The collapse of civilisation?

There is an excellent article by Timothy Garton Ash in today's Guardian drawing from the New Orleans tragedy the lesson that civilisation is worryingly fragile.

You can read the article at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1564944,00.html

Mr. Ash has a website where comments on his articles can be posted. See: http://www.freeworldweb.net/

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Comment by Mike Brady on "It always lies below."

Joseph Conrad said of civilisation "We live in the flicker." The return to the dark ages could lie a few years beyond the first dirty bombs in the financial capitals.

Yet when there is much to lose, there is also much to protect. It is possible that Katrina and other disasters linked to human folly will galvanise our leaders to take action.

But unlikely they will do enough or in time.

Our leaders already operate under the law of the jungle. If they let their country slip in the global economic competition, they will be out. Time and again the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) warns Tony Blair or Gordon Brown that climate change measures are going too far or business taxes are too high. 'Investment could simply drain away to more amenable locations' the CBI threatens.

However much our leaders want to take a global view it is the Bush doctrine of do nothing to harm the economy that prevails. No action on climate change. No reform of the global trading system. No meaningful regulation of increasingly powerful transnational corporations.

We are now faced with a stark choice.

Continue as we are with the risk of civilization's collapse as Timothy so eloquently warns.

Retreat to ever strong fortresses, if we have the wealth and power to construct them, while the rest of the world is increasingly enslaved.

Transform the relationship between countries by developing a vision of the world which the majority can support and demand our leaders implement the policies chosen by 'we, the people'.

My preference is the third of these options. Which is why I support the Simultaneous Policy campaign. SP brings people around the world together to develop the policies we want to see implemented. Campaign supporters, known as Adopters, call on politicians to sign a pledge to implement SP alongside other governments. Simultaneous implementation removes the threat of disinvestment.

Parliaments in several countries already contain elected representatives who have signed the SP pledge. In the UK members of all major parties have done so.

SP is a long-term strategy and not an alternative to demanding immediate action, but it has the potential to usher in the polices that are necessary, not only those that will be tolerated by powerful vested interests.

It is free to join the campaign at http://www.simpol.org.uk/

If you are outside the UK see http://www.simpol.org/