in which no powered vehicles would be
permitted, there would be social and leisure facilities, for example
tennis courts and swimming pools, and the junior school, located
in such a position that even small children could make their way
to it on their own feet. Higher education by expert, gifted
communicators would be largely at computer terminals and
specialized seminars. Companionship for adults and children,
entertainment, social and educational facilities, and most forms of
sport, would be available cheaply and within walking distance.
The need for vehicle use – and these vehicles would be quite
unlike today’s cars – would be minimal. One writer postulates
such a community in 2786: ‘the new president’s inauguration will
be attended by all five of the mixed sex, multi-racial commune
that raised her. She will establish sizable tax reductions for
couples or groups of any size that create stable households for
their children and other dependents. Peace will break out.’9
Communities somewhat like this, of course, do exist – there are
270 of them in Israel. Kibbutzim still produce 35 per cent of Israel’s
agriculture, run the nation’s largest network of hotels, holiday
villages and country lodgings. There is also a national orchestra
and theatre company based on them. While many are adapting
away from the early concept of completely communal living, they
remain a key element of Israeli society. I can remember spending
a couple of days in one – the Leon Blum kibbutz not far from the
Syrian border. There was extensive sharing of facilities – most
people used a pool of cars rather than owning their own, meals
were available in a communal dining room or could be prepared

at home. Orchestras, a theatre, library – all these were fostered by
the community as a whole. This place was obviously prosperous;
most of the people there said they were content with their life.
However, human nature being what it is, such communes can
prove too safe, too predictable, provoking a degree of dissatis-
faction, especially among young people.
Why not, therefore, plan into the habitat complex ‘pads’ in the
reworked cities where acquaintance with other boys and girls,
‘fun’ and adventure, and the means to try differing work styles,
could be available? Disused city infrastructure could readily be
adapted to this purpose, and to live entertainment.
There are without doubt many people to whom such ideas
would be anathema, possibly because of the influences of their
own upbringing. Changed methods of education, developing
social contacts and skills very early, might well reduce their
numbers. Chapter 16 looks at this aspect of the idea. Also, those
starting their first relationship might well prefer to live alone for
a while. But for those who choose the true community, the
advantages are obvious. Granted that they are intelligent and
enlightened, as they probably would be, they would acknow-
ledge the power and importance of peer group influence on their
children, and would offer that peer group creative and
satisfactory pursuits simply by providing them with the facilities
likely to encourage this.
At present, of course, many Western children are brought up
with concepts like ‘privacy’, ‘staying in one’s own backyard’, and
‘keeping oneself to oneself’, which may or may not be natural.
Rebuffs to early social questing are a painful part of almost every
childhood. It seems likely that children brought up in a freer,
more cooperative way, in which peer group influence and the
mentoring of adults are acknowledged and nurtured construct-
ively, would more readily see the advantages of the ‘village’ when
they became adults. And the village, of course, would be a much
safer place than a city, especially for children, who would almost
always be close to a range of people they know. Those who have
read Aldous Huxley’s last novel, Island, will recognize some of the
ideas set out here. Perhaps we should also include his thought
that every child should have access to a second family, to whom
he or she can go when for any reason they are at odds with their
parents for the time being.
C HAPTER 16
M AKING E DUCATION
W ORK
No teacher discipline, no exams, no formal lessons, no set

curriculum or textbooks – such is the pattern for the Met school in
Providence, Rhode Island, arguably one of the world’s most
successful places of education. In spite of the fact that about half of
the students are from poorer homes, and had limited previous
learning skills, every one of the first two graduating classes were
accepted into university. Three quarters of these were the first in
their families to go on to higher education. Less than half of the
students are white, 38 per cent Latino, 18 per cent African-
American.
So successful are this school and its clones now developing
rapidly in America that Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates in 2005
donated $52 million to establish 70 more Met schools across
America by 2007. Gates commented: ‘America’s high schools are
obsolete. Until we design them to meet the needs of the 21st
century we will keep limiting – even ruining – the lives of millions
of Americans every year.’ The school is attracting worldwide
attention – 50 Dutch school principals have already come to look,
50 more are due.
Established by teacher Dennis Littky in 1996, the Met school is
based on groups of 14 who stay together for 4 years with a teacher
adviser, pursuing largely individual goals. In Littky’s words ‘The
MAKING EDUCATION WORK 179
main thing is not to be boring’. The major objectives are to teach

students how to learn and think, and to pursue their own interests
and abilities in an individual but purposive way. Peer interaction
and freedom from iron-clad curricula and ‘discipline’ motivate
learning, what is learned is closely related to the real world.
The new society will need the best methods of education
possible – designed to develop socially adequate, innovative,
happy people who recognize their own abilities and ambitions
and are confident in them. These requirements suggest that con-
siderably more money and effort should be devoted to education,
and that some quite basic changes in approach are necessary.
These might include a better appreciation that the process of edu-
cation begins, and is perhaps at its most important, early in life.
A number of recent studies have confirmed what women
have always known – that effective ‘mothering’ is highly
important in the earliest development of the individual. Close
physical contact between mother and child, facial expressions,
such as smiling, even baby talk, seem necessary to create an
optimal brain network on which later knowledge, and indeed the
means of social stability, can be built. Significant implications are
that adequate paid maternity leave is something more important
than mere convenience, that the care and nurture of children is
vital work worthy of fair recompense, and that any economic
requirement that mothers return early to the workforce is socially
damaging.
It is salutary that the framework of most present day education
systems is almost 2500 years old. The Greek philosopher,
Aristotle, believed that from the age of seven children should be
educated in ways which moulded them to suit the needs of the
state – a new idea at that time.1 After puberty would come ‘liberal’
schooling, in many ways similar to modern tertiary education.
‘Education must be one and the same for all.’ Aristotle wrote: ‘The
oversight of education must be a public concern, not the private
affair which it is now, each man separately bringing up his own
children and teaching them just what he thinks they ought to
learn.’2 This was the model followed by the developing Western
world. It is still much in evidence today.
Nineteenth and early 20th century concepts of education, at

their most extreme, saw a school as a ‘sit stillery’ in which
organized and largely arbitrary areas of learning – ‘subjects’, such
as geography and mathematics, were taught. Much virtue was
seen in rote learning, which was thought to stimulate the mind
and memory, and rigid discipline, enforced by punishment, was
seen to have moral ‘character building’ values. Then, at the
beginning of the 20th century, came an influential reformer, an
American professor, John Dewey.3 In Dewey’s view societies
could develop only if education became less rigid, permitting
children to form their own ideas and develop their natural
creativity. Within this reasoning, fixed, ordered curricula become
obstructive, even dangerous. Activity and experiment should
replace rote learning and set ‘subject material’. These ideas
quickly became popular, especially in the US.
Austrian born Ivan Illich was an ordained Catholic priest who,
in 1969, was relieved of his priestly duties because of Vatican
disapproval of his ideas about education. These were that schools
should be abolished altogether, and that education should
become experience in real life situations.4 Illich vigorously
attacked schools as dangerous, unbalanced institutions which do
more harm than good. His alternative was a loose acquisition of
useful experience from peers and elders, as well as practical
experience with things. In a sense, teachers would continue to
exist, but they would be guides facilitating the learning process,
which would not follow a curriculum, but would serve the
individual’s needs and curiosity. There are striking similarities
between these views and actual practice in the Met schools.
There is a note of despair evident in much of what teachers and
‘experts’ are saying about conventional schooling. ‘In education,
the more skilled the teacher, the better the performance. Yet the
education industry everywhere is using the same techniques that
were common 150 years ago: students in groups from 10 to 50
being taught by a single teacher. The challenge will be to make
education less labour intensive by using fewer teachers better.’5
The following quote comes from one well researched and
considered Canadian paper: ‘Schools are generally intellectually
boring places, uninteresting both for the students compelled to

attend them and for adults hired to work in them… And there is
not a single educational reform in the 20th century that has
changed this fact… The educational establishment, including most
of its research community, remains largely committed to the
educational philosophy of the 19th and early 20th centuries.’6
Alvin Toffler remarked: ‘Mass education was the ingenious
machine constructed by industrialism to produce the kind of
adults it needed… Our schools face backwards towards a dying
system, rather than forwards to the emerging new society, which
will require people who have the future in their bones.’7
Different individuals do indeed respond best to different
methods of education. Some children will amicably learn a pre-
defined curriculum in a group, although the long-term benefit of
this to them is doubtful. Others rebel against it. Some work best
alone, some need more time than others to complete a task. Why, in
the light of this background of thought, and the demonstrably
differing needs of students, has the traditional school hung on so
long? Social structures provide much of the answer. Class systems in
which ‘the working class’ is expected to ‘know its place’, in which
‘the deserving poor’ are seen as inevitable, are still very much alive
in many places. Since increasing numbers of women now work in
most parts of the world, schools have acquired a significant function
as places for children to ‘be’ while both parents are at work. Many
religious schools around the world tend to be conservative and to
teach what suits the dogma of that particular religion.
Education, then, has two major and often conflicting objectives:
first to mould children to fit society and suit its purposes; second,
to provide information and conditions for the free development of
the abilities and ideas of young human beings. These alternatives
lie behind much of the very considerable body of current comment
on education. There is a view that the ‘progressive’ should prevail
and many private schools are informed by it. Then there is the
opinion that since human societies function under the rule of law,
which protects individuals and offers them collective benefits,
education systems should train children to accept the obligations
and restrictions society requires.
Ordinary commonsense indicates that an amalgam of both

influences is reasonable, with most considered opinion and
practice tending towards less restrictive education for younger
children in particular. It could reasonably be argued that the most
useful and productive social conscience is likely not from
conformity, but from people thinking and speaking freely and
innovatively. The heresies of one generation are frequently the
gospel of the next.
What might ideally be taught to four to eight year olds as the
first requirements of their education? There are plenty of ideas on
this subject, many of them stemming from the thousands of
‘progressive’ schools, both private and public, around the world.
Among them we may find the following:
• Respect and love for the planet, all its life forms and its
ecosystems. This, to be taught largely by seeing and doing
things, becoming involved with nature early in life in hands-
on activities such as gardening, caring for animals, involve-
ment in environmental causes.
• The ability to handle personal relationships within the
constraints of society. There have been successful experi-
ments in ‘classroom democracy’, using ideas like the right to
equal treatment, opportunity and responsibility, the concept
that no person ‘owns’ or should dominate another person.
• Nurturing and encouraging individual human abilities.
Children often show an early interest in painting, music,
dancing. It should be automatic for them to assume that
every human has the right and the obligation to explore her
or his potential, to know what it is and develop it to its full
extent, that a basic value is to be creative, and that the
products of human creativity are important, with great
potential for good or bad.
Accordingly, the age at which children should be introduced to

abstracts like mathematics and literacy is controversial, and while
there has been some reaction from the formerly accepted ideas of
Jean Piaget that their teaching should be linked to maturation,
and that children should be tasked when they are ‘ready’, those
ideas are far from being abandoned.8
The Early Learning Goals system officially promoted in
Britain, obliging nursery schools to teach an approach to reading,
writing and mathematics, has been considerably criticized as ‘hot
housing’ and ‘battery farming’.9 The organization Let Children
Play, suggests on its website that formal teaching should be
delayed till the age of six or seven, as is the case in Switzerland.10
This site quotes an international study, conducted in 32 countries,
which found that children taught literacy later have, at the ages of
9 and 14, better reading skills than those taught earlier. Professor
Anne Locke claimed the Early Learning goals were clearly
beyond the maturity of some children, presenting ‘a real danger
that at the very least we will turn children off learning because
they will not succeed and will be conscious of failure’.11 She also
quoted the European experience ‘where children are not intro-
duced to this kind of work until they are much older, but learn a
lot more quickly’. According to one report, the Swiss system
teaches the basics of reading in two terms, compared with three
years in Britain.12
The need for knowledge is growing rapidly in today’s flexible
and fast moving patterns of work and relationships. If students
are going to master larger volumes of new knowledge, some
things may have to be left out to make room for this. Cheap, easy
to use calculators diminish the need for rote learned ‘tables’ and
basic arithmetic. Once voice actuated computers become freely
available – and that will be soon – even the basics of literacy,
particularly handwriting, could well be questioned. Should
laborious rote learning, which has been made largely irrelevant
by technology, yield priority to learning how to ‘tap into’ the
vastly increased bank of modern information?
Advanced education, then, might also become a departure
from the traditional classroom where on-the-spot teachers of
varying ability lecture to students, to a much more flexible and
experimental mode making extensive use of audio visual
methods, especially visual recorded ‘lessons’ from unusually
good communicators. What is a school, after all? The Greek word
meant ‘leisure’. Originally a school was a group of people who

voluntarily gathered at the feet of a great thinker, who came and
went as they felt they had acquired what they needed from his
wisdom.
To what extent might this influence the use of modern com-
munications technologies in schools, rather than simply providing
computers and saying: ‘Okay. Now sit down in front of those, do
as you’re told and become smart/smarter/smartest’? Teaching
mere computer literacy achieves the means without the objective.
But, properly used, computers offer the chance of bringing the
talents of a gifted teacher to thousands – even millions.
How do children learn? Research into successful home
schooling indicates that they learn naturally by asking questions
about what comes into their minds, and that these do not follow
each other in any organized ‘curriculum’ way. ‘Why is the moon
yellow?’ ‘Why is sugar bad for you?’ ‘Do cats think?’ The
evidence is that children have a natural ability to learn this way
and then to fit all these things together into a coherent picture of
the world. It is probably the way all human children learned prior
to the introduction of mass education systems.
To what extent are traditional schools the product of the
‘clockwork universe’ ideas of the 19th century, which assume that
a standard and arbitrary body of knowledge, administered
compulsorily to everyone in an ‘organized’ way, regardless of
their differing abilities and capacity, is best? To what extent does
boredom act as an abrasive in the machinery of learning? Many
textbooks are badly written and unattractively presented. They
are frequently mechanistic, loaded with often unnecessary charts
and diagrams, insufficiently related to life experience. Their
connection to anything ‘real’ may seem obscure, especially to
young children. On a visit to China, I was impressed by a
‘Children’s Palace’ in Shanghai. These craft and activities centres
are not only designed to stimulate curiosity and creativity in
children, but also to permit observation of the particular talents
and interests of the individual, so these can be encouraged and
nurtured. There may well be scope for this approach in schools
everywhere.
Certainly a downgrading of ‘curriculum’ considerations,

allowing much greater freedom for individual development, and
much looser time frames, seems desirable. The objection that this
makes formal examination more difficult is acknowledged. But
this is, or should be, a secondary consideration to providing a good
education. Employers want examination results, but would these
not be more useful if the exams were organized and provided by
employer groups to assess the specialized knowledge and skills
their businesses need in potential employees?
School time could offer students the freedom to select, from
books and audio visual materials, things they want or need to
know. There is also scope for electronic presentations of inter-
active sessions with teachers of proven ability, originality of mind
and demonstrated communication skills, even if these verge on
the charismatic. Open-ended learning schedules, rather than fixed
terms ending in examinations, would allow students to approach
excellence in their studies in their own time.
An essential problem of ‘mass’ schooling is its influence in
maintaining inequalities.13 Children of affluent and educated
parents go to ‘good schools’ which, because they are good, attract
the best teachers. Student motivation is usually high, and because
of these factors, the quality of the school is maintained. These
factors do not generally obtain for schools with a high proportion
of deprived children. Here difficulties of discipline and a general
contempt for the learning process become common, and the
schools are frequently unable to teach even basic literacy
universally. Eventually ‘working class kids get working class jobs’
– or no job at all. The power of modern communications technol-
ogy to redress this balance is obvious.
Ivan Illich claimed most schools have a hidden curriculum,
based on the discipline and regimentation they impose on
children, ‘to know your place and sit still in it’. Illich’s concept
of a framework of educational resources which would give
individuals the choice and opportunity to learn what is most
useful to them, widely considered impracticable when he
wrote, is rapidly becoming less so as information technology
advances.
In general, schools, and indeed universities, promote a culture

of half learning when they are organized into fixed terms of study
interspersed with regular examinations. These generally have an
acceptable pass mark, as low as 50 per cent. The majority, who
never even approach the highest marks, are finally passed out as
being educated in their subject area when in fact they probably
know little more than half of it. Liberal subject choice in
examination questions tends to reinforce this effect. The student
responds to what he or she knows, and what is not known is
tacitly ignored.
By contrast, modern electronic ‘open’ universities, now
developing in many parts of the world, accept that a student
should study a subject for as long as it takes to at least approach
excellence, that her or his study should involve a great deal of
individual choice of material, no matter how long it takes.
Students are encouraged to draw their own conclusions, criticize,
and put forward new ideas, not just sit and listen. They can then
be examined when they feel they are ready. Education along these
lines could be the subject of experimentation at many levels.

• Education to produce original, even dissentient thinking,
rather than conformity.
• Education for excellence, rather than to lesser standards.
• Education for individual aptitudes, rather than fixed
curricula.
• Motivation by practical goal-seeking, rather than by
imposed ‘discipline’.
• Considerable freedom for students to choose areas of
knowledge they feel happy with, consistent with their
abilities and purposes.
• Maximum use of modern technology to convey know-
ledge from the best teachers, rather than average class
teaching, and designed to inspire enthusiasm for learning.
C HAPTER 17
H EALTH AND W EALTH
Globally, the war against disease is going badly. This is regrettable

enough in itself, but it becomes all the more serious because
increasing human incapacity, if unchecked, will accelerate the
2030 drivers. Chronic illness or disability affects as many as two
in three people, premature death takes millions more. Some
African countries are virtually crippled, as AIDS destroys as
much as 40 per cent of the workforce. Major killing diseases,
recently considered under control, are again exacting a toll in the
millions. The worst effects are being felt in the developing world.
And most of those millions of premature deaths, more than
half of them of small children, are preventable – quite easily and
cheaply. Western nations justifiably wring their hands and lament
for years when calamities such as the September 11 disaster strike.
If one has tears for the 3000 people killed in the World Trade
Center, why not some for the 10 million children who die each
year, whose only crime is to be born in a developing country and
not the affluent West? What is happening here?
Indeed, the accident of birth can have fatal consequences: well
over half of humanity lives in conditions of poverty and
malnutrition that favour the quick spread of disease, in places
where the research effort and money devoted to health care are
minuscule compared with that directed to a small affluent
minority in the West. Classic instances are the appalling rate of

multi drug resistant tuberculosis infection in Russia – especially
in the prisons – and the slowness with which an effective anti
malarial drug, qinghaosu, is being developed, more than 20 years
after its value was established by Chinese research. During that
time 45 million people have died from malaria.
Three major diseases – malaria, tuberculosis and gastric
infections in infants, take 13 million lives every year.1 A fourth
new and incurable disease, AIDS, had killed more than 25 million
by 2005, and in that year more than 40 million people worldwide
carried the virus. In 2004, 3.1 million people died of AIDS, and for
the first time, in many areas, the number of women affected
exceeded men. In South Africa it was estimated that 22.8 per cent
of pregnant women were HIV positive, and that around a third of
the children of these women would be born with the virus or
would be infected while breastfeeding.2 Over the next ten years
this African disaster is likely to be repeated in south Asia, the
former Soviet Union, Indonesia and possibly China. And there is
still no cure, no cheap, effective treatment to halt this global
pandemic, and no united world response to a killer of humans in
numbers now seen as likely to exceed the death toll of the Black
Death. There are 6.5 million people in the world who need AIDS
drugs – less than a million are getting them.
Infections like tuberculosis, malaria and pneumonia, once
considered reasonably under control, are dangerously expanding
their incidence. In 2004, deaths from tuberculosis were estimated
at over 2 million.3 The disease is the leading cause of death for the
world’s young women – around three quarters of a million a
year;4 70 per cent of all cases are in the developing world. The
world’s renewed tuberculosis epidemic has close links with AIDS,
with estimates that AIDS increases tuberculosis infection by a
factor of 30.
The death rate from curable or avoidable illness in the
developing world contrasts sharply with the affluent West, where
people are healthy and long lived compared with those of even a
century ago. As late as the 19th century, barely half of all children
born survived into middle age, many dying at birth or soon
HEALTH AND WEALTH 189
afterwards. In 1900 the average life span in Western countries was

still under 50. The change over a century has been dramatic. In
2004 the European mountain state of Andorra had the highest life
expectancy of 83.5 years. Japan was next with 81 years, the US
was 46th at 77, and Britain 38th at 78. Due mostly to AIDS, ten sub
Saharan African countries were rated lowest; Zimbabwe’s healthy
average life expectancy was 32.9 years, Sierra Leone’s was 25.95 –
‘levels we haven’t seen in advanced countries since medieval
times’.6
But the news is not all bad. Global attacks on disease, carried
out by the World Health Organization and the United Nations
Children’s Fund, have had some spectacular successes. The
disfiguring and often fatal smallpox, for so many centuries a
scourge in the world, appears to have been eliminated in 1977,
when the last case was reported in Somalia. Until the vaccination
programme began in 1967, 15 million people a year had smallpox.
Of these, 2 million died. A similar campaign against poliomyelitis
– infantile paralysis – made significant progress during the last
decade of Millennium 2, when cases reported in the world fell
from 350,000 in 1988 to just 600 in 2001.7 Deaths from measles and
gastric disease also declined substantially. The rates of heart
disease – the world’s largest killer – dropped by around a third in
much of the developed world during the last decade of
Millennium 2, due mainly to lower consumption rates of tobacco,
alcohol and fat, and a fashion in the West for exercise regimes.
However, these lifestyle improvements were chiefly among the
wealthy and educated.
Forecasts of life expectancy in the 21st century as high as 400
years exist,8 based on expectations of the powers of genetically
engineered drugs, and on ‘bionic’ devices – effectively human
spare parts.9 These estimates are speculative at best. However,
perhaps more significant areas of research are based on theories
that the life expectancy of a species may be influenced by the
proportion of energy devoted respectively to reproduction and to
self repair. The life span of fruit flies was doubled over 100
generations by permitting only eggs laid at a late age of maternal
life to reproduce. Genetic engineers were able to double life spans
in nematodes by manipulating a single gene. Researchers are now

looking for the equivalent gene in humans, and believe that quite
soon future generations may live 150, possibly 200 years. The
morality of extending life spans in an already overcrowded world
is, however, questionable.
At present around one in 10,000 people in the industrialized
world reaches 100; around 30 per cent are physically and mentally
competent into their 80s and 90s.10 Most are women, none is obese,
virtually none smoke. Several countries have claimed the world’s
oldest person, but probably the most credible when she died late
in 2003 was Elizabeth Israel of Dominica in the Caribbean, then
aged 128. Only two others have reached 120 or more. Elizabeth
Bolden, of Memphis, Tennessee, was considered the world’s
oldest person late in 2005 , aged 115.
The essential – and controversial – problem with health care is
its extreme variability. Do not get sick if you are poor. But if you
are poor, you are much more likely to get sick. These statements
reflect the strong association of good health with high economic
status and degree of education. This is most sharply obvious
when health and prosperity in the developed nations are
compared with those in the developing nations. For instance,
annual private and public spending on health in Kenya is $8 per
person, $5 in Nigeria, $3 in Ethiopia, compared with $1500 in the
US and $4000 in the US. For every 10,000 people, Kenya has 1
doctor, Germany 35, the US 25.11 Drugs often cost much more in
developing countries, due to ‘market forces’. Nevirapine, which
prevents AIDS transmission between mother and child, costs $430
in Norway, but $874 in Kenya, where it is desperately needed;12 a
course of first line tuberculosis treatment would cost a Swiss
worker 1 hour’s wages, a Tanzanian labourer would need 500
hours’.13
However, this rich–poor division and its effects are also
evident within the wealthier nations. A survey of 1000 people in
each of five countries, the US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand
and Canada, showed that 29 per cent of those with below average
incomes reported fair or poor health compared with 10 per cent of
people with above average earnings.14 How does the connection
between health and wealth happen? In many cases, as in the

