Seven-step process in solving the problems of consumer debt and climate change

One of the fundamental root causes of consumer debt is the rising cost of living, and it is common knowledge that every time there is an increase in the cost of basic necessities in life, we always blame it to the increase in the price of oil, and also globalization.

The root cause of global warming and climate change is the increase in carbon dioxide emissions due to increase in fossil-fuel-dependent human activities as a result of our relentless campaign to accumulate wealth.


The seven-step process:

1. First step is to perform an assessment of your current level of energy consumption and carbon dioxide emission – we call this energy audit. I know this is absurd. Come on, let’s face the fact that if you want to solve your problems and the problems associated with it, you need to know where you are at this very moment and plan on where you want to go or what do you want to achieve. The next step is to calculate how much you owe the banks, what is your total monthly expenses, and also how much is your current income. The facts that you collected represents your baseline data, at least when you start to implement changes you already have a way to know whether you are succeeding or not.

2. Consumer debt and climate change are social concerns, let our leaders know that we are aware of the twin global crises, we are serious about it, and we want to help solve the problem. Our elected officials and business leaders need to listen from concerned citizens. Policy makers needed to get timely and accurate information in an effort to make informed decisions about the crises.

However, be prepared to face contradictions and oppositions. Because we are nobody in the society we live, our voice and the words we wrote may just be taken with a grain of salt. The reason is very simple, our leaders are cautious about introducing change, although they are aware that change is inevitable.

Here is how Alan Andreas described the dynamics of social change and the role of our leaders as gatekeepers:

“Societies are also constantly seeking change – seeking ways to overcome problems both grand and trivial and to make lives of individual and their environment significantly (or at least somewhat) better. They seek change through grassroots mobilization effects. They rely on major organizations such as UN to address problems. They work through non-profit organizations and ask legislators to pass laws and regulations.

Society also worries about preventing change. There are many problematic situations in which the goal is to prevent people from taking up behaviors – what I will call here conscious inaction.

People need to be motivated and empowered to make a difference. That is, greater social welfare comes about, only, through individual behaviors.

Of course many social movements involve crowds and community organizations. Even there, however, leaders must decide to act and followers need to get on board. How does one get people to act or not to act?

If we are to bring massive social change, however, a lot of people have to act in a lot of different ways or make irrevocable commitments not to act. For this to happen, there are roles for gatekeepers, community activists, and television and movie scriptwriters – and so on and on.”

The second step is we adopt Alan's social marketing approach to social influencing process. Go out and join support groups that deals with the issue at hand. Alan Andreas suggested eight (8) stages of social marketing, namely:(1) Inattention to the problem, (2) Discovery, (3) Climbing the agenda, (4) Outlining the choices, (5) Choosing courses of actions, (6) Launching initial intervention, (7) Reassuring and redirecting, and (8) Success, failure or neglect. I am not going to discuss all these stages for now, it is enough at this juncture that you are aware that you are in the first stage – inattention to the problems of consumer debt and climate change.


3. Look for business opportunity to network and do business in your areas of expertise that promotes green lifestyle and frugal living. I zenduse about eight (8) business opportunities lifted from the same Time website. Zenduse framework is very useful in this fourth step process[The eight(8) busines opportunities are discussed separately].

4. Change your lifestyle and abandon old habits. I zenduse from an article in Time’s website 20 ways of enabling change in our lifestyle that would help reduce global warming and at the same time reduce your expenses[The twenty(20) lifestyle change are discussed separately].

5. Participate actively in the areas of research looking for alternative sources of energy so that oil producers and distributors will not hold the world hostage for its energy needs. Solar panel, wind turbine, and bio-fuel researches are currently hot alternative energy sources. Similar to step number 4, Zenduse framework is a useful tool in this activity.

6. Support products and services that are environment-friendly, advertise them in your blog or website and let the companies know that you are advertising them. Who knows, you might generate advertising revenue out of it.

7. The last step and surely not the least, perform post-engagement audit of your energy consumption and carbon dioxide emission, including audit of your current financial standing. This will give you a precise measure of success. Then, review your success, failure or neglect.

The above seven-steps represent your pedal and a canoe to navigate your way out of your current problem. You will not be able to solve the the global problems alone by yourself, but who knows you can be the tipping point. You might be the person who can create a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to the global solution.

You just need to enable change by following those steps. And as David Taylor suggests, the single most powerful way to make any change in life, is to act as if that change has already been made.


