Viewpoints on Sstainability

http://www.fwr.org/sustdev.pdf

http://www.saveelsobrante.com/F21SCsustainabletrouble.htm

Universal Birthright is generally thought of as the entitlement due and received by the sole virtue of being alive. The Universal Birthright of every child born on the earth is to have a fair share of the land and the resources of the planet. This is the simple foundation of equality and living sustainably. This birthright is shared and individual for all ages. All resources under the earth, water, oil, metals, minerals and treasures are the collective trust and stewardship of all mankind and is to be divided justly for the good of all. Anything grown or created above ground is for the administration of those who did it, without limit. Birthright has shared rights and responsibilities alongside the individual sovereignty of land stewardship.

This view of universal birthright has been the dream of all oppressed people of every persuasion. Universal Birthright is a clarification of the idea that all men were created equal and a simple expression of what equality means.

For many the idea of 'birthright' is implicit in the Magna Carta. In AD 1215, Magna Carta, the Great Charter, set out the people’s ancient liberties and Common Law. These liberties were confirmed as the people’s birthright long before Parliament existed. They include the right to trial by jury and the right to have a voice in determining taxation. In 1297 the Model Parliament confirmed Magna Carta in statute law. Since then Magna Carta has been re-confirmed many times.

'Free self-rights' is a more useful description of the human entitlement to planetary resources. This is in line with Magna Carta's modern role as a talisman of liberties and rights of individuals to partake of a fair share of what Earth can produce for ever. It sets these universal entitlements apart from the commonplace defiition of birthright as the right, possession, or privilege that is one's due by birth within a particular community or parental lineage.

First there was Magna Carta

http://bostonreview.net/BR28.3/linebaugh.html

PROUT

Then there was sustainability

http://www.fwr.org/sustdev.pdf

Magna Carta to Earth Charter

For about two centuries after Magna Carta was agreed in 1215 it came to be seen as the authority on constitutional practice and used in practical ways as a document to which people would appeal in support of their legitimate rights. It was cited in constitutional debate in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the eighteenth century, in response to what American colonial landed gentry saw as the deprivation of their liberties as Englishmen by the Parliament in London, elements of Magna Carta were written into some state constitutions and then into the American Bill of Rights.

Lord Bingham of Cornhill summarised its importance in British law as follows:

"The rule of law requires compliance by the state with its obligations in international as in national law. Here we step outside the confines of Magna Carta. It was directed to the exercise of power by the King within his realm, not with relations between one state and another. But the Rule of Law cannot stop short at national boundaries because the problems which we face in our world today - climate change, pollution, financial regulation, crime, migration - do not stop short at national boundaries. The lesson, however, is the same. As kings are subject to the law and not above it at home, so states are subject to the law and not above it in their relations with other states. On acceptance of this lesson, it might be thought, depend the peace and prosperity of the world. It is not a lesson which Magna Carta taught, but it is an extension of the principle which Magna Carta so memorably gave to posterity around the world."

See his lecture in full.

For 800 years Magna Carta represents the core principle of civilized political life as now understood in the western world: that government shall ultimately be held responsible to the governed. It has served as a milestone for parliamentarians, a rallying point for revolutionaries against parliamentary tyranny and a lawyers' text in cases ranging from civil liberties to commercial transactions. It is now referred to by environmentalists who want a binding people's Earth Charter and by their opponents who regard environmentalism as infringing on their basic freedoms.

The term "charter" is used for particularly formal and solemn instruments, such as the constituent treaty of an international organization. The term itself has an emotive content that goes back to the Magna Carta of 1215. Well-known recent examples are the Charter of the United Nations of 1945 and the Charter of the Organization of American States of 1952.

In 1992 Maurice Strong was the Secretary General of the United Nations (UNCED) Earth conference in Rio. This gathering featured an international cast of powerful figures in the environmental movement, government, business, and entertainment.

Maurice Strong's wife Hannah, was involved in the NGO alternative meeting at the Summit which was called ‘Global Forum '92’. The Dalai Lama opened this meeting and, according to author Gary Kah, to ensure the success of the forum, Hanne Strong held a three-week vigil with Wisdomkeepers, a group of "global transformationalists." Through round-the-clock sacred fire, drumbeat, and meditation, the group helped hold the "energy pattern" for the duration of the summit.

It was hoped that an Earth Charter would be the result of this semi-spiritual event. This was not the case. However an international agreement was adopted by the politicians - Agenda 21 - which laid down the international "sustainable development" necessary to form a future Earth Charter agreement. Despite the disappointing setback of no official agreement toward a "people's Earth Charter", Maurice Strong forged ahead, with Rockefeller backing, to form his Earth Council organization for the express purpose of helping governments implement UNCED's sustainable development, which Agenda 21 had outlined. He said:-

"Agenda 21 was perhaps the biggest step taken to facilitate any future "enforcement" of a patently pagan Earth Charter. According to Strong "the Charter will stand on it's own. It will be in effect, to use an Anglo-Saxon term, the Magna Carta of the people around the Earth. But, it will also, we hope, lead to action by the governments through the United Nations."

In this sense Agenda 21 is a global action plan centred on the free self-rights of everyone to have fair access to the planet's resources for ever.

John McConnel’s Earth Magna Charta

http://www.earthsite.org/charta.htm

Larry Rassmussen’s Earth Charter (1991)

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=220

Steven Rockofeller’s Earth Charter Initiative

http://www.earthcharterplus10.org/pdf/Reports/Speech_by_steven_rockofeller.pdf

SCAN (Schools and Sustainable Communities Agenda 21 Network) was created in 1993 at St Clears Teacher's Resource Centre for West Wales with funds from the Countryside Council for Wales, Dyfed County Council and Texaco Pembroke Oil Refinery. The stimulus was the Children’s Agenda 21 that emerged from the Rio Environment Summit in 1992. SCAN was designed by a group of Pembrokeshire teachers to act as an online focus for community action in the context of curriculum targets being integrated with neighbourhood objectives for the Local Agenda 21.

The assumption was that schools working with the communities they serve could play a key role in the introduction of sustainable development principles into everyday living. SCAN's first community action plan was produced by Johnston Primary School, and activated the local authority to make significant environmental improvements in the village. Links were made with the European Schools Network based in Portugal for pupils to compare their concerns about environment and spread ideas about how they could be tackled locally by school and community working together.

Through initial pump priming by Countryside Council for Wales, SCAN thrives to this day as part of the National Museum’s education service in Cardiff. It is a good working example of how to organise and sustain an on-line bilingual interactive distance-learning network with national coverage. There is nothing like it elsewhere in Europe.

https://museum.wales/spring-bulbs/

A archived collection of teacher's resources prepared for the launch of SCAN in 1995 may be accessed below.

www.culturalecology.info/newquest/start.html