Chapter 3.14 – The girl who silenced the world for five minutes

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

Born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, Severn Suzuki founded the Environmental Children's Organisation (ECO) when she was only just nine years old. When she was twelve, she and three friends managed to raise the money to travel to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. She highlighted how the diverse environmental problems are seen by young people.

Here is her speech:

»Hello, I’m Severn Suzuki speaking for E.C.O. – The Environmental Children’s Organisation.

We are a group of twelve and thirteen-year-olds from Canada trying to make a difference: Vanessa Suttie, Morgan Geisler, Michelle Quigg and me. We raised all the money ourselves to come six thousand miles to tell you adults you must change your ways. Coming here today, I have no hidden agenda. I am fighting for my future.

Losing my future is not like losing an election or a few points on the stock market. I am here to speak for all generations to come.

I am here to speak on behalf of the starving children around the world whose cries go unheard.

I am here to speak for the countless animals dying across this planet because they have nowhere left to go. We cannot afford not to be heard.

I am afraid to go out in the sun now because of the holes in the ozone. I am afraid to breathe the air because I don’t know what chemicals are in it.

I used to go fishing in Vancouver with my dad until just a few years ago we found the fish full of cancers. And now we hear about animals and plants becoming extinct every day — vanishing forever.

In my life, I have dreamt of seeing the great herds of wild animals, jungles and rainforests full of birds and butterflies, but now I wonder if they will even exist for my children to see.

Did you have to worry about these little things when you were my age?

All this is happening before our eyes and yet we act as if we have all the time we want and all the solutions. I’m only a child and I don’t have all the solutions, but I want you to realise, neither do you!

• You don’t know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer.
• You don’t know how to bring salmon back up a dead stream.
• You don’t know how to bring back an animal now extinct.
• And you can’t bring back forests that once grew where there is now desert.

If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it!

Here, you may be delegates of your governments, business people, organisers, reporters or politicians – but really you are mothers and fathers, brothers and sister, aunts and uncles – and all of you are somebody’s child.

I’m only a child, yet I know we are all part of a family, five billion strong, in fact, 30 million species strong and we all share the same air, water and soil — borders and governments will never change that.

I’m only a child, yet I know we are all in this together and should act as one single world towards one single goal.

In my anger, I am not blind, and in my fear, I am not afraid to tell the world how I feel.

In my country, we make so much waste, we buy and throw away, buy and throw away, and yet northern countries will not share with the needy. Even when we have more than enough, we are afraid to lose some of our wealth, afraid to share.

In Canada, we live the privileged life, with plenty of food, water and shelter — we have watches, bicycles, computers and television sets.

Two days ago here in Brazil, we were shocked when we spent some time with some children living on the streets. And this is what one child told us: “I wish I was rich and if I were, I would give all the street children food, clothes, medicine, shelter and love and affection.”

If a child on the street who has nothing, is willing to share, why are we who have everything still so greedy?

I can’t stop thinking that these children are my age, that it makes a tremendous difference where you are born, that I could be one of those children living in the favelas of Rio; I could be a child starving in Somalia; a victim of war in the Middle East or a beggar in India.

I’m only a child yet I know if all the money spent on war was spent on ending poverty and finding environmental answers, what a wonderful place this earth would be!

At school, even in kindergarten, you teach us to behave in the world. You teach us:

• not to fight with others,
• to work things out,
• to respect others,
• to clean up our mess,
• not to hurt other creatures
• to share – not be greedy.

Then why do you go out and do the things you tell us not to do?

Do not forget why you’re attending these conferences, who you’re doing this for – we are your own children. You are deciding what kind of world we will grow up in. Parents should be able to comfort their children by saying “everything’s going to be all right” , “we’re doing the best we can” and “it’s not the end of the world”.

But I don’t think you can say that to us anymore. Are we even on your list of priorities? My father always says “You are what you do, not what you say.”

