Crisis of the planet and its future

Can humans manage the planet?

At the outset, I must thank my friend Dr. Kumar Rupesinghe who has furnished me with research finding to support my desperate bid to create impacting awareness of the possible ‘doom’ of humans in a deteriorating planet.

It would seem that humans are increasingly incapable of managing the planet. Today we are experiencing multiple and cascading events, such as the financial crisis which is engulfing the Western world, nuclear disasters, the inability of humans to manage the environment to sustain life for the next century and a myriad of problems facing humanity such as a population of seven billion by the year 2020, rising food prices, and accompanying riots, to name a few.

The intention of the Breton Woods Agreement

The financial crisis which has hit the USA and Europe is the manifestation of a prolonged crisis of the capitalist system in its present form where its contours and financial architecture was elaborated in the post war Breton Woods’s conference by triumphant allied powers, who wished to create a world without war and build a sustainable economic environment.

Learning from the Versailles Treaty and the havoc caused by the role of finance capital during the First World War, with the humiliation of a defeated Germany, the Breton Woods in San Francisco created the International Monetary Fund, (IMF) the World Bank, the United Nations and other institutions to manage the planet in a better way. But the first honey moon lasted from about 1945 to 1975; the second began after the breakdown of Breton Woods, and prevailed until the First World debt crisis of 2007–08.

Sinking economic realities

This latter regime, known variously as neo-liberalism, the Washington Consensus  or the globalisation consensus, centred on the notion that all governments should liberalise, privatise, deregulate—prescriptions that have been so dominant at the level of global economic policy.

What we are witnessing is a third regime change, propelled by a wholesale loss of confidence in the Anglo-American model of transactions-oriented capitalism and the neoliberal economics that legitimised it and by the US’s loss of moral authority, now at rock bottom in much of the world.

The events of September 2008, and subsequent events however, make it hard to avoid the conclusion that we have entered a new phase. Financial market conditions in much of the European Union have sunk to their lowest levels since the banking shut-down of 1932, which was the single most powerful factor in making the 1929 downturn and stock market crash become the Great Depression. (Some 11,000 national and state banks failed in the US between 1929 and 1933.)

Feel of a financial crisis

Today the crisis is parallel with a shift of the economic power from the USA and Europe, where the current crisis is also a manifestation of the erosions of its hegemonic status. New comers, it is said are challenging the hegemony, such as Brazil , Russia, India and China, (BRIC) who are seen as countervailing powers which may provide an alternative system and provide answers to the crisis of the planet.

Or will the contagion spread to China and India? The performance of China is shown as an example where its state controlled planning process, high growth rates, and where its surplus is used to invest in mineral and oil resources in Africa and Latin America, and its thrust in buying and bolstering the economies of the USA and Europe through the infusion of finance is one example.

India, on the other hand, with its multi cultural civilisations, is also attempting to go beyond being an IT superpower, to a Knowledge Superpower, but where its investments are tailored towards creating an expanding domestic market whilst retaining its cultural and religious heritage.

India, with its heritage in wisdom and culture may be able to find answers to be a Green India. However, the situation in India has been declining fast in the last few weeks. The Indian stock market was at its lowest in two years and the rupee at its lowest since 1973 if we look at the statistics on November 24. The contagion from the New Depression which is now in swing in the West may spread to Asia’s big powers.

There is now no doubt that the planet is suffering from multiple attacks on the system. The emission of CO2, agro-chemical pollution. deforestation of forest cover measured in millions of acres, the melting of the North Pole, the rise in sea levels, the incidence of earthquakes, floods, droughts, tornadoes, tsunami ; forest fires continue to cause havoc and devastation around the globe. In the last one year alone, Japan has experienced a nuclear devastation, Thailand is under water, and all of which have affected millions of people. The recent famine in North Africa affects over 10 million is one such example.

If the current practices and habits of millions of people, the refusal by the USA and China and many other countries to acknowledge that a planetary crisis exists is human folly, which prompts me to ask the questions whether human are capable of managing the planet or if the current system is able to manage complexity.

Result of a lack of governance

The multifaceted crisis can be explained as a confluence of rapacious finance capital together with the plunder and exploitation of the oils reserves and fundamental fault lines in the global system The fundamental fault lines are the system inability cope with complexity, the lack of global governance and institutions to manage the common good is clearly its most visible manifestation.

The fundamental fault lines can be defined as the inability of the global financial, political and governance systems to manage multi- faceted crisis. But nothing is certain, for the intellectual capacity for such a paradigm change does not exist at the moment in any part of the world except in small cells around the planet

The prophesy of the Mayan calendar suggesting the demise of the planet in the year 2012, which now seems highly unlikely, the predictions of Nostradamus with regards to future catastrophes, the sermons of the Lord Buddha in the sermon of the Seven Suns are some examples of prophesy.

In each of these prophesies the end of the world or the destruction of parts of the planet is predicted. There are some wise people who feel that it may be only through a catastrophe that humans may be able to manage the planet in a better way. I am not suggesting that any of these prophesies will take place but to suggest that such prophesies could become self fulfilling prophesies.

