that is being observed in a world wide scale now and you're now chairman of the earth society foundation and i have had a long term concern with the fate of the earth as it were in a large ecologically responsible sense if you could share a little of your own personal background you've been involved in these kinds of questions for for a good part of your your career and your development but we share a little your own personal background in my well years ago i was in partnership with a chemist we had a research laboratory in california george pepperdine was a rd partner and then before that my father was an evangelist and i had a religious background where i was concerned about how we could see the ethical and moral change to the care of our planet the time of galileo and suddenly there was a great and crease of consciousness of where we are who we are and our universe and i think we're going through a similar transition now i wish it would happen faster might some people said there might be that we're gestating i was just chatting with you off camera whenever this adventure started there's some evidence now that it might have been from whatever evidence there's different ways of seeing of maybe a couple one hundred thousand years ago the human species may of st appeared various people have a you know readings on that from religious scripture and from scientific evidence and so forth but one thing we're also chatting is that we've reached a point now with the extension of our technology with extension of our incredible capability we reached a point worth so much of that has been destructive that it with atomic hydrogen bacteriological chemical warfare capabilities apparently and i'm not sure if this is scientifically validated of all or is out in the literature we've apparently reached the point now after however long the human scenario has been the point where we truly do have within the promethean capability within our own hands to literally destroy the habitat that could support the species so that we reached a point that we have never had throughout the human history and i wonder in your investigations do you think we have in fact reached that point where we have the power literally of our own species wide destruction in our hands for the st time in the evolution of human affairs i don't think there's any question that i believe a poll among leading scientists around the world would support it perhaps there has been some something of this kind but at the same time we have two sides to the situation while we are our ability to destroy has increased geometrically on the other hand our capability for renewing the planet has tremendously increased i just was talking with mrs a most of the other day just turn completely around from earth's kill to earth care on the and start functioning as trustees and caretakers a fabulous plan if yet we would be turning around from of course you can see now in terms of  geopolitical realities where we are now and given the historical institutions given the historical political leadership as it manifests among the great and lesser powers still a great power of their own rights of course we are now on a course of earth's kill at the present moment as you and i sit and talk and we've not made that kind of a breakthrough understanding that could in a certain sense lead to this new way of operating the spaceship earth that buckminster fuller's resort when you've made the breakthrough here and there there a little and in new sources of energy i would say that not only in this country but in certain places all over the world there are individuals and small groups who are demonstrating the kind of way that the instead about all of the terrible things all the problems in fact i published a newspaper i feel that unless media can find some way to equal the the about the care of her about the efforts for peace why we have no future our real problem is communication really is the the power of communications is becoming the power of destruction is growing as we said the power of communication in fact technology in general is growing also so that we have a capability of perhaps providing living rhea's dr buckminster fuller would have said for the planet in a way that is perhaps historically unprecedented you think we have  our hands the possibility of creating an earth political economic system that could be predicated on something other than the general assumption of scarcity within which all of our human institutions have evolved it is perhaps that concept one that is an important one in order to begin to move towards a geo political structure that could make for the kind of peaceful almost millennial obverse side of the structures that are large then so i just wonder yes well i remember  awareness deep felt awareness of our planet and our responsibility to be trustees and caretakers of it and then who are thinking about how they can demonstrate the alternatives and providing food and homes and inner g e we can have is that individual will make a commitment we're going to do what they can but it doesn't seem that's not going to make any difference if i just change my pattern of living and i start to when i go into the marketplace i try to avoid the things that i know are going to cause pollution or waste and when i invest in the marketplace or in the stock market i'm going to choose the things that will help the planet i will start making those kind of decisions now if you decide right now person in the next week or month to go along with you and you start talking and planning together how you can be trust to use the planet earth and then that person it's two more and then that person gets two more you start doubling it exponentially you only have to double it thirty two dollars times to have everybody on yes right you would have if you could get that and get a common agreement right what would you say to people who would argue that in a certain i suppose you've been accused over your long