prisons and refuges for the homeless in many countries in which
tuberculosis, hepatitis and HIV/AIDS are rampant, the link is due
to almost ideal conditions for cross infection and debilitation
caused by poor food and cramped living conditions. Any
initiative seeking to remedy this situation will find factors
extending well outside the ‘health’ area into economics, habitat
and education.
The major, preventable problems persisting in the developing
world are exacting an appallingly high cost. Of the world’s 45
million blind people, 90 per cent live in poverty stricken areas of
Asia, Africa and Latin America. Of these, 80 per cent could have
kept their sight through established, relatively cheap procedures.
For instance, virtually all of the 20 million with cataracts could be
cured for around $20 each, the 6 million blinded from trachoma
could have been cured by a $25 operation – lid rotation surgery.
Many of these blind are children, who usually die within two
years.15 The commendable battle to combat river blindness by US
drug multinational Merck and Co by providing free medication
for the past 17 years is described in Chapter 11.
Largely due to an array of new and expensive diagnostic
machinery and medical drugs, health budgets are increasing
steadily in all Western countries, running into billions of dollars a
year, but there is insufficient funding for the simplest and most
necessary health measures in poor countries. Cheap vitamin A
supplements, which can prevent the blindness threatening
millions of children, could be provided for around 50 cents a
child, but are still not generally available in the developing world.
Tropical disease rates are on the increase in developing
countries, and even in ‘second world’ nations such as Brazil,
where malaria has increased twentyfold in recent years to a figure
approaching 1 million infected people. Malaria, perhaps the
world’s most damaging infectious disease, is spreading rapidly,
now affecting around 45 per cent of the planet’s land surface.
Global warming is expected to increase the areas prone to malaria
to 75 per cent of the planet by 2050, including parts of the US,
Europe and Australia that are now malaria free. The situation has
become more dangerous because the single-celled parasite which

causes malaria, and which is transmitted by Anopheles
mosquitoes, has developed resistance to almost all drugs. This
applies in particular to the most feared cerebral strain, Plasmodium
falciparum, which is responsible for the majority of fatal cases.
One in 15 of all humans has malaria – as many as 500 million
people – around double the 1980 figure. It kills more than 2
million people every year.16 People infected with malaria can
suffer as many as 15 recurrent and disabling bouts a year. Those
who die are predominantly pregnant women and children. The
most promising treatment is derived from a Chinese plant called
Qinghao. A ten-year field trial involving over 100,000 people on
the Thai-Burmese border has shown that the extract, known as
Qinghaosu, is almost 100 per cent effective in preventing malaria
deaths when used in association with established anti malarial
drugs. The active agent, artemisisin, is, however, in short supply
because there is not enough of the qinghao plant. However, a team
of international researchers are developing a synthetic version of
the drug, OZ277, and are now working on getting the costs of the
drug combination down to no more than $1 a tablet. It is hoped it
will become available in quantity in three to four years. Only
three tablets would be needed to effect a cure. Since it kills the
parasite in the bloodstream it can also prevent people from
getting the disease. The World Health Organization estimates a
global need for 132 million courses of treatment of ACT – the
combined artemisinin and other anti-malarials.
One of the most dangerous and feared disease threats to the
world is influenza – not the common strains which annually
afflict millions of people, but rare mutations against which there
is little general resistance, and frequently no protection from
specific flu vaccines. These are capable of causing pandemics like
the one which killed an estimated 40 million people in 1918 and
the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in China
which caused global panic in 2003. The influenza strain com-
manding world attention in 2005 was H5N1. A little publicized
outbreak of this virus among chickens in Hong Kong in 1997
brought the world dangerously close to another such influenza
epidemic, with the potential to kill 100 million people.17 Influenza

is common in birds, and aquatic wildfowl carry the viruses. While
the birds do not always become ill themselves, this avian virus
pool can mutate and transfer to other species, such as pigs, and
thence to humans. In the event, efficient detective work by the
world’s virologists, and the subsequent slaughter of more than 1.5
million chickens, appeared to have controlled the Hong Kong
outbreak. But by 2005 H5N1 had again become a major threat,
killing 60 people in several Asian countries and 3 in Turkey,
prompting expenditure of billions of dollars to stockpile the only
anti-viral drugs likely to be useful, Tamiflu and Relenza.
Then there are the new illnesses which have inexplicably
become much more widespread than they were 50 years ago. Hay
fever, apparently quite rare a century ago, has now reached epi-
demic proportions, and since it can develop into asthma, which
may be fatal, it can be dangerous. Typically it results in streaming
eyes and noses, a bad attack of the snuffles, and general misery
for millions of people. Millions? Well, yes, tens of millions even.
As many as a third of Americans, a quarter of Britons and 40 per
cent of Australians, now suffer from hay fever regularly. Why
now? Theories vary from disturbances to the immune system
caused by mass vaccinations, to air pollution, to less exposure of
children in developed countries to infections and dirt during
childhood. Another persuasive case has been made that planting
high pollen producing trees like cypress and alders in streets and
gardens is also a contributing factor.19
Huge costs accrue to national health services because of the
effects of harmful and addictive products such as tobacco, alcohol
and, to a lesser degree, ‘illegal’ drugs like marijuana and heroin.
The failure of the tobacco industry to market a fire safe cigarette –
one which will go out if it is dropped or discarded – is estimated to
kill 1000 people a year in the US alone. While this should be noted,
these fatalities are negligible compared with the 4.9 million killed
annually by lung cancer and other tobacco related illnesses, as
estimated by the World Health Organization. Nicotine is as
addictive as heroin or cocaine, and smoking should be regarded as
a serious drug addiction ‘second to no other’, according to one 2000
report.20 A commentary on this report defined smoking as ‘a deadly

and pervasive addictive drug syndrome covering a quarter of the
population … not just some innocuous or quirky lifestyle habit’.21
There are time honoured fiscal reasons why the world’s two
major killing drugs, alcohol and tobacco, responsible for close on
10 million deaths a year, do not attract the odium and legal
prohibition of other recreational drugs such as marijuana. They
provide massive tax income to governments. The tobacco
industry is at its largest in China, where there are estimated to be
320 million smokers, of whom 800,000 a year die from tobacco
related diseases. The national tobacco monopoly in China
provides the government with around $20 billion a year in tax
revenue, employs at least 8 million people, and produces more
than a quarter of the world’s 6 trillion cigarettes.22
Meanwhile, smoking related deaths in the developed world
have grown over the last 50 years more rapidly than population
increase, especially for women – from 26,000 in 1955 to 476,000 in
1995. Deaths worldwide are three times the number of road
fatalities – and are estimated to grow to 10 million a year over the
next few decades as smoking increases in the developing world.
There seems, therefore, a reasonable case for an additional special
tax to be levied on the manufacturers of products of this type,
which are legal, to cover their huge costs to public health systems.
Early in 2000, a World Health Organization investigation
found ‘an alarming spread of drug resistant infections in many
impoverished countries’, with drug resistance also increasing in
the wealthy countries due to the overuse of antibiotics. There was,
accordingly, ‘a very real possibility that today’s antibiotics would
be rendered useless in 10 to 15 years’.23 The use of antibiotics in
food production is widely suspect. They are commonly admin-
istered in meat-producing industries, such as factory farmed
chickens, to prevent the infections which would normally kill off
creatures reared in such unnaturally close proximity, and also
because they can promote extra growth. The issue is not an easy
one, because there has been no definite proof that these antibiotics
are transferred to the human consumer. However, there is a
disquieting amount of circumstantial evidence.
The basic rules for staying healthy are, or should be, fairly
generally known by now. It is suspected that not eating too much
– actually feeling hungry much of the time – can add to life span.
Some researchers are even putting figures to the number of years
certain dietary and lifestyle measures may extend your life. Not
smoking heads one list at eight years, avoiding saturated fats
rates six years, a good night’s sleep and regular small doses of
aspirin around three each, small amounts of alcohol two years.
Responsible recent research has not suggested that moderate
meat eating, less than 140 grams a day, is harmful. More than that
can be, especially if the meat has a high saturated fat content. Of
interest too, is some very respectable research by the Institute of
Public Health at Cambridge University, which has been
monitoring the health of 9000 people from all parts of Britain, and
from a wide range of social sampling, for more than 15 years. The
major result showed that those who ate salads, raw vegetables
and fruit had much lower rates of heart disease and cancer.
Foods seen as desirable luxuries, such as ice cream, frequently
contain large amounts of sugar and fat. High fat content makes
food seem more desirable – it is known to induce a sense of
stomach satisfaction. But there is also, of course, the economic
factor. Fats, especially the most dangerous saturated and trans-
fats, are present in the cheapest ingredients, such as palm oil,
frequently used in processed foods of all kinds. Their use is
almost automatic – it becomes a part of economic competition.
Such processed and ‘fast’ food frequently becomes the most easily
afforded by families on tight budgets, who are virtually
compelled to buy it for economic reasons. Cheap margarines can
contain large amounts of transfats.
Food and water are the basic necessities of life. It is possible to
control their quality effectively by regulation, and this will need
to be a high priority for the new society. Already, civil law is inter-
vening in the situation, with more and more successful cases
against purveyors of substances which are demonstrably
damaging.

• Major development of health maintenance co-opera-
tives, designed to prevent illnesses.
• Development and production of life-saving drugs by a
world authority, not by private pharmaceutical compan-
ies; this authority also providing necessary micro-
nutrients such as vitamin A wherever they are needed.
• Diversion of millions of dollars now spent on medical
‘machinery’ and new drugs often no more effective than
their predecessors to drugs to prevent and cure the
world’s major killing diseases.
• Mass production of mobile health clinics and operating
theatres to provide a basic travelling medical service in
developing countries.
• Training schools in the developed world to provide
health workers able to cope with most ailments, as with
Chinese ‘barefoot doctors’, and with the knowledge
needed to recognize and refer more difficult conditions
to specialized areas.
• Taxes on producers of harmful substances, including
foods, sufficiently high to cover the medical costs to the
community of their effects.
• Mandatory requirement for doctors trained in develop-
ing countries to stay there, rather than agreeing to be
‘poached’ to a more affluent society.
C HAPTER 18
R ELIGION : T HE C EMENT
OF S OCIETY ?
Most humans are religious in one way or another. There are more
than 2 billion Muslims and Hindus – for almost all of these people
their religion is an intimate and essential part of their daily lives.
Thirty-six per cent of Americans believe the Bible is literally true.1
There is an instinct for ritual, an important element in most
religions, among many life forms, including humans. This tends
to indicate that religions are indeed a basic social cement, if only
because they cater for that deep- seated human need for ritual, for
the mysterious.
But there is also the view that the conservatism of religions,
their insistence on dogma, their subjugation of the human mind to
an inscrutable ‘divine will’, and their tendency to become
extremist, damage human society to an extent that outweighs their
merits. Fundamentalist religious extremism has certainly been an
element in conflicts that caused several million violent deaths
during the 20th century, and many of which have continued into
the 21st. In the fertile and beautiful Maluku islands of eastern
Indonesia in 2001 Muslim extremists forced thousands of
Christians to convert to Islam, brutally killing those who refused,
and, almost as brutally, compelling circumcision on those who
agreed, regardless of age and sex. But this was far from one sided.
Christians retaliated just as savagely, beheading Muslims.
Disputes between Hindus and Muslims in south Asia have killed

millions. Believers in ‘the rapture’ assert Christ will stand
alongside those ‘saved’, watching everyone else crushed in huge
fissures that will open up in the ground, or killed in a multitude of
other hideous ways during seven years of tribulation. During the
200 years from the 16th century, hundreds of thousands of women
and young children were burned as witches by both Catholic and
Protestant Christians after ‘confessing’ under torture.2 Religions,
therefore, especially those parts of them driven by assertive and
inflexible dogma, can without doubt be forces for evil. This
dangerous extremism is likely to increase in circumstances of
increasing global hardship – not only in terms of the numbers
recruited to religions, but also in its potential to do harm.
Traditional religious belief that humans are fundamentally
different from other animals, and thus divinely authorized to
exploit other species, is showing signs of softening as the influ-
ence of the environmental movement extends. Extreme and now
largely unacceptable Christian ideas, such as a Heaven some-
where in the sky and a Hell in which the evil are tortured by
eternal fires, have all but disappeared. Such images of sitting on
clouds playing a harp or frizzling forever were decently interred
by statements from Pope John Paul II that Heaven is ‘not an
abstraction, nor a physical place among clouds, but a living
relationship with the Holy Trinity’ – and Hell ‘the state of those
who freely and definitely separate themselves from God’.3 Islam
and some Protestant Evangelical Christians, however, still hold
that there is a Hell after death, a definite place of punishment, and
even torture.
All the world’s religions include people who earnestly seek
adaptation to the changing world. There is increasing evidence of
greater cooperation and efforts at mutual understanding between
world religions – a trend defined by the awkward word
‘ecumenical’. A significant, and largely unreported, ecumenical
initiative, the Parliament of the World’s Religions, brought
together more than 6000 people from over 100 religious comm-
unities.4 All the major religions, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism,
Judaism and Christianity, were represented at this massive
RELIGION: THE CEMENT OF SOCIETY? 199
assembly. One of its major concerns was the absence of any moral
basis for globalization.
Anyone who has visited one of the great medieval cathedrals
must marvel at the patience and persistence that allowed relatively
small communities, using primitive hand tools, to create structures
of such size, complexity and inspired design. These apparent
miracles were not confined to Europe. Almost everywhere in the
world, and thousands of years back in time, such testaments to
faith can be found – and generally the standards of craftsmanship,
even of artistry, are so high as to indicate a deep devotion to
purpose by the builders. Religion and ritual appear to have been a
powerful influence in human communities, as far back as history
can be traced.
Rituals, common to almost all religions, may well prove much
more important than the rationalist view regards them – essential
to individual and social stability. Ethologists have identified a
need for ritual as one of many qualities once idealized as exclu-
sively human, but actually present in the behaviour of other
species, among them the courting habits of birds, and the comm-
unication forms of many species. While some animals are solitary,
many assemble, live, fight and hunt together in packs where
social rituals can be observed. Children walk along a footpath
touching every third paling on a fence, or hop over paving stones
in a definite order. Left to themselves young children tend to
accumulate in gangs, which readily acquire simple forms of ritual
– almost the beginnings of primitive religions. William Golding
has given a sensitive and penetrating illustration of this.5
It is, of course, not possible to leave the matter at this simplistic
level. Overlaying this apparent instinct for ritual are spirituality
and faith, attested to by millions of people as major influences in
their lives, and historically the basis for most systems of law,
ethics and morality. The practice of meditation, which means
clearing the mind and, it is believed, opening it to an outside,
benign influence, has been common to most religions for so many
centuries it is impossible to ignore it. The fact that millions of
people all over the world practise meditation regularly appears to
indicate two things: that there is individual awareness of, and
attraction to, the spiritual, and that this is frequently exerted

outside the limits of conventional – church orientated – religion.
Indeed, in what was claimed to be the world’s largest survey of
church going Christians most of those between 15 and 25
expressed some dissatisfaction with the church experience.6
Thinking in the Western world from the 18th century onwards
evolved rationalism, a group of ideas which advanced the
primacy and independence of the logical, intelligent individual
and the reductionist methods of science, economics and
technology. All this greatly reduced the grip of both ritualized
religion and the family on societies, altering social patterns and
greatly reducing the power of the Christian churches over their
congregations. However, it seems unlikely that these social
changes can, in the long run, override the need for spirituality and
ritual that seem so deeply imbedded in human consciousness.
The popularity of the many TV series based on ‘magic’, the
prevalence of fortune tellers and astrologers offering their
services, interest in witchcraft, Taoism, the I Ching, astrology, etc,
all testify to a nostalgic desire for the occult, the mysterious, the
ritualistic. Feng shui, the Chinese craft of spiritually orientated
and designed buildings, is in extensive use in the West. Sinologist
Orville Schell commented on a Western urge ‘to give parts of
ourselves to a way of living in which belief rather than rational-
ism reigns’.7
Albert Einstein argued that science and religion were necessary
to each other – ‘science can only ascertain what is, but not what
should be… Science without religion is lame, religion without
science is blind.’8 Einstein considered people could be religious
without necessarily believing in a personal god, but by achieving
‘a far reaching emancipation from the shackles of personal hopes
and desires’, and thereby attaining ‘that humble attitude of mind
towards the grandeur of reason incarnate in existence and which,
in its profoundest depths, is inaccessible to man’.
The Chinese government’s crackdown from July 1999 onwards
on the Falun Gong movement shows how persistent ancient
rituals and customs can be in the face of rigorous campaigns to
suppress them. Falun Gong, which insists it is not a ‘sect’, does
use elements of Chinese Buddhism and Taoism, as well as ancient

breathing and meditation techniques designed to induce
tranquility and good health. Claiming to have as many as 100
million adherents worldwide – but mostly in China – Falun Gong
recruited many Chinese officials and soldiers, some of them
members of the Communist Party. The banning of Falun Gong
and the arrest and imprisonment of thousands of its members
may well drive this movement underground, but is unlikely to
suppress it totally.
Accumulation of, and insistence on, dogma – a body of beliefs
all members of a faith are required to accept uncritically – is
perhaps the area in which organized religion is most criticized.
One of its consequences is the controversy between Darwinian
evolution and creationism. Creationist Christians believe that the
account in Genesis describing how God created the world in six
days is literally true,9 and that the theory of the evolution of species
is wrong and blasphemous, while neo Darwinists strongly support
the evolution theory.10 During 2005 there was a major campaign
advancing ‘intelligent design’, claiming that species were created
by a mysterious and supernatural intelligence, rather than
evolving through natural selection. During the last half of the 20th
century fundamentalist sectors of Islam, Hinduism and
Christianity, motivated by rigid and selective bodies of dogma,
gained substantial influence, and at times acquired terrorist
overtones. There is, however, evidence that poverty is a causative
factor in religious fundamentalism, with at least one economist
asserting that economic losers retreat into religious extremism.11
To the observant, it is a daily miracle that the Earth spins

millennium after millennium, poised in space, never too hot nor
too cold to maintain life of some kind, maintaining a breathable
atmosphere, a reliable water supply, and in innumerable other
ways sustaining ecological balances of great complexity through
what seem to be largely automatic processes. Why? For most
people this question may initially seem pointless – they simply
take the planet’s performance for granted. But not everyone does
so.
In the 1960s, astronomer Fred Hoyle, studying the way carbon

– which is the basis of life on Earth – is made from helium inside
large stars, concluded that this ‘monstrous series of coincidences’
suggested ‘a put up job’, some kind of deliberate design.12 In 1972,
geophysicist James Lovelock suggested that the Earth behaves
almost like a sentient organism in which physical and biological
systems cooperate to maintain these delicate and improbable
balances. Speaking in Tokyo in 1992, Lovelock redefined his
proposition to the following: ‘The whole system and its material
environment is self regulating at a state comfortable for the
organisms.’ On that occasion he made it plain that ‘a sentient Gaia
able to control the Earth consciously’ was not intended, remarking,
‘This was never some trendy New Age pseudo science.’13
The Gaia hypothesis – the name comes from the ancient Greek
earth goddess – has certainly become well known, and has been
extended by other people into areas well beyond Lovelock’s
original proposition. These extensions resemble animism, the
earliest known human religion, based on the worship of the Earth
and the forces of nature. Hence, for the sake of this discussion, the
name neoanimism can be assigned to the mystic and arcane
beliefs that have sprung from the original Gaia hypothesis, and
which in various forms constitute one of the world’s fastest
growing religions.
Lovelock’s original idea was set out in a paper postulating an
influential control over the Earth’s climate by some of the planet’s
smallest creatures – algae. The essential proposition is that tiny
fragments of a substance called DMS,14 emitted by algae, seed
clouds. Hotter conditions breed more algae, which means more
clouds. When it becomes cooler, as cloud cover increases, the
algae decrease. This was instanced as one of the planet’s many
self regulating mechanisms.
The neoanimists assert that ‘primitive’ human faiths based on
worship of natural forces and the planet and its life forms, contain
elements of a religion relevant to present world conditions and
those of the immediate future. In a widely publicized statement in
2000, Prince Charles approached this view, calling for greater
reverence for nature and awareness that humanity is a part of
nature. However, while ancient animism was driven largely by

fear of natural forces and the need to placate them, neoanimism is
motivated by knowledge and respect for them. It could well
become a major evolving religion in the new society, perhaps as
part of a greater pantheism.
One of the influences of most traditional religions, including
Christianity, has been the idea that humans, in the image of God,
are masters, free to destroy its other life forms, indeed the fabric
of the Earth itself, to create what seems to be a favourable
environment for themselves. This influence has assisted the total
obliteration of thousands of species, and created environmental
conditions to the overall detriment of the planet. Concern about
these issues is the driving force behind the worldwide environ-
mental movement, which seeks the preservation and protection of
natural things.
If current religions do not adapt themselves, especially to a
greater regard for other life on Earth, they may well find
themselves replaced by a neoanimist religion, as likely as not to
accumulate around those aspects of the Gaia idea which promote
respect for and empathy towards the world, all its living
organisms, and its natural systems. Its beginnings – such groups
as the Dragon Environmental Network in Britain, which asserts
the sacred nature of the Earth, and Progressive Wicca – are
already established. In June 1999, a new Australian Protestant
hymn book with strong environmental influences was launched,
including such hymns as ‘Touch the Earth Lightly’ – ‘we who
endanger, who create hunger, agents of death for all creatures that
live, we who foster clouds of disaster, God of our planet, forestall
and forgive.’ The first edition of the new hymn book sold over 1
million copies. Biologist and philosopher Charles Birch describes
what he calls a ‘pan experientialist’ position – a perception of God
in the total of the subjective experiences of all organisms.15 He
believes humans must make a real effort to understand the
subjective experiences of other people and other life, and to assess
their implications.
It has been estimated that the fastest growing religion in the
world is Islam, which, with 1.3 billion adherents in 75 countries, is
gaining ground on the largest, Christianity, with a theoretical 1.7

billion, many of whom are not active. Said to be the fastest growing
in the US is Paganism, whose adherents often call themselves
witches. Such a Wicca coven prospers at America’s largest military
base, Fort Worth, with the tacit approval of military authorities,
who point out that the US constitution defends the right for any
religion to be practised.
The basic tenets of Paganism are neoanimist, and are most
commonly represented as gentle and noninterventionist. They
involve a worship of the Earth, of nature and all its manifest-
ations, and respect and care for these things, and have distinct
and established rituals. These include the Sabbats, eight seasonal
festivals and the monthly meeting, the Esbat, generally held at
full moon. However, according to the high priestess of one coven,
modern witches do not fly on broomsticks, hold sacrifices, wor-
ship the Devil, or indulge in orgies. Indeed, it is highly unlikely
that witches, the ‘wise women’ and healers of old, ever did these
things.

