Carlos Rymer Summer, 2007

People for A Renewed Society1: A Proposed Vision

Background

The climate movement is growing quickly in the United States and elsewhere. Youth are
leading the way through the Campus Climate Challenge, citizens have spoken through Step It Up
2007, the labor community is demanding action through the Apollo Alliance, farmers are
embracing clean energy with their 25 x 25 challenge, the religious community has called for firm
action to protect the planet from disruptive climate change, the clean energy industry has been
working hard at improving technologies, and many other communities have risen to the climate
crisis to demand deep and quick cuts in global warming pollution. Later this year, there will be
climate marches in three states, a national convergence of youth in Washington, D.C., and many
other actions calling for strong federal action, especially from presidential candidates who will
work to replace the current administration.
Discussions at the governmental level still treat the growing climate and broader
environmental crises as external issues that are critical but do not require substantial changes to
society (economically, politically, and culturally). Today, the global community is clearly not on
a good track. The climate crisis is just the most noticeable symptom of how bad we’re doing. Of
course, unless we cut emissions globally as soon as possible, we may not have a chance of
correcting any other problem. But what is meant by “not on a good track”? It’s more than just the
environmental crisis. It’s how government is controlled today because there are no incentives for
businesses to be separate from government; it’s how people’s health is declining everywhere
(growing obesity, diseases, etc.); it’s how youth are being indoctrinated by a culture that
promotes conflict; it’s how poverty and income inequality are actually growing; and it’s how all
natural stocks are on a downward trend.
So, on the heels of a growing climate movement that will ensure something is done about
the climate crisis, we have an opportunity to change all this, to attach all these issues to the
broader flaws in our political2 and economic3 systems. The climate crisis involves energy,

1
Proposed name.
2
Narrow political system, designed centuries ago and not appropriate for today’s society, which has so many
different communities (workers, farmers, environmentalists, scientists, women, youth, economists, engineers,
businesspeople, etc.).
3
Our economic system is based on markets that are exclusive of social and natural capital, which clearly have
enormous value. As a result, the future has no value to us under the current system.
Carlos Rymer Summer, 2007

businesses, poverty, loss of natural resources, health, and many more components and symptoms
of our worsening society. Cleary, solving it alone will solve most of the problems connected to
energy, such as agriculture, air pollution, and perhaps even poverty, and will undoubtedly
present a huge economic opportunity. But it won’t address many other problems. We need to
embrace a new vision that frames the climate crisis as an opportunity to address the inherent
flaws in our government structure and our form of capitalism.

Building a Model in ew Jersey or Anywhere

The current climate movement is too focused on its mission to ensure that appropriate
leaders get elected to pass legislation to begin the task of rapidly reducing global warming
pollution. Other movements, such as the anti-war and the human rights movements, are also
focused on their goals. Unfortunately, it is unlikely any of these will make the inherent
connections across issues and embrace a vision of systemic changes that connects all the issues
to the flaws in our political and economic systems. That is, unless a successful model is in place
somewhere to serve as an example of what this kind of vision can achieve.
We need to build this kind of model in our state if we want others to embrace this kind of
vision. We need to find out whether it can work and whether it truly is the best way to deal with
the climate crisis and the host of other problems our nation and the rest of the world have. There
have been attempts to cross-connect issues and different communities, but none has developed a
vision simple and attractive enough in our state so as to really make clear that our problems are
major symptoms of flawed politics and economics. We don’t have problems because they
somehow happened and we can’t deal with them. At the level of sophistication and progress at
which society is today, we really are capable of dealing with all these problems all at once; we
know that.
In order to build this model, we need to collectively agree to establish an organization
that will:
1. Promote this vision.
2. Identify and attract the different movements in our state.
3. Make the message behind our vision clear through the media.
Carlos Rymer Summer, 2007

