Dear Editor,

"Fairtrade sales hit £100m a year" (Guardian, 28 February 2004). Which is what percentage of total retail sales?

A tiny fraction of one percent -  and thus effectively insignificant.

Yet, if we are to put an end to the plundering of our planet, Spaceship Earth, as we must if we are to achieve sustainability and avoid catastrophe (perhaps even extinction), we have to increase "fair trade" to well over 50 percent of the total as quickly as we can.

It is generally overlooked that without fair trade, sustainability is unachievable - without which we are doomed.

However, the concept of "fair trade" I have in mind means a lot more than just paying above "free-market" prices for third world products. It includes "fair and proportionate income differentials" for ALL members of society, putting an end to corporate fat-cat culture, and the acceptance of a "maximum wage".

"Impossible!" you laugh. In which case, we really are doomed.

Impossible to impose, I agree. But not impossible to achieve voluntarily in an "alternative" society and economy, created by the more "enlightened" among us, who see the dire threat to our planet from a growth-dependent economy and materialistic lifestyles, based on values, attitudes and aspirations which are rooted in man's primitive, more animal than human nature, and who understand where their real, "enlightened" self-interests lie.

It is in everyone's "enlightened" self-interest not to "break the camel's back", but to develop a sustainable, non-growth-dependent economy and far less materialistic, lifestyles. Otherwise we are extinct.

There is an assumption that we have to accept society and the economy as they are, and that all we can hope to do is slowly reform them for the better (while taking personal advantage of them where we can).

It is true that we have to accept them as they are - for the moment, at least - because we are so dependent on them. But we cannot reform them nearly fast enough to avert catastrophe. Why? Because we all have our vested interests in them, the combined resistance of which makes any progress extremely slow.

What we can - and must - do, however, is to create an alternative society and economy. This too will take time, but it is the best (probably only) hope we have of averting, or at least reducing the impact of, the approaching catastrophe.

By way of an analogy, let us imagine existing society and its economy to be a huge ocean liner, which is heading towards rocks. Although many realise that there are troubled waters ahead, most believe that by maintaining speed and our general direction we will be able to navigate our way through them. Others, like myself, realise that the "troubled waters" are caused by a reef (the limits of growth and material wealth on a finite planet with limited carrying capacity) on which, without a radical change of course, we are bound to founder.

After failing to face up to the challenge back in the 1970's or 80's, when time was still on our side, it is now clear that the forces keeping our ship on course for disaster are far too great for the radical changes necessary to be made. We are going to strike the reef. Hopefully, not for a few more years, but it is certainly coming.

While a radical change of course may have been possible if we had started in earnest back in the 1970's or 80's, it is now clearly too late, the forces keeping our ship on course for disaster far too great. We are going to strike the reef. Hopefully, not for a few more years, but it is certainly coming.

What we must now do (those of us who can see what is coming) is build lifeboats (pockets of sustainable society/economy), in which, when they are ready, we will be able to leave the doomed mother ship.

Work on them began long ago (organic agriculture, fair trade, moral investment funds, cooperative enterprises, renewable energy, recycling materials etc.), often in the hope of radically transforming our non-sustainable capitalist society/economy. Instead they have been incorporated and contained within it, as fringe phenomena, catering for relatively small market sectors of more enlightened, responsible citizens (often referred to as "idealistic fools and dreamers").

This good work needs to be redirected and much intensified, towards creating lifeboats of a distinct alternative "nonymous society", whose members give absolute priority to creating a fair, humane and sustainable economy and lifestyles to go with it. These lifeboats (individual communities, cooperatives etc.), should be launched as soon as possible, long before they are completely fitted out. Once afloat they can sail alongside our doomed mother ship, enabling work to be carried out on them while dependencies on the non-sustainable economy still remain. The more progress is made, the more its members' activities and dependencies can be transferred from one to the other, until eventually they will be able to caste off and join the growing fleet of other lifeboats forming alterative sustainable society/economy.

The more lifeboats we manage to build, the bigger (within limits) they are and the better we fit them out, before the huge luxury liner of existing society hits the reef, the better will be our (mankind's) chances of survival and recovery.

The first lifeboats will be derided by the blind adherents of existing, non-sustainable, mass consumer society, but will serve as exhortation and inspiration to others. As the approaching "shipwreck" becomes ever more apparent, increasing numbers of lifeboats will be built, with more and more people getting involved. Although many, I fear, will continue pursuing their narrow, more animal than human, interests and pleasures on the doomed liner, seeking the safety of the lifeboats, in shock and panic, only after it has struck the reef.

As I explain on my homepage, I'm just the "ship's (old) boy", who, seeing the danger we are in, is trying to organise one lot of lifeboats. I have my own ideas about how it should be done, but am sure it can be done in many different ways, creating lots of different fleets of boats for lots of different people. The more, and more diverse, the merrier. Although they must all show mutual respect and share the common aim of creating a sustainable society (economy and lifestyles) on our finite and vulnerable planet, i.e. of not placing more than their "sustainable fair share of straws on the camel's back".

I am not in a position to order anyone about, and wouldn't want to even if I were. What I propose are guidelines for my vision of a just, humane, and sustainable society, which at the moment only exists in my imagination.

Existing, non-sustainable society and its economy are based largely on values, attitudes and aspirations rooted in our primitive, "more animal than human" nature (understandably, in the light of Darwin's theory of evolution and human origins). If we are to create a just, humane and sustainable society/economy, we must base it on values, attitudes and aspirations from our more enlightened, human rather than animal nature.

As children of Western civilisation it is worth going back to the beginning, i.e. to Genesis, Chapter 3, where it says that after eating fruit from the tree of knowledge, "the eyes of them both (Man and Woman) were opened and they discovered that they were naked", to which God responds by cursing them and commenting: "The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil".

This ancient story of Adam and Eve expresses in beautifully symbolic language the cosmically profound transition of men and women from animals to human beings.

Why the Hebrew (concept of) God cursed Adam and Eve for taking this profoundly fateful step away from the instinctive behaviour of their animal nature towards becoming conscious, responsible human beings, I fail to understand, when my (concept of) God would have praised and encouraged them. Whatever the reason, it has resulted in millennia of shame and guilt for the very thing that distinguishes us most fundamentally from other animals. It is within this context of "original sin" that Western civilisation has arisen.

Instead of celebrating and developing our human potential for heightened awareness and independent, responsible behaviour, Christianity has taught us to be ashamed of it, which has surely retarded our development and helped keep us in the grip, socially and economically, as well as individually, of our primitive, animal nature. Nowhere is this primitive, "more animal than human" nature more evident than in the values, attitudes and aspirations underlying our non-sustainable, growth-dependent economy and materialistic lifestyles.

Notwithstanding Christianity's and the Bible's immense historical and cultural importance, as a source of knowledge, spiritual strength and moral guidance, they are "holy" inadequate. Worse, they are a hindrance, standing in the way, even of non-believers, obstructing the view of more truthful, enlightened and useful concepts of God.

I am not suggesting that Christianity is all bad. It has played such an important role in the development of western civilisation that it is impossible for me even to attempt an objective assessment. What I am suggesting, however, is that we need a new religion (L. "re ligare", to tie or bind together), or rather, religious societies, and concepts of God (for those, like myself, who need them), which will guide us towards a just, humane and sustainable society, call it paradise if you like (or as close as we can get to it), here on Earth, rather an in a supposed afterlife.

Let us take from Christianity what is good and useful (much of our historical and cultural heritage), incorporate the bits we want into new religious societies, and give the rest a respectful burial. 

To be continued . . .