Proper Earth Government
A Framework and Ways to Create It
During my fifty years of global service with the United Nations I was particularly struck by the following factors in the world situation:
Factor 1
The accelerated development of the human species into a global species through the multiplication and extension:
of hands by machines
of legs by transportation
of eyesight by microscopes, telescopes, and television
of hearing by telephone and radio
of the nervous system by telecommunications
of the brain through the birth of a global brain (science, global knowledge, the United Nations, the media, computers)
Still missing or underdeveloped are:
A global heart: love stops at the nation or at an ethnic group. Beginning of global love for peace, for nature and for the preservation of the Earth.
A global soul: stops at a religion. Not yet a global spirituality in which all humans would be in tune with the universe and eternity.
Factor 2
From 1945 to the early 1970s: a comprehensive, unprecedented period of Humanism (avoid wars, prevent early childhood deaths, eradicate epidemics, increase the well-being of all humans, defend universal human rights, put an end to colonialism, apartheid and racism, increase literacy, longevity and good health, help the handicapped, etc.).
1970’s: while the agendas of the preceding period were still unfulfilled and were overtaken by the world population explosion, a new major world concern came to the fore, namely the Environment (UNESCO's World Biosphere Conference in 1968 and the UN World Conference on the Environment in Stockholm in 1972). In other words: we humans on one side and the Earth and nature around us.
1980s: the new phenomenon of the depletion of the ozonosphere and menacing climate changes made the Earth priority No. 1 of our concerns and reduced economic development to "sustainable economic development." This represents a fundamental change in the evolution of this planet. From now on the world will never be the same. This is why we should no longer speak of World Government, but of Earth Government, the wise management, saving and preservation of our planetary home of which we are an integral part and whose further evolution now depends largely on us. The UN Charter of 1945 does not use the words Earth, nature, natural resources and the environment. Why? Because at that time we considered the Earth to be unlimited in resources for a relatively small world population. The Western countries also saw, and still see, humanity as separate and superior to the natural world. This view has accomplished wonders for the human race. But humanity must now change its course, dominant objectives, values, institutions and laws if we want to prevent disasters in the further evolution of the Earth and of the human race.
Factor 3
• Humanity rushed into economics (oikos, nomos) changing our home, before ecology (oikos, logos), the knowledge of that home.
• Capitalism and business became the dominant ideals of the human society and not the environment and preservation of our Earth and nature.
• Business globalized itself very rapidly and became the master of the world and of our lives, while governments, the entrusted defenders of justice, of the poor and the downtrodden, globalized themselves only timidly in the United Nations and even became the servants of business.
• Religions did not globalize themselves at all.
There were excuses for the above:
• Capitalism did wonders for humanity at the beginning when the world population was small and the resources of the Earth unexploited and seemingly unlimited.
• Governments were still in the era of consolidating nations recently born from ethnic groups or provinces fighting each other.
• Religions still believed that their truths were absolute, immortal and meant to spread to the entire world.
Today our objectives and efforts must be:
• To see the religions globalize themselves into a global spiritual Renaissance in order to give us a universal, cosmic meaning of life on Earth and give birth to the first global, cosmic, universal civilization. The United Religions Organization, which is in the process of being created, can do that (United Religions Initiative, P.O. Box 29242, San Francisco, CA 94129-0242).
• National governments must absolutely globalize themselves significantly in a new, second generation United Nations with much more power, especially powers of implementation, legislation and vastly increased resources commensurate with the tasks of the 21st century, or a United States of the World with proper balance of powers in a world democracy, or a World Union on the model of the recent European Union.
• Business must be put in its right place as a servant of the peoples' needs within a properly preserved Earth and renewed natural resources, and no longer be an instrument of unlimited power, profit and enrichment as the principal objective of life.
• More generally, we have come to the moment in evolution when we must give second place to the Darwinian theory of competition and survival of the fittest, and first place to a new ideology, science, strategy and methodology of cooperation for our evolutionary survival and continued progress on this perhaps unique, life-endowed planet in the universe.
Factor 4
During this period the rich countries and the rich in all countries became richer, and the poor countries and the poor in all countries became poorer for the following reasons [The Secretary General of the UN reported to the 1997 UN General Assembly that 100 nations on this planet have become poorer in the last 15 years and that 1.3 billion people of this Earth have a daily income of only one dollar.]:
The rich people, thanks to savings, inheritance, and business can invest their money in banks, stock-markets, mutual funds, retirement plans or in business ventures; many people do not have to work anymore to get richer.