Well, what you do makes me cry at night. You grown-ups say you love us. I challenge you, please make your actions reflect your words. Thank you for listening.«

– Severn Suzuki

You can find a video of this moving speech on YouTube.

 

Chapter 3.7 – The cycle of life

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life« 

»If we hadn’t planned for the money in our system to be perishable, there would be inflation. Decay is a natural law and so inflation would be unplanned decay. The cycle of growth and decay makes the gradido a self-regulating system. The money supply is stable and can’t be manipulated. It automatically evens out at the value where money creation and perishability are in balance.« 

– Joytopia

From the atom to the galaxy, everything in the world follows cycles, everything comes into being and decays with only the duration of the cycles differing. We encounter this cycle of life everywhere in nature. And in our daily life we are also subject to a variety of cycles. For us the cycles of hours, days, weeks, months and years are the most important cycles that likewise influence leisure and business life. All life plays itself out in these cycles.

And life itself can also be seen as a cycle of growth and decay. Life plays itself out between birth and death. Many religions see physical death as a rebirth in the spiritual world. In any case death belongs to life, dying to birth, exhaling to inhaling. No living being can only inhale. Nobody can only take without giving. But in the existing economic system they always only want growth without consciously making provision for the related decay.

But the natural cycle of growth and decay is inevitable. All human attempts to escape it only brought death. Almost the entire indigenous populations of America were exterminated in cold blood because of gold, which was valued as a means of payment of enduring worth. Today gold mining is devastating the environment. And the attempt to create enduring money, which if possible increases through interest, regularly leads to calamities. We know them as economic crises, financial crises, inflation, monetary crashes, poverty, hunger, wars and natural disasters.

Economic crises, poverty and hunger..., that is easy to understand. But what do wars and natural disasters have to do with the monetary and economic systems? A lot, if not everything!

Wars

In wars it is never a question of protecting human rights or differing religious views. Such issues only serve to fuel people’s emotions so as to get their consent to a war. All wars without exception are about economic advantages or power (which in the end is the same). And oil - the black gold (!) - is one of the biggest businesses in the world. That is why genuine alternatives to oil are always suppressed. Besides the oil industry, the war industry is one of the most profitable industries in the world. In an economic system where growth ranks first the war industry naturally has to grow as well and that means new wars.

Natural disasters

Natural disasters are partly sparked by environmental damage. And whether natural events have disastrous consequences often depends on the man-made circumstances. Here are three examples from recent history.

When the tsunami overran the coast of south-east Asia on 26 December 2004, it swept away everything that stood in its path. More than 200,000 people died in the monster wave. If a smaller number of coral reefs and mangrove forests had been destroyed on the coasts, the impact of the tsunami would have been drastically reduced and many people would still be alive. The coral reefs act as breakwaters and mangroves inhibit coast erosion and form a second buffer to protect the interior of the country. There is a growing consensus among scientists, environmentalists and Asia’s fishing communities that the consequences of the tsunami were considerably aggravated by tourism, shrimp farms and other industrial developments. For they have destroyed or degraded the mangrove forests, coastal dunes, coral reefs and areas of sea grass so that these were scarcely able to provide any protection from the big tidal wave. Our present economic system compels the promotion of industrialisation and tourism to boost the economy and raise the standard of living. This would not be necessary in the Natural Economy of Life as everyone is provided for through the threefold creation of money.

The earthquake in Haiti on 12 January 2010 was force seven on the Richter scale. The epicentre was approx. 25 kilometres south-west of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital. The buildings were so badly constructed that they collapsed like houses made of cards. The slums of the megacity were badly hit as the slopes where the huts were situated mostly slid down. According to a United Nations estimate, the initial situation was more devastating than the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean in 2004 because of the lack of infrastructure. The number of dead is estimated at 316,000. Haiti was already a poor country before the earthquake. That is why the inhabitants were apparently not able to afford better types of constructions to provide more security in the case of earthquakes. With the Natural Economy of Life Haiti would be a wealthy country like all others. There would be no more slums and people could afford sturdier buildings which could withstand earthquakes better.