and illustrious career of having a little bit of an idealistic street view and not being practically minded to all of the so called political realities that make all of this impossible and so forth but i mean what would you what would you say to the people who would say that we're trying to create a world that runs counter to human nature for instance there was a human nature is inherently selfish protect ourselves from our own nature as it were i think there are many leaders in philosophy and in science who would contend that our problem is not the nature of humanity our problem is on a rare  get calls from australia from england other places asking about how they can get on this like now the strange part about it is maybe you can and this was right we're here we have people  few people here there who are so excited about the idea of being trustees of planet earth a flying the earth like having her scan project and not labeling this republican or democrat or communist or our capitalist but writing about that transcending that we're going to be trustees of planet earth and we can pursue that burrow in different ways and sprints the things that we have in common worldwide the be aware of our of the difficulties of our differences i don't mean to to ignore that but i do believe that if speaking about the earth strike that certainly something we have in common right there is a something we haven't common and one of these world and so on so many of the inherited institutions that in a certain sense bodes ill if they continue to play out their patterns are you becoming more if i may ask more or less optimistic as it were concerning the human condition through your own lifetime as it were i mean just than the rest of what i'm saying and i do for a hard fought i know you battle but i feel a contradiction here on the one hand if i look at all the terrible things that are happening and the way the human race is going you threw up their hands and say it's a hopeless case i'll go on the other hand if you look creatively for signs of change and for demonstrations your solutions and answers you get excited  think well maybe maybe we can save the planet for our children and for future generations and once we get them once we have the spark of that hope then i think we should do individually do everything we can to support efforts that again would diminish the pollution waste and destruction of earth and along with it that the things that deprive individuals of their inheritance on our planet i'm going to speak about that just for a  one earth day we had at the united nations children chanting the words from the salt of the earth has he given to the children of men and back to that is the concept that the earth the natural order i don't mean the things that people have produced if you produce something from your hard labor why i'm not saying that it belongs to the poor people on the other hand they as far as the so while the land the oil and the match rule treasures of the earth there's some sense of you know if instead of being so concerned about the boundaries of country home we were concerned about the about providing boundaries for every individual to have a little stake in our yeah that's right probably most people if you were to ask them whether they would be concerned those political questions or the economic questions they would probably and most people would probably be concerned about the economic securities and that's one thing that they're you're concerned with a political social systems keep people in secure in order to keep them under control don't you think so but there might be people who are in positions of authority or control for our inherited institutions who would just assume people not be prima facia way secure in the world because they're easier to control and manipulate  remember i had friends who attended the peace conference that used peace conference europe this was years and years ago and i'll never forget that here it was such a great idea of the youth of the world to work for record and our progress in understanding in recent decades i believe that we could be aware of these dangers and avoid them but i think that again there is more than ever before in my lifetime a real concern about changing our attitudes and making compromises that are needed to provide a viable future well if we if we take that as we whenever we're out of court where we could literally destroy ourselves or perhaps open upon almost in a burst like millennial kind of sense open upon a new way of being that would be almost transcendent that which we have been throughout the human experience almost the time o sending history or leaving the womb of the human experience something on that order which makes this an incredibly challenging time and few in the voices are trying to keep a large term view of our role in terms of the larger evolution of events in the universe  be a more mature a greater maturity among our leaders and pups opinion in order for us to have a future part of that is to think ahead more  when people go on the stock market they want to make killing tomorrow that's right if we passed a law that you could not realize any profits from your investment for not until you waited five years why would there be a little patient capital there would be much political system we tend to only think about the next two years or at the most three or four so that's part of the problem but i again believe that the greatest good c might in a certain sense i'm not being cavalier might be in a certain sense easy to do of one themselves accountable many people who are not comfortable themselves have a hard time getting a sense of trusteeship when they're doing all they can just to keep themselves and perhaps their media family  where people once they are fired with a vision of whatever the circumstances they make a commitment and they follow through on it i know in our own the lutheran church in glendale there's a surprising number of people