Designing Collective Security | Olivia Lazard

We’re breaking all kinds of records at the moment: cities are boiling at 62C, ocean temperatures are literally off the charts, and governments have increased the global defence budget to an alarming $2440 billion.
Why is this alarming? War costs life, and not just human life. The environmental impacts of war are colossal, with one study already showing that the first few months of Israel’s assault on Gaza emitted more carbon dioxide than 20 climate-vulnerable nations do in one year. Our ecosystems are at their breaking point, with six of nine planetary boundaries crossed. We need global collaboration to commit the huge systems overhaul necessary to survive the planetary crises and mitigate the catastrophic decisions of the last centuries.
Olivia Lazard, environmental peacemaker and research fellow at Carnegie Europe, joins me to discuss just how complex that task is, detailing the five steps of the Anthropocene and how violence increases at each step. We discuss these legacy systems of extraction and violence and how they are embedded into decisions being made around A.I., creating security risks in a resource-scarce world. We also cover the dematerialisation of our economies, the myths that blind us to energy and materials, before discussing the balance of power tipping our planet and human systems further into crisis.
🔴 Olivia Lazard: carnegieeurope.eu/experts/1858
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🌎 Twitter: CrisisReports

[@riikkapauliinaussa1910]

One of the finest, the most holistic, and brilliant discussions on this podcast I've heard.

[@jessieadore]

Oh this is exactly what the day needed.

[@Slick-666]

You're an excellent interviewer, I appreciate the quality, and the content!

[@notafantbh]

I was looking forward to you inviting Olivia ever since I watched her TED talk. She seems to know what's up.

[@johnfridinger52]

A HUGE and incredibly essential conversation about what is missing, inspiring, and sooooo well spoken...

[@sm1322]

You're very good at your work, I hope you know that!! I needed this.

[@jennysteves]

Truly exceptional is right! Such a helpful conversation. Thank you both 🙏🏽

[@jamigaither]

37 minutes... Getting to "the point". This is an excellent discussion.❤ That one hour mark... Wow.

[@oldluce6946]

Essential viewing, thank you both.

[@TennesseeJed]

War is so very wasteful in so many ways.

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

Missile Envy!

[@TennesseeJed]

@@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885 I prefer my own killer drones.

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

@@TennesseeJed That's refreshing - I suppose a 3D printer is all you need. Yes most people just drone on and on about their own killer preferences.

[@TennesseeJed]

@@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885 Punny!

[@chuckwoolery1634]

"Freedom must be better armed than tyranny. " Zelinski (But we all need to be more virtuous if we want to survive and thrive on this abundant planet.

[@Glovelyg]

A tour de force! Thank you 💚

[@jamesayres1225]

All the right questions about the future. Great conversation

[@eroceanos]

I once talked to a colonel at NATO. He agreed with me that capitalism is the biggest security risk on the planet. I am curious for this talk...

[@michaelgregory1087]

Thank you for what may well be the best podcast yet, getting down to fundamental issues of what do we really want to save, and the yes, metaphysical, competition between those who value embodied humanity, the flesh and blood of human spirit, and those who preach for disembodied existence, whether it be in the religious, political, economic or technological (AI the current poster child) realm. All the tech fixes and deals of geopolitical economy will amount to little but more of the same if they don't address that basic issue of what being human means and is good for.

[@JamestheChrist]

Thank you.

[@treefrog3349]

The first, fundamental, critical realization that home sapiens need to make is that the Earth is NOT just about humans. The Earth is a 4 billion year old interwoven web of symbiotic evolution. Homo sapiens are very late-stage newcomers to this ancient process yet we seem to have convinced ourselves that the Earth "belongs" to us. We continually fight and die to horde Earth's bounty for ourselves while destroying it for everyone.

[@chuckwoolery1634]

Space ship earth

[@andrewwoods8153]

Geopolitical interplay been put to one side. Practicality says that the wealthier and the wealthiest have to step up and change, and even more so when geopolitical aspects are taken into account. Why wait till civil societies (ie democratic societies) decide to delete them. It is realistic to start targeting wealth now, before it gets out of hand , reference America's situation now.

[@wouterosterholt]

Beautiful coincidence when the talking about all the different forms of transition is being met with a direct physical transition in the edit of the video. Nicely done!

[@vthilton]

Save Our Planet Now!

[@Changeworld408]

Self centered lack of love is causing the State of humanity and suffering of many humans and other species ❤

[@sm1322]

I would like to know the definition of material world used in this as well as previous podcast. Are we talking about production and consumption or material wrt to nature. Kindly help. Thank you.

