A letter, an attempt at a conversation...

Tom,

If we SAY we are for democracy, then object to the suggestion that the people at large should have the power and responsibility to set overall limits on pollution and other environmental impacts, arguing that scientists should decide for us, aren't we acting more like a technocrat than a democrat?

Do you think we have a system now that ensures overall levels of pollution and rates of taking of natural resources are set by scientists operating in the public interest? I understand that this is the system that you want.

It seems to me that, on the contrary, what we have now is more tailored to the interests of industry than to sound, dispassionate science.

You never responded when I asked whether the people's preference should hold sway if popular opinion pointed to a more strict limit on pollution levels and other environmental impacts than what established scientific opinion called for. Your objection seemed based on a fear that the people at large, being non-experts and generally not educated about the particulars, would make bad judgements about acceptable levels of pollution and rates of taking of resources.

If a random-sample survey were to show that the people at large actually supported more strict limits on environmental impacts, would you be willing to reconsider your objection to the random-sample survey as an instrument of policy?

wondering,

john

Neural Networks Follow the Golden Rule

We can understand the functioning of neural networks best when we see them as communities of neurons, and, like communities or societies in the more conventional sense, their members behave in ways that reflect concern for the well-being of their neighbors.

Recalling Marshall McLuhan, we are able to do only what some portion of our body specializes in doing. Our various organs have cells that specialize in doing the work of that organ. We can be members of communities concerned about one another perhaps only because we have brain cells that try to help their neighbors.

Neural networks within organisms emerge when entities, (cells), within the organism develop the ability to read or discern the state of other entities like themselves which they are in contact with, in communication with, with the "intention" or aim of helping their neighbors approach their more ideal state.

Neural networks function most effectively to the extent that each neuron, each member of the community of neurons, is "trying" to bring itself toward its more ideal state, that is, either a state of being active at a steady pace, OR a state of rest; while at the same time "trying" to help bring its neighbors toward their more ideal state (of steady activity OR rest).

For neurons that are molecular machines within biological organisms, the question of whether a neuron is at or near its ideal state depends on the levels of activity and patterns of connections among the various members of the community. These patterns of connection are exceedingly variable, since each synapse tip can grow or shrink slightly to form or break a connection with a neighbor. Each neuron has about 10,000 synapses. Ten thousand neighbors that it chooses to be or to not be in communication with.

Particular patterns of connectedness can result in a particular neuron community's having most of its members settled firmly into either a resting or a steadily active state, (the ideal); or, conversely, (with a different pattern of connectedness), most of the members of a community could be in an in-between, somewhat active state, (a less-efficient state).

When in the less-efficient state, each member will try to adjust its connections with its neighbors so that moderately active elements will become fully active, while moderately quiet members will become more completely quiet. They do this by forming connections with some neighbors while breaking connections with others.

Each member of the community seeks to adjust its connections with its neighbors so as to approach a state of steady activity, OR (if it is near a resting state) to approach a state of being fully at rest. But it makes these adjustments while also "discerning" and responding to what changes would most aid its neighbors in their movement toward either a state of activity or rest.

The golden rule among members of a neuron community is to increase signaling to neighbors that appear to be tending toward more activity, while decreasing signaling to those who are inclined to become more quiet. In other words, the golden rule is to help your neighbors reach their more ideal state.

Without this concern for the 'other', any adjustments that a neuron might make in seeking a pattern of connectedness that results in a more nearly ideal state for that neuron would very likely frustrate the attempts of neighboring neurons to reach their more ideal state.

(Within each neuron there are countless microtubules that are able to affect one another's states, which are defined by how many electrons or ions are trapped in them, if any. When these microtubules lengthen or shorten, (or bend slightly?), they change which of their neighbors they are able to communicate with.)

If we think of a society of human beings as a neural network, then we will see that we are more likely to bring ourselves AND the larger community (one another) toward our ideal state when we are trying to help others and respect the golden rule while also trying to take care of ourselves.

John Champagne

A sustainable and just civilization requires that we exercise our moral sense

Primarily, this means that we must respect the golden rule. Failure to do so creates systemic flaws in our political and economic systems. Instability and injustice are the inevitable result. A sincere and thorough commitment to the golden rule implies a strong respect for human rights, which can be said to include property rights. But we are presently neglecting some basic questions that should flow from a strong respect for property rights, namely all those questions that would help us manage in a sustainable and fair way the natural resource wealth of the planet.

We can approach some understanding of whether actual practice on the earth matches what the people believe is most desirable, vis-à-vis our use of the resources that we all own in commmon. We need to ask "are the rates of taking of natural resources and of the putting of pollution into the air and water acceptable, or are we too strict against industry, or too lenient?" This question can take many forms.

If we believe that we all own natural resources equally, then we should expect that polluters and those who take these resources for profit will pay a fee to the people, as compensation for damage done or value taken. This sharing of a monetary representation of the value of the commons would mean an end to abject poverty in the world.

Fees could readily be adjusted when the reality of humans' environmental impacts is out of line with the expressed will of the people.

A strong respect for public property rights would mean that we would each receive part of our income from earnings from work and/or investments, and part of our income from our shared legacy of natural resource wealth, which we inherit as a birthright and which we will manage wisely and bequeath to future generations, while we also preserve it for fellow inhabitants of the planet.

