Commonwealth: For A Better Future

By: Bikal Dhungel

This article focuses on issues that are important for every human: environment, health and sustainable development. It starts with a short review of human civilization and connects it with environment and health. Finally, I mention few things which we can change. It is a combination of information and opinion and aims to make the reader think about these critical issues. 

Till today, humans have achieved extra-ordinary things. We have far better lives today than our ancestors. This achievement did not happen overnight. It was a slow and long process. Unfortunately, our inventions also came up as our destruction. Let us have a short look at these achievement and analyse how it should go further.

Our Earth is considered to be 4-7 billion years old. Humans are there only since 200,000 years. About 40,000 years ago earliest remaining of humans was found in Australia. Among different species of humans namely Homo Sapiens, Neanderthals, Denisovans, Homo Erectus, only the Homo Sapiens survived. What happened to other species of humans and why they extinct, there are many details still to be confirmed but what is true is that Homo Sapien was/is an intelligent creature. From hunting an gathering society to the discovery of agriculture, building settlements, civilization, and until recently the process of industrialization, we have come a long way forward. But still, the major change in our way of life mainly took place after the year 1800. This 200 years in comparison to the last 40,000 is a tiny fraction. Yet, the change is so drastic that it has fundamentally changed the human way of living from the last thousands of years. A person who wakes up after a 15 years of sleep will be completely lost in today's culture because the pattern of change is way too fast.

Looking back to history, to understand these process of development for example, when you plant a seed in the ground, nurture it, and someday there comes a corn it took a long time. Similarly, it also took a long time to understand what grows where under what condition and to build a settlement there to practice that further. Development of agriculture was one of the most important turning point in human history that marked an end to hunting and gathering. It is the starting point of building a society. A nomad species turned into a sociable creature. This process might have happened in several places in the several times. Farming was probably done around 10-13 thousand years ago for the first time. As a result, it also gave birth to animal husbandry. When people lived in a certain place, they could store food and keep animals for a longer time instead of eating them like the hunters and gatherers did. Some animals were used to extract milk like buffaloes, goats etc others were for meat, feathers or their skin for clothing. However, the question goes how did humans know which animal to keep and which not because we know that there are so many species but why do humans just domesticate few of them. We can name them: cow, goat, buffalo, sheep, chicken, pig, horse, camel and few others. The American evolution biologist Jared Diamond claims that there are probably not more than 15 animals out of hundreds that humans domesticated. My point is, humans might have studied the behaviours of these animals and there might be reason why they domesticated some and why not others. For example why didnt the human domesticate deers, zebras, girrafs, leopards, cats, monkey, antelopes or hippo? Jared Diamond further claims that one or few of the behavior of these animals were either not suitable or deadly for the humans. Zebras for example look good, is herbivorous but when it bites, it never let go for a long long time which can be life threatening. Antelopes are too nervous when there are other animals or humans. Cats are the species that cannot live in a group, leopards obviously are too dangerous. These are few reasons but we have to accept the fact that it took long time for early humans to understand this all what we take today for granted due to the information we have from them.

Agriculture also gave birth to feudal society. It was the beginning of classes, hierarchy and also inequality. Under direction, humans also built incredible things many of which we honour today as world heritage namely the Pyramids of Egypt, Great Wall of China, Macchu Pichu of Peru, Taj Mahal of India and many other monuments that were built before or after. It is true that these things are extra-ordinary. Great Wall alone took 14 years initially to built and many additional years in the future to expand and maintain. The length of the wall, estimated 13,500 miles is more than the distance, from London to Delhi , back from Delhi to London and then to Moscow. Only to take the archiological survey, it took several years. Isnt this a huge achievement ? Similarly, the pyramids of Egypt took over 20 years for probably 100,000 workers to build it. Other extra-ordinary monuments took lots of effort and time and these are the symbol of human achievement in the past few thousand years.

When we come to the last millennium, humans achieved other incredible things like the printing press, electricity, steam engine, penicillin, telephone, television, radio, washing machine, automobile, aeroplane, x-ray, computer, internet etc. Achievement in different fields have been done, in Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Astronomy, Economics, Engineering, Medicine and in Social Sciences which made our life easier. Humans also started trading goods. They searched for resources and while searching, also found new lands untouched before. Resource-hungry countries also colonized other parts, moved people to work from one place to others, and suddenly "Industrialization" was born. 

