Global Marshall Plan

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The Global Marshall Plan is a plan first devised by former American Vice-President Al Gore in his bestselling book Earth in the Balance , which gives specific ideas on how to save the global environment.

United States Federal republic in North America

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country comprising 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city is New York City. Most of the country is located contiguously in North America between Canada and Mexico.

Vice President of the United States Second highest executive office in United States

The vice president of the United States is the second-highest officer in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The vice president is also an officer in the legislative branch, as president of the Senate. In this capacity, the vice president is empowered to preside over Senate deliberations, but may not vote except to cast a tie-breaking vote. The vice president also presides over joint sessions of Congress.

Al Gore 45th Vice President of the United States

Albert Arnold Gore Jr. is an American politician and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Gore was Bill Clinton's running mate in their successful campaign in 1992, and the pair was re-elected in 1996. Near the end of Clinton's second term, Gore was selected as the Democratic nominee for the 2000 presidential election but lost the election in a very close race after a Florida recount. After his term as vice-president ended in 2001, Gore remained prominent as an author and environmental activist, whose work in climate change activism earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

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Gore states: "The model of the Marshall Plan can be of great help. For example, a Global Marshall Plan must focus on strategic goals and emphasize actions and programs that are likely to remove the bottlenecks presently inhibiting the healthy functioning of the global economy. The new global economy must be an inclusive system that does not leave entire regions behind. The new plan will require the wealthy nations to allocate money for transferring environmentally helpful technologies to the Third World and to help impoverished nations achieve a stable population and a new pattern of sustainable economic progress. To work, however, any such effort will also require wealthy nations to make a transition themselves that will be in some ways more wrenching than that of the Third World."

Marshall Plan U.S. initiative to help Western Europe recover from World War II

The Marshall Plan was an American initiative passed in 1948 to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave over $12 billion in economic assistance to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. Replacing an earlier proposal for a Morgenthau Plan, it operated for four years beginning on April 3, 1948. The goals of the United States were to rebuild war-torn regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, improve European prosperity, and prevent the spread of Communism. The Marshall Plan required a reduction of interstate barriers, a dropping of many regulations, and encouraged an increase in productivity, as well as the adoption of modern business procedures.

Third World A term coined during the Cold War and for a while used to denote developing countries in general

During the Cold War, the term Third World referred to the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the nations not aligned with either the First World or the Second World. This usage has become relatively rare due to the ending of the Cold War.

Source: Earth in the Balance, page 297-301

Global Marshall Plan: Five strategic goals "In my view, five strategic goals must direct and inform our efforts to save the global environment":

World population The total number of living humans on Earth

In demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living, and was estimated to have reached 7.7 billion people as of April 2019. It took over 200,000 years of human history for the world's population to reach 1 billion; and only 200 years more to reach 7 billion.

The idea is based on the post-WWII Marshall Plan that saw the United States send billions of dollars to European nations to rebuild their war shattered economies.

World War II 1939–1945, between Axis and Allies

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from more than 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 70 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.

Europe Continent in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere

Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Asia to the east, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. It comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia.

In order to further the idea of a GMP and to coordinate the various initiatives, NGOs, scientists, activists and groups in the field of development cooperation and global social justice the Global Marshall Plan Initiative was founded by members of the Club of Rome, the Club of Budapest, the Eco-Social Forum Europe, ATTAC and other organisations in Frankfurt, Germany in 2003. The two main objectives are to find new ways and sources of financing in development cooperation, predominantly pursuing the Millennium Development Goals of the UN and the worldwide propagation of the eco-social market economy, which is considered to be one of today's key strategies of initiative.

Club of Rome An organisation of individuals who claim to share a common concern for the future of humanity and strive to make a difference.

Founded in 1968 at Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, Italy, the Club of Rome consists of current and former heads of state, UN bureaucrats, high-level politicians and government officials, diplomats, scientists, economists, and business leaders from around the globe. It stimulated considerable public attention in 1972 with the first report to the Club of Rome, The Limits to Growth. Since 1 July 2008 the organization has been based in Winterthur, Switzerland.

The Club of Budapest is an international organization founded in 1993 by Ervin László to expand beyond the exclusively scientific purpose of The General Evolution Research Group to try to mobilize the full cultural resources of humanity to meet the future challenges.

