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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Rio Plus 20 is coming soon.

A few fundamental questions to pose before it is too late:

1.    First, what will this conference offer that we, the public, will recognize clearly as new and innovative?

2.    Second, is this conference going to be, again and again, dominated purely by economic and political considerations, with some brush of social issues?

3.    Third, will the conference ignore other paradigms, approaches, and views that have a great deal to contribute if one is to really resolve the challenges facing humanity?.

4.    Fourth, will the conference ignore the importance of indigenous peoples and indigenous nations and their wisdom, as it has done in the past?

5.    Fifth, is the conference to proceed in a way that ”more of the same yields more of the same”?

Professionally speaking, I am a direct outgrowth of the First Conference on Development and Environment, which took place in Sweden, in 1972.  It was as a result of that Conference that many universities in the USA decided to create PhD programs that would focus exclusively on the economics and social aspects of natural resources management and the environment.  Probably, we were one of the first PhD programs in environmental economics in Latin America.  Certainly, I became the first one to be hired in this professional capacity by The World Bank (I was told that my hiring was an experiment).  I was the first to hold the title of Senior and Principal Natural Resource Economist.  However this recognition was given by the Technical Panel and not by the Economist Panel. At the time, the Economist panel refused to accept environmental economics as a thematic area within economics!

During the period of 1972 and 1980 a lot of work was done to create analytical frameworks and instruments to properly evaluate development interventions that had environmental impacts.  Many of us wrote extensively about new forms for doing economic and social analysis.  We met in many places to discuss and learn how to value a tree, a clean river, prevent the depletion of the California Condor, etc, etc.  Economics had no adequate toolkit to offer at that time.  Now, there is plenty; most of which are on the shelves and little being applied.  Thus, the view that economics is not creating the needed conditions for sustainable development is accurate.

As an economist I was never satisfied with the way we addressed such issues as global warming, biodiversity depletion, and sustainable development.  I made many proposals to change the nature of the analysis and offered several solutions instead.

More than 3 decades ago, I began to write about the interplay between economics and spirituality.  Economics is just a collection of values that assist us in predicting people´s behaviors under conditions of material scarcity.  It was clear that the guiding principle of our decisions emerged from our values and belief system.  Thus, it was within this frame of mind that I proposed a new set of values for economics and economic development.  All under the rubric of spiritual economics.  It was not abstract; on the contrary, it offered many avenues to make investment decisions and avoid major environmental problems, as we witness today.

For many people, I became the subject of much laughter because spirituality and economics was seen as oil and vinegar.  For many decades, I published notes, articles and books on the many aspects that explain the spiritual foundation of Sustainable Development.  This topic has not made it yet to a Conference like the one we witnessed in Rio two decades ago.  Many of the proposals written then were shared within the premise of the United Nations, when I was The Special representative to the United Nations for the World Bank.

A couple of years ago, I was invited to address the Values Caucus there.  They requested a statement on the spiritual role of the United Nations.  I had a very telling experience.  When it came time for the debate, one old hat in that Caucus told me that I was passe; that they do not use the word spirituality any longer in the NGO community or the UN.  That the new word was Kosmos.  I was shocked, as I spent so many years building a foundation one brick at a time.  As it happens, we are still at square one on this matter and there is very little being done to mainstream spirituality in public policy making.

In presenting those statements and writings to the public, careful attention was given to show that there are many reasons why economics alone should not be the sole criteria for public or private choices, particularly of those choices having to do with the environment and sustainable development.  A big group at the UN, led by Inge Kaul of UNDP worked diligently to bring the notions of international public goods.  This was another angle of the same analytical problem.

Years later, I challenged the establishment regarding the merits and implications of the so called triple bottom line.  My contention is that it was void of the “Human Factor”; the human factor being people  conceived  not as numbers, or capital, but as levels of consciousness.  And it was then when I proposed to explicitly connect spirituality and environmental sustainability.  Most of what the paradigm shift needed, was detailed in a recent book entitled “Global Warming; Inner Warming”.  This paradigm represented to me a complete departure from all the traditional approaches to global warming, biodiversity depletion and sustainable development.