who give but i think it gets into earth care projects are so some people don't want to give tammy bakker and other kinds of misuses of religious institutions are part of the real institutional structure we've inherited political institutions we've inherited we've  d great number of institutions from from the historical context to get back to that idea that throughout all of the human experience there has been as a basic premise among the leaders of the world whether religious philosophical or and what a basic premise of insufficiency or scarcity was the reality in which one had to make decisions and we said earlier that the adverse side perhaps of the destruction is a realization of sufficiency perhaps initially and then perhaps even on into a bunch of surplus and abundance as a reality within which human institutions could be formulated and it would seem as though that would be an almost necessary projection of future if there is to be a future for us that we're going to make that transition that there is enough for all and to build institutions predicated on that assumption that people who are in the leadership position of most of our institutions are presiding over institutions are predicated on the assumption that there is not enough among the nations of the dishonesty and secrecy and inhumanity in our methods of handling property and also in credit and money it's very very tilted towards just those at the top will be an absolute i think of american experience for instance i think just about all with the exception of some pension plans it's virtually the technology which is perhaps responsible for eighty percent of our production and trending that way with robotics and so it is virtually all on an individual basis by about five percent of the population raw materials or oil or gold or whatever then whatever you have in excess of that you're using your neighbor's property how do we arrive at the fifty thousand that's an arbitrary figure but i did a little bit of study it's the claim to it is the claim of all humanity they should be getting some payment for their for the use of their assets now that two percent were to go into a fun that would begin with pockets of poverty and provide harms for the homeless and provide a homestead state for those who had for the disinherited poor that could create a wave of excitement around the world that they could see very soon there would be no more homeless people that couldn't go that's who objected and political process and tax the rich and distributed to the needy through a government traditional governmental process of distributing the well well i believe that concept of planetary inheritance needs to be understood and to be part of such a program and that not only that but the i recall as a young man i was very much taken with a man who was a derelict and all of  sudden he surprisingly inherited a house from a distant relative and it changed him completely he was the homeowner when you find a different way of thinking among people who have a clear title to home oh yes right now i'm so i would i think what i've just outlined would be the most feasible way to eliminate homelessness worldwide and would would avoid th problem of political manipulations of get involved in welfare yeah everyone if you think the general proposition that everyone ought to own their own needs is one that makes some good sense that people should survive on their own needs that would be a a general premise while of all that they don't have to earlier they don't have to have given to them by the state they are in their own even have that a degree of sovereignty over their own existence is a general proposition that could be perhaps agreed to by the peoples of the world you're looking for areas of common agreement among the peoples of the world i just wonder that world i think along with that of course you will have those who are concerned about destroying the incentives of people come to an individual that he's a property owner he has a stake in our planet that's not to be taken away by some arbitrary decision of some ride or government agency that's right and the same time that he has a responsibility  en the we have to combine with the news to have a little bottom and said earth my inheritance my responsibility so we've got to combine those two elements in a healthy program for the future but i think that if if we educated people from infancy on up that they were trustees of a beautiful planet and it was every individual had a role in taking care of this planet he had an we said earlier that we're going to be able to move into a condition of of surplus if we were to have it as organization and we were thinking now where these needs were met and it was where there was earth care would this have to be done in a manner where people would have to under certain sense or there the individuals who have a sense of trusteeship for the earth would lower the vision of their material well being that they would have to cut back on their own wellbeing might i believe in the plan of diversity it might be well for us to push the scroll in different ways in different places i know in spain there is an effort there very successful enterprise program and part of it is that the banks that any business fail and they won't let any any person in a particular corporation earn more than five times as much as the minimum wage home course and now i don't say that that's necessarily the right answer there's been other studies made that if we let the millionaires and billionaires even keep their present well yes but as far as the future is concerned a more fair viable program  we can still provide a great future for all the people on our planet even if we believe these millionaires with their millions you could bring the have nots up without necessarily bringing the haves down that's right that there would be a pattern that would be possible very possible to have a pattern where the have nots could be brought up without