The earthquake in Tokyo on 1 February 2012 was also force seven but damage to buildings were not reported. Japan is a rich industrialised country and the Japanese are prepared for earthquakes. On the other hand, the tsunami in Fukushima on 11 March 2011 hit them all the harder as they had built their nuclear power stations along the coast. They had hitherto not considered alternative forms of energy to be economic. The Equalisation and Environment Fund would have subsidised environmentally friendly technologies to such an extent that nuclear energy would have been unprofitable. The worst nuclear disaster in human history would thus have been avoided.

The consequences of all three events would have been less severe if the Natural Economy of Life, which follows the cycle of growth and decay,  had already been introduced.

Hunger

But let’s come back to poverty, hunger and thirst. 24,000 people die of starvation every day. That is more deaths every month than all the victims of the three natural disasters mentioned above together. Nature appears relatively gracious compared with this greatest of all man-made disasters.

Sometimes we have to think a bit laterally to recognise the direct and indirect connections between today’s system of debt money and the disastrous situation on our earth and then open ourselves for the Natural Economy of Life, which brings solutions due to its system.

Nature – a self-regulating system

Life is transient, death is constant. That is the one side. On the other hand, nature brings off a feat which economists can only dream of – eternal growth in a limited space. This eternal growth is inseparably linked to eternal decay.

The cycle of growth and decay is a self-regulating system. It enables nature to constantly give birth to new living beings and make new products with the total mass staying constant. This self-regulation has the effect that the system automatically settles into its optimal state with just as much flowing back into the cycle as what is created. This simple principle is universally applicable and therefore also works with the gradido.

Let’s have a look at the gradido cycle. Its »growth« is the threefold creation of money with 3,000 gradidos. Its decay amounts to 50% a year. That is approx. 5%  a month. The average credit balance per person automatically regulates itself at the value at which the monthly decay is equal to the monthly creation of money. This is the case with 60,000 gradidos, for 5% of 60,000 is 3,000. If the credit balance increased, the higher decay would bring the amount down. If it was lower, creation of money would predominate  and drive it up again. Here we speak of a stable balance because any deviation from the normal state is automatically regulated back to the norm.

The self-regulating system is thus constantly striving to level off at the norm of 60,000 gradidos as the average assets per person. It permanently ensures a gentle equalisation. We can imagine the self-regulation as the surface of water: there are repeatedly waves from time to time but in the long run the water level remains constant.

Let’s summarise the main points:

• Together with the decay the threefold creation of money forms a self-regulating system that keeps the money supply constant. The money supply cannot be altered either by debt or speculation or any other manipulation.
• The cycle of growth and decay is a natural law. If this natural law is not voluntarily integrated into the monetary and economic systems, we get to feel it in an involuntary and painful way, in the form of economic and financial crises, inflation, monetary crashes, poverty, hunger, diseases, wars and natural disasters.
• As the cycle of growth and decay is integrated as a permanent component of the Natural Economy of Life, the above-mentioned involuntary forms of decay are avoided or at least greatly mitigated.

The mathematical foundation of our new monetary and economic model has now been elaborated. We have developed a self-regulating system after the pattern of nature that furnishes the needs of the threefold good with the necessary financial resources and keeps its optimal state in a stable balance. How can people save for the future and how can major investments be financed? In other words, will there still be a lending system? If so, what will it look like?

Advantage 3 – No gold standard

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

»The meek will inherit the earth – but not the mining rights.«

–      Jean Paul Getty

American oil industrialist and billionaire

In turbulent times the call for the allegedly good old gold standard becomes loud again. The gold standard prevents wars, it is claimed, because the existing amount of gold is not sufficient to fund the immense costs of war. A far-fetched argument, for there have been wars since the beginning of history – in spite of the gold standard. When Columbus persuaded his Spanish masters to finance the fleet with which he wanted to reach India in a westward direction he promised them gold. The sad truth was that he and his successors kept their promise and the Incas were exterminated for their gold – and not only the Incas but almost the entire indigenous population of America.

