8 Steps To A Better World

July 10, 2018

There are a few common sense things we can change to make the world better. The world is really complex so this is really just a list of low hanging fruit, a place to start. 

These things are imminently doable. They require some political will and some leadership.

1. 100% renewable is within our grasp; we have to choose it! 

The climate is changing; we can all feel it. There are more floods, droughts, bushfires, hurricanes or cyclones. So a good response would be to get electricity from sources that don't add to climate change. These include solar - small scale and large scale and solar thermal. Wind, tidal geothermal.

For storage, there are options including pumped hydro and the many battery technologies out there.

It is 2018 we can make clean, reliable electricity, even when the sun and wind are not producing.

 2. Take petrol and diesel burning vehicles off the road.

Create policy settings that encourage electric vehicles powered by batteries or hydrogen. 

These vehicles are not perfect yet but they are rapidly improving, and if they are charged using renewable electricity they are a vast improvement on what we do now.

Imagine a world that has taken coal and gas out of the system and all the polluting cars and trucks off the roads. An excellent start.

3. Get Big Money out of Politics!

Our elected officials should be representing us. They should not be sponsored by this corporation or that lobby group.

If they take money from people pushing vested interests, those people will want something in return.

It is a conflict of interest.

Our politicians should be working hard for us, how much time do they have to waste raising money? Of course, the best money raisers become the best-funded politicians, have they promised the most to their donors?

We need to introduce public funding for elections.

With everyone on the same funding hopefully the best idea's will win.

 4. R & D on recycling.

We need to figure out what we can do with our ever-increasing waste production.

Making use of easily recycled materials, to begin with, would help.

Finding ways to reduce single-use plastics, and to recycle lithium batteries and generally make the economy more circular so we can become more sustainable.

5. Clean up our mess!

Humans are very messy, our pollution footprint is everywhere.

Perhaps a good place to start cleaning up would be the island of plastic waste in the Pacific.

Can we set up a fund that gets this started?

I am willing to bet it would be easy to get volunteer labour to do it once we have a plan. 

 6. Stop the mass extinction crises.

A 6th mass extinction event is underway, driven by human activity. 

Biodiversity is good for our souls and good for the planet. At some point, it will almost certainly be vital to our survival.

We can set aside more areas that will help species recover.

 7. End the war on drugs.

It harms and vilifies people. It's costly, think police, jails and lawyers. It gives the business to criminal gangs, and it criminalises good people.

Drugs can be a real problem for sections of our community but this is a health and education problem, not a criminal one. 

All this so some conservatives can impose their morality on everyone else.

 8. A pure market is not the best way to run the planet.

It is a nonsense to base all of our decisions based on what is good for the market. 

If markets have their way, the result is a few wealthy individuals and powerful corporations. 

Markets don't care about people or communities or the planet; these things are not given due weight in the decision making process.

Decisions need to be made by what is right for people, for our communities and what is best for the long-term viability of our planet.

 

 

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