In the areas where industrialization took place, the wealth of nations increased drastically. Before that period, for all the time, the whole world was more or less equal. China used to be the richest country in terms of per-capita for over thousand years and since the beginning of global trade, the Netherlands was probably the richest country. After industrialization, Asia and Africa lagged behind and Europe took a giant leap.

To power the industries, more and more coal was burned which gave birth to human induced climate change. The discovery of oil marked another great change that improved lives of people as it could be used in industries and in vehicles later for transportation. Horse-pulled carts slowly started to be out of business. The development of transportation marked an end to the monopoly of ships as the sole means of transportation. Trains or even cars could be used for internal transportation. Chemical processing on the other hand improved the way of life further especially the discovery of washing power and later washing machine. All of us who has watched a famous TED video of Hans Rosling, a medical doctor, philanthropist and statistician from Karolinska Institute in Stockholm about the magic of washing machine, we are convinced that it is the discovery of Washing machine that caused a revolution in women's lives. Prior to its discovery, women used to have long washing days that gave them no time to do other things than household activities. Thanks to washing detergents and washing machine and of course electricity, they could now use their time reading books, going to school or participating in social life. School attendance has increased ever since and today at least in many western European countries, more women have university degree than men.

The introduction of internet marked another revolution. We can easily know what is going on in another corner of the world, we can make friends from other countries, we can book a ticket online to fly from Frankfurt to Tokyo, we can send pictures to friends living in other countries, we can learn to cook from internet, we can even gain university degree totally online without going to the university for a single day. This means, the whole world is connected. Technologies made it possible. Similarly, knowledge has also globalized which is a good thing in one hand but might have some drawbacks as well.

But exactly due to few things like chemical processing and advances in other technologies, our world is also in danger due to the possibilities of chemical weapons that could destroy the whole world within few minutes. Two world wars showed that technology is not a good thing when it is used against humans. Imagine that the president of USA or Russia go crazy and use chemical weapons towards civilians to kill them. Imagine a chemical weapon in the hand of a person or country that want to destroy the whole world. Similarly, imagine somebody using a biological weapon that spread virus in massive scale that there will be a pandemic and billions of people die. The story of Anthrax already warned us about the danger of biological weapons. This will destroy the whole world in a short time. Why I mentioned the example of internet is, of course its a fantastic thing but what if any person or authority spy on you and get your information? This already takes place. There is no privacy anymore. Did you know that your bank knows that your wife is pregnant before you? We have a money-less society and we love to use credit cards but your bank will then know which product we buy, where we go for vacation, which brand we like, which book we read and many other information. Private companies can know about you hence manipulate your choices through the use of advanced marketing tools and make you buy their products and increase profit. Is that what you want ?

Why I explained the story of human being, their process of learning skills in the last thousands of years and the process of development until today very short is that, while marching forward towards development and prosperity we created our own destruction as well.

Albert Einstein said “ The human made Atom Bomb, however a mouse would never build a mouse trap” and implies the same thing as the paragraph above. Atom bomb was used in World War II in Japan, the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against the Kurds in first and second Gulf War and many terrorist organisations threaten constantly about their will to use it against anybody they think enemy. So, there are dangerous thing and dangerous people. Experts say that the chemicals used during Gulf War will remain on earth's surface for another 4-5 billion years, equal to the total age of earth. On the places where it was dropped, nothing will grow or we cannot use the land for anything. This will have a negative impact on the environment or to be precise, it will kill the fertile lands and hence our earth.

On the other hand, it is also a well known fact that there are too much human intervention in the natural process of earth, whose consequence is unknown. We dont know how much land we can use for agriculture, what will happen when we take too much water from the ocean and desalinate it, what will happen when we divert the rivers for industrial purpose and disturb its natural flow. We also dont know how many people this earth can sustain. So, my point is again, for prosperity, first we brought ourselves into a dangerous position, then we started doing things whose consequences we dont know. Arent we destroying our home by intervening too much in natural processes ?