Greed for hoards of gold in other countries has often been the cause of wars, maybe not the officially stated reason for war but a decisive motive. It is simply absurd to claim that gold assures peace.

Today there are still gold mines for wresting the last gold treasures from the earth. The modern form of gold mining leaves disastrous environmental damage behind it. What is the point of this insane destruction? Why do we need gold at all? We do not need it for jewellery since only fakes are usually worn for security reasons. We seldom need it as a raw material for industry and medicine, maybe for high-quality electronic gold contacts or dental prostheses. There are many other possibilities for means of exchange and value storage, for example computer figures.

Besides that, the gold reserves are distributed in the same way as the other ownership conditions. By reintroducing the gold standard we would only further cement the existing ownership conditions. Anyone who has a lot of gold would then have a lot of money. A gold standard is certainly not the tool of choice for achieving worldwide prosperity in peace and in harmony with nature. The Natural Economy of Life does not need a gold standard. The gradido is covered by the most valuable good we have – life itself.

Advantage 12 – Relief for the following generations

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

»We haven’t inherited our earth from our parents,

but borrowed it from our children.«

– Indian saying

Some people claim that the following generations will have to repay the debts incurred by our generation. With regard to financial debts, I scarcely believe they will be so naïve. To whom are they supposed to repay the debts? To the banks? To the creditors, who are the richest people in the world anyway? Sooner or later people will wake up and recognize the monkey business. There will be a haircut to settle things once and for all. 

Far more problematic is the disastrous damage our generation has caused to nature. This cannot simply be remedied with a haircut. The longer we continue as we have up to now, the greater the damage will be and the smaller the chances of survival for humankind. The succeeding generations will have to pay for what our generation has done to the earth.

The Natural Economy of Life cannot eliminate this damage overnight. However, we can strive to do our part in helping nature to recover. The Equalisation and Environment Fund (EEF) is a unique instrument that makes an additional pool of money available for the environment in every country, equal in amount to the national budget. In this way the financial basis is created to promote environmental protection and decontamination on an unprecedented scale. Only eco-friendly products and services will be competitive on the market. Positive incentives will motivate the world economy to take decontamination measures. Environmental damage will be eliminated step by step, nature can recover and the following generations will finally find a planet worth living on.

Advantage 46 – Equalisation and Environment Fund

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

»We don’t want to rave about the source but drink from the source; we don’t want the flowers, birds and butterflies in more and more beautifully designed coffee-table books but we want to get to know them very personally; we want to breathe the air and enjoy fruits that don’t make us ill; and we want to dream into the evening free of noise under healthy trees.«

– Hubert Weinzierl

German environmentalist

In the past hundred years humankind has destroyed more of the environment than in thousands of years before. The felling of rain forests, extermination of many species of animals and plants, poisoning of water and air, nuclear energy, emissions from industries and cars, factory farming, electromagnetic pollution and much more are taking the ecological system to its limits.

Nevertheless, protection of the environment is only practised when it is »economic«. And to make it »economic« the most absurd forms of calculation, such as trade with certificates for CO₂ emissions, are introduced. Apart from the fact that carbon dioxide has now been branded the number one climate killer, this is nothing else but modern selling of indulgences. And the destruction of the environment goes on.

The Natural Economy of Life is based on the threefold creation of money. Every month three amounts of 1,000 gradidos are created per person: 1,000 gradidos for the basic income, 1,000 gradidos for the national income and 1,000 gradidos for the Equalisation and Environment Fund (EEF). Every country thus has an additional budget at its disposal for protecting and decontaminating the environment, equal in amount to the national budget itself. For this reason the Natural Economy of Life is the only monetary and economic system we know of that attaches such importance to decontaminating and protecting the environment.

The Equalisation and Environment Fund is a guarantee that the good of the environment is the top priority with everybody. Even »money people« will find their love of Mother Earth again.

