On our largely ineffective defense of the earth
and of our own prosperity

My critical reading of events is that “everything’s on hold”, speaking broadly about our need respond to how we’re altering the earth.    As I see it, for as long as I’ve been watching every “hopeful response” that gets made has been gutted, when someone needed to add either a prominent or hidden “business as usual” escape clause.

The IPCC climate mitigation protocols are an example, saying that the costs are not to reduce the long term rate of economic growth.  It’s as if to say “OK we’ll fix the problem as long as we can keep multiplying the causes”.    People always feel forced to concede to money interests and when pressed admit they don’t know if multiplying the economy’s physical impacts will keep producing multiplying problems for us and nature, as we’ve been watching take place.

I’ve been watching that “negotiation” around all kinds of environmental policy since the 70’s.   Both my patience with looking for a solution to it, as well as my impatience with others not seeing how it guts their own purposes, have had the same effect.    We’re still firmly on track for a true dead end growth induced societal collapse.

I expect you’d also see our problem as kind of “logjam”, but might describe it differently.   I’d love to hear how you think it works, but be as specific as you can to make it constructive.

What I’m really suggesting is that we need to find a weak point in it.   There’s one I’ve mentioned before, though  I suspect others probably saw it “not so important”.    I’ve looked at as a deep weak point that is sort of “undefendable”.    The logjam seems to depend on deceits, that put the burden of proof on the person being deceived, against paid professionals using a “catch me if you can” approach.

I think there’s a way to sort of reverse that, while also connecting financial law to the natural world.   That would be using the principle of fiduciary duty as an obligation to others to manage their affairs in their interests.      Fiduciary law is stated in just such broad terms, worded in natural language rather than legalese.

So naturally it would become an obligation of fiduciaries to not be misleading about the interests of others, and to correct themselves if found to have been.    That’s not our current standard of truth in advertising, or in court or in business practice, but more “catch me if you can”.

I think what might break the logjam is that phrase, “not be misleading”, taken as a natural obligation for fiduciaries that depends on whether others understand what they’ve been told.     It would seem to apply to political campaign finance by corporations too, for example, to not sponsor deception.

As it refers to the natural interests of others it would seem testable in court under tort law too.    So if there’s a lawyer out there who is also frustrated by our “racing in place” as a way of responding to our mounting disruption of the planet…, I’d like to spend an hour or two talking about the range of ways this could be approached.

Of course, I’d also like to hear any other ideas.     ~~~~~~~~~~~Phil