To Become Wiser in Order to Survive.

To Become Wiser in Order to Survive.

ALEKSANDR ALEKSANDROVICH STARTSEV,
Chairman, the Board of Regional Department of Russia's ECOLOGICAI "Green Party" in Saint-Petersburg; Director General, Northwest International Center of Environmentally Safe Production; Expert, UNIDO.

The article presents the outline of a nature conservation spiritual and moral model of new being.

Key words:
ecology, state, society, human, ideology

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© Startsev A. A., 2016

“We are experiencing not a crisis disturbing weak souls, but the greatest turning point of mankind's scientific thought, which takes place only once in a millennium... Standing at this turning point, casting our eyes over the unfolding future, we should be happy that we are destined to live through this, to participate in the creation of such a future.”
V. I. Vernadsky [1, p. 255]

The world stands at the threshold of great changes. There are signs of an intensifying systemic failure in civilizational development. The threat of a major war looms, one that Nature, probably, will not withstand. Humanity, as it is, has already long since entered an ecological dead end. Research by scientists from various countries shows that the further existence of natural ecosystems in the form in which they have supported the well-being of civilization in recent centuries is under threat, and humanity has ten years left to avoid a global ecological disaster fraught with irreversible consequences. Which way the pendulum of history will swing today is a serious question:

• either it is great turmoil, chaos, escalation of military conflicts—and then the consequences will be dramatic for many;
• or the progress of humanity, which is unquestionably desired—but possible if we find the strength, overcome the barrier of fear and begin the creation of a more just world order for the sake of preserving life.

Today, humanity's new challenges and threats—the precursors of global destabilization and the kindling of a world military conflict—force us to address key questions:

• what must be done and in what manner, in order to confidently resist the destruction of the very foundations of life?
• how to properly understand one's calling, determine the true purpose of being and begin to act meaningfully?

Regional centres of power are emerging on the geopolitical map of the world. Russia has been, is and will remain the leader throughout the post-Soviet space. For the successful positioning of the Russian Federation as a centre of cooperation within the framework of the EAEU, BRICS, SCO, APEC and of countering the division of the world along cultural-civilizational lines, it is important to select the priorities of the nation's common wealth, and these are:

• the Russian natural environment, unique on the planet and mighty, ensuring the diversity of life and existing strictly according to the laws of the biosphere;
• Russian spirituality and humaneness, cultural and historical roots;
• a multinational people with a progressive worldview and creative potential.

Everything else—oil, gas, gold, diamonds, developed engineering, transport and energy infrastructure, plants, factories, etc.—is secondary.

It is a question of strengthening state sovereignty, of the readiness of Russians to endure and win at a time that is not easy for the country. Here an absolutely clear setting of goals is important:

• where are we heading?
• what are we building?
• what result do we expect to arrive at?

It is necessary to understand how to achieve greater trust in relations between the authorities and the country's citizens, so that a coalition of sound forces of society emerges, which in the future will become not only a global anti-terrorist coalition, but a global anti-war coalition capable of bringing the psychosis of a new world war to reason. Such a coalition will:

• prevent the danger of the socio-economic collapse of the country being brought about by the rule of liberals and the “offshore aristocracy”;
• put forward a positive programme of living order and the maintenance of such stability as would be personified by the ideas of spirituality, goodness and supreme justice with an image of the future that is clear and desirable for the majority of people. Moreover, not a primitively material future (improvement of everyday living conditions or well-being, the pursuit of profit), but one linked to the high meaning of life of Russians, peoples of other countries and, possibly, civilization as a whole.

The natural environment of Russia possesses practically unlimited potential for a fundamentally different direction of creating not even a new human and not a new civilization, but a new being, or a biospheric-socio-economic model of societal development.

One must begin with the complete abandonment of the superideology of modernism, which caused a global systemic failure in the development of civilization, which has led us into an ecological dead end. It must be replaced by a new ideology consisting in the triunity of cognition, preservation and continuation of life.

Cognition of life:

• in-depth study of the laws of the biosphere, the place of humans in the biosphere as a biological species, and ecology as the science of the dynamic stability of life and the biosphere and the mechanisms ensuring this stability;
• creation of the interdisciplinary sciences of energy-, bio-, aqua-, opto- and ecoinformatics as a methodology and toolkit for studying the dynamics of changes in the “nature—society” system, preventing the emergence of negative processes in the environment;
• development of a system of ecological education, enlightenment and culture.

