Articles by John Scales Avery
We found 363 results.
Individual Responsibility
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Jan 2017
20 Jan 2017 – There are many governments today that can be described unjust, and some that even deserve to be called fascist. What is the duty of the individual citizen, living under such a government?
→ read full articleWe Must Not Demonize and Threaten Russia
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2017
Today the world spends more than 1.7 trillion dollars ( $1,700,000,000,000) every year on armaments. This vast river of money, almost too large to be imagined, is the “devil’s dynamo” driving the institution of war. Politicians notoriously can be bought with a tiny fraction of this enormous amount; hence the decay of democracy.
→ read full articleTribalism, Nationalism and Fascism
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2017
A Drop of Good Sense in a Sea of Emotion
→ read full articleEurope Must Not Be a Vassal to Trump’s USA
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Dec 2016
Today human civilization and the biosphere face two existential threats: catastrophic climate change, and thermonuclear war. Each of these disasters could cause mass extinctions, and each could make large portions of the earth permanently uninhabitable.
→ read full articleTrump Threatens Us with Climate Disaster
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2016
The participants in the current UN climate talks in Marrakech are extremely worried about the effect that his election will have on the viability of the Paris climate agreement. Trump has stated in his campaign speeches that, if elected, he would pull the United States out of the Paris agreement.
→ read full article[Nobel Peace Laureate] Gorbachev Appeals for Sanity
John Scales Avery - Pugwash Nobel Peace Laureate – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2016
28 Oct 2016 – President Mikhail Gorbachev, former leader of the Soviet Union and recipient of the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize, has appealed to world leaders to reduce the dangerous the tensions which today threaten to plunge human civilization and the biosphere into an all-destroying nuclear war.
→ read full articleWhat U.S. Progressives Should Do on Nov. 8
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Oct 2016
The drift towards militarism and fascism which we can observe today, not only in the United States but also in several other countries, is worryingly reminiscent of the 1930’s. We must fervently hope that the disasters which resulted then from the rise of fascism and militarism will not occur again, and we must work with dedication to prevent this from happening.
→ read full articleScience and Society
John Scales Avery, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Oct 2016
I would like to announce that an updated and very much enlarged edition of my book “Science and Society” will very soon be published by World Scientific (in November, 2016). Locally printed editions of it were used in courses taught not only in Denmark, but also in Sweden, Switzerland, England and Myanmar. It would be very good if the book could be used at the high-school or gymnasium level, as well as in colleges and universities.
→ read full articleFossil Fuels: At What Price?
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Sep 2016
An externality is the cost or benefit of some unintended consequence of an economic action. For example, tobacco companies do not really wish for their customers to die from cancer, but a large percentage of them do, and the social costs of this slaughter ought to be reflected in the price of tobacco. The true environmental costs of fossil fuel use are much greater than those of smoking.
→ read full articleHuman Nature: An Evolutionary Paradox
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Aug 2016
From the standpoint of evolutionary theory, this is a paradox. As a species, we are well on the road to committing collective suicide, driven by the flaws in human nature. But isn’t natural selection supposed to produce traits that lead to survival? Today, our emotions are not leading us towards survival, but instead driving us towards extinction. What is the reason for this paradox?
→ read full articleMainstream Media Are Betraying Humanity
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Aug 2016
We need to wake up to the real dangers that are facing humanity. Terrorism is not a real danger. The number of people killed by terrorists each year is vanishingly small compared to the number killed in traffic accidents, not to mention the tens of millions who die each year from starvation and preventable diseases. But the mass media shamelessly magnify terrorist events (some of which may be false flag actions) out of all proportion in order to allow governments to abolish civil liberties and crush dissent.
→ read full articleNATO Threatens Europe with Annihilation
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jun 2016
18 Jun 2016 – NATO is supposed to be a defensive alliance, whose purpose is to “protect Europe from aggression”; but today it is an aggressive tool of the United States. In recent years, participation in NATO has made European countries accomplices in US efforts to achieve global hegemony by means of military force, in violation of international law, and especially in violation of the UN Charter, the Nuremberg Principles.
→ read full articleUSA: Another Stolen Election?