Millennium Development Goals eight international development goals for the year 2015 by the United Nations

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were eight international development goals for the year 2015 that had been established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000, following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. All 191 United Nations member states at that time, and at least 22 international organizations, committed to help achieve the following Millennium Development Goals by 2015:

  1. To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
  2. To achieve universal primary education
  3. To promote gender equality and empower women
  4. To reduce child mortality
  5. To improve maternal health
  6. To combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
  7. To ensure environmental sustainability
  8. To develop a global partnership for development

See also

Literature

Franz Josef Radermacher German economist

Franz Josef Radermacher is a German mathematician and economist. He is Professor of Informatics at Ulm University. He is one of the co-founders of the Global Marshall Plan Initiative that suggests a socio-ecological plan to eradicate poverty, increasing global wealth while protecting natural resources.

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Sustainable development is the organizing principle for meeting human development goals while simultaneously sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services upon which the economy and society depend. The desired result is a state of society where living conditions and resources are used to continue to meet human needs without undermining the integrity and stability of the natural system. Sustainable development can be defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations.

Formerly known as the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), the mission of the Brundtland Commission is to unite countries to pursue sustainable development together. The Chairperson of the Commission, Gro Harlem Brundtland, was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar in December 1983. At the time, the UN General Assembly realized that there was a heavy deterioration of the human environment and natural resources. To rally countries to work and pursue sustainable development together, the UN decided to establish the Brundtland Commission. Gro Harlem Brundtland was the former Prime Minister of Norway and was chosen due to her strong background in the sciences and public health. The Brundtland Commission officially dissolved in December 1987 after releasing Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report, in October 1987. The document popularized the term "Sustainable Development". Our Common Future won the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in 1991. The organization Center for Our Common Future was started in April 1988 to take the place of the Commission.

Earth Policy Institute was an independent non-profit environmental organization based in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It was founded by Lester R. Brown in 2001 and functions as an environmental think tank, providing research and analysis on environmental indicators and making policy and lifestyle recommendations aimed at promoting environmental and economic sustainability.

The phrase "Think globally, act locally" or "Think global, act local" has been used in various contexts, including planning, environment, education, mathematics, and business.

The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm, Sweden from June 5–16 in 1972.

German Advisory Council on Global Change German organization

The German Advisory Council on Global Change is an independent, scientific advisory body to the German Federal Government, established in 1992 in the run-up to the Rio Earth Summit (UNCED). The Council's principal tasks are to:

Sustainability metrics and indices are measures of sustainability, and attempt to quantify beyond the generic concept. Though there are disagreements among those from different disciplines, these disciplines and international organizations have each offered measures or indicators of how to measure the concept.

This page is an index of sustainability articles.

Sustainability process of maintaining change in a balanced fashion

Sustainability is the ability to exist constantly. In the 21st century, it refers generally to the capacity for the biosphere and human civilization to coexist. It is also defined as the process of people maintaining change in a homeostasis balanced environment, in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development and institutional change are all in harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations. For many in the field, sustainability is defined through the following interconnected domains or pillars: environment, economic and social, which according to Fritjof_Capra is based on the principles of Systems Thinking. Sub-domains of sustainable development have been considered also: cultural, technological and political..Sustainable development may be the organizing principle of sustainability. Yet others may view the two terms as paradoxical. Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. [Report for the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987)] introduced the term of sustainable development.

The eco-social market economy (ESME), also known as the socio-ecological market economy (SEME) or social and ecological market economy, aims at balancing free market economics, the strive for social fairness and the sustainable use and protection of the natural resources. It was developed by Austrian politician Josef Riegler during the 1980s, expanding on the original concept of the social market economy, an economic model first advocated by Konrad Adenauer, and is considered the economic format which the majority of nations in Europe follow.

Deep ecology Ecological and environmental philosophy

Deep ecology is an ecological and environmental philosophy promoting the inherent worth of living beings regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs, plus a restructuring of modern human societies in accordance with such ideas.

Environmental governance is a concept in political ecology and environmental policy that advocates sustainability as the supreme consideration for managing all human activities—political, social and economic. Governance includes government, business and civil society, and emphasizes whole system management. To capture this diverse range of elements, environmental governance often employs alternative systems of governance, for example watershed-based management.