The following are areas of research and business opportunities intended to solve global warming or at least mitigate its impact:

1. Turn food into fuel. Help in developing innovative enzymes concoctions to make the process of producing bio-fuels more economical.

2. Change your light bulbs with energy saving lights. Help in the research on how to manufacture LED lights and lamps and band together with other like-minded with technical know-how and help manufacture them.

3. Recycle old clothes. A company estimates that making polyester fiber out of recycled garments, compared with using new polyester, will result in a 76% energy savings and reduce greenhouse gases 71%. To shear your own fleece, visit patagonia.com/recycle .

4. Invite friends over for a closet swap where everyone brings their clothes they want to trade.

5. Promote and evangelize personal paperless system. IT people can band together and develop personal paperless and wireless applications.

6. “Cosmetics” is one of the world’s in-demand consumer item. Invest in biodegradable and renewable resources and help promote and market organic personal care products.

7. Stop using chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and help promote the use of organic fertilizers.

8. Support the development and use of hybrid engines for machines and motor vehicles.


20 Ways to change your Lifestyle and abandon old habits

The following are collection of relevant articles related to lifestyle change that will help reduce carbon dioxide emission; an excerpt from an article in Time entitled 51 Things we can do to save the environment [http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/environment/].

1. Hang Up a Clothes Line By Bryan Walsh

You could make your own clothes with needle and thread using 100% organic cotton sheared from sheep you raised on a Whole Foods diet, but the environmental quality of your wardrobe is ultimately determined by the way you wash it. A recent study by Cambridge University's Institute of Manufacturing found that 60% of the energy associated with a piece of clothing is spent in washing and drying it. Over its lifetime, a T shirt can send up to 9 lbs. of carbon dioxide into the air.

The solution is not to avoid doing laundry, tempting as that may be. Rather, wash your clothes in warm water instead of hot, and save up to launder a few big loads instead of many smaller ones. Use the most efficient machine you can find—newer ones can use as little as one-fourth the energy of older machines. When they're clean, dry your clothes the natural way, by hanging them on a line rather than loading them in a dryer. Altogether you can reduce the CO2 created by your laundry up to 90%. Plus, no more magically disappearing socks.


2. Ride the Bus By Bryan Walsh

With transport accounting for more than 30% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, one of the best ways to reduce them is by riding something many of us haven't tried since the ninth grade: a bus. Public transit saves an estimated 1.4 billion gal. of gas annually, which translates into about 14 million tons of CO2, according to the American Public Transportation Association.
Unfortunately, 88% of all trips in the U.S. are by car. Partly, that's because public transportation is more readily available in big urban areas. One promising alternative is bus rapid transit (BRT), which features extra-long carriers running in dedicated lanes. Buses emit more carbon than trains, but that can be minimized by using hybrid or compressed-natural-gas engines. A study last year by the Breakthrough Technologies Institute found that a BRT system in a medium-size U.S. city could cut emissions by as much as 654,000 tons over 20 years.

Thanks to high gas prices, miles driven per motorist dropped in 2005 for the first time since 1980, according to the Pew Research Center. The U.S. is ready to change. We're just waiting for the bus.

The original version of this article misstated the total amount of CO2 emissions saved annually by public transit. It is 14 million, not 1.5 million, tons.


3. Open a Window By Carolyn Sayre

Most of the 25 tons of CO2 emissions each American is responsible for each year come from the home. Here are some easy ways to get that number down in a hurry without rebuilding. Open a window instead of running the AC. Adjust the thermostat a couple of degrees higher in the summer and lower in the winter. Caulk and weatherstrip all your doors and windows. Insulate your walls and ceilings. Use the dishwasher only when it's full. Install low-flow showerheads. Wash your clothes in warm or cold water. Turn down the thermostat on the water heater. At the end of the year, don't be surprised if your house feels lighter. It just lost 4,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide.


4. Cozy Up to Your Water Heater By Carolyn Sayre

Improving your home's efficiency doesn't have to mean hours in the attic tearing out the insulation. It might be as simple as giving your dear old water heater a warm hug. Wrapping your heater in an insulated blanket—one costs about $10 to $20 at home centers—could save your household about 250 lbs. in CO2 emissions annually. Most water heaters more than five years old are constantly losing heat and wasting energy because they lack internal insulation. If the surface feels warm to the touch, get your heater an extra blankie. You'll both feel better.