That book has been complemented by many articles and statements made in many countries of the world.  Most recently, a 3-hour lecture was given at Penn State University, and several You Tube videos are available on the Internet from that lecture.  An additional complement was a paper written for UNDP on the theme of Ethics and Biodiversity in Latin America.

In a similar way, and based on the same framework, human consciousness as the sole foundation of economic development — the concepts of business entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship were challenged.  Several conferences were given on that subject in a recent college-tour in the United States.  De  Paul University of Chicago video taped the lectures and has made them available through You Tube.  The core of my contention is that none of the traditional approaches will materialize in higher levels of human welfare without creating the needed conditions for the creation of a “spiritual entrepreneur”.  The “business entrepreneur” is mindful of the business, the “social entrepreneur” is mindful of the external impact of business (social and environmental), but the “spiritual entrepreneur” is mindful of the inner-self.  Without the last form of entrepreneurship it is not possible for the other two forms of entrepreneurship to yield the expected results.

In some ways, I was an important participant in Rio 1992 Conference.  Not only did I attend the Conference, but I had the privilege to be the principal author of the report that The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC) had to present to that Conference. It was seconded by the World Bank towards the end of 1990, and the report was finished in 1991.  This report was essentially about the economic and financial foundations of sustainable development.  It was not about spirituality and sustainability, as no one was prepared to even talk about that.  The report, as traditional as it was, created so much controversy that ECLAC decided that it should not be reprinted.  To me, it was such a basic report that, when I read it today (as I have a copy), I think about it as a very conservative report.

This leads me to say something as a professional economist, highly trained in economics of the environment; i.e., that the economic analysis one sees today on investment and policy decisions is extremely poor.  It is so poor, in my view, that blaming economics and the economic criterion for the environmental problems we have is not all fair.  We must cite bad economic analysis.

ECLAC confronted the political power of the recently nominated Ministers of Environment in that region.  They wrote a report, Our Own Agenda.  This was a very well written statement that addressed mainly the political economy of the environment.  This exercise was financed by another part of the UN!

The work continued in the 1990′s and 2000′s.  Based on a study of more that 2000 completed development projects in developing countries, we concluded with another colleague at the World Bank that the story of development and transformation did not end with sustainable development.  That we need to create all the conditions to open the era of “Empowered Development”.  This includes both outer and inner powers of the people.  This idea came from the deep conviction that we are violating several fundamental spiritual laws.  One of them being that ‘there should be a total balance and coherence between material growth and transformation; and spiritual growth and transformation’.  This is the law of equilibrium and coherence.

Today we are promoting a development paradigm that aims at becoming materially rich while ending it up being spiritually poor.

Material things are an inferior form of empowerment, notwithstanding its importance at certain levels of human welfare.  The true form of empowerment is the people’s spirituality: identity, wisdom, awareness, mindfulness, consciousness, etc.  So, the frontier of development is not sustainable development as it is conceived now; and, far from it, given its traditional definition and applications.  The new frontier is “empowered development”.

In my own professional evolution on these matters I experienced three distinct phases:

One, where my attention was on the environmental phenomenon (e.g., pollution); I did lots of research and policy work based on that frame of mind.

Two, where my attention was on who pollutes; this was perceived as not being politically correct; one could not name countries, corporations, or individuals as the polluters.  Naturally, survival prevailed and I did not pursue that for too long, though some good work was done in this realm.

Three, where I am now, my attention is on why people pollute.  What state of being causes them to roll the window of the car down and throw their plastic cup on the highway.  What causes a corporation to knowingly pollute a river, and act as if nothing happens or there is no impact in doing so.  What is the cause of willful acts by all actors to pollute and then live as if they have no responsibility for these acts.

It is in this third phase where spirituality comes into full view.  Not as a criteria per se; this view would reduce spirituality to nothing.  Even if we are interested in reforming the triple bottom line, Spirituality must be a new objective function that is over and above any criterion like the triple bottom line.  Spirituality  as a way of life and as a way of understanding a series of phenomenon that are at the root of human transformation.  Spirituality as the cradle of a new vision for humanity.  Again, not Spirituality as another addition to a set of criterion.

This text presents several snapshots of very central building blocks to bring spirituality into  public policy making including sustainable development and the issues at hand.  These building blocks are presented in a very summarized way; each of them deserves a separate book.

