As I mentioned in my Fifth Sacred Thing entry, buying up water and other essential natural resources in order to turn a profit down the line is counterproductive to life on this planet and at odds with what I hold to be our birthright: access to the sustainable use of the natural (land, water, air, energy) resources that are essential to life. Applying a free market principle to all forms of profit in the global economy contributed to the economic mess that was front and center this week. Should any resource or commodity that could make someone a profit be able to be bought, sold, stockpiled, bet upon on the trading floors?

Val Sigstedt’s column Greenbacks and Equity Script in my regional paper got me thinking. He proposes the creation of a different type of money: equity script:

What if there were two kinds of money, but only equity script could be used to buy and sell the necessities of life? It would be a very simple money agreement, made worldwide and voluntarily to prevent the futures hucksters and the hedge fund hustlers from scooping up the things people depend on like food, shelter, transportation, and petroleum, and releasing them only when they can turn over a huge profit, even if people starve or if they can’t drive their cars because gasoline is unaffordable.

Might this be one part of a solution towards a green and sustainable world? Might this equalize power? Might this assure a higher quality of life for all? Might this move us away from war and slavery? How might we create this and any other needed–radical–change very quickly? (And that’s the big question!)
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