4. Run campaigns4 in municipalities, schools, businesses, and other places to get some
version of our 8-Point Plan implemented or endorsed.
5. Propose state legislation in the form of a package – one that will fix the economic and
political flaws (this may defy federal laws, but we need to find a way to do it; it will also
see a lot of opposition due to many reasons).
Motivation
The Climate Crisis: Despite the clarity on the seriousness about the climate crisis, there is still
significant inertia to change on the part of political leaders. Recent studies show that IPCC
predictions are low. For example, Arctic summer ice melting predictions were 30 years ahead of
reality. The North Pole will be completely gone during the summers of the 2020’s. Similarly,
IPCC didn’t include the dynamics of the ice sheets. Top scientists indicate that these (West
Antarctica and Greenland) have begun to disintegrate, and that if they melt, sea level globally
would rise 14 meters. In addition, with a 0.8C increase above pre-industrial levels, Australia is
seeing a drought never seen, Africa is being increasingly desertified, severe weather events are
becoming more common, glaciers are retreating almost everywhere, and poverty is being
exacerbated by agricultural loss due to global warming.
In spite of these warnings, governments are failing to react appropriately. The current
science indicates that in order to prevent the 2C threshold, we must reduce global emissions 60%
by 2030. More recent studies indicate that the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere
should be no more than 350 ppm. Yet the boldest plans call for 50% cuts by 2050. What isn’t
noted is that the 60% by 2030 goal gives us a 50% chance of avoiding catastrophic climate
change. Catastrophic here means widespread migration, a spread of infectious diseases, loss of
forest, soil, and water resources, destructive storms, loss of agriculture, 14-meter sea-level rise
(that will destroy many cities and economies), increased conflicts, and possibly a large reduction
in the human population. It seems that we are trying to manage the unsustainable.

The Politics: Many governments make decisions that are motivated by the calls for special
interests to keep the status quo of making profit, as if making profit can only be done by
degrading social and natural capital. Despite widespread support for significantly higher
environmental protection, universal health care, an end to wars, the eradication of poverty, better

4
We will need one strong, visionary name for the state-wide campaign.
Carlos Rymer Summer, 2007

civil rights, and other calls of society, political leaders stay away from these goals. Not only are
our politicians today put in place by special interests, but our people are largely indoctrinated by
the media to either ignore these calls or support them mildly. Most people are inactive because
they don’t have any incentive to be active; they don’t believe they are being affected enough to
do anything about anything. A sustainable society cannot have a majority that is deliberately
made negligent by its political system.

The Economics: The world standard for economic status currently is the Gross Domestic Product
(GDP), designed and instituted about a century ago. Unfortunately, like our governance
structure, this indicator has been believed to be perfect since it was instituted. As a result,
political leaders may claim to have allowed for strong economic growth while we are largely
depleting the biosphere’s capacity to produce goods and services, our human capital is being
degraded, and our future is being fully compromised for present profits. The GDP does not take
into account that global warming, diseases, crime, poverty, destruction, war, and other issues are
negative aspects of society, and that society as a whole does not want them. As a result, there are
incentives to degrade natural and social stocks to make up for economic stocks. A sustainable
society needs to make sure that any measure of progress includes environmental and social
performance as well.
The Rest: The war in Iraq is a war for oil and business. Global poverty, in many cases, is caused
by political decisions to promote profits. The environmental crisis is another sacrifice for profit
and power, in this case of the foundations that build our very economy (natural and social
capital). Diseases are becoming very widespread, especially those that result from a developed,
careless society, such as cancer, obesity, and diseases that affect the nervous system. Income and
racial inequality add to the score of problems largely resulting from flaws in our political and
economic systems.
One clear point, however, is that many of these things are similar to the same problems
we’ve had in the past. It seems that we have been approaching them as single, separate issues
that can be fixed under the current system. It also seems that as we fix problems, new ones
emerge. And as a result, we have to continue battling our governance system to correct the
problems we see and that they ignore because they can’t afford to address. Clearly, if we are to
avoid the emergence of newer problems in the future and our continued clash with our
Carlos Rymer Summer, 2007

governance system, we ought to change governance and economics altogether by framing our
different issues as symptoms of the flaws found in these. We can’t keep dealing with separate
problems as if their only solution is action without significant, continuous improvement to
what runs our society: governance and economics.

Vision

With growing widespread recognition of local, regional, and global problems, in particular the
environmental crisis, poverty, conflicts, and health, we must frame our relevant issues in terms of
consequences of flawed economic and political systems that are exclusive of highly important
components that, if placed into these systems, would likely ensure that global progress is
sustainable, just, and inclusive. Fixing these flaws in full will ensure influence-free decision-
making, global financial, technical, and informative collaboration, and long-term sustainability.