Preservation of life:

• reduction of anthropogenic pressure (chemical, energy, physical, including combined military) on the environment;
• scrupulous accounting (inventory) of existing natural capital (natural ecosystems undisturbed and slightly disturbed by human activity, nature reserves, wildlife sanctuaries, specially protected natural areas, preserves) and protection of these especially important territories;
• concentration of most scientific, research, organizational, technical, material efforts on increasing the areas and studying the state and dynamics of objects of natural capital, complete exclusion of the mercantilism of the market approach;
• renunciation of economic development of natural ecosystems undisturbed and slightly disturbed by human activity, whose global value and significance cannot be measured by any money;
• organization of the conduct of all further economic activity taking into account the prospects of transition to innovative development predominantly in already developed territories, and entry into the protected part only in particularly exceptional cases of a strategic plan;
• universal introduction of the principles of resource efficiency and cleaner production, “green” chemistry and “green” engineering;
• elimination of ecological damage caused as a result of past economic, military and other types of human vital activity.

Continuation of life:

• accord with the surrounding natural harmony;
• transition of the Earth's biosphere into a new state in which Reason and the work of humans directed by Reason must manifest themselves as a new, unprecedented geological epoch on the planet. Humanity is the fruit of the development of the biosphere, and the biosphere is the result of the development of the planet: hence people must act in the interests of the entire planet.

Let us compare this triunity with the fashionable worldview prevailing today:

• improvement of everyday living conditions;
• increase of well-being;
• pursuit of profit.

Everyone wants more: for one person the soup is too thin, for another the diamonds are too small. That is how today's consumer society is arranged. And there is no end to these rather primitive desires.

A. I. Solzhenitsyn was right when he dropped the apt phrase: “a dozen worms can't go on and on gnawing the same apple forever”, meaning that we have only one planet.

Positive movement must begin with the formation of a nature conservation spiritual and moral model of new being. Now more than ever, humanity requires new thinking and a different model of vital activity. A. Einstein warned: “Serious problems cannot be solved at the same level of thinking at which we created them.”

Preservation of the natural environment, spirituality, culture and people must become the highest national priority in any state. The natural environment is not an unlimited economic resource, but a condition of life on the planet, including human life. The land and natural riches of the state are a common indivisible property, belonging forever to all citizens, which is the most important factor in preserving the state's sovereignty and the main prerequisite for the sustainable development of society. Truly rich countries will be those that have preserved ecosystems undisturbed and slightly disturbed by economic activity, and not those that have oil, gas, gold, diamonds, etc. A nature conservation economy will replace the destructive liberal-market model.

In the Russian Federation under current circumstances, it is important to fundamentally change the strategy for the upcoming development of territory and location of production:

• to preserve that huge massif of undisturbed or slightly disturbed natural ecosystems, especially forest and wetland ones, which occupy 65% of the country's territory, whose value with time will only increase. The development of huge, cold and unfavourable regions with a practical absence of infrastructure and high expenditures on energy and transport is disadvantageous economically, but most importantly—detrimental ecologically and ruinous for life;
• all economic activity should be concentrated in the long-settled regions of the central and southern parts of the European territory of Russia and in the south of Siberia and the Far East. Here there is economic and domestic infrastructure that can be modernized and which is also a prerequisite for reducing the cost of freight transportation and decreasing energy consumption. There is available labour, the number of which can be increased by creating decent working and living conditions. Finally, these regions have long been customary for the population's habitation.

I am confident that a Tomorrow offering hope to civilization depends entirely on our state.

Russia is not only capable of constructing a path to self-preservation, but can also offer the world the sought-after conceptuality, show the direction towards saving civilization as a whole, provide a new vision of people's living order, which may well gain the support of sound minds both in the West and in the East.

The spirit and strength for such a vector of development are contained in the power of unique Russian nature, the high spirituality and faith of our multinational people: those who advocate the preservation of sovereignty by states, oppose globalization and the diktat of transnational financial and military mechanisms, and realize the role of the Russian Federation as the sole obstacle in the path of forces striving for world domination, rather than those who have “packed their suitcases” and decided to leave the Motherland.

1. Vernadskiy V. I. Filosofskiye mysli naturalista. — M.: Nauka, 1988. — 522 p.