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jun 2016
10 Jun 2016 – Many people throughout the world view recent political developments in the United States with alarm. Is the US drifting towards fascism? If so, is there a danger that the world will be plunged into an all-destroying thermonuclear war? Will political irresponsibility in the United States result in climate change denial? Will all hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change then be lost?
→ read full articleThe Superdelegates Must Vote for Sanders
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 May 2016
Superdelegates were introduced by the US Democratic Party in 1984 (the year in which George Orwell’s prophetic book is set). These unelected delegates are party officials, and their purpose is to circumvent the popular will. They are supposed to choose an electable candidate in case the voters choose an unelectable one.
→ read full articleThe Danger of Fascism in the United States
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2016
There is a real danger that Donald Trump, who is not only xenophobic, racist and hatemongering, but also misogynistic, wildly erratic and manifestly unqualified for the post, could be elected to the US Presidency in November.
→ read full articleOPEC Oil and Climate Change
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
In an amazing display of collective schizophrenia, our media treat oil production and the global climate emergency as though they were totally disconnected.
→ read full articleCreating the Future
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
I strongly believe that we must not allow ourselves the luxury of fatalism, especially today, when our future is darkened by the twin threats of catastrophic climate change and thermonuclear war. We must accept our responsibility for both the near and the distant futures. We must save the environment, plants and animals from extinction, and make a world in which our children and their descendants can survive.
→ read full articleJakob Von Uexküll and the World Future Council
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
14 Apr 2016 – In a recent speech to the World Future Council, the distinguished writer, philanthropist, activist and former politician Jacob von Uexküll outlined the future dangers facing our world with an accuracy and eloquence that has seldom been equaled. Besides being a former member of the European Parliament and a leader of the German Green Party, von Uexküll himself founded both the Right Livelihood Award (sometimes called the Alternative Nobel Prize) and the World Future Council.
→ read full articleSome Books and Articles on Peace
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Apr 2016
Check them out please.
→ read full articleWhile the Arctic Superheats, Pipeline Wars Continue
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Mar 2016
When it became clear that smoking is a serious danger to health, films and television dramas rose to their responsibility and stopped showing people with cigarettes drooping from their lips. Can we not have similar responsibility today, when the future of the biosphere depends on everyone rapidly adopting an oil-free lifestyle?
→ read full articleWho Is My Neighbour?
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Mar 2016
Among the symptoms of loss of solidarity is the drift towards violence, racism and aggressive foreign policy that can be seen in the United States. Another warning symptom is the inhospitable reception that refugees have received in Europe and elsewhere.
→ read full articlePublication of My Book: ‘The Need for a New Economic System’
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Feb 2016
The Need for a New Economic System is a new book based on the series of articles that I published on TRANSCEND Media Service during the autumn of 2015. It deals with the very urgent problems that are facing the world today, all of which are linked to our need for a reformed and sustainable economic system.
→ read full articleThe Urgent Need for Complete Abolition of Nuclear Weapons
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2016
After discussing the Bikini test and its radioactive fallout with Joseph Rotblat, Lord Russell became concerned for the future of the human gene pool if large numbers of such bombs should ever be used in a war. To warn humanity of the danger, he wrote what came to be known as the Russell-Einstein Manifesto.
→ read full articlePublication of My Collected Essays
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jan 2016
“I know John Avery as a scholar and an advocate of peace. If the Old Testament command of an eye for an eye is followed, the whole world will be blind. A far better path for humanity, as John shows in the Essays, is to apply the tools of reason, science and morality to eliminate the underlying causes of war and poverty.” — Hon. Matt Robson
→ read full articlePharming
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jan 2016
The resistance factors produced by shovelling antibiotics into animal food produces resistance factors (plasmids) which can easily be transferred to human pathogens. A related problem is the excessive use of pesticides and artificial fossil-fuel-derived fertilizers in agriculture. Pharming is not a joke. It is a serious threat.
→ read full articleCulture, Education and Human Solidarity
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jan 2016
Human nature has two sides: It has a dark side, to which nationalism and militarism appeal; but our species also has a genius for cooperation, which we can see in the growth of culture. Our modern civilization has been built up by means of a worldwide exchange of ideas and inventions.