• There is a demonstrable human need for some consistent
and sustainable moral background of the type that
religions have traditionally provided. This should
encourage religions to adapt themselves to contem-
porary realities, present a united worldview as far as
possible, and identify and actively promote influences
contributing to the greater good.
• There is a need for religions to recognize the reasons for
and dangers of extremism, do their best to make these
generally known, and take whatever steps necessary to
control unreasoning fundamentalism.
• There is a need for religions to become more flexible, to
adjust their attitudes more accurately to the needs of the
modern world, to be aware of the growing influence of
the 2030 drivers, and to direct their influence towards
more favourable outcomes.
• There is a need for religions to recognize the extent of
ecological damage to the planet, and the viewpoint of
people who are concerned about this. This may require
far reaching philosophical changes, towards accepting
the Earth as a place of value and happiness in itself,
rather than merely a proving ground for some future
life. Assuming the world was made to a divine plan,
derogating its status to a place of misery and trial –
‘there’ll be pie in the sky by and by’ – could be seen as
the ultimate blasphemy.
PART F OUR
THE NEW SOCIETY

C HAPTER 19
T HE M ECHANICS OF
C HANGE
It is possible for us to decide what we want for our future with

reasonable precision. First, in the light of what we’ve considered
so far, what sort of new society do we want? By looking at the
facts of today and considering the options, it is within our power
to influence the future in important and useful ways, set
priorities, get new areas of thought and action moving. It is even
possible to set down a broad outline of what shape our society
might take in 20, 30, 40, 50 years’ time. But this needs to be done
in a practical way – there seems little point in visualizing new
societies that are derived from idealism or uninformed
speculation. There are plenty of Utopian visions around that are
just that. The new society needs to be pragmatic, evolving from
intelligent and feasible responses to the 2030 drivers and their
dangers. Whether we like it or not, its creation must involve some
very large changes to social and economic patterns and the
adoption of simpler, more frugal, lifestyles.
The transition will happen when there are enough well
planned political and economic pressures on the establishment
from the grassroots – and this will inevitably build up as the
influence of the drivers increases. But that will not be enough. The
actual building of the necessary new social and physical
structures will need the best efforts of people as individuals and
210 THE NEW SOCIETY
as purpose oriented groups, and a lot of innovative thinking at the

cutting edge. A recurring theme in this book has been this basic
need of the new society for planners and thinkers capable of
innovation and originality, and empowered to exercise these
capacities. This need is not served by current trends in which
many academics, who should be at the front line of new thought,
are increasingly trammelled by real or perceived threats to their
tenure, short-term commercial considerations and undue peer
pressure, which naturally assembles at the lowest common
denominator. Pyramidal business and bureaucratic management
structures often seem to strangle constructive change – nothing
must happen for the first time. Independent task forces who
know their job, and who operate in a climate of healthy
competition, are more likely to bring up new and practical ideas.
This necessity for new and free thought is perceived and
persuasively argued for in a 2002 book, The Rise of the Creative
Class by American academic Richard Florida.1 He says that future
economic development will be driven by intellectual elites,
groups of creative people who can generate original ideas.
According to Florida, the era of supervisory managers is passing,
and is already being replaced by new centres of economic growth
where universities, social tolerance and high tech industry thrive
together. Processes somewhat like this will be a necessary part of
the framework of the new society.
Take another look at the two axioms: Useful change is likely only
if it can provide as, equal, obvious and general a benefit as possible. If
proposed solutions don’t take the lowest common denominators of
human nature realistically into account they will not work.
These axioms need to inform all the areas of proposed change.
For instance, plainly, one of the highest priorities must be rapid
and massive development of a wide range of alternate energy
technologies. Design research for solar, wind, wave and tidal
power generators is already well advanced, and indicates that if
used in the right places, with the right economies of scale, they
can compete economically with power generated by oil or coal,
and more cheaply than the real costs of nuclear power. Many
wind generators in particular are already very close to being
THE MECHANICS OF CHANGE 211
competitive with fossil fuel power stations at about 3.5 to 6 cents

per kilowatt hour depending on location, and cheaper than
nuclear power at around 7 cents, plus the as yet unknown cost of
permanent waste disposal. A modern wind generator can,
moreover, replace the energy used to make it in less than six
months’ operation. Why, then, do the alternatives in total make
up barely 2 per cent of world energy supply?
Power is supplied to most people from huge utilities using
coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear or hydroelectric generation. These
utilities, especially since so many have been ‘privatized’, have a
vested interest in maintaining the maximum use of their
investments, and can also ‘lean on’ governments to determine
energy policy. That has been done recently and effectively in the
US and Australia. With important exceptions, the policy, almost
everywhere, is to pay lip service to a growing popular demand for
alternatives by sponsoring pilot plants and research programmes
and placing ‘ we are green’ advertising on a large scale, but not
going ahead with major projects that would permit a favourable
economy of scale. A coal-fired power station, for instance, is
estimated to have a useful life of 60 years, during which time its
owners want it to go on earning money for them. Their financial
interest is served by obstructing competing sustainable infra-
structure.
Associated with this is a steady and increasing ‘public
relations’ campaign to revert to fission nuclear power, in spite of
its dangers and high cost. I have in my files a syndicated Sunday
newspaper article under a full banner headline: NUCLEAR
GARDEN OF EDEN, WILDLIFE THRIVES AT CHERNOBYL
acclaiming Chernobyl as ‘a wildlife paradise of stunning eco-
logical and zoological richness’ in which ‘safaris are offered to
tourists prepared to don nuclear protection suits and open their
minds to the baffling outcome of the terrible events of April 26,
1986’, and that ‘there is now a belief that radiation, while
desperately harmful, might not be as uniformly horrendous as
previously believed’.
These promotions of fossil and nuclear power, deriving from
Axiom Two driven attitudes, need to be rationally taken into
212 THE NEW SOCIETY
account, devising ways to somehow change not in idealistic but in

practical ways. The answer comes, of course, from Axiom One.
Applying Axiom One would involve offering the big power
utilities financial conditions acceptable to them, and not to their
disadvantage, to convert to alternatives. This might amount to a
determined and well thought through system of guarantees, tax
penalties and inducements to make it profitable for them to invest
heavily in, such things as hydrogen production for fuel cells.
Concerted action by the governments of the developed world
along these lines could be coordinated by a world authority. Its
major concerns would logically be standardized economy of scale
manufacture and major deployment of the various alternate
technologies globally – these would be installed where they are
demonstrably appropriate. However, all viable technologies
would be deployed on every feasible site as rapidly as possible.
Given this, with subsidies no greater than those already given to
the nuclear industry, their combined output could meet the 2030
deadline, at least guaranteeing basic energy to the developing as
well as a more frugal Western world. However, we need to do this
now, not in ten years’ time.
Probably the next most important elements are perceptual: the
need for the increasingly small minority of the affluent to
understand that they can no longer be a self contained island of
prosperity in a sea of poverty and misery, and that it is to their
ultimate peril to try to be. The connection between inequality and
poverty and the destruction of New York’s World Trade Center is
real and important. It is necessary now for the influential and
powerful to understand the justifiable resentment at the rich
nations’ profligate use of most of the world’s depleting resources,
and the despair and anger that comes from poverty. It is worth
bearing in mind that in the mid 18th century the French
aristocracy was absolutely confident of its position, security, and
ability to govern and exploit a poor and apparently powerless
majority of the people. By the end of that century almost all of
these aristocrats had been killed or exiled.
Extremes of wealth and poverty must, therefore, quite quickly
become dangerous. Redressing these is necessary, and it is also
necessary to accept that a massive diversion of resources and

some, but not too much, sacrifice on the part of the affluent, must
be involved. It is possible to alleviate poverty and misery in the
developing world, but there can be no pretence that this will be
either quick or easy. However, if a significant beginning is made,
with determination and sincerity, the hatred and envy of the West
that drives terrorism, anarchy and religious extremism may be
substantially disarmed.
The question of refugees needs to be considered. With our
consent, our society is becoming globalized, national boundaries
are melting, and societies are becoming dislocated to the extent
that millions of people are on the move. Since the majority of the
world’s people are poor, it should not be surprising that the
affluent nations are receiving floods of destitute people. It will go
on being that way. Part of the necessary mechanics of change are
the means to absorb and use these people in ways encouraging
them to be loyal to their new home, self supporting and
productive. This will require a very considerable abandonment of
prejudice and chauvinism, and comprehensive planning
programmes, including re-education, especially in language and
social skills, and seed money for new enterprises for incoming
migrants.
Since change necessarily involves money, it would be naive to
discuss its mechanics without considering how that change might
be financed. Chapter 7 looked at the idea that defence and space
expenditure are necessary ‘balance wheels’ within over-
productive economies. If we accept the validity of the balance
wheel concept – and under present conditions this could be
conceded – the necessary large amounts of capital and productive
effort are indeed available.
‘Balance wheel’ spending in the G8 developed nations and the
major emerging powers – India and China – is not less than $1.2
trillion a year. Multilateral agreement to reduce these
expenditures by 10 per cent would make $120 billion available
every year for other purposes, without seriously affecting the
capacity of any of those nations to defend itself – provided the
agreement were genuinely multilateral and the diversion of funds
214 THE NEW SOCIETY
consistent and equal. Developing countries with relatively large

military budgets, such as Pakistan and Indonesia, would share
this reduction, on the understanding that they should spend that
money productively in their own country.
This would create a ‘have your cake and eat it too’ situation in
which nations would not have to jeopardize their standing as an
armed force, but which would permit potent social and economic
weapons to be deployed in ‘the war against terror’. At the same
time, it would mean that there were fewer nuclear bombs, guns
and landmines in the world.
The consequences would be very considerable indeed, since
the $120 billion would not be a one off amount, but would be
available every year. Programmes such as the Billion Artifacts
outlined in Chapter 26 would become immediately possible.
Guidelines for expenditure would clearly be necessary, strictly
limiting the proportion of funds devoted to administration and
advisory panels, and guaranteeing maximum funding for actual
achievement on the ground. Eligible recipients might be asked to
make a case for specific programmes, including evidence of the
level of grassroots consultation involved in developing them.
What about change at the lower levels – perhaps the
establishment of a ‘village’ along the lines discussed in Chapter
15? A group of 50 families whose equity in their houses are worth
an average of $250,000 dollars – not unusual in most big Western
cities – could confidently plan their new habitat, which would
engage perhaps half their capital, leaving $6 million to capitalize
the sustainable cooperative businesses that would help provide
the community with an income. The businesses would be
immediately competitive with their urban equivalents because of
their freedom from debt, low overheads and absence of the ‘top
heavy’ burden of administrative cost so typical of modern
corporations.
Part Three considered the kind of change needed in those
areas that impinge particularly on the individual, and which
largely control our personal lives. We should now consider the
more formal parts of the social machine. How well equipped are
they to deal with the processes of trade, government, law and
communication, to provide the most satisfying, prosperous and

equal benefit to all human beings? After all, the objective should
be no less than that.
Influencing reform in these areas is likely to prove difficult,
because of a growing tendency for social institutions like
government, bureaucracy and industry to become opaque to
scrutiny, with an inbuilt resistance to change. The inaccessible
bureaucracy, that hides behind a computerized telephone system,
and which is becoming increasingly anonymous, sets up barriers
between government and citizen. It is driven by powerful Axiom
Two considerations. There is a need then, for conscious efforts to
make the machinery of government more transparent and
accountable. Theory has it that ‘democracy’ provides all the
necessary safeguards. But does it? ‘Anti-terror’ laws forced through
the two government-dominated houses of the Australian Parlia-
ment in 2005, and widely opposed in the community, provide for
arrest and detention of completely innocent people without being
charged and without concrete evidence – just on suspicion by an
undercover operative that the detainee might ‘know something’.
Having gone through the process of secret confinement, the
detainee, who legally can be as young as 16, cannot reveal what has
happened to them, the media cannot publicize it, on pain of
imprisonment for up to 7 years. These laws destroy civil liberties
going back as far as the Magna Carta. There has never been a
‘terrorist’ incident in Australia. Similar repressive legislation in the
US and Britain has brought widespread opposition from lawyers,
academics and the general public.
At this point it is worth noting that experience in many parts of
the world indicates that the social machine works better when
power and authority are delegated as much as possible to the
individual citizen. Quite apart from the obvious advantages of mass
consultation, communities using it have found access to official
decision and spending patterns much easier. The machinery for this
exists, and is described more fully in Chapter 25.
Governments and public authorities, by the mere fact of their
existence, tend to make too much law. They exist to legislate and
regulate; they have staff whose function is to dream up and
216 THE NEW SOCIETY
formulate more law. As a result, communities, and especially

businesses, can find themselves in a virtual straitjacket – as in the
description of planned economies in Chapter 12. People whose
main function it is to plan, send out and file forms seem to find it
difficult to understand that the people required to fill them in also
have other things to do. If this seems oversimplistic, or even
unreal, I can only say that during nine years service as an elected
representative in a parliament, and on its committees, curbing
bureaucratic zeal in such areas plainly emerged as one of my
more important responsibilities.
There is a simple safeguard available to protect the community
against excessive or outdated law. This is the insertion in bills of
a clause limiting the application of the new law or regulation to a
definite time span. When that time elapses the law will come
before the parliament again. After consideration legislators can
either throw it out, if it plainly has no further value, or renew it.
Such ‘sunset’ clauses in legislation are so important they should
be used almost universally in the new society. Reviewing existing
law in this way might even engage the energies of lawmakers
enough to limit the creation of more and more unnecessary
legislation.
A second major fault in the social machinery is the tendency to
make many judgements in purely economic terms, with so much
emphasis on questionable statistical devices like GNP and GDP.
Undue emphasis on economic matters is more likely to be
harmful than useful, not only because of the unreality of much of
the debate, but also because other concerns of greater importance,
such as the way people live, whether they are happy, whether
they are healthy, whether they feel secure, are forced to yield
priority to the strictly economic consideration. It also prejudices
long-term values. Manufacturers seek ‘productivity’, and to keep
consumption as high as possible for economic reasons, while the
preponderant arguments are for conservation. One valuable early
reform would be to discard GDP and replace it with a quality of
life index.
A change in attitudes towards travel and transport seems
inevitable in the new society. The new decentralized habitat areas
we have considered are designed in part to reduce local travel,

especially the use of motor transport, as much as possible, in the
light of the coming fuel drought. But in a world in which oil
powers all aircraft, and almost all shipping, very sharp reductions
in world travel and world trade must be envisaged. The
implications for globalization are obvious. World travel and trade
will of course, remain possible, but they will inevitably be more
limited and much more expensive. These issues are discussed in
more detail in Chapter 21.
A fundamentally different approach to manufactured
commodities would seem to be indicated. Planned obsolescence,
which is wasteful, pollutant and expensive, could give place to
high quality products designed to stay in use for long periods,
and which are readily repairable at a low cost. Standardization of
almost everything – measurements, spare parts, language, screws,
computers and robots to name but a few items – seems no more
than plain commonsense – a necessary part of the mechanics of
change. Efficient standardization is, of course, compatible with
another concept we shall develop more in this part of the book –
the economic and social advantages of leasing, rather than selling,
manufactured items. It is also consistent with the future of the
almost completely automatic manufacturing discussed in the next
chapter.
C HAPTER 20
A UTOMATION AND
E MPLOYMENT
These two things are very plainly linked – more automatic and
robotized manufacturing means fewer jobs. There is the potential
for a great deal of trouble in this, hence the new society will need
to think carefully about this situation. On the other hand, why
should humans labour at boring and repetitive work when robots
can do it cheaper and better? Somehow we must balance these two
factors – we need to devise a smooth transition that complies with
Axiom One – conferring equal benefits to all of the community,
rather than the advantages mainly going to a few wealthy
corporations. This will not happen by itself, but will require a
considerable planning effort, some compulsive legislation,
goodwill from big business and sustained pressure from
communities. But it must happen if a large and negative Luddite
reaction is to be avoided.
It has taken humanity many centuries to design and shape the
amenities and machines that are lifting the individual out of a life
that was largely brute labour to one of relative ease and
independence from the tyranny of physical things. We are now in
the midst of the greatest leap forward of all – mechanisms that can
make almost anything, which are self controlling, even self
repairing, and which may soon even have the power not only to
make other automatic machines, but even to replicate themselves.
AUTOMATION AND EMPLOYMENT 219
The implications of this for the new society are profound – we can
see this in the presence around us of the first artifacts made by this
new manufacturing system: things like pens, watches, lighters,
calculators which are elegant and complex, minimal in their use
of materials, and yet cheap to produce.
The increasing number and variety of industrial, mining and
agricultural robots suggests that humankind could, in the
foreseeable future, have almost everything it needs and wants at
a very low cost – in fact for almost nothing. Elsewhere, we
consider the ill effects of globalization. Now we see a potentially
good, even essential, one, in which the economies of scale could
operate to the enormous benefit of humankind, mass producing
useful commodities at little more than the cost of the raw
materials. These economies of scale should permit greater concen-
tration on another important aspect of manufacture – the greatest
recycling possible of materials. A number of manufacturers are
now planning their products with this in mind.
Meanwhile, 20th century populism had a somewhat different

view of robots. Since Czech writer Karel Capek coined the word
‘robot’ in 1921, much science fiction has featured robot brains
wiser than ours, able to solve all our problems. Soon we might
have robot housemaids to sweep the house, cook the meals, do
the dishes – indeed all of the boring, hard or repetitive work.
Achieving this is proving difficult, and while useful devices of
limited application are around, there is nothing even remotely
approaching the competence of an au pair girl. Nor has it been
possible to develop a robot with a ‘brain’ capable of human intel-
ligence, much less an omniscient HAL type. The trouble is that the
real thing – living beings – are so complicated, compact and
cleverly designed that they are difficult to replicate.
Perhaps the most reliable guide to the state of robotics is the
World Robotics Survey, the 2004 report of the United Nations
Economic Commission for Europe, co-authored by the Inter-
national Federation of Robotics.1 This indicates rapid proliferation
of robots that can scrub and vacuum floors, mow lawns and
control household gadgetry , allowing householders, for instance,
220 THE NEW SOCIETY
to start an oven cooking by calling it from a mobile phone.

According to this report 607,000 domestic robots were in use at
the end of 2003, two-thirds of them bought in that year. Most –
more than half a million – were lawnmowers.
The United Nations report says there are more than three-
quarters of a million industrial robots now in use, with close on 1
million projected for 2007. Most are in Japan and Europe, but all
the major industrial nations are increasingly using them. The
report comments, significantly, that the rapidly falling production
costs of robots is making them increasingly competitive with
human labour.
These mechanical servants can work 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week without getting tired; those designed to do so can work
indefinitely under water, in very high temperatures or in a
vacuum; they do the task with exactly the same precision every
time, much faster than any human. They normally do not risk
industrial accidents, and they can make anything from pencils
and matches to complex machine parts, mould metals and
plastics, paint, rivet, weld, or carry out the most delicate and
precise coronary or urological surgery.
Most industrial robots require several days of programming to
carry out specific tasks, but early in 2000 a new robot concept was
announced, ‘an advanced genetic algorithm’, able to evolve its
own ‘brain’, determining for itself the best movement sequences
for the work required.2 Similar work is going on in the US to
develop a ‘polymorphic robot’ – that is, one that changes its shape
until it evolves the most efficient form for the task in hand.3 The
shaping is carried out by a 3D printer, a device that ‘prints’ three
dimensional objects by adding layer after layer of plastic. These
shaping devices, instructed by a computer programme, are now
in common use, and can produce anything from gearwheels to
delicately painted vases. A team at Bath University in Britain is
even developing a self-replicating 3D printer, which would make
more and more 3D printers automatically.
The development of agricultural robots is described as a signifi-
cant opportunity, because many agricultural field operations are
repetitive and carried out in a relatively controlled environment.
One prototype at the testing and trial stages is Demeter, an

automated harvester, which has already shown it can cut crops in
ways the farmer directs, and remember its instructions for later
work. Huge fields almost completely farmed by robot machines are
seen as practicable for the near future. Speculation goes even farther
to embrace the concept of a harvesting food factory, a one pass
machine that harvests crops – perhaps each row of a different kind
– and manufactures finished, packaged food products from them.
The search for artificial intelligence is intimately associated with
robotics. Its proponents in no way claim to be replicating the
human brain, but that is being closely studied. For more than 40
years the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology has been, in the words of its director,
Professor Rodney Brooks, ‘looking at how the human mind works,
where it resides, what is the nature of memory, what sort of
representations does the brain use?’4 Among the project areas being
studied by the 200 people who work in this laboratory are active
vision systems for mobile robots, image guided surgery, social
robots, the intelligent room, bipedal walking, recognition of self
and others, and natural tasking of robots based on human inter-
action cues. One advanced humanoid robot, Coco, can walk,
change posture, approach and avoid objects, and to an extent
investigate its environment. As Coco becomes a ‘fully functioning
creature’ future research will look at biologically based models of
emotion, and advanced mapping between Coco and other
creatures, including humans, as tools for learning, empathy and
communication – indeed one objective is to ‘acquire an under-
standing of how a robot can engage in intelligent and enjoyable
social interactions with people’. In 2005, a major conference at
M.I.T. saw a decision by US scientists working in this field to
cooperate in developing ‘dexterous robots’ – that is machines that
are good with their hands, which can move about and do useful
work. Specific programmes are looking at robots that can help with
people in nursing homes, and the rehabilitation of stroke victims.
As automatic processes do more work, people will be needed
less and less. The workplace – the job – is already showing signs of
failing in its traditional role of distributing wealth and status.
222 THE NEW SOCIETY
Unless these can be provided in other ways, the increasing strains

of the future will create dangerous structural weaknesses in
society. Radical changes in the nature of work began during the
last three decades of Millennium 2. Higher qualifications were
required, the demand for ‘unskilled’ workers dropped, the accent
shifted from the youngest and oldest workgroups to the middle
aged, and staff numbers were cut in almost every industry in most
parts of the world.
‘Downsizing’ will continue. The volume of repetitive, ‘unskill-
ed’ work that is now automated is just a beginning. Most of the
impact of automation is yet to come. Even in the US and Japan the
number of industrial robots was quite small in 2005 – perhaps 2 per
cent of the human workforce. However, sales of industrial robots
are increasing at about 6 per cent a year.
Industry will eventually need to accept that a major part of its
new wealth must be redistributed in some form other than wages
to the general community, if only because it will otherwise face
steadily decreasing markets for its products. The broader spread
of stockholding, at least in some Western communities, could
assist the necessary process of redistribution, but it is by no means
a complete answer. Work and business opportunities to the
advantage of all, including the developing world, could come
from huge additional spending on new and better infrastructure,
and the provision of better services, free health care, free
education, free public transport, and perhaps even free housing.
All this lies within the logic of the situation.
Attempting to maintain the ‘status quo’ and assuming that
‘market forces’ will solve the problem is likely to lead to
unpleasant consequences. If the rich get too rich, they have to live
in fortresses. In the Filipino capital, Manila, I visited one such
place at Forbes Park, with its high walls topped with broken glass,
and armed guards standing at barriers of razor wire. As many as
18 million Americans are living in ‘gated communities’, and this
number is expected to double within 20 years.5
Wealth disproportion is increasing almost everywhere.
Surveys have put the number of the poverty-stricken in the US as
high as 37 million, and increasing. Millions are the ‘working
poor.’ Many have two jobs, but still do not earn enough to survive
without charity. What has been called ‘the violent trade in Sri
Lankan housemaids’ represents an extreme edge of the spectrum.6
Virtual slavery, long working hours, sexual harassment and rape,
enforced by impounding the victims’ passports, have been
reported by young Sri Lankan women working in several Middle
Eastern countries. In 2005, there were reports of overworking and
underpaying the foreign workers who make up 85 per cent of the
population of Dubai. One disquieting trend that has been
reported is the use by multinationals of ‘bonded labour’ in poor
countries – virtual slaves who have been sold by desperately poor
parents into years of unpaid work. ‘The logic of using the
cheapest raw materials worked by the cheapest labour now
drives corporations across borders.’7 All these things indicate that
a critical area of human activity is going ‘off the rails’.
American sociologist Richard Sennett believes the modern
workplace is destroying valuable social patterns, stability, mutual
commitment, and the pursuit of long-term goals.8 These social
effects were confirmed in England by a study by the University of
Manchester’s School of Management indicating that downsizing
caused guilt feelings, shock and anger not unlike those following
bereavements, with serious risks to relationships.9 The Japanese
media have carried stories about men who have lost their jobs
continuing to dress and catch their trains every morning, rather
than admit to their families that they were unemployed. A high
suicide rate has been reported among the recently laid off.
224 THE NEW SOCIETY

