A Plan for the Nations –Step Three

Byron, Arnold J. | May 17, 2018 | Leave a Comment Download as PDF

The Chicago Theological Seminary Building at the University of Chicago by Justin KernFlickr | CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Thank you MAHB. Two previous articles of mine have been published to this blogsite: A Plan for the Nations and A Plan for the Nations – Step Two, and I have received insightful feedback from many of you.

In my first article I wrote about overpopulation, global warming and nuclear disaster. These are the problems facing humanity that need to be solved. In addition, I laid out my thoughts on how the nations of the world could develop a governing body, based on Pope Francis’s use of the words a true world political authority. I believe that such a body can become the entity under which all of the ideas and solutions that are being talked about can be coordinated and made to work. Please let me interject the following caveat. I do not know if Pope Francis has any special plan for his idea of a true world political authority. I am merely using his words to give a name to a global governing body that will be in charge of solving our planet’s problems and I thank Pope Francis for that.

My idea is that a true world political authority will be a committee of twelve people elected globally from the science and comparative religion departments of colleges and universities worldwide. This political authority, which I call The Alliance, will be given all of the authority to solve the issues of overpopulation, global warming and nuclear disaster.

In my second article I expanded on the notion that this political authority will be created by a majority of the nations. These nations will approve treaties, charters, rules, laws and constitutions that will have been prepared by the law departments of colleges and universities worldwide. It is essential that colleges and universities become engaged in: (1) writing the treaties, constitutions, laws and rules that will be needed to create a true world political authority; (2) selling the idea of a true world political authority to the politicians currently running the nations; and (3) electing the officials who will run the true world authority.

In this article I want to focus on what needs to be done to get a global governing body up and running. I wish we could simply hand the problem to the United Nations, but we can’t. The framework of the United Nations is not conducive to getting things done. The United Nations has had climate meetings for the past twenty-five years without (1) creating negative population growth; (2) removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere; or (3) establishing a worldwide effort to decommission and dismantle nuclear power plants and bombs. In addition, the United Nations is hamstrung by the dreaded security council veto.

To illustrate my idea of a true world political authority, consider the following progression: a school district has a superintendent and a school board; a city has a mayor and a city council; a province has a governor and a legislative assembly; a nation has a prime minister and a parliament. What of the planet? The planet needs an administrative authority and an advisory senate made up of representatives from the nations. The question is: How do the nations set up a true world political authority? My answer is, “Let the colleges and universities do it.” Colleges and universities are filled with all of the knowledge and expertise in every field needed to get the job done.

Colleges and universities are honest and trustworthy. I have chosen professors from the science and comparative religion/humanities departments of colleges and universities worldwide to be the administrators of a true world political authority because the problems are science problems and the strong force of religion, that permeates every society on the globe, must help everyone march in the same direction toward a safe and sustainable future.

As soon as I thought about the need for a true world political authority I recognized the need for a complete new set of laws, regulations, treaties, charters and constitutions for the new authority and the nations. The nations will need to somehow link themselves together and to link themselves with the new political authority. If we are asking the nations to give up some of their powers to a new global entity then it is only right to keep the nations involved. I suggest that when the nations approve a true world political authority they create a senate to act in an advisory role. The nations need to be involved with the new authority but if the nations insist on having individual powers over the actions of the new authority, the authority will become powerless and will not be able to function. This is what has happened to the United Nations.

Who will write all of these new legalities? I have chosen law students, worldwide, with the help of law professors, to be best suited for this. The future of humanity is scary and filled with trepidation, even to include the possible extinction of the human race. My hope is that college students, especially those in the law departments, will create an association (using email, texting, or other social media) with students in universities, worldwide, to set up a communications network that will result in the writing of all of the new legalities for a global authority. I have chosen the students to do this because the future is theirs and they will have no agendas that will be detrimental to the effort.

It is easy for me to say, “I have chosen law students, worldwide, to do this.” But the reality is that the students have to be given permission from the presidents and boards of regents of the colleges and universities. It is easy for me to say, “let the colleges and universities do it”, but nobody on the planet has the authority to order the colleges and universities to do it. Who will begin the process? Which university president, which university regent, which law department head of which university will step forward and say, “I give my permission for the law professors of my university to instruct the graduate and under graduate students to reach out to their peers in other universities, worldwide, to form a coalition of students whose mission will be to begin drafting treaties, charters, laws, rules and constitutions that will be the basis for creating the true world political authority that must be put in place before humanity can begin solving the problems it faces.”

The word associated with this first step is “inertia”. Somebody has to start something, somewhere. I will use a metaphor as I describe the huge pile of inertia that is smothering any effort to start this process of healing.

When I was a child my folks had a few acres of land just outside the small rural town where we lived. We kept a cow for milking and her calf; some chickens; and usually a sow and piglets that were raised and butchered. The point is that cleaning up after these animals resulted in a pile of manure located, outside, near the barn door. Sometimes this pile became foul and repulsive. I submit that any plan that might be put forward at this time will be covered with an odious pile of inertia preventing the starting up of the plan. We need to find our manure forks and shovels and remove this pile of inertia.

Humans have the propensity to ignore a problem by saying, “let someone else do it”. Instead of expecting someone else to do it, we could take up our manure shovel and scoop up some of that inertia ourselves. Or a university regent or a college president might see how a true world political authority is needed and say, “I will tell the head of the law department to get started and to not worry about any backlash.” That Regent or President could then take up a manure fork and remove a scoop of inertia. Or a group of students might be sitting in the cafeteria of some university anywhere in the world and they might begin talking about seeing this MAHB blog about a true world political authority and decide to contact friends at other universities and begin a movement to establish a true world political authority so that the healing of humanity and the planet can begin. These students will each take up their manure fork or their shovel and remove scoops of inertia. The inertia can be removed in many ways but it can only be removed by people willing to do the work.

I have designed my Plan for the Nations to be as realistic as possible. The problem is global. The plan calls for a global body to coordinate the work. The nations will be involved. They will be required to fund, protect, advise and otherwise support the authority. The nations will all be committed to each other and to the global body through treaties. The treaties the nations sign on to will be nonbinding until a majority or supermajority of nations are signed on. The treaties will then become binding. These treaties will be written by students at colleges and universities, worldwide. Once in place, the authority – which in earlier writings I describe as the Alliance and its standing committees, the Committee of the Prominent, and the Association – will begin the work of pulling everything together to reduce the population by half or more, to remove carbon dioxide to 280 parts per million and to rid the world of everything nuclear.

I am convinced that my Plan for the Nations will enable the nations of the world to join together to create global solutions. Pope Francis presents his idea for a true world political authority in paragraph 175 of his encyclical on the environment. I am using his words as the basis for my thoughts on the environment. These thoughts include overpopulation, global warming and nuclear disaster but, perhaps, our thinking should also include the inalienable right of nature to exist in all of its glory without undue anthropomorphic stress.

One last thought. I remember, as a kid, being told in Earth science class that the Sun will go nova in two billion years, consuming the planets and ending all life on Earth. How much time does humanity have to enjoy the benefits of the Sun?  Will extinction occur? As humans, we do not have the right to participate in the annihilation of humanity or of nature. So, the decisions we make today must be made with the understanding that there is a need to further the existence of humanity for at least one billion years. The natural occurrence of the Sun going nova is the only acceptable way to end life on Earth.

Get out your manure fork. We have a lot of work to do.


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