Posted on

Response from Akio Matsumura

Dear Chris,
I would like to respond to your article titled “Changing Ethics in Business.”
I think this is a wonderful and timely article that provides a moral appeal to the current business leaders, and speaks to basic human principles.
Twelve U.S. Senators and sixteen U.S. Congressmen including Senator Al Gore, Senator Clairborne Pell, Congressman Hamilton, among many others, attended the Parliamentary Earth Summit Conference at Rio de Janeiro in 1992, co-sponsored by the Brazilian Congress. The photograph of the children from Rio’s favelas speaking from the balcony at Parliament asks us what we have accomplished of our resolutions since then. Let us reflect on what we discussed at that historic event in regard to tackling the global environmental issues we would face in the 21st century. Senator Al Gore, one of the leading environmental legislators in the US Congress at the time and a member of the Global Forum Executive Committee, gave the keynote address and set the tone with a spiritual appeal unusual for a politician. He inquired, “People all over the world feel themselves part of a single global family. Why then are spiritual leaders not joining parliamentarians in this dialog?” Mr. Stephan Schmidheiny, Chairman of the Business Council for Sustainable Development said that the true sustainable development ultimately comes down to ethical, moral and spiritual considerations—we must all become care-takers, working to safeguard the interests of future humans and the interests of the other species with which we share the planet.
These fundamental appeals remind us that we still must tackle these pressing issues of human survival in the 21st century.
… Continue reading
Posted on

Changing ethics in business

As I’ve written, Wall Street is in need of change. Business practices in general need a new outlook: one from an ethical and cultural standpoint. The world is changing and the foundations of business are being shaken. One large issue, among others, is the decided ignorance of the cultural and spiritual dimension, and not only in the short term for profits. Large firms and corporations must truly integrate other cultures’ ideas into their plans, as well as cater to their different needs. The goal in business now is unlimited growth. The world is seeing the very impossibility of such an idea right now. An organism cannot grow outside its own means without it dying. Businesses are now consuming the the means they live by if they prey on people. Greed is the goal for achieving growth, which is not sustainable.

At the Parliament Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 children from the favelas (slums) of Rio shared their stories of scrambling for food every day. One girl said how she had to steal food to share it with her younger brother. Not only is the system ignoring our children, the future, but they still have the kind heart to share the little they do have. Businesses have something to learn from the very people they benefit by exploiting: the children, the poor, the homeless. Greed only gets you so far. To really survive you must share and link what you have together. Then you can enjoy what you have for much longer and without the exploitation of so many.… Continue reading

Posted on

Beyond Wall Street: Our Ecological Debt


Welcome to Unhappy Earth Overshoot Day! Today is a milestone, and an unfortunate one at that. Today, September 23, we have already used up our natural resources for the year, in order to live within the biocapacity of the planet. The New Economics Foundation, nef, has calculated our ecological footprint on the Earth and where our sustainable use of natural resources would lie relevant to our year calendar. 1987 was the first year we were to consume our resources before the end of the year, and we have been encroaching quickly further into the year as time passes.

Although Wall Street is in shambles (or doesn’t even exist!) and soon the U.S. government and public will be after bailing them out, this is just a smaller piece of a larger system, which clearly is in dire need of a patch. Our system of investments, hyperconsumption, and flexible labor are coming to an end, whether we like it or not. The system doesn’t work any more on its own, and that will just be emphasized more as China and India grow and continue to exploit the very system the US prided its own growth on. There are Limits to Growth, as has been known at least in academic circles for 35 years, and we are pushing those limits right now. Each year that we ignore our ecological debt to the planet is another year we will have to pay it back, and sooner rather than later.

So does the system really need a patch?… Continue reading

Posted on

A Shifting World

To continue conveying the message of an approaching shift in global power and why a concordant shift in values is needed, watch this presentation, put out by the University of Minnesota. It’s full of great facts that help give perspective to the last post.

Did you know?

