Not Martin Luther's 95 theses, but ...

Theses (95) about climate, humans, growth and the true state of the world
by Morten Lintrup
Out of love for and desire to contribute to protect and preserve planet Earth as home and habitat for the present and future generations of humans, and to counter political correctness that ignores the population aspect of climate change and creates a dangerous modern type of sale of indulgences, the following set of theses have been compiled and is presented here for common appraisal and discussion towards the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December 2009.
- Dedicated to Björn -
1. Man is part of nature, but can make no claim on nature.
2. Man is neither above, nor below nature.
3. Man has rights and duties in relation to other people. His rights are counterbalanced by his duties.
4. Out of consideration for other people, Man is obliged to respect and protect nature as the common basis for the unfolding of life.
5. All men are born with no right to Justice and each must take on his destiny.
6. Justice is not absolute, only relative, and it cannot be achieved by force but only - and not always - be reached through labour and dialogue.
7. Where justice is not possible, force may be necessary. Where the requisite power is lacking, graceful resignation is essential.
8. Responsibility and influence goes hand in hand. Without influence, there can be no responsibility.
9. Every human, every family and every human society retains the right to and possibility of perdition on Earth. (Gaza may be seen as a typical example at societal level.)
10. Christians must recognise that the imperative to multiply and fill the Earth has been realised, upon which a favourable view of contraception should prevail.
11. Muslims must recognise that Islam is neither above, nor below, other denominations and respect freedom of headscarf and gender equality.
12. Atheists must recognise that believing in infinite growth is the logical equivalent of believing in a flat Earth, unbounded in all directions.
13. Freedom of speech is absolute.
14. Freedom of association is only limited by not being allowed to actively subvert [secular and preferentially] democratic societies' monopoly on the use of force.
15. Freedom of assembly is only limited by not being allowed to infringe upon [secular and preferentially] democratic societies' monopoly on the use of force.
16. Freedom of religion is only limited by not being allowed to restrict the rights of others to enjoy similar freedom of religion, or challenge their life, reputation and access to the gifts of nature.
17. Use of force is a prerogative of secular and preferentially democratic societies. In particular, religion can not substantiate use of force and violence.
18. The future is no less important than he present.
19. Life quality is no less important than life quantity. Proper unfolding of life is equally as important as mere survival. (E.g. vegetarians have made a personal choice, only, which can not be attributed normative value in any political or moral sense.)
20. Society has a duty to protect and support its weak members according to its ability. The individual may claim the protection but not the support of society.
21. Stronger societies have a duty to support weaker societies. Weaker societies have no claim on the support of stronger societies.
22. Minorities in society are obliged to partake in the creation of value on an equal footing with the majority. With a way of life that precludes this, the former must accept a commensurate material standard of living. (The Amish people in the US is a positive example of reduced creation of value and acceptance of a similarly frugal standard of living.)
23. Socialism is the "red" ideology about the collective as the basis of society. In a socialist society, in practice it is essential to be able to do most things yourself.
24. Liberalism is the "blue" ideology about the individual as the basis of society. In a liberalist society, in practice it is essential to be a good teamworker.
25. Humanism is the "green" ideology about nature as the basis of society. There have been no truly "green" societies, but to be accepted in "green" communities it is essential to recognise the indefinite importance and infinite value of every single human being.
26. Pragmatism is the ideology of politics. In practical politics, open-mindedness, integrity, knowledge, and humour are important qualities.
27. Insight in the lives of others requires real ability to understand other cultures on their respective premises. Empathy too often is just a projection of ones own feelings onto the cultural basis of others.
28. Global consensus is an impossibility. To believe, hope, or wait for it is to be chasing a mirage.
29. Access to the goods of nature is primarily a matter of politics and not of ethics. Equal access to the goods of nature for all humans would not constitute Justice.
30. Man is a social creature that depends on living in a - or typically several - communities. Only for a limited period of time can he, or she, live in isolation.
31. Merit and guilt is therefore not always collective and not always plain individual. Both types exist, however, together with [much more common] mixed types.
32. A typical example of collective guilt and collective expiation constitutes Germany during, respectively after WWII.
33. A typical example of collective guilt and individual expiation constitutes the newborn, who at birth enters into a number of predefined communities already associated with merit and guilt contingent upon their history.
34. A typical example of individual guilt and collective expiation constitutes terrorism, where innocents are targeted indiscriminately, and every member of society experience and contribute to the necessary preventive measures.
35. Democracy is, by experience, a flawed system of government, - yet, it is less flawed than all other systems of government.