Advantage 47 – Clear system of incentives for life

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

»Our common mother –  nature – is showing her children more and more clearly

that she is at the end of her tether.«

– Tenzin Gyatsho

14th Dalai Lama

Business works with incentives. The strongest incentive system in business is money. In the old system money did not create any clear incentives for life. On the contrary, it mostly created destructive incentives, to destroy the environment, to exploit others, to wage war. Even the most good-willed person is torn between their conscience and ethics, on the one hand, and financial incentives, on the other. Our present money system virtually forces people to adopt behaviour hostile to life. And so it is no wonder that the war industry is one of the strongest industries worldwide. It is perverse that we humans, who find ourselves in the position of possibly vanishing from off the face of the earth soon, invest our greatest economic strength in a branch of industry whose purpose it is to kill each other! Our current economic system is clearly programmed for self-destruction.

The Natural Economy of Life offers clear incentives for life. Its top decision criterium is the threefold good – the good of the individual, the good of the community and the good of the big scheme of things. From the threefold good the threefold creation of money is derived – basic income, national income and the Equalisation and Environment Fund. The money is created directly from life and offers incentives on all levels to decide in favour of life and behave in a manner friendly to life. This particularly applies to the Equalisation and Environment Fund, which subsidies eco-friendly activities.

Here again the principle applies that positive motivation is many times better than threats of punishment. By rewarding good, we promote positive feelings in people. Joy, pride, self-confidence, community feeling, sense of responsibility, etc. enhance quality of life for every single individual and hence for the community. Seen medically, endorphins are released in people’s brains – happiness hormones which contribute to a good feeling and lasting health.

As we see, the threefold good is also maintained again here. Individuals become happier and healthier, which enhances quality of life within the community. This situation was generated by rewarding or subsidising eco-friendly activities, namely measures for the good of the big scheme of things.

Advantage 49 – Only eco-friendly products have chances on the market

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

»Nature always creates the best of what is possible.«

– Aristoteles

Greek philosopher

In an economy where a subsidy fund equal to the national budget is available exclusively for protection and decontamination of the environment, only eco-friendly industrial branches, products and services have a chance on the market. Products harmful to the environment are not subsidised and therefore cannot compete with eco-friendly ones. Industrial branches and companies which have hitherto operated in a way that damaged the environment receive the necessary support to make the changeover.

Advantage 50 – Incentives for eco-friendly technologies

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

»Every natural law that reveals itself to the observer

implies a higher, still unrecognised one.«

– Alexander von Humboldt

German naturalist

The Equalisation and Environment Fund promotes the development of eco-friendly technologies. Entire branches of industry can thus make the changeover to sustainable, eco-friendly products and services without any risk. Nobody need be concerned about their job. Losing their job would in fact not be a financial problem for the person concerned as, after all, we have the basic income. But many people love their jobs, the cooperation with colleagues and the whole social environment: all this is worth preserving.

Just imagine the creativity of entire humankind being concentrated on decontaminating and conserving nature and the environment. This is Swarm Intelligence in its best sense.How quickly we would then arrive at genuine solutions together!

Advantage 61 – The previously poor gain prosperity

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life« 

»If a free society cannot help the many who are poor,

it cannot save the few who are rich.«

– John F. Kennedy

35th President of the USA

The Natural Economy of Life creates prosperity for everyone. However, our earth cannot support a prosperity such as the industrialised countries are currently living out. But this does not mean that we have to »tighten our belts«. We merely have to bring our prosperity into harmony with nature.

We will cease giving GM feed to factory-farmed animals so as to subsequently bring  their meat contaminated with antibiotics to the tables of a few privileged nations. Instead of bombarding the citizens of rich nations with lifestyle diseases while the people in other countries have to starve, we learn to grow healthy organic vegetable food regionally. People will enjoy a wide culinary diversity of regional specialities.

The new prosperity of previously poor people will be accompanied by eco-friendly production, whether of foodstuffs or other goods. Eco-friendly, untreated products are, at the same time, good for the people who use them and their use contributes to health and hence enhanced quality of life. Do you notice the positive chain reaction?