→ read full articleThe United States Drifts towards Political Irresponsibility
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Dec 2015
The recent Republican presidential debates were held in the gaudy and luxurious Venetian Casino in Los Vegas, a building whose billionaire Republican-backing owner Sheldon Adelson held a private meeting with fellow-billionaire Donald Trump before the debate.
→ read full articleParis: We Need System Change!
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Dec 2015
Our entire system is leading us towards disaster, and this includes both economic and governmental establishments. To save human civilization, the biosphere and the future, the people of the world must take matters into their own hands and change the system.
→ read full articleParis and the Long-Term Future
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2015
The ultimate fate of human civilization and the biosphere is in our hands. What we really have to fear, for the sake of our children and grandchildren and their descendants, is reaching a tipping point, beyond which uncontrollable feedback loops will make catastrophic climate change inevitable despite all human efforts to prevent it.
→ read full articleParis, India, and Coal
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2015
The MIT Technology Review recently published an important article entitled “India’s Energy Crisis”. Have India’s economic planners really thought about the long-term future? Have they considered the fact that drastic climate change could make India completely uninhabitable?
→ read full articleWe Must Stop the Madness of Brinkmanship
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2015
Brinksmanship is an insane and immoral game played by our arrogant and power-mad leaders. It is a game that the world could all too easily lose. We know from histories of the start of World War I how easily a small incident can escalate uncontrollably into a catastrophic global conflict. With thermonuclear weapons, the stakes are much higher today. The future of humanity and the biosphere are at stake.
→ read full articleParis: A Sense of Proportion Is Urgently Needed
John Scales Avery, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Nov 2015
For more than a week after the terrorist attacks in Paris on 13 November, every television news program of any kind was completely dominated by non-stop day-and-night coverage of the “breaking news”. Let us hope that attention of the world and the focus of the delegates at the Paris Climate Conference will not be distracted by pseudo-threats, and will instead look seriously at the real threats that the world is facing. We urgently need a sense of proportion.
→ read full articleAurelio Peccei and Daisaku Ikeda, “Before It Is Too Late”
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Nov 2015
I would like to suggest to SGI and to The Club of Rome that, because of the great importance of the book, it would be very desirable to re-issue “Before It Is Too Late” in a less expensive edition, and also to make it available as an e-book. The message and wisdom of the two famous and distinguished authors is much too valuable to be lost.
→ read full articleThe Need for a New Economic System – Part 9: A New Economic System; a New Society
John Scales Avery, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Sep 2015
We need a new economic system, a new society, a new social contract, a new way of life. Here are the great tasks that history has given to our generation:
→ read full articleThe Need for a New Economic System – Part 8: The Cooperative Movement
John Scales Avery, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Sep 2015
In the future, small cooperative communities, like the Ghandian villages or Transition Towns, may be able to give us not only a more sustainable way of life, but also increased happiness, based warm life-long friendships and the pleasure of doing good to others.
→ read full articleThe Need for a New Economic System – Part 7: The Global Food Crisis
John Scales Avery, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Sep 2015
There is a danger that just as global population reaches the unprecedented level of 9 billion or more, the agricultural base for supporting it may suddenly collapse. Ecological catastrophe, possibly compounded by war and other disorders, could produce famine and death on a scale unprecedented in history, a disaster of unimaginable proportions, involving billions rather than millions of people.
→ read full articleThe Need for a New Economic System – Part 6: Adverse Effects of Globalization
John Scales Avery, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Aug 2015
In the early 19th century, industrial society began to be governed by new rules: Traditions were forgotten and replaced by purely economic laws. Labor was viewed as a commodity, like coal or grain, and wages were paid according to the laws of supply and demand, without regard for the needs of the workers.
→ read full articleThe Need for a New Economic System – Part 5: The Threats and Costs of War
John Scales Avery, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Aug 2015
The costs of war, both direct and indirect, are so enormous that they are almost beyond comprehension. Can we not rid ourselves of both nuclear weapons and the institution of war itself? We must act quickly and resolutely before our beautiful world is reduced to radioactive ashes, together with the people that we love.
