Three Most Important Aims to Guide Policy at World Level

At a time of extremely serious problems at world level getting further aggravated by highly arbitrary policy decisions, it is important to re-emphasize three most important aims which should guide policy all over the world. While two of these aims have been very important all through human history, the third one has acquired increasing importance in more recent decades.

The first aim is to try to reduce the distress of human beings and other forms of life as much as possible. This appears to be so basic an objective that some people may say why it is important to state the obvious. These friends forget that all the time decisions to cause distress on a mass scale are not only being taken but even celebrated. Take the recent genocide in Gaza when intolerably high distress was caused which was even celebrated by at least a section of the perpetrators. Or else recall the even more recent massive bombing of Iran which was even followed by highly arrogant threats of erasing a civilization. Repeatedly decisions to cut several hundred thousand trees are being taken that can take away the shelter and food of tens of millions of birds and other forms of life. A lot of decisions without even once thinking of the worst possible effects on other forms of life are being taken even though these may be avoidable to a large extent if only adequate caution is exercised.

The second important aim is to reduce the distress of next generations of human beings and other forms of life to follow us on this planet. This can be done by protecting environment, by increasing social harmony, by bringing peace, by providing education based on protection and welfare of all and by leaving behind us a legacy of protective ideas and precepts. While the importance of this work should be very obvious for the future of the planet, unfortunately all this has not received the due attention. Instead many people think of this objective in terms of saving money and buying property for their children. While to some extent this concern can be understood, this cannot lead to a safe and harmonious future in the absence of other wider efforts for bigger objectives. Similarly, at the level of nations as the concern often is only about narrow gains, this cannot create a safe and harmonious future by itself. What is more, over-emphasis on narrow and selfish objectives can at times result in leaving behind a legacy that is not protective but instead results in the next generation also remaining too involved in the kind of narrow thinking that cannot create a better and safer world. A safer and better future for the next generations should be increasingly seen in terms of wider protective policies at the level of social and environmental concerns.

Last but certainly not the least (in fact perhaps the most important), the urgency of protecting the basic life-nurturing conditions of our planet is now becoming the most important reality of our times as well as the generations to follow. An existential crisisExistential CrisisA threat so severe that it endangers the continued survival of the human species or of all life on Earth, rather than affecting only a region or community. caused by a number of inter-related serious environmental problems (led by but certainly not confined to climate change) on the one hand and accumulation of weapons of mass destructionWeapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons capable of killing large numbers of people and causing massive environmental damage in a single deployment. on the other hand (plus perhaps a few other factors) have emerged as the most urgent issues which must be resolved before the basic life-nurturing conditionsLife-Nurturing ConditionsThe planetary systems that sustain life: a stable climate, breathable atmosphere, clean water cycles, fertile soil, and biodiversity. Their disruption threatens all living species. are harmed very seriously and perhaps forever and before certain tipping pointsTipping PointsThresholds in Earth’s climate or ecological systems beyond which changes become self-reinforcing and irreversible, such as the collapse of ice sheets or large-scale forest dieback. are crossed. Smaller level survival crisis situations may have existed earlier in certain historical situations when sections of humanity first selected well forested and well-watered habitats and then over-exploited them beyond their carrying capacityCarrying CapacityThe maximum population size that an environment can sustain indefinitely given the available food, water, habitat, and other resources.. In such local crisis situations, the communities which caused the problems also suffered the consequences, although even then the poor suffered more. However, it is only in recent decades, starting around 1945, that a global existential crisis started taking shape in which the entire world was threatened, and to the extent that some of the crisis remained more confined to certain areas, the likelihood emerged that those who were more responsible for causing the crisis are different from those who are suffering the most and are likely to suffer the most in future. All this creates great urgency for protective policies to be framed at world level in such ways that the resolution of the existential crisis in justice-based ways can get very high priority.

Perhaps the most important challenge before humanity in terms of its most important three aims should be understood very widely, by people and even more urgently by the leadership, so that policy at world level can give the highest importance to achieving these three most important aims.