[intro music, ocean sounds]
Welcome to World Ocean Radio…
I’m Peter Neill, Founder of the World Ocean Observatory.
What is the future without a plan? It is not unusual to go planless, or to make a plan then pay it no attention, or to have a plan that fails, or even to have a plan that does not succeed because it is simply the wrong plan. In a previous edition of World Ocean Radio, I commented on the lack of a national/international plan for the future of the ocean: Plan A today is simply to not have one, to make it up as the present unfolds, to act on impulse, uninformed, irrational, and blind to consequence. And then there is Plan B, the perhaps more responsible design, sometimes strategic and institutionalized by global organizations expressing values by envisioned goals, objectives, and actions ostensibly to reach a desired conclusion to come. Russia was famous for “five-year plans” for economic and social development that seemed always to fail. Corporations and non-profits seem compelled to devote enormous time and effort to the “strategic planning process”; all good, but in today’s world of changing circumstances, sudden shifts in the geo-political climate, and the to-be-expected unexpected – the pandemics, the unpredictable wars, the volatile market fluctuations, and the aggregated irrationality and absurdity – all conspire to turn plans on their heads, upside down, even backwards. If there is a true ocean plan today is no better than a design of good intentions.
I once though it would be a lucrative business idea to provide every institution, every codified program for the future, with a Plan B, an alternative path, just in case things don’t go as planned, and things need to react, turn, and respond to the predictable irrational, because these times are dramatically changin’ in directions and degree evidently unforeseen by the past planners.
It’s is surely time for a Plan C, indeed, in the context of our ocean-centric view of the world, a Plan S-E-A – by which to imagine a future that incorporates the latest, most volatile circumstances into a design of reality-based actions that will shape forward, intent rather than react to, the future. It is time to change the way we see the world. It is a not time for revolution, an impossible circular return to the past; nor for an evolution which is just too slow; but it is time for pro volution, a collective force forward and through to a new set of values, structure, behaviors, and actions that will correct the negative valence to positive energy and the future.
The approach might be centered on the vision of hydraulic society, a social and economic system based on the true asset value of nature, its protection, its sustainability, and its essential contribution for the health, welfare, solace, and support of a global community.
Water is the source; it is life, and without it, we have no hope for continuity and progress. To continue to waste it, poison it, and consume it without restriction, is an unique form of self-inflicted genocide. Even the lemmings had the good sense to jump into the sea. Civilizations have died for lack of water. Are we any different today as we fight over irrigation water, well water, holy water? As global dehydration to foresee consequence and pursue an alternative action in advance, in time?
Fresh water, ocean water, water as nurture, water for growth, water at the core of community: these, beyond vacuous symbol, are the core realities of a necessary plan, a Sea Plan, a plan for Sea Change, in which we can, must, all participate.
So, let’s be smart enough to abandon Plan A before it does us in. Let’s take a second look at Plan B as it, too, may have been made at the wrong time, with the wrong circumstances as determining factors, and by the wrong people. Let’s look forward through imagination and invention; let’s stand up for the future; let’s embrace the wisdom of Nature, combined to envision a Plan C, a truly strategic plan, based on sustainability and reciprocity, based on a universal, incontrovertible need for the enduring health of body and mind: yours, mine, and strangers worldwide. It cannot be denied: the sea connects all things.
We will discuss these things, and more, in future editions of World Ocean Radio.
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[outro music, ocean sounds]