5. Skip the Steak By Bryan Walsh

Which is responsible for more global warming: your BMW or your Big Mac? Believe it or not, it's the burger. The international meat industry generates roughly 18% of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions—even more than transportation—according to a report last year from the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization.

Much of that comes from the nitrous oxide in manure and the methane that is, as the New York Times delicately put it, "the natural result of bovine digestion." Methane has a warming effect that is 23 times as great as that of carbon, while nitrous oxide is 296 times as great.
There are 1.5 billion cattle and buffalo on the planet, along with 1.7 billion sheep and goats. Their populations are rising fast, especially in the developing world. Global meat production is expected to double between 2001 and 2050. Given the amount of energy consumed raising, shipping and selling livestock, a 16-oz.T-bone is like a Hummer on a plate.

If you switch to vegetarianism, you can shrink your carbon footprint by up to 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide a year, according to research by the University of Chicago. Trading a standard car for a hybrid cuts only about one ton—and isn't as tasty.


6 Just Say No to Plastic Bags By Carolyn Sayre
The plastic bags you bring home from the supermarket probably end up in a landfill. Every year, more than 500 billion plastic bags are distributed, and less than 3% of those bags are recycled. They are typically made of polyethylene and can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade in landfills that emit harmful greenhouse gases. Reducing your contribution to plastic-bag pollution is as simple as using a cloth bag (or one made of biodegradable plant-based materials) instead of wasting plastic ones. For your next trip to the grocery store, BYOB(Bring Your Own Bag).


7. Support your local farmer By Maryanne Murray Buechner

Fruit, vegetables, meat and milk produced closer to home rack up fewer "petroleum miles" than products trucked cross-country to your table. How do you find them? Search localharvest.org by ZIP code for farmers' markets, greengrocers and food co-ops in your area. The website, which includes handy contact information in its directory listings, also identifies restaurants that specialize in regional and seasonal ingredients. If you really want to get close to the farm, join a Community Supported Agriculture project, which lets you buy shares in a farmer's annual harvest. In return, you get a box of produce every week for a season. It will take more than a few visits to the farm stand to reduce the carbon impact of the U.S. food supply. In the meantime, here's another reason to go local: the taste is great.


8. Plant a bamboo fence By Maryanne Murray Buechner

Bamboo makes a beautiful fence, and because it grows so quickly (as much as 1 ft. a day or more, depending on the species), it absorbs more CO2 than, say, a rosebush. Most homeowners have to restrict its growth, lest it get out of control. Do this, however, and you reduce bamboo's capacity as a carbon sink. Only large-scale plantings, which absorb CO2 faster than they release it, can favorably tip the scales. How big is your yard?


9. Straighten up and fly right By Bryan Walsh

Until we can travel by fireplace, Harry Potter-style, the only way to get from Los Angeles to London is by carbon-spewing jet airliner. One simple change can help: adjust the exit and entry points each nation sets for its airspace so that planes can fly in as straight a line as possible. Last year the International Air Transport Association negotiated a more direct route from China to Europe that shaved an average 30 minutes off flight time, eliminating 84,800 metric tons of CO2 annually. Unifying European airspace as a "single sky" could cut fuel use up to 12%. Pilots could also change the way they fly. Abrupt drops in altitude waste fuel, so experts are advocating "continuous descent" until the plane reaches the runway—where it could be towed instead of burning fuel while taxiing. Of course, the best way to reduce plane emissions is to fly less; at least until the fireplace is ready for takeoff.


10. Have a green wedding By Catherine Sharick

You won't be able to stop global warming on your wedding day, but your choices can lessen the carbon footprint of your event. For example, if your guests are traveling long distances, offset the carbon emissions from their trips with a donation to renewable—energy projects. The sustainable—wedding website Portovert.com, in partnership with NativeEnergy, a renewable energy company, offers a wedding carbon calculator where couples can enter the number of guests and approximate miles traveled, to calculate the carbon impact of their wedding—related travel.
Wherever you celebrate, you can reduce your CO2 impact and often save money by giving your wedding a local touch. Buy wine from a nearby vineyard or beer from a neighborhood brewery. Get your wedding cake from a local bakery, and use seasonal flowers, not imports. "Why eat food or drink wine or beer that has traveled thousands of miles when you can choose local options that are just as good?" says Meghan Meyers, CEO of portovert.com.
Anything you do to make your wedding a little more modest—from wearing a borrowed wedding dress to choosing recycled paper or a website for your invitations—will lower its contribution to carbon emissions. Consider it your wedding gift to the planet.

