“Temperance is the greatest of all the virtues”
[Plutarch Moralia]

A Global Appeal for Change
Cho Tab Khen Zambuling

At A Glance

The time has come to avoid the wasteful use of Earth Resources (ER), both renewable and non renewable resources. Given the precarious state of the world, this imperative is not just a choice but our only destiny.

Today’s economics is not economical any longer.

Economics contributes little to create the conditions to properly manage our households (local and global). Also, the language of economics, and its policy proposals end up wasting a huge amount of scarce, precious, and very strategic resources for the present generation and for future generations as well.

Economics is not responding to its true meaning and real etymology: manager (ment) and steward (ness) of our `household` (eco).

In most instances, economic activities have created significant inequalities and immense human poverty around the world as one of the results. This is happening at a moment in human history when we demonstrate a much lesser ability to embrace and sustain more equitable and just economic and social systems.

The world is ready for a major change in course.

And, such a change must be based on a totally different set of values. In particular, to stop the present wastage of natural resources requires that we diligently focus on the role of such values/virtues as frugality and temperance. These will become the most important foundations to, and the basis for, a new and unique global strategy to eliminate poverty and enhance our human collective welfare.

The time has come to be guided by, and bring into practice, economy.

We must be wise and highly conscious of how appropriation, use and management of all ER are to be changed. For the moment we witness excesses, lavishness, waste and extravagance everywhere –including developed and lesser developed countries. This system only benefits a few people and castigates the greatest majority of those inhabiting this planet.

This is the only planet we have and we all belong to it. There is only one world and we have to make sure we do not disintegrate it, with ourselves included.

This is not an ideological statement.

Existing empirical evidence is now overwhelmingly telling.

The world is approaching the seven billion people’s mark, with half of its population struggling to attain a decent state of material existence, with more than 1 billion people going hungry every night. Women, children and the elderly are suffering a great deal as they constitute the bulk of the poor in the planet.

Furthermore, environmental destruction is reaching alarming levels, with weather conditions becoming ever more unstable and unpredictable. Global warming and ozone layer depletion are major manifestations of this destruction, affecting all aspects of our lives, including material advancement, health and nutrition, emotional stability, and spiritual evolution. All are intermingled.

Also, we witness war and conflicts in most continents. Some of these conflicts have been lingering for decades. These conflicts affect those who are at war with each other, and who directly or indirectly, affect the large majority of people on earth. Just think about the global threat imposed by nuclear weapons; these weapons are and will impact every creature alive today.

Not less important is to be fully aware of how the western style of life (and now many in the eastern too) creates much stress and higher and higher levels of toxicity, which is invading most institutions and organizations, nationally and internationally.

All of the above is the result of promoting unnecessary and wasteful consumption, adopting imprudent avenues for money creation and allocations, and accepting stressful ways of creating debt at all levels (banking and credit).

The virtues of frugality and temperance are two important states of being and becoming.

These two states of being must not be sought out just as mere propositions to be advocated for, but they should be embraced as states of being to be self-realized, both individual and collectively.

Frugality and temperance are states whose influences are immersed in the nature and scope of all forms of human interactions. Therefore, their self-realization will only happen when we are willing to experience a total reorganization of our habits in relation to both ourselves and others (at the same time).

Thus, if we are to practice economy, it will demand major changes in those life styles, and these changes may become a major source of great resistance, at least, at the beginning. Such changes will need to be compatible and coherent with new forms of economics and economic development.

As we self realize frugality and temperance we will progressively find real net increases in material and spiritual welfare. The net savings of these natural resources will be embedded in a new form of economics, which will benefit all, over space and time.

This shift is similar to that requiring us to move from the economics of war to the economics of peace. Such a shift necessarily demands the self realization of peace before we attempt to promote such a shift. Otherwise people will see no benefit from peace and its embodied economics.

For the moment, we only count increases in net material welfare when we expense and use these resources. This is due mainly to the way these activities are accounted for within the realm of such notions as The Gross National Product (GNP).

Clearly, this form of national accounting and this way of measuring changes in human welfare must change.

The new system should include a number of social, human and spiritual factors that are also central to any notion of human welfare and/or human transformation and change.

Similarly, we must involve ourselves in changing the traditional notions of what constitutes a “good” or a “lucrative” business. The architecture and the ultimate aim of business will have to shift and turn towards well defined and agreed notions of longer-term sustainability at all levels of our existence – i.e., individually and collectively.

A new notion of what constitutes the engine of business is to be embraced. This proposition should not be confused with an-anti business stand. Progress has already taken place in several fronts. For example, we are beginning to see changes when approached by the notion and practices of the so-called Social Corporate Responsibility and Social Entrepreneurship.

In this context, therefore, the nature and purpose of profitability are to be redefined.

In other words, the alchemy of economics and business do require fundamental changes now.

In the future, nothing is to be wasted.

This is why technology and technological change must respond to the above mentioned need to change our styles of life, and it must assist us in moving to newer frontiers of both economics and business.

When we refer to our style of life we are referring here to all those aspects that are affecting us as individuals and as a human collective at large. An example of the former are the changes induced by the consumption of superfluous commodities. An example of the latter is a change in life style due to global warming and ozone layer depletion.

But, these changes may in addition involve global peace and human security, just to name two out of many more changes needed.

When, after a thorough analysis of more than 100 wars and conflicts, Oxford University and The World Bank find that the main source of conflict and war are rooted in economic disputes and inequalities, it has become essential to redirect economics and business towards peace and human security rather than to the opposite. This is why many people are seeing that the conflict in the Middle East is all about the appropriation of natural resources and not really about religion.

Temperance calls for restraint and moderation under conditions of material scarcity.

In many ways all economic and business activities demand moderation today. This temperance is to unfold within a system that is just, self disciplined, compassionate and prudent. But, it is important to understand that compassion is not just giving something to someone. Compassion is an ability to become the other without losing one’s own identity. In addition, a compassionate person must be committed to resolve the problem of the other. This commitment is essential and should be set explicitly all the time.

To move towards this new paradigm, it is essential that we all experience all forms of interdependence and that we recognize that we now live a collective existence. Individual materialism must be over. The single pursuit of individual welfare does not necessarily amount to net gains in collective welfare. This is obviously true in a situation characterized by the waste of earth natural resources.

The self realization of interdependence and collective existence are key, and this Appeal calls for the necessary changes in education, health, agronomy, ecology, governance, etc., all of which are now taking us away from a better collective future.

The poor will greatly benefit from the macro strategy suggested above, though some important conditions are to be met: expanding their empowerment, ensuring security, and opening new opportunities from saving the Earth Resources.

I am appealing to all the leaders around the world: in politics, the armed forces, unions, religious institutions, non governmental organizations, indigenous peoples, spiritual movements, science, etc.

How long can we continue polluting the land, water and air?
How far can we go destructing the ozone layer?
How much longer will we continue destroying our biodiversity?

Possible Next Steps:

1. The creation of a World Commission on Frugality and Temperance (WCFT), based on regional and national commissions. These commissions should incorporate actors from all walks of life.
2. The drafting of a Global Plan To Save Earth Resources (GPSER) with specific country actions.
3. The allocation of 100 trillion dollars into new forms of education, science, governance, monitoring and technology that will shift the people’s minds and awareness towards frugality and temperance and collective welfare.
4. The elimination of the existing economy of war and the economy of more materiality, with attention to be given to the total eradication of poverty and the full protection of the natural and human environments.
5. The immediate elimination of all forms of waste and excessive consumption in the use of our resources.

Cho Tab Khen Zambuling
(Alfredo Sfeir-Younis)

11/4/09