Robert Muller's
2000 Ideas & Dreams
For A Better World
Selected Topics

Capitalism

~ Idea 312 ~ 18 May 1995

There is much pressure from the rich countries for free world trade, because they have a distinct historic, economic, scientific and technological advantage to invade the poor countries with their products and advanced marketing and advertisement, often changing the traditional, more healthy, natural, better habits of these countries, where moreover advertisement is very cheap. The poor countries should raise the issue of free migrations, of the freedom of people to settle anywhere on our planet. People should claim this as a fundamental human right. Why only world free movement of goods, and no free movement of people? The United Nations must hold a world conference on the free movement, migration and settlement of all humans on this planet. It will have to be raised sooner or later. The sooner we do, the better.

~ Idea 557 ~ 18 January 1996

Since business was first to globalize itself world-wide, far beyond governments and religions, and since corporations are now for all practical purposes ruling the world, we should give them the opportunity, even request them to hold a World Conference on Proper Earth Government through the Free Market System

The world business community should be asked to answer how they would take care of the above complaints of the Earth, of humanity, of the past and of the future, how they would provide for a well preserved planet and the well-being of all humanity, the five basic harmonies and the long-term evolution of the planet.

Such a conference would bring together the heads of the major world corporations, banks and stock exchanges, the World Bank, the IMF, the GATT, the new World Trade Organization, the International Chamber of Commerce and similar organizations

~ Idea 617 ~ 18 March 1996

Instead of letting business and corporations wildly run ahead and progressively destroy our Earth, governments and thinkers should sit down and consider what a world government by private business and corporations would look like. The first discovery would be that freedom and democracy would disappear: the Earth and capital would be owned by capitalists and shareholders, i.e. by those who possess already capital and money and the rest of the people would not have a chance. All humans would be programmed by advertisement and marketing to buy what corporations decide. As for the Earth, it would be totally defenseless, neglected and brought to its ruin.

~ Idea 731 ~ 10 July 1996

I hear more and more voices saying that the soulless capitalism which now rules the world will end the same way as the second 19th century ideology, communism, already defunct. When I hear many voices from around the world expressing concern about an event to come, I open a file because the global brain of humanity has begun to function and to give us the first warning signals. But as distinct from the demise of communism which has not found a new way, we must face the above dismal hypothesis and do two things: get the best minds of the Earth to think what can be done to avoid a catastrophe which will hurt innumerable people; have all local communities think of the actions they will take locally to face the consequences of the catastrophe.

I am glad to learn that Elizabet Sathouris, the Greek geo-ecologist who was first to take the defense of Gaia, the Greek Goddess of the Earth, is working on plans to create local currencies when the current economic system will collapse.

~ Idea 735 ~ 14 July 1996

Most heads or chief executive officers of multinational, global or world corporations deal primarily with their firm's affairs on a global, world-wide basis and leave the internal markets for their firm's products and services to local, national subsidiaries. No wonder that as a result they rule the world. Governments do not do the same. They deal with national affairs and only subsidiarily with world affairs. They should therefore not be surprised that they have lost relevancy in managing the world for the good of all people and the Earth.

I recommend therefore that in all schools of government and political science, students should be taught how multinational corporations run the world often counter to the interests of the Earth, of humanity, often of their own nations and definitely of their children and grandchildren.

~ Idea 773 ~ 21 August 1996

Business is not interested in population control: they are interested in growing numbers of consumers and new markets.

But the white western world should be acutely interested, for within a few decades their children and children's children will be minimal in the world, close to disappearance.

~ Idea 774 ~ 22 August 1996

The greatest indictments of capitalism are firms like Coca Cola and Philip Morris and others in the same line of products. It is simply pathetic to see the disappearance of natural fruit juices in the poor countries, displaced by sugared, carbonated water. Parents with low incomes are bleeding themselves to buy expensive Coca Cola for their children who have been programmed by advertisement and marketing to crave for them. And I do not speak of the lottery tickets put in cigarette packets and behind soft drink labels in some poor countries to make people buy them. The history of such firms would be the most enlightening condemnation of the excessive "free market system".

~ Idea 775 ~ 23 August 1996

Capitalism and communism are two political and economic systems born from the industrial, scientific revolution. Capitalism has done wonders for human progress until recently, because it was based on the valid and prevalent view of evolution as competition and survival of the fittest. Communism was a failure because it did not respond to the basic, justified needs of humans at that time. Alas capitalism is no longer good today. It is not good for the Earth which has become preoccupation number one in our evolution. It is not even so satisfactory for humans anymore because of the excessive production of goods which are not really needed for the fulfillment of human life. This is why capitalism is in crisis and does not know what to do to continue to grow except through endlessly increasing marketing and advertisement. The entire economic system of this planet must be re-examined from scratch if we want to avoid an economic collapse in the next century.

~ Idea 832 ~ 19 October 1996

For millions of years we humans did not really change the basic functioning of nature, of the Earth. But now, with our sizable world population, insatiable consumption, incessant new inventions, technological and scientific changes, world-wide marketing and advertisement, we are changing the fundamental functioning of the planet. We risk destroying it and ourselves in the process. It is time therefore to listen to the wisdom of the indigenous people who have an immemorial, intimate knowledge of nature and take no decision without evaluating the effects on the seventh generation. They should be the wise leaders of the Earth, not the chief executive officers of the multinational and national corporations who have only one thing on their mind: how will the decisions increase profits, the power of the corporation, its world-wide market and its position in the stock-exchange. Since they are the dominant power and object of admiration, envy and imitation on this planet, they will mean our end as well as that of evolution. I sometimes think that the Roman Empire has not been as decadent as is this new empire. The title chief executive officer should be changed to chief execution officer. As someone said: the destruction of a work of art is called vandalism; the destruction of the Earth is called development.

~ Idea 859 ~ 15 November 1996

It is utterly wrong to make the poor countries envious of the rich ones, mostly for marketing and commercial purposes, and to give them western excessive consumption and living habits. This will not even be of benefit to the rich countries, because these habits multiplied by 9 to 10 billion people in the next century will mean the end of all life on this planet through the destruction of its natural elements.

~ Idea 883 ~ 9 December 1996

Socrates when he saw the Athens market exclaimed: "So many things which I do not need!"

What would he say today if he saw an American shopping center!

At least in his time the Athens market was not a danger to the future of the Earth, whereas today the shopping centers spreading around the world are.

Today, Socrates would ask: "And what will they do with all the goods they will not sell?"

Do we know? It would be fascinating to learn it.

As an author I once learned that when a US "best-selling" book is launched on the market say at 300,000 copies, easily 100,000 to 200,000 copies are returned by bookshops and shredded! What a world of waste! But it is included in the gross national product!

~ Idea 972 ~ 9 March 1997

I recommend that there should be as many ideas for the improvement of humanity's social and political conditions as there are for making new inventions, producing more goods, and devising endless new ways of advertisement, marketing and programming people to consume. What a difference it would make.

~ Idea 998 ~ 4 April 1997

From 4 to 6 April 1997 the Canadian International Foundation of Learning convened a Global Citizens 2000 Congress in Vancouver to mark the date of 6 April 1997 when there were 1000 days left to 1 January 2000. What better idea and time to launch a project encouraging youths to see themselves as global citizens. Young people from eleven schools were brought together as teams of creative energy, working with their teachers and community leaders to show how and what we all must learn to become global citizens in the 21st century. This included not only knowledge to bring economic success in the world's market place but also an appreciation for what must be done to assure sustainability and peace in an increasingly interdependent world.

I was invited to be the opening speaker and a participant in this three days Congress which culminated at midnight of 6 April in a launching of 1000 balloons to mark the countdown of 1000 days remaining until 1 January 2000.

~ Idea 1015 ~ 21 April 1997

It is good news that US citizens are beginning to react to the colossal overconsumption in their country, fostered in millions of ways by business, marketing, advertisement and the media.

A 1995 survey by the Merck Family Fund found that since the decade began, 28 percent of respondents have voluntarily reduced their income. Two-thirds said that they did so to reduce stress, increase personal time and restore balance in their lives.

Trends Research Institute named simplicity one of the 1997's top ten trends. "Never before, in the Institute's 17 years of trend tracking, has a societal trend grown so quickly, spread so broadly and been embraced so eagerly," TRI reports.

Unfortunately, big business knows that and is now targeting the developing countries for western consumption habits through marketing and advertisement which are very cheap in these countries.

~ Idea 1101 ~ 16 July 1997

Some of the great errors of our time were these:

- humanity rushed into economics, changing our home before ecology, the knowledge of that home;

- we accepted capitalism as the dominant ideal of the human society and not the environment or love and preservation of our Earth;

- we let business globalize itself and become the master of the world and of our lives, while governments, the entrusted defenders of justice, of the poor and the downtrodden did not globalize themselves and even became the servant of business;

- and religions did not globalize themselves at all.

These errors were not basically wanted:

- capitalism did wonders for humanity at the beginning when the world population was small and the resources of the Earth were unexploited and seemingly unlimited;

- governments were still in the era of consolidating nations recently born from ethnic groups fighting each other;

- religions still believed that their truths were absolute, immortal and meant to spread to the entire world.

Well, today our objectives and efforts should be:

1. to see the religions globalize themselves urgently in order to give us a universal, cosmic meaning of life on Earth and give birth to the first global, cosmic, universal civilization; the recent initiative to create the United Religions can do that;

2. national governments must absolutely globalize themselves in a new, second generation Untied Nations with much more power, especially legislative power, or a United States of the world with proper balance of powers in a world democracy, or a World Union along the lines of the European Union;

3. business must be made the servant of the people's needs within a properly preserved Earth, and no longer be instruments of unlimited power, profit, enrichment and programming of the people's lives and consumption;

4. more generally we must put an end to the Darwinian theory of competition and survival of the fittest, and replace it by a new science, strategy and methodology of cooperation for our evolutionary survival and fulfillment on this particular planet in the universe.

~ Idea 1124 ~ 8 August 1997

In face of the rising world-wide criticisms against capitalism, I recommend that a World Commission of Eminent Personalities on Capitalism be established to look into this subject. It is high time to do that. Even the chief executive officer of Mitsubishi in a speech to the World Future Society says that it seems to him " that the global business community is driving quickly to a cliff, and we have our eyes closed."

~ Idea 1125 ~ 9 August 1997

We must fear that capitalism will bring this world to an end. It was born at the end of the 19th century like communism, when conditions were very different from today: the world population was small, except for China: the resources of the planet were barely exploited and seemed inexhaustible. Like communism, capitalism has become contrary to evolution and will collapse if it does not change course. As is shown by Toynbee in his study of past great powers, it is unlikely to do so because powers believe in their continuance and are unable to adapt to the new requirements of evolution.

This reminds me of the following: after the first world conference on the environment in Stockholm in 1972, the Ford Foundation hired a consultant to report to them on the meaning of that conference. One day he stopped me in the corridors of the UN and said: "Robert, you will be interested in my finding. The environment is basically a spiritual question." I expressed surprise, and he continued: "Yes, because if a businessman is only concerned about profit, he will not give a damn about the environment. But if he thinks of his children and grandchildren, he will be concerned."

~ Idea 1126 ~ 10 August 1997

Among the signs of capitalism's decadence is the frenzy of marketing and advertisement. Business does not know what to do anymore to continue to compete, to win markets, to make more profits, to change products, to make people consume more.

In airline magazines and in formerly serious magazines, the substantive articles are interwoven, cut up, drowned in advertisements which nobody reads anymore. But it all costs the Earth and our lungs entire forests.

Miniaturization is the latest device: offering any salable products in minuscule containers or flasks at the cash registers of supermarkets and in restaurants!

Signs of decadence are mounting everywhere. Why does not capitalism re-examine itself? Its business geniuses should sit down and ask themselves: where are we going? What will be next? What will be the end result?

~ Idea 1128 ~ 12 August 1997

The role and responsibility of the new United Religions Organization and of the World Parliament of Religions will be enormous at the end of this century: it will be no less than to give humanity a new spiritual, planetary, cosmic ideology to follow the demise of communism and capitalism.

The new Natural Law Party in which western scientists converge with eastern spiritualists can become the political arm of that ideology.

~ Idea 1161 ~ 14 September 1997

We speak of the building and population explosion. Why don't we also speak of the consumer explosion, the skyscraper explosion, the marketing and advertising explosion, the media explosion, the irreligiosity explosion, the materialism explosion, etc.?

~ Idea 1204 ~ 27 October 1997

Among the new Universities I would like to see established would be Universities of Consumption and Universities of Employment. This is in response to the fact that all Universities are concentrating on production and marketing, taking employment for granted as a result of the existing economic system. Since we have both underconsumption, overconsumption and wrong consumptions on this planet which destroy or diminish humans and the Earth, it is high time to deal seriously with this subject. And since a slowdown and changes of consumption habits are absolutely necessary in the world if we want to save the Earth, we should also study the concept and ways of proper, fulfilling employment in the western countries especially. I have a whole file of original ideas in this field. Someone should write 2000 ideas for fulfilling employment of humans on planet Earth. The environment, spirituality and voluntary service provide great possibilities in countries where the machines have made much employment dispensable.

~ Idea 1207 ~ 30 October 1997

Since business has gotten out of gear with the evolution of this planet, I suggest that business organize itself as quickly as possible to review the situation and to try to find adequate answers to it. In idea 557 I proposed that business should be requested to hold a World Conference on Proper Earth Government through the Free Market System. Perhaps the International Chamber of Commerce should change its name into International Organization of Business and hold such a conference or a series of smaller conferences, including regional ones, to bring forth much needed answers and changes in the business world. It might prevent a major world economic crisis, unavoidable if business continues on the same course, as was pointed out by Mr. Tachi Kiuchi, Chief Executive Officer of Mitsubishi Electrical, in a keynote address to the World Futures Society in July 1997.

~ Idea 1210 ~ 2 November 1997

If outer space beings would visit our planet they would ask us what we call it. We would answer: planet Earth, from the old Germanic goddess Eartha, and also Gaya, from the Greek belief that the Earth is a nebula, Goddess Gaya, which became the Earth.

They would comment: that is beautiful but from what we see around us you should change its name to planet Business and Marketing.

Our comment: well, this was thought of also by the Romans who called it planet Pluto (wealth) and planet Mammon (the God of money).

~ Idea 1285 ~ 16 January 1998

The private enterprise, financial, marketing, advertising capitalist system claims that it will bring prosperity to the entire world.

Well, the Secretary General of the UN reported to the last UN General Assembly that 100 nations on this planet have become poorer in the last fifteen years and that 1.3 billion people of this Earth have a daily income of only one dollar.

The UN also reports that world-wide and within all nations the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer.

When will someone at long last stand up and challenge the present free enterprise system?

~ Idea 1312 ~ 12 February 1998

I recommend that following the example of Costa Rica which had the courage to demilitarize itself, one country on Earth should be the first to de-advertise itself. It would be equivalent to demilitarization, since the main war is now the war against the Earth and advertisers and marketers are the new militaries. The UN must absolutely convene a world conference on advertising and marketing to put order in this new calamity.

~ Idea 1345 ~ 17 March 1998

People who invest in stock markets should increasingly think of the fate of their children and grandchildren. They might decide not to invest in business that destroys the environment. To help them, governments should devise new regulations for banks and stock-markets regarding proper reporting on their "results". Consideration should be given to daily ecology indexes together with the purely financial market quotations.

~ Idea 1364 ~ 5 April 1998

I sometimes take out one of my old journals or Markings from past years to see what I thought at that time. During the night I came across the following Marking in 1983, fifteen years ago:

"In a hundred years, capitalism and communism will be past history."

Well, it did not take 100 years for communism to disappear, and I wonder if it will take as much for capitalism. I think it will be much sooner. The collapse of the South Korean stock market last December was the first sign, but the US stopped it immediately with a donation of 10 billion dollars infinitely quicker than paying its past dues to the United Nations. Within days noone spoke about it anymore. But there will be other crises which will put an end to this second obsolete ideology of the 19th century or force it to change.

~ Idea 1374 ~ 15 April 1998

I claim also the fundamental individual human right of my children and grandchildren not to see this Earth on whose elements our lives depend destroyed by unending wasteful construction, industrial production, wasteful commerce, marketed and advertised unnecessary, harmful consumption, colossal built-in obsolescence, and other evils of the current materialistic economic system. This new right should also be put on the agenda of the UN Human Rights Commission, supplementary to the great new work on an Earth Charter.