8-Point Plan

Each campaign will be run under the proposed vision, and will call for a set of actions to
address political and economic flaws. Campaigns will likely be modified to allow for flexibility
for decision-makers and local realities, but they will generally have points along the following
goals (must be changed where appropriate):
1. Reduce global warming pollution 90% below 1990 levels by the year 2030 or earlier.
2. Reduce the ecological footprint to that which the Earth can sustain or the maximum
possible in the locality by the year 2030 (see WWF).
3. Develop an economic indicator to measure optimal economic, environmental, and social
performance.
4. Fully price natural and human capital as part of local markets, shifting taxes so as to
ensure the economically disadvantaged are not affected.
5. Change the current political/decision-making system by law to ensure that external
influences are eliminated.
6. Ensure that environmentally and socially degrading businesses do not lose current market
share by subsidizing them to change in order to do what is environmentally and socially
required while maintaining a fairly competitive market.
Carlos Rymer Summer, 2007

7. Fully fund the most innovative ideas and developments about how to reach sustainability
(meaning sustainable economic, environmental, and social performance).
8. Change governance structure so as to ensure that different communities within an entity
(school, business, municipality, etc.) have representatives that contribute to decision-
making.

Regional Units

The organization would be voluntarily staffed (unless funds for full-time staff appear),
and would be represented regionally throughout the state. Each regional unit would be led by the
different communities in that region, including campus movements, local movements,
businesses, and even local politicians. The communities would agree to either run campaigns
with different plans (under the same vision) or run a regional campaign to get all entities to
endorse the vision and approve some kind of plan that will fully or partially address economic
and political flaws. It is suggested that the organization has 8 regional units, each representing 5
districts. The regional units would converge annually to present progress, train new members,
propose changes to anything about the organization, and share information and ideas. Each
regional unit would have to report to the main organizational staff tri-monthly, and would be
supervised with the following regional staff (all voluntary initially):
• Regional Coordinators: These individuals would be in charge of coordinating all efforts
within a region and reporting to the main organizational staff.
• District Coordinators: These individuals would be in charge of coordinating all efforts
within a district in collaboration with regional coordinators, and would report to regional
coordinators.
• Local Coordinators: These would have the same job as the district coordinator, but
locally.
• Campaign Coordinators: These would lead the specific campaigns in schools,
municipalities, businesses, or other places where appropriate.
• Regional, District, and Local Assistants/Secretaries/Treasurers/etc: These would be
regionally or locally designed and appointed.
• Regional Webmasters: Would work with the main webmaster to update the website on
regional progress and announcements.
Carlos Rymer Summer, 2007

Main Staff
The organization would have a main staff that would collaborate with regional units and
all members of the organization to advance the main vision. The main staff would also create and
distribute resources, make important announcements, and eventually work to push state
legislation that will embrace the vision. All staff will be elected at the state convergence (though
in the meantime there will be key coordinators). A sample main staff would be as follows:
• Coordinator(s): Would be in charge of coordinating organizational work across all levels.
• Community Coordinator(s): Would be in charge of coordinating a specific set of
communities (i.e. movements or people)
• Media Coordinator(s): Would be in charge of coordinating media work.
• Webmaster(s): Would be in charge of maintaining main website.
• Coordinating Assistant(s): Would be in charge of assisting in all main staff efforts.
Proposed State Convergence
The organization will be formally announced and established at a state convergence. This
will be a place to clarify the vision to members, train members about campaign skills, and
mutually endorse the vision and the launch of the statewide campaign. I propose that the
convergence occurs on January 5-7, 2008, unless there is support for an earlier date. I also
propose that, beginning in late August, we begin weekly or bi-weekly statewide or regional
conference calls to begin discussing the convergence and the organization.
To Do Right Away
Beginning as soon as possible this Summer, we should do the following:
• Choose a temporary name.
• Create a Google group list to discuss this proposal.
• Invite people within our networks to the emerging organization.
• Explain the vision and the proposal to anybody invited.
• Create a website.
• Frame our messages well so that they capture the vision and are clear and appealing.
• Begin planning the state convergence and needed work for Fall, 2007.

ote About Author: The author, Carlos Rymer, is a student at Cornell University and a native
from New Jersey (of Dominican ethnicity). He co-led the New Jersey Climate March and the
Carlos Rymer Summer, 2007

recent Global Warming Lobby Day in Trenton. He currently works with the Sierra Student
Coalition, the New Jersey Climate March Team, and the Energy Action Coalition. He can be
contacted at carlos.rymer@gmail.com or 551-556-0189 (cellphone number until June 1st).