Environmental Destruction and Endless Wars versus One Human Reality—Now or Never

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 27 Oct 2025

Glen T. Martin, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service

Presented at VIBES Conference 23 Oct 2025

I want to express my thanks and my pleasure for the honor afforded me and the WCPA by the organizers of this important conference on Gen Z and Sustainability & Stopping War and Genocide. It is indeed absolutely necessary to have young people engaged in the struggle for the transformation of our broken world system. My presentation today is divided into three parts. In the first part it describes the needed paradigm shift as I understand it. What is the old paradigm and what are the features of the new paradigm that can establish a better future for humankind? Second, it discusses the nature of government and legitimate law. It compares this with our present world system based on so-called “international law” under the United Nations organization.  Finally, it describes some key features of the Constitution for the Federation of Earth and the upcoming sixteenth session of the Provisional World Parliament to be held in Pondicherry, India, December 7-10, 2025.

1. The needed Paradigm-Shift

Seeking a new paradigm is not so much a matter of looking for ideas that have not previously been found, for a new paradigm has already emerged during the last century that is entirely adequate to what is needed, a paradigm that also harkens back in fundamental ways to the great religious traditions of humankind. These traditions include recognition of the Buddha-nature of all human beings, the Hindu insight into the Atman of all human beings that is at the same time Brahman, the Islamic vision of a holy “ummah”  of all believers and persons under the loving authority of Allah, and the Christian incarnation of God within our common humanity in the person of Jesus as the Christ. All these religions give us one common humanity encompassed by a divine reality.

The old paradigm that remains embedded in our planetary economic, political, and cultural systems, however, is one of fragmentation, division, and separation. and therefore one of mutual wars and genocides.  Rather than the unity in diversity of all, the old paradigm is one of egoistic identification with some fragment:  my religion versus your religion, my nation versus your nation, my race versus your race.  Despite the oneness of humanity pointed to by all the great religions of the world, when these religions are understood dogmatically, they have been embraced at immature egocentric and ethnocentric levels.  People egoistically thought they had the sole truth. They identified with the part rather than with the whole. They divided reality into incommensurable fragments and fought wars in the service of their own little fragment.

With the discovery of the scientific method in the 17^th century, continuing through the rapid development of science and technology through the 18^th and 19^th centuries, there arose an early-modern scientific paradigm known as the Newtonian Paradigm.  Powerful as this paradigm was for unleashing the technology to conquer nature and foster industrial development, its assumptions about the world are today understood as incorrect.  It assumed that reality was characterized by atomism, mechanism, and determinism.  At the same time during the 17^th century, the 30 years war in Europe ended with the “Peace of Westphalia” in 1687 that established the modern system of territorially divided, militarized sovereign nation-states.

We can see immediately that this early-modern scientific dogmatism appears to correspond to the system of militarized sovereign states.  Humanity is divided atomistically into many separate territorial entities within a mechanistic and deterministic system that cannot be changed because it appears to correspond to what is real (fragmentation).  Many thinkers from the 17^th century to the present, including Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, Mahatma Gandhi, and Albert Einstein observed that this militarized nation-state system was intrinsically a war-system.  A world torn apart by absolute territorial fragments, with citizens from each egoistically promoting their own part to the exclusion of all others, gives us a world of endless wars and genocides throughout these centuries.

The economic and political system dominating our planet mirrors the immature egoism of people who ethnocentrically identify themselves as American, Russian, Chinese, Indian, or Pakistani. The fragmented psyches of human beings, mirrored by the structural fragmentation of the world system, produces these endless wars and genocides. The economics of personal greed, allowing a few to become super rich while the many struggle with scarcity and deprivation, again corresponds to the outdated Newtonian paradigm of intrinsic fragmentation supplemented by immature egoism.

However, with the dawn of the 20^th century, the early-modern scientific paradigm was rapidly replaced by a new scientific paradigm revealing the holism and unity in diversity of our Cosmos, that is, revealing the intrinsic interrelatedness of all things. Einstein discovered that the universe must be understood as a space-time whole within which all events are interrelated. Quantum physicists understood that there is no such thing as a simple atomistic structure to reality, but that all events arise from a non-local universal matrix each part holographically reflecting one another everywhere in the Cosmos.  Psychologists and spiritual thinkers revealed the many ways in which we all share a common humanity. The Cosmos is one reality, the ecosystem of our Earth is one intertwined reality, and all humanity is one integrated reality of intrinsic unity and shared dignity.