→ read full articleThe Need for a New Economic System – Part 4: Neocolonialism and Resource Wars
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Aug 2015
Our present economic system produces an endless series of resource-motivated wars. In addition to the enormous suffering, waste, injustice and ecological destruction produced by modern wars, we must recognize that in an era of thermonuclear weapons, war has become prohibitively dangerous. Therefore, we need a new economic system.
→ read full articleThe Need for a New Economic System – Part 3: Climate Change and the Urgent Need for Renewable Energy
John Scales Avery, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2015
These considerations point to a battle that will have to be fought by the people of the world who are concerned about the long-term future of human civilization and the biosphere, against the vested interests of our oligarchic rulers. This fight will require wide public discussion of the dangers of runaway climate change. At present, our corporate-controlled mass media hardly mention the long-term dangers, such as the methane hydrate feedback loop, so the battle will have to be fought in the alternative media.
→ read full articleThe Need for a New Economic System – Part 2: Entropy and Economics
John Scales Avery, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Aug 2015
The disorder and statistical probability of the universe is constantly increasing, but because the earth is not a closed system, we are able to create local order, and complex, statistically improbable structures, like the works of Shakespeare, the Mona Lisa and the Internet. The human economy is driven by the free energy that we receive as income from the sun. Money is, in fact, a symbol for free energy, and free energy might be thought of as “negative entropy”. There is also a link between free energy and information.
→ read full articleIsrael, Iran and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2015
Any use of violence against Iran would be both insane and criminal. Such violence would violate both the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Principles. There is no hope at all for the future unless we work for a peaceful world, governed by international law, rather than a fearful world where brutal power holds sway.
→ read full articleThe Need for a New Economic System – Part 1: Limits to Growth
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2015
The unsustainable, power-worshiping, consumption-oriented values of western society are so strongly propagandized by television, films and advertising that they overpower and sweep aside the wisdom of older societies. The wisdom of our ancestors, their respect for nature and their hospitable traditions of sharing can help us create a new economic system founded on social and environmental ethics.
→ read full articleGreed Is Driving Us towards Disaster
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jul 2015
Greed, in particular the greed of corporations and billionaire oligarchs, is driving human civilization and the biosphere towards disaster. The greed of giant fossil fuel corporations is driving us towards a tipping point after which human efforts to control climate change will be futile because feedback loops will have taken over. The greed of the military industrial complex is driving us towards a Third World War that might develop into a catastrophic thermonuclear war. The greed of our financial institutions is driving us towards economic collapse, as we see in the case of Greece.
→ read full articleDebt Slavery
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jul 2015
Usury, the charging of interest on loans, has a history of being forbidden by several major religions, including not only the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but also the ancient Vedic Scriptures of India.
→ read full articleThe New President of the UN General Assembly
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jul 2015
The election of Mogens Lykketoft as the new President of the United Nations General Assembly has opened the door to the solution of several of world’s most pressing problems. For example, it may now be possible to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention by a direct majority vote.
→ read full articleWill the Real Issues Be Discussed in 2016 US Presidential Election?
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jul 2015
Most thoughtful people agree that the two most important issues facing humanity today are the threat of catastrophic and uncontrollable climate change, and the threat of nuclear war. Each of these threatened disasters has the potential to destroy human civilization and much of the biosphere.
→ read full articleMilitarism’s Hostages
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jun 2015
The military-industrial complex sells itself by claiming to defend civilians. It justifies vast and crippling budgets by this claim; but it is a fraud. For the military-industrial complex, the only goal is money and power. Civilians like ourselves are just hostages. We are expendable.
→ read full articleNew Hope for Avoiding Catastrophic Climate Change
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2015
Because of the astonishing properties of exponential growth, we can calculate that if these growth rates are maintained, renewable energy can give us 24.8 terawatts within only 15 years! This is far more than the world’s present use of all forms of energy. All of us must work with dedication to provide the political will needed to avoid catastrophic climate change. The strong and friendly voice of Pope Francis can give us hope and courage.