The poor cannot save much of anything to put in banks, stock markets, mutual funds, retirement plans or to engage in business, and as a result remain poor.
The rich countries have almost the monopoly of inventions and patents, have huge capital accumulated over the years, and sell highly elaborate, sophisticated goods at high prices to the poor countries from which they buy primary products at low prices. Investments, marketing techniques and advertisement are also extended to the latter countries to make huge profits
and gain new consumer markets for the rich countries.
Moreover, poor countries and poor people have the highest number of children. Poverty elimination must therefore become a major factor in stemming the population explosion and vice versa.
Section I
Our new, overriding concern: the salvation and preservation of the Earth.
Since 1945 the needs, injustices and complaints of humanity, especially of the poor countries, have been high on the agenda of the United Nations. The UN has held a World Social Summit on all these problems in Copenhagen and launched a United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty, 1997-2006.
Regarding the newcomer in the age of global preoccupations, namely the Earth, we must listen to her too and respond to her complaints. If the Earth could speak she would say:
Why did I have to take all of a sudden a population increase from 2.5 billion people in 1952 to 6.1 billion in 2000, more than a doubling in less than fifty years?
We could answer as an excuse: it happened out of sheer ignorance. After the war the rich countries and the United Nations wanted to prevent the early death of innumerable children in the poor countries. They died young because of epidemics, bad health conditions, malnutrition and hunger. But having no population statistics for the world and for most of these countries, we did not tell the parents that they would no longer need to give birth to an average of six children per family to have at least two left to till the land and to take care of their old age. Until 1952 we did not even know what the world population was! When the UN organized for the first time in human history decent global statistics and world censuses, we discovered that women did not have more children, but that children no longer died early (the mortality rate fell from 34 per thousand to 14 per thousand). When this was discovered it was too late; the children were born and a young population is highly reproductive. The UN warned nations and humanity by means of world population conferences and every other possible means that a world population explosion was upon us. But religions and other factors opposed it. Nevertheless, these efforts saved you from 2.2 billion more humans on your surface by the year 2000. Instead of 8.3 billion human beings in that year, there were only 6.1 billion.
The Earth:
Yes, but I hear that at the present rate you will be 9.3 billion in the year 2050 and stabilize only at 10.7 billion in the year 2200, which means 4.8 billion more people than today! You still increase by 80 million people every year. You will end by destroying me.
Our answer:
We continue to do our utmost. Each year the figure of population growth decreases by a few more millions. On 12 October 1999, we were 6 billion people. The increase during the preceding 12 months was 78 million. To change the course of global phenomena takes time. Humanity, which is in the kindergarten of the global age, has not learned it yet. The UN's latest forecasts of the world population in 2050 are: a total world population of 8.91 billion, of which 1.16 billion (a decline of 40 million) is in the rich countries and 7.75 billion (an increase of 3.05 billion) is in the poor countries.
The Earth:
You better learn it fast. I have another major complaint, namely, while there is a population explosion in the poor countries you have also triggered off a wild inventions, production, business, marketing, advertising and over-consumption explosion in the rich countries. In these countries an individual consumes 30 times more of my resources than in the poor countries. From my point of view, namely, the damages you do to my body, your population statistics are wrong. While the less developed countries count 4.7 billion people, the more developed countries' 1.2 billion should be multiplied by 30, i.e., they represent in my eyes 36 billion people!
The Earth would have other complaints; she could ask, for example:
WHY EACH MINUTE
• Do you destroy 21 hectares (52 acres) of my tropical forests (38 million acres a year) after having destroyed most of the forests in your "rich" countries?
• Do you consume 35,725 barrels of petroleum to run around in cars and fly around me in airplanes?
• Do you let 50 tons of fertile soil be blown off my cropland?
• Do you add 14,000 tons of carbon dioxide to my atmosphere, to the air you breathe?
WHY EACH HOUR
• Do you let 685 hectares of productive dry land become desert?
• Do you spend 120 million dollars on military expenditures, a trillion a year which you could use for the good of your poor and for my preservation?
• Are 55 people poisoned and 5 killed by pesticides?
• Are 60 new cases of cancer diagnosed in the United States alone, over 5,000,000 cases each year with 20,000 cases leading to death, because of the thinning of my ozonosphere which protected you from the ultraviolet rays of the sun?