• Continued major use of robotized and automated
manufacture, accompanied by legislative safeguards to
distribute benefits broadly across communities.
• Redistribution of money through high taxation of
industry, the proceeds going to new public infrastructure.
• Increasingly, services and facilities to be provided free of
cost – this involves abandonment of the ‘user pays’
principle.
• Inception of minimum guaranteed income.
• ‘Job-sharing’ plus progressively shorter working hours.
• Competitive ‘task force’ type work environment, rather
than pyramidal management systems.
• Co-operative businesses, owned by those who work in
them.
C HAPTER 21
T RAVELLING L ESS ?
Petrol and diesel vehicles can kill if there is an accident, as we all

know. Less well known is recent research indicating that the small
particle pollution they emit is probably killing more people
worldwide from heart and lung disease than die in accidents. Two-
thirds of a billion cars are major polluters and consumers of oil
fuel. Research over the last decade or so has confirmed that
burning fossil fuel contributes massively to small particle
pollution in the air. Regardless of remedial technology, like
catalytic converters and low sulphur diesel fuel, this is still danger-
ous. Research in several countries shows a major effect on heart as
well as lung function, causing deadly arrhythmia. People with
pacemakers or a history of arrhythmia are especially vulnerable. In
2004, Professor Nino Kuenzli, of the University of Southern
California, announced the findings of research involving 800
people living in Los Angeles showing that significant hardening
and restriction of arteries – often a precursor to strokes and heart
attacks – correlates with the extent of exposure to vehicle
pollution. The effect was said to be most severe in people over 60,
especially women, and those taking cholesterol-lowering drugs.
Transport – so vital to Western lifestyles – is increasingly
turning up factors like this that demand change. The most
challenging is the fast-approaching exhaustion of economically
226 THE NEW SOCIETY
recoverable oil. Not the least consequence must be a severe

restriction of world trade, transport and tourism which will be an
inevitable knock-on effect of the 2030 drivers. Changes will need
to be made urgently if widespread hardship is to be avoided.
Ships will need to be powered by sail, fuel cells or coal, and
nuclear propulsion is certain to be advanced as an option. Cars
will have to be smaller, and use new technologies. Magnetic
levitation trains run by solar arrays beside the track could link the
new energy conserving habitat forms outlined in Chapter 15, and
are likely to replace internal air services. Quite innovative new
devices such as unmanned solar powered airships could be useful
freight carriers in some parts of the world where high winds are
unusual.
As cheap and abundant oil dwindles, most existing transport
forms will become at best uneconomic, at worst impracticable –
the airliner operating on short intercity routes, the petrol or diesel
motor vehicle and oil fuelled shipping, which means almost all
ships. Around 30,000 major ships in the world now consume
almost 2 billion barrels of oil a year. Oil produced from shale or
similar costly and energy hungry sources could keep some
aircraft flying – probably military aircraft – but would be too
expensive for air cargo and personal transport.
However, the world’s first hydrogen/fuel cell electric aircraft
flew in June 2005. Essentially a large unmanned glider,
AeroVironment’s aircraft is likely to be developed for military
surveillance. The picture where large airliners are concerned is
much less clear. Naturally, the technology is being vigorously
pursued in several parts of the world – NASA spent $7 million on
it in 2003. But there still seem insuperable obstacles unless new
technology emerges. These include the high cost of the platinum
catalyst in the fuel cell, a high weight to power ratio, and
problems over how the hydrogen fuel could be economically
stored. Because it is difficult to foresee how fuel-cell aircraft could
be as cost effective as kerosene-powered jetliners, commercial
interest in the technology seems limited.
Should we have nuclear ships? At the present rates of shipping
accidents, nuclear propulsion could result in severe, virtually
TRAVELLING LESS? 227
permanent ocean pollution and grave risks to port cities.

Considering merchant ship loss rates in World Wars I and II, a fleet
of nuclear freighters in wartime would be catastrophic. Cruise ship
passengers might not feel particularly carefree travelling with a
nuclear reactor. Three nuclear powered merchant ships, the US
Savannah, German Otto Hahn and Japanese Mutsu were built, but
all were considered uneconomic. However, the technology could
be revived at any time. Florida corporation Adams Atomic
Engines, which describes itself as ‘an independent power system
designer’, is offering fission powered motors not only for
merchant ships but even pleasure craft.1 Nuclear power is used for
over 100 naval vessels, mostly submarines. Russia has 8 nuclear
icebreakers, one of which, Lenin, has been in operation for more
than 30 years. By 2005 several web sites were advocating a return
to nuclear power for shipping.
Several billion dollars were expended by the US government
in an effort to build nuclear powered aircraft – the Nuclear Energy
for the Propulsion of Aircraft (NEPA) programme and its
successors, before the programme was cancelled in 1961, 15 years
after its inception.2 NEPA’s director in 1954, B C Briant, said
‘manned nuclear aircraft pose the most difficult engineering job
yet attempted this century’. Cancelling the programme, the then
US President Kennedy observed that ‘the possibility of nuclear
aircraft is still very remote’. In 1950 the Soviet Union proposed a
nuclear flying boat to weigh 1000 tons, carry 1000 passengers and
fly at 1000 kilometres an hour. This project was never realized.
There appeared to be no overt programme for nuclear aircraft in
2005, although there is internet conjecture that there may be
unmanned nuclear drones. Nuclear rocket engines are being
considered for space vehicles.
If we are to continue our love affair with the car it will not be
the sort we are used to. The car needs to become cheaper, quieter,
less polluting, easier and safer to drive, and independent of oil
fuel – and that is basically the trend in some sections of the
automotive industry. Severe pollution around the north Italian
industrial city of Milan resulted in plans by the Lombardy
regional government to ban the sale of all new petrol or diesel cars
228 THE NEW SOCIETY
from 2005.3 However, by that date no ban appeared to have

materialized, although a series of car-free Sundays was planned.
Fuel cells don’t store electricity in batteries, they produce it on
demand. General Motors released its HydroGen 1 wagon in 2000,
the result of more than $150 million spent on research and
development. The company says it is aware of the need for fuel
cell cars to be cost competitive, one of its executives remarking
that company research indicated ‘that consumers will not pay one
extra cent for the sake of the environment’.4 Even if this is so,
higher oil prices are likely to drive the new technology.
Ballard Fuel Systems, one of the technology leaders, is already
marketing fuel cell bus engines and is building a factory with a
productive capacity of 300,000 fuel cells a year – Ballard fuel cell
buses have been operating on regular services in Vancouver and
Chicago since 1998.5 DaimlerChrysler is making fuel cell electric
cars – its first production vehicle, the A class Fcell, was introduced
to several markets in small numbers in 2003. It uses compressed
hydrogen gas, has a range of 150 kilometres, and a top speed of
140 kph.6 Honda’s FCX project, a fuel cell car, was scheduled for
limited release to the market in 2003. The prototype of this car and
a similar one developed by Toyota were publicly shown in 2002.
Shell opened its first hydrogen retail outlet for cars in Hamburg
early in 1999, and three were planned for Tokyo in 2003. By 2005
most car makers were researching fuel-cell vehicles. The most
advanced appeared to be the Mercedes F600 Hygenius, claimed to
have a range of 400 kilometres and a top speed of 170kph, due for
production about 2012. Meanwhile, Mitsubishi are developing a
completely electric car, using lithium ion batteries, which they say
will have a range of 250km and a top speed of 180kph.
However, regardless of these developments, conventional
means of travel – cars, wheeled trains and aircraft – continue to
present increasing problems. According to one commentator in
this area the cost of transportation delays in the US alone was
predicted to rise from $15 billion in 1985 to $61 billion in 20057 –
to say nothing of the resultant overall frustration and higher
accident risk. Traffic congestion, urban chemical and noise
pollution, and the high cost of building or improving roads have
induced many countries to introduce faster and faster conven-

tional trains – the earliest and classic example is the Japanese
bullet train linking Tokyo with other Kansai cities. While these
trains can average well over 100 miles an hour there are physical
limitations for any tracked vehicle, so they are unable to compete
with commercial air services, nor have they had any serious
impact on the volume of urban motor traffic.
Meanwhile, air traffic itself, especially short flights, has
reached a stage of serious, seemingly intractable problems. Air
services are still, to an extent, dependent on weather conditions.
They require large and expensive stretches of land on which to
arrive and depart, they inflict noise and chemical pollution on the
communities they serve, and are notoriously vulnerable to
hijacking and terrorist attacks. Because they can only pick up and
discharge at airports, there is always a further traffic and cost
factor in getting to and from them. Airliners are fundamentally
inefficient, using huge quantities of fuel simply taking off and
reaching cruising altitudes. They are also relatively slow, and
likely to become more so, because speed eats fuel.
‘Winglock’ – severe air traffic congestion in and around
airports – is reducing safety standards, and resulting in major
delays to services and higher costs. ‘Near misses’ of aircraft on the
ground have increased alarmingly. And these can be dangerous.
When two 747s collided on a runway in Tenerife in 1977, 583
people were killed. The apparent answer to these problems –
more and more new airports – causes further problems. No
residential area wants a new airport in or near it. Noise levels
from existing airports are bringing massive and often well
organized opposition from residents.
The conventional aeroplane is, then, overdue for a rethink. A
substitute might be a train/aircraft hybrid, which is under
research and showing promising results. This vehicle has wings,
but these lift it only a short distance off the ground, and it is
confined to its ‘track’ by walls on either side engaging with
rudder-like vertical extensions to the wings. It is planned to
power these Japanese ‘aerotrains’ sustainably with solar panels
installed along the track.8 One bold area of research is into long
230 THE NEW SOCIETY
range HyperSoar passenger aircraft designed to fly in space at up

to 6700 miles per hour. The technology for aircraft of this type,
which skip in and out of the atmosphere during their flight and
re-enter near the destination, is being developed. Visualized as
dart-shaped, rather like a folded paper plane, it is claimed this
aircraft could reach any destination on Earth from the US in about
two hours, with greatly improved fuel economy.9 Some down-
sides are high G rate acceleration and cosmic radiation exposure
to passengers, and huge vapour trails that could affect climate,
since these aircraft would be powered by hydrogen rocket motors
and emit large quantities of water.
Airships were the first successful powered flying machines,
and now have important defence values for such things as
artillery spotting and coastal surveillance. In the new society their
inherent buoyancy might well give them advantages for long
distance, non-urgent carriage of goods in areas where high winds
are unusual, such as in the interiors of some continents. Because
their power requirement is so low, it is possible to envisage cargo
blimps with electric motors powered by arrays of solar cells on
top of the envelope, or clad in one of the solar cloths now being
produced. Such aerial ‘tramps’ could even be totally crewless,
operated by remote control, and so almost costless to operate, in
terms of both energy and money. In the absence of a crew they
could be inflated with hydrogen rather than rare and expensive
helium. The European Space Agency has put together a
consortium to build solar powered HALE (high-altitude long-
endurance) airships to replace satellites as telecommunications
relays.10
Maglev, short for magnetic levitation, describes trains which
‘fly’ a short distance above or below their single line track without
physically touching it. The first such train in service links the
Shanghai industrial suburb of Pudong with the airport – a
distance of 30km, which the train covers in 8 minutes. It is,
however, capable of 430kmh. Intensive research into maglev is
being carried out in Dalian, China, in the US, Britain and the
Philippines. In 2005, the first Japanese maglev train, driverless
and automatic, began operating over a 10km track in the suburbs
of Nagoya. Germany is planning a maglev train system to travel

at over 600 kilometres an hour between Berlin and Hamburg.
Switzerland plans to link all its major cities with tunnels under its
mountains. Evacuated of air, these would permit maglev trains to
operate at 650 kilometres an hour. This ambitious project, which
will cost more than $20 billion, is expected to be complete by 2030,
linking 10 major cities and cutting travel time from Zurich to
Geneva from 3 hours to 57 minutes. Because maglev trains
operating in tunnel vacuums would be completely frictionless,
there is no theoretical limit to the speeds that can be achieved.
Planners are hence looking with some seriousness at the science
fiction vision of undersea tunnels linking continents. One such
proposal envisages tunnels under the North Atlantic linking the
northern tip of Scotland with the northern coast of Labrador.
Early experiments, especially in Germany, have relied on
conventional electromagnets, but these trains have proved very
expensive. Japan, the nation that has made the most advances in
this technology, has been researching it for almost 40 years.
Powerful magnets using chilled superconductors are now being
employed to gain greater efficiency. The magnets on board the
train provide the levitation effect. The train is propelled by linear
electric motors outside the vehicle itself, giving precise control
over both speed and regenerative braking, which returns power
to the supplying grid. The cost of the controlling track, which
could be suspended above existing highways, is regarded as
more than competitive with roads and conventional railways.
This is because maglev trains can climb grades of up to 10°,
eliminating the need for tunnels in most cases. In 1999, a
Japanese train of this kind set a new speed record for a train at
552 kilometres an hour.11 This was highly significant, because it
means a maglev train can compete effectively with airliners in
terms of journey times.
Sailing ships became impracticable and uneconomic for three
principal reasons: the availability of cheap hydrocarbon fuels,
coal and later oil, the lack of strong, long lasting materials for
sailcloth, and unreliable weather forecasting. Now weather
forecasting is much more reliable, there are durable synthetic
232 THE NEW SOCIETY
materials for sails, and oil fuels are about to become scarcer and
much more expensive. A few modern vessels around the world
are already using sail as a supplement. Any hull type can gain fuel
savings from sails when the wind is astern, and there are a
number of vessels doing this. Specialized passenger sailing ships
could operate on suitable routes, substantially crewed by their
passengers – there are already tour ships carrying sail. They could
also operate as cargo tramps – ships not bound to definite trade
routes and time schedules.
The traditional windjammer is most unlikely to reappear in
large numbers, nor will crews be required to clamber aloft along
yards high above deck to wrestle with huge square sails. A
distinguished marine architect, Norman L Skene, forecast more
than 50 years ago that sailing ships would be used again: ‘The
wind is an unfailing source of power, whereas the supply and cost
of fuel for mechanically propelled ships in the years to come are a
matter for great uncertainty.’12 He remarked that a study of long
voyages by sailing ships had shown that low average speed was
due to calms or head winds over a small part of the journey. The
answer is to provide auxiliary power, which Skene believed
should be diesel electric, but seems now more likely to be fuel cell
electric, powered by methane.
Writing long before the advent of computers, Skene foresaw
ships in which all sail movements and other ship management
would be controlled by one deck officer ‘from a central
instrument board’. His drawing is of a staysail schooner rigged
ship with four equal sized masts, each bearing identical fore and
aft rig, and fitted with two retractable centreboards. Japanese
designers have experimented with folding plastic sails rather than
fabric, and these have been found to be more efficient. These
contemporary designs include sensors to detect favourable
winds, slow the ship’s engines and set and trim the sails auto-
matically, reducing the fuel consumption of a conventional ship
by as much as half. The Danish government financed naval
architects Knud E Hanson to develop a six-masted windship in
1995. At that stage it could not compete with oil-fuelled freighters,
but could well do so as oil prices advance.
The new sailing ships will almost certainly be ‘hybrids’, with

auxiliary engines to propel them in times of danger or through
‘doldrums’ – largely windless zones which lengthened passage
times in the last era of sail and made reliable timetables virtually
impossible. At least partly solar powered electric auxiliaries are a
feasible prospect. One Australian ferry, which can carry 100
passengers at up to 12 knots, uses solar panels which double as
sails as its basic power source.
The Scandinavian designers Wallenius Wilhelmsen are
working seriously on a hybrid ship of the future, which will use
wind, solar power, wave energy and hydrogen fuel cells to propel
it on a completely sustainable basis. The huge trimaran, planned
to be almost 800 feet long, is designed for cargo carrying, and
could cruise at 15 knots. Twelve fins on the hull harness wave
energy, while the three large sails are covered with solar energy
collectors. One of the more elegant – and difficult – sports is kite-
driven windsurfing. There are now experiments with this
technology for ships, which can be pulled along as fast as 13 knots
by huge kites as much as 500 metres overhead, where winds are
stronger and steadier than near the surface of the sea.
All these developments, when considered together, indicate an
urgent need for greater and more practical recognition of
imminent transport problems and the rapid development of new
forms adapted to 2030 conditions. The modern world is so
dependent on its forms of transport that serious problems like
mass starvation, and regional hotspots of terrorism and war,
could develop if they fail. Major transport systems have very long
lead times – the two or three decades available are barely enough.
Serious development of the alternatives needs to be advanced as
fast as possible.
234 THE NEW SOCIETY

• Phasing out of fossil fuel vehicles and their replacement
with fuel cell/electric propulsion.
• Finding an economic alternative to kerosene-powered
airliners.
• Major development of high-speed trains, either railed or
maglev, preferably powered sustainably, to replace
short-distance air services.
• Development of cars in which automatic systems replace
drivers.
• Conversion of shipping away from fossil fuels, using fuel
cells with solar power and sail assistance where appro-
priate.
C HAPTER 22
W ORKING O NLINE
There are strong indications that the cheap world computer,

powered by the sun or a simple crankhandle power generator, is
on its way in large numbers – and not before time. It is beyond
doubt that modern information technology could contribute,
perhaps decisively, to better health, happiness and prosperity in
the developing world. And since by 2030 the developing world
will make up 85 per cent of global population, this may well be
one of the more significant developments in the history of the
future. Regrettably, the current tendency toward unnecessarily
expensive, complex and non-standardized personal computers
has limited this potential – in the words of Yale University
computer science professor, David Gelernter, modern computers,
laden with incomprehensible user manuals and unneeded
features are ‘more a source of irritation, dissatisfaction and angst
than a positive benefit’.1
This unrealized potential suggests development and global
distribution of a simple, standardized, inexpensive computer,
powered by batteries backed up with solar or hand powered –
even spring wound – chargers. This machine would need to be
competent for little more than word processing and internet
access. However, although internet penetration in Asia and Africa
has grown from about half of 1 per cent in 1995 to more than
236 THE NEW SOCIETY
10 per cent, most of this has been in developed countries and

urban areas. Singapore, for instance has 68 per cent penetration,
Bangladesh 0.2 per cent. Hence an important aspect of aid efforts
will need to be the provision of technology for internet access in
under-developed areas.
An initial output could be located in village schools, not only
for children, but also to convey useful information on health,
agriculture and appropriate technology for adults. Happily, a
number of researchers are now looking at this possibility. The
Massachussets Institute of Technology Media Lab is considering
production of a $100 computer in millions, and has already
interested the governments of Brazil, China, Thailand, Egypt and
South Africa in the project. Electricity for this computer may be
provided by a hand crank mechanism. The former head of the lab,
Nicholas Negroponte, proposes ‘stripped-down’ laptops, in
which ‘obese memory and processing capacity are cut down.’
Professor Raj Reddy of Carnegie Mellon University is working on
a wirelessly networked computer that could double as a TV,
telephone and videophone to cost less than $350. The Indian
Simputer, based on the Linux system, came on the market in 2005
for about 9000 rupees – $200. The village computer is an item of
the Billion Artifacts programme discussed in Chapter 26. At
present, internet access is unavailable to the great majority of
humanity – in 2005 about 15 per cent of world population, almost
a billion people, had online access.2
Nevertheless, computers and the internet now influence
almost all aspects of life in the developed world – and that
influence will increase enormously over the next few decades.
They drive industries which reduce demand on the material
resources of the Earth, and construct complex ‘models’ of future
plans and events. Among the world’s most powerful computers is
the half billion dollar Earth Simulator, built in Japan to assess and
predict global changes in weather and climate trends, and even to
give prior warning of earthquakes and financial market
movements. Capable of making 35 trillion calculations a second,
the Earth Simulator can complete in six seconds a computation
that would have taken the fastest 1980s computer a full year. Its
WORKING ONLINE 237
makers, NEC, claim it can ‘create a virtual planet Earth’.3 IBM has
under construction an even more powerful computer, Blue
Gene/L.
Information technologies have minimal raw material
requirements, and are taking forms that will reduce such demand
in other areas. A striking example is eBook programs, which offer
readers downloads of a huge variety of books, many for free.
However, eBook can also refer to a hand-held computer which
feels, looks and reads like a book, but can store as many as 200
volumes in its memory, and can access thousands more, plus the
newspapers and magazines of the day, through the internet.
Thousands of books from libraries everywhere in the world, are
now available in one or both of these forms. The potential of these
to take literacy and education quickly, easily, and at low cost, to
the developing world, could be epoch making, and is a further
argument for cheap computers and useful amounts of internet
access there.
But as with much modern technology, computers, along with
their advantages, come with considerable risks. Major infra-
structure almost everywhere is controlled by computers – power
and water supply systems, food distribution, traffic flow, major
transport areas such as railways and airlines, social and financial
networks. And these computer systems are fragile, subject to
sudden breakdowns and, even riskier, sabotage through ‘hacking’
– deliberate electronic intrusion into computer systems by
outsiders. Electric power grids for large areas of modern nations
are normally dependent on perhaps two or three computers, and
breakdowns in these have caused chaos and hardship, especially
in large cities in winter.
A computer network defence task force attached to the US
Space Command in Colorado Springs was established in June
1999, when an exercise called Eligible Receiver showed that
foreign hackers could disrupt US war operation plans coordinated
in the Pentagon, and disable associated telephone, power facilities
and fuel distribution systems. Nevertheless, regular attacks on the
computer systems of five key US defence systems were
subsequently reported – more than one a day on the navy’s Space
238 THE NEW SOCIETY
and Naval Warfare Weapons Command Center in San Diego. In