→ read full articleExponential Growth
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jun 2015
Looking at the long-term future, we can calculate that any quantity increasing at the modest rate of 3% per year will grow by a factor of 20.1 in a century. This implies that in four centuries, whatever is growing at 3% will have increased by a factor of 163,000. These facts make it completely clear that long-continued economic growth on a finite planet is a logical absurdity.
→ read full articleAlbert Einstein, Scientist and Pacifist
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jun 2015
“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our ways of thinking, and thus we drift towards unparalleled catastrophes.”
“I don’t know what will be used in the next world war, but the 4th will be fought with stones.”
— Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
The Path to Zero: Dialogues on Nuclear Dangers – A Review
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 May 2015
The Path to Zero: Dialogues on Nuclear Dangers, by Richard Falk and David Krieger – This book ought to be required reading for college students everywhere in the world, and also for decision-makers. It shakes us out of our complacency and makes us realize that widespread, immediate and dedicated public action is urgently needed if we are to save human civilization and the biosphere from a thermonuclear catastrophe.
→ read full articleMillay’s “Epitaph for the Race of Man”
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Apr 2015
The beautiful red-haired American poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), is known for her lyric poetry. In “Epitaph” she speculates on what will be the final cause of the extinction of the human race and concludes that Man will die by his own hand since nothing has persuaded humankind “to lay aside the lever and the spade, and be as dust among the dusts that blow”.
→ read full articleThe Future of International Law
John Scales Avery, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2015
Abstract: After the invention of agriculture, roughly 10,000 years ago, humans began to live in progressively larger groups, which were sometimes multi-ethnic. In order to make towns, cities and finally nations function without excessive injustice and violence, both ethical and legal systems were needed. Today, in an era of global economic interdependence, instantaneous worldwide communication and all-destroying thermonuclear weapons, we urgently need new global ethical principles and a just and enforceable system of international laws.
→ read full articleEurope Must Not Be Forced Into a Nuclear War with Russia
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Mar 2015
In an important recent lecture, Institute Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT has pointed out that our leaders act to preserve their own power, and the power of the state. They seem to have little interest in protecting the general population from destruction.
→ read full articleSecrecy and Democracy Are Incompatible
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Mar 2015
Obama, who has proved himself to be a fairly weak character from the start, certainly has given the CIA anything it wants. The dirty business of ISIS in Syria and Iraq is one project. The coup in Ukraine is another. The pushing of NATO’s face right against Russia’s borders is another. Several attempted coups in Venezuela are still more. And the creation of a drone air force for extra-judicial killings in half a dozen countries is yet another.
→ read full articleTactical Nuclear Weapons in Europe
John Scales Avery - Danish Pugwash Group – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Mar 2015
A thermonuclear war would be not only genocidal but also omnicidal. It would kill people of all ages, babies, children, young people, mothers, fathers and grandparents. Such a war would be the ultimate ecological catastrophe, destroying not only human civilization but also much of the biosphere. Each of us has a duty to work with dedication to prevent it.
→ read full articleGandhi as an Economist
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Mar 2015
After his death, someone collected and photographed all his worldly goods. These consisted of a pair of glasses, a pair of sandals and a white homespun loincloth. Here, as in the Swadeshi movement, we see Gandhi as a pioneer of economics. He deliberately reduced his possessions to an absolute minimum in order to demonstrate that there is no connection between personal merit and material goods.
→ read full articleRemember Your Humanity
John Scales Avery, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Feb 2015
This year, 2015, marks the 60th anniversary of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, which contains the following words: “There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise. If you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”
→ read full articleQuick Action Is Needed to Save the Long-Term Future
John Scales Avery, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
We must save the long-term future of our beautiful planet, not only for ourselves, and our children and grandchildren, but also for all future generations of humans, and for the dazzling diversity of plants and animals with which we share the gift of life.
→ read full articleSome Contributions of Islamic Culture
John Scales Avery, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Feb 2015
At a time when the corporate-controlled media of Europe and the United States are doing everything that they can to fill us with poisonous Islamophobia, it is perhaps a useful antidote to remember the great role that Islamic civilization played in preserving, enlarging and transmitting to us the knowledge and culture of the ancient world.