[@anasalote2390]

Rachel's laugh is the very spirit of Leela (joyous cosmic play). The absurdity of humans commitedly beavering at breaking the glorious playground we've been gifted while competing with love itself. Cue Rachel's laugh.

[@davidwilkie9551]

Assume I agree 110% Our precise Observation awareness of Singularity-point positioning Conception here-now-forever is the rational reasoning approach to asking next generations to review, and reset in the manner presented, and explain why "we are all together", copies not clones who need to continue to negotiate with everyone else to share our uniqueness.

[@kenhall854]

Excellent interview. Thank you. Does anyone know the name of the person that Olivia recommends to the platform just before the end... I can't make it out. Approximately 1:23 minutes through the video?

[@dootu]

When she mentioned the name at 1:27:32 I thought she said "Natne Tobar" but it appears Natne isn't a name so perhaps different speeling. I looked up Tobar and although there is some correlation to the name and African work with water management, there is none matching a woman and first name beginning with N. Can't find them so I guess Olivia is correct, she is somebody that needs to be platformed 😄

[@MikeBanks2003]

As long as it is possible for money or valuable incentives of any kind to migrate from the corporate sector into the realm of party or personal politics, you are going to have the situation we now have. It is as simple or as complex as that--and the solution is equally simple and just as obvious.

[@theowright765]

Thats been spoken as eloquently as I understand it. I was born in the sixties I always felt that creative forces tried to assimilate themselves after the great wars .... our collective bottom of the barrel killing oneanother over resources and control... religion and politics lost its grasp of a young globalised industrial machine .... like Frankenstein crossed with Dracula a need to be imortal without a soul but be created with bits that didnt exist.... ❤ please tell me im wrong 😔 ❤

[@johndavis2399]

Regarding whether we would be better off if not encumbered by our bodies (and Mark Zuckerburg @ 39:00) ......bodies are essential for language. The etymology of virtually every word has a bodily sensation at its Greek or Latin core. Our current state of earthly affairs would not have turned out this way without language.....so its ultimate benefit to ourselves and the planet might be questioned? If Nature has bestowed this gift of language upon our unknowing heads.....She must have had a reason. (I am taking metaphysical license....which was refreshing to hear in Ms. Olivia's observations.) From the viewpoint of a million year old astronomer on Andromeda, mankind's function has been the extraction and distribution of resources across the face of the earth. We're agents of Entropy......in the big picture.

[@juskahusk2247]

There is no way to peace, Peace is the way.

[@theowright765]

We dont need weapons of mass destruction. Its fear made into a spear. If Im in contact with the source I can say that love is the gap filler and bridge between to places that can only discover new ideas through percived seperation❤

[@jamigaither]

Uterus envy? Hmmmm. Irony Could it all boil down to an uncontrollable lack of creative power? What we resist persists... Feels a great Idea, Rachel, to simply stop. Curiosity may yet be our downfall? Hoping to see if we can finally figure it out... We do ourselves in for good? Thanks for the insights.

[@j.s.c.4355]

Her accent is really interesting-it goes back and forth between rhotic and nonrhotic (loosely british v. american) Where is she from?

[@MichaelByrt-b6c]

Omg, one step at a time!!!! Dealing with now, we can achieve a lot today!!! We can only deal with what we have now, not what maybe be tomorrow!!!! Maybe could achieve 50 percent saturation of alternative energy, then 50 percent fossil fuels, then expand from there, but don't get overwhelmed!!!!

[@emmaprophet2881]

Remember the mind that creates the problem cannot fix the problem it created. A massive shift in consciousness would have to happen first

[@theowright765]

I see Eve talking too Eve skirting around were and what gets projected into humanity . Very definite about masculine contributions. I hope you see ❤

[@SGTSALTII]

Describing the 'Capitalocene', actually.

[@davidwilkie9551]

So the topic of current situation, as an era, should probably have begun in the alternating climate and ecology of African Rift Valley human modification of form following functional drivers, by necessity humans changed behaviors forest/vegetation savanna and fire stick farming, possibly co-evolved with grasslands according to Anthropologists. (I don't know, but it's a very persuasive explanation for what you see in Australia and many other parts of the planet. War is natural in a bio-logical sense, and so is predation on same species, but we're able to recalculate better adaptive actualArtificial Intelligence techniques and technology by taking the holistic Trancendental Singularity-point POV toward our universal Self in the temporal superposition identification of thermodynamical real-time context, and Digital technology is pure-math tool making.

[@theowright765]

Oh please 🙏 we dont trust or can be deluded to think they can just manage the biosphere...... 😢

[@theowright765]

If you move to the left far enough were do u get.... if u move to the right far enough were do get.....

