Weapons To Wisdom: Building A Peace Compact For The Planet

The overwhelming weight of scientific evidence indicates that climate change poses a significant threat to the very survival of humanity. Yet—like rival gangs fighting on the deck of the Titanic—we continue to wage war against one another. There are no true winners in modern wars.
Only those who profit from them, arms dealers, weapons manufacturers, and the financiers of destruction. This talk urges a better way.

Transcript

Dear friends,

The overwhelming weight of scientific evidence tells us that climate change threatens the very survival of humanity.

The earth is heating,

The glaciers are melting,

The storms are intensifying,

We can see this all around us,

And millions of people are already being forced from their homes.

Yet,

Like rival gangs fighting on the deck of the Titanic,

We continue to wage war against one another,

While our shared home slips beneath the waves.

It's hard not to feel despair at the sheer madness of it all.

The madness of nations preparing for war,

While the planet itself is in peril.

There are no true winners in modern wars,

Only those who profit from them.

The arms dealers,

The weapons manufacturers,

The financiers of destruction.

Their fortunes grow with every missile launched,

Every drone strike delivered,

Every city reduced to rubble.

Their victories are not measured in peace or progress,

But in profit,

Profit margins,

Stock prices.

We spend trillions preparing for war.

Just imagine if even a fraction of that money was used to heal our planet,

To invest in renewable energy,

To feed the hungry,

To build peace rather than weapons.

You know,

In the 1970s something remarkable happened.

Oil-producing nations realised that they were being exploited by the industrial powers.

So they came together and formed OPEC.

They acted in unity.

They changed the balance of power.

We in the West didn't like it,

But it showed what can happen when nations recognise their shared interest and when they cooperate.

Isn't it time that the world's governments did the same with arms?

Isn't it time we stop the obscene trade that fuels endless conflicts?

If we can cooperate to protect oil,

Surely we can cooperate to protect life itself.

More than 60 years ago,

John F.

Kennedy stood on the steps of the US Capitol and he gave his inaugural address.

I remember it well.

He asked us to imagine what humanity could achieve if we truly worked together.

He said,

Together let us explore the stars,

Conquer the deserts,

Eradicate disease,

Tap the ocean depths and encourage the arts and commerce.

Just imagine,

Just imagine that.

He spoke in the shadow of the Cold War that threatened us all at that stage.

Yet he still believed in the power of cooperation.

Just imagine what we could do now,

What humanity could achieve with all our science,

Our communications,

Our creativity,

If we turned our energy away from weapons and we turned kindly towards one another.

We could heal this planet,

End hunger and make peace the defining project of our time.

But first we have to make a choice.

Throughout history,

We fought each other with whatever tools we had.

It began with clubs and stones,

Then swords and spears,

Then gunpowder,

Cannons,

Rifles.

The Industrial Age brought us machine guns,

Tanks,

Bombs.

And the 20th century gave us nuclear weapons,

Capable of ending life on earth in minutes and many times over.

And now the 21st century brings us something even more chilling,

The age of autonomous weapons,

Machines that can kill without human intervention,

And algorithms that decide who lives and who dies.

It's inconceivable that any sane person would press a button to start a global nuclear war.

But as we hand more and more responsibility to machines,

To programming,

As we dedicate decisions of life and death to lines of code,

The possibility of catastrophe grows,

The possibility of error increases all the time.

All it takes is one programming error,

Just imagine,

One miscalculation,

One flawed line of code,

And we could be sent back to the Stone Age,

Or beyond.

We've moved from clubs to code,

But our wisdom hasn't caught up with our knowledge.

The real enemy of humanity today is not one another,

It's not another nation,

It is what is happening to our planet.

It's the fear and ignorance that keeps us divided,

And the industries that profit from war and destruction.

Our enemies today are climate change,

Disease,

Poverty.

These are our shared enemies,

And instead of uniting against these enemies,

We arm ourselves against one another.

Peace will never come from bigger weapons.

Peace will only come when we recognise that we share a common humanity,

That we are all part of one species.

Today is a moral turning point for humanity.

Every weapon built,

Every missile tested,

Every bomb dropped,

Represents a failure of imagination and of empathy.

And yet,

In all this,

There is hope,

There's reason for hope.

Across the world,

We see young people rejecting hatred.

They are more connected,

More aware,

And they are more determined to build a future that values life over ideology.

We must listen to these young people,

And we must stand beside them.

What our world needs now is not just another treaty.