→ read full articlePoliteness in Multi-Ethnic Societies
John Scales Avery, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Jan 2015
The attack on Charlie Hebdo, in which 10 people were killed, claimed massive media attention worldwide. In Denmark, it was proposed that the offending cartoons of the prophet Mohammad should be reprinted in major newspapers. I believe [that] Denmark has not yet had time to learn that politeness is essential for preventing conflicts in a multi-ethnic society.
→ read full articleInstitutional and Cultural Inertia
John Scales Avery, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Jan 2015
Today we are faced with multiple interrelated crises, for example the threat of catastrophic climate change or equally catastrophic thermonuclear war, and the threat of widespread famine. These threats to human existence and to the biosphere demand a prompt and rational response; but because of institutional and cultural inertia, we are failing to take the steps that are necessary to avoid disaster.
→ read full articleBirgitta Jonsdottir, Democracy and Freedom of Information
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Nov 2014
Believing that lack of free information was the main cause of the corruption behind Iceland’s 2008 crisis, Birgitta Jónsdóttir convinced her colleagues in the Althingi, the oldest parliament in the world, to pass unanimously a law calling for complete freedom of information in Iceland. She also worked closely with Julian Assange to produce the video “Collateral Murder”.
→ read full articleInterrelated Threats to Humans and to the Biosphere
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Nov 2014
To avoid the inevitable downturn caused by excessive inequality, our oligarchic governments resort to what might be called “Military Keynesianism”. To prevent the crash of stock markets and banks of our corporate-controlled governments, enemies have to be found: communists, terrorists, the Islamic world, Russia, Iran, China, and so on. The corporate press keeps the public perpetually in fear of these “enemies”.
→ read full articleThe Agony of Iraq
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Sep 2014
“Modern warfare particularly depends on oil, because virtually all weapons systems rely on oil-based fuel – tanks, trucks, armored vehicles, self-propelled artillery pieces, airplanes, and naval ships. For this reason, the governments and general staffs of powerful nations seek to ensure a steady supply of oil during wartime, to fuel oil-hungry military forces in far-flung operational theaters.”
→ read full articleThe United Nations Climate Summit
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Sep 2014
Throughout the world, peoples of all countries need to act with urgency to switch to an economy that aims at sustainability rather than endless consumption and growth, an economy based on renewable energy rather than fossil fuels, an economy devoted to life rather than to profits.
→ read full articleClimate Change Means Lifestyle Change
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Sep 2014
Scientists are unanimous in warning us that unless we very rapidly reduce CO2 emissions, we risk passing a tipping point beyond which we will be powerless to prevent uncontrollable global warming.
→ read full articleKilling Civilians
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Sep 2014
In Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, Articles 51 and 54 outlaw indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations, and destruction of food, water, and other materials needed for survival.
→ read full articleInternational Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Aug 2014
In 2013 the UN General Assembly declared 26 September International Day for Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. The first ever event will take place a month from now on 26 Sep 2014. What can you, as an individual, do?
→ read full articleScience, Religion and War
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Aug 2014
The principle of reciprocity is an ancient one in human history, and it is thus embedded in our emotions. It is the basis of non-market economies, and also the basis of social interactions between family members, friends and colleagues. In hunter-gatherer societies, it is customary to share food among all the members of the group. Similarly, among friends in modern society, no payment is made for hospitality, but it is expected that the hospitality will be returned.
→ read full articleThe Marshall Islands Sue All Nuclear Nations for Violations of the NPT’s Article VI
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Aug 2014
One can gain a small idea of the terrible ecological consequences of a nuclear war by thinking of the radioactive contamination that has made large areas near to Chernobyl and Fukushima uninhabitable, or the testing of hydrogen bombs in the Pacific, which continues to cause leukemia and birth defects in the Marshall Islands more than half a century later.
→ read full articleHiroshima August 6, 1945: A Silence Broken
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Aug 2014
In Japanese the survivors of injuries from the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are called “hibakusha”. The Sokka Gakkai Hiroshima Peace Committee’s most recent book, “A Silence Broken”, contains the testimonies of 14 men who are among the last few remaining hibakushas. The nuclear destruction of Hiroshima was a tragedy in itself, but its larger significance is that it started a nuclear arms race which today threatens to destroy human society and much of the biosphere.
