Planetary Management Institute Statement of Vision, Mission, Goals and Objectives - 2004 Joseph George Caldwel

Vision

A planet with an intact, stable biosphere, in which mankind lives in harmony with the other species of the
planet

Situation Assessment

Mankind’s large population and industrial activity are destroying the biosphere. Large human numbers
and industrial production are the direct cause of a mass species extinction (estimated at 30,000 species
per year), by pollution of the planet’s air, land and water and destruction of wildlife habitat. Earth’s old-
growth forests are rapidly disappearing and the planet’s forest coverage overall is shrinking. The
production of greenhouse gases, including industrial gases and carbon dioxide from the burning of
forests and fossil fuels, is contributing to global warming, which is further destabilizing the biosphere,
threatening large-scale biospheric change, and causing the extinction of many more species, possibly
including mankind.

The current planetary environmental crisis has been brought on by the advent of technology and access
to massive amounts of energy from fossil fuels. Mankind’s large-scale use of coal began to increase
gradually from about 1650. Industrial use of petroleum started in the late 1800s, and by 1950, the
“petroleum age” was well underway. It is estimated that about half of the planet’s oil reserves have been
consumed, and that global oil production will peak in the current decade. Barring a major catastrophe,
the planet’s oil reserves are expected to be exhausted by 2050. Coal reserves will last substantially
longer, but coal is not nearly as convenient a source of commercial energy as oil. By 2050, the petroleum
age will be over.

For millions of years, human population remained well below a billion people. The population of primitive
man is estimated to have been on the order of twenty million people (i.e., from two million to two hundred
million). Since the advent of agriculture, about 12,000 years ago, the population has been estimated to
be about 200-300 million people. As mankind began to develop technology and utilize fossil fuels,
human population began to grow. The population increased to about a billion in 1800, to two billion in
1925, three billion in 1960, four billion in 1974, five billion in 1987, and to six billion in 1999. It currently
(2004) stands at approximately 6.4 billion, and is increasing by about 75 million per year. By its out-of-
control population explosion, the human species is in the process of destroying most other species on the
planet, and threatening its own existence.

At the present time, planetary management is under the control of economic / industrial society, which is
either uninterested in or incapable of stopping the destruction of the biosphere and the accompanying
mass species extinction. Apart from overall – and complete – economic control by the wealthy, the
human political system is largely anarchic, consisting of over 200 “sovereign” countries operated mainly
by democratic political systems. Rather than trying to decrease the use of fossil fuels, which is the major factor underlying the human population explosion and the accompanying mass species extinction, all
political leaders are calling for increased industrial production, increased energy utilization, and increases
in the human material standard of living. Calls from environmentalists to halt the wholesale destruction of
the planet’s biosphere have gone unheeded. Every year, more natural habitat is destroyed, thousands
more species are made extinct, pollution of land and water increases, and greenhouse gas production
and atmospheric concentrations rise. The environmental crisis has been in full swing for half a century,
and shows no sign of abating.