11. Remove the tie By Bryan Walsh

How can a tie help fight climate change? When you leave it at home. In the "cool biz" summer of 2005, Japanese salarymen swapped their trademark dark blue business suits for open collars and light tropical colors. It was all part of the Japanese government's effort to save energy by keeping its office temperatures at 82.4?F throughout the summer.
The policy caused sartorial confusion but did make a dent in Japan's rising carbon emissions. In one summer, Japan cut an estimated 79,000 tons of CO2. If U.S. businesses eased off on their arctic-level air-conditioning, the gains could be significant. Time to make every summer day casual Friday?


12. Shut off your computer By Coco Masters

A screen saver is not an energy saver. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 75% of all the electricity consumed in the home is standby power used to keep electronics running when those TVs, DVRs, computers, monitors and stereos are "off." The average desktop computer, not including the monitor, consumes from 60 to 250 watts a day. Compared with a machine left on 24/7, a computer that is in use four hours a day and turned off the rest of the time would save you about $70 a year. The carbon impact would be even greater. Shutting it off would reduce the machine's CO2 emissions 83%, to just 63 kg a year.


13. Kill the Lights At Quitting Time By Coco Masters

Assigning an office switch-off monitor might sound a little like third grade, but it could cut carbon emissions by reducing electricity use, not to mention extending equipment life and lowering maintenance costs. It's not exactly glamorous work: walking the halls to make sure that computers, monitors, desk lights, printers and fax machines are turned off daily. Air conditioners and overhead lights can be timed for turnoff: Aim for off-peak energy use to be about one-fifth of peak use. In the morning, the switch-on monitor takes over.


14. Think Outside the Packaging By Bryan Walsh

Paper or plastic? How about neither? All those Styrofoam peanuts and impregnable plastic CD cases cost energy to manufacture and deliver, and that means carbon. You can reduce the amount of packaging with a little consumer vigilance. Give back the extra napkins or unwanted sugar packets; carry that gallon of milk by its handle. True eco-nerds will even bring their own cup to a Starbucks.

Corporations are also beginning to pitch in. Hewlett-Packard announced in February that it would switch to lighter packaging for its printer cartridges, which will reduce carbon emissions by an amount equivalent to removing 3,500 cars from the road for a year. Megaretailer Wal-Mart, far out front in this effort, has trimmed everything from its rotisserie-chicken boxes to its water bottles, each now made with 5 g less plastic. The company plans to cut packaging 5% starting in 2008—enough to prevent 667,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.


15. Check Your Tires By David Bjerklie

So you own a plain-vanilla, nonhybrid, American-made gas guzzler and can't afford (or can't wait for) a hybrid. Now what? Just giving your engine a tune-up can improve gas mileage 4% and often much more. Replacing a clogged air filter can boost efficiency 10%. And keeping tires properly inflated can improve gas mileage more than 3%. The bottom line? If you can boost your gas mileage from 20 to 24 m.p.g., your old heap will put 200 fewer pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere each year.


16. Make One Right Turn After Another By Caroline Sayre

United Parcel Service took a detour to the right on its way to curb CO2 emissions. In 2004, UPS announced that its drivers would avoid making left turns. The time spent idling while waiting to turn against oncoming traffic burns fuel and costs millions each year. A software program maps a customized route for every driver to minimize lefts.

In metro New York, UPS has reduced CO2 emissions by 1,000 metric tons since January. Today 83% of UPS facilities are heading in the right direction; within two years, the policy will be adopted nationwide.


17. Plant a Tree in the Tropics By Bryan Walsh

It seems like simple arithmetic: a tree can absorb up to a ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime, so planting one should be an easy way to mitigate climate change. Turns out it's not so simple. Recent studies have shown that trees in temperate latitudes—including most of the U.S.—actually have a net warming effect on the climate. The heat that dark leaves absorb outweighs the carbon they soak up.


18. Drive Green on the Scenic Route By Caroline Sayre

Going on vacation doesn't have to mean leaving your green conscience at home. The car-sharing service Zipcar rents hybrids cars in five U.S. cities, Toronto and London. A few specialty companies offer rental cars that run on biodiesel fuel, a clean-burning substance derived from renewable sources like vegetable oil. Bio-Beetle rents eco-friendly cars, ranging from Passats to Jeeps, in Hawaii and Los Angeles. A week's rental in L.A. runs from $200 to $300. And competitor EV Rental Cars has started to expand beyond the West Coast.