Dear Secretary Rice,

Disparity of wealth and abject poverty in the world today fuel anger and desperation in the dispossessed, and in those who identify with them. This anger and desperation can be exploited by those with an extremist agenda who would use violence to further their aims. To allow grinding poverty to presist, then, threatens our safety. We could change our social system, to reduce disparity, and to ensure that those on the low end of the income-distribution spectrum are assured a significant minimum. By promoting the material security of those who are least secure, we would be promoting the security of all.

We need not violate any of our principles to bring about this change. Indeed, we need only live by our principles more faithfully. Almost everyone believes that the air and water and other natural resources belong to all. We could require that a fee be paid by anyone who takes or degrades the quality of natural resources. The proceeds of the pollution fees and natural resource user-fees would constitute a monetary representation of the value of Earth's natural resources, (including air and water), and could rightly be shared among all people equally. The value of these resources has been estimated at $33 trillion per year.

We should pay more attention to how natural resource wealth is managed and apportioned. We allow those in pursuit of profit to take or degrade natural resources, but do not require any compensation be paid to the owners of the resources, the people at large. If we address this inconsistency in our own behavior in relation to our principles, we will solve many social and environmental ills.

Equal sharing of the wealth of the commons would mean about twenty dollars per day for every person on the planet--perhaps enough to make everyone feel that they have a stake in the system and should work to build and improve it, rather than destroy it. Even those who would not do evil may sit by quietly when they know another is bent on destruction, if they feel that the current system is unjust and offers no prospect for meaningful change. We must win the hearts and minds of the world's people if we want them to help build and defend a civilization, a free and democratic global society.

We must empower the dispossessed. Would they choose a world that impoverishes them? Within a free and democratic society, what kind of world would they make? What kind of world would we make? Every one of us should have opportunities to express our opinion in meaningful ways, (ways that make a difference), regarding how much pollution, paving, noise, monoculture, or extraction of limited resources is just too much. Agreement, (or lack of agreement), between people's expressed will on these issues on the one hand and the actual reality on the other could serve as an objective measure of democracy.

This change would bring our society more into accord with our own principles regarding commons property ownership; and with principles regarding responsibility for compensating owners when damage is done or value taken. Economic power based on a shared ownership of natural resource wealth belongs to all of us. Our political and economic systems should reflect this fact.

John Champagne

The Gaia Brain Paradigm

We have a problem with pollution. Our economy treats the Earth as a free dumping ground for wastes. The ecosystems of Earth provide a valuable service by taking our waste products and transforming them into clean air and water and soil. Not only do we put pollution into the air and water, but we also take natural resources from the environment, essentially for free. We make no payment to the other owners of the resources, the people at large, to compensate them for the fact that our taking reduces the value of the resource base. Like anything that is free, these natural resources and services that the Earth provides to us are subject to overuse. The problem of free resources being overused to the detrement of all, because no one has to pay more to take more, is known as the Tragedy of the Commons.

We treat these natural resources and services as free goods because, until recently, there were not such great demands placed on them--we could use them as though they were free without destroying them from overuse; and, we lacked the tools to measure and allocate them. Now, the demands placed on the Earth's air and water and ecosystems by our practice of putting industrial and agricultural wastes in them are exceeding their capacity to absorb and clean. Now, rates of resource extraction have exceeded sustainable levels. So the problem is: How to allocate limited natural resources in an efficient and fair way?

If the Earth's waste removal service were treated as the valuable resource that it is, and if our industries were required to pay a fee according to how much they use the service, then the problem of overuse due to zero cost would be eliminated. A pollution fee would require the measurment of emissions and would cause a reduction in the emissions. This is akin to how a sensory nervous system works: information about injury to the organism is transmitted by sense nerves into the neural network, (brain), and the neural network changes in a way that causes a reduction in the injury. In this analogy, pollution, or stress to ecosystems, represents injury to the organism, the Earth. Information about the environmental impact of industry and agriculture enters society, (the neural net), through the price of goods and services in the marketplace. Cleaner products cost less, while those with higher ecological costs would have correspondingly higher prices attached.

Another way to think of this process is as an autonomic nervous system for Earth: the pollution fee is information about stresses or demands on ecosystems that would tend to move the Earth organism out of homeostasis, and it is an economic incentive or pressure to maintain a homeostasis, or a healthy ecologic balance.

We must decide what the Earth and its ecosystems can sustainably absorb from us in the form of wastes. But we do not know the answer to this question. No one does. So we begin by recognizing that we cannot be certain of the numbers. Let us resolve, then, to err on the side of caution; that is, to be conservative and err on the side of preserving and restoring ecosystems for the benefit of our grandchildren, future generations and other lifeforms on the planet.

We could issue permits for various pollutants according to how much of each pollutant we will allow, and auction these permits in the free market. Thus, those industries which can adapt processes to reduce or eliminate waste emmissions will have an advantage in the market, while those industries which continue to emit large amounts of waste will have to include a monetary representation of the environmental costs in the price of their products.

Because just about everyone will have a different opinion regarding the levels of pollutants that would be safe and acceptable, the actual amount that we decide on will be a summary or average of the opinions of all the world's people. And, because many of us are not able to make an informed decision about appropriate levels of some or all pollutants, we may choose to delegate our vote to someone whose opinion we respect. For example, if I believed that it is safe to release 100 million tons of fossil fuel carbon dioxide into the environment each year, and that no level of chlorinated hydrocarbon emmissions (e.g.: Heptachlor, DDT) or CFC's can be called safe or sustainable, but I had no opinion or knowledge about safe levels of other pollutants, then I might refer to lists of people who share my views on CO2 and chlorinated hydrocarbons to see what their opinions are regarding other pollutants--either to inform my own opinion, or to find a knowledgable and responsible person to whom I could delegate my 'emmissions allowance' vote.