36. Theoretical (untested) systems of government, and systems of government, which in spite of numerous attempts have never worked out reasonably well, deserve the utmost scepticism; - and it is for the media to meet their idealistic spokespersons with such scepticism.
37. The so-called Human Rights is the free worlds belated response and post factum precaution against the German version of fascism, national socialism (Nazism).
38. Champions of Human Rights in modern times are often magnanimous at the expense of others.
39. The great challenges in present time are (in random order): Climate change, overpopulation, over-consumption, and dhimmiphobia.
40. Common to these challenges is, that they emphasise human obligations over human rights. "More society and less individual" is thus required in the time to come.
41. If democracy is to have a future, and not just a past and a present, democracy must learn to deal with these challenges, none of which democracy has significant experience in handling.
42. …furthermore, democracy must accept that dealing with these challenges will be a learning process, where mistakes will be made, and somebody will feel violated - usually unwarranted, occasionally justified - but always loud.
43. …moreover a sustained effort is needed to identify and expose such prevailing moral and ethical concepts that are no longer accurate in view of present and future conditions for human life.
44. Western civilisation is neither significantly more guilty, nor significantly more meritable than other civilisations: It was behind both killing of Jews and abolition of slavery, and it stands for both an disproportionate share of historic CO2-emissions and a halt to indigenous population growth.
45. The limit to growth is reached with human induced climate change.
46. The obvious signs of induced climate change, evident to both lay and learned, are primarily world-wide melting and retreat of glaciers, and gradual disappearance of North Pole ice cover.
47. It rests on the responsible societies of the world - democratic as well as non-democratic - to implement the necessary steps to secure a stable climate and to safeguard this solution against the irresponsible societies of the world.
48. Adjustment to inevitable and, to a lesser extent, natural climate change is also necessary.
49. Correlation between solar activity and climate constitute an interesting anomaly, but an insignificant causal explanation of currently observable climate change.
50. Safeguarding world climate is by its very nature a challenge to society to a higher degree than it is a challenge to the individual. A market oriented approach is, however, necessary to engage the individual in the solution.
51. To base ones opinions, decisions and actions on dimensionless growth rates is misleading and dangerous when situated in the vicinity of ecological discontinuities, non-linearities and threshold effects.
52. The concept of 'peak oil' is a physical reality that must be anticipated and responded to. Whether this event has already taken place, or it only happens in 5-10 years, is not crucial.
53. In a post-fossil, but energy-intensive, society, facilities to collect solar power [whether as radiation, wind, or waves] must be attributed positive aesthetic value.
54. Atomic energy cannot, in the long run, provide a clean supply of energy to protect climate. The pivotal problem is that locating and safeguarding atomic power plants is really a supra-national issue, which it appears unrealistic to control properly.
55. Technological fixes should be treated with great circumspection and only be implemented with reluctance and caution.
56. Inasmuch as IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has been entrusted with evaluation of both climate research results and strategies to respond to climate change, it is disappointing that IPCC has neglected to look at correlation between climate and population.
57. The best tool for the evaluation of effects of population growth on emissions is the I=PAT equation. [Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology]
58. Education must be distributed evenly to both sexes, contraception must be made available to all, and child labour must be abolished.
59. In their choice of family size, humans must consider the well-being of their community, and society must by the necessary means, including significant economic incentives and disincentives, secure the interests of society and their fellow citizens.
60. "Fertile is not fellow" when it comes to citizens conscious choice of irresponsibly large family size, which - just as excessive consumption - is an expression of selfishness.
61. The achievement of China in the area of population is, like any pioneering effort, in some respects stained but also visionary and creditable.
62. Demographic transition is an equivocal concept. Different patterns of behaviour in different societies and cultures has caused significant disparity in the expressions of demographic transition.
63. There is one key uncertainty from the standpoint of the future size and age structure of the total human population: the speed of fertility decline in lesser developed countries and, in the longer term, the ultimate fertility level reached.
64. Failed states in political decay have always seen a prior development with rapid population growth.
65. Failed states should be treated in a manner reminiscent of the treatment of failed companies. Brutality apparent may be an expression of enlightenment proper.
66. Failed states with rapidly growing populations cannot be brought to their feet without a policy stabilizing the population. (E.g. Afghanistan, Haiti)
67. Democracy is the result of social order, not the opposite. Thus, democracy should not be an immediate and primary target of society building in failed states.
68. Even though overpopulation is never the immediately apparent and triggering cause of emergencies in more or less failing states, factors like poverty, soil exhaustion, infrastructure overload, flawed institutions and generally bad governance are all features prevalent in weak states burdened by overpopulation.