~ Idea 1382 ~ 23 April 1998

Like the capitalists and communists did at the end of the last century, we should think hard and conceive how we can make the next century a true paradise. Since both communism and capitalism have failed and since we live in planetary conditions very different from those at the end of the last century, we must think afresh all our current beliefs, doings and institutions, and formulate an entirely new ideology or dreamology for an unprecedented future in all human history. Heads of governments, of corporations and of all human institutions should be excited by this new, wonderful challenge.

~ Idea 1499 ~ 18 August 1998

After communism and capitalism, frugalism might become the new ideology and rule of our behavior on Earth, demanding from us more frugal and simple lives in order not to destroy life giving nature. A new economic system must be born which will not produce colossal waste, unnecessary products, built-in rapid obsolescence, and colossal duplications between 185 nations. Frugalism and simplicity of life might become the salvation of the Earth and future generations.

~ Idea 1500 ~ 19 August 1998

In the nineteenth century when capitalism and communism were born, the world population was small and the Earth's resources were unexploited and seemed practically unlimited. Capitalism did wonders in those circumstances. It was the right obvious way for humans to progress in evolution, on the basis of the right Darwinian concept of competition at that time. Communism was the wrong way and had finally to give up after a century of vain efforts.

Today the situation is entirely different:

- the world population has exploded from about one billion in the last century to close to 6 billion today and at the present rate will stabilize only at around 10 to 11 billion.

- the population explosion was recently accompanied by a consumption explosion, first in the rich countries and now spreading also to the rich and middle classes of the poor countries;

- the air, the waters, the soil, the biosphere, the climate of this planet which were all in equilibrium have been disrupted, endangering the normal functioning of the planet;

- the whole Earth, its life-systems and further evolution are in mortal danger, if humans continue on the same course.

Conclusion: capitalism has done its best and produced wonders but it must now capitulate too as did communism. The best minds and leaders of the planet must conceive the new indispensable ways and behaviors of humans in the coming new century and millennium.

That is the central, overriding issue to be put at the top of the world agenda during the year 2000. All the rest is secondary.

Children

~ Idea 42 ~ 21 August 1994

The United Nations should convene urgently a world conference on unemployment, to review and remedy the tragic current situation, to evaluate further effects of population increase, scientific and technological developments, the exodus from the land to cities, the changing age structure of societies, including a redefinition of employment and unemployment. For instance, how on Earth are mothers who take care of children, our new, all-important generation, considered "unemployed"?*

Note:

* This has been done. The ILO has recommended that henceforth women taking care of a family are considered employed.

~ Idea 53 ~ 1 September 1994

Children and students are graded for their performance and behavior. Why should not governments be graded too for their performance? A yearly performance report should be produced by the UN or by an outside organization similar to Amnesty International, a Performance International, showing for example the number of years a country has lived in peace with others, violence statistics, ratification of international treaties, implementation of UN recommendations on a host of subjects (human rights, labor relations, the environment, etc.), disarmament, shifting of military expenditures to peaceful, productive and social services, demilitarization, etc. Such a report would lead to a lot of good in the world.

~ Idea 56 ~ 4 September 1994

I dream that UNICEF or a global philanthropist will build a UNICEF Children's House on the magnificent, inspiring grounds of the University for Peace, to allow children to meet, to play, to be taught peace, to read peace books, to listen to peace songs, play with peace toys, etc. Meetings and festivals could be held at it by children from around the world.

Notes:

31 August 1995: Three Costa Rican young people came to see me presenting me with a request that a children's and youth house for peace and the environment be built on the grounds of the University for Peace. They represented an organization of thousands of children and young people of Costa Rica. I congratulated them and asked them to submit their request with my full support to the Executive heads of UNICEF and the UN Environment Program.

13 February 1996: I met at the Costa Rican Embassy to the UN, with Mrs. Grethel Obando, the wife of the Ambassador, with Mr. Chowdury, a Director of UNICEF, and Ms. Brooke Newell, an NGO, to launch the idea.

~ Idea 86 ~ 4 October 1994

A whole new field and era of global philanthropy and gaiaphily (love for the Earth) should be opened on this planet. Many world awards should be given to international agencies; global foundations should be established for the benefit of all humanity, for the poor, the handicapped, abandoned children, etc., and the preservation of the planet. Many international awards should be given in ceremonies at the United Nations and at the headquarters of its specialized agencies and world programs. This would provide maximum visibility to philanthropists and inspire others.

~ Idea 153 to 171 ~ 10 to 28 December 1994

On this Human Rights Day I recommend that the following fundamental human rights should be worked on for adoption:

Idea 158 -the right to a proper planning of the future for all newly born children,

by governments and world agencies

~ Idea 187 ~ 13 January 1995

By 1995 there will have been three world population conferences, four world women's conferences, two world aging conferences, a permanent institution for children (UNICEF), an International Year of the Handicapped. But there has been only one brief world youth conference in 1970 on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the UN. Governments seem to be afraid of youth. And yet, youth is the most interested party, the most dynamic biological element of our evolution. There should be a world youth conference at least every 5 years to hear the young peoples' views and proposals for the world they want. A World Youth Agency should be created.

~ Idea 188 ~ 14 January 1995

UNICEF should be transformed into UNICMO, the United Nations International Children's and Mother's Organization, which would be concerned with the two thirds of humanity who need most of the world's care and protection: children and mothers. It would greatly expand UNICEF's capacity to do wonders.

~ Idea 229 ~ 24 February 1995

The United Nations is already the global brain of humanity. It is also the greatest school of love on this planet: love for all humans, love for our Mother Earth, love for the preservation of nature, love for the children, women, the handicapped, the aged, love for peace, etc. Still is missing love for God and the mysterious forces of the universe. This will come too when the United Nations will understand its right place in the universe and in time.

~ Idea 301 ~ 7 May 1995

The United Nations has done a great work for human rights. But the time has also come to raise the question of human duties and responsibilities. I am glad that an International Council of Human Duties has been created in Trieste, Italy, under the chairwomanship of Professora Rita Levi Montalcini. The Declaration will be submitted to a youth conference in San Francisco on the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter. I signed the Declaration with delight. I recommend that the UN celebrate in 1998 the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and begin work on the adoption of a Universal Declaration of Human Duties and Responsibilities.

DECLARATION OF HUMAN DUTIES

a code of Ethics and Shared Responsibilities

(The Trieste Declaration)

IT IS THE DUTY OF EVERY HUMAN BEING TO:

1. respect human dignity as well as ethnic, cultural and religious diversity.

2. work against racial injustice and all discrimination of women, and the abuse and exploitation of children.

3. work for the improvement in the quality of life of aged and disabled persons.

4. respect human life and condemn the sale of human beings or parts of the living human body.

5. support efforts to improve the life of people suffering from hunger, misery, disease or unemployment.

6. promote effective voluntary family planning in order to regulate world population growth.

7. support actions for an equitable distribution of world resources.

8. avoid energy waste and work for reduction of the use of fossil fuels. Promote the use of inexhaustible energy sources, representing a minimum of environmental and health risks.

9. protect nature from pollution and abuse, promote conservation of natural resources and the restoration of degraded environments.

10. respect and preserve the genetic diversity of living organisms and promote constant scrutiny of the application of genetic technologies.

11. promote improvement of urban and rural regions and support endeavors to eliminate the causes of environmental destruction and impoverishment which can lead to massive migrations of people and overpopulation in urban areas.

12. work for maintenance of world peace, condemn war, terrorism and all other hostile activities by calling for decreased military spending in all countries and of the proliferation and dissemination of arms, in particular, weapons of mass destruction.

signed on 7 May 1995

Robert Muller

Chancellor

University for Peace

~ Idea 323 ~ 29 May 1995

A decade ago, during a visit in Kansas City, I learned that the city considered itself to be the heart of America. They wondered how this could be better known. I suggested that they plant a forest of trees in the form of a big heart near the airport, visible from the sky.

Ten years later when I returned to the city, I was shown the Heartforest which expands each year thanks to additional rows of trees planted by children on each Earth Day.

My dream is that many heart forests will be grown in many places of the world, thereby expressing our love for trees and for our beautiful planet.

~ Idea 375 ~ 20 July 1995

I dream that next to the University for Peace in Costa Rica, a World Center for Robert Muller schools and the world core curriculum will be created to fulfill the prophecy of Gloria Crook, the founder of the first Robert Muller school in Arlington, Texas, that someday there will be thousands of such schools in the world. Since the land includes sacred Mr. Rasur, what a fulfillment of the prophecy of the indigenous God of children that would be!

~ Idea 381 ~ 26 July 1995

There exist already a few global flags for our planet: the UN flag, the Earth flag, the New Allegiance flag. I recommend that more global flags be designed and used in the world: A Universe flag, a World flag, a Seas and Oceans flag, an Atmosphere flag, a Biosphere flag, a Mountains flag, a World Water flag, a Forests flag, an Arctic flag, an Antarctic flag, etc. There exists also a European flag. Flags for all continents should be adopted: an Asian flag, an All-American flag, an African flag, a Middle-East flag. And why not local, family and personal flags?

An idea of Carolyn Hawkins:

The US Postal Services held a contest several years ago. They asked school age children to design stamps. At the end of the contest the Postal Service selected five designs and had them reproduced on the most charming series of postage stamps.

A similar contest could be run by the UN. School age children around the world could submit their design for flags for the Universe, Seas and Oceans, Atmosphere, Biosphere, Mountains, etc. At the end of the contest the UN could select the winning designs and have them reproduced as actual flags or UN stamps.

~ Idea 411 ~ 25 August 1995

The world would be better off if instead of reading, hearing and watching bad news, horror stories and lots of violence served by so many newspapers, radio and TV stations, the children and people would hear and see programs of the United Nations and of their world agencies, educating them and enlisting them in the healing of the world and of humanity. I propose the creation of a United Nations World Media Network to inform objectively and educate all world inhabitants, giving them hope and enlisting their help to achieve a better, happier world. The International Radio for Peace of the University for Peace is a great first example to follow.

~ Idea 419 ~ 2 September 1995

Today, as part of the Great Millennium Campaign of the City of Toronto in Canada, a lady, Mrs. Julia Morton-Marr informed me that she will start an association to create children's peace gardens in as many schools as possible around the world, and that in each such garden she wants to see a bench of dreams built.

Well, this will give a new dimension to the number of benches of dreams built so far: in my peace park in Costa Rica, at the Casa de Maria in Santa Barbara, California, and at the St. Francis University in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

~ Idea 422 ~ 5 September 1995

Sometimes when I read the resolutions adopted by Model United Nations of children or youth, especially their Model Security Council, I am tempted to place these texts on the desks of the members of the Security Council as if they were official UN documents. Delegates would probably get a heart attack when reading them! But they would be great lessons, because children are the voice of truth, of common sense, while adults have acquired distorted minds, due to national interests and professional difformation. See therefore my ideas 39, 40 and 41. Perhaps all UN draft resolutions should be shown to children and youth for their comments and advice before being adopted. Moreover when a world constitution will be drafted, provision should be made for the voice of mothers, children and youth to be heard. After all, it is their future which is at stake, and so far throughout history adult males have been doing a pretty poor political job for humanity and for the planet.

~ Idea 428 ~ 11 September 1995

For the first time I have met a US businessman who has come to Costa Rica to buy land so that his children can have a livelihood, raising cows, chickens and having some agriculture when the western economic system will collapse. A better idea would be for governments to look into the viability of the monstrous economic system which creates more poverty than well-being and destroys the environment, endangering the entire future of humanity and of our Earth.

~ Idea 444 ~ 27 September 1995

We have now the report by the World Commission on Global Governance in the 21st century. Two further steps are needed: we should get the opinions and proposals of the world's religions and of the indigenous peoples on how they think the planet should be best governed. We should also hear the opinions of mothers, children and youth who are the primary interested parties in the world of tomorrow.

~ Idea 460 ~ 13 October 1995

I think that after 50 years, it is time for the United Nations General Assembly to redefine its Main Committees in the light of major world changes. Thus it should create Main Committees on Global Government, on the Environment, on Peace-building and Non-Violence, on the Future, on Women, Children and Youth, on International and Peoples' Volunteer Associations.

~ Idea 474 ~ 27 October 1995

Privatization as an all-out ideology conducive to human well-being and happiness is as fallacious and dangerous as was communism. There must always be public services defending the defenseless and helping the poor. Suppose all education is privatized. What will your children be taught? What the owners of the schools have decided. In, medio stat virtus, said the Latins. Virtue is a middle course. We need both private initiative and public protection. We must be free people driving private cars on public roads under public safety regulations and laws, and flying airplanes under world safety regulations and laws.

~ Idea 501 ~ 23 November 1995

It would be good if all human beings would express, write down their basic beliefs, commitments and dreams for their own lives and for a better world. It could be done at several points of life: as a child, as a youth, as a couple, at parenthood, at grand-parenthood, at retirement, even at the moment of death.

We should also leave behind us a record of our wisdom, beliefs, joys and achievements, a testament to those who will follow. I did that when I left to my children the books Most of All They Taught Me Happiness and What War Taught Me About Peace, to the religions New Genesis, Shaping a Global Spirituality, to the world The Birth of a Global Civilization, to educators my World Core Curriculum, to women my novels Sima Mon Amour and First Lady of the World, and to the United Nations my Testament to the UN.

And I continue to do it every day, in these 2000 ideas for a better world and other writings, correspondence, journal and numerous speeches.

~ Idea 502 ~ 24 November 1995

During my half a century of world service I have seen these three basic phases in human history since the end of World War II:

1945 to the early 1970's: a comprehensive, unprecedented period of Humanism (avoid wars, prevent early childhood deaths, increase the well-being of all humans, defend universal human rights, put an end to colonialism and apartheid, increase literacy, longevity and good health, etc.)

1970's: while the agendas of the preceding period were still incomplete and were overtaken by the world population explosion, a new major world concern came to the fore: the Environment (UNESCO's World Biosphere Conference in 1968 and the UN World Conference on the Environment in Stockholm in 1972), in other words: we humans on one side and the Earth and nature around us.

1980's: the new phenomena of the depletion of the ozonosphere and menacing climatic changes made the Earth priority No. 1 of our concerns and reduced humanity and economic development to second place.

This represents a fundamental change in the evolution of this planet. From now on the world will never be the same. This is why we should no longer speak of the need for World Government, but of Earth Government, the wise management, saving and preservation of our planetary home of which we are an integral part and whose further evolution now depends largely on us.

The UN Charter of 1945 does not use the words Earth, nature, natural resources and the environment. Why? Because at that time we considered the Earth to be unlimited in resources for a relatively small world population. The western countries also saw, and still see humanity as separate and superior to the natural world. This view has accomplished miracles for the human race. But humanity must now change its course, dominant objectives, values and institutions if we want to prevent disasters in the evolution of the Earth and of the human race.

~ Idea 503 to 505 ~ 25 to 27 November 1995

Once it is conscious of the imperative need for proper Earth government, humanity will have to respond to the following complaints by the Earth:

Idea 503 "Why did I have to take all of a sudden a population increase from

25 November 1995 2.5 billion people in 1952 to 5.6 billion today, more than a doubling in less than fifty years?"

We could answer as an excuse: It happened out of sheer ignorance. After the war the rich countries and the United Nations wanted to prevent the early death of innumerable children in the poor countries. They died young because of epidemics, bad health conditions, malnutrition and hunger. But having no population statistics for the world and for most of these countries, we did not tell the parents that they would no longer need to give birth to an average of six children per family to have at least two of them left to till the land and to take care of their old age. Until 1952 we did not even know what the world population was! When the UN organized for the first time in human history decent world statistics and world censuses, we discovered that women did not have more children, but that children no longer died early (the mortality rate per year fell from 34 per thousand to 14 per thousand). When this was discovered it was too late, the children were born and a young population is highly reproductive. The UN warned nations and humanity by means of world population conferences and every other possible means that a population explosion was upon us. But religions and other factors opposed it. Nevertheless, these efforts saved you from 2.2 billion more humans on your surface by the year 2000. Instead of 8.3 billion human beings in that year we will be only 6.1 billion.

Idea 521

13 December 1995 when no good mental lives have been provided to all the world's people: there are still 900 million adult illiterates, 130 million children without schooling and 100 million children abandon school prematurely.

~ Idea 567 ~ 28 January 1996

The Earth has always been our main teacher. This is why humanity wants an ideal Earth. We must never cease to try and we will succeed. It is our most sacred task in the next century to give our children the best teachers, namely nature, the creation of God, Goddess Gaia, our beautiful Mother Earth. Blessed be the recently created World Party of Natural Law.