2001 the Defense Department revealed that its more than 1 million
computers had been attacked in 23,662 incidents in 2000.4 A major
underground computer network has been assembled as both a
defensive and offensive ‘cyber war’ facility in the US, and without
doubt has its equivalent in almost every other country. It is claimed
that the American system has the power to disrupt major services
anywhere in the world – even to influence records of individual
bank accounts. The existence and proliferation of these systems
has added another dimension of risk and expense to the already
huge armaments burden the world carries.
However, while the threat of war remains, vital networks need
to be more dependable, able to continue working if any of their
constituent computers malfunction or are destroyed. The internet
provides a model for this. It was originally designed to operate
even if almost all of its many nodes were destroyed. The same
approach seems reasonable for computer controls of vital
infrastructure, since ‘cyber war’ is now an established military
weapon, and that infrastructure is an obvious target. In 1999, East
Timor activist Jose Ramos Horta threatened to rally hackers all
over the world to wreck Indonesia’s computer systems unless a
vote for self determination in East Timor were allowed to proceed.
Taiwan has developed an arsenal of around 1000 computer
viruses designed to attack China’s computer systems if it ever
launches an attack on its island neighbour.5
How have ordinary people, at a touch of a computer keyboard,
at no cost to themselves or the recipients, provided 300 million
meals to the starving people of the world? The answer is an
internet site, www.thehungersite.com, which organizes enough of
a basic foodstuff, perhaps rice, for a meal for someone somewhere
in a developing country. When the site is called up a button
appears – ‘Donate free food’. A click on the mouse, and that
someone gets the meal. The food is paid for by advertisers on the
display, 1.1 cups of the local staple for every ‘hit’ on the site. The
money goes to Mercy Corps and America’s Second Harvest, who
carry out the food distribution. Do this first every time you go on
the internet, it will take you about 30 seconds.
WORKING ONLINE 239
Intelligently organized, computers can help to ease the shock

of the coming reductions in fossil fuel use for travel. Already
small, but increasing effects on traffic peaks are resulting from
‘telecommuting’ – the opportunity to work via computer at home,
rather than having to travel to a central office. It has even been
suggested that businesses should pay a tax for every worker they
require to travel into a central business district office to
compensate for the social and environmental problems caused by
commuting. The American Telecommuting Association claims
many advantages beyond the savings in travel time and cost.6
According to this source the employer benefits from greater
productivity – regularly clocked at 10 to 15 per cent over the last
2 decades. Distance becomes of no importance – a manager in
Seattle can access an employee in Tel Aviv as easily as one in the
same building. Working time on a task is reduced by the ease with
which resources can be accessed immediately anywhere in the
world – much of the research behind this book is an example.
The ability to work away from a central office greatly increases
the feasibility of the decentralized habitat areas described in
Chapter 15. And there are other advantages. When both parents
are away at work for most of the day there is a considerable
increase in the rates of burglaries and family breakdown. Suburbs
are largely silent and empty during the day, community
interaction is reduced. The fewer employees who have to be
located in central offices, usually at high floor space rentals, the
lower business overheads become. One estimate predicts that the
internet could make an eighth of all retail premises superfluous,
resulting in a worldwide saving of about $5 billion.7 Further huge
energy savings would come from fewer shopping trips in cars.
Shopping online for books, music, electronic equipment – and
even wives and husbands – is an established reality with the
success of cyberstores like Amazon.com, and dating services like
Match.com, which claims over a million members. As online
expertise increases, most areas of shopping will become easier,
quicker, more convenient, and less energy hungry. Even shopping
for clothing will become feasible. Virtual models have been
foreshadowed which, after your measurements and colour
240 THE NEW SOCIETY
choices have been typed in, will walk across the screen, sit in
chairs, and move in any other way that would assist a decision on
what sort of clothing would be convenient and attractive.
Software exists now that would allow you to get a three
dimensional scan of your feet, email the result to a shoemaker,
and get a pair of shoes delivered to your home that fit perfectly.
‘Power buys’ represent bad news for the retail trade, but good
news for consumers, who can use them to buy goods a lot cheaper
than in a store. Two innovative American group buying sites,
Accompany and Mercata, negotiate with manufacturers for the
best price on bulk delivery of an item – say 100 computers. They
then seek, through the internet, 100 people who are prepared to
pay their money in advance for that computer at a price well
below recommended retail – ‘a fundamentally new way of doing
business on the internet’.8 Once the 100 buyers are enrolled, the
deal is completed and the computers are delivered to the homes
of the buyers. The larger the group sale, the lower the price that
can be negotiated. Buying goods from stores, which humans have
been doing for at least 3000 years, is a fundamentally inefficient
way of distributing goods, due to high overhead costs and
frequently excessive markups, in many cases well above the
return to the producer.
The need for global democratic consultation of individual
humans has already been raised in this book. The internet,
accessed by computers in homes and at polling stations, could
become the vehicle for future voting, greatly reducing the cost of
elections and referenda. The issue is one which is hotly debated,
occupying scores of websites. Several public interest groups
which are concerned at low American voter turnout and lack of
civic involvement in the electoral process see internet voting as a
solution, noting that voters would have access to candidates’
records and objectives before they cast their votes.
The states of California and Washington, in America, have had
task forces investigating internet voting, with largely favourable
recommendations, Arizona allowed it for some presidential
primaries. When electronic voting was introduced by Riverside
County, California, 99 per cent of voters approved of it. However,
WORKING ONLINE 241
several polls have indicated that the majority of the US public do

not want it, basically because they are concerned at the lack of
security on the internet. Almost daily there are reports of
successful hacking into computer systems, and estimates place
credit card fraud on the internet at around $5 billion annually.
‘Cookie’ files can be planted in individual computers using the
internet. These ‘spies’ could identify the voting intentions of their
victims. Particular voting groups might then be attacked, either
by blocking their vote altogether or diverting it to a bogus site
where the vote would not be counted.
These are some examples of possible fraudulent activities
quoted in the literature. Their net effect has been to deter people
from the idea of electronic voting. However, recent developments
offer better prospects for maximum security in voting systems.
PINs and voter identification cards similar to credit card systems,
combined with a system of biometrics – using fingerprints as
encryption keys – should provide security at least as good as that
of personal written voting. That system also is far from immune
from fraudulent voting.
Japan and most European Union nations have rejected the idea
of electronic voting at this stage, ostensibly because of security
difficulties. There has been a major campaign against electronic
voting machines in the US, because problems with these are
considered by many to be responsible for the reelection of George
W Bush in 2004. However, an important Axiom Two consider-
ation should be noted – major political parties and their backers
feel it is all ‘less trouble’ if individual participation in decision
making can be restricted. Hence citizens of the world will need to
apply considerable pressure on politicians if they want to be
consulted regularly on major public issues – whether or not, for
instance, a nation should go to war.
242 THE NEW SOCIETY

• Development and distribution of a standardized low-cost
computer capable of word processing and internet access
independent of reticulated electric power, and internet
access technology for conveyance of education and
information in the developing world.
• Inception of reliable and secure systems of electronic
voting, capable of enabling regular individual decision
making on major political and social issues.
• Internet marketing systems that provide reliable barriers
to credit card fraud, so enabling extensive development
of internet shopping, especially power or group buying.
C HAPTER 23
T HE I NFORMATION
O VERLOAD
Finding the truth about things is getting more and more difficult, not
only because of the enormous volume of available information, but
also because so much of it is inaccurate or misleading. Comment
and news, once clearly defined, are now becoming increasingly
blurred at the edges. Media content, especially in privately owned
areas, is often strongly selective, giving, in its appeal to lowest
common denominator instincts, considerable credence to the idea
that readers and audiences are being ‘dumbed down’.
Putting forward a challenge like this induces a response that
‘dumb’ media are giving people what they want – basically, what
will sell – and so in turn prompts a further question, do they fall
short – dangerously short – of fulfilling the need for reliable and
broad ranging information? There is considerable evidence that
media run by trusts, or independent corporations financed by
governments, and not beholden to advertisers, give a fairer and
more reliable service, and that it is more necessary than ever to
maintain them in a healthy state to balance the output of com-
mercial media.
Search engine Google in 2005 identified 8.2 billion pages
available on the internet, on every conceivable subject. Television,
newspapers, books, CD-ROMs with staggering areas of content,
all add to the cacophony of facts battering the individual human.
244 THE NEW SOCIETY
We seem likely to ‘contend with levels of information that will be

of such volume that it will be little more than noise’.1 Out of this
chaos, what the media emphasizes becomes highly influential.
This has not escaped the attention of government and very large
business. Influence the media, and you are halfway towards
achieving control of your population.
Spin doctoring, public relations – call it what you will – is now
a huge industry which neither government nor business can afford
to ignore. Public gurus – columnists and commentators – do not
hesitate to use collective pejoratives – critics of ‘free market’
business become ‘the loony left’, people who discuss issues ‘the
chattering classes’. But one looks in vain for ‘the rapacious – or
perhaps, rip off? – right’. ‘The silent majority’ are virtuous and,
although silent, miraculously seem to go along with whatever
barrow the pundit is pushing at the time.
Beyond influence comes government action to censor the
media, forcing it not to mention criticism of officialdom, or
matters which it considers disadvantageous to itself. Talk of war
and terror helps this process along enormously. There is a
distinctly Orwellian flavour, for instance, even to the name of the
US Defense Department’s Office of Strategic Influence, designed
to plant news items, allegedly sometimes not necessarily true, in
the media of America’s allies, who, in the words of a Pentagon
spokesman ‘sometimes needed to be helped to see the light’.2
Commenting on this allegation, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said
the Pentagon might engage in ‘strategic or tactical deception …
but would not deliberately spread falsehoods’.3 However, there
was a considerable scandal in 2005 when it was revealed that
journalists in Iraq were being paid to run pro-American material.
The temptation to bias information comes most easily in times
of war and internal social strife, when governments see it not only
as a security matter, but also as a legitimate weapon. Wartime
censorship of a famine in Bengal in 1943 and 1944, which killed as
many as 4 million people, is a painful example. Britain, at that
time governing India as a colony under martial law, did not take
the necessary actions to get relief supplies of rice into Bengal,
even worse, they withdrew necessary shipping from the area.
THE INFORMATION OVERLOAD 245
Wartime censorship suppressed all but a few fragments of news

about this huge tragedy, and even since then many histories and
other reference sources have ignored or understated it.
It is a short step from this type of influence to the propagation
of actual disinformation – the politically correct term for
deliberately manufactured lies. Such tendencies to rewrite history
have become common. There was a determined attempt in
Germany in recent years to claim that the holocaust never
happened – that very few Jews were killed or, alternatively, that
the whole matter had been greatly overstated. In Japan, the facts
of World War II, and indeed of the atrocious Japanese massacre of
the people of Nanjing in 1936, are avoided. Instead, a Japanese
film was produced in l998 which idealized the wartime Prime
Minister, General Tojo, rewriting history in a number of other
significant ways.4 It played to capacity audiences. School history
books released in 2001 and 2005 caused an angry reaction from
Japan’s neighbours for similar reasons.
A ‘fringe’ area of disinformation, but also one of fundamental
importance, is the increasing tendency to ‘shut up’ academics who
take individual viewpoints, especially those who speak out in
opposition to the conventional wisdom of business and politics.
This is frequently considered to be a consequence of the ‘corp-
oratization’ of universities and their increasing dependence on
funding from business. Courses in the humanities are dwindling,
while those in commercial areas such as marketing – even shelf
stacking in supermarkets – are on the increase. Once the ill effects
of this trend begin to be felt, and that will be soon, we will need to
consider reestablishing universities with adequate inalienable
funding. These could offer room to work to the free-thinking,
expert and exceptional minds whose output will be so much
needed.
The enormous amount of talk on radio and the circulation of
knowledge and opinion in almost every conceivable field on the
internet must broadly emerge as good influences. They not only
satisfy increasing public curiosity about public affairs, but also
focus a remorseless and intense enquiry on to politics, business,
medicine – every avenue of public, and often private, life.
246 THE NEW SOCIETY
Nevertheless, a significant point has been made by a social

psychologist that because the violent and extraordinary are seen
as having high news value, news presentations mislead the public
by indicating that the extreme and bizarre are more prevalent
than they actually are.5
Controversy over censorship has been given a fresh impetus by
the extensive availability of erotic and pornographic material on
the internet. Those two words are useful because they make some
distinction possible between different kinds of sex material.
‘Erotic’ has come to mean, in the censorship debate, sexual mater-
ial that deals with ‘normal’ behaviour between consenting adults.
‘Pornography’, in this context, can be taken to mean material that
involves violence, sadism, dominance, gross perversity and the
exploitation of children and animals.
The controversy is unlikely to cease in the new society, which
must decide whether pornographic material should be controlled,
and at what level. Evidence of ‘copycat’ crimes, inspired by a film
or a TV programme, indicates that such material can and does
have harmful effects, extending as far as sadistic torture and
murder. There is evidence that sex material is the largest single
area sought on the net, with some pages scoring millions of hits. It
is also among the most profitable, with the annual earnings of
many websites in the millions of dollars. The internet is a reflection
of humanity itself, with all its extremism, hang-ups and hatreds –
this should not be surprising. The real issue is whether such
subject areas as making nuclear and terrorist weapons, sexual
exploitation of children and sadistic and violent abuse of women,
should be generally accessible – and they are available, often
without the need for money or a credit card, in ‘sample’ offerings.
Consider the following sentence: ‘If, for a while, the ruse of

desire is calculable for the uses of discipline soon the repetition of
guilt, justification, pseudoscientific theories, superstition, spurious
authorities and classifications can be seen as the desperate effort to
“normalize” formally the disturbance of a discourse of splitting
that violates the rational, enlightened claims of its enunciatory
modality.’
This extract, from an academic book written by a professor of

English, was runner up for the Journal of Philosophy and Literature’s
Bad Writing Contest in 1998.6 The use of jargon and jaw cracking,
obscure synonyms in scholarly works is the target of the
organizers of the contest, themselves academics. In 1996, the
packaging of vague ideas in impenetrable prose so annoyed New
York University physics professor, Alan Sokal, that he put
together a paper on a quite preposterous premise – that the laws
of physics were subject to political influences, and might apply
differently to different people. Apparently carefully researched
and bristling with footnotes the paper, called Transgressing the
Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum
Gravity, was submitted to an academic journal, which duly
published it as a serious contribution. So opaque was its prose
that the article was not questioned until the author revealed it was
a hoax.7 Such happenings invite speculation as to whether opaque
prose really hides dubious scholarship – a kind of smokescreen
designed to obscure meaning rather than to elucidate. Its
association with the ‘shutting up’ of academics, mentioned above,
is obvious – extremes of obscurity can hardly be controversial.
Jargon, the development of a language which only the ‘in’
group can understand, and which implies a specialized super-
iority to the rest of the world, is used extensively by almost all the
professions. Words which mean one thing to the general populace
are invested with special meanings – a kind of code. Doctors,
lawyers, many other professional groups and, as we have seen,
academics, play this game. Distantly related to jargon is ‘political
correctness’, which uses complex euphemisms for essentially
simple things, so that ‘rubbish dump’ becomes ‘recycling centre’,
the blind become ‘visually impaired’, and so on. There is nothing
new about this. What were plain, commonly used Anglo Saxon
four letter words became and are still regarded as vulgar or
obscene as a result of the Norman conquest of Britain 1000 years
ago.
Take a moment to look at this book – look at it just as an object.
It may be among the last artifacts of its kind – the printed codex –
that have had an honoured and influential life for a millennium
248 THE NEW SOCIETY
since the Chinese invention of printing. Books have become

electronic – millions are available online now for downloading.
Beyond this is an actual electronic page, a computer that looks
like a sheet of paper and is not much thicker, on which it will be
possible to replace the text millions of times, as desired. So,
instead of a bookcase full of volumes you will need only a single
one. While early versions of this proved to be hard on the eyes,
Sony’s Reader, launched in the US in 2006, promises high
resolution electronic paper said to be virtually indistinguishable
from the real thing. On it you can call up almost any book you
want to read from Sony’s library. Classics and other books out of
copyright can be accessed free. A newspaper that fits in your
pocket, updates itself continually and has moving pictures is not
available yet, but it is likely to be about 2008. An electronic
replacement for sheet music is also being developed.8 A thin, flat
screen that can be placed on a music stand will not only display
musical scores stored in a built-in computer, but will follow the
performer and ‘turn the pages’ at the right time.
Without doubt, then, the means exist, or are not far away, for
quicker, easier and potentially cheaper transmission of inform-
ation than the world has ever seen. But this is very much a double
edged weapon, with which it will be just as easy to distribute vast
quantities of nebulous misinformation to billions of people as to
inform them about what is actually true. Bear this in mind and be
guarded – Straussian ideas for beguiling myth that doesn’t have
to be true will always attract politicians who are sure they know
best. Granted this, it seems a necessary priority for the new
society that this readily accessible information should be
comprehensive, clear and accurate, and that legal sanctions are
introduced to guarantee this. This way we would have a fair
chance of a coherent history of the future, rather than the current
confusion of misinformation and selectivity.
OPTIMAL FUTURE HISTORY:

• Truth in public utterances, resulting from realization by
governments and businesses that a significant proportion
of their public statements are now generally considered
to have so much ‘spin’ as to lack credibility.
• Establishment and maintenance of public information
media free from commercial or government influence,
run by independent trusts.
• Penal sanctions for biased, inaccurate or deceptively
selective ‘news’.
• An academic discipline to formulate standards of clear
language.
• Abandonment of unnecessary jargon, such as dead
language use, in the professions, and the writing of law,
as much as possible, in plain vernacular.
• Availability of bodies of internet information validated
and endorsed by independent panels expert in their
field.
C HAPTER 24
T HE T OXIC C ULTURE
The world has quite enough evil, so when it seems to be

increasing there is good reason for concern. Such is the case with
slavery, which has reappeared on a major scale, and now involves
millions of people. Kevin Bales, from the University of Surrey,
who is considered a world expert on contemporary slavery, puts
the number of slaves in the world at 27 million.1 Most of these are
not legally owned by other people – they are ‘bonded labour’.
Driven by desperate poverty, the people of many developing
countries sell themselves, or too often their sons and daughters,
into effective slavery for an indefinite period. Children as young
as nine are taken away to brothels, where they are raped and
beaten until they are stupefied and compliant, or are forced to
work long hours, often in appalling conditions.
Bales quotes an eyewitness to an incident in one of the gold
mining towns on the Amazon River, describing what happened
to an 11 year old girl when she refused to have sex with a miner:
‘After decapitating her with a machete, the miner drove around
in his speedboat, showing off her head to the other miners, who
clapped and shouted their approval.’ According to Bales,
bonded prostitutes are often killed when they are no longer
serviceable. When they are ill, generally with AIDS, they are left
to die.
THE TOXIC CULTURE 251
Just how many people are slaves is difficult to determine. The

British organization Anti-slavery International says that there are
more than 200 million people in ‘bondage’. What this means is
something like this: You were sold by your impoverished parents
into a work contract to say, make carpets in Pakistan, at the age of
four. You are held in place by force – there is evidence of such
things as cutting the Achilles tendons so the child can only
hobble, to prevent escape – you are paid nothing, given minimal
food and shelter, beaten regularly and compelled to work 12
hours or more a day. The debt can never be repaid, in fact it gets
larger because of ruinous interest rates and money penalties
added if you make any work mistake. Such cases, and there are
millions of them, are part of the price of world poverty. It is
estimated that there are more than a million children enslaved
like this to make Oriental carpets. If you want to buy these make
sure they carry the tag ‘Rugmark’, which should guarantee that
child labour was not used.
Anti-slavery International estimates that there are 43,000 slaves
in the very poor and backward African state of Niger, although
other estimates run as high as three quarters of a million. Slavery
here is on the medieval model, with generation after generation
born into servitude. These people, known as the bellah, have been
an underclass for centuries, subject to regular beatings, rape and
hard work without pay.
According to estimates made early in 2000, sex slavery is
probably the most serious aspect of the return of slavery.2 While
the numbers trapped in enforced prostitution were considered
difficult to establish, they were estimated to approach 2 million,
most of them women and children from west and southeast Asia,
South America, and some of the states of the former Soviet Union.
Young women promised legitimate work in other countries,
perhaps domestic work or waitressing, are regularly forced into
prostitution.
Among these victims, as among many other humans, the toxic
culture has already bitten deep. The casualties in recent decades
among young people of the Western world run into tens of
thousands dead from drug overdoses – 10,000 a year in the US
252 THE NEW SOCIETY
alone. Anorexia, suicide and violent murder, often ‘copycat’

killings, take an additional toll. The phrase ‘toxic culture’, coined
by film director Peter Weir, defines the dark side of human
technology and culture which is now increasingly in evidence,
and which tends to condition societies towards acceptance of the
extreme abuse of large numbers of people. Weir asserted that
movie violence and media overload could make children capable
of such acts.3 ‘When they wander about with guns shooting, it’s as
if they’re actors in a movie, with no understanding of the reality
of what they’re doing.’ His message to parents was: ‘Switch off
the television, switch the computer off, pull the plug out of the
Walkman. Let them be bored. Let their own imaginations take
over.’
Veteran futurist Arthur C Clarke became so deeply concerned
about ‘the annihilative theme’ of modern science fiction films he
remarked that he no longer had the heart to write stories about
spaceships leaving Earth, since the Earth had barely a 50 per cent
chance of surviving Millennium 3.4 ‘What would an intelligent
alien think of a culture that incessantly depicts horrible ways of
destroying life, but censors the act of actually creating it?’ Clarke
said. ‘He would surely decide such a culture must be mortally
sick.’
According to a 1999 American report, among people aged 15 to
24 the major cause of death after accidents was murder, 85 per
cent of it committed with a gun.5 A Michigan University study
reported an increase in school age drinking every year since 1993,
almost a third of final-year high school students (age 17–18)
saying they had consumed 5 drinks or more at least once in the
previous fortnight. Tobacco, alcohol and gun lobbies contributed
$18.8 million dollars to the US political parties in the l998
elections, 70 per cent of it to Republicans.6 The use of alcohol
directly kills three quarters of a million people a year, making it
one of the world’s major causes of death and serious injury.7
Although road deaths have decreased in countries with random
breath testing, in Britain alcohol is a factor in 12 per cent of road
deaths. In the US the figure is more than twice that – as high as 65
per cent in single vehicle crashes.
Do unnaturally thin female dolls, pencil slim models and

actresses, and fashion writers in women’s magazines contribute
to the death of hundreds of thousands of young women? Does the
introduction of such ‘ideal’ models precondition many girls in
such a way that they go on to develop anorexia nervosa, the
condition in which sufferers literally starve themselves to death?
How widespread is this condition? An accurate worldwide
estimate is not feasible, since anorexia is generally not a notifiable
disease, but over 5 million American men and women are said to
be affected by eating disorders, according to the American
Anorexia Bulimia Association.8 Of these, many thousands will
die. The association’s description of America as ‘a society where
thinness is equated with success and happiness’ can apply to
most of the developed nations of the world. According to one
American clinical psychologist, ‘We are living in a culture that
promotes a monolithic, relentless ideal of beauty that is quite
literally just short of starvation for most women.’9 Anorexics
usually refuse to concede that their weight loss is a problem, even
though it may have severe medical consequences. It is true that in
many cases their condition has underlying psychological reasons,
which might have led to some form of disabling illness in any
case. However, there is research evidence that social and peer
pressures, and especially media influence, can be a direct cause of
anorexia.
At best, ‘thinness’ fashion propaganda seems likely to trigger
anorexia in otherwise disturbed people. At worst, it can affect
whole communities of young people. A study in Fiji by Professor
Anne Becker, of Harvard Medical School showed a marked
increase in anorexic tendencies among Fijian girls after a TV
model of thinness was presented to them.10 Professor Becker
observes that, until 1995, Fijian women were normally robust and
large, and saw the establishment of a large social network as the
most satisfying element of life. However, after 1995, Western TV
‘sitcoms’ became popular in the islands. Amanda Woodward, the
slim heroine of ‘Melrose Place’ suddenly became a model for most
Fijian girls, and the yearning for thinness became widespread.
Professor Becker calls this ‘the Melrose effect’.
254 THE NEW SOCIETY
Is the depiction of violent hitting and kicking, casual killings,

torture, and ‘zappings’ of hordes of aliens, likely to influence the
behaviour of children who watch them? Will it condition them to
accept violence, even commit it, unrestrained by conscience, in real
life? The answer, attested to by most of the examples in the literature,
is yes. F S Anderson collected together 67 studies, made over a 20
year period, on the correlation between violent TV and aggression in
children. He discovered that three quarters of the studies found a
connection.11 Young people who are well adjusted in other respects
might not be affected, but a definite proportion who are not well
adjusted will be influenced, often to the extent of replicating the
visual violence in real life. Elliott Aronson quotes a University of
Nebraska survey which asked 15,000 children which they would
prefer to lose, their TV or their father.12 Around half said they would
keep their TV. Even if one assumes that many of the respondents
were simply calling the bluff of such a grotesque proposition, there
are presumably some who meant exactly what they said.
The health risks of exposing young children to television,
always suspected, were more closely defined by 1999, when
paediatricians in the US and Australia identified TV viewing as a
factor in illness, especially behavioural and personality disorders.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that children
under two should not look at television at all, and that older
children should not have sets in their bedrooms. A 17 year study
of 700 Americans from adolescence to adulthood indicated that
watching more than one hour of TV a day made adults more
aggressive.13 There is a view that watching violence on the media
has a ‘cathartic’ effect – that it satisfies the need for violence and
makes it less likely in real life. Here again Aronson quotes
experiments that appear to contradict this, even indicating that
seeing violence on TV or film increases aggression.14 In these
experiments children or young people from similar backgrounds
showed a marked increase in aggression directed at other
children compared with control groups who watched non-violent
movies.
The Columbine High School child murderers ‘were avid
players of Doom – a video game that teaches killing skills so
effectively that the US military uses a modified version to train its

soldiers’.15 Two controlled studies in America in 2000 showed a
marked increase in aggressive behaviour and delinquency in those
who played violent video games. According to one expert on
driver psychology and road rage, car racing video games induce
more reckless and aggressive driving in the mostly youthful
users.16
A few hours of research into the pornography offered on the
internet must identify this medium as a potent element in the
toxic culture. Point one is that a great deal of hard pornography is
easily accessible, even to those, like children, who might not have
a credit card, in ‘sample’ pictures and text offered by the oper-
ators. Point two is that even this ‘sample’ material goes beyond
normal eroticism into bondage, violence, sadism, exploitation of
women, especially very young women, and animals. Point three
is that this extreme material is so extreme because of competition
between the websites offering pornography to attract the
voyeur’s credit card. A study in the US of 9000 internet users
indicated that 15 per cent were ‘addicted’ to sexual sites, and
spent an average of 11 hours a week online for sexual purposes.17
This survey also found that 20 per cent of male workers and 12
per cent of women used computers at their workplace to ‘engage
in virtual sex’.
Civil libertarians say there should be no censorship, that it is a
basic human right to see, read or hear anything one wishes.
Others point to the apparent ill effects of violent and perverse
material and say that there is a duty to protect the impressionable,
especially children, from it. However, it is relevant to our context
that the ill effects of the toxic culture must aggravate the other
social and economic pressures endangering the future. The world
will need well balanced, tolerant and compassionate people more
than ever, and most of them will have to come from those now at
school and college – the young and impressionable. If the
disturbed, violent and uncaring become typical, the consequences
during the difficult decades to 2030 could be grave indeed.
256 THE NEW SOCIETY

