I share your disgust at the levels of boardroom remuneration (Boardroom pay up 23%; The wages of greed, 31 July 2003). However, your report and commentary remind me of an adolescent ranting against the values and lifestyle of his parents, but still living under their roof and relying on their purse strings. Is it not time that we gave some serious thought to moving out of the parental home and setting up our own household, i.e. to creating the kind of economy and society that we want to live in? Welcoming those who wish to join us, and leaving those who don't behind, to catch up later when they are ready.

Revolutionaries and reformers (like yourselves) both make the same fundamental mistake of believing that "existing" society can be radically changed for the better (by forcing everyone, at gun point or through legislation, to change), but it cannot, certainly not in the time available to us to achieve sustainability before our planet's natural resources, climate and life-supporting ecosystems cease taking the strain of the abuse we are inflicting on them without dire consequences for ourselves or those who come after us.

Instead of vainly attempting to change existing society, we have to create an alternative society, comprising a sustainable economy and lifestyles, within and parallel to, but distinct from, existing, non-sustainable society and its economy.

The question is, how? Especially considering that rapid, radical (i.e. revolutionary) change is all that can save us.

The answer is by men and women vigorously pursuing their "enlightened" self-interests in a free society such as ours. No one and nothing, but our own complacency and misguided notions of self-interest is preventing us from creating the just, humane and sustainable society we MUST create if we are to avoid, or at least reduce the scale of and survive, the global catastrophe which our growth-dependent, fear- and greed-driven economy (because based more on our animal than human nature), is relentlessly driving us towards.

It is in everyone's enlightened self-interest that we quickly move away from our non-sustainable economy and lifestyles towards ones that are sustainable. The trouble is that most people do not want to face up to the fact that the economy and lifestyles on which we all depend and are so attached (if not addicted) to are fundamentally non-sustainable. But in so doing they are acting contrary to their own enlightened self-interests, since the last thing any responsible person wants is to be cursed one day by their own children and grandchildren.

However, before we can face up to the non-sustainability of our economy and lifestyles, we must first face up to our animal origins and nature (something first recognised less than 150 years ago and still denied or disregarded by most) and that it is our animal nature, rather than our more rational, human nature, on which our economy and lifestyles are largely based. 

Because our economy and lifestyles are both based and dependent more on our animal than human nature, they are doubly difficult to change. Added to which, because they are so "normal" and familiar to us (we've grown up with them, for heaven's sake), it is difficult - for most people, impossible - to recognise even that there might be a fundamental problem with them. That is why it is so important for those of us who do recognise that we have a serious problem to dedicate themselves to its solution. The future of countless animal and plant species, including our own, depends on it! The problem, however, is far bigger and more urgent than even most who recognise it, realise, making it even more difficult to face up to and leading many who do to despair of there being any solution.

We have little choice but to accept our animal nature (denying it only compounds our problems), but we do not have to continue basing our economy and lifestyles on it. In western democracies we have the knowledge, freedom and means to fundamentally change both. What we don't have is a lot of time - two or three decades, I estimate, at the most.

Some people (my brother, for example) will respond by saying that it is not worth even trying, because our situation (due to man's innate stupidity) is hopeless; so we might as well enjoy life while we can and not worry about what lies ahead.

There may be a certain logic to this attitude, but it is without hope; no doubt because the situation is perceived as being hopeless, but also, I suspect, because it rationalises our natural (animal) inclination to continue leading our familiar, comfortable lives.

We have the choice: if we assume the situation to be hopeless, then hopeless it is. If, on the other hand, we are hopeful, there is hope.

My brother, although he doesn't realise it, of course, and will protest loudly when he reads this, is following his unenlightened, more animal than human self-interest, while I am attempting to follow my enlightened, more human self-interest. I would much rather FAIL trying to save the world, than stand by doing nothing for the dubious satisfaction of being able to say, "I told you so".

Maybe the world really cannot be saved, but I am going to try anyway. Because I am hopeful - very hopeful - that it can be. And because I do not want to be blamed for not trying.

Only I cannot save it on my own, no more than anyone else can; I need the help of 10s, 100s, 1000s, millions of others. 

Where are you?