~ Idea 585 ~ 15 February 1996

Expanding on the above idea there could also be an international fasting day. It would do good to our health. Money saved from this sacrifice could be sent to UNICEF to help feed hungry children and the homeless.

~ Idea 666 ~ 6 May 1996

A similar phenomenon is happening on television. It is almost impossible to see an announcement of a program or news in a still form. Everything has to jump, to move, to be a profusion of movements, criss-crossing and colors. How do people not get crazy, especially children and youth looking at such jumping, insane images. And every day it is getting worse, because the producers have to outsmart each other to draw attention. In reality more and more people do not pay attention anymore and become immune. My own decision, already ten years ago was to get rid of my television set, and I have lived happily ever since.

~ Idea 670 ~ 10 May 1996

I believe that all UN agencies and Departments should begin collecting ideas for a better world and publish them in popular forms. UNESCO could ask all school children and youth in the world to come up with their ideas. They might astonish the world.

~ Idea 671 ~ 11 May 1996

I invite people to do what I decided to do recently: each time I am tempted to buy something I ask myself: is it really necessary, do I really need it, what damage has its production and transportation done to mother Earth? What is her opinion? And in many cases I do not buy it. I write down the price saved and later with the savings I plant a tree or do something good for the Earth or for the poor who have real needs, especially children.

~ Idea 681 ~ 21 May 1996

We should abolish all military bases on this planet and transform them into world parks of nature or schools and playgrounds for children, peace museums and other good causes of humanity, including places of worship to the Creator of our beautiful Earth. Military bases are an antiquity and blemish to this divine planet.

~ Idea 752 ~ 31 July 1996

The World or United Nations Consumers Agency should also establish lists of products which should be avoided or dispensed with, and develop a world-wide strategy to get concrete results. The battle against tobacco and smoking has already begun, but there are many exceptions in poor countries, where even lottery tickets are inserted in cigarette packages. There are battles against other products to be waged in the interest of the people and of the Earth:

- against alcohol. The word Al kohol in Arabic means the devil; in Muslim countries alcohol consumption is a sin; its production, transportation and sale are totally prohibited. Well, it would be good if all countries of the world would imitate that good example. How many miseries and accidents would be avoided. China should join the ranks, since Confucius said: you drink the first cup of alcohol, and the alcohol drinks you.

- against soft drinks which displace natural fruit juices in the poor countries to a disastrous extent. They produce in addition billions of plastic and other bottles or containers which are strewn all over the world. If you add honey or a sweet syrup to water you have a cheap, safe, healthy drink for your children without carbon dioxide bubbles.

- window washing liquids and many household cleaning products. With plain water you wash windows as perfectly as with window washing liquids and you do not add chemicals to the environment;

- mouthwashes: they can be outright dangerous because they destroy useful, natural bacteria in our mouth etc., etc.

~ Idea 773 ~ 21 August 1996

Business is not interested in population control: they are interested in growing numbers of consumers and new markets.

But the white western world should be acutely interested, for within a few decades their children and children's children will be minimal in the world, close to disappearance.

~ Idea 774 ~ 22 August 1996

~ Idea 794 ~ 11 September 1996

There will soon come a time when humans will not be able to be happy as long as there is so much poverty and suffering in the world. More and more well-blessed people will look for poor people, especially children, they can help. One can observe the beginning of this new moral, individual and family philanthropy at the end of this century. UNICEF at the United Nations is the most lovable, gratifying example of it. In reality the United Nations is the first great UNICEF for the alleviation of all human miseries on this planet, including the miseries of the Earth itself.

~ Idea 803 ~ 20 September 1996

The following fundamental statement has not yet been taken into account by the adult politicians of this planet:

"Until modern times young people could anticipate a future rather like that of their parents. Social change was that slow. Now young people face futures for which their parents' culture cannot prepare them. The young must create the future themselves."

Margaret Mead

In reality youth has barely any voice in national and world affairs. Adults should therefore not be surprised by the frustration, often despair of youth, their frequent addiction to drugs, alcohol and violence. Let us give a strong voice to youth, a participation in the building of a better world, a hope and enthusiasm for the future. In these 2000 ideas I give several of them for youth, e.g. to hold parallel youth parliaments next to national parliaments, parallel youth ministries next to national ministries, to create Youth Ministries in all countries, to hold parallel youth conferences next to United Nations and other world conferences. Philanthropists of the world, please listen to this appeal. The future of the world might depend on it. It is your children's and grandchildren's world too.

Note: I was delighted to learn at the end of 1997 that a first World Conference of Ministers of Youth will be held in Lisbon, Portugal, in August 1998. I plan to attend it or to sent them a long list of proposals.

~ Idea 815 ~ 2 October 1996

I applaud the initiative taken in the US State of Kansas by a volunteer organization to give children a voting opportunity in national, state and local elections. It is good for candidates to hear the voice of children. For information contact the office of Kids Voting, Kansas Inc. c/o the Topeka Capital Journal, 616 SE Jefferson, TOPLON, KS 66607.

~ Idea 820 ~ 7 October 1996

The frequent encounters and reciprocal visits of heads of states of this Earth are a substantial progress in human affairs, peaceful relations and world cooperation. I would suggest that such visits should include their families. Often, their spouses already accompany them and become friends. But even more important would be that their children, the future generation, could meet, become friends and give their ideas and dreams to their heads of family. Why not create networks or associations of spouses of heads of states, and networks or associations of their children? Great ideas might come from them.

~ Idea 860 ~ 16 November 1996

Since we all want our children and grandchildren to be happy, why don't we request that happiness should be taught in all schools and be put on the agenda of all governments and world organizations? How many schools and institutions do it? Very few, I am sure.

We forget the wise ideal defined by the drafters of the US Constitution: the pursuit of happiness. This should henceforth be our world ideal. The recently coined concept of sustainable development should be replaced by happiness ensuring development.

~ Idea 881 ~ 7 December 1996

United Nations world conferences have been a monumental blessing in giving the world's people renewed consciousness of old, still unresolved world problems and new problems due to our accelerating global age (e.g. the population explosion, the environment, the world's climate, etc.)

Alas, the US Congress instead of being grateful and pleased, no longer wants any world conferences, arguing that they are costly and useless.* I propose that on the contrary we need more of them on global problems and dangers confronting humanity. If other governments agree with the US and no longer want new world governmental conferences, I recommend that the people should do them. There should be continued World People's Conferences on population, children, women, the aged, human rights, indigenous people, the world's climate, the environment, demilitarization, disarmament, world security, violence in all its forms, the world commons, the seas and oceans, outer-space, etc. Perhaps a better United Nations and world democracy would ensue.

*In reality, it is because the US wants to promote its own ideas and leadership of the world's future.

~ Idea 914 ~ 10 January 1997

Since the truth comes from the mouth of children, I recommend that UNICEF arrange for the drafting by children of a new Charter of the United Nations, starting with the words: We, the children of the world,..."

The UN Secretary General should similarly arrange for the drafting of a new UN Charter by youth, starting with the words: "We, the youth of the world,..."

The two texts would be an expression of the hopes and dreams of the next two generations who will be adults in the 21st century. They should be made known world-wide in the year 2000.

~ Idea 926 ~ 22 January 1997

During our trip to India Barbara and I were often dreaming of Costa Rica and came up with the idea that all Central America should be made a protected world park or region, reforested, with people living in rural communities, loving and protecting nature, with no more than two or three children, happy to see their basic needs fulfilled, protected from consumerism and advertisement, living profoundly spiritual lives, grateful for the miracle of life and of God's wonderful nature.

Back in Costa Rica I asked if the Culture of Peace program for Central America of our University had a plan for peace with nature. I was told that it did but that not a single government was interested in it. They wanted foreign investments, industries, trade, tourism, more trucks, cars and transportation, airplanes, etc. It was a good illustration that what is wrong on this planet is the basic philosophy, ideology and values of our time. As long as this will not change, as long as there is not a new education, a new spirituality, a renewed relation with nature, especially of the leaders, the present course will not change. The whole economic system of our world and society must be rethought from scratch. If not, it will collapse.

~ Idea 954 - 957 ~ 19 to 22 February 1997

At a meeting of 24 visionaries which I attended in Washington, the following proposals were made:

Idea 954 that a Grandparents Foundation be created to which grandparents would contribute funds in order to leave to their grandchildren a better world:

~ Idea 975 ~ 12 March 1997

God Rasur said to the children that the divine was in each tree, every flower, every bird, every animal, every butterfly.

He should have added: and in you, in every child and human being.

Indeed, we are all made of earth, water and air which are concrete solar, i.e. cosmic energy. We are not human beings distinct from the Earth and from the universe, we are made of the Earth, of the sun, of the universe, we are live universe on a particular cosmic planet, endowed with a cosmic, universal consciousness. Jesus and all sacred emissaries from the heavens told us that.

In a proper Earth government, every human being should therefore be considered unique, sacred, divine. No human should be forced to kill other divine, miraculous cosmic units for the "greatness" of artificial nations or the "truth" of any religion, nor of any other entity, institution or philosophy.

To its splendid human rights work which is truly of cosmic inspiration, the United Nations must now add an identical work on human responsibilities and duties particularly towards our mother Earth its wonderful nature and the universe.

~ Idea 976 - 981 ~ 13 to 18 March 1997

From two Canadian visitors to the University for Peace to whom I gave a copy of my fascicle of first 100 ideas, I got the following ideas:

From Ms. Shirley Farlinger:

Idea 976 Write a UN Marriage Certificate for the next Millennium.

A couple would agree:

- to have only one or two children

- to raise their children peacefully

- not to work for the military

- to settle arguments by peaceful resolution

- to make all decisions together

- to manage their money so that local industry which is ecologically sound is supported and other industries are boycotted.

~ Idea 996 ~ 2 April 1997

Example of what one person can do: in the 1920's when the League of Nations was created, the wife of a French League official, Mme Bouchardeau, created a League of Nations Women's Guild, of wives of League officials. Her idea was that they could be active, collecting funds with their handicraft products and use these funds to help children in poor countries, on the advice and recommendation of women of League officials working in those countries. As a result, the aid was guaranteed to go directly to projects and children who needed it. The Guild was the origin of the creation of UNICEF after World War II, but Mme Bouchardeau decided that this was not a reason to go out of existence and she created the United Nations Women's Guild which performs the same service. They have a sales counter in the UN visitors area and sell UN towels, T-shirts and various other products. The profits are channeled to projects in poor countries. I tell this story because today I received a letter and two checks from the UN Women's Guild of 600 and 1000 dollars respectively for a school of poor indigenous children which I had recommended to them near the University for Peace, the other for a Catholic school in Chile dealing primarily with alcohol and drug addiction. The donations are in memory of my dear deceased wife from Chile, Margarita, who was President of the UN Women's Guild for several years. A stone will be laid as the foundation of a future library in the name of Margarita Gallo de Muller, and the money will be used to build a refectory for the indigenous children.

Yes, what one person can do. May the spirit of Madame Bouchardeau and of Margarita Muller inspire numerous women in the world to have dreams and take similar initiatives for a better world.

~ Idea 1002 ~ 8 April 1997

All twinned cities in the world should prepare and celebrate together the year 2000. Not yet twinned cities should find a partner-city to twin with. A World Community of Cities should be created to increase the love and cooperation between all city people on Earth. It is hard to believe what a little money from people in the rich cities can do for poor, hungry, homeless and illiterate people, especially children, in poor cities.

~ Idea 1037 ~ 13 May 1997

I hope that someday all people will receive a Yearly Good Deeds Declaration to fill out when they receive a Yearly Tax Declaration.

It could include such items as:

PEACE:

What good and peace did you teach your children?

What peace did you contribute to your family, to your neighborhood, to your workplace?

What peace association did you belong to or support?

THE ENVIRONMENT

What did you do for a better environment, a reduction of garbage, of gasoline consumption, of water and energy consumption?

What did you do for a more frugal and simple life, for a lower consumption of Earth resources?

HAPPINESS

What did you do to cultivate your own happiness?

Happiness in your family?

Happiness all around you?

Happiness in your workplace?

What philanthropy, what voluntary services did you provide?

GOOD HEALTH

What good health practices did you foster in your family?

What were your own good examples of good health?

Did you stop smoking?

Did you stop consuming alcohol and tell your family that it is an Arabic word (al kohol) which means the devil?

SPIRITUALITY

Did you give thanks for the miracle of life and the beauty of this Earth?

What did you do for your soul?

Did you pray, read good spiritual writings and precepts?

Did you go to spiritual services?

And one could conceive other items: Love, honesty, truth, morality, fidelity, forgiveness, etc.

The result of such a questionnaire would be as important if not more than the contribution of taxes to government expenses. A better society would ensue. A whole system of tax exemptions could be built on such a questionnaire. There could be for example tax deductions for voluntary services.

~ Idea 1032 ~ 8 May 1997

Hitler, the German dictator, created in the 1930's a Bund der Deutschen Mütter, a League of German Mothers who were to excite their sons into killing enemies of Germany.

From 19 to 21 June 1997, in Vienna, Austria, the country of birth of Hitler, a World Summit of Women, including several women Nobel Prize winners, women who are or were heads of states, and wives of heads of states, will meet in a conference called "Mothers of the Earth for World Peace Summit sponsored by World Centers of Compassion for Children."

I recommend that this conference create a Bund aller Welt Mütter, a World League of all Mothers, or United Mothers Organization, which will labour to put an end to all wars, armaments, military service, military "academies" and armed forces, and claim a new fundamental human right:

- the sacred right of all mothers of the Earth not to see their sons, the flesh of their flesh, kill or be killed by other sons of mothers in the name and glory of a nation, religion, nor of any other entity, cause or institution.

~ Idea 1038 ~ 14 May 1997

I signed today with delight a petition to the United Nations by a Swiss Organization called Global Initiative. It asks for immediate disarmament in all countries in order to save the planet ecologically. This is a right approach at this juncture of our evolution and on the eve of a new century and millennium. School children were asked to go on strike on the third Tuesday of September, day of opening of the UN General Assembly and International Day of Peace. A Swiss newspaper reported: "That was not strike day, that was a huge school celebration."

Address of Global Initiative: Roland Schutzback, Ins, CH 3232, Switzerland.

~ Idea 1040 ~ 16 May 1997

In line with my recommendations that there should be more world universities, I proposed that the conference undertake the creation of a World Indigenous University, possibly located on the sacred indigenous grounds of the University for Peace. Such a University would study world-wide the linguistics of all indigenous people, their views and relations with the Earth, their spirituality and such remarkable cosmologies as the Maya, Aztec and Inka ones which were represented at the conference. The western world is in dire need of an appropriate cosmology and could be inspired by them. For instance, it is interesting that the world core curriculum for a new presentation of all our knowledge to children (inserted in the volume of the first 500 ideas), which I derived from my experience in the United Nations, is almost identical to the Mayan cosmology.

During the conference I received a remarkable paper proposing the creation of a University of Mother Earth (Madre Tierra) in Costa Rica to complement the work and efforts of the Earth Council created in that country by the UN as one of the outcomes of the Rio de Janeiro Conference on the Environment. The text of the proposal has been circulated to the Costa Rican Parliament to have it studied and proposed officially to the United Nations for implementation. A wonderful idea. I will do everything to get it accepted.

~ Idea 1062 ~ 7 June 1997

We have learned of late to love the sky, the sun, the seas and oceans, the birds and all nature. Why should we not learn to love also our human brothers and sisters world-wide? Aren't we all children of the same Earth? Are we not created in the image of God, a cosmic phenomenon of the first order?

~ Idea 1073 ~ 18 June 1997

The date of 18 June always reminds me of the French underground group to which I belonged during World War II. It was named the Group of 18 June, date of the appeal by General de Gaulle to the French people. Remembering all the killings I saw, I am reminded of the idea in which I recommend that all mothers should claim the fundamental human right not to see their sons, the flesh of their flesh, kill or be killed by other sons of mothers, not in the name of a nation or a religion or of anyone else. Conflicts between all groups must be settled by peaceful, non-violent means.

Someone should collect cases when mothers were able to prevent their sons from being drafted into military or war service. I have heard of two: some US mothers decide to give birth to their children at home and not to register their sons, but to do it only after they are 25 years old, i.e. beyond the age of military service.

Another case was when American mothers went to Viet-Nam, took off the uniforms from their sons, dressed them in civilian clothes and took them home. The military authorities did not challenge them in order not to draw attention to the act.

As a pretending civilized human species we should solve all conflicts by intelligent, civilized and non-violent means. Even better: let us have a disarmed and demilitarized planet with a good world security system at the top. This is what the United Nations were created for, and now that the excuse for not doing it, namely the cold war, is gone let us do it instead of extending military alliances like NATO and SEATO.