[@robmusorpheus5640]

China is not a totalitarian state. Central planning is required, now, everywhere, at a basic level. Laisser-faire economics failed us all. The rich got richer, the planet is being killed. Individual liberties, is a term which usually only applies to the rich in practice, but is used by the powerful, to make a worker feel like they are just the same as a plutocrat. Liberty comes from wealth and a lack of legal restraint, for what one wants to do. A poor person may want to take their family to the beach for a day, but if they can't afford it, they have no liberty in this matter. A rich person may want to own the water supply of a vulnerable nation, so they make squillions for decades, but if there is a law which stops them, they will complain about a lack of freedom or liberty. The guest parrots talking points essential to individualism and common within the US empire. "Authoritarianism" is a slur seeded by the US establishment, to denigrate any nation or leader which refuses to allow the US to exploit them with unfair economic practices. Meh. Just before the one hour mark. The usual - hate whom you are told to hate - mentality. China bad, Russia bad. West bad, but ... just not the same for some reason. There is no freedom in the west, whilst all activity has a price tag, and most people cannot afford most activities. The US is totalitarian, in the sense that there are only two parties which can win, and both of those are mostly the same, and the US prison population is larger than that of any other nation by proportion and sheer numbers, the corporations buy policy in plain sight.... etc, etc. War, is now a for-profit enterprise, so a few people can make squillions, and that's considered "free enterprise". Mass death, is economically essential, for the land of the free.

[@dlorien7306]

You lose all legitimacy when you claim both political parties in the US are "essentially the same." Perhaps you don't live in the US. Knowing there are different levels of authoritarianism means not all authoritarianism is the same. Arguing for oppression is an interesting perspective that won't get many volunteers for it.

[@robmusorpheus5640]

@@dlorien7306 In which areas do you see substantial differences between the two imperialist parties?

[@robmusorpheus5640]

@@dlorien7306 Anyway, collective security would require the US to obey their own constitution and that entails being bound by the UN charter. The US is a rogue state, an outlaw state, which operates as if no laws apply to them. This is unconstitutional, rendering most of the political and plutocratic class open criminals, and fundamentally illegitimate as a governing body. A state cannot disobey its own constitution, from which it is granted power, and remain legitimate. The UN charter is US law, according to the US constitution. This means most military actions and sanctions the US has engaged in, are unconstitutional acts. Who knew that the mass murder of millions of people for private profit would be illegal? Everyone? Now the US gov is known to be a criminal organization acting without legal authority, which party would accept independent trails and charges for their entire staff and the elected representatives who swore to obey the constitution and didn't? I don't think people living in the US understand how despicably the US acts in the world, or how the majority of the world's nations and people, have come to see the US as a deceitful pshychopathalogical warmongering mass-murdering gangster. Neither party will change course. The word of the US, the contracts the US signs, are meaningless. Everyone knows this now, except for the few people inside the core of the empire, who are still delusional enough to consider the US the "good guys". It can be a hard fact to confront, that the US is the most violent, criminal actor on the planet, and most global (ed: typo) problems are traceable to the actions and ideologies of US plutocrats and three letter agencies. It is a fact though. I'm in a vassal state of the US, and I want my country to evict the US troops from my land, because that would be required to have enough sovereignty to declare neutrality in the global war the US declares it wants. If the US cannot be the head of the household, and dominate our globe, will they burn the whole place down rather than become a better global citizen? Even odds at this point. A warmongering fascist with a rainbow flag is still a fascist. A warmongering fascist holding a cross, is still a fascist. Heh, rant felt good.

[@OurPredicament]

38:14 neccesarily limited

[@PhilippeOrlando]

Nice conversation but these two intelligent women are talking about a planet that started on the wrong premises. This planet started with beings needing to deconstruct the bodies of other beings, we call that killing, to get the nutrient they need. We are not living on a planet on which all being are getting energy directly from the sun, a planet on which populations are regulated by genes being turned on or off when there are too many individuals. Instead we witness predators "regulating" populations of herbivores. We're trying to find beautiful ways on a planet on which species have been at war with each other, with everything allowed, no rules, for at least 1 billion years. On a more practical way good luck synchronizing the three most powerful countries on the planet, none of them democracies, China, Russia and the US, to come up with a common plan to find solutions to the mass extinction going on, the tremendous pollution and of course climate change. As for trying to save humanity, interesting concept. If you were a neutral observer from outer space, an alien visitor, would you save us? By carefully observing humans you would discover that the first cause of violent death of the human female is not some predator, another species sharing the same space, but the male of her own species. Just imagine an alien people in which individual are all females, would you save mankind? As Olivia, I'm French, born and raised there, I moved to the US in 1990, I understand her more than most people, still I think she's dreaming. A beautiful dream, but still a dream. Mankind is not worth saving. A planet built on murder, dismembering, with beings eating alive is not worth saving. Any alien dropping by and leaving our earthly space horrified, would agree with that.

