Making it Real

 

The Earth is endowed with a limited number of resources such as arable land, clean drinking water, precious metals, and fossil fuels.  Today, there are seven billion people living on the planet – double the amount of people from just 40 years ago – each requiring the use of resources to meet their basic needs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

             

 

                     Sharing well water in India.

 

 

 

 

Ownership is the core principle of  the economic system.   Promoting endless economic growth means consuming higher levels of resources inefficiently,  while pretending world poverty and hunger can be solved this way.

The purpose is to  maximise profits for individuals, which leads people to grab more than they can use or need.  This is not using resources in the best way for humanity.   The view is that the Earth is something that can be possessed, mined, polluted, burned, and destroyed to please the will (or more like the wallets) of the “owners”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What gives people living today the right to make decisions to permanently destroy areas to the detriment of future generations?

 

The worlds resources (and many living species) are being rapidly depleted, eliminated or forced into extinction  

to sustain the increasing materialism of the Earth’s population.

 

Global issues such as resource depletion, environmental degradation and climate change should urge us to rethink our lifestyle and values at their core.

 

But few dare to question or criticise the concept of ownership.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Less than two centuries ago, it was permissible to own people.   Slavery and human trafficking, although still in practise, is now abhorrent to most.  

 

Today, it is permissible for private corporations to own thousands of properties, vast estates of land, entire islands, underground resources, rivers, lakes,  names,  technology, even ideas, and use them as selfishly or destroy them as they choose.  

 

Devastating and immoral wars are fought and manipulated to control resources and land, often by governments acting on behalf of big business corporations.  If people stopped trying to possess things or make profits, most of the world’s wars and violence would cease.

 

There must be a shift from a profit-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society.
 
Sharing instead of claiming ownership of masses of private stashes of everything is a real solution.