→ read full articleThe Court of World Opinion
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Jul 2014
Israel, an apartheid regime far more evil than it South African counterpart ever was, justifies its genocidal atrocities by claiming that it “has a right to self-defense”; and the clarity of the situation is lost. I believe that even in an era such as ours, where the mainstream media are so thoroughly failing us, Gandhi’s nonviolence is still relevant.
→ read full articleClimate Change: Will a Disaster Wake Us Up?
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Jul 2014
In a 2011 interview in The Guardian, Sir David Attenborough was asked: “What will it take to wake people up about climate change?” He replied “Disaster. It’s a terrible thing to say, isn’t it? And even disaster doesn’t always do it.
→ read full articleThe Devil’s Dynamo
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Jun 2014
Why is the military-industrial complex sometimes called “The Devil’s Dynamo”? Today, the US government is taking actions that seem almost insane, risking a nuclear war with Russia and simultaneously alienating China. In the long run, such hubris cannot succeed. Overspending on war will lead to economic collapse.
→ read full articleSaving Threatened Species
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jun 2014
Current [atmospheric] CO2 values are more than 100 ppm higher than at any time in the last one million years (and maybe higher than at any time in the last 25 million years)… These increases in atmospheric CO2 are causing real, significant changes in the Earth system now, not in some distant future climate, and will continue to be felt for centuries to come.
→ read full articleThe Urgent Need for Renewable Energy
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jun 2014
The Reason for Urgency – The scientific community is unanimous in telling us that if we do not rapidly switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy, there is a danger that global warming will pass a tipping point beyond which uncontrollable feedback loops will lead to drastically increased temperatures. At present, our corporate-controlled mass media refuse to touch the subject. So the battle will have to be fought in the alternative media.
→ read full articleThe Illegality of NATO
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 May 2014
In recent years, participation in NATO has made European countries accomplices in US efforts to achieve global hegemony by means of military force, in violation of international law, and especially in violation of the UN Charter, the Nuremberg Principles.
→ read full articleOur Duty to Future Generations
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 May 2014
Many traditional agricultural societies have an ethical code that requires them to preserve the fertility of the land for future generations. This recognition of a duty towards the distant future is in strong contrast to the shortsightedness of modern economists.
→ read full articlePreventing a Human-Initiated 6th Geological Extinction Event
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 May 2014
In 2012 the World Bank issued a report warning that without quick action to curb CO2 emissions global warming is likely to reach 4 degrees C during the 21st century. This is dangerously close to the temperature which initiated the Permian-Triassic extinction event: 6 degrees C above normal.
→ read full articleGeological Extinction Events and Runaway Climate Change
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 May 2014
The worst consequences of runaway climate change will not occur within our own lifetimes. However, we have a duty to all future human generations, and to the plants and animals with which we share our existence, to give them a future world in which they can survive.
→ read full articleThe Long-Term Future
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Apr 2014
Genetically we are very similar to our hunter-gatherer ancestors, but their world has been replaced by a world of quantum theory, space travel, gene splicing, and information technology. Thus human emotions, which have remained relatively unchanged, are often inappropriate for our present way of life. In the future, the problem of anachronistic emotions is certain to become even more acute.
→ read full articleEurope Needs to Be Independent
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Apr 2014
Legacies from the First and Second World Wars and the Cold War
→ read full articleUnfulfilled Responsibilities of the Media
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Apr 2014
The media are a battleground where reformers struggle for attention, but are defeated with great regularity by the wealth and power of the establishment. This is a tragedy because today there is an urgent need to make public opinion aware of the serious problems facing civilization, and the steps that are needed to solve these problems.
→ read full articleAdam Smith’s Invisible Hand Is at Our Throats
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Mar 2014
As everyone knows, Adam Smith invented the theory that individual self-interest is, and ought to be, the main motivating force of human economic activity, and that, in effect, it serves the wider social interest. He put forward a detailed description of this concept in an immense book, “The Wealth of Nations” (1776).