Looking back in the past, the world population for example used to be constant, around 500 million in the last 2000 years but in 1800 it grew to 1 billion, in 1920 grew to 2 billion, in 1960 increased to 3 billion, again to 4 billion in 1975, in 2000 it reached 6 billion and took another 10 years to hit 7 billion record ( Population Bureau) At the end of this century, according to a medium projection by the UN, it will reach 10 billion but a high projection, it can be as much as 16 billion. These are people, but people are not only one creature that live on earth. There are also other creatures. The Economist magazine estimates that there are also 1 billion or more sheeps, 1 billion pigs and 1.4 billion cattle, three main ones. There are others wild animals that share this universe with us whose number is widely unknown. The number of domesticated animals was artificially set by the humans for massive scale farming to generate profit. This creates additional burden on earth and its capacity to feed. Environmentalists warn that such a high number is unsustainable and environmentally unfriendly as animals like cow are also the major imitators of methane.

Whatever it was done, the reason was either for profit or for increasing prosperity for us. But it makes no sense when we exploit the nature in such a degree and gain the prosperity we wanted but the other day, we have any form of natural catastrophe that will wipe off everything that was built or done till date. So, it is a general agreement that we should continue with economic development but without violating the rule of nature. Either we are directly affected or not, indirectly we, the people of the whole world are affected due to climate change. For many people living on Island nations, the rising sea level means the end to their existence there. People of mountainous region will be affected by the pattern of ice fall or melting ice and people living in low lands will face floods. Other places might face heat waves and yet others heavy rainfall and so on. Till today, we are more or less able to predict the climate. This is extremely useful in the field of agriculture. The unpredictability of weather/climate due to climate change will cause failure in planning or simply cause crop failure. If we dont know this before and in the case of decreased harvest, the result is massive hunger in some parts of the world. The recent case of food price hikes can be attributed to climate change as well. A massive heat wave in the US and Australia led reduction in crop harvest that sky-rocketed food prices and suddenly the poorest countries that used to be dependent on food aid found themselves in a position of not being able to feed their citizens. As a consequence, there were deaths, hunger, under-nutrition and all the effects it caused in their health for a longer term. However, the hikes in food prices was not only caused by climate change but also by the increasing population which need more and more food and the use of Ethanol, i.e. using agricultural products like corn for fuel instead of food. This shows that, in the process of economic development, we brought problems as well. It is necessary to answer either this is viable, and either we can sacrifice the environment for a long term for our short term prosperity or greed. It took billions of years for the earth to be what it is today and we have fundamentally changed its natural way in the last 200 years. This is simply wrong what we are doing. It cannot go on in this way.

Moreover, our development is also not fully credible. Ethically, it is again not sustainable that some parts of the world is so wealthy whereas the other is not. Well, this is a separate topic in itself why some countries are rich and some are poor. Let us ignore this fact for a time being. Even when we see within the richest countries, there is vast inequality. I am not telling that everybody should have equal amount of wealth, but there should be an opportunity for everybody to come up. The richest country on earth, the United States is also one of the most unequal among the rich countries. According to Forbes magazine, there are 492 billionaires in America but at the same time 45 million people living in poverty, means those earning less than half of the average income. At the same time, one in seven American lack even a basic coverage of health insurance. Crime is rampant, the US has highest number of prisoners in the world, and equal opportunity is absent especially in the field of higher education. Not everybody can afford to go to the University. Inequality is also a big problem in western Europe and especially since the crisis that broke out in 2008, situation has worsened in southern Europe that led to mass immigration to the west. The crisis of 2008 has also changed few things for better. The managers of big companies or banks had millions in salary and bonus whereas the cleaning staffs were fighting for a minimum wage of several Euros. These people justified this by saying that a manager also performs better in terms of productivity and does specialized job that not everybody is able to perform and use economical theories to justify the earning. However, no economist in the world would agree that the manager performs 500 times more than the cleaning staff. So, new laws were brought that strongly restricts such a high payments of managers and taxes higher for the income more than a certain limit. At the same time, in Europe's heavyweight Germany, minimum wage was set at 8.50 Euros per hour. Even though a person with family cannot sustain with a wage of 8.50 per hour, this is a good first step. Some pro-business politicians and experts condemn this by saying that in a globalized world, companies will be forced to move to countries where labour is cheap but this argument is hollow. There are enough examples of countries where there are much higher taxes and higher wages but still a fantastic economy that is at the same time also green. These countries are Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland and they present an extra-ordinary story of success about how everything can be done better without much inequality, without environmental degradation and with sustainability. Denmark for example has a completely free education for all levels which means equal opportunity for everybody. Mothers who are on maternity leave are guaranteed the job after coming back and the society is one of the most equal. Their economy is extremely successful. The beer lovers will know them for example Carlsberg, Tuborg but also other big companies like Nordisk, Maersk etc. Danish environmental policy is exemplary. If you travel from northern Germany to Copenhagen you will be thrilled by the number of wind turbines on the way. These turbines have become the part of nature. In social and economical policy, Denmark is a success story. This caused an old term “American Dream” to migrate to Denmark. They say “ if you want to live American Dream, you have to go to Denmark. Similarly, Sweden also has fantastic system. Sweden used to be a poor country until the World War II. Even industrialization came late to Sweden. However, when the social democrats took over the country, they chose a middle way, a pro business as well as a socially just. This, like Denmark caused low inequality, provided the people with all basic services like education, healthcare and at the same time gave rise to private businesses and companies that are major actors in global level today. We know well about IKEA, Erricsson, Hannes & Mauritz (H&M), Nordea ( Swedish-Finnish ), Saab, Scandia, Vattenfall etc. Scandinavian countries top the Human Development Index (HDI), the Human Rights index and have lowest Gini-coefficient ( which measures the difference between rich and poor )Why I gave example of these two countries is because they are models. They are a live example that the middle way is indeed possible. Their development is sustainable and this should be the way how it should be.

