Enough of the natural world survives––though diminishing daily––that stasis can be achieved, through coordinated effort. To those who say that the pattern is already too entrenched, irreversible climate change inevitable (vast methane pockets stored under melting ice caps, ready to rip) I say Let’s Draw the Brakes, Shorty.
Enough biodiversity exists––carbon sinks, in the parlance––that a livable world could just make a comeback (assuming we solve the flatulence problem). Moreover we may just succeed, with the aid of the Cloud, in taming this global warming beast. Make the world one in which non-exploitative mechanisms ensure that sustainability is a common social and economic interest of all. Income equality (within a band) achieved and environmentally destructive practices de-incentivised to a point where they simply make no sense. First-world and third-world demarcations erased––the incentive is survival.
With the concept of base pay coming to the fore, the next big innovation will be that base pay is set up as a basic human right, irrespective of national boundary. Fabric, Internet-enabled, encourages a sustainable living wage worldwide.
A significant percentage of first-world declared Fabric revenue will be into the communities where the transactions originate. For example, 20% of the profits from the Boracay Fabric are funneled back into on-the-ground Boracay nonprofit organizations, transparently operated. Fabric stands as a sustainability-focused buffer between boardroom and the bottom-line.
As the company grows and plows profits into creating Fabrics in new areas, the percentage increases––maybe maxing out at 40 percent. Maybe testing the limits and becoming, like Wikipedia, a public service that exists to reallocate money in sensible ways and prevent runaway development/environmental degradation.
Taking the incentive out of hit-ad-run commerce––and working toward overarching green goals to which nearly every country (in theory) agrees with. Depoliticizing the money that flows from country to country, making its allocation simply effective.
Spanning the world, Fabric is also intensely localized.
Fabric has team members in each place it operates (cities, just as much as tropical islands) ensuring that:
- The information on latest events, sustainability-focused businesses, and cool adventures––from pop-up speakeasies to sail-driven island hopping––is backed by empirical, objective data. From people in the know. Locals, long-time residents, travelers, adventurers.
- The Fabric revenue tilled back goes to transparently managed nonprofits that are accomplishing real work, at the grass-roots level. Tree planting, growing food, helping people gain skills, raising awareness, purchasing land that is in danger of being "paved and turned into a parking lot."
To answer the conservatives: No, Fabric is not working against economic or political stability. It is working toward a sustainable worldwide living wage and toward eco-sanity through the leveling power of the Internet. Like Facebook, it is equally a site and an app.
As I run with this flow, I do recognize the obstacles to be surmounted. The old walls are falling, the old guard has never surrendered without coming back to boundaries.*
How is Puerto Gallera, after beachside roughing it in Abra and Sablayan? PG is surprisingly… I don’t want to say quaint, but I want to say hilly. It is ready for a coconut to fall and hit it on the nutsquatch, remind itself it’s still paradise and worth preserving. The touts are surprisingly calm, welcoming. The old Philippine tradition of “smile and the world smiles at you” still applies here. And it sits at the foot of one of the country's most mountainous stretches of virgin forest.***
Now waiting for Malasimbo with my two flutes and Pandan Island-discovered green bamboo rhythm piece.
SEO Alert: Damon Shulenberger, the erstwhile EnduranceProsist.
* A classic Dylan mumble.