How to raise $120 billion per year for Healing Our Planet Earth
by
Anthony Marr
We need at least $120 billion a year in public funds to save the Earth from Mass Extinction by global warming, for starters. Without this global budget, we may as well kiss over 50% of Earth’s species good bye, perhaps including our own.
The question is: Where from?
First of all, why $120 billion a year? The fact is that far more is needed, what with the range of alternative, renewable, non-combustion technologies that need to be researched, developed and massively built, so much so as to be capable to taking over the global energy load from fossil fuels technology. But $120 billion is the amount that seems potentially available.
I speak of the following with the utmost of seriousness.
What: 120 billion is 10% of 1.2 trillion. $1.2 trillion per year is the current global military expenditure. 10% of $1.2 trillion is $120 billion.
When: ASAP.
How: Essentially, each and every country will reduce its military budget by 10%, and donate the amount to a United-Nations-administered Global Green Fund for environmental projects worldwide.
With the military of each nation declining by the same percentage, there is no relative gain or loss of power, and with 10% fewer weapons worldwide, the world will be 10% safer.
Back in the 1970s, I experimented with the idea by means of a test petition distributed internationally. Within weeks, I obtained thousands of signatures from all parts of the globe, and deemed the test a success. However, I did not proceed with the project because I deemed the world not ready for this move. The situation was not serious enough back then, and so neither were the people. Now the situation is very serious, and so seem people in general, at least more so than before.
The question is: How, specifically, do we liberate this fund for immediate use? “Immediately” means there is no time to lose. Can the internet be somehow employed to this end? Is a global petition the best way to go? What legal steps must we slog through to go from A to Z?
Here is the tough part. Of the $1.2 trillion of global military expenditure, the United States spent $623 billion, second place UK $65B, third place France $63B, Germany $52B, China $50B, Japan $43B, Russia $37B…. In other words, the United States alone spends over 50% of the global military expenditure, almost 10X that of 2nd place UK, 13X that of 5th place China, and 16X that of 7th place Russia.
| 1 | | 623,000,000,000 | 2008 | |
| — | | European Union Total | 300,745,000,000 |
|
| 2 | | 65,093,500,000 | 2007-2008 | |
| 3 | | 63,070,000,000 | 2008 | |
| 4 | | 52,400,000,000 | 2008 | |
| 5 | | 49,500,000,000 | 2007 est. | |
| 6 | | 42,700,000,000 | 2006 | |
| 7 | | 36.800,000,000 | 2008 | |
| 8 | | 32,600,000,000 | 2008 | |
| 9 | | 30,150,000,000 | 2008 | |
| 10 | | 29,531,400,000 | 2008 | |
| 11 | | 24,417,000,000 | 2008 | |
| 12 | | 24,330,000,000 | 2008 | |
| 13 | | 19,441,000,000 | 2008 | |
| 14 | | 16,900,000,000 | 2008 | |
| 15 | | 15,792,207,000 | 2007 | |
| 16 | | 15,166,000,000 | 2008 | |
| 17 | | 11,790,000,000 | 2008 (est.) | |
| 18 | | 9,650,000,000 | 2008 | |
| 19 | | 9,444,000,000 | 2007 | |
| 20 | | Republic of China (Taiwan) | 9,320,000,000 | 2007 |
| 21 | | 7,648,561,000 | 2007 (est.) | |
| 22 | | 7,053,000,000 | 2008 | |
| 23 | | 6,309,137,714 | 2007 | |
| 24 | | 6,300,000,000 | 2007 | |
| 25 | | 6,070,000,000 | 2006 | |
| 26 | | 5,725,000,000 | 2007 | |
| 27 | | 5,193,000,000 | 2007 | |
| 28 | | 5,000,000,000 | 2005 | |
| 29 | | 4,800,000,000 | 2006 | |
| 30 | | 4,300,000,000 | NA |
If this plan is to proceed, the United States will have to reduce its military budget by the largest dollar amount: 10% x $623 billion = $62 billion = the entire military budget of France = 1.3 times the entire military budget of China. The question is: The United States did not step up to the plate at Kyoto, would it step up to the plate to reduce its military budget by $62 billion and donate the amount to the Global Green Fund?
Just two days ago, during the Republican candidates debate in California, Mitt Romney was heard to talk about the need for increasing the military budget. If global military hegemony is what he wants, he might indeed doom the U.S. to eventually hold hegemony over a dead world.
By the same token, would Britain be willing to reduce its military budget by $6.5 billion, China by $5 billion and Russia by $3.9 billion, and each donate its amount to the Global Green Fund?
It is unmistakable that China as well as Russia have ambitions for super-power-dom. Given their relatively low budgets (relative to the US’s) today, there is no doubt that they intend to increase their budgets as well. If un-curtailed, the world seems doomed to another cold war. An annual reduction of the military budgets of all nations will have a retarding effect to the potential onset of WW3.
The best way for a country to look at this is that they are investing their money in a global environmental enterprise, with no loss of national security and no relative weakening of military strength.
This promises to be a gigantic wheel to turn. But once turned, it may roll on forever.
Anthony Marr, founder and president
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)
www.HOPE-CARE.org
www.myspace.com/AnthonyMarr
www.DeerOptions.com
www.ARConference.org
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