• A Oneworld agency, with enforcement powers, to
investigate and eliminate slavery in all its forms.
• World funding to financially assist families in areas so
impoverished they sell their children into bonded labour
or prostitution.
• Controls to prevent easy access by children to violent and
pornographic internet sites and video games.
• Additional taxing on drugs, including tobacco and alcohol,
equal to the costs of the damage by these products to the
community and to individuals.
C HAPTER 25
R UNNING THE S HOW
In the world’s pioneering democracy, ancient Athens, all citizens

dropped either a white or a black pebble into a jar to decide on
issues. That worked in a small city-state, but as national pop-
ulations grew direct democracy was seen as too complicated, and
representative government was eventually introduced, in which
we elect delegates to theoretically do as we want. But this system
is failing. Why? Three things seem basically wrong with repre-
sentative government. One, populations tend to elect their
average, rather than their best; two, elected representatives are
usually members of political parties, which tend to look to their
own interests and those of their supporters, and increasingly, and
impudently, ignore the clear view of voters except at election
time. The disproportionate reaction to ‘terrorism’ in at least three
nations is a typical consequence of these factors. The third, and
perhaps most important failure of the system is that large
numbers of people in the ‘democracies’ feel alienated from the
political process.
Do they? Only 60 per cent voted in the 2004 US presidential
election – and that was the highest turnout since 1968. Surveys in
several ‘democracies’ place politicians at the bottom of trust
ranking. The BBC carried out a survey to find out why only 60 per
cent of those eligible voted in a general election in 2001. ‘They
258 THE NEW SOCIETY
weren’t apathetic,’ Martin Vogel of the BBC was quoted as saying

(New Scientist, 29 November, 2003) ‘They just felt alienated from
the established political process.’
So what do we do? The time has come when individual
citizens must be given more political power. In those places where
this already happens, people become much more involved in the
issues and make greater efforts to inform themselves. Accord-
ingly, why not go back to real democracy? Modern technology
like the internet does indeed make it possible for us to drop the
pebbles into the jar again, decide collectively what is best for us.
iCan, a BBC site (www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ican) provides a virtual
meeting hall, in which people interested in almost any cause can
find common ground. MoveOn.org in the US is another multi-role
lobbying force which claims to be in touch with two million
activists worldwide.
Good government, so necessary to the new society, is notoriously
difficult, and on the whole, as a global community, we are failing at
it. In many nations the warlord phase is back. These quasi or overtly
military dictatorships are, on the whole, self seeking and
conservative, with little concern for the future, or for individuals.
They tolerate such things as uncontrolled slavery and dangerous
buildings – even connive at them – and do not hesitate to torture or
kill those who dare to dissent. The ‘war against terror’ is causing
even the ‘democracies’ to become more secretive, authoritarian and
restrictive, to give financial priorities to military and security
purposes, and abandon hard won legal and human rights.
Is anything better possible? Yes, but it won’t be easy, and again
it can only come from community insistence, community
initiatives, and more direct participation by individuals in the
political process. Many parliaments accept petitions, but usually
they are merely noted, rarely even influencing policy, much less
making it. There is even a positive resistance to greater public
participation in politics. Bob Geldof, in his autobiography Is That
It? remarks: ‘One of England’s most respected political comment-
ators’ called Geldof’s massive aid effort, Bandaid, ‘a subversive
phenomenon in that it wrested the political initiative from the
parliamentary process into the hands of ordinary people’.
RUNNING THE SHOW 259
Some optimism can be found in the relatively small number

of states where major decisions are made by the citizens, who
have the right to initiate proposals for new laws, and then have
the total electorate decide whether or not to accept them by refer-
endum. In places like Switzerland and over half the American
states this sort of political process happens regularly, and the
results frequently run directly counter to what the political and
business establishment want. Basically, if a large enough group
of citizens sign a petition for a law to be introduced or changed
(the initiative), it must then be put to popular vote (the
referendum). If approved by a majority, the decision becomes
final, overriding any parliament or congress, although, in the US,
it can still be challenged in court and struck down if it is found
to be unconstitutional. The citizen’s initiative process can
generally be used to change a constitution, but a greater number
of signatures on the petition and a two thirds vote at the ballot
are usually required.
This procedure works particularly well to decide issues that are
emotive or difficult, like euthanasia, abortion, the control of drugs,
which politicians frequently avoid as being difficult – ‘the too hard
drawer’ is the phrase. In a 1997 referendum, 71 per cent of Swiss
voters reaffirmed measures to control drug abuse, including a
heroin trial, injecting rooms, and much more money spent on
treating addicts and a resolute campaign against criminals
working the trade. As a result of these measures, Switzerland was
able to halve the number of drug overdose deaths between 1992
and 1997, and substantially control drug associated crime and HIV
infection rates.1
Perhaps the best remembered American state citizen’s initiated
ballot measure was Proposition 15 in California, which success-
fully curbed government tax levels that had swollen because of
inflation. In a similar way, Maine refused industry backed
proposals for clear felling of forests, and rejected a grant of voting
rights to guardians of mentally ill people. Oregon established,
and a few years later decisively rejected repealing, America’s only
law permitting assisted suicide for the terminally ill. Arizona is
one of four American states, so far, to have used the citizen’s
260 THE NEW SOCIETY
initiative to bring in public funding of elections, and one of two

where it has been implemented. In each of these states, candidates
can choose to take donations or public funding, but not both. In
2002, the ‘Clean Elections Law’ in Arizona led to the Democratic
gubernatorial candidate who opted to take public funding
defeating the incumbent Republican who took large donations
from corporations. This happened against the trend of an election
which generally favoured Republicans. Similar public funding
initiatives are underway in many other American states. Why are
they needed? Simply because without public funding only very
rich people, or those beholden to them, can afford the huge costs,
such as extensive media advertising, involved in a successful
campaign. One of the more curious twists of politics is the
tendency of voters to favour candidates who can afford lots of
advertising. The voter might well ask where the money came
from to pay for that advertising, and what favours might be
required for it later on
When the citizen’s initiative was introduced in the US early in
the 20th century it quickly became apparent that it could be
manipulated by powerful pressure groups, especially if they had
access to publicity, or could spend extensively on advertising.
Political systems, no matter how apparently enlightened, depend
on the will and intelligence of large numbers of people to work
well. Granted that, this system, applied generally and with
enthusiasm, could not only make the new society possible but
would also allow whole communities to consider and decide on
how it should be organized. It has been shown that difficult
decisions made by referendum, like universal military training in
Switzerland, have been better accepted when made by the peer
group than when handed down from above.
Voters might also like to consider whether they can find
independent candidates for elections – preferably good people
who don’t particularly want to be politicians, and who are not
members of parties – in the interests of genuine democracy, rather
than continue to tolerate party machines.
Representative government, after all, evolved in conditions
where consultation of the mass electorate on issues was
impracticable, where the majority were not well educated, and

where there was much less public interest in politics than is now
the case. And party politics springs from a powerful Axiom Two
consideration – the human tendency to aggregate in clans or
gangs allied by common interests. Whatever their protestations,
most political parties are like this. In the words of Alexis de
Tocqueville, behind the facade of great political parties ‘private
interest, which always plays the greatest part in political passions,
is there more skillfully concealed beneath the veil of public
interest’.2
It is naive, and probably offensive, to assert that Western
representative government should extend to all parts of the
world, and that other forms of government are ‘undemocratic’
and therefore inadequate. This is especially so considering that
the ‘legalized bribery’ of campaign contributions gives
corporations and the rich far more influence and control than
average citizens in many so-called ‘democracies’. There are forms
of government which have existed for thousands of years that are
virtually unknown in the West. One is consensus, evolved in
village communities which depend economically on their ability
to cooperate. Rice growing societies in Asia are typical. It is quite
possible to visualize effective political systems that work this way.
One, indeed, exists, in Japan. Ostensibly a parliamentary
democracy, the real decisions are made in consensus discussions
which involve senior bureaucrats and business leaders as well as
elected members of parliament. The Liberal Democratic Party,
which has governed Japan for most of the last half century,
consists of a number of ha, factions which negotiate common
policies by consensus. Successive Japanese prime ministers are
usually faction leaders who achieve that position in turn.3
Government by a controlled and trained elite has been the other
major Asian form, and at least a third of humankind is still
administered this way. Whatever the rhetoric, the Communist
government in China seems to be strongly informed by the
imperial mandarinate, which was probably the longest lived
administration over the greatest number of people in human
history. There are similarly influenced state systems in Korea and
262 THE NEW SOCIETY
Vietnam, and ‘controlled democracies’, where the forms of

representative government exist, but are generally over-ruled by
elites, in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. While in
these countries government has almost always been authoritarian,
elites have not been exclusive, and there has always been an
elaborate system of checks and balances to attempt control of
nepotism and corruption. Corrective measures in imperial China
included the shifting of mandarins to new posts every few years,
their oversight by independent inspectors, and severe punishment
for offences such as bribe taking and manifest injustice.
A basic measure of the success of government might not be so
much how systems are organized, as the extent to which they
serve the general community interest, rather than that of the
pressure groups which finance them, and the extent to which they
will allow the community to decide on public policy and public
issues through some effective means of consultation. It has been
said that people get the government they deserve, and this is true
to an extent. People who interest themselves in public issues only
at election time, and complain that ‘they’ are not doing what
‘they’ should do, are not really in a position to complain if matters
don’t work out the way they like.
In Samuel Butler’s classic novel Erewhon the sick in his

fictional mountain state are confined to institutions and severely
punished; the criminals are treated kindly and re-educated. While
none of this is likely to be acceptable in public policy, there is a
certain logic in these ideas.
It is, or should be, a basic responsibility of governments to
make laws of overall benefit to the community, with particular
regard to rehabilitation of criminals, and they can fairly be judged
on their success or otherwise in this area. However, systems of
law , while being modified in detail, have fundamentally changed
very little over many centuries, and are still basically punitive.
Their deficiencies are an obvious economic and social handicap to
the new society. More than half of the world’s nations use torture
as a routine part of their legal systems, 86 retain capital
punishment,4 and in almost all countries the law routinely
punishes the mentally handicapped, uneducated and socially

disadvantaged. Keeping large numbers of people in prison is
unproductive and expensive, yet most countries do it. Making the
law easy to understand, of equal application and cheap to access
seems a desirable ideal, yet few legal systems achieve it. In most
countries, including most ‘advanced’ Western societies, high legal
costs unfairly advantage the wealthy.
There are possible solutions – the new society could, for
instance, take legal proceedings out of the hands of private
operators offering their services for money, and instead institute
legal corps operated and financed by the community, in which a
body of trained practitioners on fixed salaries could act either as
counsel or as magistrate according to their experience and
expertise. Compliance with Axiom One would require reasonably
large salaries to people who had put many years and much
money into acquiring their expertise, but much lower than the
extravagantly high fees barristers now typically charge.
It is tempting to associate this money factor with another well
known deficiency of legal systems – the delays, often as much as
years, to complete matters. After all, the longer a matter is
protracted to adjourned hearings and mentions, the more
numerous the fees the lawyer can charge. I have felt obliged to
intervene (through the use of parliamentary privilege, when I was
a senator) in several public interest cases where very wealthy
defendants such as large corporations used legal machinery to
force up plaintiffs’ costs until they had to withdraw from socially
useful and altruistic actions to avoid bankruptcy.
A second, less than reassuring commentary on the success or
otherwise of legal systems is the large and increasing numbers of
people in prisons. In the US the figure rose in 2004 to more than
2.2 million, almost one-quarter of the world’s incarcerated people,
the world’s highest per capita incarceration rate, and a doubling
for each of the last two decades. The number of black males in
prison per 100,000 population was 12 times that of white men.5
China has the next largest number in prison, 1.5 million, but this
is on a population base four times larger. Statistics and
commentary from many parts of the world indicate that the
264 THE NEW SOCIETY
majority of those in prison are not violent habitual criminals, but

the underprivileged, the mentally disturbed, the victims of
broken homes and childhood abuse, or members of racial
minorities.
One of the more experienced observers of British prisons,
Stephen Tumim, a former barrister, county court judge and Chief
Inspector of Prisons from 1987 to 1995,6 remarked that dangerous
criminals were perhaps 2 to 3 per cent of the total – less in the case
of women. The majority, he adds, ‘are inadequates, who have not,
in modern parlance, got their act together … male and under 30.
Their offences are mainly concerned with drink, drugs and
motorcars, and stealing money to acquire more. They come from
impoverished city areas. If they are violent, it is not planned, but
part of their social inadequacy.’ He notes an ominous rate of
recidivism among juvenile offenders at 80 per cent reconvicted
within 2 years of discharge from prison – a trend also apparent in
other Western countries.
About half of the world’s nations retain the death penalty, but
of those 86, 35 actually implement it regularly. There were at least
3797 executions in 2004 in 27 countries.7 Eighty per cent, an
estimated 3400, were in China, most of the rest in Iran, Vietnam,
Singapore, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and the US. Does capital
punishment deter crime? In 1974, the year before the abolition of
the death penalty in Canada, the murder rate was 3.09 per
100,000. In l980 the figure was 2.41, in l999 1.76. One basic
objection to the death penalty – the possibility that people might
be found innocent because of evidence turning up after their
execution – came into prominence in the US in 2000. One
researcher concluded after a study of more than 4000 capital
punishment cases appealed between 1973 and 1995 that serious
problems, including unreliable evidence, poor legal represent-
ation and racism, were evident in almost 70 per cent of the cases.8
It is characteristic of almost all legal systems that, by and large,
adult individuals are regarded as equally responsible for their
actions, whether good or ill, and should be rewarded or punished
on that basis. Behavioural psychologist B F Skinner asserted
‘unsuspected controlling relations between behaviour and
environment’ as a major influence overruling or even overriding

‘free will’.9 He did not accept the view that ‘a person is responsible
for his behaviour, not only in the sense that he may be justly
blamed or punished when he behaves badly, but also in the sense
that he is given credit and admired for his achievements’,
contending ‘a scientific analysis shifts the credit as well as the
blame to the environment’.
Whether or not one accepts the Skinnerian view that human
conduct is substantially due to ‘conditioned reflexes’, or indeed
the Dawkins view that we are driven by our genes, there is
sufficient good sense in this idea to warrant a closer look.10 Is the
law unfair if it fails to take environmental, health and genetic
influences on the plaintiff into account? There is evidence that it
usually does so fail, with positive correlations in most countries
between major sanctions such as capital punishment and
imprisonment with poverty, mental disability, abuse as children,
lack of education, and low social status.
There is a further point: to what extent should society hold
individuals responsible for the deficient environmental influences
on them, and hence their high ‘crime’ rate? Often they are not
responsible for these influences, which have been forced on them
by economic, social and health factors beyond their control. For
instance, a New South Wales government committee in 1999
found that while the intellectually impaired are around 2.5 per
cent of the population of that state, they make up 20 per cent of
those in prison.
There is informed opinion that brain deficiencies can
contribute to violent, criminal behaviour. University of Southern
California psychologist Adrian Raine, who has worked in high
security prisons, identifies brain damage resulting from birth
complications and poor frontal lobe functioning as likely factors.11
Are there ‘genes for crime’? According to University College
London Professor Steve Jones, ‘there is plenty of evidence that
genes are involved in crime. A man who has an identical twin
with a criminal record is himself at a 50 per cent increased chance
of being imprisoned.’12 These facts and statistics suggest an
important point that may seem obvious after it has been stated:
266 THE NEW SOCIETY
that the mentally deficient and ill educated are overrepresented in

prisons because they are just that – not as smart as the criminals
who get away with it – and hence are easier to apprehend and
convict.
New prisons, and the cost of supporting them, are now a major
public expense. They often turn out to be virtual schools for
crime, and first offenders frequently go on to commit more crimes
when they are released, due to the associations made and ideas
learned in prison, and their inability to find work when released.
Mandatory sentencing laws, introduced in America and in parts
of Australia during the 1990s, showed signs of falling into
disrepute after brief periods in operation. The principle is that
after three offences of any kind, a person automatically goes to
prison, in some US states for life, with penal sanctions in some
cases following the second offence. One result has been a large
increase in prison populations. In California in 1999 more than
160,000 prisoners were in prisons designed to hold only 80,000.13
Each prisoner serving a 25-year to life imprisonment was costing
the taxpayer half a million dollars; the annual cost of housing
29,000 non-violent second and third strikers was $632 million.
Experience showed that a relatively small proportion of
dangerous criminals were involved, 78 per cent of second strikers
and 50 per cent of third strikers in prison having been convicted
for non-violent crimes. One man in California was sentenced to
life in prison because he stole a pizza from some children while
drunk, after two previous convictions for vandalism when he set
fire to garbage cans. One study found that African Americans,
making up 12 per cent of the population, accounted for half of all
three strike sentencing.14
In the tiny west Pacific nation of Palau things are different.
Palau inherited an American type justice system when it became
independent in 1992, but since then it has tried to return to its
precolonial traditions of tolerance and community support for the
errant. Criminals – even murderers – are allowed out of prison
during the day, and lead ordinary lives with their families, have
jobs, meet with relatives and friends. In the evening they must
report back and are locked up for the night. According to Palau’s
Justice Minister, Elias Chin, locking up prisoners permanently

‘created more bad men than good ones’.15 Palau, a group of
islands inside a coral reef, has only 18,000 people, and close
family and social networks. Hence there is a climate of opinion
that favours helping offenders rather than punishing them. The
experience of this small island republic tends to support the view
that this area of crime and punishment, like so many others, can
best be managed within relatively small, mutually supportive
communities, and is a further argument for them.
There is a fairly general public perception that the law is
unduly complex, and is couched in a special jargon and mystique
designed to feather the nests of a specialized and highly
expensive legal profession. Lawyers would, however, argue that
effective laws have to be complex, that specialized legal
terminology is necessary, and that these things take years of
training and a certain expertise to understand. Because they have
this training and expertise, they are entitled to be paid well.
Appeal procedures, allowing a dissatisfied litigant to take his
case to successively higher courts, are obviously designed to
promote fairness – but this intention is often subverted by the
high costs involved. The expenses of law must suggest that the
system as it stands is not satisfactory, and the fact that organized
and wealthy crime rings are among the lawyers’ best customers
serves to underline the point. Much greater access to legal aid –
inadequate in many places and non-existent in most – would
seem to be a possible early answer to these problems.
268 THE NEW SOCIETY

• Extensive use of the internet to allow all citizens input to
lawmaking using initiative petitions and referenda.
• Political groups to abandon the idea of party ‘solidarity’
and allow their parliamentarians free votes on
legislation.
• All members of congresses and parliaments to publicly
declare their assets, and contributions or donations to
them, their party, relatives and associates.
• Systems of public funding developed to cover candi-
dates’ election costs.
• Abolition of the death penalty and legal torture as a
matter of world law.
• Evolution of sentencing codes which take into account
social, mental or educational disadvantages the defend-
ant might have.
• Strict segregation of violent or habitual offenders from
others.
• Conversion of prisons as much as possible to rehabilitating
criminals – perhaps by ‘graduating’ them to facilities
offering work and leisure comparable with those in the
normal world during the second half of their sentences.
• Generous funding for community groups offering
support to released prisoners.
C HAPTER 26
G ETTING THE W ORLD