~ Idea 1099 ~ 14 July 1997

I attended today the reception by the Embassy of France for the celebration of the French Revolution on 14 July 1789. I went there only because the Ambassador was new and I left him a documentation and an invitation to visit the University for Peace where we will try to convince him to get France to ratify that University. I was shocked by the lavish party for the local diplomats and Costa Rican high officials. A party like that costs money which would have fed several hundreds of poor children. And I was reminded of one of my favorite subjects: the need for the publication of a world budget showing the expenditures of all nations. Just the cost of 185 countries giving parties to each other on their national holidays and other occasions would create a shock in world public opinion.

I was thinking also that if the young French revolutionaries who were celebrated were alive today they would blast the bottles of champagne against the walls because it is exactly against such practices of the powerful aristocracy of their time that they made the revolution. What about simplicity and frugality of governments? The UN and its 32 specialized world agencies should give the good example and suppress all receptions. It will be the last reception I attend in my life.

~ Idea 1105 ~ 20 July 1997

Robert Silverstein, founder of People for Peace, who is putting my 2000 ideas on world-wide web, presents me as follows: "Robert Muller says that his greatest honor is not the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education, or being decorated by the Pope, or even his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, but the remark of a custodian at a school named after him who said: "In all my years here I have never seen two children fight."

I dream that all founders and principals of schools around the Earth will receive some day the same compliment.

~ Idea 1113 ~ 28 July 1997

Someone asked me this question: "Mr. Muller, after having written more than one thousand ideas, which one or two would you consider the most important?"

1. The absolute, urgent necessity for proper Earth government;

2. That every person on Earth, from children to the elderly, from East and West, from North and South, from individual families to the United Nations and its world institutions, from leaders of nations, business, religions, Universities, professors and people from all walks of life and professions, would write down their truest, innermost, deeply felt dreams and ideas for a better world. It would be the greatest world-wide democratic survey ever held in all human history. All these dreams should be sent to the United Nations and on their basis a great action plan for our successful evolution towards a peaceful, non-violent and happy world society should be drawn up.

~ Idea 1125 ~ 9 August 1997

~ Idea 1130 ~ 14 August 1997

The preceding idea leads me to propose that the United Nations conceive a World Plan of Direct People to People, Family to Family Aid. Now people in rich countries are taxed by governments to provide governmental foreign aid, which is costly to administer, cause of bureaucracy and often misdirected towards purchases of armaments and other goods which the giving government or big firms want to sell.

It reminds me of my mother, a poor milliner who was so happy whenever she looked at the photos of a poor African orphan whom she had adopted at the recommendation of a priest. She loved and supported that child with her modest means until she died without ever meeting the little boy.

~ Idea 1132 ~ 16 August 1997

In the United States there is now a peoples' and parents movement of "One week without television." The results are apparently very positive: the children speak more to each other and with the parents; they undertake activities of their own and are more creative. But when the week is over, the children rush back to the television set in order to catch up with their favorite programs.

I propose that there should be a world movement "Families without television." I can list the magnificent benefits in terms of personal life, happiness and creativity I have derived from giving away my television set years ago. And with my remarriage, we have maintained this rule: no television ever as long as we will live, be it in our home or outside. We have never missed anything, only gained a lot of more intensive personal, happy, creative life.

~ Idea 1135 ~ 19 August 1997

It is a strange world in which women at home and raising children, the most important task in the world, have been considered until recently unemployed. Thank God, the International Labour Organization has finally decided that they are employed. Hopefully this will be accepted in all countries of Earth. It is also strange that people who are no longer employed due to age are considered "retired". Retired from what? Many would rather consider themselves liberated. Personally I did not consider myself retired from the United Nations in the last eleven years. I am involved in it even more, since I have no longer any daily office obligations. I accepted with delight the position of one-dollar-a-year Chancellor of the first University for Peace on Earth. Please, dear "retired" people all around the world, refuse to consider yourself retired. Do more than when you were active in your profession, do what you would have dreamt to do if you hadn't been forced to be employed. It is never too late. I will not even retire after death. When I appear before God I will ask Him to use me as one of His instruments and workers as a spirit on Earth.

~ Idea 1138 ~ 22 August 1997

Under a world policy aiming at the preservation of the Earth and a restriction of the number of humans on it, one could consider that families who live simple, frugal lives and consume less Earth resources would be entitled to have more children than those who consume lavishly.

~ Idea 1168 ~ 21 September 1997

No further undue development should become the ideal and rule in several places of Earth. Costa Rica is a good example: one-third of the surface of the land consists of national parks, biological reserves, provincial parks and protected areas where no forests can be exploited and trees cut. I am glad to live in one of these areas, on a sacred hill on which Rasur, the God of the indigenous children appeared to them, asked them to take good care of all nature and prophecized that from that hill a civilization of peace will extend to the entire world.

~ Idea 1216 ~ 8 November 1997

Seeing today a bus of American Elderhostels tourists pass by a group of several dozens of poor Nicaraguan men, women and children come to Costa Rica to earn some money as coffee pickers and living in an abandoned former milking station, I was reminded of Barbara's idea 1129 of an "adopt a family program". Yes, why don't those elderly Americans instead of traveling to see preserved primeval forests stay at home, cultivate their gardens and plant trees in their area. With the money saved from not traveling they could adopt one of these poor families in Nicaragua and create a lot of happiness, vastly superior to the happiness of traveling around the world.

I hope that someone will take the initiative of creating an Adopt a Poor Family Program. We have a marvelous UNICEF program. Why not have also a World Adopt a Family Program (WAFP) from which mothers, children and old people in poor families, at home and abroad would receive friendship, help and happiness?

~ Idea 1239 ~ 1 December 1997

I applaud the following appeal which adds to the strategy for a non-violent world which I submitted to the State of the World Forum in San Francisco in 1995 and reproduced as Introduction to ideas 601 to 700:

AN APPEAL FOR CHILDREN OF THE WORLD

From 23 Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Fall 1997

In every single country throughout the world many children are silently suffering the effects and consequences of violence. This violence takes many forms &endash; physical, psychological, socio-economic, and environmental.

In order to reduce the suffering of children these Laureates are addressing an appeal to all Heads of State of all member countries of the General Assembly of the United Nations, for the UN General Assembly to declare:

b That the first decade of the new millennium, the years 2000-2001, be declared the "Decade for a Culture of Nonviolence."

b That the year 2000 be declared the "Year of Education for Non-violence."

b That non-violence be taught at every level in our societies, to make the children of the world aware of the practical meaning and benefits of non-violence in their daily lives.

Together, we can build a new culture of non-violence for humankind which will give hope to all humanity and in particular, to the children of the world.

With deepest respect,

The Nobel Peace Prize Laureates

~ Idea 1257 ~ 19 December 1997

The main purpose of education should not be to give children skills to "compete" and to "succeed" in life, but to lead a happy, fulfilled life. But where on Earth is that taught? It is at least in the handful of 33 Robert Muller schools.

~ Idea 1262 ~ 24 December 1997

I love to remember on Christmas eve this comment of Napoleon to his aides when he was an exile and prisoner on the island of Elba: "I conquered most of the world and I am sitting here as a prisoner, having lost all my power and conquests. And tonight the people are celebrating the birth of someone who had no power, no army, no wealth, was a total destitute, and is still remembered after more than a thousand years."

Well, most heads of states, of world institutions and of big firms you better prepare yourselves to hold the same reflections on Christmas eve 1999 and 2000: have I lived a life which will be remembered in the hearts and annals of humanity? Will at least my children and grandchildren celebrate the fact that I was born?

~ Idea 1266 to 1267 ~ 28 to 29 December 1997

Idea 1266 Recently an author called Barbara to say that her husband wanted to tell everyone on the planet one thing each person could do before the year 2000 to make this world a better place and as hard as he thought he could not think of one. Barbara suggested that if each person would plant a tree we would have 5.9 billion more trees on the planet and if they planted a fruit tree, countries like India would have more food. I agree with this idea and suggest that each person, adults and children alike, plant a tree before the year 2000.

Idea 1267 She suggested that every birthday of the 5.9 billion persons of this planet should also become their own Earthday to celebrate the Earth which is their mother, to give thanks for the miracle of life and to promise to take good care of the Earth. If a tree would be planted on the birthday of each person on Earth, 5.9 billion trees would be added to our capital of trees every year.

We promised to do it on each of our birthdays and will recommend it to our children and grandchildren. Eighteen trees will thus be planted by us in 1998.

~ Idea 1283 ~ 14 January 1998

Dear Friends and Readers,

As an update to my ideas and New Year's letter, I am glad to inform you that on 20 November 1997, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming the year 2000 International Year of Thanksgiving as suggested in my Dream 2000. It decided to hold in the fall of 2000 a General Assembly 2000 which is to focus on means of solving our primary global problems and to reform the means of global governance in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century. This heads of states Assembly will be accompanied by a World Peoples'' Assembly 2000 serving the same purpose. Former Presidents of the UN General Assembly adopted another of my 2000 ideas and created a Council of former UN General Assembly Presidents which will assist the UN with its views, proposals and ideas.

To all of you I address this appeal: may every institution, every nation, every peoples' association and movement, every university, college and school on Earth, every religion, every province, city and rural area, every indigenous, ethnic and linguistic group, every corporation and business enterprise, every profession, and why not every family and individual on Earth formulate their dreams, proposals and ideas for a better world. It would be a unique unprecedented state of the world and humanity, global, world-wide public opinion survey and poll. The submissions should start with an assessment of perceived achievements in the twentieth century, of failures, disappointments, losses, mistakes, wrong avenues and beliefs, untruths and unwarranted destructions, thus producing a momentous, world-wide assessment of our stage of evolution on this unique life-endowed planet in the vast universe and eternal flow of time.

I am recommending to the Secretary General of the UN to provide such an assessment, survey and agenda for the future together with the 32 specialized agencies and world programs of the UN, as a State of the World and Humanity Report 2000 to the General Assembly 2000 in the fall of 2000. Please send to Mr. Kofi Annan, Secretary General, Room S 3800, United Nations, New York, NY 10017 your report, assessment, proposals, plans, dreams and ideas. Let us make this a unique event in all human history, perhaps applauded and supported by God, the saints and mysterious forces of the universe concerned with our doings on this miraculous planet and with our fate on it as the most advanced, most knowledgeable, conscious and capable of all living species. Let us make this magnificent Earth a Garden of Eden, inhabited by a miraculous humanity, a first-class success of the will of God and of the universe, a true paradise of fulfillment and happiness for our children and grandchildren.

~ Idea 1289 ~ 20 January 1998

I suggest that all former Ambassadors, Permanent Representatives of nations to the UN should create a world association and offer their views to the General Assembly 2000 on how the UN should be strengthened, transformed or replaced by a better world organization. They should do that thinking for the future of their children and grandchildren.

~ Idea 1345 ~ 17 March 1998

~ Idea 1367 ~ 8 April 1998

During a night, after a crisis of pessimism provoked by the remembrance of the crucifixion of Jesus and the assassinations of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, I woke up with this message from God Rasur, the indigenous God of children:

"Be what the Hopis named you: Kogyun Deyo, Spider Boy. Make a vast spider web to catch all evil in the world and throw it far away into the universe from this hill where I appeared to the children and where you have the privilege to live."

I listened and decided to return to my 2000 ideas, dreams and prophecies which I had neglected for a while. And I regained happiness, God's recompense.

~ Idea 1374 ~ 15 April 1998

~ Idea 1390 ~ 1 May 1998

The newly elected President of Costa Rica, Miguel Angel Rodriguez, announced that he will make an effort during his mandate to see the military expenses of all Central America substantially reduced. His aim will be the total demilitarization of that area, following the example of Costa Rica, demilitarized since 1949, the most peaceful and prosperous country in the area. His project will be executed by the UN University for Peace which will show how such demilitarization would permit providing more education facilities for more than a million children. He will call for an international conference for demilitarization at which the rich countries would be asked to participate in that effort.

~ Idea 1391 ~ 2 May 1998

A young man in New York, Sandy Hinden, who took it as his ideal to create peace gardens for children, wrote to me: "I feel crippled, except when working for peace and a better world."

This reminded me of Pablo Casals who said: "I feel crippled except when playing music."

May there be many more Sandy Hindens and Pablo Casals* in the world.

Dear reader, how do you feel?

*Addition by Barbara Gaughen-Muller and Robert Muller

~ Ideas 1399 to 1400 ~ 10 to 11 May 1998

Idea 1399 A reader from England whose father died in Auschwitz, wrote to me proposing that the United Nations institute an International Day of Repentance and Atonement, "as an annual event to be kept as a holy day by every nation to become united in the spiritual task of facing and teaching its children the truth about their history &endash; the sins of the fathers &endash; so that they may be fully understood by future generations. All our misdeeds economic, cultural, military, and those done in the names of religion should be truthfully shown, illustrated and explained in exhibitions in every town and country. The need for atonement and restitution should be made clear."

I fully support that proposal.

~ Idea 1410 ~ 21 May 1998

I recommend that the Arab countries introduce action in the United Nations, the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization for the world-wide prohibition of alcoholic beverages. They would be qualified to do so, since they prohibit the production, transport, sale and consumption of alcohol (an Arabic word, Al Kohol, meaning "the devil"). The good it would do the world would be incalculable: less drugs consumption associated with alcohol, less violence due to alcohol, less health problems, less miseries and poverty in families and violence against children. The UN has calculated that if beer alone were prohibited in the world, the land released for other food products would be sufficient to feed the entire world population. It was also shown that the production of a can of beer requires four gallons of water! And I speak elsewhere of the longevity of a beer can thrown into nature.

Dear people, wake up. At least you have one power which I exercise: I decided in recent years not to touch a drop of alcohol in any form for the rest of my life.

China could join the Arab countries in this fight, since Confucius recommended a similar prohibition. He said: you drink the first cup of wine and the cup drinks you.

As for smoking it should urgently be prohibited world-wide. Non-smokers should protest that their contributions to health insurance are used to help smokers. They should as a minimum obtain a reduction in their contributions. The same for non-alcohol consumers.

~ Idea 1413 ~ 24 May 1998

I also asked myself: why are there no more villages on these lands? Where are the villages which existed in my youth? Alas, their children have moved to multi-storied buildings in big cities deprived of nature and seeking happiness making money through producing more and more often useless goods. What a world! And this is called progress!

Much of what I saw around me reminded me of Mark Twain's statement: "Man was a creature made by God after a whole week of work, when He was tired."

~ Idea 1440 ~ 21 June 1998

In the vast, modern Conference Center where the Club of Budapest met in Paris with business people to consider ways to a better world, I saw a European Union Information Center for the public, exhibiting an impressive documentation of books, pamphlets and even children's games on this new, very welcome political miracle on planet Earth. I asked if they had a book on the European Union as a model for the construction of a World Union. I was told that there was no such book. I recommended therefore to Ervin Laszlo, the head of the Club of Budapest, to hold before the year 2000 a conference on that subject.

~ Idea 1443 ~ 24 June 1998

Observing the incredible diversity, proliferation, complexity and creative explosion of the fauna and flora of a tropical country like Costa Rica and other similar countries, I wonder how the western world had the nerve to call them underdeveloped countries. From an arrogant human point of view perhaps, but not from the point of view of God's nature and tremendous Creation. The West was saved from starvation in the Middle Ages with the discovery of the potato brought back to Europe from America by the explorers. How much more we could learn from the tropical countries, from their peoples, in particular the indigenous people who found a right, harmonious relationship with nature. What wealth is hidden in the biology of these countries! One evolutionary theory claims that it is the weakness of the human body to fight against wild animals which gave birth to the development of our brain to survive. Well, this might be true of humans who lived in cold, adverse climates. But how can they now come and tell the rest of the world that they are undeveloped or underdeveloped? It is the North which has not yet found its right relationship with nature. What we need is a new civilization and understanding in which all regions of the world will contribute their knowledge and wisdom to our survival and fulfillment. And since humans are children, products and parts of nature, I submit that henceforth we speak of a new era in world evolution: the era of United Nature, a far step beyond United Nations, our first but now insufficient global enlightenment after World War II.

~ Ideas 1455 to 1466 ~ 5 to 16 July 1998

I have been invited to attend again a Findhorn conference in England but am unable to go. To support the advocacy work of that splendid environmental organization, I reproduce here the following text:

Transcript of short talk by Robert Muller

to the Ecovillages and Sustainable Development Conference

in Findhorn, in October 1995

In my 40 years in the UN, I have seen three very basic changes. From 1945-70 the UN was focused on humanism and humans; on avoiding war, on preventing children dying, and on The Declaration of Human Rights. The Charter of the UN does not mention the Earth. Why? Because in our belief the Earth was limitless. This continued until the late 60's when poets like Rachel Carson and advanced countries like Sweden began to notice that something was wrong with nature around us.

