Speaker: Edward J. Dodson, Cherry Hill, New Jersey, United States
How (and why) are you taking action on climate change solutions in, for, and with your community?
Edward J. Dodson: Hello, my name is Edward Dodson. I live in Southern New Jersey, outside of Philadelphia. My background was in finance and since I retired in 2005, I've been teaching history and political economy at several institutions. My work over four decades has been on land reform and land reform has everything to do with the environment because we have misused and abused our land and our natural resources. And the reason we've been able to do this, at least certain institutions and individuals have been able to basically rape the land is because land is undertaxed. There's economic science that supports the public capture of what is called economic rent, which is the potential annual rental value of any tractor, land or any parcel of land, whether urban rural natural resource laden. And there are some other natural assets subject to the generation of economic rent. And when economic rent is not captured publicly, it's privatized. And this has created great incentive to underutilize land, to hoard it, to hoard natural resources, to monopolize natural opportunities. And so we're faced with this fundamental systemic problem as we try to deal with climate change and a changing environment. And unless we begin to realize that economic rent needs to be a public asset and not a private asset. Uh We are going to continue to face these problems and the best that we can hope for is temporary mitigation because the hoarding of land and natural resources continues unabated all around the globe. Thank you.
Who or what inspires/inspired you to care about climate change and climate solutions?
Edward J. Dodson: Again, I'm Edward J Dodson and I live in Southern New Jersey outside of Philadelphia. The question is who or what inspires me to care about climate change and climate solutions. Well, my concern for humanity generally, of course, uh and for the planet. Um the intel intellectual inspiration came from the study of some of the great thinkers of the past and in particular, I would point to three different the writings of three different individuals who've been really uh important. Uh The first is Thomas Payne. Um The second is Henry George and a third is Mortimer J Adler. Those three individuals in their collective works uh contain some of the great insights into human behavior, how human societies are organized, the problems this causes and the potential to solve those problems with specific changes in our systemic structures. Um As I said in the first video, the main issue I see is still an unresolved land problem and that is the monopolization of land and natural resources by the few which causes a redistribution of income and wealth from those who produce it to what are called Ron tier interests, non producers who basically have a free ride and live off the work of others. And this creates tremendous problems for um efficient use of the planet's resources and causes uh the main problems with climate change uh As, as people do not take care of the planet as it should be cared for. Thank you.