W E WANT
On present showing we are writing a stormy and somewhat

catastrophic history for the next five or six decades. And all this is
totally unnecessary – we could avoid trouble if we made the right
choices, but we will fail the 2030 deadline on most counts if we
make the wrong ones. In that case those who have organized their
lives towards a degree of self-sufficiency will come off best. The
big urban areas must fare worst. On the available evidence about
the rate of advance of the drivers, it seems reasonable to predict at
best worsening recession from about 2015 for perhaps 50 years.
The severity of this phase, and the success of the eventual
recovery from it, will depend on the extent to which the world
recognizes the danger of the drivers and does things about them.
Doing nothing, just going on living, consuming and polluting as
we do now, must prove disastrous.
The facts and arguments in this book are intended to signpost
new directions of thought and action for a better rather than a
worse future – ways to cope with the drivers and to plan for
sustainable improvement beyond them. But are the goals they
point to achievable? Certainly they will involve change, and
pretty radical change at that, and as past experience shows, it will
not happen without strict observance of the axioms. The youth of
the world – the 2030 generation – are the ones with the most to
270 THE NEW SOCIETY
gain or lose, and hence the strongest motivation to act. This

chapter is especially addressed to them and to the adults of today
who have concern for their children and grandchildren.
Before considering how our optimal future history might come
together; it might be useful to look again at the base point – what
sort of world is likely if we simply go on as we are now:
• If we continue to squander our hydrocarbons without major

and immediate development of clean and sustainable energy
alternatives our industries, our cities, our transport and
especially our food supply, will be at severe risk.
• If disease rates from the mass killers continue to rise, so also
will the preventable death rate, while the risk of cross
infection of pandemics like H5N1 from the developing
world to the West must also increase.
• If we continue the present rates of damage to the environ-
ment, its natural systems will deteriorate, perhaps beyond
‘tipping point’, with dangerous, unpleasant and very long-
lasting consequences.
• If the West reacts to world poverty preponderantly with
armed force, regional wars and terrorism, driven by anger
and despair, must increase. As the financial and moral costs
of ‘fighting terror’ grow, Western economies and freedoms
will continue to deteriorate.
• If nuclear armaments increase and acceptance continues of a
dangerous idea – that the use of atomic weapons can be
limited – nuclear war on an unpredictable scale is only a
matter of time, probably before 2030.
• If problems of water shortage and soil degradation are not
addressed, they will add their effect to already diminishing
world food production and rising populations, causing
extensive and long-lasting famine.
• If the gap between rich and poor widens, millions of painful,
undignified and unnecessary deaths among the poor, the
helpless and children will become permanent and regular
events.
GETTING THE WORLD WE WANT 271
What shape, then, might the new society take to avoid these
things? The future is, of course, difficult to predict, but not totally
inscrutable – we can now perhaps outline two strategies, one for
the developed world, the other for the developing world.
Although the models necessarily differ, especially in the early
stages, the first priority is to cope adequately with the 2030
drivers. Beyond this the broad objectives would be a reasonable
equality of wealth, health and quality of life for all humans in a
world free from war and able to guarantee sensible levels of
personal freedom and human rights. Sustainability, based on
renewable energy, intelligent recycling and the frugal use of
resources, will be essential, since it must be the only possible basis
for a future history of prosperity and happiness. Granted this,
what priorities for action logically emerge?
A massive development of alternative energy sources must be
at the top – not just so that we can run around in cars and aircraft,
not even just to sustain our trade and industries. Consider the
provision of fresh water to a country that needs it desperately.
Almost 98 per cent of the world’s water is in the sea. Given access
to that, the problem disappears – but desalination of seawater is
energy hungry, and we can scarcely squander huge amounts of
non-renewable resources on it. However, put a solar tower or a
solar-thermal system with a desalination plant beside the sea, and
the picture changes immediately. And there are other examples. If
large improvements can be made in pollution and greenhouse gas
emissions, oil can be obtained almost indefinitely from shale and
similar resources, given a large supply of renewable energy. The
oil would still be expensive in monetary terms, and would need
to be used frugally, but it would be there for necessary non-energy
purposes such as lubrication and as a feedstock for plastics. Large
scale availability of renewable energy will also be essential to the
second priority.
Lifting the developing world from its poverty, and thus
controlling population growth and ‘terrorism’, must therefore be
that second priority, for all the reasons outlined earlier in this
book. Anyone who cannot see this has no heart, no soul and no
brains. It should be totally unacceptable to modern humanity that
272 THE NEW SOCIETY
10 million of our children die every year from starvation and

preventable illness, that at least as many more are illiterate and
that poverty continues to drive runaway population growth.
The third priority must be to stop the dangerous and stupid
devotion of so much of our resources to weapons of war, and use
those resources in a better way. Somehow this must happen, and
the sooner the better. Since some form of world government
would plainly be needed to make this possible, so that must also
rank as a high priority.
Associated priorities must be to limit and repair the effects of
environmental damage and climate change, institute at least the
beginnings of effective world law, with a priority to limiting war,
and provide international policing to prevent gross exploitation
and abuse of people – such things as torture, military dictatorship,
slavery, child prostitution and arduous and dangerous working
conditions.
To meet these objectives, certain practical steps seem
necessary, and must be taken soon. The cities could evolve into
places of largely automated manufacture, entertainment and
vacation, but permanent living must increasingly be in energy
saving new towns, offering high standards of culture, sport and
congeniality, and a considerable variety of low cost habitat. They,
and all other communities, must eventually be part of a world-
wide electorate of individual consultation, empowered by regular
electronic referenda to decide on key areas of world law and
policing.
These towns would be of varying population size to suit
individual preferences, but never above 50,000. Even one of that
size would preferably be made up of perhaps a dozen largely
independent and self sufficient ‘villages’. There is abundant
evidence that small communities like this find it easier to use
democratic procedures, and that consensus decisions made by
their councils could be the basis for systems of worldwide
consultative decision making. It seems almost self-evident that
properly planned, such towns would offer far safer, simpler and
better living conditions, as well as coping more effectively with
the drivers than big cities could.
The ‘villages’ could be linked together and to the city residues

by high speed trains, powered by electricity from sustainable
sources, quite possibly from banks of solar panels along the track.
They would be planned so pedestrian or bicycle traffic, or at most,
small electric ‘pedicabs’, served almost all purposes, and
designed so that most amenities, including schools, could be
reached on foot from the housing. Shops could be supplied
through freight pipes linking the habitat areas with manu-
facturing centres.1 In Japan the Sumitomo Capsule Liner system
has been transporting two million tons of limestone a year over
3.2 kilometres for 20 years using wheeled capsules propelled
through pipes by compressed air. By 2005 similar technology was
being actively developed in several countries. Fuel cell cars for
longer journeys would normally be pooled rather than owned to
reduce the energy cost of large production runs. These cars would
need to be designed for long life and easy maintenance, with a
high rate of standardization and minimal model changes.
The new urban centres must become virtually self sufficient for
energy through the use of high efficiency solar generators. For
many decades, energy will be scarce and expensive, especially
initially, until renewable energy resources, and perhaps methane
hydrate and fusion, can be developed. The use of hydrocarbons as
fuel must in any case become minimal, partly because of cost,
partly because of greenhouse considerations, but also because they
are a non-replaceable raw material vital to future generations for
such things as essential plastics and chemicals. The central
renewable power source for a community of ‘villages’ – perhaps a
solar chimney – would supply a basic electricity grid, supple-
mented and augmented by wind generators or solar panels on all
buildings. Power surpluses to households when they occur –
probably through much of the day – would be fed back into the
grid. On this basis the overall demand from the grid would be
modest.
Because they would have access to more arable land than the
cities, the ‘villages’ could become virtually self sufficient for their
food from cooperative gardens and orchards. This is likely to
become essential anyway, since the huge energy cost of processing,
274 THE NEW SOCIETY
packaging and transporting food can scarcely continue. Clean

rainwater held in tanks would provide for cooking and drinking
and expensive sewerage infrastructure avoided through the use of
low water and energy use composting toilets. ‘Grey’ water at a
controlled standard would be reused for gardens and other
outdoor purposes. Housing would use a minimum of wood and
metals, relying on modern plastics highly resistant to fire, decay
and insect attack, and designed to withstand the more violent
weather conditions which now seem inevitable. Since most suitable
plastics rely on petroleum as a feedstock, this is a further argument
for ending the squandering of dwindling oil reserves. Property
ownership and conveyancing laws, now generally complicated
and expensive to use, would need radical streamlining.
Systems of local law could deal with most criminal and civil
issues. The law advisers, who could act in either advisory or
judicial capacities would, like other ‘professionals’ such as
doctors, dentists and architects, be stipended by the community.
Community issues would be decided democratically, preferably
using established consensus techniques. Appeal to higher courts
would continue, as a right, at no cost to the appellant provided a
reasonable prima facie cause could be established.
The economic base of these communities would best be
perhaps one or at most two, automated industries, so providing
an acceptable economy of scale and the basis of trade with the
outside world. Their relative affluence would allow them to
employ sportspeople, artists, musicians, sculptors on a major
scale, with people like this touring regional theatres and sports
venues regularly. Their contribution to the community would rate
as ‘work’, the value of their ‘stipends’ set by popular opinion
polling. They could act as instructors in their accomplishments to
the local community, particularly to the school.
Community businesses would best be owned by the people
working in them and linked into a regional network designed to
expedite trade. Normal business competitive practices would
operate within these networks, recognizing the basic motivation of
self-interest, and work credits would vary according to the
productivity and skills of the worker. This would maintain a lively
competition within the community. However, all citizens would be

guaranteed an adequate minimum income – the additional
proceeds of work would be used for luxuries, perhaps a larger
house, private ownership of a car, art items, outside travel. ‘Money’
could depreciate in value from its day of issue, thereby ensuring its
ready circulation and the elimination of its immobilization in
‘investments’. Consider the longstanding problems of Japan, where
fears of an insecure future have induced people to save so much
and spend so little that the economy, potentially very productive, is
crippled. Even with interest rates at zero levels, people still save,
and refuse to spend. What would happen if the government
removed that insecurity with a guaranteed minimum income and
introduced a slight ‘negative’ interest rate? People would start to
spend their money, the economy would boom, and it would
probably be back on its feet in months.
Cities would have to be profoundly modified because it seems
unlikely that there would be enough available energy to maintain
them in their present form, and because their transport demands
and capacity for pollution would become unacceptable. Struggles
with city infrastructure would cease once it was generally
understood that high urban land values are artificial – apparent
rather than real. Even now, only 3 per cent of the land in the US is
built on – in most places there is plenty of land outside major
cities and its value is intrinsically the same as that of urban land.
But even in crowded places like The Netherlands, the village
concept could be adopted in some cases through reorganizing
existing infrastructure, converting some streets into open space,
some buildings into ‘neighbourhood’ centres, blocks of apart-
ments to communal living by people who want to live together,
carparks into real parks. But if present urban conditions continue,
the losing battle with infrastructure must make large cities
shabbier and less attractive places to live in – this is already
happening in many places. This tends to make them magnets for
terrorists and other criminals, and to promote more extreme social
divisions. ‘Urban renewal’, already proving highly expensive,
would become so much more so as to be impracticable in most
cases.
276 THE NEW SOCIETY
The reform of education and social support systems, as well as

the lifting of anxieties about money from most people, should
create healthier, happier and more relaxed new generations. As
suggested in Chapter 13, the pursuit of individual happiness
should become a major and specific public concern, if only for
economic and health maintenance reasons. Think back to the expert
assessments of the reasons for happiness described in Chapter 13.
The people of the new society would feel they were working for a
better world, not a deteriorating one. The work that would come to
their hands would, on the whole, be creative and absorbing,
presenting a challenge, but not an overwhelming one. There would
be a lively and very personal sporting and artistic life, a much
stronger sense of community, and an easier environment in which
to offer or find social support. Indeed, many of the problems of
relationships sketched in Chapter 13 should have been greatly
minimized. Adjustment to life for children, in particular, should
become easier and more successful, due to less family stress, more
constructive interplay with peer groups, and more flexible methods
of education, especially for younger children.
On the whole, people in the new society would tend to stay at
home more, because home would be a good place to be. Those
who wished to travel could do so in hybrid sailing ships, which
would dominate what remained of the world tourist trade.
Eventually some undersea tunnels might play a part in travel,
using linear accelerating trains operating at high speeds in a
vacuum. However, these would prove so expensive that their
development would be slow. Very high speed rocket or nuclear
driven aircraft operating in the stratosphere may not prove
appealing to travellers.
The concepts outlined above would ideally apply worldwide
in time, but different pathways seem necessary at first for the
developing countries. Some radical ‘pump priming’ will be
needed here. Acute poverty, due to lack of work, and disastrous
urbanization, suggest a planned bypassing of the megapolis
stage, building instead on the millions of existing villages in ways
that would not only improve quality of life, but also allow
development of a stage of labour intensive intermediate
technology and added value manufacture for export. And there

would be other advantages – more even and economical use of
land, planned sustainable development of industries, and
retention of existing village values and social structures to the
extent that better educated generations wanted them.
Money, expertise and manufacturing capacity will be needed
in large quantities, and it can only come from the wealthy
industrial nations. If this is to happen, a programme of needs and
priorities will have to be established, and it has to be big enough
and selective enough to achieve the desired breakthrough. What
needs to come first is what gives the best results for the money
spent. This is the reasoning behind the following proposal for the
making and distribution of no less than a billion artifacts in the
developing world every year, designed to have a maximum
beneficial effect.
Four things, created by the Billion Artifacts programme, could
introduce this first phase of development. They are: a standard
word processing and internet access capable computer,
independent of reticulated power, and associated internet pene-
tration technology; easily installed, impervious roofing, simple
filtration systems and tanks to provide safe drinking water; small
electric motors with solar panels for pumps and other small
machinery; and fuel conserving cooking stoves to replace open
hearths.
These would all need to be provided in very large numbers, at
least in the tens of millions, and provided they were standardized
and made as much as possible by automatic processes, economy
of scale should keep the unit costs quite low, probably at an
average of no more than $40. Plainly, the stoves would be
cheapest, the computers the most expensive. On this basis, a
billion items would cost around the minimal estimated cost of
putting a man on Mars for a couple of days. Add $10 billion to
cover such things as internet penetration, distribution, installation
and training in use, and it is still only half the $100 billion
estimated final cost of the uncompleted international space
station, the value of which is very much in doubt, and only 5 per
cent of what the world spends on arms.
278 THE NEW SOCIETY
Why have these four items in particular been picked out from
an almost endless list of needs? The computer internet
programme would bring education and the means of technical
know-how and interchange that might double village prosperity,
health and living standards within a generation and permit
modest industrial growth. Not every family would need a
computer – two to five in a village depending on its size would be
enough. It is probable that much of the new appropriate
technology needed will evolve within the developing world –
some of it is already doing so. The internet link would allow fast,
efficient communication of new ideas and techniques throughout
the areas of need, with values that can scarcely be overestimated.
It is probably difficult for people who have access to the
conveniences of modern life to understand how disabling it is not
to have them – most developed world households would have at
least four devices powered by electric motors. One motor can do
the work of scores of people, and do it better and faster. Hence the
motors – powered by a renewable energy source – would permit
a huge release of effort from repetitive and laborious work like
lifting and carrying water. They would also make possible many
areas of necessary manufacture and maintenance – they can run
lathes and other machinery. With this artifact, a huge input of new
developing world labour saving devices could be made, or at
least maintained, locally.
The means to ensure safe drinking water is perhaps the most
important factor in limiting disease, and it could best be provided
as rainwater runoff from impervious roofs, associated with
simple and established purification technology. Groundwater is
usually infected with a variety of diseases – when people are
forced to use it they are trapped in a permanent cycle of re-
infection. Sadly enough, this is often fatal, especially for children,
on a scale not generally understood. The most conservative
estimates of deaths caused by infected water are in the millions
every year. Even this figure is horrifying, placing this cause of
death on a par with the other major killers like malaria,
tuberculosis and AIDS. The World Health Organization puts
infant deaths from diarrhoea as high as 5 million a year, and this
is usually caused by infected water. But even if people don’t die

from water borne infections – others, such as liver fluke, make
them permanently debilitated and listless. That, combined with
the mindless everyday tasks that consume so much time and
effort, like fetching water and finding firewood, makes it difficult
for people to raise themselves from their poverty. They will not be
able to do so without outside help.
Is it really necessary for the poor to have a nice convenient
stove? This issue, too, takes us into an area of mass avoidable
death. Smoke filled houses kill as many as 2.8 million a year, with
research evidence from China that people using traditional fuels
in inefficient fireplaces have a sevenfold higher risk of stomach
and liver cancer.2 It is possible to make, quite cheaply, stoves
which are fuel efficient. This would avoid millions of deaths from
cancer, and greatly reduce the destruction of trees for firewood
and the unproductive labour involved in finding and carrying it.
The last two items would preferably be designed so they could
be carried into village areas on men’s backs or by oxcart, and
installed without special knowledge or tools. The impervious
roofing could be rolls of lightweight aluminium with attachments
that hook around roof purlins – usually bamboo – and fasten on
top with a sealing washer and a wing nut. The weight – and hence
transportability – of the stoves could be reduced by providing a
chimney tube, and steel cooking top and front door module only
that could fit into a fireplace made on the spot of stone or clay.
Other important needs of developing societies – broadly those
described in Chapter 3 – could be met in subsequent annual
programmes. Control of diseases like AIDS and malaria and care
of their victims should take a high priority here.
The new society will need to address world poverty and health
problems by means such as these as a matter of urgency, with the
objective of a demonstrable lift in world standards of nutrition,
health and affluence by 2010. ‘Balance wheel’ military budgets
could be progressively transferred to these areas and they should
take an absolute priority over very expensive research areas such
as particle accelerators and space travel. The solutions to the
worst problems, like the world’s appalling rate of avoidable
280 THE NEW SOCIETY
blindness, are already known and require nothing more than

money and organization.
The reader at this stage may well be thinking that the hundred
or so ‘optimal future history’ strategies proposed in this text, no
matter how justifiable they seem, represent an enormous and
even impossible burden of change, if only because of an import-
ant Axiom Two consideration – a considerable resistance of
human nature to innovation. But the key point is that these are not
suggestions – they are logical projections from the facts. We will
either adapt to something like them, or we will eventually and
painfully be compelled to do so by the drivers.
Accept the fact that for every person who wants to do
something, there will be five around saying it can’t be done. This
is something that has to be overcome – people who want to do
things overcome it regularly, and can do so again. A certain
ruthlessness may be necessary here – for instance, how much influ-
ence should we allow people who don’t want wind generators
because they don’t like the way they look and sound? Such
subjective judgements must be weighed against the actual need
for, and value of, new technologies.
Also, the proposals are progressive, in the sense that any one
of them, implemented to any degree, represents a move towards
the greater good. There are already many small organizations, for
instance, providing efficient fuel stoves to developing countries.
Every stove they can get to a deprived household is of value. If
they could combine their efforts, attract support, and supply
stoves in the tens of thousands, so much the better. More than half
of the proposals are amenable to this sort of organized citizen
approach.
Now we turn to the really big issues, getting rid of war and
poverty, establishing a decent world order. This also becomes a
matter of organization, and an appreciation that the common
cause is to the benefit of every individual in the long run. It is the
mass of individual humans who own the world, and they must
decide how to run it. If enough people use their combined buying
and voting power and moral influence, and insist on real
democracy, the necessary changes will become possible. They will

happen. Politicians and responsible businesses respond to well
organized public opinion when it becomes large enough and
insistent enough to outweigh the influence of special interests.
And what lies beyond 2030? If, indeed, there is a successful
adaptation to the 2030 drivers, the world may well emerge from
those difficult four or five decades a better place in almost every
respect. Concentration on a more equal and humane world order,
automated manufacture and the stability that would come from
sustainability would, towards 2100, promise a bright future. The
age old dream of Utopia? Almost certainly not, if only because of
Axiom Two considerations. But if Utopia cannot be achieved, it
can at least be approached. That is a worthy ambition for
Millennium 3.
N OTES
CHAPTER 1
1 In the BBC’s Dimbleby Memorial Lecture presented at the Institute of

Education, London, 14 December 2001, available at
www.bbc.co.uk/arts/news_comment/dimbleby/clinton.shtml.
2 Quoted in ‘Sunrise for Renewable Energy?’ The Economist, 10 December
2005.
3 International Water Management Institute estimates; UNEP, Global
Environment Outlook 3, United Nations Environment Programme/
Earthscan, London, 2002.
4 Science, 19 November 1999.
5 DH Meadows, DL Meadows, J Randers and WW Behrens, The Limits to
Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of
Mankind, Universe Books, New York, 1972.
6 H Kahn, W Brown and L Martel, The Next 200 Years: A Scenario for
America and the World, William Morrow, New York, 1976.
7 EF Schumacher, Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, Harper
& Row, New York, 1973 (25th anniversary edition published by Hartley
& Marks, Vancouver, BC, 1999).
8 The Wealth of Nations, first published 1776.
CHAPTER 2
1 P and M Pimentel (eds), Food, Energy and Society, University Press of
Colorado, Niwot, CO, 1996; W Youngquist, ‘The Post Petroleum
284 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE FUTURE
Paradigm – and Population’, Population and Environment, Vol 20, No 4,

1999.
2 B Fleay, The Decline of the Age of Oil, Pluto, Sydney, 1995.
3 J Pilger, The New Rulers of the World 2002; EL Morse and A Myers Jaffe,
Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century, Council on Foreign
Relations and James A Baker III Institute for Public Policy, New York; J
Record, ‘A Note on Interests, Values and the Use of Force’, US Army
War College Quarterly Parameters, Spring 2001, pp15–21.
4 International Energy Agency, US Geological Survey, CJ Campbell,
Petroconsultants of Geneva. Some sources place the reserve as high as
1.2 trillion barrels, while conceding that world consumption is likely to
rise as high as 40 billion barrels a year, representing an exhaustion time
of 30 years. CJ Campbell and JH Laherrer, in a 1998 article in Scientific
American remark: ‘Companies and countries are often deliberately
vague about the likelihood of the reserves they report, preferring to
publicize whichever figure suits them.’
5 International Energy Agency, www.iea.org, 2003.
6 Washington Post, 16 May 2000.
7 Both quoted in BBC News Money Programme, 8 November 2000.
8 United Nations statistic.
9 The means to do this are discussed in Chapter 26.
10 Xinhua News Agency, 3 January 2002.
11 ITER originally stood for International Thermonuclear Experimental
Reactor, www.iter.org.
12 ITER, www.iter.org, 2002.
13 Fire in the Ice, The National Energy Technology Laboratory Methane
Hydrate Newsletter, 18 April 2002. See also www.netl.doe.gov.
14 B Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the
World, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001.
15 The target date set by Mr B Skulason, general manager, Icelandic New
Energy Ltd, www.newenergy.is.
16 Professor Bragi Amason, University of Iceland, in Environmental News
Network, 26 December 2000.
17 They are Canadian fuel cell pioneer Ballard Power Systems, the Shell
Oil Company, the Norwegian power utility Norsk Hydro, and
DaimlerChrysler Automotive.
18 In its issue of 16 July 2002, the magazine claims to have got this
information from leaked government policy documents.
19 Schlaich Bergermann und Partner, ‘The Solar Chimney’,
www.sbp.de/de/html/projects/solar/aufwind/pages_auf/principl.
htm.
NOTES 285
20 China Three Gorges Project Corporation newsletters.

21 Global Wind Energy Council figure, www.ewea.org.
22 New Scientist, 8 January 2000.
CHAPTER 3
1 Joan Holmes, president of The Hunger Project, www.thp.org, 2002.
2 Catherine Bertini, executive director (1992–2002) of the World Food
Programme, in a 2002 statement.
3 Speaking at the World Food Summit: Five Years Later, Rome, June 2002.
4 International Labour Organization, www.ilo.org.
5 UNFPA, State of World Population 2001: Footprints and Milestones –
Population and Environmental Change, United Nations Population Fund,
2001, available at www.unfpa.org/swp/2001/english/
index.html.
6 LR Brown, M Renner and B Halweil, Vital Signs 1999–2000, Earthscan,
London, 1999.
7 WaterAid and Tearfund, The Human Waste: A Report by WaterAid and
Tearfund, WaterAid and Tearfund, London, 2002, available at
www.wateraid.org.uk/site/in_depth/in_depth_publications/.
8 Amrit Dhillon in The Guardian, 26 February 2002.
9 Seedlings planted when smaller, flooding padis much later in
the growing period, use of natural compost rather than artificial
fertilizers.
10 Professor Jules Pretty, University of Essex, Colchester, 2001.
11 New Scientist, 26 January 2002.
12 By Marco Goldschmied, president of the British Royal Institute of
Architects.
CHAPTER 4
1 Released at a conference in Shanghai early in 2001.
2 Science, 19 November 1999.
3 By Carl Sagan and colleagues, published in Science, December 1975.
4 United Nations statistics.
5 According to Munich RE, the world’s largest reinsurer, 1999.
6 According to the Inuit Circumpolar Conference.
7 By the British Meteorological Office.
8 T Radford, The Crisis of Life on Earth, Thorsons, London, 1990.
9 Jenny McIlwain, University of Sheffield.
10 As from oceanographer Ian Jones and Tokyo University, Tokyo.
11 ‘Discrediting Ocean Fertilizing’, Science, 2 October 2001.