This concept of assigning fees to the use of Earth's waste removal services can be applied to other areas. Pollution fees are actually a subset of green fees. Green fees are a way to manage scarce natural resources, such as forests, fisheries and grazing land, that are subject to overuse and depletion. This idea of paying compensation for harm caused could also be applied to the management of the use of non-human animals by human beings where actual bodily harm occurs. Someday, perhaps soon, we may completely eliminate the systematic enslavement and exploitation of non-human animals in industry and agriculture; but, until that time, we may wish to create a system whereby industry and agriculture are subject to economic costs in some proportion to how much suffering and severe discomfort they inflict on the animals they use. This will give them an incentive to reduce both the numbers of animals they use and the amount of suffering inflicted on each one.

Some people believe that the proliferation of outdoor lighting for advertising, car dealers' lots, and other commercial activity is too disruptive of our view of the stars in the night sky. If a random-sample survey of the population shows that most people would like to see less light pollution, we could apply this paradigm as a way to bring about an overall reduction of light pollution; and/or, as a way to institute occasional "lights out' nights", so that we can sometimes experience the beauty and wonder of a starry night sky, meteor shower or passing comet.

The Gaia brain/pollution fee system will so transform the global economy and society, we probably ought to think in terms of an elimination of government as we know it. With the introduction of significant pollution fees, conventional taxes not only would be difficult to support financially, they might also appear to lack a philosophical foundation: we may see that a fee according to our use of the Earth's natural resources is well founded on philosophical principles of fairness, while taxes on income or sales do not seem on the face to be eminently fair.

The proceeds of the pollution fees and green fees would be a monetary representation of the value of Earth's air and water and living systems. As these resources can be thought of as belonging to all, the proceeds of these fees probably ought to be shared equally among all the people of the Earth. This could be the basis of a guaranteed minimum income. Perhaps we could contribute half of our share to financially transparent providers of social services or other community needs--those functions currently served by government, and spend the other half toward more personal needs. If everyone had access to such an account, no one would live in abject poverty, and low-income people would have essential social services available.

The pollution fee/gaia brain concept applies ancient principles to today's challenges: We must live in accord with nature; We must give something back in proportion to what we take; We are the stewards of this planet. The greatest challenges that life presents are those which must be met to ensure the very survival of the organism. The difficult but life-sustaining task before us is to transform ourselves from cancer cells of Earth to brain cells of Earth--to make a healthy, properly functioning world brain; to create/re-make our global society.

John Champagne

Gaia Brain: Integration of Human Society and the Biosphere
The History of Life
Development of Societies
Development of Culture
Language Allows Elaboration of Mental Models and Social Structure
Development of Culture Allows Living Beyond Means
Introducing Mechanisms for Taking Account of Environmental Impacts
Ecology and Economy Integrated: A Sensory Nervous System for Earth
Implementation Strategies Invite Democratization in Economics and Politics
Gaia Brain Provides Tools for Sculpting Society
Impact of Paradigm Shift on Institutions and Society
References

The History of Life

A noticeable trend throughout the history of life on earth is the nearly continual, albeit unsteady, progression from simpler, small-scale organization to more complex and large-scale organization. Simple entities elaborate themselves into more complex forms in response to changes in the environment; changes that are often brought about by the very life processes of those simpler entities. [Alberts, et al]

Mitochondria were once free-living cells in symbiotic relationship with one another, (much as animals and plants are in symbiosis). Over time, these bacterial cells developed such intimate connections with one another that the relationship evolved from that of separate, interdependent organisms to that of interdependent entities within a larger organism. This transition appears to have been triggered by the accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere. Oxygen is a highly reactive gas, and would have been poisonous to most of the early life on the planet. This accumulation was caused by living things. They changed their environment, by releasing oxygen into it, and so were compelled to change themselves, or die. [Ibid] What were at one time separate organisms have integrated to form the eukaryotic cell. This transformation represents an early example of a meta-system transition wherein interacting systems become subordinate to and come under the control of a larger scale emergent system. [Turchin]

Multi-cellular organisms, or meta-organisms, continue the progression toward higher levels of complexity by extending the various internal processes of a prototypical eukaryotic cell, (e.g.: protozoa), to a community of cells in communication with and cooperation with one another. Each cell in the community specializes and concentrates on performing one function, or a narrow range of functions. Every member of the community receives products and benefits from its neighbors; and every member returns some benefits or provides some service to its neighbors.

Development of Societies

Members of societies also share resources. And they share information about their environment, and about their own actions or state of being, with one another. Through this sharing they are able to act as an integrated entity, cooperating in the exploitation of their environment, as if the society itself were a single organism. The social insects, (ants, termites, bees), are a classic example of this phenomenon. Howler monkeys, (and other primates), also illustrate this point: A call from a single individual can cause the whole troupe to move in a particular direction, either toward food, or away from danger.

Development of Language and Culture Allows Elaboration of Mental Models and Social Structure

Human society and culture present yet another level of this phenomenon of entities organizing themselves into communities to form entities of a higher order. Culture is the product of humans' language, artistic, and tool-making abilities. It represents a quantum leap in the ability of hominid society to share information among its members, and to transmit that information across space and time. Culture greatly expands humans' ability to organize as a single entity and exploit the environment. With the advent of human language, the Tribe became the newest form of the meta-organism.