It is too early to judge the outcomes of the Arab awakening but the evidence suggests a disturbing picture of hope and uncertainty. For example, the NATO initiatives to catalyse an anti Gadaffi movement may backfire as it will do in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is also a danger of balkanisation of Pakistan, where its nuclear weapons may go to the wrong hands.

There are already signs that El Qaida activists and Islamist activists, and various forms of tribalism would be contesting for power as it is emerging in Libya. In Egypt and Tunisia we are experiencing an interregnum and it is not certain where the balance of power lies except to suggest that we cannot discount a strong military presence in both these cases.

Green movements – their level of success

The green movements have also become significant players in the drama unfolding amongst us all. They may succeed in persuading some government like in Germany to adopt Green policies. Significant policy changes are happening and many Green policies are being adopted at the individual, institutional level. There have been great strides in technologies for a green planet and the blue prints are ready but the question remains whether the financial mafia and oil barons will allow for such a transition. However, these reforms may be too little and too late.

A reflection on social change suggests to me that Karl Marx and Marxism which have had the seeds and intellectual power to capture the imagination of humans in the nineteenth and early twentieth century is an example of intellectual power. What is required is an all encompassing myth which provides hope and vision for the future.

An alternative theses for social change which emerged during this century and which produced non violent change is the influence of Mahatma Gandhi, who not only inspired the millions to use the path of Satyagraha to oust the British empire but his influence has been all pervasive in inspiring, non violent revolutions in the USA, through the efforts of Martin Luther King, the Velvet Revolution in Eastern Europe and currently the non violent approaches developed in the Arab Awakening.

Mahatma Gandhi has once again been resurrected in the fight against corruption in India. Mahatma Gandhi’s inspiration and social movement has produced significant momentum in that it is a social movements not only towards outward social change but encouraged us to reflect on our inner core values and encouraged social movements towards reflection. It is my view however that Gandhi did not produce the intellectual power to seriously reflect on future societies and took the current capitalist system with modifications for granted. However, I think it is still the philosophy and inspiration for non violent change.

Dr. Kumar Rupesinghe tells me quite confidently that the intellectual power necessary for transformational politics does not exist but is necessary. Why is this so? Dr. Kumar responds saying that what is now required is not more knowledge but the ability to synthesise the dominant trends in the planet and encourage a paradigm shift in thinking and being.

Today information flows are huge, and the planet is a global village with interconnectivity and networks crisscrossing each other. Scientific advances are exponential and develop in quantum leaps. The revolutions in nano technology, information technology and bio technology into convergent technologies are only one example of technological leapfrogging. The developments of artificial intelligence and the experiments of the potential for human robots are also exponential in growth and opportunity.

The advances in information technology, nano technology and bio technology and the convergence of these three disciplines and other technologies i.e. the human robot project, and many others, will undoubtedly create a revolution and a shift in paradigm in many areas. These convergent technologies will move towards the applications of these disciplines to the human brain, where recent research suggests, that the human brain and its capacity can be developed exponentially.

The new convergent technologies will also ensure that the current computer, the mobile phone and other instruments of communications will be the relics of the past. The convergent technologies may also use its applied approaches towards the human body, the elimination of disease, ensuring the longevity of the human species.

The fate of the universe according to Kurzweill is that at a certain time the human as we know will be modified and changed to intelligent human robots. Absurd as this seems, the theory, is gaining ground as one answer to the crisis of the planet. There are many examples and plans to predict and plan the planets future.

Where does wisdom enter the equation? In what way can modern religion be the answer for it is religion which is the refuge and the solace for most humans? It is quite clear that the promise of knowledge will not automatically produce wisdom. How then can Wisdom, both modern and ancient be the answer, so as to provide answers to the prevention of future catastrophes?

The time has come when this question is given serious examination. Unfortunately, various wisdoms schools have also been appropriated by so called spiritual movements, and if we are to find answers then answers should arise from a new synthesis, which can not only provide answers to our search for the soul but also answers as to how to manage the planet.

There is of course hope and promise for a better future. Millions of people have come to realise the fault lines in the current global system and its dysfunctional manifestations in modern state systems. New thinkers have emerged which are challenging the existing paradigm and such challenges are now vocal and resounds in many journals, especially in the social networking movement.

A paradigm shift will slowly emerge and possible global centres of learning to share wisdom knowledge across borders, with borderless university and universities without wall made possible by distance learning. It is hoped that the seminar organised by the Wisdom University, USA scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka soon will provide some answers.

(The writer is the Managing Director & CEO, McQuire Rens & Jones (Pvt) Ltd. He has held Regional Responsibilities of two Multinational Companies of which one, Smithkline Beecham International, was a Fortune 500 company before merging to become GSK. He carries out consultancy assignments and management training in Dubai, India, Maldives, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh. Nalin has been consultant to assignments in the CEB, Airport & Aviation Services and setting up the PUCSL. He is a much sought-after business consultant and corporate management trainer in Sri Lanka. He has won special commendation from the UN Headquarters in New York for his record speed in re-profiling and re-structuring the UNDP. He has lead consultancy assignments for the World Bank and the ADB. Nalin is an executive coach to top teams of several multinational and blue chip companies. He is a Director on the Board of Entrust Securities Plc.)