The other major factor in our well being is health and healthcare. From the development of medicine to today's medical technologies and treatment, there is no doubt that this is phenomenal. The medical researchers have reached so far that they even found out the gene that is responsible for ageing. We have this secret now why we age and soon, it could lead us to be immortal, and continue living on if we want to. Either this will come out to be a topic of discussion, I am not sure but what sure is that such developments will make the life of people longer. Due to the advancement in healthcare, average life expectancy has increased from 50 years in 1950s to over 70 today according to World Health Organisations. Diseases that caused millions of deaths few centuries back cause no longer a threat today. From the development of Aspirin in 1899, to other achievements like blood transfusion, development of vaccines against diseases like tuberculosis, diptheria, polio, titanus, meningitis, pneumonia etc are incredible things. The WHO announced the complete eradication of Smallpox in 1980, a major killer in the past. Recently, many countries announced being Polio free. Moreover, the treatment methods have improved, quality of medicines has improved and number of people receiving care worldwide have also increased.

Still, we cannot forget that, despite all these development, large portion of people are still untouched by these innovation. Due to the lack of primary health care, millions of people around the world should die prematurely. In the absence of health centres and professional health personnels, over 300,000 women die yearly worldwide (WHO) while giving birth, also called maternal mortality. The WHO also reports that 5 million children die within the first year of birth worldwide, mainly in developing countries. In countries like Sierra Leone and Chad, the rate is as high as 113 and 131 respectively per 1000 children born ( WHO ). This means more than one in every ten child will die. Did you know that for people in these countries and many others, the most dangerous day in their life is the day when they were born ? In addition to this, easily curable diseases kill millions of people in developing countries. There are over half a million deaths worldwide by Malaria alone. Matter of concern is not the total mortality caused by diseases, the issue here is the causes that we can easily cure. Malaria can be cured easily but we need financial resources. Richer countries can and should support poor countries in health sector if not in other sectors because if the prevalence of communicable diseases are high in any country, it should warn the whole world because diseases do not know the border. From the AIDS epidemic and even current Ebola Virus epidemic we see that they can spread to any country. So, it is necessary to fight for it globally instead of locally in individual countries.

