Beating the Plowshare

The Earth Armistice 

Boudreau, Thomas | October 2, 2018 | 0 Comments
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Let Us Beat Swords Into Plowshares
statue at the United Nations
Headquarters, New York City. |
Photo courtesy of Rodsan18

ADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE THROUGH THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL AS A FUNDAMENTAL THREAT TO LIFE, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND SECURITY ON THE EARTH.

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The following article outlines a call for the UN Security Council (UNSC), consistent with Articles 25 and 26 of the UN Charter, to pass a resolution that is legally binding on all member-states to devote from 10-20 percent of their annual or projected defense budgets to the critical security issue of restraining and then reversing climate change. A more complete explanation of the Earth Armistice proposal, with supporting sources and footnotes, can be found here and in the MAHB’s library.

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 THE IMMEDIATE IMPERATIVE: TIME FOR DECISION AND DECISIVE ACTION

In order to address and reverse climate change, the Earth Armistice requires that all states, following the appropriate UN Security Council Resolution (UNSC),[1] to set aside from 10% to 20% of their current and projected defense budgets yearly, and invest these funds domestically as well as internationally to: cut carbon consumption to near zero; develop and deploy green technologies to rapidly transition from carbon based energy or technology to sustainable energy and technologies; use negative emissions to develop and deploy carbon sequestration (Earth-based on land or in oceans) or geo-engineering (aerosol or in the atmosphere) technologies,[2] as well as engage and support massive conservation and –in honor of  Wangari Maathai of Kenya– reforestation efforts on every inhabited continent in the world.[3]

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Origin of plowshare

First recorded in 1350–1400, plowshare is from the Middle English word plowghschare. See plow, share2

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for plowshare

Historical Examples of plowshare

• They must beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning-hooks.
  Ancient Art and Ritual

  Jane Ellen Harrison
• To turn the bird sticks into pruning hooks and the bird baths into plowshares.
  Ptomaine Street

  Carolyn Wells
• Plowshares broke while they were turning the clods, the oxen died of pestilence, and blight befell the greencorn.
  Half a Hundred Hero Tales

  Various
• Quietly the golden grain ripens in the sun, and the red furrow of war is supplanted by the plowshares of peace.
  Sword and Pen

  John Algernon Owens
• Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.
  Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature

  Various

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Word Origin and History for plowshare

n.

late 14c., from plow + share (n.2). To beat swords into plowshares is from Isaiah ii:4.