12 By an international study group at the Rowett Research Institute,
Scotland.
13 Montreal Protocol Conference, Beijing, November 1999.
14 UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook 2000 report (United Nations
Environment Programme/Earthscan, London, 1999) forecast a
beginning to repair of the ozone layer by 2032.
15 University of Bergen’s Nansen Centre.
16 By the Lamont-Doherty Geological Laboratory.
17 Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford, AS Goudie, The
Future of Climate: Predictions, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1999.
18 Conducted by the American National Science Foundation.
19 The National Research Council, Washington, DC.
20 N Calder, The Weather Machine, BBC Publications, London, 1974.
CHAPTER 5
1 UNFPA, State of World Population 2001: Footprints and Milestones –
Population and Environmental Change, United Nations Population Fund,
2001, available at www.unfpa.org/swp/2001/english/
index.html.
2 Catherine Bertini, executive director (1992–2002) of the World Food
Programme, speaking in Kansas City, 10 April 2001.
3 According to a ‘Declaration on Global Change’ released after some 1700
scientists from 70 countries and representing 4 major programmes met
at the Global Change Open Science Conference in Amsterdam in July
2001.
4 UNEP, Global Environment Outlook 3, United Nations Environment
Programme/Earthscan, London, 2002.
5 Klaus Töpfer, executive director of United Nations Environment
Programme.
6 Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2002: Progress Towards a
Sustainable Society, Earthscan, London.
7 J Bennett and S George, The Hunger Machine, CBC Enterprises, Ontario,
1987.
8 Devinder Sharma, in New Scientist, 8 July 2000.
9 According to Rainer Horn, Kiel University, Germany.
10 UNEP estimate.
11 FAO statement.
12 E McLeish, The Spread of Deserts, Wayland Publishers, Hove, UK, 1989.
13 By the State Forest Administration.
NOTES 287
14 S Postel, Pillar of Sand: Can the Irrigation Miracle Last? WW Norton, New
York, 1999.
15 LR Brown and B Halweil, Worldwatch Institute, www.worldwatch.org.
16 Second World Water Forum, The Hague, March 2000.
17 International Water Management Institute estimates.
18 International Water Management Institute estimates.
19 Agenda 21 was adopted by more than 178 governments at the United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development (commonly
known as the Earth Summit) held in Rio de Janerio, Brazil, in June 1992.
The full text is available at www.un.org/esa/sustdev/
documents/agenda21/index.htm.
20 On its website. (In 1998 the Ministry of Forestry became the State
Forestry Administration, www.forestry.gov.cn). See also Ministry of
Forestry, China’s Agenda 21 – Forestry Action Plan, China Forestry Press,
Beijing, 1995.
21 By Lisa Curran, University of Michigan.
22 According to the Coastal Research Institute, Cambridge University.
CHAPTER 6
1 ‘Atomic War or Peace?’, Atlantic Monthly, November 1945.
2 A Jolly, Lucy’s Legacy: Sex and Intelligence in Human Evolution, Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999.
3 A Giddens and C Pierson, Conversations with Anthony Giddens: Making
Sense of Modernity, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1998.
4 World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common
Future, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1987, p317.
5 World Trade Organization, www.wto.org, 2002.
6 G Robertson, Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice,
The New Press, New York, 1999.
7 Amnesty International statistic, www.amnesty.org.
8 Comments made at a 1999 meeting of the Joint Economic Committee of
the US Congress.
9 Free University of Brussels.
10 Devised in 1887 by LL Zamenhof.
CHAPTER 7
1 J Bronowski, The Commonsense of Science, Heinemann, Oxford, 1951.
2 Time’s Vision 21 series, June 2000.
3 The Nuclear Posture Review.
4 MV Ramana, Princeton University.

5 H Caldicott, The New Nuclear Danger: George W Bush’s Military–Industrial
Complex, The New Press, New York, 2002.
6 Sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency and Interpol.
7 Dr Anil Kakodhar in The Hindu, 9 December 2000.
8 Sydney Morning Herald, 28 January 1999.
9 BMA, Biotechnology, Weapons and Humanity, British Medical Association,
London, 1999.
10 K Alibek, Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological
Weapons Program in the World, Random House, New York, 1999. (Since
defecting to the US, Alibekov has adopted the name Ken Alibek.)
11 Sydney Morning Herald, 22 June 2000.
12 Medical Educational Trust, London.
13 Future Combat Systems programme.
14 Molly Ivins, Eugene Register-Guard, 25 July 2001.
15 Congressional Research Service.
16 J Bourke, An Intimate History of Killing: Face-to-Face Killing in 20th
Century Warfare, Granta, London, 1999.
17 DW Black, Bad Boys, Bad Men: Confronting Antisocial Personality Disorder,
Oxford University Press, New York, 1999.
18 K Lorenz, On Aggression, Methuen and Co, London, 1963.
CHAPTER 8
1 By the International Peace Institute, Stockholm.
2 D Suzuki and P Knudtson, Genethics: The Ethics of Engineering Life, Allen
& Unwin, Sydney, 1988.
3 For example, P Davies and J Gribbin, The Matter Myth:Dramatic
Discoveries That Challenge Our Understanding of Physical Reality, Pocket
Books, London, 1991.
4 SJ Goerner, After the Clockwork Universe: The Emerging Science and
Culture of Integral Society, Floris Books, Edinburgh, 1999.
5 R Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, Penguin, London, 1986.
6 Such as the Learning and Research Development Center at Pittsburgh
University, among others.
7 Such as that for the NEUROLAB shuttle mission in 1998.
8 At the US National Space Biomedical Research Institute, Houston.
9 PD Ward and D Brownlee, Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in
the Universe, Springer-Verlag New York, 2000. (Peter Ward is professor
of geology at the University of Washington. Don Brownlee is principal
investigator of NASA’s Stardust mission.)
NOTES 289
10 By IBM researchers in 1990.
CHAPTER 9
1 F Dyson, The World, the Flesh and the Devil, JD Bernal Lecture, 1972.
2 B Katz Rothman, Genetic Maps and Human Imaginations: The Limits of
Science in Understanding Who We Are, WW Norton, New York, 1999.
3 C Linnaeus, The Systems of Nature, first published 1735.
4 A Hitler, Mein Kampf, first published 1924.
5 S Jones, The Language of the Genes, HarperCollins, London, 1993.
6 As in RJ Herrnstein and C Murray, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class
Structure in American Life, The Free Press, New York, 1994.
7 By Andrew Sims in The Guardian.
8 J Rifkin, The Biotech Century: Harnessing the Gene and Remaking the World,
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1998.
9 A/F Protein.
10 Director of the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology,
Nairobi.
11 Science, May 1999.
12 At the 11th World Congress on IVF, May 1999.
13 R Winston, The Future of Genetic Manipulation, Phoenix Orion, London,
1997.
14 By Professor T Brouchard, University of Minnesota.
15 Emory University, Atlanta, 1999.
16 Mark Westhusin, Texas A&M University, in Time, 19 February 2001.
17 The Future of Genetic Manipulation, p43.
18 Dr Martin Pera, Monash University, Melbourne.
CHAPTER 10
1 JL Mero, The Mineral Resources of the Sea, Elsevier Science, Amsterdam,
1965.
2 D Dekker, mining/science coordinator CSIRO, Australia.
3 Formerly Celebes.
4 International Seabed Authority background paper, www.isa.org.jm.
5 Smithsonian Institution, Ocean Planet, http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.
gov/ocean_planet.html.
6 Mangrove Action Project, www.earthisland.org/map/, 2002.
7 World Wildlife Fund, www.wwf.org, and US Natural Resources
Defense Council, www.nrdc.org.
8 New Scientist, 17 May 2003.
9 Ransom Myers and Boris Worm, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova

Scotia.
10 Greenpeace quoted by CNN Interactive Earth Story Page,
www.cnn.com/EARTH/9805/07/depleted.fish/,7 May 1998.
11 Sydney, Columbia, Conception in Chile.
12 Carl Seubert, Sydney University.
13 M Markels, Fishing for Markets, 1995, available at www.cato.org/
pubs/regulation/reg18n3h.html.
14 SW Chisholm et al, ‘Oceans: Discrediting Ocean Fertilization’, Science, 2
October 2001.
CHAPTER 11
1 Quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald, 27 February 2001.
2 The Guardian, 4 March 2000.
3 World Bank and Fortune magazine.
4 Ministry for Economy, Trade and Industry.
5 In a 2001 TV documentary The New Masters of the World.
6 JG Fuller, The Poison that Fell from the Sky: The Story of a Chemical Plague
that Destroyed a Town and Threatens Us All, Random House, New York,
1977.
7 Bhopal People’s Health and Documentation Clinic.
8 Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Earthbeat, 5 June 1999;
Interface Sustainability, www.interfacesustainability.com.
9 D Kidd, vice-president for corporate responsibility, Wall Street Journal,
22 February 2001.
CHAPTER 12
1 M Yunus with A Jolis, Banker to the Poor: The Autobiography of
Muhammad Yunus of the Grameen Bank, Aurum Press, London, 1998.
2 The Role of Microcredit in the Eradication of Poverty
3 Time, 28 January 2002.
4 M Hardt and A Negri, New York Times, 20 July 2001.
5 ‘Beyond Chaos and Dogma’, New Statesman, 31 October 1997.
6 George Soros on Globalization.
7 New York Times, 15 January 2002.
8 US Census Bureau figure.
9 Fortune, March 2002.
10 AC Nielsen reported by Dow Jones.
11 Reported in The Guardian.
NOTES 291
12 US Agriculture Department statement, October 1999.

13 US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.
14 R Lekachman and B Van Loon, Capitalism for Beginners, HarperCollins,
London, 1986. (Robert Lekachman is economics professor at City
University of New York.)
15 C Cobb, T Halstead and J Rowe, Atlantic Monthly, October 1995.
16 H Schacht, Confessions of an Old Wizard, first published 1953.
CHAPTER 13
1 CA Reich, The Greening of America, Random House, New York, 1970.
2 BF Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, Jonathan Cape, London, 1971.
3 DW Clark, The Life of Bertrand Russell, Jonathan Cape, London, 1974.
4 Speaking in Melbourne, May 2002.
5 Dr K Sheldon, University of Missouri-Columbia.
6 Professor R Williams, Duke University, North Carolina.
7 Dr D Marazziti, University of Pisa.
8 By the Mayo Clinic, Minnesota.
9 Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 74, No 6.
10 DG Myers, The Pursuit of Happiness: Discovering the Pathway to
Fulfillment, Well-being and Enduring Personal Joy, Avon Books, New York,
1993.
11 B Russell, The Conquest of Happiness, first published 1930.
12 R Franks, Luxury Fever: Why Money Fails to Satisfy in an Era of Excess,
Free Press, New York, 1998.
13 O James, Britain on the Couch: Treating a Low Serotonin Society, Arrow
Books, London, 1999.
14 David Lykken, University of Minnesota.
CHAPTER 14
1 A Giddens, ‘Runaway World’, Reith Lecture, 1999, available at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith_99/default.htm.
For a summary, see www.lse.ac.uk/html/2000/10/06/
20001006t1521z005.htm.
2 Economic and Social Research Council, www.esrc.ac.uk.
3 H Glitzer, Australian Institute of Family Studies.
4 Calgary and Australian National Universities.
5 J Pryor and B Rogers, Children in Changing Families: Life After Parental
Separation, Blackwell, Oxford, 2001.
6 R Whelan for the Family Education Trust.
7 NSW Child Protection Council.

8 Time’s Vision 21, June 2000.
9 M Jordan, Witches: An Encyclopedia of Paganism and Witchcraft, Kyle
Cathie, London, 1996.
10 R Ardrey, The Social Contract, Collins, London, 1970.
CHAPTER 15
1 UNCHS (Habitat), The State of the World’s Cities 2001, United Nations
Centre for Human Settlements, Nairobi, 2001.
2 Formerly Calcutta.
3 National Science Foundation report of reconnaissance team,
www.nsf.gov.
4 K Kobayashi, ‘Dangerous Concrete’, 1999.
5 Environment USAID, www.usaid.gov/environment.
6 Such as Dutch group MURDV.
7 Awawaroa Bay.
8 Tomorrow, a Peaceful Path to Reform, 1898.
9 Barbara Ehrenreich, Time, 26 January 2000.
CHAPTER 16
1 4th century BC.
2 The Politics, Book 8.
3 J Dewey, Democracy and Education, first published 1916.
4 I Illich, Deschooling Society, Calder and Boyars, London, 1971
(republished by Marion Boyars Publishers, London, 2000).
5 H McRae, The World in 2020: Power, Culture and Prosperity, Harvard
Business School Press, Watertown, MA, 1998.
6 P Clifford and S Friesen, ‘Hard Fun: Teaching and Learning for the 21st
Century’, Focus on Learning, Vol II, No 1, 1998.
7 A Toffler, Future Shock, The Bodley Head, 1972.
8 J Piaget, The Growth of Logical Thinking, first published 1958.
9 By delegates to the Professional Association of Teachers conference,
Cheltenham, 1998.
10 Formed in 1999 to oppose Early Learning Goals.
11 Professor Anne Locke, University of Sheffield, quoted in the Sheffield
Telegraph, 22 October 1999.
12 The Guardian, 29 March 2001.
13 A Giddens, Sociology, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1989.
NOTES 293
CHAPTER 17
1 International Red Cross estimate.
2 Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) figure,
www.unaids.org.
3 World Health Organization figure, www.who.int.
4 KC Gautam, UNICEF Asia/Pacific.
5 World Health Organization figure, www.who.int.
6 A Lopez, senior epidemiologist, World Health Organization.
7 WHO Fact Sheet, World Health Organization, Geneva, April 2002.
8 D Broderick, The Last Mortal Generation, New Holland Publishers,
Sydney, 1999.
9 R Kursweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed
Human Intelligence, Penguin, New York, 1999.
10 Harvard Medical School statistics, www.hms.harvard.edu.
11 World Bank statistics, www.worldbank.org.
12 Study by Kirsten Myhr, Oslo, Norway, 2000.
13 S Muziki, regional officer, World Health Organization.
14 Karen Davis, former professor of economics, Johns Hopkins University.
15 Christian Blind Mission statistics, www.cbmi.org.
16 World Health Organization figure, 2001, www.who.int.
17 P Davies, Catching Cold, Michael Joseph, London, 1999.
18 TL Ogren, Allergy-free Gardening, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA, 2000.
See also www.allergyfree-gardening.com/index.php.
19 From the Royal College of Physicians, www.rcplondon.ac.uk.
20 Clive Bates, director of anti-smoking organization ASH.
21 Chinese Smoking and Health Association statistics.
22 Nils Daulaire, president and CEO of Global Health Council.
CHAPTER 18
1 Time/CNN poll, 2002.
2 M Mason, In Search of the Loving God, Dwapara Press, Eugene, OR, 1997,
pp141–151.
3 July 1999.
4 Capetown, December 1999.
5 W Golding, The Lord of the Flies, first published 1954.
6 435,000 Australians of 19 denominations in 2001.
7 Time, 3 July 2000.
8 A Einstein, Science and Religion, first published 1939.
9 H Morris The Genesis Flood, first published 1961.
10 Such as R Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, Penguin, London, 1990.
11 LC Thurow, The Future of Capitalism, William Morrow, New York, 1996.

12 Quoted in P Davies, The Mind of God, Simon & Schuster, London, 1992.
13 At the United Nations University, Tokyo.
14 Dimethyl sulphide.
15 C Birch, Biology and the Riddle of Life, UNSW Press, Sydney, 1999.
CHAPTER 19
1 Professor of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon
University, Pittsburgh.
CHAPTER 20
1 K Karlsson, World Robotics 2001, United Nations Economic Commission
for Europe/International Federation of Robotics, Paris, 2001.
2 By carmaker Daimler/Chrysler.
3 At Brandeis University, Massachusetts.
4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, www.mit.edu.
5 LC Thurow, The Future of Capitalism, William Morrow, New York, 1996,
p264.
6 Oxfam CAA, Horizons, Vol 8, No 1, 1999.
7 K Bales, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, University
of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1999.
8 R Sennett, The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in
the New Capitalism, WW Norton, New York, 1998.
9 By Professor Gary Cooper, 2000.
10 J Siddons, Spanner in the Works, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1990.
11 International Co-operative Alliance, www.coop.org.
12 Shanghai Ximen Cooperative Economy Consultancy Service Agency,
‘Introduction to “All Masters” Printing Factory’,
www.cic.sfu.ca/ximeng/masters.html.
13 WF Whyte and KK Whyte, Making Mondragon, ILR Press, New York,
1988.
CHAPTER 21
1 Adams Atomic Engines, www.atomicengines.com.
2 Federation of American Scientists, ‘Nuclear powered aircraft’,
www.fas.org/nuke/space/c03anp.htm.
3 The Guardian, 2 February 2002.
4 Dr E Schubert, GM/Opel.
NOTES 295
5 Ballard vice president Paul Lancaster, Australian Broadcasting

Corporation (ABC), Earthbeat, 24 May 2000; Ballard Fuel Systems,
www.ballard.com.
6 DaimlerChrysler, www.daimlerchrysler.com.
7 W Kitchens, ‘Maglev Trains: An Attractive (and Repulsive) Option for
Future Travel’, The Harvard Science Review, Spring 1998.
8 Environmental News Network, ‘Flying Trains’, 16 July 2000.
9 A Parker, ‘Space Hopping Hyperplane’, www.firstscience.com/site/
articles/hypersoar.asp. See also NASA’s Langley Research Center
website, www.larc.nasa.gov.
10 European Space Agency, www.esa.int, 1 July 2002.
11 MLX01 Project; Japan Economic Foundation, www.jef.or.jp/en/.
12 NL Skene, Elements of Yacht Design, 1947 edition (first published 1904).
CHAPTER 22
1 New York Times, 7 September 2001.
2 www.internetworldstats.com.
3 NEC Global Gateway, www.nec.com, 8 March 2002.
4 Major D Bryan speaking to a house armed services subcommittee.
5 Lin Ching-ching, Taiwan Defence Ministry, in a 2000 statement.
6 American Telecommuting Association, What’s So Good About
Telecommuting, www.knowledgetree.com/ata-adv.html.
7 OECD estimate.
8 Tom van Horn, CEO of Mercata.
CHAPTER 23
1 Senator N Stott-Despoya at the Global Forum for Women Political
Leaders, Manila, 17 January 2000.
2 New York Times, 19 February 2002.
3 Reuters.com, 21 February 2002.
4 Pride – Unmei no Toki (Pride – The Fatal Moment), director Shunya Ito,
1998.
5 E Aronson, The Social Animal, WH Freeman, New York, 6th edition
1992.
6 Professor D Dutton, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New
Zealand.
7 J Baggini, ‘The Abuse of Science: An Interview with Alan Sokal’,
available at www.philosophers.co.uk/noframes/articles/sokalnf.htm.
8 Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto Research Center, www.parc.xerox.com.
CHAPTER 24
1 K Bales, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, University
of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 1999.
2 From the UN and US Department of State.
3 Speaking to the Singapore Film Commission, April 1999.
4 Interviewed by Uli Schmetzer, 1999.
5 R Brownstein, Los Angeles Times, 9 August 2001.
6 According to the Center for Responsive Politics.
7 WHO, The World Burden of Disease, World Health Organization, Geneva,
1996.
8 National Eating Disorders Association (formerly the American
Anorexia/Bulimia Association), New York, NY,
www.nationaleatingdisorders.org.
9 M Pipher, Eating Disorders: What Every Woman Needs to Know About
Food, Dieting and Self-concept (Positive Health), Vermillion, London, 1997.
10 A Becker, Body, Self and Society: The View from Fiji, University of
Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1995.
11 Quoted by A Giddens, Sociology, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1989.
1992.
13 By Columbia University and the New York Psychiatric Institute.
1992, p256.
15 Time, 8 May 2000.
16 Leon James, University of Hawaii.
17 By Dr A Cooper, Stanford University.
CHAPTER 25
1 C Collin, Switzerland’s Drug Policy, report prepared for Canadian Senate
Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, 14 January 2002, available at
www.parl.gc.ca/37/1/parlbus/commbus/senate/com-e/
ille-e/library-e/collin1-e.htm.
2 A de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, first published 1935.
3 Nobutaka Ike, Japanese Politics: Patron–Client Democracy, Alfred A
Knopf, New York, 2nd edition 1972.
4 Amnesty International’s Campaign to Stamp out Torture,
http://stoptorture.amnesty.org/info.html; Amnesty International, ‘Take
a Step to Stamp Out Torture’, 2000, available at
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGACT400132000.
5 US Department of Justice prison statistics.
NOTES 297
6 S Tumim, Crime and Punishment, Phoenix, London, 1997.

7 Amnesty International figure, www.amnesty.org.
8 Columbia University Professor of Law JS Liebman.
9 BF Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, Jonathan Cape, London, 1971.
10 R Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, Penguin, London, 1986.
11 Interviewed in New Scientist, 13 May 2000.
12 S Jones, In the Blood: God, Genes and Destiny, Flamingo, London, 1996.
13 Joe Klass in The Los Angeles Times, 5 August 1999.
14 Professor of Law F Zimring, Berkeley University.
15 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Asia Pacific, 1 January 2000.
CHAPTER 26
1 Considerable research is going on into freight transport systems which
are automatic and unmanned. Large diameter pipe networks
accommodate drum shaped containers driven by air pressure
introduced into the system by pumps outside. Such a system could be
driven completely by electricity provided by solar panels adjacent to
the pumps. Distribution ‘point changing’ would be computerized.
2 Indoor Air Pollution Newsletter, World Bank and World Health
Organization. See also D Schwela, ‘Cooking Smoke: A Silent Killer’,
People & the Planet, Vol 6, No 3, 1997, available at www.one
world.org/patp/pap_6_3/Cooking.htm.

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A S HORT H ISTORY OF

First edition published as The 2030 Spike: Countdown to Global Catastrophe by

Copyright © 2006, Colin Mason

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-1-84407-346-7 paperback

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Printed on totally chlorine-free paper from well-managed sustainable forests

About the Author vii

PART ONE: IS THERE A CRISIS?

PART TWO: DIRECTIONS

8 Which Way Science? 99

PART THREE: UPGRADING THE INDIVIDUAL

13 The Pursuit of Happiness 153

PART FOUR: THE NEW SOCIETY?

19 The Mechanics of Change 209

Colin Mason, a former foreign correspondent, broadcaster and

Yes, it is possible, even necessary, to have a history of the future –

them has become even more urgent, there is considerable scope

The midday sun struggles to penetrate a dense brown smog that

new, it happens every day. However, the city is strangling in more

Yes, there is a crisis – the two contrasting and admittedly extreme

The right choices will lead us to a saner, healthier and safer

certainly within that of our children. Can we avert it, or at least

We all suffer from information overload, which is, in itself, a

Useful change is likely to come only if it can provide as, equal,

plenty’. Here again, many of the conclusions have subsequently

If proposed solutions don’t take the lowest common denominators

One of the mainsprings of human effort is self-interest – it cannot

optimal future history. I believe that if we could even approach

Intensifying world competition for fuel is only too likely to create

The remaining oil will be needed to fuel the manufacture of this

ations, can make informed guesses at the amount of readily

A 1980 experiment in the US produced oil which cost $40 a barrel.

research programme was begun ‘to allow commercial production

developing what it calls the Tandem Cell ™, which uses nano-

used in specialist ways where cost is not a prime consideration, for

designed to be used for only a few decades. Some of this storage

under construction in southern Portugal. The chairman of the

Gorges Dam on China’s Yangsi River, which will generate 18,200

by renewable means by 2010 – mostly through wind generators,

influence if it is applied reasonably. For example, LED lamps,

‘development’ pretty much as now, and that ‘technology’ will

OPTIMAL FUTURE HISTORY

A significant area of US policy expounded at an international

use them. There is a close and well documented association of high

diseases like malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis and stomach infections

up in the Swiss bank accounts of authoritarian ‘leaders’ and their

organized a petition of 17 million signatures which was presented

small amounts of money they had been given as compensation

• The means to supply safe, non-infected drinking water –

soil. Appropriate technology would be designed to mesh

If possible, artifacts should be low tech, low cost, and able to be

achieving ‘sustainable agriculture’ techniques that have drama-

West should be forgotten immediately. Even granted major

OPTIMAL FUTURE HISTORY

We must take climate change – and indeed the apocalyptic ‘tipping