69. Societies with a surplus of young men are hotbeds of social unrest and expansive migration. It is, however, not a human right to be born in a country not overpopulated already, or to be allowed to travel somewhere else for a better life.
70. Unquestionably, it may be hard on most to have to live in an overpopulated country and partake in society building there. Unquestionably, it was also hard on most people, who partook in early industrialization and society building in today's developed societies. (Cf. the Belgian movie 'Daëns'.)
71. Slowly decreasing populations in densely populated regions are at the same time a challenge and a blessing. Only few countries - e.g. Italy, Spain and Russia - can expect decline to be so rapid as to present a genuine problem.
72. Surplus population in lesser developed countries is [at least] a magnitude greater than the "population deficit" in the developed world, and the former lack necessary prerequisites and qualifications to constitute a possibility for substitution of the latter.
73. By a realisation that migration very often is caused by overpopulation, large parts of the asylum sector - from people smugglers to legal administrators - may be transferred to constructive activities with society building in lesser developed countries.
74. Thermodynamics and anthropology both imply that space is not a path for development of human society at large; it is only a flight of fancy for a few playful thinkers, technicians and tycoons.
75. Sustained growth is not possible in a closed system.
76. In a world exploiting its full resource potential, more of one factor (population) means less of another (manufactured goods).
77. Beyond growth, primarily the developed societies and secondarily the aspiring societies must explore and comply with economics of sustainable development.
78. GNP is to a higher degree a measure of resource flow than of prosperity or happiness.
79. The nation and not the Earth must be the basic unit within which to curb population and consumption in practice.
80. Free movements of people across national borders erode any national attempt at self discipline and control of consumption and population.
81. Consumption of natural capital is not income and must not be treated as such.
82. Taxation should be transferred from labour and other income to resource flow and consumption of natural capital.
83. The productivity of natural capital should be maximized in the short term; - in the long term society should invest in enhancement and substitution of it.
84. The ideology of global economic integration through free trade and free movements of capital, labour and export financed growth is a dead end.
85. Dhimmiphobia [so-called Islamism] is by experience a severely flawed and totally unacceptable system of government, - closely related to apartheid.
86. The free media sponsor a resolute but futile effort to distinguish between Islam and Islamism. Journalists and politicians are able to make such a hair-splitting distinction, but for the ordinary citizen it is impossible.
87. This is equally bad for the decent Muslim, who is sometimes confused with the dhimmiphobes, and for the ordinary citizen, who cannot criticize rabid, political Islam without being shooed and branded as racist in case of a simple error of speech.
88. It is an important task for the free media to develop a suitable and clear way to distinguish Islam and "Islamism", here denominated as dhimmiphobia.
89. Decent Muslims may rightly request that so-called political Islam, today denoted Islamism, be given another designation, clearly distinguishable from their religion, Islam.
90. So-called Islamism is closely related to known concepts such as ecclesiocracy, hierocracy, theocracy, racism, apartheid and xenophobia. Central in Islamism, however, stands the love of the umma and a corresponding hatred and disdain for the dhimmi.
91. As so-called Islamists, compared to adherents of other ideologies, are more prone to fight than to work to further their conviction, they first and foremost gather around negative feelings towards dhimmi. They are thus motivated by dhimmiphobia. Political Islam therefore ought to be denoted dhimmiphobia, and the so-called Islamists as dhimmiphobes.
92. Decent Muslims are obliged to clearly distance themselves from dhimmiphobia, even in the presence of some immediate risk to their life. There is no room for taking cover and betting both ways. Within other denominations courageous pioneers have had to act similarly, or the present free and attractive societies would never have been.
93. Free societies must not tolerate active or overt dhimmiphobia and should be suspicious of and work against passive and hidden dhimmiphobia.
94. Dhimmiphobes cannot be downplayed as a tiny fraction of Muslims. In several places, e.g. Saudi-Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, and Gaza, dhimmiphobes have achieved political superiority, and dhimmiphobia may be supported by narrow-minded reading of the Quran.
95. Should climate control efforts fail, the sinking of Titanic could be seen as a harbinger of hope due to the reasonably successful rescue operation saving a fair share of passengers in an "impossible" situation brought about by arrogance of civilization, ineptitude and lack of imagination.
Credits for solid inspiration to:
H E Daly (Beyond Growth, 978-0807047095) for 76 og 78-84,
G Heinsohn (Söhne und Weltmacht, 3-280-06008-7) for 69 og 72,B C O'Neill, et al. (Population and Climate, 978-0-521-01802-9) for 51, 56, 57, 62 og 63.