Language allows naming things; and it allows elaborate mental models of the environment and of social relations to develop. Bringing information about an environment into an entity--a human being or human society--in the form of mental models or social structure, is a step toward integrating that environment with that entity. Integration of interacting systems always involves the transfer of information between those systems. [Turchin]

Language and Culture Allow Living Beyond Means

Culture has enabled human society to expand into virtually every ecosystem on the planet. As we expand into an environment and change it by interacting with it, we adapt our methods, so that our ability to extract wealth persists, even as we degrade the resource base and exceed the carrying capacity of the environment. This tendency of humans to live beyond what is sustainable, with innovations in culture and technology driven by the challenge of adapting to a degrading environment, even as our numbers increase, points to the need for new feedback mechanisms that will enable the human society supra- organism and its members to exist within the limits of the biosphere at large. Without culturally-based limits to our own potentially self-destructive behavior, the limits that manifest on the lower levels of organization, (soil, air and water supply), will become evident. We will face resource depletion and famine--the biological limits to survival.

An ancient city can be seen as a multi-organism organism: City walls are the skin; the grain stores are the stomach; the systems of commerce, roads and sewers are the circulatory and digestive systems; soldiers are the fists and claws and immune system; and the protocols of behavior that mediate interactions among the various citizens--the records of grain ownership and tax liability, laws, mythology, the beliefs about the intentions of the gods and what the citizens ought to do, people's sense of possibilities--make up the nervous system. Civilizations rise and fall because they lack the feedback mechanisms that would enable them to moderate their growth and achieve a dynamic equilibrium with their environment. The supra-organism consumes its resource base and either dies, or finds a new resource base to exploit in another location.

The most complex entity that has yet to arise on the planet--the global human society, civilization--is utterly transforming the environment that sustains it. There is now an urgent need to integrate the entity with the environment, the economy with the ecology--to prevent the one from destroying the other. We need to learn how to live with, how to interact with our environment in a way that promotes our well-being while also preserving the health of the larger living community. The health of the ecosystem, economic health and personal health are all inextricably linked.

Money, in combination with other inventions, such as agriculture, pottery, road systems, writing, etc., makes cities possible. When combined with certain bookkeeping tools and economic and governmental institutions, money makes capitalism possible. Money makes it possible, too, for economic actors to exert pressures that may harm the environment. Such pressures can now be felt even half way around the world. When people buy hamburgers, they exert economic pressure that induces ranchers to cut forests. Soil erodes and biodiversity is lost forever. We now have a world full of people who are spending money in ways that are exerting unsustainable pressures on the natural systems that are the very basis of our survival [Brown]; but there is not a mechanism whereby economic actors can get information--relevant feedback--at the time of purchase about the ecological consequences of their actions. We cannot tell by looking at a price tag how much ecological damage was caused in the production of an item. A system of feedback that provides such information at the moment of decision and in a form that all will pay heed to would be most effective.

Introducing Mechanisms for Taking Account of Environmental Impacts

The challenge that we are facing may be the greatest challenge that human beings have faced since the forests receded and we learned to stand up and walk and talk, and carry stuff and use tools. We must reconcile our ability to extend ourselves into the environment -- with ever increasing impact on the environment -- with the inherent limits of that environment to withstand such impact. We must learn to interact with our environment without destroying it.

We face a choice either to allow our actions to continue to produce ecologically destructive pressures across the globe, to the point of catastrophic collapse, or to remedy this problem with our economic system. We can solve this problem by incorporating a measure of the ecological pressures of human activities into the price of those activities, with the aim of discouraging the harmful impacts, to reduce them to acceptable levels.

Ecology and Economy are Integrated: Creating a Sensory Nervous System for the Earth

We can show ecological costs in the price of goods and services by attaching fees to the use or degradation of natural resources. This would cause the price of things to reflect the ecological pressures or cost associated with their production. We would be deterred from doing certain things that are harmful to the biosphere by the fact that these things would cost more.

The historian, Frederick Jackson Turner, writing more than a hundred years ago, described the movement of civilization across the continent as a nervous system in the process of growth and development. If we follow this analogy, we see that Turner's nervous system is a nervous system of the earth, and that, as of yet, it lacks an essential element of a healthy nervous system in a healthy organism: an autonomic feedback system. The proposed fees on resource use and pollution would correct this defect by causing information about injury to earth, or stress to the biosphere, to be conveyed to economic actors through the prices of goods and services in the marketplace. Thus, the resource fees would constitute an autonomic or sensory nervous system for the earth, conveying information about injury or imbalance in the earth organism to society, (the neural network), and causing a change in society and in the behavior of individuals that would tend to reduce the injury and restore balance.

Any commercial or corporate entity can be seen as subordinate to the larger planet organism, just as mitochondria are subordinate to the cell. Part of the function of a healthy cell is to monitor the productions of its mitochondria, and ration resources according to the needs of the larger organism for those products. From the perspective of the cell, or the larger earth, what goes into and what comes out of the subordinate entity must be closely monitored, while what actually goes on within the sub-entity is of lessor concern. If we follow this analogy, we should expect governments, (the larger community), to take note of what resources are used by an industry, and what pollutants are emitted, but we could decide that the question of what production methods to adopt and what contracts to enter into with employees, (assuming no coercion), would be outside the purview of government.