It needs what you might call a peace compact for the planet.

A global agreement to reduce military spending and to redirect that money towards survival,

Our shared survival.

Just imagine what even 10% of the world's defence budget could do.

We could reforest vast regions.

We could build a new nuclear power plant.

We could provide clean water for every village.

We could power the world with renewable energy,

Educate every child.

It's not impossible.

It's not just a dream.

It's a matter of priorities.

We already have the institutions,

Feeble as some of them might be.

The UN,

The World Bank,

We have regional alliances,

The EU.

What's missing today is moral courage and public will,

Political will.

And that's where we come in,

Each and every one of us.

Ordinary people,

Faith communities,

Teachers,

Scientists,

Citizens,

Every one of us.

We must refuse to be silent.

No longer can we afford the old divisions of us and them.

Remember that the air we breathe has no borders,

We know that.

The oceans that sustain us all,

They don't belong to one nation.

The suffering of any child in any part of our war-torn world diminishes all of us.

Humanity's greatest achievements have always come from cooperation,

Not from conquest.

We eradicated smallpox together.

We mapped the human genome together.

We built the International Space Station together.

All these projects required huge cooperation and we achieved them.

Surely we can build world peace together.

Dear friends,

We stand at a crossroads today.

One path leads to endless conflict,

To fear,

Mistrust,

Destruction.

The other leads to shared survival,

Compassion,

Cooperation,

Hope,

An amazing future.

The choice is ours.

Let's refuse the fatalism that says war is inevitable.

And let us believe even now that peace,

The idea of peace,

Is not naive.

It's necessary,

Never more necessary.

If we can learn to work with nature rather than against it,

And with each other rather than in spite of each other,

Then perhaps someday future generations will look back and say this was the moment when humanity finally grew up.

Namaste.

Reviews

I truely wish this message were broadcast by loudspeaker in every language in every country of the world. Unfortunately our brains are 350 thousand years old and are simply not equipped to deal with the complexities of modernity. Like Victor Frankenstein we are unable to control that which we have created, our monster owns us.

(With one exception), world leaders can learn something here and be inspired to commune and act on behalf of our shared home and humanity. Thank you, my friend. Hope reigns in my heart. 💖🙏🏼

Hear hear, Tony; there’s a battle of good and evil going on for sure - you are spreading light. Thank you 🙏🏻 🙏🏻🙏🏻

This is a relaxing meditation I went to sleep thankyou

Thank you for this profoundly wise and impactful teaching Tony! Let it be. 🙏❤️🙏❗️

Excellent, thank you. It's sad hearing/ seeing the pain and destruction we have inflicted upon ourselves. My prayers include all people and asking to help me be a blessing to someone today. Thank you for putting together the words.

Spectacular, Tony. It had all of the rhetorical force and durable, self-evident wisdom of Thomas Merton, Mother Theresa, Mahatma Gandhi, MLK, Greta T., Malcolm X, Pope Francis, and so many other great minds and souls. A moral courage crisis, indeed, and so the clarion call for spirited, cooperative will is completely spot-on. We are the remedy we’ve been seeking, but what it takes is a collective shift to more beneficial priorities.

Favorite line: “While we’ve moved from clubs to code, wisdom has failed to catch up with us.”

As many of us prepare for a landmark push of massive, peaceful protests this weekend (MANY thanks to all of our nation-neighbors supporting the No Kings movement here in the U.S.), your words have a special timeliness and import.

Thank you for these existential pleas and reminders, and for all that you do each day to be a model, a deeply ethical instrument of peace in the best tradition.

Thank you for these words of wisdom.
I agree so deeply. And we all have to play our role by standing up for humanity

Letting go of fear and weapons, embracing the unknown and trust, and building peace together. May we all be and act well. Thank you, Tony.

Beautifully said, Tony. Your wisdom is so very appreciated. ❤️✌️❤️

The world is at so many crossroads right now. We’re in one of those cycles where something new is about to happen; the younger generation is beginning to bring this about and those of us who know what is possible must stand by them, for I believe change is coming. Thanks Tony.

I heartily support your proposal for a Peace Compact to save our Planet. Sadly, our World is no longer run by the Ghandis, John F. Kennedys and Mandelas we so desperately need. We need leaders with compassion and common sense to take the lead and empower and appreciate our Planet and all its living beings. If they exist, God only knows. Until then, I’ll do what I can to cherish the World and its people. Namaste 🤓🙏🏻