A completely new period of history thus started with the First World Conference on the Environment in Sweden in 1972. There was continuation of the preoccupation with humans, but also a new preoccupation with the world around us. It was only in the late 60's that we realized that we had a population problem, because the fertility rate continued at about the same level, while the mortality rate was declining. The population explosion intensified the problem of the environment. In 1980 we began to get warnings from climatologists that something was going wrong with the world's climate.

As a result since 1980 we have entered a third period &endash; from now on the Earth is number one, and humanity is number two. Humanity is number two because we wish humans to decline on this planet. And we have begun to question the consumption of resources by Western countries which is 30 times the amount consumed by developing countries. Believing that the world was unlimited, we started with the discipline and science called economics, (from Greek, oikonomos, the management of the home), before ecology, (the Greek, oikologos, the knowledge of the home). We began to manipulate the home before we knew what we were manipulating. Economics should have been and should become a sub-science of ecology.

The prospect of the third millennium has an incredible effect. Humanity is preparing itself for a new millennium and century. I have pages and pages of events which will take place even beyond the year 2000.

There is reason for optimism. Humanity is really trying. But we are only in the kindergarten of the global age. We have not yet learned to be the careful managers of our planet. We are still its exploiters.

I have just attended the Gorbachev meeting on the State of the World in San Francisco, and I have gained a lot of hope. They had the courage to get some of the best world experts to look into the state of the world and into the future, to create a vision of the society we want in the next millennium...and then do it. They want to implement the population plan, support simple and frugal lives, and get multinational corporations to acquire global consciousness. This gives me hope. From a pessimistic young man, when I entered the UN immediately after World War II, I have become an optimistic elder.

Let me give you some very specific recommendations and ideas:

Idea 1455 Create a World Association of Eco-Communities to be NGO-accredited by the UN.

Idea 1456 Support the UNESCO Planet Society Program.

Idea 1457 Create a world ecological university at Findhorn.

Idea 1458 Hold a meeting or conference of long-term evolutionary scientists, because they are now switching to thinking that it will be local and global consciousness which will save humanity, and will install humanity as the most advanced species on this planet.

Idea 1459 Mobilize any groups that are in favor of simple, frugal living in the developed countries.

Idea 1460 Ask the UN to hold a conference on garbage, built-in obsolescence, and waste.

Idea 1461 Ask Gorbachev to create a world commission on the denuclearization of this planet.

Idea 1462 Request a world conference for rural development and the stabilization of the villages.

Idea 1463 Demilitarization: ask for the closure of the RAF base next door to Findhorn.

Idea 1464 Support the World Commission on the Oceans.

Idea 1465 Look into the errors of transferring Western values and technologies into the developing countries.

Idea 1466 Celebrate World Environment Day, Earth Day and other days that support a global consciousness of nature and of our miraculous Earth.

To finish, when you speak of eco-villages, oikos &endash; the home, I would develop a whole strategy which would go from the 'eco-individual', the management of my own person, to the 'eco-family', the 'eco-school', the 'eco-village', the 'eco-neighbourhood', the 'eco-city', the 'eco-region', the 'eco-community', the 'eco-nation and finally, an 'eco-earth' in the 'eco-universe'. This would lead to a strategy to clean our home of all the past errors and values which have become wrong today.

We need to actively practice good public relations, spread the word. Last year I decided to write down every day an idea that would help bring these changes about until the year 2000. These ideas may seem crazy, but then you meet someone who will be very happy to implement them. Out of my first 500 ideas more than 50 have been implemented. Remember Margaret Mead's saying, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has."

~ Idea 1484 ~ 3 August 1998

I wish that UNESCO or the International Labor Organization would begin to publish statistics of employment in peace service. I have signaled that there is only one world servant per 100,000 inhabitants of the planet, compared with 556 militaries. When I returned from the French Resistance after World War II my father asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I answered: work for peace so that my children and grandchildren will not see the horrors I saw in this war. He shrugged his shoulders and said: "There are no peace jobs in this world. You can forget it." Well, fate and a good essay on world government opened to me the doors of the United Nations and an entire adult life devoted to peace. I think the time has come to have more peace professions and jobs at all levels of society. It should be a new category in world and national employment statistics.

Climate

~ Idea 48 ~ 27 August 1994

It is not normal that after holding two world conferences on climatic changes, the UN World Meteorological Organization should still keep its antiquated name. It should be renamed the UN World Climate Organization.

~ Idea 49 ~ 28 August 1994

The first world environment conference was in reality the Conference on the Biosphere convened by UNESCO in Paris in 1968 at the request of the government of Sweden. Its concept was right, namely to see the thin spherical membrane, or sphere of life, surrounding this planet, only a few miles into the atmosphere and a few miles into the oceans, containing all life of our solar system. The Conference had no impact and Sweden came to the UN Economic and Social Council to express its concern about the acid rain affecting their forests and the loss of life in their lakes. Sweden requested the UN to hold the first world conference on the environment in Sweden in 1972.

It would be good to return to the concept of the biosphere and to hold a new world conference on the biosphere in 1998, thirty years after the first one, to see how the thin layer of life around our planet is faring.

~ Idea 53 ~ 1 September 1994

~ Idea 199 ~ 25 January 1995

A World Environmental Court should be created with jurisdiction over damages done to the environment and empowered to inflict charges, reparations and fines.

~ Idea 215 ~ 10 February 1995

I have recommended to Elizabeth Mann-Borghese, a famous defender of the seas and oceans, to obtain the creation of a World Commission of Eminent Persons on the Oceans, which have been declared common heritage of humanity. The seas and oceans provide two-thirds of this planet's oxygen. If the diatoms and plankton do not survive the ultra violet rays going through the ozone holes in the atmosphere, we will be in deep trouble.

Note: May 1995: To my great joy the Commission has been created under the Chairmanship of Mr. Mario Soares, the President of Portugal.

~ Idea 256 ~ 23 March 1995

The United Nations should publish a major annual report on the state of the environment to be made widely available and publicized world-wide.

~ Idea 273 ~ 9 April 1995

A UN world-wide TV station should be created to give around the clock and in various languages world information on peace, the environment, population, Earth resources, world cooperation and any efforts to improve the human fate and the planet's conditions. It should be named the World Station of Hope.

~ Idea 403 ~ 17 August 1995

It is good that there was an International Tribunal to judge the war crimes committed by the Nazis during World War II. It is good that a UN International Tribunal has been established to judge the criminals in the Yugoslav conflict. I recommend that a World Tribunal for the Environment should also be established to judge international crimes against nature. Countries possessing nuclear weapons and making atomic tests should be the first to be indicted.

~ Idea 493 ~ 15 November 1995

We need urgently a world ecological Marshall Plan for the seas and oceans, the 71% of the surface of our planet which provide much of our oxygen. If the diatoms and plankton of the ocean surface do not survive the effects of the ultra-violet rays going through the holes of the ozonosphere, we risk losing two thirds of our oxygen supply. We must speak not only of deforestation but also of the deplanktonization of the oceans, which might asphyxiate us.

~ Idea 502 ~ 24 November 1995

During my half a century of world service I have seen these three basic phases in human history since the end of World War II:

~ Idea 556 ~ 17 January 1995

We had in recent years world conferences on the Earth's population, on the biosphere, on the environment, on climate, on the ozonosphere, on outer-space, on the seas and oceans, on the deserts, on water, on new forms of energy, on food and many other global subjects as reported in these 2000 ideas. There are still some missing, especially on the atmosphere, (the air we breathe), and the total global condition of the Earth, i.e. a synthesis or holistic view of all the above.

But most important of all would be a world conference on proper Earth government, on the contribution of humanity to the further evolution of planet Earth, to make it the ultimate success of the cosmic forces of the universe.

~ Idea 611 ~ 12 March 1996

(my 73rd birthday)

We need a world association of radical thinkers, innovators and activists. The United Nations and its agencies and world conferences have done a wonderful job for peace and a better world and in warning humanity of impending perils such as the population explosion, the environment, the climate issue, etc. But progress achieved and implementation of its decisions are much too slow. If we let things continue at the present rate it will end in disaster, possibly the end of all life on this planet.

Audacious thinkers are accused for their extremism or exaggeration. But they might be much more realistic and needed than the diplomats and accommodators who might become the undertakers of this planet and of the human species. I have opened a file with the first names of good radicals: Jacques Cousteau* for the seas and oceans, General Lee Butler (US) and Helen Caldicott (Australia) for the total elimination of atomic weapons, Ralph Nader, the consumers advocate, Selma Brackman of the War and Peace Foundation who asks for the total elimination, not only of nuclear weapons but also of all nuclear energy plants, Garry Davis of World Citizens, Oscar Arias, the Nobel Prize winner who labors for the demilitarization of the planet, and myself who clamors for a proper Earth government. Please, other radicals, send me your name, cause and address.

*Alas deceased later during the year.

~ Idea 630 ~ 31 March 1996

An important progress in the understanding of evolution is under way: Darwin laid down the law of competition of the species' and the survival of the fittest. Later the discovery of the DNA revealed to us the transmission of the acquired evolutionary wisdom of all species. What we see now is:

1. the colossal intermingling and intermarriages of humans world-wide, like seeds spread all over the globe, creating new common factors of a more evolved global human species:

2. a similar role is played by the media which have become the global nervous system of the human species:

3. innumerable international associations, institutions and firms have become the new global DNA's and memory banks of our evolution, the beginnings of a global brain:

4. as a result a planetary consciousness now reveals to us our errors and mistakes in this new evolutionary period of living and progressing on this planet: overpopulation, overconsumption, colossal wastes and needless activities which damage our environment, nature and the normal functioning of the Earth, in particular its biosphere and climate.

This should not make us despair. On the contrary. We can and will succeed in this new evolutionary challenge. It will be done through a new education, a new role of the media, of industry and economics, the further development of global institutions and warning systems, and last but not least by the incorporation of all politics into a planetary, supra-national system of proper Earth government.

The quicker this is done, the better it will be and the less damage will be done to our precious Earth.

~ Idea 668 ~ 8 May 1996

An idea from Holland:

From a group of 15 environmentally-conscious people, representing different disciplines, and then through a campaign showing the relationship between the environment and health, it is possible to stimulate consumers to buy foods and products which do not affect the environment. We are requesting governments to legislate that products be labeled as to their safety for the environment.

Herman van der Neut, Retired, Holland

(from the Brahma Kumaris' Visions of a Better World, page 137)

~ Idea 669 ~ 9 May 1996

The following group came up with a series of ideas:

One hundred and five participants from government departments, the fields of education, media and industry and all environmental organizations in Hong Kong contributed their ideas and experiences at an Environmental Symposium held in response to a deep concern for the state of Hong Kong's environment. Their appeal to all citizens included the following:

• Encourage environmental awards e.g. Housekeeper's Award, Governor's Green Award, Architect's/Engineer's "ECO" Design Award, "Captain Planet Award."

• Encourage a pollution index to be announced in all media weather reports.

• Encourage the setting up of environmental information kiosks in shopping malls.

• Encourage the use of comic strips for environmental education.

• Encourage a metropolitan street tree project.

• Propose a ban on junk mail.

• Encourage traffic free zones.

• Encourage rezoning/relocation of industry.

• Encourage environmental awareness in families through "A Good Deed A Day" project.

• Remember when you "throw things away" that there is no such thing as "away" &endash; it has to go somewhere!

(from the workshop report by Beverley Murphy, Hong Kong)

(Brahma Kumaris' Visions of a Better World, page 138)

~ Idea 724 ~ 3 July 1996

I wish that a great author would write a best-selling world novel telling how: at some time in the 21st century the human species and many other species became extinct on planet Earth as a result of environmental destruction, ozonosphere depletion, climatic changes, cancer and the end of the natural human immune system. He would get all the necessary information from the UN and its agencies, and from Lester Brown who in Washington publishes the yearly States of the World reports and many other vital documents on the current trends which menace humanity and the Earth.

~ Idea 881 ~ 7 December 1996

*In reality, it is because the US wants to promote its own ideas and leadership of the world's future.

~ Idea 928 ~ 24 January 1997

Perhaps some firms would make good sales if they sold and advertised their products as "least packaged products" to help the environment.

I cannot repeat often enough also that there is an urgent need for consumer information, enlightenment and protection from the world level down to the local communities. Outright business robberies, probably the most widespread and most sophisticated in the world, are not prosecuted and punished, while a hungry person who steals food from a store is arrested.

~ Idea 946 ~ 11 February 1997

I cannot repeat it often enough: we need several great common world engineering projects which will help save us incredible sums of money spent on national duplications, increase the productivity of the world economy and help us save the environment (see Idea 250). The building of world hydroelectrical plants in the Amazons and Himalayas would be the first to be considered, feeding a world electrical and energy grid as proposed by Buckminster Fuller and me years ago in the United Nations. This cause is pursued today by the GENI Institute (Global Energy Network International) in San Diego.

I recommend that a government place an item on the agenda of the United Nations General Assembly or of the UN Economic and Social Council: "Study of proposals to build common world hydroelectrical projects on suitable sites in poor countries where lack of resources prevents their building, and creation of a world wide energy grid, fed also by other sources of energy, such as solar, wind, sea and geothermal energy."

~ Idea 1075 ~ 20 June 1997

Yesterday I implemented idea 1049 by making available the following appeal to the members of the Extraordinary Session of the UN General Assembly in New York, held to review after five years the implementation of the recommendations of the Rio de Janeiro Conference on the environment:

Dear Esteemed Member,

After the world's concern for peace, humanism and economic development:

After the world's concern for the population explosion;

After the world's concern for the environment;

After the world's concern for the Earth's climate;

The new, even vaster concern is now how to save this planet and the human race by creating urgently

A PROPER EARTH GOVERNMENT

This is the absolute priority which faces us, the top item on the agenda of world affairs as we enter a new century and millennium.

I appeal to you, I beg you, Member of the UN Extraordinary Session, to adopt a resolution requesting an Initiative for URGENT PROPER EARTH GOVERNMENT.

~ Idea 1077 ~ 22 June 1997

We should replace Stock Exchanges by Earth Exchanges to give us daily valuations of the main Earth conditions: quality of the atmosphere, of the waters, of the top soils, of the forestry cover, of the seas and oceans and their oxygen production, of climatic changes, of living species, etc.

~ Idea 1111 ~ 26 July 1997

As we near the 21st century, I recommend that the International Association of University Presidents take up these two subjects:

1. what should be the ideal University in the 21st century? How should it be structured? What would be its principal objectives and Departments, given the needs of the Earth and humanity and future evolution on this planet?

2. What should be an ideal network of world Universities around the planet which would deal with global subjects of concern to all humanity and to the fate of the Earth, e.g. the seas and oceans, the atmosphere, the world's climate, the world's waters, global education, global ethics, proper Earth government, etc.?

~ Idea 1190 ~ 13 October 1997

In order to save our Earth it is imperative to disarm and demilitarize the planet and use the one trillion dollars released for urgent purposes related to our environment, climate and vital elements of life. The oxygen of our lungs has become our most important security.

~ Idea 1282 ~ 13 January 1998

If an outer-space team came to this Earth either now or later after this planet will be dead, they would not understand that humans were so appallingly disorganized to face the global dangers confronting them. For example we have an International Atomic Energy Agency, but not a World Energy Agency covering all sources of energy; we have an International Civil Aviation Organization and a World Maritime Organization but not a World Transport Organization covering and coordinating all forms of transport; we have a World Meteorological Organization but not a World Climate Organization; we have no World Water Organization, no World Air Agency and so on and so forth.

They would not be surprised that humans put an end to the further evolution of life on this planet. Their greatest surprise would be to learn that one country was sending instruments and missions to other planets to find out how life became extinct on them, instead of looking at what was happening to their own planet.

~ Ideas 1455 to 1466 ~ 5 to 16 July 1998

Transcript of short talk by Robert Muller

to the Ecovillages and Sustainable Development Conference

in Findhorn, in October 1995

Let me give you some very specific recommendations and ideas:

Idea 1455 Create a World Association of Eco-Communities to be NGO-accredited by the UN.

Idea 1456 Support the UNESCO Planet Society Program.

Idea 1457 Create a world ecological university at Findhorn.

Idea 1459 Mobilize any groups that are in favor of simple, frugal living in the developed countries.

