A couple of months ago I was on Vancouver Island, and an article in the Nanaimo newspaper caught my eye.  The community had adopted a family from Guatemala, and it discussed the difficulties in getting them settled in.  It seems that in this family, not one of them could read nor write, even in their own language!  Who are these people?  What are their problems?

The first group of immigrants “caravan” that walked across Mexico to the US border, eighty percent were from Guatemala.  What made them leave their homes to face such terrible hardships.  5200 children were separated from their parents in a horrific action by US immigration.

I started investigating all of the articles on that country: the people are leaving because they are starving!  How can that happen?  Guatemala has the highest malnutrition in South America, the fourth worst country in the world for hunger.  More hunger than most of the countries in Africa.  One half of the children suffer from malnutrition, and occasionally have to be hospitalized.  They grow stunted:  an eight year old is the size of a normal four year old.  Their protein and calcium, essential for normal growth, is severely limited.  If their bodies don’t grow, what is happening to their brains?

Historically, Guatemala consisted of many small farmers, who produced enough food for themselves.  Eventually the good agricultural land was taken and distributed to the elite, and of course the United fruit company, so the farmers were left with the least useful land. The farmers used to grow their own corn, then they laboured three months a year in the coffee fields of the big businesses to pay for the rest.

Now, over the past 4 years, there has been severe drought, and crops aren’t growing.  The corn doesn’t grown, and there aren’t even jobs on the coffee plantations, as coffee growth has also been affected by the drought.  There has been over use of forests, the soil is poor, and now no rain.  The situation was limping along with some food from foreign aide, but even that was held back by the Trump administration.

The cities are oblivious of this situation, it is a slow invisible emergency.  900,000 are in need of simple food.  The drought has not subsided, ;there is no more food, people have to leave.  And we ask why?

We are told that things have to change or humanity is doomed.  We are told that we have to change to a “sustainable society”.  Change? Sustainable?  What does that mean to you?  What does that mean to your children?   What changes?

The good news is that “sustainable society” looks good.  There are so many things that we take for granted have to  be stopped.  Do industries and jobs have to disappear?  We’re right to be worried by the new ideas.

A number of very wise thinkers and economists have come up with a lot of ideas, and it’s time to try to summarize a number of visions in common.  To begin with, life will actually better for the majority of people. We’ll try to explain it in a few words.

First, sustainable means that we can’t take more out of earth than it can replace, or we won’t have an earth.  At the same time, everyone should have as much or a little jobs as they personally wish, with a guaranteed roof and food and comfort.  That’s sounds, as they say, “over the top.”

The first step is to decrease hours in the work week, the robots are doing most of it, so we should have more of the most valuable TIME.  The people who love their work can work full hours, but they may want more time with their families, more time with their hobbies, and they don’t want to have to worry about paying their mortgage.  Some folks want to dedicate their lives to art, music, volunteer work.  How will they survive?

One basic concept in the sustainable society is that every single person has a Guaranteed Basic Income, enough to live on simply.  If he wants to work harder, he will earn more income, of course, paying income tax.  Each person can decide how valuable their time is–their family isn’t going to starve to death.

With more time, and income security, people can participate in hobbies, sports, family and any other activity according to their inclination.

We will dig up less from the earth, we will grow food more responsibly , and probably waste less time in useless transportation.  One doesn’t have to spend his life in one boring job, he/she can stop and study (free) and change careers a number of times if he/she wants.  Even in these times, jobs are changing so quickly, most people can’t be guaranteed that their type of work will last forever.

This is what we are aiming for.  This is completely possible, but a number of inbred concepts will have to change.  We can’t sit back and hope that “money can make money.”  Some things we take for granted will have to change.   The activities that make a few people multibillionaires, will be curtailed, that is, stopped.  It has to be a more equal society for everyone.  It will be a happier world when we don’t have conflicts between the haves and have-nots.

This is our vision.  There are many books describing the details, but Big Money will try to keep it from you.  Think about it.  In the meantime, we’ll deal with shorts thoughts on the subjects.  Happy thinking!  Satya Brown

 

 

Recently in the news, there has been a lot of controversy about the “free trade” agreements between Canada and the US.  When free trade was first mentioned to us about twenty years ago, we thought good, we won’t have to pay duty when we cross the US-Canada border.  Were we wrong!

The governments meant that “free” trade was whatever benefitted the big corporations, it had little to do with us little guys. Now it seems that Canada wants to produce more dairy products than it needs and sell them to the US, but the US farmers want to produce more that they need, selling their surplus to Canada.