An additional dimension of the emergent new paradigm of the 20^th and 21^st centuries has been the understanding of cosmic, ecological, and human evolution. The universe has been evolving throughout its 13.7 billion year history, life on Earth has evolved in harmony with our planetary ecosystem for 3.8 billion years, and human beings have emerged from this process during the past 2-4 million years, and homo sapiens (the common species of all of us) only within the past 100-200 thousand years.

We have discovered, in addition, that the human mind evolves from an immature egoism, through ethnocentrism, toward mature worldcentric and cosmocentric perspectives. As Sri Aurobindo declared, the Cosmic Spirit has evolved human beings as “a self-conscious concentration of the All through which it can aspire.” This is the way a mature cosmic perspective views human life. The All aspires through me.  Each of us is the Cosmos become conscious of itself.

The goal of the spirit in us is the unity in diversity of the whole of humanity and the organizational structure that corresponds to this goal is democratic world government. Human maturity beyond the egoistic identification with one of the fragmented parts of the whole to self-actualization of wholeness within each of our lives must correspond to economic and political transformation of our world system from economic and political fragmentation to structural holism. We must grow to maturity both in our inner lives and in our organizational structures.

Today, both are largely immature; both are intrinsically the sources of wars and genocides.  And both are intrinsically the source of the ecological destruction of our planetary biosphere. Wars and planetary environmental destruction derive from the same psychological and structural fragmentations.  Planetary peace and ecological integrity will ultimately derive from the same sources of psychological and structural holism.

We must enliven the process of transformation to the new paradigm immediately, for tomorrow is indeed too late.  The new paradigm, therefore, means (1) the oneness of humanity (2) the need to integrate humanity with our holistic planetary ecosystem, (3) the urgent need for planetary economic and political democracy, and (4) the urgent need to mobilize our planetary and human resources in the service of human survival and future generations.

2. The nature of government and law.

Modern international law goes back to the Peace of Westphalia of 1648 in which the system of sovereign nation-states was established.  It has to do with the treaties and agreements among these sovereign states that developed since that time. It may include customs or practices accepted by most nations, general principles of conduct agreed to, as well as formal treaties to which countries are signatory.  The 20^th century produced the Hague Conventions, the Geneva Conventions, and a number of other conventions, many worked out within the framework of the United Nations.

Compare this so-called international law with characteristics of law within most sovereign nations. In nations, there is normally some supreme authority beyond which there is no further appeal. Within nations, there is most often a legislature that enacts laws, an executive branch that has police powers to enforce laws, and a judiciary that has power to decide cases of the law and make binding decisions on all parties. Within nations, the law is enforceable over all individuals, and violators of the law can be held accountable and punished accordingly. To make this happen within nations, civilian police are sufficient. There is no need for a military to enforce internal law. The purpose of military is normally defense against external enemies.

Let us compare law within nations with so-called international law between nations. Since sovereign nations recognize no higher law-making authority above themselves, international laws are mere treaties voluntarily agreed to, and not enforceable over nations that disagree, except through war (as the UN Charter explicitly recognizes in Chapter VII, Articles 39-51). The UN system, as a super-treaty of sovereign nations, has no enforcement powers other than war and economic sanctions against entire populations, it has no legislative powers, and its courts, the International Court of Justice and the affiliated International Criminal Court, have no binding powers over the nations within which they operate.

The UN is not self-funded. It is entirely dependent on nations for its funding. Its “international laws” apply to sovereign states only, and do not hold individuals accountable. The ICC is a very weak attempt to initiate a system that holds individuals accountable to international agreements (such as the Genocide Convention), but the big criminals who have invaded other countries (such as US President George W. Bush) or who have sponsored genocides (such as Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu) have gone unpunished. There are no police to arrest them and no effective courts that could ensure their punishment.

This is precisely why nearly all sovereign states have a military. Despite the phrase “international law,” our world system is essentially lawless, with the result that each state must be ready to defend itself because there is no enforceable world law that can prevent a possible invasion or provocation, or a nuclear first strike.  Why is it that the genocide in Gaza has been carried out unhindered for two years?  Under the current world system, the only force that could prevent Israel from conducting this genocide would be a greater military force intervening.  But Israel has the backing of the United States, and together there is no nation nor group of nations on Earth willing to risk what would likely mean World War III.

Why is it that India has nuclear weapons?  Nuclear weapons in the land of Gandhi, can we believe it?   The answer involves the system of lawless sovereign nations.  If some declared enemy of India obtains nuclear weapons, then India is “forced” to obtain them as well.   Surely the madness of this system of lawless sovereign nations is there for all to see. Look at Donald Trump’s insane tariff policy.  One nation can disrupt the entire global economy (and this is even legal under so-called international law), and there is nothing the rest of the world’s nations can do about this but try to alter their own international trade in reaction to this chaotic behavior.