Implementation Strategies Invite Democratization in Economics and Politics

We must decide how much the earth's ecosystems can sustainably take from us in the form of wastes, and what they can provide to us as resource. But we do not know the answer to this question. No one does. So we begin by recognizing that we cannot be certain of the numbers. If we choose to err on the side of caution, we will be conservative and err on the side of preserving and restoring ecosystems and reducing natural resource consumption, for the benefit of future generations and the larger community of life.

We could issue permits for various pollutants, according to how much of each pollutant the people would allow, and auction them in the free market. Likewise for the taking of valuable resources. Thus, those industries which are most successful at conserving resources and cleaning up processes will have an advantage in the market, while those industries which continue to emit large amounts of waste and/or extract large amounts of natural resources will have to include these high costs to ecosystems in the price of their products. [Sharp, et al]

Because nearly everyone will have a different opinion regarding what levels of pollutants should be considered safe and sustainable, and because we are committed to democratic principles that allow all voices to be heard, the actual amount that we decide on ideally would be a summary of the opinions of all the world's people, but more practically would be a summary of a random sample of people. And, because many of us are not able to make an informed decision about appropriate levels of some or all pollutants, we may choose to delegate our vote to someone whose opinion we respect. For example, if a person believed that it is safe to release 100 million tons of fossil fuel carbon dioxide into the environment each year, and that no level of chlorinated hydrocarbon emissions (e.g.: CFC's, Heptachlor, DDT) can be called safe or sustainable, but they had no opinion or knowledge about safe levels of other pollutants, then they might refer to lists of people who share their views on CO2 or chlorinated hydrocarbons to see what their opinions are regarding other pollutants--either to inform their own opinion, or to find a knowledgeable and responsible person to whom they could delegate their 'emissions allowance' vote. If our hypothetical person were convinced that the level of emissions that they regard as sustainable could not be achieved immediately, they may want to structure their vote in the form of a percent reduction per year, toward a specified target.

Gaia Brain Provides the Tools for Sculpting Society

Virtually everything we do that impacts the Commons, every way that we apply technology to exploit our environment, may need to be measured and rationed, according to the method outlined above or some other method. Human behaviors and lifestyles would have associated economic costs which would reliably reflect the perceived environmental costs of those behaviors. Economic forces, which all people respond to, will induce us to make changes in habits and lifestyle that are compatible with the interests of the larger living community, and with the interests of future generations of human beings.

We could attach or increase a fee on anything that we would like to see less of in the world. We could contribute a portion of our share of the proceeds of natural resource fees toward those things that we would like to see increased. We could say: "Less asphalt"; "Less advertising billboards"; "Less outdoor lighting, less interference with our view of the stars in the night sky". Fees would increase and money would flow away from those whose actions tend to take us in the direction opposite of the people's expressed will. We could say: "More city parks"; "More libraries"; "More schools", and a portion of our share of the fee proceeds could go to those who provide those preferred services. The economic incentives that would accompany our expressed wishes would result in real change, so that our wishes would be born out in reality. Alienation, in the Marxist sense of living in and creating through our actions and interactions a society that cuts us off from that which sustains us, which has no meaning for us, and which we would not choose, would be eliminated, or at least dramatically reduced, as society evolved to reflect our expressed will.

Impact of Paradigm Shift on Institutions and Society

This concept of assigning fees to the use of earth's natural resources and waste removal services can be applied to other areas. For example, we could apply gaia brain methods to regulate the use of non-human animals by human beings. Currently, property rights are recognized by society as justification for holding animals captive in pursuit of profit, but these are not absolute rights. Limits to the severity of confinement are subject to the will of the people. Such limits cannot be decided by those who seek to profit from the confinement and commodification of animals, because of the inherent bias. Someday, we may completely eliminate the systematic enslavement and exploitation of non-human animals in industry and agriculture [Singer], but until that time, we may wish to create a system whereby industry and agriculture are subject to economic costs in proportion to how much suffering they inflict on the animals they use. This will give them an incentive to reduce both the numbers of animals they use and the amount of suffering inflicted on each one. When neither the numbers of animals held nor the conditions of their captivity offend the sensibilities or conscience of most people, we will know that the fees are set at a level consistent with the principles of a democratic society.

This model of human society as meta-organism, and as nervous system of the gaia organism would transform the educational process. Children can understand the concepts of 'organism' and 'interaction with environment' because they themselves are organisms. They eat and breathe. They can observe protozoa. This gaia brain model would invite early introduction of ideas about social interaction, and would invite the active involvement of children in the collection of opinions among community members about appropriate levels of pollution and use of natural resources, and about perceived community needs. This model would invite their involvement in the assessment of actual conditions.

A question is a linguistic device for directing one's attention onto a topic [Minsky], therefore, just the act of posing questions about pollution, natural resource use and community needs will cause us to think about these issues more. The fact that the questions might be put by young people will do much to remind all concerned who it is that will be most affected by the answers: the children who will have to live with the consequences of these decisions for many years to come.

Students could map their neighborhood and larger community. As assessors of actual conditions and of the accuracy of reports issued by industry, they would be involved in the protection of resources that will sustain them in the future, and they would gain valuable knowledge and insight into the workings of society in the process.

Students might cast their own mock votes about what kind of world they would want to live in and what human impacts on the earth ought to be deemed permissible. If they did so with a clear explication of the why behind their votes, adults in the community may want to honor their careful research and serious consideration by copying the students' votes--in effect, delegating their own votes to those outstanding students.