In essence, we are where we are because we have violated many spiritual laws that must be reestablished.  The fundamental one is that The Inner is Like The Outer and The Outer is Like The Inner.  If we just concentrated on this spiritual law alone, it is possible to experience the importance of addressing our inner gardens. We discover that due to the inherent relationship between the inner and outer that there is no real impact on the outer garden without tending to  the inner gardens.  Global warming is here because of our inner warming (see many explanations below).  Addressing the inner self, we would become aware of the importance of all forms of interdependence, and of how we have to acknowledge our major responsibilities in protecting our Planet Earth.  Many of the important spiritual laws are addressed below.  The emphasis will be on global warming, but they apply to every aspect of environmental sustainability.

We must change our notions about the Earth.  It is not an inert entity.  It is a living entity.  It is infinitely intelligent.  It is completely woven into our own existence.  Thus, environmental management in the future will also be about coherent mutuality.  If you do not self realize this aspect of the problem, you will subjugate your views and analysis to a minimalist form of existence.  Nature is us and we are nature.  This is a fact not a proposition.

We must also concentrate on the matrix of actors.  This is not about pollution, it is about those of us who pollute.  This is not about CO2, it is about those who are behind those emissions.  This is not about an animal species, it is about human activities that lead to the killing of animals.  It is all about us and the impact of our human presence.  Thus, Rio Plus 20 must be the conference where we open the way for understanding this matrix of actors.

One way the establishment avoids this discussion is by atomizing the debate.  By using a language where the person does not exist and where it is impossible to identify those who are destroying what belongs to all of us.  Thus, it will use the term consumption instead of consumers, it will use production instead of producers, it will use corporations rather than corporate owners, etc.  This is something we need to stop.  Let us call a spade a spade.

When humanity realizes that there is not only a relationship between environmental sustainability and our material welfare, but also environmental quality and our spiritual welfare, then we will actively seek a new paradigm and we will fight for it.

Rio Plus 20 will miss a great opportunity if it does not address at the start the importance of spirituality in sustainable development, global warming and biodiversity depletion.  The economic and technical issues are important, but less important than determining if we have the right collective vision for humanity.  Today, we are failing by design and not by default.

At the core of the paradigm shift, is our understanding of nature and acceptance that this is not about a theory, or something abstract. Instead it is about understanding the different forms of self realization of life in its infinite manifested forms.  If this realization is not present, within the inner core of our consciousness, nothing will critically change the course of humanity, and we will be running immense risks of self destruction.

So, before I make the full argument in what remains of this document, I would like to answer the questions I posed above.

1.    The only aspect really innovative in Rio Plus 20 would be a very serious debate and exchange on how to mainstream spirituality into public policy, including global warming, biodiversity depletion, and all aspects of sustainable development.

2.    The conference should not be dominated by the same groups that have dominated the previous conferences.  All of us who have more than 40 years of professional experience within this framework know extremely well who will attend, how they will position themselves to control the inflows and the outcomes.

3.    The conference should not be a place to rehearse the past and repeat the same stories again and again. It should be the place where the most innovative visions, language and actions are freely shared and brought into the light of day.  The right vision and understanding are of essence here.

4.    Indigenous Peoples must be involved from the very beginning of the Conference .  They have a crucial knowledge and message to share with humanity. Their cosmovision is what we need to break down the traditional approaches to sustainability.  Let us act humbly and listen to them. They should be the main speakers and we the main listeners.

5.    If this conference will yield more of the same, then all the expenses of the conference must be paid by the organizers and not the countries; which in the end is being paid by the people of those countries. They must have some responsibility in parity with the way we apply the polluter pay principle.  Do not pollute us with more of the same.

Rio Plus 20 must include A World Spiritual Forum For Sustainable Development, where many spiritual and religious leaders are invited to speak on a new paradigm and explain its different parts and functions.  The conclusions of the Forum must be presented at the plenary with equal weight to any other activity of that Plenary.

Because of the importance that will be given to global warming, many of the thoughts and ideas will permeate that topic.  However, the principles and suggestions apply to all the environmental phenomenon not at the top of the agenda.

Let me now substantiate the above with several short sections of various subject matters.

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