WHY EACH FIVE HOURS
• Do you let a species die out on this planet? This would mean a loss of 84,000 species in the next 50 years.
WHY EACH DAY
• Do 25,000 people die of water shortages and contamination?
• Are 10 tons of nuclear waste produced by 437 and a constantly increasing number of nuclear plants? How can you let my body be re-atomized when it took millions of years for me to lose the nuclear radiation I had when being born from the sun, and it was only when that atomized condition ended that I was able to give birth to life and to you?
• Do 250,000 tons of sulfuric acid fall as acid rain in the northern hemisphere, killing lakes and damaging remaining forests?
• Are 60 tons of plastic packages and 372 tons of fishing nets dumped into the seas and oceans by commercial fishermen, killing fishes, sea birds, and sea mammals?
• Why each day are tens of thousands of men rushing to skyscrapers around the world to invent more, to produce more, to market more, to advertise more, to sell more, while only a few are concerned with my preservation?
You cannot say, as you say for the population explosion, that each year that explosion diminishes somewhat. On the contrary, it gets worse every day.
WHY SINCE 1970
• Have you destroyed more than 30 per cent of my nature, and the destruction is accelerating, not decelerating as is the population explosion?
WHY DURING A HUMAN LIFETIME
• Do you dump so much garbage and waste on me: while the average is 150 times of the weight of a person in a poor country over a lifetime, the average American create a mountain of waste 4,000 times his own weight?
And the Earth could go on. She could say:
"I regret to have no total figure on what you dump into the seas and oceans which cover 71 percent of my body and contain the largest number of longest living of my species. US industries and cities dump an estimated 6.4 trillion gallons of waste and sewage into the oceans every year."
I heard her also murmur.
"I almost wish that you humans would put coloring materials in the exhausts of your cars and airplanes to see what you add to the air which goes into your lungs and which I made so pure for you. Thank God, it begins to show in the form of smog over your cities."
The Earth would further say:
"The UN Charter does not even mention me or my nature, natural resources, or the environment. But since the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the environment and the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, you have begun to look into my miseries. You have created a UN Environment Program and an Earth Council, and you are drafting an Earth Charter, a Declaration of my rights. I hear that next you will take up the drafting of a universal declaration of human responsibilities. Ministries of the Environment have sprung up in almost all countries. I thank you for that. But alas, the UN's recommendations have been often ignored and most poorly implemented, as was revealed by your 1997 Special General Assembly to review the situation. Why don't you transform the UN into an Earth Organization, in which humans and nature would cooperate for the optimum fulfillment and survival of both, and make me the most beautiful and flourishing planet in the whole universe?"
She would add:
"I have just read a statement by Mr. Mario Soares, the Prime Minister of Portugal and Chairman of a World Commission on the Oceans, who says: 'The action taken for the seas and oceans since the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit has been quite depressing.' May I warn you: if the ultraviolet rays going through the vast hole in my ozonosphere (it has reached the size of continental China) kill the plankton and diatoms of my seas and oceans you might lose two thirds of your oxygen!"
"And why do you have 556 militaries, 85 doctors and only one world servant
per 100,000 Earth inhabitants?"
Yes, why, why, why...
It is to these fundamental global Earth challenges, in addition to the unresolved human ones, that the world community must address itself as we enter the 21st century and new millennium.
It is a vast subject that reaches from the individual to local, city, provincial, state, national, regional, continental and international, global levels, including the world's commons (the seas and oceans, the atmosphere, the ozonosphere, the moon and outer space) and the immediate, medium- and long-term future.
It is a vast subject also regarding the means of action: institutions, law, financial resources, taxation, human talents and resources, and the proper education and cooperation of more than 6 billion human individuals on this planet.
Section II
Next Development of the World System
Since globalization is the primary evolutionary phenomenon, challenge and opportunity of our time, it obviously raises the extremely important question of the type, role, structure, strength and resources of the world system.
And since the Earth is in peril and the greatest part of humanity is still in misery, the remedies must be audacious and strong, even if they seem unrealistic or difficult to accept by those in power. We must stretch our minds and hearts to the dimension of the problems. As President Roosevelt wrote in his own hand on the day before his death for the speech he was to deliver at the opening of the San Francisco Conference convened to give birth to the United Nations:
"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."
In my view, after 55 years of service in the United Nations system, all the above points to the utmost urgency and absolute necessity for proper Earth government.