This new paradigm will so transform the global economy and society, we probably ought to think in terms of an elimination of government as we know it. With the introduction of significant pollution fees, conventional taxes would be difficult to support financially. And we may decide that they lack philosophical foundation: we may see that a fee according to our use of the earth's natural resources is well founded on philosophical principles of fairness, while taxes on income or sales do not seem on the face to be eminently fair.

The proceeds of the pollution fees and green fees would be a monetary representation of the value of earth's air and water, minerals and biota. As these resources can reasonably be said to belong to all, the proceeds of these fees probably ought to be shared equally among all the people of the earth. This could be the basis of a guaranteed minimum income. Perhaps we could contribute half of our share toward programs that address perceived community needs and put the other half toward meeting our own personal needs. Community programs would be funded according to the priorities of the people, and no one would live in abject poverty.

This new source of economic security would cause the psychological rewards of work to become more prominent as an issue of concern, while job security and pay would become somewhat less important. This would give both employers and employees more freedom to end relationships that they find unsatisfactory; which, in turn, would give them more freedom to enter into relationships that look promising, as there would not be any need for the burdensome legal obligations that often accompany the decision to hire, (although binding contracts would remain an option). A more fluid job market will make it easier for both employers and employees to find what they are looking for. This direct democracy, capitalism-communism synthesis that is gaia brain theory would make it easier for all people to follow their bliss.

The pollution fee/gaia brain concept applies ancient principles to today's challenges. All things are connected. We must live in accord with nature. We must give something back in proportion to what we take. We are the stewards of this planet.

The greatest challenges that life presents are those which must be met to ensure the very survival of the organism. The difficult but life-sustaining task before us is to transform ourselves from cancer cells of earth to brain cells of earth--to make a healthy, properly functioning world brain; to create anew our global society.

John Champagne

References:

Molecular Biology of the Cell, Second Edition; 1989; Bruce
Alberts, Dennis Bray, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts,
James D. Watson; Garland Publishing, Inc., New York

Turchin, V.; The Phenomenon of Science;
Columbia University Press, (1977)

Lester Brown; Vital Signs;
WorldWatch Institute, (1996)

Turner, Frederick Jackson;
The Significance of the Frontier in American History;
Paper presented at the American Historical Association meeting, 1893;
Reprented in 'Milestones of Thought', Harold P. Simonson, Ed.; Frederick
Ungar Publishing Co., New York
Sharp, Ansel M., Richard H. Leftwich, Charles A. Register;

Economics of Social Issues, Tenth Ed.; Richard D Erwin, Inc.;
Homewood, Illinois, (1992)

Peter Singer;
Animal Liberation; Oxford University Press, (1973)

Marvin Minsky; The Society of Mind; Simon and
Schuster, New York (1985)


Further Reading:

Costanza, Robert, et al; Science News and Nature

Amit, D. J.; Modeling Brain Function: The World of Attractor
Neural Networks; Cambridge University Press, (1989)

Lovelock, James; Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth; Oxford University Press, (1979)

Formulas for Fairness: Applying the math of cake cutting to
conflict resolution; Science News, vol. 149, May 4, 1996

The Human Numbers Crunch: The next half century promises
unprecedented challenges; Science News, vol. 149, June 22, 1996

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, by Marshall McLuhan,
McGraw-Hill, 1964
Gaia Critique and Response

A Capitalism-Communism Synthesis

Popular Ownership of the Commons: Direct democratic ownership and management of natural resources

Population increases and continual expansion of the many ways that human beings impact this planet are causing depletion of resources that support human civilization and destruction of ecosystems that make up the diverse communities of life on earth. We cannot continue on our present path. We must find ways to counteract the economic forces that drive people to tax natural systems beyond their carrying capacity.

When a living system made up of many interacting, interdependent parts experiences unsustainable stress, that stress is perceived and an adaptive response is produced that tends to reduce the stress and preserve the health of the organism. An overheated animal will sweat, pant or seek shade, and its body temperature will fall. A system that responds to stressful stimuli in a way that reduces stress constitutes a system of negative feedback. Rising temperature causes a change in a physiological process or behavior that then causes a decrease in the stress. The earth, as a complex system made up of many interacting, interdependent parts, resembles an organism in many ways, but it lacks a system of negative feedback that would cause an adjustment in the system when human economic activity starts to exert unsustainable pressures on the larger ecosystem.

Attaching appropriate fees to the taking of resources and putting of pollution would bring information about ecological impacts into the economy and it would keep economic activity within sustainable limits. A monetary representation of ecological pressures and degradation, an 'ecological impact price', would be factored into the price of goods and services in the marketplace. People would have incentive to change buying habits that are harmful to the environment because they would feel the ecological impact in their pocketbook. Resource user-fees and pollution fees would correct the defect that causes our economy to injure or deplete the larger systems which sustain it and of which it is a part.

No one person or small group of people knows for certain what level of human impacts the earth can sustain. The question is a highly subjective one which implies qualifiers such as, "At what level of risk, to present and future generations?"; and "Do we want to slow and stop present trends of degradation, or do we want to go further and reverse these trends and actively work to expand the portion of the Earth's surface covered by forests, other diverse ecosystems, etc.?" "Do we want to bring carbon dioxide emissions back to 1990 levels, or do we want to institute a policy of 'No net increase of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere?'" These are questions of long-lasting import. The answers we give will affect ourselves in the short and long term. They will affect our offspring and generations not yet born.