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

at least our original human culture, the San Bushmen, knew how to live properly - from 225,000 years ago to today!!

[@theowright765]

If AI turns on us .... surety everyone can see the irony

[@theowright765]

Our arrogance and ignorance is laid to waste by its outcome? Sand pit play is to destroy the creation so you can create again 😂❤

[@A3Kr0n]

At around 21:00 Olivia says she doesn't know where the disconnect happened between Western culture and nature. I say it happened in Genesis when God created man in His image and created the Earth and animals for man's use.

[@dlorien7306]

What a common Judeo-Christian belief and also a fundamentally erroneous & heretical Judeo-Christian belief. Genesis makes the purpose of man crystal clear, saying it 6x in the first chapters. It is to CARE for the Earth; how that came to mean: eat it all & turn it to shit, I'll never know.

[@jamigaither]

Instead it's a profit safe future? Ugh

[@robmusorpheus5640]

I'm pasting a comment again, separately, because it does not show up when I look for it. Maybe pasting it here will help, maybe you still won't see it. I don't know. ... Anyway, collective security would require the US to obey their own constitution and that entails being bound by the UN charter. The US is a rogue state, an outlaw state, which operates as if no laws apply to them. This is unconstitutional, rendering most of the political and plutocratic class open criminals, and fundamentally illegitimate as a governing body. A state cannot disobey its own constitution, from which it is granted power, and remain legitimate. The UN charter is US law, according to the US constitution. This means most military actions and sanctions the US has engaged in, are unconstitutional acts. Who knew that the mass murder of millions of people for private profit would be illegal? Everyone? Now the US gov is known to be a criminal organization acting without legal authority, which party would accept independent trails and charges for their entire staff and the elected representatives who swore to obey the constitution and didn't? I don't think people living in the US understand how despicably the US acts in the world, or how the majority of the world's nations and people, have come to see the US as a deceitful pshychopathalogical warmongering mass-murdering gangster. Neither party will change course. The word of the US, the contracts the US signs, are meaningless. Everyone knows this now, except for the few people inside the core of the empire, who are still delusional enough to consider the US the "good guys". It can be a hard fact to confront, that the US is the most violent, criminal actor on the planet, and most global (ed: typo) problems are traceable to the actions and ideologies of US plutocrats and three letter agencies. It is a fact though. I'm in a vassal state of the US, and I want my country to evict the US troops from my land, because that would be required to have enough sovereignty to declare neutrality in the global war the US declares it wants. If the US cannot be the head of the household, and dominate our globe, will they burn the whole place down rather than become a better global citizen? Even odds at this point. A warmongering fascist with a rainbow flag is still a fascist. A warmongering fascist holding a cross, is still a fascist. Heh, rant felt good.

[@treefrog3349]

This conversation, as valuable as it may be, talks around the primary issue - overpopulation. You mention a myriad of our human-induce problems without discussing the very source of ALL of them. How about a genuine heartfelt discussion on "Overshoot".

[@PlanetCritical]

On that, see my interviews with Phoebe Barnard, Nandita Bajaj and Bill Rees.

[@winningedge965]

Hi Rachel. I was pleased to meet you recently at an event in Bristol. This episode was very thought-provoking. If you haven't come across the work of Dr Iain McGilchrist (The Master and His Emissary), I would recommend it as it tackles some of the deep human psychological issues of the day. He would be a great guest.

[@PlanetCritical]

I love the book! I've been trying to get him on for a while.

[@chadreilly]

Maybe Jordan Peterson at the same time. Seems they get on quite well!

[@treefrog3349]

Once again, a fairly astute assessment of our global conundrum did not over-population. The term "overshoot" was used but it failed to mention the unsustainable level of the global population. I am 75 years old. When I was born the Earth's population was about 2 billion. In less than a century we have quadrupled! That number may be great for GDP and GWP - but not for long.

[@chuckwoolery1634]

It's the consumption patterns of us rich folk that's the problem. We have the technology, money, and resources to bring everyone on earth to a higher standard of living. But it is Infant mortality rates in poor nation's that drive growth there. All we lack is the political will to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and use a fraction of our wealth to consume sustainably...instead of blaming those who have children that consume 20 to 200 times less than us and our children have. And have 'insurance' births as a form of 'social security'.

[@timthetiny7538]

Its amazing how none of this is true lol. The oceans are room temperature.