This should become the priority item on the agenda of world affairs at the entry into the third millennium. The poor countries that have been waiting so long for world justice should be the first to request it after 50 years of promises from the rich countries.
There is no shadow of a doubt that the present political and economic systems—if systems they are!—are no longer appropriate and will lead to the end of life evolution on this planet. We must therefore absolutely and urgently look for new ways. The less we lose time, the fewer species and the less nature will be destroyed.
I would urge therefore that consideration be given to the following avenues:
A. To hold a World Conference on Proper Earth Government through the Free Market System
Since business was the first to globalize itself worldwide, far beyond governments, and since corporations are now for all practical purposes ruling the world, we should give them the opportunity, even request them to assess their full responsibility for the future of all humanity, all living species and of the Earth herself, and prove to us the validity of their claim that the free market will do it all, that it is the perfect system.
The world corporate community should be asked to answer how they would take care of the above complaints of the Earth, how they would provide for a well-preserved planet and the well-being of all humanity, full employment, the renewal of natural resources, the long-term evolution of the planet and continuation of life on it, the real democracy of the consumers in a corporate power and wealth economy.
Such a conference would bring together the heads of the major world companies, banks and stock exchanges, the World Bank, the IMF, the GATT, the new World Trade Organization, the International Chamber of Commerce and similar organizations.
B. To ensure proper Earth government through a second generation United Nations for the 21st century
Since the United Nations is the only worldwide, universal organization at present available, since it had many years of valuable experience and many successes, since it paved the way to proper Earth government, instead of putting it on the defensive with unjustified attacks and criticism, reduction of resources and non-payment of obligatory contributions, governments should honestly ask themselves if a better way would not be to consider a second generation United Nations upgraded by a true quantum jump into a proper Earth-preserving, human well-being and justice ensuring organization of our planet.
Such a conference would have at its disposal many proposals and ideas for the strengthening of the UN made by various UN bodies, governments, Secretaries General, World Commissions, outside organizations and retired elders like myself. I have formulated mine in my Testament to the UN and in my 6,300 ideas and dreams for a better world.
I recommend the urgent holding of a UN Charter Review Conference and second Bretton Woods Conference to assess the United Nations system's role, potentialities and substantial strengthening to cope with the critical issues and needs of the Earth and of humanity in the future. A Charter review conference would moreover give a voice to 135 governments of the present
191 members, which did not participate in the drafting of the Charter and creation of the UN. If a Charter review conference is vetoed by the big powers, these 135 governments should hold their own conference and offer the world a new draft Charter. They owe it to their people and to world democracy.
There is no doubt that given the massive changes which have taken place since 1945, an organization created more than 50 years ago can simply not be adequate to deal effectively with the mounting, unprecedented and massive world problems of a new century and millennium.
C. A New Philadelphia World Convention for the Creation of the United States of the World
The star-performance, often called 'miracle,' of the American States in the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia 200 years ago which put an end to a similar political chaos in North America between numerous, sovereign independent states at the time, should be repeated.
Such a Convention of all nations would review the state of world democracy and would have to add to the system of balance of powers the new dominant power of business and the immense, global new claims of the Earth for her and our salvation.
"Philadelphia II' is a project of former US Senator Mike Gravel who proposes a convention for the writing of a charter for a Global Constitution.
In this regard, we might well apply to the present world situation these words by George Washington concerning the political chaos that reigned in North America at his time:
"The primary cause of all disorders lies in the different state governments and in the tenacity of that power which pervades the whole of their systems."
D. A World Conference of all world federalist and world government associations and movements, to propose a federal constitution and system for the Earth
An immense work has been accomplished by the World Federalist Association, by its national associations and many other world government movements. There exist already several draft World Constitutions. World philanthropists should sponsor a World Conference or other ways to come up with a world constitution for the 21st century. We may remember that during World War I, Andrew Carnegie brought over to the US two Belgian scholars who drafted the statutes of the League of Nations and earned the Nobel Prize for it. Contemporary philanthropists should be inspired by such examples. According to UNESCO, only 15 percent of philanthropy is international, and most of it is bilateral. When the global world and the human family are in greatest need, they are the orphans of philanthropy.
And is it so inconceivable that two big federal countries like the United States and Russia might take the initiative of calling a world conference for the establishment of a global federal government in their image? After the cold war, what a warm spring, a spring of truly united nations this would be for our precious planet!