bringing the have nots down if the broader reality were one where there's a general understanding of sufficiency that's great if there's scarcity in order for one group to benefit another better group has to necessarily lose experiencing now through technological augmentation is perhaps transcending the need to see scarcity as a reality in which we base our concepts of human nature and also our human institutions that would be an absolutely major transition  of size we see more people without homes more be without food without a world scale all of the problems still plaguing mankind we see warfare we see all of the engine scourges still being afflicted as it were in the political contest between various nations and groups responsibility for that and for some to benefit others others would have to necessarily be the last i said earlier would it be necessary for there to be a sense of commonality there would not be necessary in your estimation then for there to be a lessening of the standard of living if you say the rich could keep what they have and have nots could be raised to the point where they could also then become rich or is it inherently wrong for us to think about being quote unquote rich having jeff having the ability to move with one's will work or one wants and not be constrained there's a popular ad campaign world that knows no limits now merrill lynch i think features that is their concept to understand is their concept of freedom of their material science there isn't perhaps in a moralistic sense maybe people would argue there isn't principally you know that there are limits to freedom that can be realized within a morally well has been these social inequities we've done like somebody putting a band aid on a cancer we haven't gone to the root of the problem there must be changes in structures and systems financially politically economically and of that these new new new systems are not what we found in common isn't or socialism or enterprise i think they must go back to something that is more fundamental and that is stewardship and care of our planet recognizing that as we provide fair ways fact that's a wonderful wonderful word in the book that i've read the  yeah right we have a few you know one of the problems would be that if if you're talking about this transition to a system of earth air earth care or large scale sense of ecology or large sense the people who are most in a position of responsibility for the institutions on a day to day basis with the be the people least likely to be able to see that kind of larger scale vision in a certain sense because they're so involved within the constraints and the possibilities that the institutions that we've inherited the white house the congress the the various institutions that we've inherited have limitations built into them and predicated upon the the assumptions in which they were still in the record comes out about the world the vision going to come from and it would almost be very difficult for to come from the people in positions of leadership no i think the answer again to that as we normally define leadership i remember a leading environmentalist having an opportunity someone mentions name to speak to a group of a group of industrial leaders i  industrial leader and he did a lot for the environment if we get some of these leaders to see that the way to achieve creative change is to look carefully honestly for what you can approve overarching goal shared by this strange phenomena curse you find that you communicate better you find better ways to adjust your differences and you're more willing to have honest been the basis for a successful diplomacy and that sort of thing have we were united but i wonder also if it might not be that there could be if you have a can do it back again i don't want to harp on it in the back of the condition of an opening upon a non destructive millennial capability that could be  the the legacy of our time to the future generations and so forth in a certain sense if you're opening on that if you're in a context of sufficiency it really is possible to see a situation in which you can present alternatives to people responsible historical institutions of feeling way where they could go along with the change themselves without seeing it in a political dialectic which is in a certain sense going to destroy all of these things  fact i wrote a little paper just recently about secrecy right now from you mentioned jim baker too hard to know all the rest of we find over and over again that the there's so much and wall street and politics place for privacy and certainly there are secrets of the heart that need to be respected but in general i think you'd be a great thing if we sought not just open skies as eisenhower proposed but an open world where all over the world we would just take it for credit for granted that it was seen to further certain military or political or financial secrets but money is made with secrets i mean right secrets is the essence of scarcity in a certain sense and well who bungled future in fact i remember some counterculture groups out in san francisco back at the time of the st earth day and i was so delighted they were doing something that most businessmen would never think of doing they were printing leaflets telling their customers how much money they made on each product and how much they were paid and how much profit went to the owners all because they were trying to show the reasonableness of it all with the right yeah right there that was openness move toward that kind of action that might be the midwest to utopia but anyway i think somewhere down the line we'll have to come to it well it's possible to see that we could see our world a very quickly a particular of the better for the birth of the metaphor of gestating throughout this human experience up to the point where we're now to leave the warm of the human experience that we've had over two hundred thousand years or however long it is