31st May 2023, Brasilia/Brazil  -  Wishes 25 / 26 / 27

In the name of Peace and Justice.

I have three wishes today, which I present to you in the name of Peace and Justice - in the hope they may be fulfilled. 

These wishes are all about nature.

We all know: without nature, humanity cannot survive. That's all too obvious. The fact of course is that even humans are part of nature - but this simple fact gets somehow lost in many discussions - so, for the sake of argument, let's accept this separation between humans and nature for the moment, treat both of them in different ways and proceed from there.

When we look at our planet Earth in its original state before the arrival of humans, we can say that 100% of all habitable land was nature, meaning forests, grassland and shrubs.

With the advent of humans, things started to change. Humans needed land for settlements,and land for grazing, and for crops - meaning that humans started to take away land from nature.

Humans looked at nature as an adversary whom they had to fight, conquer, subjugate. The more you could push back nature, the more you would consider yourself powerful, superior and successful.

Gradually, it is said, humans took over a staggering thirty percent of nature for their own use. Now, that's a lot!

But it didn't stop there. Humanity developed further and further, human populations grew, more settlements were needed, more land had to be used for agriculture, industries started to be developed and needed land.... - more and more land was taken away from nature, from thirty percent to forty, fifty, sixty percent!

How far can we go?

Of course we can go up to one hundred percent. That's when all life stops to exist. That's when humans (who are part of nature, whether we want to acknowledge it or not) have been exterminated by their fellow humans.

But that doesn't look like a very appealing solution. My impression is that it would be wise for humanity to stop pushing back and destroying nature before we destroy the very basis of our own survival.

So, the question is: what percentage of nature can we safely use (and abuse) before our own survival is at risk?

My impression is: we've already gone too far. I think it's time to stop - and not only to stop but actually to start giving back to nature because we realize that we've already taken too much.

My first wish for today is that we start giving back land to nature. My wish is that we give back ten percent of all the land we are using today for human needs back to nature. Every country in the world should participate, no exceptions, no excuses: ten percent of all land used has to be given back to nature! And in ten years time, another ten percent of all land used by humans should be given back to nature!

It's up to all those institutions and organizations specializing in nature protection to take the initiative and work out detailed plans and suggestions about which ten percent of land used by humans should be given back to nature. And then, concrete proposals must be presented to the world's governments for approval, for immediate realization, NOW!

Nature has been abused and looted for too long. It's time to rectify this matter.

Which brings me to my second wish for today, and this is about air quality.

Humans have been polluting the air at such an alarming rate over the past few hundred years that the very survival of many species and even of humanity at large is at risk. This is insane! This has to stop!

Globally speaking, one of the most harmful pollutants today is carbon dioxide (CO2). Everybody knows it - and yet, year after year, the emission of CO2 worldwide keeps rising, rising, rising. Governments keep holding international conferences where they confirm to each other that, yes, the situation is alarming, we need to do something, we promise we'll do something, sure thing... - and the rate of emission of CO2 keeps on rising, rising, rising....

Oh, of course each government will present plans to reduce the emission of CO2 in the future.... - when is the future? In 5 years, 10 years, 50 years time?

The future must be NOW! NOW we want that CO2 emissions are reduced, IMMEDIATELY, NOW, not tomorrow or next year or in 10 years time, but NOW!

So, this is my second very urgent wish for today: that measures are being discussed and agreed upon, whereby every single country in the world, without exception, reduces its rate of emission of CO2 by ten percent, with IMMEDIATE effect, whatever the costs involved!

For this, we cannot leave it up to the governments to decide, it's the general public and specialized agencies who must suggest concrete measures that will reduce CO2 emissions with immediate effect. And once such concrete measures are on the table and presented to the respective governments, it's again the general public which has to keep up the pressure and force all those politicians to take action IMMEDIATELY. Otherwise those same politicians will keep on dragging their feet and find thousands of good reasons to explain that right now, unfortunately, this is not quite possible but we will do our utmost to do more in the future, bla bla bla.

We don't need bla bla bla, we need action, NOW!

Of course such immediate actions will cost a lot. A tremendous lot. And somebody has to pay for it.

Who's going to pay for all these actions, giving back land to nature, reducing CO2 emissions?

With this I'm coming to my third wish for today.

All these actions discussed above are in favour of nature. So, let nature pay for it!

How?

How can nature pay for billions and billions of dollars of costs occurred for measures discussed above? Nature has no money!?

Of course nature has money. Nature has tons of money, unlimited amounts of money. We just have to take it.

And this is what we're actually doing right now: taking away endless resources from nature, but never using them to pay back to nature, we only use them for our own needs.

My wish is that we start paying back to nature.

Nature is offering us its natural resources, we exploit them for our own use and for profit - I think it's only fair that part of this profit is being used to pay back to nature, in the ways described above.

My suggestion and my wish is, that all natural resources be taxed by ten percent on the original value of their exploitation.

When we're talking about natural resources, we're talking, among many others, about

- oil
- natural gas
- coal
- minerals and metals (gold, silver, diamonds, iron, copper, bauxite, and so forth)
- timber
- salt
- land
- water
- etc. etc. etc.

All of these natural resources, this is my wish, must be taxed 10 percent of their commercial value at the moment of exploitation. This tax shall be paid into a UN controlled fund for the financial support of all the actions in favour of nature as described above.

Such are my three wishes for today, which I present to you in the name of Peace and Justice, in the hope they may be fulfilled.

In the name of Peace and Justice, thank you!

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