There is no point in dreaming of changing society as a whole, because it cannot be done. The resistance of million's of people's vested interests is far too great. We can only change ourselves, particularly the way we earn, spend and invest our money, and, together with like-minded people, create an alternative society with a sustainable economy and lifestyles.

Enlightened government, of course, could do much to facilitate the creation of a sustainable society, but in a democracy in which most people care more about having a car (or two) and cheap air travel than about the abstract concept of sustainability, it can do little without alienating the electorate. What it could do, however, is support those seeking of their own volition to make the necessary changes towards sustainability.

That doesn't answer the question of how an alternative, sustainable society is to be created, but I hope it's the start of an answer, which will become clearer and more complete in the course of its realisation.

There are a thousand (and more) ways to sustainable society. Diversity will be one of its defining characteristics. If we cannot agree, then let us go different ways, adding to the multitude of sustainable societies. Provided they are sustainable, the more the merrier! They can be multiracial and multicultural, if that is what you want - or not, if that is what you prefer.

My vision of sustainable society is one of numerous "religious societies" (L. re ligare = to bind together), of people bound together by sustainable values, attitudes and aspirations, and their own particular ways of achieving them.

My own religious society will be based on some of the following ideas:

• That our planet, Spaceship Earth, has limited natural resources and a finite carrying capacity which translates into a maximum per capita burden which any one individual may sustainably place on them (the maximum number of straws each person may safely place on the camel's back). At the moment, neither the maximum burden nor the units in which it can be measured are known, but we can be quite sure that the average European and North American is already exceeding it by a considerable amount.
• No social rights without social obligations. 
• Fair trade and income differentials (e.g. maximum income should be no more than 10 time minimum income; those with excessive incomes would be expected to give the excess to the community).
• No commercial advertising or marketing which promotes non-sustainable consumption and materialistic lifestyles, or exploits "sex" - because "it sells".
• No private car ownership, because individual motorisation on a global scale is non-sustainable, and as since we (or was it our German cousins?) invented the damned thing, it is up to us to set a good example for its sustainable use (car sharing may be okay).
• Ideally, property will be owned by the community and used sensibly for the good of all its members.
• Transparency in respect to a person's identity, behavioural record, and what they give to and take from society. I do not need or want to know the ins and outs of anyone's private affairs, but I do want to know that I am not sharing my life and efforts with persistent cheats, liars, social parasites, exploiters, criminals, other antisocial elements or those not interested in creating a fair, humane and sustainable society, who are banished to miserable, non-sustainable, mass consumer society until they mend their ways.
• The establishment of structured residential communities or neighbourhoods in which roads are paved over and motorcars banned or severely restricted, but with a host of social amenities, such as a culture and community centre, library, workshops, cafe, canteen, shop selling organic/fair-trade produce, kindergarten, playgroups, after-school classes, etc. all financed and provided by the community for the community, which will also seek to achieve a healthy degree of self-sufficiency in respect to plumbers, electricians, handymen and women etc. 
• The discouragement of tabloid newspapers and all other media which appeals to people's primitive interest in sex, violence, scandal etc. If someone wants, for example, the Sun for its sport reporting, then let them have it without all the commercial and journalistic depravity it is bundled with.
• The encouragement of intelligent and selective television viewing, preferably in communal TV rooms. TVs should be banned from all "living rooms". 
• The establishment of cooperatives (or companies) whose principal purpose is not to produce maximum income for shareholders and management, but to to provide valuable products or services for a sustainable society, while at the same time giving satisfying work and fair and proportionate incomes to all  its members, from shop floor to top management. The notion that you have to pay the highest income to get the best man or woman for a particular job is a classic example of how we rationalise our more animal than human nature. One of the most important cooperatives we need is a bank, where responsible people can save and invest their money for a sustainable society rather than maximum interest, and where money for sustainable ventures can be borrowed at reasonable rates of interest (no money for private cars!).
•  

I could go on and on, but must leave it here for the time being.

The misguided but virtually universal belief - rooted in our more animal than human nature - that making and having as much money (as large a slice of the cake) as possible is always in one's self-interest is a foundation stone of our society and economy and one of the root causes of its non-sustainability. Many good people are deceived into believing it, because money is not only a means to self-indulgence, but also to building schools, hospitals etc.