We
have a right to share in defining limits to how rapidly we use up
resources or put pollution.
These
rights can only be manifest in reality if we create an effective
system of governance that explicitly aims to manifest these rights.
Someday,
humans may implicitly assert their right to share in deciding limits
to environmental impacts by responding to surveys that inquire about
what the limits should be regarding specific kinds of impacts. Until
that time, we must say explicitly that we have this right and we must
say that government must function so as to manifest
the basic principle in reality. We must demand policy that
limits impacts on the environment so that rates of putting pollution
and depleting resources are in accord with what most people think is
acceptable.
Related
to our basic right to enjoy benefits of natural wealth is our
duty to create governments and policies that enable (an
economic measure of the value of) natural wealth to be shared in
practice.
We
will someday embody our shared right to enjoy benefits of natural
wealth by accepting a natural wealth stipend and then spending the money.
When the government institutions do not yet exist to collect the fees
and disburse the proceeds, the role of the citizen is to SAY that
this must be a function of government. We must create the
institutions. (Governments will not spontaneously start manifesting
the principle of shared ownership of natural wealth in the absence of
a demand from citizens.)
Basic
moral precepts will only be manifest in reality when people SAY that
they should be manifest. Principles must not be mere words or ideas.
They must be embodied in practice.
@TallPhilosopher
What do we need to know that news media are not telling us?
- Systemic flaws are not reported
A sustainable and just civilization requires that we use our moral sense
