​Recommendations

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REALgnd Project advocates for both a top-down and bottom-up approach to the energy descent transformation, covering actions that governments and individuals can take.

 

We focus predominantly on policy recommendations for government since creating change from within the system would be the most effectual and since individual behavior is constrained to such a large degree by the current system.

 

But we simultaneously recognize that it is the actions of everyday people that influence the governments we institute, whether through who we vote for, what information or rhetoric we chose to accept and act upon, what we do or don't push back against, or how we respond on an individual level to the chronic psychological afflictions imposed by today’s dysfunctional world.

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We suggest an initial set of recommendations - along with how to pay for them - to be pursued now, ahead of the more specific and likely radically transformative recommendations contained in the final Action Plan. Some echo those that have grown in recent popularity while others are less common or perhaps novel.​​

Population

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"It is intellectually dishonest to talk about saving the environment without stressing the obvious fact that stopping population growth is a necessary condition for sustainability.” - Dr. Albert Bartlett

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"Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases which we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution, but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and the education of the billions who are victims." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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"Democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive overpopulation. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. The more people there are, the less one individual matters." - Isaac Asimov

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"Once it was necessary that the people should multiply and be fruitful if the race was to survive. But now to preserve the race it is necessary that people hold back the power of propagation." - Hellen Keller

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"If we don't halt population growth with justice and compassion, it will be done for us by nature, brutally and without pity - and will leave a ravaged world." - Nobel Laureate Henry W. Kendall

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Humans have controlled population sizes since time immemorial. As sociologist Jack Parsons said, “population control is an ancient institution.” Even cornucopian economist Julian Simon said, “every tribe known to anthropologists, no matter how ‘primitive,’ has some effective social scheme for controlling the birth rate.”

 

Some of our oldest literary documents, the Babylonian “Atra Hasis” circa 1750 B.C. and the Philippine Code of Sumakwel from 1250 B.C., contain population control policies.

 

Confucius, Plato, the “first city planner” Hippodamus in Greece, the Indian sage Kautilya, the influential Catholic Church figure Tertullian, and even Benjamin Franklin, all spoke of the dangers of overpopulation and the need to manage our numbers - before Malthus ever entered the scene.

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Today’s population sizes – unprecedented in human history – have only been made possible by the unprecedented energy supply from fossil fuels. Two main factors drive the need to reduce our size: 1) the inability of a reduced future energy regime to support our current numbers, and 2) the destructive impact our bloated presence is having on the planet, its non-human inhabitants, and us.

 

Best estimated optimum global sizes of one to three billion indicate that populations virtually everywhere need to be reduced. Given our sheer size of eight billion, reductions will take a very long time. If a global one-child policy were enacted by around 2045, we could get down to around 3.5 billion by the end of the century. On the other hand, business as usual will leave us with over 10 billion people by 2100. Our recommendations are made in light of this daunting reality and out of a commitment to reduce suffering.

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Enact a national one-child policy, encouraging the global community to do the same

 

Make all forms of birth control (including those for men) free, and in the case of non-surgical forms, available over the counter

 

Make abortion free and widely available

 

Pay women/couples a significant financial incentive to have one child or none

 

Educate children and adults alike about the harmful impacts of overpopulation and its central role in our overshoot crisis, shifting from a human-centric view of the world to an inclusive view that honors and respects all life

 

Replace the taboo surrounding population with a moral imperative to make it a front-and-center social topic

 

Given our moral responsibility for global restitution, provide financial assistance to countries who seek it in order to help enact similar policies

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Empire

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Close all overseas military bases

 

Cease all overseas military operations

 

Cease military funding to foreign countries

 

Close unnecessary domestic military bases

 

Reduce the size of our armed forces

 

Abandon the use of Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMFs) in exchange for official declarations of war by Congress, as is its constitutional responsibility

 

Dissolve NATO

 

Cease coup d’etats and election meddling in foreign countries

 

Abandon sanctions as a political tool

 

End contracting of military and defense-related products and services to private companies

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Democracy

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GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS and establish 100% publicly funded elections at all levels of government

 

Enact ranked-choice-voting

 

End voter discrimination laws and constitutional eviscerations

 

Undo gerrymandering

 

Increase voting access (e.g. Automatic Voter Registration in every state, mail-in ballots in every state, national holidays for elections)

 

Ban electronic voting machines

 

Repeal the Patriot Act

 

Eliminate the Electoral College

 

Eliminate the Senate (as it violates the “one person, one vote” principle)

 

Move to proportional representation

 

Establish 100% public funding for the media

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Equality of treatment and opportunity

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Make corporations actually pay their taxes, potentially increasing their rates

 

Shut down overseas tax havens

 

End subsidies to harmful industries

 

Break up monopolies

 

Enact a fairer tax code in which average people pay less and the very wealthy pay more

 

Increase the minimum wage to $25/hour

 

Enact Medicare-for-All

 

Forgive all student loans and make higher education free

 

End the war on drugs, pardon all drug-related offenders in prison, and decriminalize low-level possession of all illegal drugs

 

Issue financial reparations to the African American and Native American communities

 

Enact a 4-day work week

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Money & finance

 

 

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Put an end to interest-bearing debt

 

Ban the financial markets (i.e. the stock, bond, commodities, futures, and foreign exchange markets) that “Wall Street” has become a symbol for, allowing instead for community-level capital raising

 

Ban private, for-profit banking institutions and shift to nationalized banks

 

Terminate the Federal Reserve (a private corporation accountable to no one) and absorb its functions back into Congress, as dictated by the Constitution

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Infrastructure

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Place a moratorium on major infrastructure projects in light of:

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• The significant drawbacks and implementation impediments of the renewable technologies commonly put forth as solutions

• The need to re-design infrastructure in a highly decentralized, self-sufficient way with all life cycle needs (energy production, water acquisition, and waste treatment) handled on-site

• The likelihood that many technologies and conveniences we enjoy today (e.g. mobile smart phones, TVs, personal computers for all, cars for all, commercial air travel) will not be possible in the energy and resource constrained future we imminently face

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Consumption & pollution

 

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Nationalize fossil fuel companies and establish a plan for phase-out

 

Ban the exploration of new fossil fuel reserves (i.e. oil, shale, gas) and the development of new extraction sites

 

Fine heavily toxic industrial processes

 

Ban factory farming

 

Offer significant financial incentives for the conversion of monoculture operations to polyculture regimes that are small-scale, humane, free of fossil fuel inputs, and implement rigorous water conservation methods

 

Provide legal and financial incentives to ensure seed conservation and ban activities that threaten it

 

Offer financial incentives for the expansion of hemp farming

 

Offer financial incentives to businesses that source local products

 

Fine major businesses that don’t make easily repairable products

 

Place a tax on companies that extract metals and water

 

Terminate so-called free trade agreements

 

Invest in sailing ship companies and financially incentivize their use for international transportation

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Ecosystem health

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Endorse and begin implementing the Nature Needs Half proposal, which calls for protecting 50% of the planet by 2030 using an ecoregion approach

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Significantly increase funding for ecosystem restoration projects

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Individual actions

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Engage in the inner transformation that goes hand-in-hand with transforming the outer world, for example:

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• Self-realization and development

• Cultivating critical, independent thinking that inoculates against propaganda and manufactured consent

• Questioning/examining one’s mental models and changing them when confronted with compelling information

   

Learn as many self-sufficiency skills as possible, doing whatever you can to become more so, whether on a household or community level

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Develop and take part, as compelled, in strategic, non-violent actions that will force the system to capitulate to specific demands that further the well-being of everyday people and the planet