A sustainability organization is (1) an organized group of people that aims to advance sustainability and/or (2) those actions of organizing something sustainably. Unlike many business organizations, sustainability organizations are not limited to implementing sustainability strategies which provide them with economic and cultural benefits attained through environmental responsibility. For sustainability organizations, sustainability can also be an end in itself without further justifications.

The environmental sustainability problem has proven difficult to solve. The modern environmental movement has attempted to solve the problem in a large variety of ways. But little progress has been made, as shown by severe ecological footprint overshoot and lack of sufficient progress on the climate change problem. Something within the human system is preventing change to a sustainable mode of behavior. That system trait is systemic change resistance. Change resistance is also known as organizational resistance, barriers to change, or policy resistance.

Global Map is a set of digital maps that accurately cover the whole globe to express the status of global environment. It is developed through the cooperation of National Geospatial Information Authorities (NGIAs) in the world. An initiative to develop Global Map under international cooperation, the Global Mapping Project, was advocated in 1992 by Ministry of Construction, Japan (MOC) at the time.

Global Marshall Plan Initiative

The Global Marshall Plan Initiative views itself as an integrative organizational platform for a "world in balance". Composed of a network of more than 5000 supporters from all levels of society, brought together from politics, economics and civil society, the Initiative is based on five core goals for fair globalization. Through its network-like character, it is organized through even hierarchies and without a centre. Everyone is invited to actively participate and take action with their circles and the accompanying opportunities to implement a World in Balance.

Eco-industrial development (EID) is a framework for industry to develop while reducing its impact on the environment. It uses a closed loop production cycle to tackle a broad set of environmental challenges such as soil and water pollution, desertification, species preservation, energy management, by-product synergy, resource efficiency, air quality, etc.

Ecomodernism

Ecomodernism is an environmental philosophy which argues that humans can protect nature by using technology to "decouple" anthropogenic impacts from the natural world. Ecomodernism is a school of thought from many environmental and design scholars, critics, philosophers, and activists. Ecology-based Modernism is the most direct way to define this movement. It embraces the most successful aspects of the Outlaw Designers from the 1960s and 70s with the reform-based hopeful pragmatism of the Modernists. It demands a more detailed understanding of the discipline's history and encourages designed objects and systems created with the logical inspiration of nature's cycle built in to its goals. The resulting material and immaterial creations hope to better unite technology, humanity and nature. Eco-Modernism urges designers to unplug from their world of pixels and reconnect with the nuances of our natural environment so as a collective we can better understand the materials we use, processes we employ and appreciate the importance of our natural resources. Instead of a linear approach to a design process, based on Fordism and Taylorism, Eco-Modernism embraces nature's model of "waste equals food" and cradle-to-cradle coined by Walter R. Stahel in the 1970s where design and manufacturing aim to "close the loop". To achieve this component of the movement designers must minimize their environmental footprint by utilizing local and renewable resources for all of our future endeavors. In their 2015 manifesto, 18 self-professed ecomodernists—including scholars from the Breakthrough Institute, Harvard University, Jadavpur University, and the Long Now Foundation—enlarged the scope of Eric Benson's and Peter Fine's 2010 original definition as such: "we affirm one long-standing environmental ideal, that humanity must shrink its impacts on the environment to make more room for nature, while we reject another, that human societies must harmonize with nature to avoid economic and ecological collapse."

Environmental, ecological or green gentrification is a process in which cleaning up pollution or providing green amenities increases local property values and attracts wealthier residents to a previously polluted or disenfranchised neighbourhood. Green amenities include green spaces, parks green roofs, gardens and green and energy efficient building materials. These initiatives can heal many environmental ills from industrialization and beautify urban landscapes. Additionally, greening is imperative for reaching a sustainable future. However, if accompanied by gentrification, such initiatives can have an ambiguous social impact if the poor are displaced or forced to pay higher housing costs. First coined by Sieg et al. (2004), environmental gentrification is a relatively new concept, although it can be considered as a new hybrid of the older and wider topics of gentrification and environmental justice. Various studies have analyzed the social implications of greening projects specifically with regards to housing affordability and displacement of vulnerable citizens.

References

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