Human society and the biosphere

There is also another link between militarism and climate change:

Today, both in the United States and elsewhere in the world, the Green New Deal is being considered as a means of making the urgently.needed transition form fossil fuels to renewable energy.

The Green New Deal concept is inspired by the New Deal by which Franklin D. Roosevelt ended the Great Depression of the 1930's. Like FDR's original New Deal, it involves massive government spending to simultaneously create jobs and much-needed infrastructure. In the case of the Green New Deal, this would be renewable energy infrastructure.

But is there money enough for the Green New Deal? In order to free the necessary funds, we need to divert the vast river of money that is currently wasted - or worse than wasted - on militarism, and use it to save human society and the biosphere from catastrophic climate change. How much money is involved? According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the world currently spends 1.8 trillion dollars each year on armaments. The indirect costs of militarism are far greater.

The human footprint is too large

The total ecological footprint of humanity is a concept used to measure the relationship between the resources that humans demand from their environment, compared with the ability of nature to provide those resources. In recent years humans have been asking the earth to provide them with much more than the earth can regenerate. Our collective footprint on the face of nature has become too large. Because of the danger of environmental collapse as well as the danger of widespread famine, we must stabilize global population and end excessive consumption

of goods.

Socialism and ecology in Scandinavia

Excessive contrast between the rich and the poor has become an acute problem, both within nations and between nations. It is demonstrably true that in more equal societies, economies function better and people are happier.

In this context, it is interesting to look at the Scandinavian countries, where the contrast between rich and poor has been very much reduced.

Denmark, for example, has a market economy, but a high and steeply progressive rate of taxation has essentially eliminated poverty within the country, while also making it difficult for anyone to become extremely wealthy.

Denmark has very high taxes, but in return for these, its citizens receive many social services, such as free health care. If they qualify for university education, the tuition is free, and students are given an allowance for their living expenses. Mothers or alternatively fathers, can take paid leave of up to 52 weeks after the birth of a child. After that, a cresch is always available, so that mothers can return to their jobs. When the child become too old for the cresch, day care centers are always available. For children of school age, after-school clubs are available where children can practice arts and crafts or other activities under supervision until their parents come home from work.

Denmark has an outstanding program of renewable energy research and development. Danish wind energy design is famous throughout the world, and Danish wind turbines are exported to many countries. The Danish Technical University also has an extremely strong research program addressing the problem of intermittency. One of DTU's programs focuses on the development and use of fuel cells for energy storage.

In corporate-controlled countries like the United States, the word "socialism" is an anathema; but nations everywhere in the world might benefit from the Scandinavian model of socialism.