Advantage 71 – Disappearance of useless and harmful work

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life« 

»Work for work’s sake is contrary to human nature.«

– John Locke

English philosopher

Useless or harmful activities are a similar case to meaningless work. We currently hear more and more people complaining that they are sentenced to being compelled to do useless or even harmful work. If you ask them why they do it, you get the answer that they have to earn their living.

In the Natural Economy of Life this pressure no longer exists. Particularly with regard to harmful work (damaging to the environment or health, warlike, exploitative, etc.), this is a blessing for the individual, the community and the environment. Nobody any longer needs to do anything of whose usefulness they are not convinced. Once again, the threefold good is a good yardstick for the usefulness of work: does the work serve the individual, the community and the big scheme of things? If all the questions can be answered with a clear »yes« the work is useful. If one area is missing, there is need for improvement.

Overall, much more useful and constructive work will be done in the service of the individual, the community and the big scheme of things.

Advantage 74 – No pressure to consume

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life« 

»We are constantly being told that we have to buy, buy and buy again.

That is naturally a disaster for sustainability.«

– Hannes Jaenicke

German actor

Our present economic system needs constant growth to be able to continue to exist. In order to maintain this growth there are entire branches of industry which are exclusively concerned with marketing products, no matter if these are needed or not. Advertising agencies, marketing departments, sales and distribution departments, sales representatives, salespeople and, in principle, all the private media have the aim of fuelling consumption. New needs have to be created. They talk about solutions to problems which people previously did not know they might have.

»Planned obsolescence« is a specially developed method to make products age faster than necessary in relation to their technical development. Maybe you are familiar with this situation: your computer printer suddenly does not work anymore. You take it to be repaired and are told it is only a small thing, but the repair would cost more than the price of a new printer. Or your computer, which up to now has worked perfectly, suddenly slows down after a new operating system has been installed. The operating system can do a lot of new things that you did not know you needed. Because of this, it needs more resources and slows down your computer. This is not noticeable with new computers as they have now become faster. So sooner or later you have to make the decision to buy a new computer.

These and similar methods are absolutely necessary to maintain consumption in our present economic system, otherwise it would collapse like a house of cards. 

The Natural Economy of Life is based on sustainability. It can cope with the economy shrinking and a certain amount of healthy downsizing is desirable alone for reasons of environmental protection. As long as all products needed are available what does it matter if production has to be reduced? Even if jobs are lost, everybody is optimally provided for by the active basic income. Pressure to consume, which is the vital artery of the old economic system, has become superfluous in the gradido system. Instead of designing advertising with the aim of constantly increase consumption, the above-mentioned media experts can now use their skills to inform people about sustainability and eco-friendly behaviour. 

Advantage 75 – Significantly less production without social drawbacks

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life« 

»In the case of the consumerism paradigm, the basic assumptions that need to change include: that more goods and services make people happier, that perpetual growth is good, that humans are separate from nature and that nature is a stock of resources to be exploited for human purposes.«

– Erik Assadourian

Director of the Worldwatch Institute

Without the pressure to consume, significantly less will be produced. All the better! Fewer resources will be needed and people will have more leisure. They will have more time for themselves and their dear ones, their hobbies, their health and their further personal development. Isn’t that what most rushed modern people wish for?

Nowadays more spare time generally means less money, loss of social status and a decline into poverty. The person’s standard of living can no longer be maintained and the running expenses of leasing instalments, rents and loans cannot be paid anymore. This is a horror scenario for many people and already reality for others.

In the Natural Economy of Life as well more spare time may possibly also mean less income. But what does it matter if dad earns a bit less money? All the members of the family are provided for by their active basic incomes, which covers the running expenses. If there are loans, it may take longer to repay them but it will not be more expensive as they are interest-free. In the worst case, a luxurious standard of living would have to be cut back to a normal level. In return, people have more time –  a luxury only a few have today.