19. Be aggressive about passive By Stephanie Kirchner

Georg Zielke, his wife and kids share a five-bedroom "passive house" in Darmstadt, Germany, with heating costs 90% lower than their neighbors'. Extra insulation and state-of-the-art ventilation recycle the energy from passive sources such as body heat, the sun and household appliances to warm the air. When it gets really cold, the Zielkes just turn on the TV.

The German government has thrown its weight behind the idea, guaranteeing low cost loans for people who want to build a passive house. They cost about 5% to 8% more to build than a standard one. Invented in a German-Swedish joint-venture in he early 1990s, about 10,000 have been built in Europe so far, most of them in Germany—and just three in the U.S.

This is an extended version of the article that originally appeared in TIME Magazine.


20. Consume Less, Share More, Live Simply By Coco Masters

The chance to buy a carbon offset—in essence, an emissions indulgence—appeals to the environmental sinner in all of us. But there is an older path to reducing our impact on the planet that will feel familar to Evangelical Christians and Buddhists alike. Live simply. Meditate. Consume less. Think more. Get to know your neighbors. Borrow when you need to and lend when asked. E.F. Schumacher praised that philosophy this way in Small Is Beautiful: "Amazingly small means leading to extraordinarily satisfying results."

Chapter Three: The Solutions Design

Introduction

The problems that we face today cannot be solved in the same level of thinking when we first created them. The problems did not happen overnight nor did it happen over a period of one year or two; hence, the solution to the problem is a process that requires a framework for problem-solving, and must be based on a mutually agreed set of principles, and because it is global and social, any solution should have buy-in from the movers and shakers of the society locally and globally.

Before I proceed to discuss the solution, let me tell a story that happened long, long, long time ago. We were not there when it happened but the scientists and archeologists managed to pick up the scattered pieces, came out with a conclusion and consolidated them into a meaningful set of knowledge that we can now apply to our current situation.

This is about the story of the Dinosaurs that appeared 230 million years ago and disappeared 20 million years ago.

At the peak of the dinosaur era, there were no polar ice caps, and sea levels are estimated to have been from 100 meters (328 ft) to 250 meters (820 ft) higher than they are today. The planet's temperature was also much more uniform, with only +25 °C (77 °F) separating average polar temperatures from those at the equator. On average, atmospheric temperatures were also much warmer; the poles, for example, were +50 °C (122 °F) warmer than today[Wikipedia].

The atmosphere's composition during the dinosaur era was vastly different as well. Carbon dioxide levels were up to 12 times higher than today's levels, and oxygen formed 32 to 35% of the atmosphere, as compared to 21% today. However, by the late Cretaceous, the environment was changing dramatically. Volcanic activity was decreasing, which led to a cooling trend as levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide dropped. Oxygen levels in the atmosphere also started to fluctuate and would ultimately fall considerably. Some scientists hypothesize that climate change, combined with lower oxygen levels, and might have led directly to the demise of many species. If the dinosaurs had respiratory systems similar to those commonly found in modern birds, it may have been particularly difficult for them to cope with reduced respiratory efficiency, given the enormous oxygen demands of their very large bodies [Wikipedia].

Is there a semblance between the Dinosaurs of the Jurassic Age and the “Dinosaurs” in today’s age of globalization? Are the carbon dioxides exhaled by factories equal to or greater than the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by one gigantic dinosaur?

In terms of behavior, Dinosaurs’ survival instinct (e.g. Tyrannosaurus) is to attack and destroy either one of its own in competition with one another or as a predator to weaker and smaller animals. In today’s competitive globalization, our own “Dinosaurs” compete head on with other Dinosaurs and devour smaller ones in the so called innovative mergers and acquisition practices.

Vulnerable human beings like everyone from the middle to the bottom of the pyramid are not spared by the phantom menace, by today’s species of Dinosaurs – victims of predatory practices by our own species of Dinosaurs. “Predatory mortgage lending practices strips borrowers of home equity and threaten families with foreclosure, destabilizing the very communities that are beginning to enjoy the fruits of our nation’s economic success [Home and Communities: US Department of Housing and Urban Development]. The Dinosaurs today use credit as bait. You borrow their money to consume what society produced, and then when you are trapped in huge debt, they threaten you with foreclosure, taking every single property you own.

These practices by today’s Dinosaurs are not wrong; in fact they have been legalized. Gary North says the modern world economy rests on a gigantic system of promise to pay – promises that are never met. These promises, he says, are rolled over when they come due – replaced by new promises. Today, this system costs about USD$300 trillion worth of promises to pay and it is still in upward trend.