E. A World Conference for the creation of a World Union on the pattern of the European Union
The world has recently witnessed another political miracle, similar to the American miracle in Philadelphia: the miracle of Strasbourg, the birth of the European Union of 15 European countries which have finally put an end to their antagonisms and wars, decided to unite and cooperate and have abolished the borders between them. Every European can now settle anywhere in the Union, elect a European Parliament at the same time when electing his national Parliament, and can have his government condemned by a supranational European Court of Human Rights when his rights are violated. Also, the European Union has its own European budget and tax system and is not dependent on national contributions as is the United Nations. In 1990 the European Economic Community had already a budget of 7.4 billion dollars, 10 times the UN budget for all its world activities. This example is so hopeful, so powerful, so novel and inspiring, that I recommend it as an outstanding guidelight for more regional communities and for the entire globe.
It is significant that the European Parliament has called for the setting up by the United Nations, of an International Environmental Court and a World Environment Agency, of which the European Environment Agency would be a regional branch. It also wants consideration be given to the setting up of a Parliamentary Consultative Assembly within the UN. We should wholeheartedly support these proposals.
I recommend that the European Union organize meetings and conferences with outside countries to show them how they can move towards regional unions and how a World Union can be established. This would render a great service to the world and to the UN General Assembly: 10 more European countries have joined the European Union, making it an area larger than the
US. Twenty-five more countries want to join it, making it perhaps the beginning of a true World or Earth Union beyond the United Nations.
F. A World Conference of the planet's five continents for a Proper Earth Government through continental Unions and a World Union
About 15 years ago or more, I suggested to President G.H.W. Bush that in view of the creation of the European Union, the American countries from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego should create an all-American community or union. He listened to me, but instead of creating that union in a common, joint effort of all American countries, as was done in Europe, the US negotiated separate trade agreements first with Canada, then with Mexico, and then the Latin American countries created their own Mercosur (the Southern Latin American market), and the future of an American Union is in doubt.
It might be noteworthy that indigenous people of the Americas believe in a prophecy according to which the Eagle and the Condor will meet on sacred Mount Rasur in Costa Rica from which a civilization of peace and nature will spread to the entire world. It is on that hill that the dream of the demilitarization of Costa Rica was born, where the United Nations created the first University for Peace on this planet, and the Earth Council met (created by the Rio de Janeiro Conference on the environment), as well as the International Radio for Peace. Simon Bolivar, for his part, in his dreams, prophesied that someday the capital of the world will be located in Central America.
The continental approach to a world union remains an important avenue. One could conceive five continental unions: the European Union, an American, an African, an Asian, and an Australian Union. A World Union could be constructed as a superstructure and common political system of the five continents. Humanity would then save astronomic military expenditures.
What a relief for the world it would be!
G. A World Conference on Earth and Human Government through new bio-political modes patterned on examples from nature
A very novel approach to the organization of humanity and its proper relations with the Earth and nature is to follow the biological models offered by the formation and admirable functioning of numerous colonies of cells, bacteria and living species observable in nature and now well studied. This is a very advanced science that opens up the most interesting and promising vistas. A bio-political science can and should now be rapidly developed on its basis. It would offer a very much-needed bio-political revolution of the Earth political system and science. Here the Earth and nature would come to their full preeminence and rights. All other world governmental avenues will sooner or later lead to it. First models are already the bio-regional approaches existing in certain areas of the world such as the Arctic Forum and the big river basins and mountain chains cooperative agreements.
Beyond this bio-regional vision and approach is the idea and proposal of Barbara Gaughen-Muller to create a United Nature, a transformed United Nations to respond to the fundamental unity of nature of which humans are part. Humans would not dominate nature but cooperate with her and learn from her. It is probably the most advanced, timely and imaginative vision of
the total, proper functioning of planet Earth.