Advantage 76 – Consequently greatly reduced use of resources and less rubbish

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

»Before we change the world,

 it might be more important not to destroy it.«

– Paul Claudel

French writer and diplomat

The pressure to consume, which is so crucial for the old economic system, rears its ugly head in two ways – use of resources and waste. Both are extremely damaging to our environment, drastically diminish the quality of our lives and present humankind with increasing problems. The limits to growth have long be exceeded. Far too many resources have long since been used up and much too much rubbish has long been produced and dumped somewhere in the world.

Without the pressure to consume there will be much less production, much less use of resources and much less rubbish. This does not mean that the old resources have been replenished and the old rubbish dumps removed. However, the descent to hell has been slowed down and with some further measures we will bring it to a standstill and finally reverse direction. 

Advantage 77 – Beneficial ecological footprints

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life« 

»In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments;

there are consequences.«

– Robert Green Ingersoll

American writer

You may know the expression »small footprint«. Based on the assumption that everybody leaves traces or footprints behind them with everything that they do and that these footprints are generally damaging or at least use resources, a »small footprint« means that as little damage as possible is caused. The expression is used in software development and also in the environmental field. A small ecological footprint thus means that a product or an activity causes as little damage as possible to the environment. For this reason nature conservationists often call for a small ecological footprint.

But how would it be if we left a »beneficial ecological footprint«? This would mean that we would not only not damage nature with our actions but even benefit it. A beneficial ecological footprint is created, for example, when a conventional farmer changes over to organic farming or when a supermarket extends its range more and more in the direction of vegan (exclusively non-animal) products which are produced organically as far as possible. The more beneficial footprints we leave behind us, the greater the chances are that the descent to hell is not only slowed down but the direction is reversed.

In the previous sections a lot has been said about measures that can promote such a reversal. The most important financial instrument that the Natural Economy of Life has at its disposal for this purpose is the Equalisation and Environment Fund, which provides a budget for decontaminating our environment worldwide of an amount equal to the national budgets of all countries together.  

Much human creativity and commitment will still be required to reverse the direction completely and permanently, thus initiating the return home to paradise. However, the financial foundation for this is already provided by the Equalisation and Environment Fund.

And, as always, all action has to be measured by the threefold good and will have to meet all three criteria: does it serve the good of the individual, the good of the community and the good of the big scheme of things? When all three questions can be answered with a clear »yes«, the action leaves a beneficial footprint.  

Advantage 92 – The good of the big scheme of things

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life« 

»Paradise is seldom recognized as such until it is considered from the outside.«

– Hermann Hesse

Swiss writer

For the good of the big scheme of things the Equalisation and Environment Fund provides a pool of money equal in amount to the national budgets of all countries together. This fund is filled by the third amount of money created amounting to 1,000 gradidos per person per month.

This is by far the largest environmental fund that has ever existed or is planned anywhere, as far as we know. It many times exceeds all environment funds in the world. The good of the big scheme of things thus has equal importance from a financial point of view to the good of all nations together.

Protection and decontamination of the environment are going to be the most important and profitable economic sectors in the world. Or, in other words, only companies that make and offer their products and services in harmony with nature will be able to survive. Things will be made easy for companies as they receive support in making the changeover. Organic and biological products will thus be lower in price than others. The world economy will switch to biological quality.

Advantage 100 – In harmony with nature

Excerpt from the book »Gradido – Natural Economy of Life«

»Nature can’t take a joke, she is always true, always serious, always strict;

she is always right and mistakes and errors always come from humans!«

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

German poet and naturalist

Another counter-argument is that worldwide prosperity for all would destroy the environment. But this only applies if we go on as hitherto and even then we would probably destroy ourselves first. Nature would then have many millions of years to recover again. Worldwide prosperity for all is only possible in harmony with nature.

Thus our choice become even clearer: either we humans kill ourselves or we create worldwide prosperity in peace and in harmony with nature. The Natural Economy of Life offers us the basis for the second alternative.

So let’s get going together! In the next chapter you will learn how simple that is.