For the first time in human history, the level of our prosperity is so high that if we want, we can provide all the people in the whole world with at least basic health care. We are even capable to feed the whole world and no child should suffer from mal-nutrition and no human should go to bed hungry. Even a single nation, the United States of America is capable to do so. We also have many other countries whose prosperity level is equal or roughly equal to that of the US but obviously we need a will to do this. It is true that you hear daily in the news about budget constraints, high government debts etc etc and might disagree with me and say that we are not capable of providing basic healthcare and basic nutrition for the whole world. Of course there is budget constraint but if we figure out unnecessary expenditures for example on military or nuclear weapons or unnecessary security expenses etc, we have more than enough money to spend there where we really need it. In 2012, the whole world spent 1750 billion dollars as military expenses ( SIPRI military expenditure database ). This means, approximately 250 dollars for everybody. This implies that, for the desperate 1 billion people who live under extreme poverty, this money is enough for their food for whole year, for their education and healthcare. Hence, we have no problem of money, we only have a problem of spending in a right way. For sure, it is not possible to cut the military budget completely, but it is possible to reduce the spending and use the money somewhere else, in health, education or infra-structure. No matter how good it is for business or industries, poor countries sending multi-billion dollar satellites in space is equally unethical. Investment in weapons like enriching uranium or building other atomic weapon will only cause moral dilemma and as a result, other countries end up building that as well so at the end of the day, resources for daily needs will be missing but we will have sophisticated weapons to destroy each other.

So, the question goes, what should we do now ? I think when we, the people of the world are determined to take small actions, we can make a huge change in a short period. We should see a bigger picture and start thinking from the globe as a whole. There is no other option than to go green. Resources we use are limited. Sooner or later, we must switch to green sustainable way of life. The sooner the better. So, do small things, switch off the lights when you leave your room, switch off electrical devices if you dont use them, share your car instead of travelling alone, use public transportation if possible, reduce food waste, buy things that you really need and ignore the ones that you dont, prioritize locally grown foods, buy from environmentally friendly suppliers or companies and tell the people in your surrounding to do the same. This will have a huge change in a short time. I am not telling to reject materialism. Be materialistic but know your needs and dont over-consume. It is a positive news that technology is helping to gain environmental efficiency therefore, investment in new technology should not be interrupted. Just 20 years ago, there were separate devices for telephone, camera, watch and radio. Today we have all in one, in iphone which is much efficient. Similarly, coal fired trains that were polluting the environment are being replaced by efficient electric powered trains. Better technology is the best solution.

In the health sector, first of all we need a better policy that does not discriminate people when it is about providing care. Secondly, in personal level when we change our lifestyle towards healthy living, the healthcare costs for us as well as for the government will be reduced. Most people have a kind of job that does not require much physical activity today. So, they sit on the chair all the time while working. At home, people spend more time in front of television or computer or video games. This kind of sedentary lifestyle is not what humans had in the past. Even though we have such lifestyle, the health professionals advice to do at least 30 minutes of any physical activity daily. It can be more. Consuming healthy foods, more vegetables and fruits, taking care of mental health, laughing a lot and most importantly not eating junk or processed foods can make us healthy. Especially junk foods are responsible for the obesity that are increasing at alarming rate in western world but also in few poorer countries. The WHO reports that 74% people are overweight in America. In the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, it is well over 60%. Overweight is connected with cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and many other diseases. Apart from poor health, there are vast economic consequences on the person but also on the healthcare providers. Lost working days, waste of time due to illness etc are few drawbacks of having a poor health. As health is directly connected with environment, a joint policy would help to improve both. For example a high tax on processed meat would cause less consumption of unhealthy meat and at the same time is environmentally friendly. There are issues with animal rights too. Due to our appetite for chickens, the situation in poultry farms are terrible. Number of chickens per square metres, their handling, their foods etc are all other than an ethical treatment of animals. This has caused a massive uproar among the animal rights activists. Moreover, the extensive use of antibiotics in animals will have direct impact on human health when we consume their meats. The gist of this message is: take care of your health and take care of the environment.