Taking into consideration the above premise from Gary North about debt and credit there appears to be some iota of hope in the middle of the pyramid. It looks like all we need to do is increase our credibility to pay and you are off the hook. However, that is just one side of the problem equation, what is disturbing is the threat of climate change and here we need to look at it with foresight and caution.

We continue to be myopic when it comes to the concept of wealth accumulation and we measure progress in terms of the number of shopping malls we built, number of factories and commercial buildings and skyways we erected whether they are built using borrowed money or not. But what we failed to see with our myopic eyes is the fact the cost of maintaining “progress” is in an upward trend – a city that is heavily dependent on a carbon dioxide-emitting fossil fuels that is not without limit. A city that needs more and more natural resources to sustain itself. The cost of living will continue to go up because the price of oil is going up, and the government needs to collect more taxes to sustain the high cost of maintaining the city, and because of globalization.

If the world will not collectively act now and do something, I will not be surprised when one day, our Dinosaurs will become extinct, the entire organic life annihilated, and mother earth goes back to ice age.

The collective act must be based on the sound principles of sustainability, social responsibility and a planet capable of sustaining life.

Cents of Humor: I have Arrived!!!

A Minneapolis couple decided to go to Florida to thaw out during a particularly icy winter. They planned to stay at the same hotel where they spent their honeymoon 20 years before. Because of their hectic schedules, it was difficult to coordinate their travel schedules. So, the husband left Minneapolis and flew to Florida on Friday, and his wife was flying down the following day.

The husband checked into the hotel, and unlike years ago, there was a computer in his room, and he decided to send an e-mail to his wife. However, he accidentally left out one letter in her e-mail address, and without noticing his error, sent the e-mail to the wrong address.

Meanwhile...somewhere in Houston ... a widow had just returned home from her husband's funeral. He was a Minister who was called home to glory after suffering a heart attack.

The widow decided to check her e-mail, expecting messages from relatives and friends. After reading the first message, she screamed and then fainted.

The widow's son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor, and then glanced up and saw the computer screen which read:

To: My Loving Wife
Date: Friday, October 13, 2005
Subject: I have Arrived!

Dearest Love:

I know you are surprised to hear from me. They have computers here now, and you are allowed to send an email to your loved ones. I have just arrived and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow, and I look forward to seeing you then. Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was.

P.S. It's sure is freaking hot down here!!!

Chapter Two: Summary

I would like to end this chapter with the following insights:

1. Today's civilization has indeed become more complex compared to those of the past civilizations. We have a well-developed division of labor, with jobs requiring specialized skills and training. We have hierarchical leadership structure with various levels of government. We have business structures that traverse national boundaries. We also have put in place a global economic system that governs global trading as well as global financial systems.

2. Another point to ponder is the fact the today's modern civilization demands more natural resources to sustain itself. As the society's modernization continues to flourish, it is also becoming more and more expensive to maintain with the cost of living going up everytime there is an oil price increase. We also blame globalization everytime we want to increase taxes or increase the salaries of our leaders.

3. The complex society that we have built so far has also become a problem-solving machine tackling crisis one after another.

Will it ever happen that our society may reach a certain point where the twin crises of consumer debt and climate change may have become the so called "last straw that would break the camel's back" and the complex civilizations that the human race had built over time will, one day, just reach its inevitable collapse?

4. We defined the problem of consumer debt and climate crises in the context of wealth accumulation. The motive of expansionism, other than religion, is to increase economic activities resulting in the accumulation of profit in the hands of those who own the means of production. As the propertied class becomes richer and richer, those at the middle of the pyramid precipitate to the bottom. They fund consumption using borrowed money and continue to be in that state.

5. It is clearer now that the only way out of the crises is to immediately find alternative sources of energy and eventually reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and eventually reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

6. It is also clearer at this point in time that the middle class who are mostly affected by the consumer debt crisis can no longer survive with only one source of income. We should take advantage of the opportunity in using the internet and mobile phones to share knowledge for free or for a fee in system called "personal paperless system".


7. It also very clear that global warming requires a global solution - if necessary simultaneous global actions and not incremental global actions.

I will devote the next chapter entirely on this value proposition.

We dream of dreams dare no one dares to dream. We all know that all these are easier said than done, and conventional wisdom tells us that a journey to a thousand miles always begins with the first step.