Enjoy. Change.… Continue reading

Posted on

Breaking Barriers

During the winter of 1990 the Global Forum that Akio coordinated took place in Moscow, Russia, with the final ceremony being held in the Kremlin. A great thing happened that day that showed much promise for cultures coming together and allowing sacrifices for the whole to move forward. There were threats announced that day on many Baltic states, and President Gorbachev had to call an unexpected meeting in the Kremlin during the time scheduled for the final ceremonies of the Forum. The Forum was able to bear with these scheduling changes, but had to move their ceremonies until later that evening. Coincidentally, it was pushed into the Sabbath, and so the Jewish members of the Forum suddenly had a challenge to face. With much behind-the-scenes scrambling, the meeting went forth and Akio and President Gorbachev, among others, decided that indeed sacrifices would have to be made by all in order to close the ceremonies. Many of the Jewish attendees, including the rabbi members and even Carl Sagan prayed together in the basement of the Kremlin to welcome the Sabbath into a cold building with an entirely different focus by nature. The colossal adjustments of the rabbis allowed the procession to go forth and the ceremonies closed with a tremendous speech by President Gorbachev and others, urging in the modern environmental movement with all stunned by the power of the sacrifice and adjustments that had been made to keep the meeting scheduled. Great political and religious figures both bowed their heads in the name of cooperation and each made sacrifices in order to allow the whole group to meet.… Continue reading

Posted on

Consuming ourselves, "The Story of Stuff"

In 1992 the International Green Cross (http://www.gci.ch/) was co founded by Akio and President Mikhail Gorbachev. It’s mission, available on the website above, is to secure a sustainable future for the planet through a much needed paradigm shift. The paradigm shift is the focus of this post, and the focus of the video linked, “The Story of Stuff.” We live in a world of advertising, consumption, and waste. Fashion dictates the level of use an item receives instead of practicability. The video embedded teaches an important lesson of the amount of waste we generate as humans (and specifically people from the United States) and how much of it is unnecessary. A paradigm shift toward reducing consumption and recycling what we do need to use would bring us to a level of waste that would allow the future generations to continue to use our planet’s finite resources. Although developments in technology do allow us to use new resources to fuel our lives and expand the meaning of ‘finite,’ there are still great resources devoted to these developments. Just by using less and disregarding the trends and fleetingness of what is popular we are able to achieve an important goal: sustainability. This word does have a plethora of connotations but it’s important to realize that through the practice of reduction in consumption we not only decrease what we use now, but make more available for those who don’t receive it now and those who will need it in the future. The world has real problems based on inefficient use of scarce resources and the United States is a great model of how to worsen these problems.… Continue reading

Posted on

The Power of a Chlid


The speech in the video above is inspirational. This girl, Severn Suzuki, is only 13 years old at the time the speech was given at the Rio Earth Summit in 1993. She astounded every listener at the conference and has astounded every Youtube viewer since. Despite the video’s 100,000’s of viewings, her voice is largely unheard by those addressed. Our planet still has the same problems it had 15 years ago, and they have largely gotten worse with the passage of time. However to those not addressed–the dreamers, children, students, people largely of a younger generation–her voice serves as inspiration.

Reread the first post of this blog and you see that the Plant the Seed Network’s mission is to create an online network/movement of students dedicated to peace through transcending traditional cultural barriers that are now causing conflict as they meet, mix and intertwine. This girl’s speech embodies the desires of the Plant the Seed Network: the older generation, although with certain triumphs during its day, has largely unfulfilled its goals and commitments as leaders and we, the younger generation, are now left with the large responsibility of human survival. The Plant the Seed Network is a group of students from around the world committed to taking steps toward global cooperation and creating a harmony among the Earth’s citizens that allows us to take strides as a whole toward the solutions we need to survive.… Continue reading

Posted on

Pale Blue Dot

This video is simple but powerful. Dr. Carl Sagan possessed an insightful knowledge of the universe and with that viewpoint he was able to describe our human issues on planet Earth in a new, compelling way, demonstrating a vision only possible through a fresh look at our planet. This video shows us our relative unimportance as a species to the Earth and Universe.

For many years we have been dealing with global issues such as environmental preservation and conservation, poverty, hunger, disease, overpopulation, and cultural tolerance. These issues are obviously still pressing, and Akio’s work in 1988 and 1990, assembling the Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders, created the beginning to a global solution. Carl Sagan was a friend of Akio’s and attended these conferences, even mentioning their importance to him in his final book, Billions and Billions.

We can see the great insignificance of all that we deem significant, and we must begin to ask ourselves the question: why? Why do we cause so much pain and trouble when we can cause joy? Why hate when it’s possible to love? In Billions and Billions Carl Sagan explores these ideas and the conclusion is that by transcending our perceived differences in religion, science, politics, and culture we can achieve our shared global desires of peace, well-being and security.… Continue reading