Both endless wars and environmental destruction are a consequence of this fragmented world system that was established some 350 years ago when wars were fought on horseback with swords. Today this same lawless system of international chaos possesses nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles putting us perpetually close to the brink of global holocaust and human extinction.  The 1.5 trillion US dollars spent each year on weapons of war and wars worldwide must be transferred to protecting and restoring our planetary ecosystem. Not only is war extremely environmentally destructive, the very manufacture of such weapons also produces millions of tons of deadly toxic waste per year.

I have published several critiques of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) over the past few years. The SDGs are beautiful goals but absolutely unattainable within the present world system.  Each nation must pay for its own ecological endeavors or finance these through the World Bank or IMF, thereby going into severe debt, and, in addition, each nation must attempt to protect its own environment while wasting the lion’s share of its wealth on a military establishment to protect its security. This absurd world system makes serious realization of the SDGs impossible.  Only transformative solidarity of the whole will be adequate to make effective change.

3. The Earth Constitution: One Human Reality

The World Constitution and Parliament Association was founded in 1958 in the USA, the same year that the Mother established World Union in India following the wishes of Sri Aurobindo who envisioned a single world government as part of the evolutionary ascent of the universal Divine Spirit.  For their first three decades, these two organizations worked closely together to write the Constitution for the Federation of Earth and to begin sessions of the Provisional World Parliament under its authority.  Citizens from around the world participated in four Constituent Assemblies that took place in 1968, 1977, 1979, and 1991. At the final assembly in Troia, Portugal, the Constitution was declared final and ready for ratification by the people and nations of Earth.

The Constitution has some special features that I want to briefly review. First it has a tricameral world parliament consisting of a House of Nations, a House of Peoples and a House of Counsellors.  All nations are represented, as well as all people on Earth directly through 1000 World Electoral Districts equal according to population.  Special provisions seek to elect especially knowledgeable people into the House of Counsellors who then have a very important unique role in the World Parliament.

Second, the Constitution recognizes the people of Earth, not nation-states, as the sovereign authority for its enforceable world laws. Genuine law arises from the people and serves the common good of people. The common good for the Earth can only be served by laws representing all the people on Earth.  Third, the Constitution is non-military.  No military is needed if there are civilian police to enforce world law over all individual persons, rather than, as in war, conducting the mass-killing of war against some collective entity designated as “the enemy.” Just as we saw above that our present fragmented world system is intrinsically a war-system, the Earth Constitution converts the world system into a peace-system.  If there is genuine enforceable law over all persons, with human rights protected, and due process for all respected, then we have a peace system. There will be no more war.

Fourth, the Constitution is a thoroughly green constitution. It establishes a network of governmental agencies, processes, and powers integrated in using the immense resources of a united world to convert economics, culture, industry, politics, and all human practices to ecologically sustainable and renewable forms. Only a truly united humanity using all the scientific, moral, and financial resources of the people of Earth through this well-designed cooperative system will be able to save our planetary environment for ourselves and future generations.

Finally, there is the very important feature that the Constitution provides for a transition from the fragmented sovereign state system to the holistic, united humanity system via provisional world government. Article 19 of the Constitution gives the people of Earth the right, the authority, and the tools necessary to start the process of transition here and now. We do not need to wait for some future date when the Constitution will be officially ratified by the people and nations of Earth.  We can start the three houses of Parliament now as a Provisional World Parliament and other organs of the Earth Federation now as parts of Provisional World Government.

In fact, at the upcoming 16^th session of the Parliament in Pondicherry, the Parliament will be calling for a Fifth Constituent Assembly to update and bring the Earth Constitution into the latest developments of the 21^st century.  Second, the Parliament will be establishing a Permanent Secretariat under the Earth Constitution that will promote the transition worldwide from our current suicidal war and fragmentation system to a world peace and ecologically sustainable system under an updated Constitution for the Federation of Earth.  It is truly now or never.  We invite all of you to join this session of Parliament and this on-going work. You can find out more at www.earthconstitution.world, that is www.earthconstitution.world.

Together, we can establish a decent world system that benefits all people everywhere.

______________________________________

Dr. Glen T. Martin:
– Member, TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment
– Professor of Philosophy Emeritus
– Founder/Chairperson Emeritus, Program in Peace Studies, Radford University
– President, World Constitution and Parliament Association (WCPA);
– President, Earth Constitution Institute (ECI)
– Author of twelve books and hundreds of articles concerning global issues, human spirituality, and democratic world government; a recipient of many peace awards.
www.earthconstitution.world – Email: gmartin@radford.edu

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 27 Oct 2025.

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