Our Earth is now facing potential disaster for humans, the average temperature, which has remained absolutely stable over millions of years, is now getting hotter, threatening much of life, including human life.  We have been clever enough to figure out what is making earth hotter, our own activity, spewing out too much carbon dioxide and methane, but so far, we have ignored how to stop it.

Carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, has been the hero of making energy for humans for two hundred years.  Now we are seven billion humans, more than earth can manage, so we have to learn to slow down.

Methane is a gas that is just a tiny part of earth’s atmosphere, but it is ten times worse than carbon dioxide to global warming.  Thus just a small increase of methane can do a lot to head us to global disaster.  Guess what, the biggest increase in methane is from cows and other large animals.  Did you know that there are more cows than human beings on earth? That’s billions, way more than our earth can reabsorb.

As I mentioned in my first blog, one of the three ways we can help earth (and our children) is to eat less meat.   The number of cows and meat animals has to decrease, significantly, now!  That doesn’t mean go vegan, or vegetarian.  It means some days you eat beans instead of meat, other days you eat three ounces of meat, not eight ounces.

How will the number of cows decrease?  Not an easy question.  The climate may already be handling that.  I read recently that there is such an extreme drought on the prairies, that the cattle farmers are considering not buying more calves, as they won’t have enough feed.

Look at Argentina, one of the biggest beef producers until recently.  Now they are producing less beef, and clearing all the land to grow soy beans.  That would be great, BUT.  They are burning down their rain forest in the north, in order to grow soy.  Then they export the soy to the USA–in order to feed cattle!  Wouldn’t the soy be better to feed the forty million hungry people?

Let’s imagine a few situations.  Suppose everyone eats much less meat.  Then the farmers won’t be able to sell their meat.  Does that mean the prices will come down, hoping to increase the demand? If people still won’t eat so much meat, then the farmers will produce less, and prices go up again.

Suppose that the farmers decide first that raising cattle becomes so expensive that they start producing less.  Then the prices would go up, and people would eat less meat.

We can only wonder how it would happen, but we do know that there are too many animals on earth emitting methane.  In the mean time each of us has to consider what WE can do to prevent global catastrophe.  Take out the cookbooks, learn how to make alternate meals with beans and nuts (yum), let’s see if we can halve our consumption of meat.  Don’t cry “What can I do!” just do it.     Satya Brown

 

 

About fifty years ago we dreamed about the coming of computers and technology.  They were not a reality yet, but they were coming.  We dreamed about living in a world when the computers and machines did all the work, and humans would be free to live a life of leisure.

Now the technology is here, the computers are here, right to the point that everyone has a computer in their hip pocket.  Little did we guess back then.

Where is the leisure time that we imagined?  The people who have jobs are working harder than ever. and now more than ever educated people are jobless.  This isn’t how it was supposed to be.  I knew a sawmill that employed thirty men, then they brought in new equipment, and hired only three men.  Where are the others?  Not happy, to be sure.

What should have happened? This is what is being proposed by knowledgeable thinkers and professors.  It is time to decrease the work week.  Now is the time to have a 32 hour work, down from 40 hours.  Thus technology would help us share the burden, allowing us more time.

This is a proposal that has been out for awhile,  but has been ignored.  Now there have been a few experimental areas where it has been set up.  What would you do with a three day weekend, every week?  Think about that.  Would you study, work in the garden, visit your friends more, spend more time with your children, take up new hobbies, play golf?  Have you ever thought about what one could do with more time?  No more “rush” to enjoy life. This actually a real question.  Some people are so overwhelmed with work that they have never even thought about free time.  It is truly an issue that people have to consider.

Of course there have been many objections to this idea from all sides.  You say you can’t even live on one salary, let alone fewer hours.  Think about it, less transportation, less income tax, fewer expenses on may things, there would have to be full benefits on a 32 hours week.

Employers, or course, complain that it wouldn’t be practical, let them cry.  The are still making the same profit with three employees as they did before with thirty.  This difference in expenses would easily pay for their capital costs.  Small employers shouldn’t notice a difference, if it is too much, then it always was too much for them.  Fair treatment of small employers is necessary, but mentioned in a previous blog.

Now is the time for the shorter work week to be addressed by political parties.  Be sure to ask all of your candidates if they intend to bring up this issue.  However, YOU are the ones who have to mention it first.