In chapter three we will try to map out our first steps and suggest alternative global solutions to both the consumer debt and climate crises and formulate a framework in engaging the world towards a common exponential solution to the crises.

Historical Pattern in Human Activities

The history of mankind is fundamentally a history of expansionism motivated by the incessant desire to accumulate wealth.

Lets re-look at the past to prove my point and interpret it in our own context:

1. In the year 325 before Christ Era, Buddhism expanded and combined the powers of world religion, trade, economy and imperial armies for the first time. Alexander the Great sues for peace with Chandragupta at Gerosia. This event created an eastward link among overland routes between Mediterranean, Persia, India and Central Asia.

2. In the 1st centuries during Christ Era, Buddhism made its first major appearance in China under the Han dynasty, and consolidated the cultural links across the Eurasian Steppe into India. This marked the foundation of “silk road”.

3. In the period from 650 to 850 Islam expanded from the western Mediterranean to India.

4. From 960-1270, the Song Dynasty in China produced the economic output, financial instruments, technologies and created the momentum for the medieval world economy to flourish linking Europe and China by land and sea across Eurasia and Indian Ocean.

5. In 1100 Genghis Khan integrated overland routes across Eurasia.

6. In 1300 marked the birth of Ottoman Empire and its expansion in Europe, North Africa and Middle East connecting politically overland with dynasties in Central Asia and India. This event created the imperial arch of integration that spawned a huge expansion of trade with Europe but raised the cost of trade in Asia for Europeans as a result Genoese merchants moved their wealth to Spain in search for a Western Sea route to the Indies.

7. In 1492 and 1498 Columbus and De Gama traveled west and east to the Indies, inaugurating an age of European seaborne empires.

8. In 1650, the expansion of slave trade sustained the development of Atlantic economy, giving birth to integrated economic/industrial systems across the Ocean. This event has resulted in the accumulation of profits in Europe during the zenith of mercantilism and rise of the Enlightenment.

9. In 1776/1789, “US and French Revolutions” marked the creation of modern states based on alliances between military and business interests and on popular representation in nationalist governments. This event marked a new imperial expansion where economic interest of “the people” consolidated assets for economic growth. It also led to more militarized British, Dutch and French imperial growth in Asia. These national empires expanded during the industrial revolution provoking class struggles, and new ideas and revolutionary movements within national states.

10. In 1885, the treaties of Berlin marked the expansion by the European and American empires overseas. This was also the period where international law is established.

11. In 1929, the great depression hits all parts of the world at the same time. It was also the period where simultaneous price rise in most of the world happened and the 1st World War broke out.

12. Between 1944-1950, decolonization of European empires in Asia and Africa produced the world of national states and for the first time a world of legal-representative-economic institution called the United Nations is established along with the Bretton Wood System which is an international monetary management that established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the world’s major industrial states.

13. 1989 marked the end of cold war and the globalization of post-industrial capitalism.

In all the above expansionism, there are always victors as there are vanquished, there are losers and there are winners. What distinguishes today's expansionism is the fact that the losers are not only those at the middle of the pyramid but mother earth. You destroy the coral reefs and it will take a century to rebuild them. You destroy the rainforests and it will take another century to restore them . But you destroy the one and only planet earth, and your children and their generation will have no more place to live.

What is interesting and amazing in today's globalization is the availability of infrastructure that allows people to communicate beyond their borders. It somehow democratize information enabling knowledge to travel at the speed of the light.

This capability generates enormous potential for the knowledge-savvy middle class to perform a dual role of an employee locally and an entrepreneur globally selling his information or knowledge to the world outside.

Expansionism in that sense is no longer limited to the business empires of the world but to anyone who has the skills and knowledge needed to become an infopreneur in the global economy.

Source: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~dludden/global1.htm

Cents of Humor: Join the Queue

One fine morning a man was leaving a cafe after his morning coffee, when he noticed a most unusual funeral procession A funeral coffin was followed by a second one about 50 feet behind the first.

Behind the second coffin was a solitary man walking with a black dog.

Behind him was a queue of about 2000 men walking in a single line. The man couldn't stand his curiosity. He approached the man walking with the dog, "I am so sorry for your loss, and I know now is a bad time to disturb you, but I've never seen a funeral like this with so many of you walking in single line. Whose funeral is it? "

The man replied, "Well, that first coffin is for my wife.