Management of natural resources through a fee on release of pollution and taking of resources would produce a monetary representation of the value of the Earth's air and water, biota and minerals. As these resources can be thought of as public property, as belonging to all, we can rightly share the proceeds of the pollution fees and resource fees among all people equally. Such a sharing of the wealth of the commons would secure each and every one of us against the threat of abject poverty. A system that combines equal ownership of the commons with free markets and private ownership of man-made capital would include essential elements of both capitalism and communism.

The magnitude of the challenge we face, the stakes involved, and our democratic principles all point to the need to secure the participation of the largest portion of our society in deciding what human impacts on Earth we will allow. A democratic society will not allow levels of resource extraction or pollution to be much in excess of what most people would say is acceptable. And, in a democratic society, we cannot expect to use the instrument of government as a means for holding emissions or taking of resources below levels that the people are willing to accept. A democratic society would set limits on environmental impacts such that about half considered the levels about right or somewhat too strict while the other half considered the limits about right or somewhat too lenient. If some of us believe that we know better than others what human impacts should be judged sustainable and acceptable, we will have the instruments of change in a free society to bring our fellow citizens around to our view: Reason and sustained pressure, education and the free flow of information.

This new paradigm, built on the principle of democratic ownership and management of natural resources, will have as its most basic political act the citizen expressing a preference about what kind of world we should make, what human impacts on the environment we ought to allow. But this act, this expression, must be in a form that users of natural resources can read so that it can inform their actions. We will need to develop easy to create, easy to read documents that we can use as our palate for painting a picture of the kind of world we want to live in. This is a question that any democratic society asks its citizens, implicitly or explicitly: What kind of society do we want to create?

How can we translate the expressed will of the people into industry action and permit prices without a central authority interpreting what the people said and decreeing what the permit price will be? Can we create a decentralized system that reflects the character of the new tools that make this direct democracy possible?

One possibility: Let each polluter survey a random sample of the people to determine what is acceptable behavior overall. They can then declare how many permits they expect to buy and what price they expect to pay, and survey others' projected demands and prices. Businesses would be guessing what the permit price would be given the observed projections of supply and demand. This is an inexact science. When all business on average estimates a too-low fee for use of natural resources or putting pollution, the low estimate will result in levels of projected use or pollution that exceed what the people say is permissible. More iterations of public statements of projected prices, estimated demand, and surveys of other buyers estimates, informed by the results of the previous iteration, would bring the community of resource-users closer to the ideal market-clearing price.

In the past, the supply of natural resources generally exceeded any demands that humans placed on them. There was no need for markets to manage the demands placed on the commons. Natural resources were treated as a free good, with good reason. The abundant supply meant that there were no shortages. People could take what they wanted when they wanted because the supply always exceeded the demand. (Well, this is true more or less: Since the advent of civilization, various populations at various times have increased their numbers and degraded their resource base to the point that their civilization collapsed.) But conditions have changed. Now, population pressures and resource depletion are felt simultaneously across the globe.

Whatever level of human impacts on the environment we decide to allow, we will gain the greatest benefit from limited resources if we allow the free market to manage their allocation. Free markets are the most efficient means of allocating resources because, at a given cost of production, they accurately balance supply and demand. In the case where the supply of natural resources is set by vote or survey of the people, we should say the free market offers the most efficient and fair means of reconciling an elastic demand to a limited supply, through a public auction. The resources will go to those for whom they have the greatest value or utility.

One potential problem with a popular vote on acceptable levels of pollution and use of resources is that some people may want to vote very far beyond what they would honestly consider as acceptable, as a ploy to skew the average in their direction, knowing full well that their vote is but one among many, and voting an extreme position would move the average farther in their preferred direction than a vote that reflected their true, more moderate position. How could we address this problem?

One possibility: We could agree that most of our votes for next year's environmental impacts will be within, say, ten percent of this year's levels, with perhaps only 10% of the total natural resource wealth of the planet being subject to a yearly change of as much as 25%. Each citizen would then want to consider carefully which human impacts were most harmful and deserving of extraordinary efforts at control. But would the fraction of total resource wealth subject to more abrupt adjustment be measured in dollar terms? How can we compare CO2 impacts with asphalt or coral reef destruction, other than in economic terms, e.g.: as a fraction of the overall economy?

Another strategy for discouraging the practice of voting an extreme position in order to skew the average would be to decrease the weight of votes that fall far from the mean. We might apply a formula to votes, W = 1/(1+sd), so that a vote that fell four standard deviations from the mean would have only one-fifth the weight of a vote at the mean. All votes would be counted, but some would be given less weight, according to how much most people, by their votes, indicated the more extreme votes were simply not responsible. Voters whose views fall far from the mean could include comments with their votes, in an attempt to educate others as to the reasons behind their less conventional views. These comments, if well presented and backed with credible evidence, could be the basis of a change of opinion of larger segments of the population.

This system will mean that capital investments will only turn a profit to the extent that they successfully meet human needs at the lowest cost to the environment--in terms of resources used and pollution released. Anyone who has any money to invest will see that the place to put it is into clean industries and enterprises. Thus the economic situation changes to one that has money flowing toward people engaged in cleaner industry rather than primarily toward those who control capital engaged in the most advantageous exploitation of a free ride on the commons.

Polluters are now subsidized by everyone: we all, most especially the poor, must pay the price of dirtier air and water and soil: more disease, lower quality of life. Appropriate fees on use of natural resources and on adverse impacts on the community, with proceeds shared among all equally, would end this injustice.