Idea 1460 Ask the UN to hold a conference on garbage, built-in obsolescence, and waste.

Idea 1461 Ask Gorbachev to create a world commission on the denuclearization of this planet.

Idea 1462 Request a world conference for rural development and the stabilization of the villages.

Idea 1463 Demilitarization: ask for the closure of the RAF base next door to Findhorn.

Idea 1464 Support the World Commission on the Oceans.

Idea 1465 Look into the errors of transferring Western values and technologies into the developing countries.

Idea 1466 Celebrate World Environment Day, Earth Day and other days that support a global consciousness of nature and of our miraculous Earth.

~ Idea 1504 ~ 23 August 1998

Humanity has been able to progress and surmount the most incredible obstacles in evolution: the horrendous climates in cold and in hot areas, early death, wild animals, epidemics, wars after wars, conquerors, empires, colonialism, slavery, racial hatred, etc.

Our conscious will for survival and progress, our learning have constantly increased, but we have also encountered new obstacles and problems to resolve in recent years.

Today there is one major difference with all our past. The French historian Michelet said in the 19th century that despite Hannibal, the Romans and Napoleon crossing the Alps, the Mont Blanc had not changed a bit. Well, today this is no longer true: there is a tunnel crossing the Mont Blanc, its slopes have suffered damage as a result of climatic changes. For the first time in human history, humans are changing substantially the Earth, its ozonosphere, atmosphere, its waters, its biosphere, its soils, its vegetal cover, its climate, its ocean currents, and are responsible for the extinction every five hours of a species which it took millions of years to form.

This situation requires an entirely new thinking, new values, new objectives, new behaviors, new healings and new institutions. It also requires for the first time a sense of extreme urgency.

The year 2000 and our entry into a new century and millennium must be fully used to produce the new thinking, attitudes, education, media and a quantum jump of the global institutions, both in financial and in human contributions, to face these fundamental new conditions. Unprecedented problems require unprecedented solutions and institutions. Humanity can do it. You and I must make sure that it will be done. We must shout it to the sky.

Costa Rica

~ Idea 19 ~ 29 July 1994

I hope that soon the University for Peace created by the UN in demilitarized Costa Rica will be ratified by all governments and made the world's guiding and inspiring center for peace education.

It is a historical blemish that after twelve years only 32 governments out of 185 members of the United Nations had the decency to ratify it and only 3 have supported it financially. Military "Academies" for their part receive billions of dollars. Please check the list of ratifying countries in the footnote below, and if your government has not done so write a letter of protest to your elected representative.*

Note:

* List of countries which have ratified the UN Treaty creating the University for Peace: Bangladesh, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Democratic Kampuchea, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Saint Lucia, Senegal, Slovenia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Togo, Russia, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yugoslavia.

~ Idea 20 ~ 30 July 1994

I hope that many countries will follow the example of Costa Rica and Panama and will demilitarize themselves by Constitution. There are already 14 of them in the world. They should create an association of demilitarized states and show others how it can be done, and what immense benefits they derive from it. Those which are members of the United Nations should create a Group of Demilitarized Countries at the UN.

To begin with, all Central American Republics should imitate Costa Rica and Panama and make Central America a demilitarized zone of peace. To reduce the impact of unemployment, a good part of the militaries should be transformed into environmental and productive forces (reforestation, road construction, rehabilitation of the inner cities, etc.) possibly with financial help from rich countries.

Here is the list of countries without armies:

Costa Rica, Dominica, Kiribati, Liechtenstein, Mauritius, Maldives, Monaco, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, San Marino, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands, Panama. 1996: also Haiti

12 more countries have no army but defense arrangements with another country:

Andorra (France), Cook Islands (New Zealand), Gambia (Senegal), Iceland (USA), Marshall Islands (USA), Northern Marianas (USA), Federated States of Micronesia (USA), Niue (New Zealand), Palau (USA), Tuvalu (UK), Vanuato (Papua New Guinea)

~ Idea 21 ~ 31 July 1994

I wish that, following the example of the creation of national parks by governments, many private persons and families will create private parks and forest preserves. I have bought a few hectares of land next to the University for Peace in Costa Rica and made them into a Margarita and Robert Muller Peace Park.

~ Idea 54 ~ 2 September 1994

For the celebration of the year 2000, each government should submit a report on its positive contributions to a better world and to the UN since 1945. As an example, Costa Rica could report the demilitarization of the country by Constitution in 1949, the creation of the University for Peace, the Nobel Peace Prize to President Arias for his peace results in Central America, the adoption of Costa Rica's proposal to the UN General Assembly to celebrate a yearly International Day of Peace, the selection of Costa Rica as the seat of the Earth Council created by the Rio de Janeiro Conference on the Environment, the adoption of the proposal to create a post of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. This illustrates what one little country can do. Others, especially the big countries, should follow its example and compete with each other.

~ Idea 56 ~ 4 September 1994

Notes: 31 August 1995: Three Costa Rican young people came to see me presenting me with a request that a children's and youth house for peace and the environment be built on the grounds of the University for Peace. They represented an organization of thousands of children and young people of Costa Rica. I congratulated them and asked them to submit their request with my full support to the Executive heads of UNICEF and the UN Environment Program.

~ Idea 91 ~ 9 October 1994

I recommend that for the whole month of October 1995, month of the 50th anniversary of the UN, a world-wide cease-fire and cease-violence should be proclaimed by the UN. Its implementation would be the best anniversary gift to the UN.

Note: July 1995: The government of Costa Rica has endorsed this idea and has tabled a draft resolution in the UN proposing that the anniversary week of 24 October 1995 be declared a world week of peace, with cease-fires in every place of conflict. The proposal was adopted unanimously on 12 July 1995 by the UN General Assembly. I believe it is the first world-wide cease-fire proclaimed in human history.

~ Idea 128 ~ 15 November 1994

The time has come when the effectiveness of international agreements and treaties as a means of world administration and legal order must be reviewed from scratch. I recommend that the UN prepare a simple, comprehensive survey of the ratification, entry into force and implementation of all existing international agreements and treaties. It would show for example that of the 117 international labor agreements worked out in the International Labor Organization, the US has ratified only 7 and that the agreement reached in the UN General Assembly to create in demilitarized Costa Rica the first University for Peace on this planet, has been ratified after 14 years by only 32 governments out of 185. I suggest that a World Commission of Eminent Persons be established on the implementation of international agreements.

~ Idea 144 ~ 1 December 1994

Today, 1 December, is celebrated in Costa Rica as Demilitarization Day. All demilitarized countries should celebrate that day. The UN should proclaim it World Demilitarization Day. Costa Rica could make that suggestion.

~ Idea 193 ~ 19 January 1995

Panama has recently adopted a constitution which abolishes the army. For the first time in history there will be two countries, Costa Rica and Panama, bordering each other which have no army. They deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

~ Idea 227 ~ 22 February 1995

An idea which I like very much is the proposal by a Costa Rican citizen, Jesus Maria Salas Araya, that the whole country of Costa Rica be declared by the United Nations an Ecological Heritage or Patrimony of Humanity. He points out that thirty percent of the country's area are protected under the categories National Parks, Biological Reserves, National Monuments, Forest Reserves, Protected Zones, Refuges for Forest Life and National Forests, all these areas being administered, controlled or inspected by the State. In addition there are thousands of hectares protected and reforested by private persons.

~ Idea 239 ~ 6 March 1995

I love the idea of peace activist Sandy Hinden and of the peace Center of the French town of Verdun where 500,000 men were killed in World War I, to create peace museums in many countries and a World Network of Peace Museums. We will plan one in Costa Rica on sacred Mount Rasur, wherefrom, according to indigenous legend, a civilization of peace will extend to the entire world.

Note: There exist already fifty peace museums in the world. Since there are 185 UN member nations there should be at least 185. It would be interesting to know how many war museums there are in the world. Several hundreds I am sure.

~ Idea 327 ~ 2 June 1995

I think that Idea 227 proposed by Prof. Jesus Maria Salas Araya should be considered seriously by the world community: the entire country of Costa Rica should be made a world park, a unique natural preserve, a jewel and heritage of humanity. The Earth Council established in Costa Rica by the UN Rio de Janeiro Conference on the Environment could take up the subject and create a group of thinkers and ecologists who would come up with a concrete plan and proposals. Costa Rica could become a model for other well preserved natural areas of our Earth. In an orderly, well-conceived world government, such achievements for the future of the Earth and of humanity would be easy matters.

~ Idea 328 ~ 3 June 1995

Foreigners visiting Costa Rica are astonished by the natural beauty which has been miraculously retained in this country. Thirty percent of the territory are now protected against depredation. The dream has occurred to me that there should be a world Marshall Plan to preserve this blessed, demilitarized country as a remaining paradise on Earth. Such a plan would prevent the migration of the population from the beautiful rural areas to an overcrowded capitol. It could be a model of a country living in harmony with nature, inspired by eco-communities such as Findhorn in Scotland. Industrialized countries, instead of trying to industrialize Costa Rica, would help it to become a model of a new, more human and natural development, avoiding the errors made in most other developing and developed countries.

As a matter of fact, now that there is peace, the whole of Central America should be made a model of ecology and preserved nature, a world park.

~ Idea 333 ~ 8 June 1995

There are a lot of debate, confusion, disagreement and contrary views these days among politicians, diplomats and the military concerning the UN's military role in Yugoslavia and in Africa. Should it be conflict prevention, peace-keeping, innocent people protection, peace-making, peace-building, peace enforcement, light or massive intervention? Well, if I were the military I would press my government to ratify the University for Peace created by the UN in Costa Rica, to support it, strengthen it and make it the think-tank to study and clarify such roles and come forth with a novel vision of the role of the military in the world today. It is a place of extraordinary beauty of God's nature which elevates the human spirit. It is the place which inspired President Jose Figueres to demilitarize Costa Rica in 1949, the place where Rasur, the indigenous God of children, appeared to them and made the prophecy that out of these hills a civilization of peace will extend to the entire world.

~ Idea 380 ~ 25 July 1995

In ancient Greece, all wars were stopped to allow the people to attend the Olympic Peace Games. The UN General Assembly remembered it and decided in 1994 that the 17 days of the commemoration of the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996 should be celebrated with a world cease-fire. The General Assembly also adopted the Costa Rican proposal that the week of 24 October 1995, 50th anniversary of the United Nations, should be a world week of peace. I would recommend the further decision that the year 2000 be declared a world year of cease fire and peace.

~ Idea 421 ~ 4 September 1995

Of all Central American countries, Costa Rica is the most peaceful and most prosperous, and has been so for years. Why? Every Costa Rican will tell you that it is because they abolished the army in 1949 by Constitution and placed themselves under the protection of the security system of the Organization of American States. Why not conceive that more countries, even the rest of the world would demilitarize and place themselves under a world-wide UN Security System?

~ Idea 428 ~ 11 September 1995

~ Idea 449 ~ 2 October 1995

I recommend that all Costa Rican citizens, when writing to people abroad, should put under the date the words: Demilitarized Costa Rica. All official stationary should bear this mention.

~ Idea 450 ~ 3 October 1995

I also recommend that all airplanes of the Costa Rican airline LACSA should bear the words "Demilitarized Costa Rica" on their fuselage. All Costa Rican business and exporters should do the same for their products and stationary.

~ Idea 483 ~ 5 November 1995

Mrs. Eirween Harbottle, wife of General Michael Harbottle, president of the International Association of retired Generals and Admirals has produced a wonderful plan to transform ministries of War or Defense into Ministries of Peace by the year 2000.

My dream is that Costa Rica will be the first country on Earth to create such a Ministry. It will be easier for Costa Rica to do so since they have no militaries, only a police force which would be transformed into a peace protecting and peace building service under the new Ministry. I will propose it to the government. Other governments should try it too. Incidentally there existed a Secretary of Peace (Harold Stassen, one of the signers of the UN Charter) under President Eisenhower, a former military man.

~ Idea 485 ~ 7 November 1995

Hopefully some day all mothers on Earth, when giving birth to a son, will be able to say these words engraved on the Monument of Peace at the UN University for Peace in Costa Rica:

"Happy the Costa Rican mother who, when giving birth to a son, knows that he will never be a soldier."

~ Idea 525 ~ 17 December 1995

When I was reading the above, coming from Costa Rica and flying over the United States, seeing from the air its sooner or later uninhabitable cities, its Earth devouring highways, superhighways and freeways with millions of cars running in all directions to work more, build more, invent more, produce more, sell more, advertise more, make more profit, and consume more, when I saw the blankets of yellow-brown polluted atmospheres, I thought for myself that the time would soon come when Americans will leave their country in order to live and survive in clean air and more Earth-conscious countries like Costa Rica and other undestroyed countries. Alas, these countries are now themselves imperiled by the imported ideals of producing more, selling more, consuming more, making more profits and are losing their sound habits as a result of advertisement.

I was very sad. What I saw below me was not progress, it was destruction, an all-out war against the Earth, an evolutionary aberration of the human species, a headway towards abyss. This was World War III, a more devastating war than any other in human history.

Note: See the important book World War III, Population and the Biosphere at the End of the Millennium by Michael Tobias, Bear and Co. Publishers, Santa Fe NM 87504-2860.

~ Idea 625 ~ 26 March 1996

It was all right to select New York City as the seat of the United Nations after World War II at a time when humanity was concerned only with humanistic problems and not the Earth (the UN Charter does not contain the words Earth, nature, or resources, nor does it speak of the environment, a word coined by the UN only 25 years later).

Today, since the Earth and nature have become priority No. 1, it would be only proper to transfer the seat of the world organization to a major site of preserved, primeval nature.

The vast, international site of the University for Peace located in a demilitarized country in an area of thousands of acres of primeval tropical forests, a true paradise where one gains peace from nature itself, should be seriously considered. The costs would be very much below those of New York City, not more than a third to one-half, both for the international Secretariat and the 185 national delegations to the UN.

Also: it would fulfill the prophecy of the indigenous God of children, Rasur, that from these hills in Costa Rica a civilization of peace will extend to the entire world.

~ Idea 629 ~ 30 March 1996

People living in beautiful natural areas should be offered incentives for donating land to local communities to be conserved forever. Municipalities should establish land trusts to that effect. Local inhabitants could donate funds to them to allow the purchase of land to be preserved and never developed. Often, indeed, when we say that we are developing land, in reality we are undeveloping nature and destroying evolutionary results of millions of years. Costa Rica offers interesting laws and examples for the perpetual preservation of land. The Earth Council created by the Rio de Janeiro Environment Conference and located in Costa Rica should publish a survey of all legislations and practices on that subject. A World Trust Fund or Marshall Plan for Nature and Land Conservation should even be considered.

~ Idea 639 ~ 9 April 1996

How shining will be our world when the whole of humanity will be able to say these words inscribed on the Peace Monument of the University for Peace:

"Happy the Costa Rican mother who, when giving birth to a son, knows that he will never be a soldier."

Each time a new country demilitarizes itself, it should inaugurate a similar monument in that country with the inscription:

Happy the Panamanian mother...

Happy the Haitian mother...

~ Idea 649 ~ 19 April 1996

7 November each year should be declared World Demilitarization Day in recognition of the momentous day of 7 November 1949 when Costa Rica by Constitution made itself a permanently demilitarized country and has lived happily, peacefully and in prosperity ever since then.

~ Idea 659 ~ 29 April 1996

The whole world should follow the example of some radio stations in Costa Rica which start their early dawn broadcasts with Gounod's marvelous Ave Maria to give a spiritual feeling to the listeners. The United Religions, when created, could take this as one of their objectives: to start the day with broadcasts of a religious invocation, church bells, the chofar or the muezzin, or a prayer of thanksgiving for a new day of light and life by all the people of the Earth.

~ Idea 687 ~ 27 May 1996

The time has already come when people who can afford it move out of Western crowded cities to live in places and countries like Costa Rica, where there is still an ample supply of oxygen and nature.

The time will soon come when the most sensitive central governmental services should also move out of polluted capitals to places of oxygen and nature. This should apply especially to heads of states who need a clear head and to Parliaments, who need the clear voice and the natural wisdom of the people.

The same applies to world agencies. I recommend that the headquarters of the United Nations should be moved to Costa Rica, not to San Jose the polluted capital, but to the paradise of peace, nature and oxygen on the vast grounds of primeval nature of the University for Peace. Simon Bolivar, the great visionary genius, prophecized already that the seat of the world's government should be located in Central America between North and South America, between Atlantic and Pacific, between Europe and Asia. And indigenous people believe that the reconciliation of the eagle and the condor will take place in Costa Rica on sacred Mt. Rasur.