The Natural Law Party created by British scientists, which exists already in 100 countries and has become the third largest party in the United States, could be the spearhead of this new approach. See the book by the President of the US Natural Law Party, physicist Dr. John Hagelin: Manual for a Perfect Government. How to harness the laws of nature to bring maximum success to governmental administration. Maharishi University, Fairfield, Iowa 52557
H. A World Conference on Earth government on what the world's religions have in common in terms of universal spirituality and worldwide human experience
Last, but not least, humanity has reached a point when we must consider our human presence, past, present and future on this particular planet in the universe. We have now tremendous information on the universe in which we live. In addition to our total consciousness of our Earth and her global evolution, we are also now acquiring and developing a cosmic consciousness of the universe. This is one of the greatest advances in human history, even if the mysteries of infinity and eternity might remain beyond human and scientific grasp. This has the result of bringing together the spirituality or basic "faiths" of the religions and science. God, the gods or the Great Spirit or Spirits and their emissaries, prophets and human incarnations like Jesus gave humanity at its early stages a cosmic, universal, all-encompassing faith or feeling for the mysteries of the cosmos, for the norms of love and for the miracle of life and norms of behavior between all humans... other species and, nature. These messages or "revelations" should not be neglected.
They contain some of the most profound answers to human behavior, fulfillment and survival. Great was our astonishment in the environmental crisis to discover the wisdom and rules of behavior towards nature dictated by the Great Spirit to the indigenous people of this planet, and towards Creation in practically all religions. The world's 5,000 religions are filled with incredible wisdom regarding human morality, belief in life, environmental adaptations, survival and future evolution. This is strongly coming to the fore at this time
in the following:
1. The dream and plan of my compatriot Robert Schuman from Alsace-Lorraine to see the European Union, which started with a coal and steel community followed by an economic community, followed by a political union, culminate in an all-spiritual European Union including the Eastern European countries, especially "Holy Mother Russia." For him this was much more important than the extension to these countries of a military union through NATO.
2. The San Francisco Initiative to create a United Religions Organization similar to the United Nations also born in that city, where all religions of the world will cooperate, define what they have in common, provide their wisdom on human behavior and morality, and right relations with nature, God's Creation and the universe, thus ushering the world into a great Spiritual Renaissance. In the process they will hopefully reduce and progressively give up their fundamentalism in favor of a global spirituality, the same way as nations in the United Nations have reduced to some extent their national fundamentalism called "sovereignty."
3. In August 1998, at the 20th World Congress on Philosophy in Boston, a World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality was created. Mr. Karan Singh of India and I are its Co-Chairmen. It met for the first time in September 2001 in Canada.
4. In December 1999. at the invitation of Nobel Peace Prize winner Bishop Desmond Tutu, a third World Parliament of Religions was convened in Pretoria, South Africa. The first such Parliament was held in 1893 and the second in 1993, both in Chicago. Global religious cooperation towards a world spiritual Renaissance is accelerating.
Section III
The Need for a Change in Values and Basic Rethinking of all
Principal Segments of Human Life
In recent years, Erika Erdmann, the research aide and Librarian of Nobel Prize winner Roger Sperry, and Professor Jean-Claude Leonide, a reputed French anthropologist undertook a survey of long-term evolutionary scientists which showed that scientists were becoming more optimistic as a result of the birth of a global consciousness which makes us humans aware of our mistakes and problems and helps us solve them by changing course and adapting to new evolutionary requirements. Their survey revealed that the theory of "chaos," according to which the universe and human life make no sense, is losing ground. The new theory is that on any planet having life in the cosmos, one species sooner or later evolves to a point of gaining a total knowledge of the planet it lives on. It will then be in its power either to continue evolution or to bring it to an end. The first course will require that the former values of that species, values not respectful of the new phase of evolution, must be replaced by new ones which take that evolution into account. These new values are a major new evolutionary imperative.
In my view and in theirs, humanity has reached that stage on Planet Earth: we must revise our basic values dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries and acquire a new evolutionary wisdom that respects nature, the Earth and their basic laws. If nature has produced the incredible, sophisticated variety of innumerable living species around us, each one a true miracle, it is simply not possible that the human species is not a miracle too, perhaps the most advanced of all. We are no longer our own objective. We have become the caretakers, the trustees, the shapers of future evolution, the instruments of the cosmos, integral parts of it.
The future of the Earth will be bright and life will not become extinct if we decide so at the beginning of a new century and millennium. We are entering a thrilling, transcending new global, cosmic phase of evolution in the line indicated by Teilhard de Chardin, the anthropologist, if the human species understands its suddenly momentous, incredibly important evolutionary role and responsibility.
This article was republished with Dr. Robert Muller's consent. Copyright © 2005, World Business Academy, 428 Bryant Circle, Suite 109, Ojai, CA 93023. Academy Phone 805 640-3713 Fax 805 640-9914 Website www.worldbusiness.org
Senior Editor, David Zweig, davidz@worldbusiness.org Phone 510 547-3223