The Simultaneous Policy

Hello again and Happy New Year! Thanks for your patience while I took a much needed break. But I'm back and look forward to sharing more adventures with you. I have some requests to give Peak Oil presentations so I will be polishing up my act and taking it on the road over the next couple of weeks.

Today I'd like to highlight a protocol for global cooperation called the Simultaneous Policy (SP).

There is no shortage of sensible solutions to our global problems, such as those in the column at the left. What the world lacks is an effective means to cooperatively implement them everywhere, simultaneously. Individual nations cannot tackle the challenge of global problems alone or even in limited alliances or unions. Other nations, alliances or unions would still be free to ignore or exploit problems like global warming, cheap labour, and corporate tax shelters to gain a competitive advantage in the global marketplace.

Enter the Simultaneous Policy (SP) – a peaceful, yet revolutionary political tool that empowers voters everywhere to compel our politicians – at the point of a ballot box! – to commit our nations to implement global solutions simultaneously. With SP, no nation, alliance, or corporation need go it alone; no one loses out, and everyone wins. Global warming, the chronic threat of weapons of mass destruction, socially and environmentally irresponsible corporate and economic globalization, unfair trade – SP is the lever that we the people of Planet Earth can use to make our elected representatives tackle these problems as we, in our collective wisdom and goodwill, see fit.

It is an answer to the problem that:

Though legislators know that serious world problems such as global warming, monopolistic corporate power, poverty and environmental destruction all demand decisive action, they are loath to implement the policies needed to solve them - policies such as higher corporate taxes and tougher environmental protection laws. They legitimately fear that in today's liberalized global economy, investors, corporations and jobs would simply pick up and leave for more congenial destinations. However good their intentions, governments feel bound to conform to a straitjacket of market- and business-friendly policies.

SP focuses on economic justice and global warming. I think it could be a good platform from which to implement The Oil Depletion Protocol (see Heinberg's introduction here).