→ read full articleUkraine and the Danger of Nuclear War
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Mar 2014
World War I had its roots in the fanatical and quasi-religious nationalist movements that developed in Europe during the 19th century. Nationalism is still a potent force in today’s world, but in an era of all-destroying weapons, instantaneous worldwide communication, and global economic interdependence, fanatical nationalism has become a dangerous anachronism.
→ read full articleJohn Scales Avery – Collected Essays, Volume 2
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Mar 2014
The pdf file for “Collected Essays, Volume 2” has been published on the website of the Danish Peace Academy.
→ read full articleTruth versus Power
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Feb 2014
Henry David Thoreau said
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth”.
Why did Thoreau prefer truth to all else?
“Atoms for Peace”?
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Feb 2014
It is interesting to review the way in which Israel, South Africa, Pakistan, India and North Korea obtained their nuclear weapons, since in all these cases the weapons were constructed under the guise of “atoms for peace”, a phrase that future generations may someday regard as being tragically self-contradictory.
→ read full articleAn Accident Waiting to Happen
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Feb 2014
11 of the officers responsible for launching US nuclear missiles have been fired because of drug addiction, and a larger number of missile launch officers were found to be cheating on competence examinations. Three dozen officers were involved in the cheating ring and an equal number may have known and remained silent. Safety rules were being deliberately ignored and the men involved were said to be “burned out”.
→ read full articleThe Fragility of Our Complex Civilization
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jan 2014
Science is not competitive. It is cooperative. It is a great monument built by many thousands of hands, each adding a stone to the cairn. This is true not only of scientific knowledge but also of every aspect of our culture, history, art and literature, as well as the skills that produce everyday objects upon which our lives depend. Civilization is cooperative. It is not competitive.
→ read full articleAre We Being Driven Like Cattle?
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jan 2014
Let us stop being driven like cattle by invented threats. Let us instead look at the very real dangers that threaten human civilization, and do our utmost to avoid them. One can herd cattle, but one cannot herd lions. As Shelly said, “Ye are many. They are few.”
→ read full articleA Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons – Mexico, Feb 2014
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2013
On February 13 and 14, 2014, the government of Mexico will host a conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. The global peace movement must think carefully about how best to use the opportunities offered by the Mexico conference and by other recent breakthroughs in the struggle to eliminate the danger of a catastrophic thermonuclear war.
→ read full articleSome Examples of Genocide
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Dec 2013
Last Monday [9 Dec 2013], 65 years ago, the United Nations adopted a convention prohibiting genocide. It therefore seems appropriate to recall some examples of genocide, many of which have occurred since 1948.
→ read full articleMandela and Gandhi
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Dec 2013
Nelson Rohihlahla Mandela (1918-2013) and Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) were two of human history’s greatest leaders in the struggle against governmental oppression. They are also remembered as great ethical teachers. Their lives had many similarities; but there were also differences.
→ read full articleThe Case for Economic Reform
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2013
The serious threats which civilization is facing in the 21st century are well known. Nevertheless, it may be useful to list them and to examine how they are related to each other and to our growth-obsessed, war-addicted economic system.
→ read full articleRacism, Colonialism and Exceptionalism
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Oct 2013
“What makes America different, what makes us exceptional, is that we are dedicated to act.” (Barak Obama, Sep 2013) It seems to be possible for nations, and the majority of their citizens, to commit the worst imaginable atrocities, including torture, murder and genocide, while feeling that what they are doing is both noble and good.
→ read full articleScience Changes the Character of War
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Sep 2013
Our ideas and our political institutions adjust much too slowly to the realities of technology. A nuclear war today could destroy human civilization and much of the biosphere. But politicians continue to risk the future of the world by initiating potentially catastrophic wars.
→ read full articleEthics for the Future
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Sep 2013
In the long run, because of the enormously destructive weapons, which have been produced through the misuse of science, the survival of civilization can only be ensured if we are able to abolish the institution of war. The world which we want will be a world of changed values, where human qualities will be valued more than material possessions.
→ read full article