In the case of developing countries, the use of medical technologies should be intensified. In a current situation, the problem of accessibility is dire. Rural areas are untouched by any health facilities. Telehealth has contributed to minimize the problem. A patient in a rural area can talk to his/her doctor via internet and get appropriate consultation. In case of basic sicknesses or health problem, it is a genuine solution. Telehealth is also being used in developed countries with vast rural areas like the United States or Australia. While preparing a report about challenges of primary healthcare, I read a paper that reported that falling from a tree while collecting firewood is one of the major cause of disability in rural Nepal. People should cook food by burning woods so they spent time going to the jungle, cutting trees or branches and when they fall down and break their legs, they have to live with broken leg due to unavailability of health services. Due to the lack of roads, it would be impossible in many cases to bring these people to the places where treatment is available. Telehealth wont help here either but there are many other cases where even a general consultation will help. In this example again there is both health and environmental aspect. As an economist, I notice that this system of collecting firewood to cook food is the most inefficient method. A person should spend a lot of time going to the jungle, cutting the woods, climbing trees risking his health, and bring it home to cook where he burns these woods. Burning woods cause indoor pollution where all the family member will breathe the smoke. It is like smoking many cigarette at a time. The smoke is very bad for the health of children and especially if there is a pregnant woman, it will have many negative effects on her and her child's health. It can cause cognitive deficiency in the child. So, giving a stove or electric heater for such people for free is one of the best economic policies. A poor family will save a lot of time, the risk of falling from tree will be mitigated and there will be no bad impact on their health. As they will save time, they can even send their children to school. In the current situation, we cannot tell these people to send their children to school because they should work in the fields and perform household activities otherwise there is nothing to eat. So, technologies are good for the poor.

Moreover, priorities should be in prevention rather than cure. Teaching healthy living in school, enacting public health law to fight the major issues like air pollution, tobacco use, food safety, waste management, sanitation etc will improve the health of people, decrease the pressure on hospitals and save money. Health policies in developed countries are based mainly on prevention but developing countries are still struggling to do this. Hospitals are over crowded, there is lack of doctors and other specialized health professionals and the health infra-structures they have today were built in times when the level of population was much lower. Population growth in developing countries are terribly high but the health facilities havent increased so this will certainly cause a decrease in quality of care. The percentage of GDP spent in health sector should also be increased. Even a one percent increase will cause better health hence better productivity hence better growth and this means prosperity.

So, after changing these few things in the environment and in our health, we can start taking care of other people. Then we can see the societal problems and think about how we can solve them. Few things that are rampant these days are again inequality, poverty, discrimination, racism, nepotism, domestic violence, human rights etc. We will not talk about all of them but these are the most important ones. Before we talked about reducing military spendings but we should keep in mind that unless the society is not safe, unless the people dont feel safe to go to schools, markets or whereever, we cannot cut in security spendings. If people are peaceful, only then there will be no need of police or security spending. So, this process begins with ourselves. When we are violent and cause threat, the problem will continue to exist. Recently I read a news that in the Netherlands, many prisons are being shut down as there are no prisoners. If there are no prisoners why bother to hire more policemen or build prisons. So, we the people have power to bring change in the society by changing ourselves for better. Discrimination of any kinds based on skin colour, class, ethnicity, religion should be tackled by proper laws and their implementation. All social problems have one answer and that is inclusive Economic Development. Unless there is development, social problems like inequality, violence, human rights will never go away. However, this development should be non-discriminatory, it should be inclusive and should be sustainable without postponing the externalities to the future generation. This development will generate peace and prosperity. Without talking about development, no-matter how long we talk about reducing poverty, inequality, violence etc, it will only be a waste of time.

One success story I cannot miss is about Professor Mohammad Yunus who got Nobel Prize in Peace in 2006. He is actually the founding father of Micro-credit and started lending from his own pocket. Micro-credit is a lending scheme that give minimal amount of money to the people with no financial collateral so that they can invest in micro businesses like selling toys, repairing shoes etc. This scheme was so successful that it provided a way of living for millions of poor in Bangladesh. They could feed themselves, feed their families and send their children to school. In the absence of this, they could have ended up stealing things in order to survive or participate in other illegal activities. There can be no peace with hungry stomachs. A job stopped people from being violent and hence generated Peace. That is why Professor Yunus was not awarded Nobel prize in Economics rather in Peace. Micro-credit was copied by development agencies in other countries and micro-credit today is the part of curriculum in programmes related to development. Elite universities like Massachusetts Institute of Technology and London School of Economics teach about Micro-Credit in their classrooms.

Moreover, moral values like democracy, freedom, human rights, animal rights, tolerance, love etc should always be maintained. Better rules and their implementations can create a world worth living.

Hence, considering all the issues I mentioned above namely environmental sustainability, good health, sustainable development, learning this ourselves and teaching this to future generations, we will have better people for this earth who will take care of it.