we're moving into some new way of being likely to be some very very real changes that could emerge that would be not many are now running able to realize their full potential there might be a resonance either the inner commentators to universal or level transcended to what we've been throughout the human experience we're moving into some new way of being relating to the universe we've not been in or out this human experience that there be tremendous changes from attitudes that are held to be sacrosanct now it might be that anyone who would profiteer at their neighbors benefit or look at scanted the needs of with the united nations as a major institution tries to be an overarching political view to the world affairs of work but i wonder if you have faith in the united nations generally and i wonder if you could comment on the united nations or is well the united nations is a reflection of our global virtues and falls i know i think the most wonderful responsible leaders in actions are taking place in the united nations and i'm very close to a lot that's happening there and it's terrible some of the things that are occurring so again  rd world war and he says we haven't had it and the reason we haven't had it is because united nations and i think that's true we have an increase of the complexity of problems but certainly  there i think there's a great need for supporting and encouraging the united nations and the same time i believe in the value of the balance of powers which was part of our own country's wrong in the united nations they can still support the idea of earth day like the things about our state you know and somewhere in the future i hope that earth be able to be sufficiently supported that the united nations can add their support around way that will really make it go well you know that's a historical inheritance to show that we have in a certain sense we have longer ones were rooted two hundred years and i guess i think it goes by the united states i mean in a sense goes back to the  in a certain sense outside of the established institutions where maybe some of these ideas could be discussed and where there's not the ongoing responsibility of people who are in charge of institutions on a day to day basis but were some of these ideas europe right and we used to have very interesting conversations he was telling me said john you know what your idealism is great but if you want to stay in business you've got to give the people what they want and then i heard that  i don't know how it happened but here this a few months ago you carried a story on the front page with stayed there for weeks and world things it was a story about a family whose parents the parents of five children had been killed in an automobile accident and the oldest boy had quit school to take care of the kids and they were living in a shack and the neighbors jumped on the bill to my home and they helped him and straighten out their fares the lion's club came in on the system and i said of all things you kept  i don't know why the media is so blind to the possibility of dramatizing the curators the answers the solution you know you can you can show up a building being blown up but if somebody use time people here in new york and so forth d an ongoing program that is going to bring the members of the congress and the lower house of the soviet system together are interconnected patterns that are going to discuss affairs by television and will be carried here in united states you television in the american experience increasingly it's a matter of television coverage of these events some of these events could be discussed more and more in the media pressure that all of the weight of the i did a responsibility of people at the white house  interface between two events it seems to be a major rather than just moving along tranquilly as having some of their again i'd like to see headlines on the front page and excited about any new cure any new action for the care and physicians there's enough to move in this direction and once they move in that direction well that would multiply those stories tremendously no but now we need to be informed about the problems we need to be informed about the violence and all the other things i think that every time there's a terrible murder we should have a psychiatrist tell the story on the don't understand myself why exciting important creeds alternatives that could provide a better future so easily by that yeah it does seem to have been there maybe it's just a phase as a slice and you wrote recently that things going phases politically and maybe these things going phase you also had a buckminster fuller who was very very helpful and worked a great deal particularly his later years with you on this and his world game and his ideas the world game and some of the broader systems understandings that came out of that might be well grist for the middle of the world consciousness see he was very concerned with that transition from scarcity to a possibility of sufficiency or surplus and it's can't get over the number of times i go into a class to a group about exponential phenomena i get excited that the idea that if we can find something sufficiently simple and contagious how quickly it can spread exciting time now the most exciting ever to get back to that general thesis that this is a time of major decision and change in terms of the broader generational period right now this is a time of major change i can't think of a voice  concern for the self and so forth maybe it's just a phase in the broader context of the evolution of things and that idealism will come back again do you think maybe maybe an idealistic swing will be coming back  ideas across people who want to be trustees the planet earth in their own way with a new care project in their neighborhood or helping to save the whales or whatever it is they will make some little statement that i have want to be a trustee of planet earth and work for peace in the