Within such a system, industries and investors will only make money to the extent that they can conduct themselves in ways that are not offensive to workers, since people who receive their equal share of the Earth's natural resource wealth would be more free to seek better working conditions, more rewarding work, if they find themselves in an unappealing situation. They would not be paralyzed by the prospect of abject poverty if they find themselves temporarily without work. And is this not exactly what we want? Psychological rewards of work--meaning and purpose--would become more prominent as an issue of concern. Ecological sustainability would become an integral component of the corporate bottom line. Employers and employees both would be more free to follow their bliss.

Human beings come in many personality and character types. Some people are more inclined by their nature to say, "We will do it this way because it is best for the community... and we make more money". Others will be more inclined to say, "We will do it this way because we make more money this way... and it is better for the community". Our current system tends to exclude from business participation and success those who would be more inclined to the first type. And it forces those who are of the second type to say, "We will do it this way because we make more money, even though it is not really the best thing for the community or environment". When we shift our paradigm to internalize externalities into the price of products, every economic decision accurately reflects the whole mix of costs and benefits of an action. By pursuing profit or low prices, we will be following the path that is best for ourselves and the larger community.

Many people believe that the only reason for government to exist is to protect the individual and community against those (individuals and groups) who would violate the rights and interests of others. A government dedicated to take action against those who initiate the use of force, and committed to never initiate the use of force itself, is the best guarantee of individual and minority rights. If putting pollution and taking more than your share of natural resources is recognized as forcing others to live with your pollution and live without, with less of, what you are taking, then this principle of no first use of force by government provides the legal/moral basis for a paradigm of democratic ownership and control of the commons, with users of commons resources compensating the people in proportion to the magnitude of use or degradation. This paradigm is an integration of libertarian and green politics. We may need further shifts in our perception of the boundaries between what we consider public and private acts before many people who call themselves libertarian will embrace this paradigm wholeheartedly. Consider: is it a public act or a private act to do things on your own land that tend to destroy wildlife habitat and diminish biodiversity? Is preservation of biodiversity an issue of public concern? Can a private landowner pave the surface of the Earth without interferrence from the community at large? What about the water that falls from the sky--as a blessing if the soil absorbs it and releases it slowly into the streams and rivers; but as a hazard if ti comes down quickly and is rapidly shed by asphalt to produce a torrential flash flood downstream.

With significant green fees, conventional taxes may be difficult to support financially. They may also be seen as lacking any philosophical foundation. We may see a system requiring payment to the people in return for the privilege of taking publicly owned resources for profit as fair and just, while the requirement that we make payment to the government in proportion to how much income we earn or goods and services we sell may not seem on the face to be eminently fair. Fees on things that we do that are detrimental to the community are best thought of as an alternative to conventional taxes, rather than as an addition to them.

We could determine that a portion of the proceeds of the fees on use of the commons will be public funds, dedicated to the support of public and community programs. With each person receiving a substantial stipend as their share of Earth's natural resource wealth, many of the functions of government that are intended to aid the poor and otherwise distribute income would be unnecessary. For those government programs that continue to be seen as necessary or desirable, each citizen could decide what programs are most deserving of support. We could vote on priorities for spending our share of public funds in the same way that we vote on priorities for moderating ecological impacts.

The people would set the agenda. Money would flow toward those who work toward some aspect of the agenda that is set by the community. Money would flow away from those who are working counter to some aspect of the agenda set by the community. If the people say they want less CO2; less asphalt; less light pollution interfering with our view of the stars, then the people whose decisions run counter to these community-agreed goals will be made to pay a fee.

When emissions levels drop and most people stop saying they want to see less of the economic 'bads', then we will know that the fees are at the appropriate level. What we call externalities today would become internalized into the economic calculus. Actions which produce negative impacts will be performed only in so far as their benefits outweigh those costs.

Many people will not feel qualified to make taxing and spending decisions, at least on some issues. They may choose to delegate their vote to other, more qualified persons. We could have a direct / representative democracy with the option of calling back our proxy if ever we feel it is being used in an irresponsible way. This need not be a formal arrangement. If our votes on how to manage community resources and how to spend public funds are public statements, then we could examine others' votes to find people with whom we agree. We could copy their votes if we are convinced that they are well-informed and responsible. Some people may gain a reputation of being more informed than others. Those entrusted with the responsibility to decide, on behalf of thousands or millions, appropriate levels of emissions and resource extraction would likely enter into that position by virtue of a reputation among many that they do quality work and are people of integrity. Because there may be some social prestige and status, (perhaps even a small stipend from the public funds), for holding such a position, there would likely be some incentive for a person to maintain this reputation, so as to preserve this favored status position. The persons or organizations entrusted with this responsibility for assessment would have every incentive to make their work widely available, both the data-gathering and the analysis, to possibly further increase their constituency. This could only help to improve the quality and relevance of information and materials available to schools, libraries and the public at large.

This paradigm gives each of us an equal voice in sculpting our society. When we ask questions about the quality of environment that we want to create, and translate the answers into reality, we change our understanding of the role of the citizen in society. We change our consciousness about our responsibility and our power. We are invited to consider carefully what we mean by progress and a good life.

A system of fees for use of resources, with control of overall levels of use vested in the people at large, could provide the feedback mechanisms that would cause economic activities to adjust to the ecological conditions that sustain them. Control of the proceeds of these fees vested in all people equally would go a long way toward redressing problems of disparity of wealth, and it ensures that the proceeds would be invested in ways consistent with the interests of the people at large.

This article is posted at Common Assets Headquarters and appeared earlier at the Progress Report web site.