~ Idea 688 ~ 28 May 1996

I recommend that in many places of the world this example of Costa Rica should be followed: a landowner donated several thousands of acres of primeval land for the construction of a University for Peace on the condition that it would never be destroyed, deforested or misused for other purposes. This was confirmed by the Parliament which made it an international territory and protected zone. The world needs several such World Universities dealing in a central coordinated fashion with the world's global problems and opportunities. Please philanthropists, donate land for the creation of world universities.

~ Idea 761 ~ 9 August 1996

I would not exchange my wild, "unproductive virgin", primeval jungles in Costa Rica for the biggest, money-making shopping center in the world. And I am sure that the Divine Couple in heaven will thank me for it, when I appear before them.

~ Idea 771 ~ 19 August 1996

Often, after writing or speaking to audiences I feel discouraged when I think that during that time tens of thousands of experts sitting in growing numbers of skyscrapers around the world have devised ever more sophisticated methods to produce more, to sell more and make money, leaving the Earth in a worse condition than it was when I began to write or to speak.

Only you the people can help control the skyscraper dwellers. Please remember me in a small wooden farmhouse on a sacred hill in demilitarized Costa Rica, and who has not given up his optimism, despite enormous odds.

~ Idea 817 ~ 4 October 1996

Anyone who goes to Costa Rica and stays at one of the big, lavish American or multinational wasteful, arrogant hotels, is losing a precious part of their time, life and money in that beautiful country with its paradise of nature and simple, frugal life.

~ Idea 826 ~ 13 October 1996

It is wonderful to live in a country where there are no militaries! I dream that soon all humans will live in countries without militaries in a totally disarmed world. Having this thought on sacred Mt. Rasur in Costa Rica, above the UN University for Peace I make it a prophecy: soon there will be no longer any militaries and armaments on this beautiful planet. Please, dear people, dream and act for the same.

~ Idea 916 ~ 12 January 1997

During the world congress on science and religion in Calcutta, after my speech imploring for a world spiritual Renaissance, the idea was submitted to me to create the world's first University of Yoga. Sri Sayananda, made me the honor of suggesting that I should be its founder. To move from heading the first University for Peace on this planet to the first World University of Spirituality and Yoga would indeed be a beautiful linkage and elevation. Perhaps the University could be built next to the University for Peace on sacred Mt. Rasur in Costa Rica or on Meditation Mount Ojai in California and I could be the elderly, honorary Chancellor of both.

~ Idea 926 ~ 22 January 1997

~ Idea 927 ~ 23 January 1997

After returning to Costa Rica I resumed my usual task of cleaning the mile between my farmlet and the University for Peace, which I walk every day. It took me a couple of days to get it clean. I had the curiosity of counting the objects of pollution: I picked up 17 soft drink plastic bottles, 32 empty packets of cigarettes, 27 plastic bags, 2 empty concrete bags, 43 empty beer cans, and a good number of pages and discarded newspapers and paper napkins. Most of this comes from city dwellers who come with their children to the wonderfully preserved nature of the University for Peace. I thought sadly: everybody complains about pollution, but very few do anything about it. Here like in the United States I am considered as a fool who will never win. And yet after the job was done, I was able to walk on an absolutely clean mile. And I derived great happiness from it.

I also thought that in an orderly Earth government the firms producing the polluting objects should be made responsible for them and be taxed accordingly to pay locally unemployed people to clean them up.

~ Idea 948 ~ 13 February 1997

It has been announced that President Clinton will visit several countries of Latin America, including Costa Rica where he will meet the Presidents of the five Central American Republics. I propose that this meeting should take place on the international grounds of the University for Peace where a program of Culture for Peace and Human Rights is being carried out for all Central America.

~ Idea 950 ~ 15 February 1997

On that occasion one of the Central American Presidents should quote the statement from a letter of 6 September 1815 by Simon Bolivar in which he suggested that some day the capital of the world should be located in Central America:

"The states of the isthmus of Panama until Guatemala will perhaps form an association. This magnificent position between the two great oceans could become with time the emporium of the universe, its canals will shorten the distance of the world, and will widen the commercial links between Europe, America and Asia; they will bring to that happy region the tributes of the four parts of the world. Perhaps this will be the only place where some day the capital of the Earth will be established, and not in Constantinople as was dreamt by Emperor Constantin in the old hemisphere!"

Well, this supports my proposal that demilitarized Costa Rica should be considered as the seat of the United Nations, in view of the dissatisfaction of the United States and its persistence not to pay its dues to the world organization. The UN would merit to be located in Latin America, the sole continent on Earth free of nuclear weapons, thanks to the Treaty of Tlatelolco obtained by a UN official who received the Nobel Prize for it, Alfonso Garcia Robles from Argentina. The costs of operating the United Nations in Costa Rica would be considerably lower.

~ Idea 966 ~ 3 March 1997

For the first time in my life, when visiting the Cathedral in Washington, I was not touched, moved or inspired. A few days later in New York when seeing a synagogue, I suddenly got the explanation of my new feeling: why should I go into a closed building with walls and a ceiling when in Costa Rica's primeval forests and magnificent nature, I have the greatest temple to God, without walls, with the infinite sky as the roof filled with endless beauty and life? Why lock up God or the Creator in buildings made of stolen materials from the Earth, erected by 5000 different religions dividing the human family, some of them still making wars on each other?

The indigenous people are much wiser to consider nature, its miracles, beauty and nourishment as the manifestations of the Great Spirit.

~ Idea 984 ~ 21 March 1997

Barbara Gaughen and I have ordered hundreds of golden stick-on-plastic plaques with this inscription:

BENCH OF DREAMS

We give them to the Robert Muller Schools, visitors and friends of ours or of the University of Peace, exhorting them to build benches of dreams in their gardens, city parks, schools and playgrounds, or other places. We want the world to dream as many dreams as possible. We hope that our example will be followed and that numerous such benches will spread around the world and lift the spirit of people in the construction of a better world. Like we do on our finca, adjacent to the University for Peace, on sacred Mt. Rasur in Costa Rica, they could also erect benches of love, peace, hope, vision, thanksgiving, faith, happiness and forgiveness, devoted to the great philosophical and spiritual ideals which have always helped humanity to progress in our mysterious journey in the vast, unfathomable universe.

~ Idea 1008 ~ 14 April 1997

It is good that the UN Earth Council, created by the Rio de Janeiro Conference, located in Costa Rica, is drafting an Earth Charter and that the Gorbachev and Green Cross International are drafting a Charter of Nature. Both documents should be submitted to the World Constitutional Assembly which I recommend should convene in order to draft a Constitution for the planet Earth (see ideas 560 and following).

~ Idea 1026 ~ 2 May 1997

An idea of Barbara Gaughen as we walked through the marvelous primeval forests of our Mt. Rasur peace park next to the University for Peace in Costa Rica: why not offer it as the site of the first World Ecological Exposition?

~ Idea 1040 ~ 16 May 1997

~ Idea 1054 ~ 30 May 1997

Often people tell me that I should create my own Robert Muller Institute or Foundation. Basically I like the idea and the purposes, but I do not like the words, they are too dry, too intellectual, they do not speak to the heart. What I would like to establish is a Robert Muller Dream and Ideas Lighthouse on magic Mount Rasur in Costa Rica, overlooking the UN University for Peace and International Radio for Peace. I will give further thought to it. The title, the idea and the magnitude of such a step still escape me. God will inspire me in my dreams in our wooden farmlet on that mountain.

~ Idea 1100 ~ 15 July 1997

My idea 620 has received the beginning of a modest implementation: during his recent visit to Costa Rica, President Clinton offered US aid for the conservation of primeval forests in that country. It is a program which could be called, "oxygen by the poor for the rich". As a result the Costa Rican Parliament is now considering a legislation which would give 10,000 colones (about forty dollars) per hectare (2.5 acres) of primeval forests which are conserved by private owners. A good little first step.

~ Idea 1146 ~ 30 August 1997

Driving today to San Jose I saw an enormous advertisement panel, lit day and night, of Marlboro cigarettes with this big sentence: Mantenga limpia su ciudad. Keep your city clean. I would have rather expected to read: Mantenga sus pulmones limpios. Keep your lungs clean. All municipalities in the world should keep a close watch over such advertisements. Most of the main road accesses to and from San Jose are filled with advertisements which are a true insult to the beauty of the Costa Rican natural landscape In many cities and areas of the US they would not be allowed. This is why they invade now the poor countries. Advertisement should be looked into as part of the subject of democracy to be taken up by the UN or a World Commission.

~ Idea 1157 ~ 10 September 1997

I have seen so many small village communities in Costa Rica with deserted churches and parish houses, due to the shortage of priests, that I begged His Holiness in two letters to allow Catholic sisters to officiate mass and religious ceremonies and to be the spiritual counselors of the people in these villages who need it so much.

I had asked Costa Rican sisters if they would be ready to do it, and they said that they would do it enthusiastically.

But my appeals to the Pope have remained unanswered. This is why I repeat them here. May God and Catholic sisters give me a hand!

~ Idea 1168 ~ 21 September 1997

~ Idea 1216 ~ 8 November 1997

~ Idea 1238 ~ 30 November 1997

Since Costa Rica has been for years the most peaceful and most prosperous country in Central America, thanks to the genial decision of former President Jose Figueres to demilitarize the country by Constitution in 1949, I recommend that wealthy people of Costa Rica and sympathetic foreign philanthropists contribute to a fund which would give a yearly Jose Figueres Demilitarization Prize to the country which has demilitarized itself or made most progress towards demilitarization.

~ Idea 1241 ~ 3 December 1997

It is high time to convene a first world conference on waste and garbage, a subject which has never been considered in its global dimensions. The results would be staggering and show that humanity is on the course of disaster. Watching every day from our hill in Costa Rica the huge fires of garbage in the valley below, spreading fumes over the city of Alajuela, Barbara and I are deeply concerned. And the people down there do not see the blanket extending over their heads, the same way as in huge cities in the world they do not see the brown blanket of pollution over their homes, affecting the lungs of their families.

The world conference I propose could give birth to two much needed new sciences, strategies and methodologies under the names of:

wastology

and

garbology

These should be worked on and taught in Universities and schools in the world.

~ Idea 1245 ~ 7 December 1997

The next session of the Interparliamentary Union should be held in Costa Rica at the seat of the University for Peace and deal with the following subjects:

- Parliamentarianism and democracy in the 21st century

- Creation of a UN Consultative Parliament

- Establishment of a yearly world budget including proper financing of international and regional institutions, actions and projects for the benefit of all humanity and the Earth;

- Equitable taxation for all people of the world and elimination of international tax evasion.

~ Idea 1271 ~ 2 January 1998

At the historic second world conference on the environment in Rio de Janeiro in 1993, the United Nations created an Earth Council seated in Costa Rica.

This could be the first step towards a proper Earth Government. I recommend that the next step should be to create a Consultative Earth Parliament to which national Parliaments would delegate a number of representatives. This would be a direct, effective way for all Parliaments to be informed about the Earth' global conditions. Such a measure could be vitally important at our current stage of evolution and perils. The Parliament would meet in Costa Rica at the Earth Council or at the UN University for Peace.

~ Idea 1286 ~ 17 January 1998

There begin to be on this planet bi-national or international parks. For instance there is a Costa-Rican-Panama international park. The world should know that there exists also a first world park: several thousand acres of primeval tropical forests donated to the UN University for Peace in Costa Rica. It would be worthwhile for the United Nations and environmental institutions to see how such a treasure could be opened to plant and animal scientists, become a highpoint of education and model of a well preserved and managed world park also offered as highpoint of world ecological tourism.

~ Idea 1312 ~ 12 February 1998

~ Idea 1314 ~ 14 February 1998

A study of military training and peace education in the world would also reveal that while the militaries are both educated and "trained", peacemakers are not. The Institute of Peace in Washington which was originally conceived as a West Point for the training of peacemakers, was accepted by President Reagan on the condition that it would only produce peace studies but not educate or train peacemakers. The UN University in Tokyo was agreed upon by the US only on the specific condition that it would be limited to studies. And the UN University for Peace in Costa Rica was ratified by only a handful of governments and financed by almost none of them, as a result of which it is practically without students. Neither in national Universities can one find any training of peacemakers. Napoleon was a genius when he decided that he would not send his militaries to Universities, but would create special military "academies" to train them and prepare them for war. This situation still prevails today.

~ Idea 1316 ~ 16 February 1998

I often think that some day US citizens will invade a country like Costa Rica in order to have access to its pure oxygen, due to its location between the vast Atlantic and Pacific, and its still good forest and tree cover. Yes, the inhabitants of the western countries will soon have to leave their big, polluted cities. But I can also see this new problem: from my hill over the central valley of Costa Rica I can see more and more fires and smokes of the garbage dumps filled with plastic packages and containers introduced by the western world. Also the big US construction firms which since 1970, according to my journal, have plans for the de-concentration and abandonment of all major US cities, once building there will no longer be profitable, are now looking at the building markets of the poor countries, were it only for hotels and tourism resorts. As a result even Costa Rica might no longer be a place of environmental refuge.

~ Idea 1346 ~ 18 March 1998

Erika Erdmann (see idea 526) wrote to me that Costa Rica which demilitarized itself and has more than one third of its rich nature protected from development should be called an Island of Sanity and Hope. How right she is.

~ Idea 1366 ~ 7 April 1998

Philanthropists and gaiaphilists should give priority to global philanthropy and gaiaphily to foster the solution of global problems, the most recent, unprecedented, urgent and potentially catastrophic, terminal ones. They should help the convening of major world conferences and the creation or strengthening of new, vitally needed global institutions and legislations. Thus, the University for Peace in Costa Rica was created with one million dollars donated by Ryoichi Sasakawa from Japan. He has his statue on the grounds of this first University for peace on this planet. Mr. Sasakawa also funded the yearly UNESCO Peace Education Prize. Ted Turner's philanthropy to the UN is also an example. Please philanthropists and gaiaphilists take inspiration from them. World philanthropy will give you maximum world visibility and enduring fame.

~ Idea 1390 ~ 1 May 1998

~ Idea 1412 ~ 23 May 1998

Last year, on a rapid train ride of five hours from my hometown in Alsace-Lorraine to Paris, a ride covering half the breadth of France, I was shocked that there was practically no forest left. There were hundreds of miles of uninterrupted ploughed fields for the cultivation of cereals. Only on hills on the horizon could one see some forests. But when closer, I noticed that two-thirds of their slopes had been "cleared" to plant vineyards. I can understand that France needs plenty of cereal foods. But do we need wine, al kohol? Where will France get its oxygen from? Some day the world will be divided no longer into developed and underdeveloped countries, but oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor countries. Why doesn't the French government at least decree that a minimum number of trees must be planted on each acre of cereal fields? This practice is already wide-spread on coffee plantations in a "poor" country like Costa Rica which would not even need it, since more than a third of the country is covered by legally protected forests and which gets ample oxygen from both the Atlantic and Pacific.

~ Idea 1425 ~ 5 June 1998

I offer that the University for Peace created by the UN in a paradise of peaceful nature in demilitarized Costa Rica become the first University for heads of states, fulfilling the wish of Confucius when he lived in a China torn up by feuding provincial lords as is the world today by the feuding, competition and race of 185 nations.

~ Idea 1437 ~ 18 June 1998

I love your idea, Barbara, to make of our beautiful land in Costa Rica a Monnet Garden, a temple of beauty to nature and to God Rasur, the indigenous children's prophet of peace.

Let us make the whole Earth a Monnet garden, a temple of beauty to nature and God.

~ Idea 1473 ~ 23 July 1998

Costa Rica which was one of the first sizable countries to demilitarize itself should become world famous for two more firsts:

- to create a Ministry of Peace and Non-violence (comprising the police renamed peace agents)

- to create a Ministry of Happiness

~ Idea 1481 ~ 31 July 1998

Tourism is unfortunately becoming a destructive human activity. Most people from wealthy countries should choose to stay at home instead of coming by the thousands to Costa Rica to see a sane and healthy natural country, a jewel of preserved nature, but now affected by luxury hotels, increased transportation, imports of luxury foods and replacement of local fruit juices by a colossal marketing of Coca Cola and other soft drinks. I begin to see a rather black future for Costa Rica if this continues.

