[intro music]
Welcome to World Ocean Radio…
I’m Peter Neill, Director of the World Ocean Observatory
Follow the money, they say. The truth is found where, and how, the capital goes. Our modern world has run based on a collective paradigm: unlimited growth driven by consumption measured by gross national and international product and enabled by fossil fuels. Regardless of the form of government, the quality and inequality of life, the system relies on the strategic placement and withdrawal of capital in a universe of cheap energy, international labor, global trade, inequitable outcomes, predictable or unforeseen, be damned. And damned, some say, we may be.
Capitalism, socialism, autocracy, democracy: all are founded on a definition of value, measured in BTUs or Petro-dollars, diamonds or gold, negotiable instruments or crypto-currencies, a complicated system of value definition and monetary exchange that drives the forces of development, technology, financial policy, governance, and community. It is a system of overt power and covert consequence, studied by bankers and economists, investors, and legislators who thrive, or not, in the dangerous financial swim. It is a dynamic system, interconnected, unpredictable, susceptible to waves of despair and wonder; it is rich and poor, it gives and takes, it is very much like the ocean, and, as such, it is also corruptible and vulnerable to compromise, abuse, poison, and corruption. On it, so much of our future depends.
There is ample evidence to declare that the old paradigm is dead. But what is to come? What must come if we, in our wisdom, are to save ourselves from ourselves?
The sea connects all things. The ocean/freshwater/atmospheric cycle is at the core of every problem and every solution – be it fresh water, food, energy, health, community, equity, justice, and peace. The ocean ecosystem is the world’s only natural asset, from which everything is derived, and from which everything can be sustained – but only if we transform our values, structures, and behaviors around a new paradigm: managed growth driven by sustainability measured by calculation of eco system service and enabled by water, the essential resource without which we cannot survive. We have exhausted so much of the planet’s value, and risk exhausting society and ourselves, unless, in an expression of global determination, we divest from the disproven conventions and invest a new system of ocean finance. Over the next few World Ocean Radio edition on RESCUE, as a plan for the future, we will offer examples of change in how we calculate value and apply capital that will transform the world we live in.
We will address four strategic changes, none of which is easy, each of which has its logic that affirms the new paradigm: 1) the definition of ecosystem services. 2) the necessary shifts in accounting standards and practices to document the true cost of goods and services. 3) the application of new value assessments to balance sheets, risk analyses, planning studies, permit applications, financing proposals, regulatory systems, and the assignment of incentives and subsidies, and 4) the public acceptance of the systemic change as an indicator of political and social viability by which accountability can be measured in individual and community growth, sustainability reward, targeted technology, return on investment, and relief of some of the most destructive causes of present-day inequity, injustice, and quality of life.
These exemplary behaviors, as radical or difficult as they may seem, are the axis around which we can create a new system for the valuation and preservation of natural assets, compatible with sustainable supply, restorative of our distressed circumstance, and inducive to societal repair and advancement. If we can adopt and adapt to these changes, we can move with confidence as a unified society, no longer damned, but hell bent on RESCUE: R for renewal; E for environment; S for society; C for collaboration; U for understanding; and E for engagement.
We will discuss these issues, and more, in future editions of World Ocean Radio.
[outro music]