" What happened to her? "
The man replied, "My dog attacked and killed her. "

He inquired further, "Well, who is in the second coffin? " The man answered, "My mother-in-law. She was trying to help my wife when the dog attacked and killed her also. " A thoughtful moment of silence passes between the two men.

Then the first one asks in excitement "Can I borrow the dog? " The man calmly replied "Join the queue."

Another Success Story from ZenHabits

How I Ended My Love Affair With the Credit Card (and Why I Use Cash)


Confession time: My name is Leo, and I’m a recovering creditcardaholic.

When I was just starting out in the world of adulthood, I shied away from credit cards. My parents had had some troubles with them, so I had a bit of a phobia. In my early 20s, I caved in and got a card, simply to build credit. It only had a $500 limit, and I pledged to pay off the balance every month. I did this for a few years, but for one reason or another, eventually let the balance creep up until I could no longer pay the balance every year. I then paid it off and canceled the card, out of pure fear. I went without a card for a little while, and then came the bad days.

I need to buy something important, and didn’t have the cash. I got a card with a $5,000 limit, and felt the fear creep back in. The first charge was well over $1,000. Then there were other large charges — expenses I wanted to pay for, but didn’t have the cash. I tried to pay as much as I could each month, but when I started having other expenses, the credit card bill wasn’t a priority. I could pay it later.

Fast forward to a couple years ago: I could no longer afford to pay my minimum balance on my card. I had other bills that were also out of control. I canceled the card, and worked out a payment plan. I struggled with my other bills until the beginning of 2006, when I started getting things under control. But I still had a Mastercard debit card, and I used this to buy stuff over the Internet. Since it wasn’t a credit card, that was OK, right?

Today, I am scraping by, but here’s the cool thing: I don’t have a credit card at all. Not even the Mastercard debit card. I am paying off my debts (the card should be paid off this summer) and things are looking much rosier.
My recommendation: if you have problems paying off a card’s balance each month, and have a hard time resisting impulse purchases, cancel your credit card. Today. They are a plague.

This point can be debated ad naseum, so I’ll just say this: do what works for you, but be very careful with credit cards. They are dangerous, and have caused many financial wrecks for many families. The best policy for many people, and you may differ, is to go without a card for as long as possible.

But how do I live without a credit card? Here’s how:

1. I pay my bills online or through automatic deduction. It’s simple, convenient, and automatic. Hey presto!

2. I use cash for everything else. Everything else? Pretty much. Once in awhile I’ll write a check, or use my debit card (it doesn’t have a credit card label on it, so I can’t use it online), but those occasions are rare. I withdraw cash for groceries, gas and “spending”.

What about online purchases? Exactamundo! You’ve hit the nail on the head. One of the biggest dangers of credit cards these days is that they make purchases so darn easy. Doing some research on how to pay off your debt? Hey, there’s a great book about it by Dave Ramsey. One Click(tm) and it’s headed to my door. Credit cards allow you to buy stuff, anything really, without having to think about it. And that’s dangerous.

So if I REALLY need to buy something online, I might ask a relative to order it for me, and give them cash. Obviously, this is inconvenient and you don’t want to do this too often and wear out your welcome. Which is why it works. Before I canceled my Mastercard debit card last year (about four months ago), I bought stuff online at the rate of about two things a week. Not exactly a spending spree, but it adds up to a lot over the course of a year. In the last four months, I think I’ve ordered one item. A reduction of nearly 95% of my online discretionary spending.

I could also pay using PayPal or similar methods, but I haven’t yet. The point is that it’s much harder for me to buy things online now (and to some extent, in the real world too), so I rarely ever do. While we might think that buying things online is necessary, in almost every case, it’s not. Buying online simply makes you spend more than you normally would. Take it from me, someone who is living evidence.

Using cash has other benefits. I can see at a glance (looking in my envelopes for each cash spending category) how much I have left in that budget category. That’s hard to do when you’re using a credit card. Sure, you could check your balance online, but most people never do this. Sure, you could update Quicken or Money, so you know your available balance, but this is much harder to do, especially if you’re away from home, and so many people guesstimate their balance when they’re on the road, and sometimes don’t even bother to do that. With a credit card, you can worry about it later. At a high interest rate.

This has been a hot topic in the last month or so on personal finance blogs, with people weighing in on both sides. I think it’s a highly personal issue, and different methods work for different people. See posts on this topic from Get Rich Slowly, No Credit Needed, and Digerati Life. All good posts.

Source: http://zenhabits.net/2007/02/how-i-ended-my-love-affair-with-credit/