New Laws for the 21st Century
Hello. We have a big topic today, but I think you’re ready for it.
Whenever a community of people hopes to take a large step forward—as we do around the world today—then We the People must examine our laws, cast out the old laws which benefit the privileged few who have accumulated both wealth and power, and write new laws in keeping with the spirit of the 21st Century.
This examination of our legal system is especially necessary if we wish to guarantee the human rights of everyone living within our global community. Old power structures need to be broken down, and new standards of equality need to be protected by the rule of law.
Thus we need two sets of new laws. We can never again allow ourselves to be caught in a crisis which threatens the existence of healthy life on planet Earth. We can never again allow ourselves to be misled by powerful corporations which earn immense amounts of money for a small number of people, while they condemn vast numbers of average citizens to a life of unprecedented disasters, and possible extinction.
Teams of lawyers must work together—in countries and cultures around the world—to build a system of laws which efficiently control the people—primarily a combination of business leaders and politicians—who have created the appalling situation in which we now find ourselves trapped. Global warming at our present accelerating rate is not a natural phenomenon. Our two centuries of pollution, and our refusal to stop polluting, have caused it. We need laws to make sure that this situation never happens again.
And we need a second set of laws, which make sure that as we transition from coal and oil to the sun and the wind, we do so in the most democratic manner possible. We now have an extraordinary opportunity, unprecedented in all of human history: to build a clean energy network which wraps around the world. This energy network must provide a growing number of solid, long-lasting, well-paying jobs to people in every country, every culture. This network must also provide clean energy to every child on the planet.
Now, in the early years of this enormous human endeavor, while the clean energy industries are still young, we need to create a system of laws which guarantee jobs and thus prosperity in the most democratic manner possible. We need laws which guarantee a first-class education in all aspects of clean energy—technical, legal, economic, and visionary—so that anyone who wants to pursue that education can do so without the burden of debt.
We need laws which guarantee, in every country, in every culture, that the electricity generated by the sun and the wind, and by our old friend the ocean, is powering the lights and computers in modern schools, and is powering the heart machines and medicinal refrigerators in modern health clinics. The sun and the wind are waiting to power the machines operating in small factories which employ fifty people, and in giant factories which employ thousands.
As we distribute electricity, so we must distribute prosperity, and equality of opportunity. And thus . . . so shall we also distribute the blessings of peace.
Yes, as we make our way into the 21st Century, clean energy engineers, economists, and lawyers are going to work together as a team. They are going to need a lot of young recruits, from every country, from every culture.
Young People of the World, as you think about your purpose in life, as you think about the job, the career, which will give meaning to your life, consider the 21st Century legal system which will reach up to the sun and the wind, and down to the newborn baby in a cradle.
If we can create these two sets of laws—one to severely restrict our evil impulses, and the other to encourage the best that is in us—then we shall truly have protected our Renaissance.
No greater gift could we give to future generations.
Thank you.
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