Demilitarization & Disarmament

~ Idea 20 ~ 30 July 1994

Here is the list of countries without armies:

Costa Rica, Dominica, Kiribati, Liechtenstein, Mauritius, Maldives, Monaco, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, San Marino, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands, Panama. 1996: also Haiti

12 more countries have no army but defense arrangements with another country:

~ Idea 53 ~ 1 September 1994

~ Idea 54 ~ 2 September 1994

~ Idea 70 ~ 18 September 1994

I recommend that each not yet demilitarized country of this planet should channel one per thousand of its military expenses to the UN University for Peace in Costa Rica and to other peace Universities.

~ Idea 141 ~ 28 November 1994

Today, when I went to pay my car insurance, the agent, Mr. Luis Alberto Guzman of Ciudad Colon, asked me for advice on an idea he had: why not invite all the winners of the Nobel Prize for Peace to meet at the University for Peace in demilitarized Costa Rica and ask them to proclaim that the whole world should be demilitarized?

An excellent idea which shows what an ordinary citizen can do. I told him that all Nobel Peace Prize winners have been invited to meet in San Francisco in 1995 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the UN. Since Oscar Arias, the former President of Costa Rica, will be among them as one of the Peace Prize winners, he could make this proposal. Mr. Guzman promised to write to him immediately.

~ Idea 144 ~ 1 December 1994

~ Idea 145 ~ 2 December 1994

The UN Security Council should take the bull by the horns and create a Committee of its own to deal with the demilitarization of this planet.

~ Idea 146 ~ 3 December 1994

The poor countries of the world should create an organization of demilitarized and non-arms buying countries, and turn to the United Nations to ensure their security.

~ Idea 148 ~ 5 December 1994

International and bilateral aid should be made inversely proportional to the expenditures of the receiving countries on armaments and the military. Premium aid should be given to those who reduce their armaments and demilitarize themselves.

~ Idea 153 to 171 ~ 10 to 28 December 1994

On this Human Rights Day I recommend that the following fundamental human rights should be worked on for adoption:

Idea 155 -the right to a disarmed, demilitarized planet

~ Idea 193 ~ 19 January 1995

~ Idea 194 ~ 20 January 1995

The UN should create at the University for Peace in Costa Rica an Institute for the study of non-armed defense and security of demilitarized countries. For example, the protection by the Organization of American States of demilitarized countries in its area could serve as a model for the protection of other demilitarized countries in other regions by their regional organizations or even world-wide by the United Nations. We need bold new ideas for world security, for world insurance against aggression and war.

Note:

The World Commission to Fund the United Nations has before it a proposal by Hazel Henderson, the founder and chairwoman of the Commission, and by Alan Kays for the creation of UN Security Insurance Agency, as a partnership of the public, private and civil sectors, especially insurance companies. Under such a system, many countries could afford to demilitarize themselves.

~ Idea 216 ~ 11 February 1995

I endorse enthusiastically the recommendation by the World Commission of Eminent Persons on Global Governance that a World Fund for Demilitarization be established by the UN.

~ Idea 217 ~ 12 February 1995

The United Nations should create a World Agency for Demilitarization and Disarmament.

~ Idea 246 ~ 13 March 1995

I have proposed to Oscar Arias, former President of Costa Rica and Nobel Peace Prize winner, to establish an Independent World Commission for the Demilitarization of the planet.

~ Idea 248 ~ 15 March 1995

True democracy means frequent peoples' consultations through public opinion polls and referenda. The world is now so interdependent and the people are so worried about the future that it is high time to organize world referenda. The United Nations should create an Office of World Polls and Referenda. The first world referendum should ask the people if they want to get rid or not of all atomic weapons. And all governments should abide by their decision. Another poll would be whether people want to see electric cars replace the petroleum cars which are destroying our atmosphere. Another would be on the demilitarization of the planet and the creation of a proper world security system and peace protection at all levels of society. And there are many others.

~ Idea 333 ~ 8 June 1995

~ Idea 355 ~ 30 June 1995

To achieve the goal of human happiness it is high time that a Disarmament and Demilitarization Agency be created by the UN. Any savings from disarmament and demilitarization &endash;they would be huge&endash; would be used to reduce poverty and misery around the world and thus increase human happiness. I just cannot understand that the word happiness never appears in political and United Nations language and documents when it is a basic purpose of all our efforts.

~ Idea 390 ~ 4 August 1995

I dream to hold yearly composers' and song-writers' festivals at the University for Peace on sacred Mr. Rasur to sing to world peace, demilitarization, hope, forgiveness and a tremendous love for our beautiful planetary home and human family, united in peace and happiness to enjoy the incredible miracle of life.

~ Idea 408 ~ 22 August 1995

Small countries like the Central American ones should consider placing themselves under United Nations protection and guidance. The United Nations and its agencies (World Health Organization, the UN Environment Program, the International Labour Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, UNESCO, Habitat, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, etc.) would cooperate to make them ideal countries serving as models for the rest of the world. Such countries would be demilitarized and secured by the United Nations. Massive help would be given to rural and natural areas in order to avoid the overpopulation and pollution of their capitals.

~ Idea 420 ~ 3 September 1995

There is need for a World Commission to look at the overall efficiency of the world's political system, the incredible duplications which exist between 185 nations, and propose common world services which would reduce waste and alleviate the burdens on the taxpayers. Common services in world health, world statistical services of the UN and of its agencies are already good examples. But infinitely more massive savings could be achieved if similar arrangements were made for world security, national military expenses being the biggest of all.

~ Idea 421 ~ 4 September 1995

~ Idea 434 ~ 17 September 1995

I wish that all demilitarized countries (see idea 20) would adopt this title for the passports of their citizens:

PLANET EARTH

Demilitarized Costa Rica

etc.

~ Idea 449 ~ 2 October 1995

I recommend that all Costa Rican citizens, when writing to people abroad, should put under the date the words: Demilitarized Costa Rica. All official stationary should bear this mention.

~ Idea 450 ~ 3 October 1995

~ Idea 486 ~ 8 November 1995

The UN Draft Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People provides that no indigenous people can be drafted into military service and that their lands cannot be used for armaments and warfare. The result will be that about 300 million people on this planet will remain disarmed and demilitarized, a good step forward.

~ Idea 527 to 547 ~ 19 December 1995 to

8 January 1996

To the preceding I added a list of 21 basic segments of human life on this planet to be reconsidered and rethought from scratch as we enter the 21st century:

Idea 539 the disarmament, demilitarization, denuclearization and global

security of the planet

~ Idea 571 ~ 1 February 1996

I wish that one or several great philanthropists, would create World Commissions of Eminent Persons on some global problems which still need pressing attention. Here is an up to date list of those recommended earlier in these 2000 ideas.

a World Commission on a New World Economic System

a World Commission on the Media and Advertisement

a World Commission on Democracy

a World Commission on a Spiritual Renaissance

a World Commission on a new course for Humanity and the Earth

a World Commission on the Total Denuclearization of the Planet

a World Commission on the Demilitarization of the Planet

a World Commission on Ethics

a World Commission on World Priorities and Resources

a World Commission on Consumption

a World Commission on the Use and Conservation of Natural Resources

a World Commission on Corruption

a World Commission on Visions of the Earth and of Humanity in the 21st century and 3rd Millennium

a World Commission on the Nation State and National Government Reform

a World Commission on the Inefficiency of the Present World Political System due to staggering costly duplications between 185 nation states

a World Commission on a World Budget and Taxation System

a World Commission on Global Philanthropy and World Prizes

Philanthropists and other world personalities or foundations and institutes might also take up subjects on which I have recommended the holding of further world conferences by the United Nations.

~ Idea 611 ~ 12 March 1996

(my 73rd birthday)

*Alas deceased later during the year.

~ Idea 648 ~ 18 April 1996

~ Idea 701 ~ 10 June 1996

After reading the preceding text, I plead again, I beg governments to strengthen enormously the United Nations which is their world instrument, to permit for example the expansion of the UN Volunteer Service into a service able to respond to the 60,000 demands it receives every year from young people around the world. What a great help to unemployed young people it would be! Just reduce a little your military expenditures and send the money to the UN Volunteer Service to accommodate the 58,000 applications it has to turn down every year.

~ Idea 881 ~ 7 December 1996

*In reality, it is because the US wants to have its own ideas and leadership of the world's future.

~ Idea 951 ~ 16 February 1997

As the simplest approach to the demilitarization of the planet the UN General Assembly should adopt a resolution asking that all countries still having militaries and armaments should reduce their military and arms expenditures in their budgets by 15 percent or more, allocating the savings to expenses for the poor, the environment and other worthwhile projects, or as tax savings to their citizens.

If I were the Secretary General of the UN I would inscribe this proposal on the agenda of the General Assembly.

I have never understood why the Secretaries General of the UN have not amply used their right under the rules of procedure of the General Assembly and of the Security Council to inscribe provisional items on the agendas of these two central bodies of the UN. I was always told that this was too dangerous and that member governments would not like it. Which member governments? Of course those who do not want the Secretary General to have any power, not even that of proposing novel initiatives or ideas which could be contrary to the interests of one particular country or group of countries, even if they were of highest interest to the Earth and humanity.

In one case, when I was able to convince a Secretary General to take a bold initiative in the Security Council, namely on terrorism, I was transferred to another position shortly thereafter. Nevertheless I am proud that the Security Council adopted an international convention on terrorism. Indeed, sooner or later any country on Earth might be menaced by terrorism.

~ Idea 952 ~ 17 February 1997

World Awards for a Better World

The 185 nations of the UN General Assembly have a vast unused power, the power of incentive, of inspiration, of reward: I suggest that an Awards Committee be established by the General Assembly to give awards to governments who have best performed in implementing decisions of the United Nations, for example on disarmament, demilitarization, human rights and the environment. All governments would be asked to contribute to a World Awards Fund which would make such awards as prestigious as the Nobel Prizes. A mere one million dollars contribution by 185 governments would bring in 185 million dollars for prizes! Philanthropists would also be asked to contribute to the fund. The General Assembly could decide on an international tax on air travel to yield money for such a fund. Each tourist or air traveler would be told that the small tax he pays is for the granting of World Awards for a Better World. Private persons would be asked to make voluntary contributions or bequests to the Fund. Such contributions could be asked from people world-wide on Human Rights Day (10 December), on World Environment Day (5 June) and on new Days to be established, such as World Demilitarization Day, World Disarmament Day, etc. The whole field of philanthropy and gaiaphily (love for humankind, love for Mother Earth) by millions of people around the world, has received insufficient attention by the United Nations. Since the Charter of the UN starts with the words "We, the Peoples", let us give an opportunity to the peoples of the world to say what they are ready to do. The subject should be placed on the agenda of the General Assembly.

~ Idea 1173 ~ 26 September 1997

The 21st century should be proclaimed Century of Demilitarization and Disarmament by the United Nations.

~ Idea 1197 ~ 20 October 1997

I recommend that the United Nations publish each year a report on the reduction of military expenditures of member countries, on demilitarization and on the closing of military bases.

~ Idea 1238 ~ 30 November 1997

~ Idea 1312 ~ 12 February 1998

~ Idea 1324 ~ 24 February 1998

I hope that someone will create a world peoples' association or movement called "Enough Is Enough" calling for the total demilitarization and disarmament of this planet. Read what Tolstoy said about the military (idea 1284). Peoples' opinion should not tolerate that close to a trillion dollars are being spent by governments on militaries and ever more sophisticated armaments when there are so many poor, hungry, suffering people in the world. People should have the courage to say to their governments: "we are fed up; we want a change; give the UN the means to secure peace among nations; the plans are all ready for it; all that is missing is your consent. We will create a world-wide national tax revolt movement, if by the year 2000 you have not changed."

~ Idea 1365 ~ 6 April 1998

An intern of our International Radio for Peace to whom I told that, answered: "But I know of a new monetary system which could remedy all that." I replied to him: "I do not want to see it. I have at least twenty of them. The problem is that the holders of the existing system do not even want to look into anything else. The only thing which can save us is to call in a world conference to rethink from scratch the whole economic system of this planet."

I gave him another example: "You have many proposals for a world federal government. They might all be good, but there will be people who will object, by saying: 'the states you would federate are totally artificial. They are the results of conquests, marriages, stealings of lands, etc. What is needed is an Earth government based on bioregions, regions which have a life in common, like the great river basin countries, the mountain countries, the Arctic and Antarctic, etc. Proper Earth government requires that we think in those terms.' My answer again to them is: "We need urgently a world conference to rethink from scratch the way this planet is governed or rather misgoverned. At it, all ideas would be reviewed to find which is the best, or which is the best combination in the interest of the Earth and humanity."

I refer therefore here to ideas 527 to 547 in which I urge that 21 basic segments of human life on this planet should be reconsidered and rethought from scratch: a new political system, a new economics, a new education, a new media and communications, a new democracy, a new global leadership, a spiritual Renaissance, a non-violent human society, a well preserved planet, a decent well-being for all humans, a stabilization of world population, right human settlements, disarmament, demilitarization, a global security of the planet, a new science and technology, a new world psychology, a new science and art of planetary management, and a new art and culture.

These should all be the object of major world conferences to be held as rapidly as possible as we enter the 21st century and third millennium.

Governments might not listen to me, but it is my duty to say this in the light of my fifty years of world experience.

~ Idea 1390 ~ 1 May 1998

~ Ideas 1455 to 1466 ~ 5 to 16 July 1998

Transcript of short talk by Robert Muller

to the Ecovillages and Sustainable Development Conference

in Findhorn, in October 1995

Let me give you some very specific recommendations and ideas:

Idea 1463 Demilitarization: ask for the closure of the RAF base next door to Findhorn.

DISARMAMENT

~ Idea 18 ~ 28 July 1994

I pray that by the time of our entry into the next century and millennium, all nuclear arms in the air, on the soils and in the waters of this beautiful planet will have been eliminated forever. All continents and regions should follow the example of Latin America which, by the Treaty of Tlatelolco, has banned all nuclear weapons from that region. A United Nations colleague of mine, Alfonso Garcias Robles from Mexico, started that process in the United Nations immediately after World War II, and received the Nobel Peace Prize for it. Any other candidates? Elimination is the name, not non-proliferation.

~ Idea 46 ~ 25 August 1994

It is not normal that one form of energy, and not the best, namely atomic energy, should receive the attention of a UN specialized agency, namely the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). A UN World Energy Agency must be created of which atomic energy would only be a part.

The best specialists and scientists on Earth should be consulted about the advisability of continuing atomic energy. Many of them hold the view that it should be discontinued. It is only after billions of years, when the atomic radiations of this planet had dissipated that life began to develop to its current, extraordinary diversity. Atomic energy and arms are bound to reverse the entire evolution and put an end to human and other life forms on this planet.

One UN Agency which should be abolished or have its mandate changed is the International Atomic Energy Agency. It should be mandated to eliminate all nuclear arms and nuclear plants on this planet. If not, in the long run, atomic radiation will finish us as well as all life on this planet.

~ Idea 232 ~ 27 February 1995

Preferential world aid, bilateral and philanthropic aid should be given to countries which have no nuclear arms and no nuclear energy plants. They should be thanked for not contributing to the atomic radiation of the Earth and of the human species.

~ Idea 244 ~ 11 March 1995

my 72nd birthday

I cannot repeat it often enough: we must abolish all militaries on this planet. What we need is a police, renamed peace service at the various levels of society, from the top of the world (United Nations peace protectors) down to the city and neighborhoods. All big weapons used by the military must be destroyed world-wide and only light weapons used or new temporarily maiming or incapacitating weapons. That is my birthday wish, the overriding one. And since I am living on a hill of prophecies, I want to say that it is not a utopia: it will inexorably happen. If I no longer live at that time, please remember my prophecy.

~ Idea 272 ~ 8 April 1995

The United Nations must absolutely prepare a comprehensive plan for a watertight world security system by the year 2000. All existing proposals should be collected and considered, in particular the ideas and first plans of the Military Staff Committee of the Security Council, the McCloy-Zorin plan for world security, the report of the Olof Palme world commission on security and disarmament, the proposals for world security of the Gorbachev Foundation, and there are certainly others. This is one of the foremost priorities at the end of this century, given the opportunities offered by the end of the cold war. Michael Gorbachev is so right when he says that we have not used the tremendous opportunities opened by that event.

~ Idea 287 ~ 23 April 1995

One of the key instruments in the UN Charter is the Military Staff Committee of the Security Council. It met immediately after the war at the chiefs of armies level and had two tasks: (1) to devise a world security system; (2) thereafter to disarm the planet. These tasks were cut short by the cold war between the US and the USSR. Today, the cold war having ended, this organ of the UN Charter should be revived to its original and central role for world peace. It should meet, again at the chiefs of armies level and propose an imaginative and daring world security system and then proceed seriously with the task of disarming the planet.