We are beginning a mythic period of existence, rather like the age
portrayed in the Bhagavad Gita, in The Lord of the Rings, and
in other tales of darkness and light. We live in a time in which every
living system is in decline, and the rate of decline is accelerating as our
economy grows. The commercial processes that bring us the kind of lives we
supposedly desire are destroying the earth and the life we cherish. Given
current corporate practices, not one wildlife reserve, wilderness, or
indigenous culture will survive the global market economy. We are losing our
forests, fisheries, coral reefs, topsoil, water, biodiversity, and climatic
stability. The land, sea, and air have been functionally transformed from
life-supporting systems into repositories for waste.
| I believe in rain, in odd miracles, in the intelligence that allows
terns and swallows to find their way across the planet. And I believe that
we are capable of creating a remarkable future for humankind. |
Feeling the momentum of loss at the beginning of a new century, one wants
to close one’s eyes. Yet that is the very thing that will bring forth
ruin. I believe in rain, in odd miracles, in the intelligence that allows
terns and swallows to find their way across the planet. And I believe that
we are capable of creating a remarkable future for humankind.
In the United State, more than 30,000 citizens’ groups, nongovernmental
organizations, and foundations are addressing the issue of social and
ecological sustainability in the most complete sense of the word. Worldwide,
their number exceeds 100,000. Together, they address a broad array of
issues, including environmental justice, ecological literacy, public policy,
conservation, women’s rights and health, population growth, renewable
energy, corporate reform, labor rights, climate change, trade rules, ethical
investing, ecological tax reform, water conservation, and much more. These
groups follow Gandhi’s imperatives: Some resist, others create new
structures, patterns, and means. The groups tend to be local, marginal,
poorly funded, and overworked. It is hard for most groups not to feel
justified anxiety that they could perish in a twinkling. At the same time, a
deeper, extraordinary pattern is emerging.
If you ask these groups for their principles, frameworks, conventions,
models, or declarations, you will find that they do not conflict. Never
before in history has this happened. In the past, movements that became
powerful started with a unified or centralized set of ideas (Marxism,
Christianity, Freudianism) and disseminated them, creating power struggles
over time as the core mental model or dogma was changed, diluted, or
revised. This new sustainability movement did not start this way. Its
supporters do not agree on everything—nor
should they—but remarkably, they share a basic
set of fundamental understandings about the earth, how it functions, and the
necessity of fairness and equity for all people in partaking of its
life-giving systems.
| No one started
this worldview, no one is in charge of it, no orthodoxy is
restraining it. I believe it is the fastest-growing and most
powerful movement in the world today... |
This shared understanding is arising spontaneously from different
economic sectors, cultures, regions, and cohorts. And it is spreading
throughout this country and the world. No one started this worldview, no one
is in charge of it, no orthodoxy is restraining it. I believe it is the
fastest-growing and most powerful movement in the world today,
unrecognizable to the American media because it is not centralized, based on
power, or led by charismatic white males. As external conditions continue to
worsen socially, environmentally, and politically, organizations working
toward sustainability multiply and gain more supporters.
We will never recover what we have lost. It will take 5 million years to
restore the diversity of lost species. Nevertheless, in 50 years we can
begin the very necessary work of restoration. We can begin to reduce carbon
in the atmosphere; recharge aquifers; bring back lands that have been taken
by deserts; create habitat corridors for buffalo, panthers, and gray wolves;
and thicken our paper-thin topsoil.
What is possible in 50 years is a world that is wonderfully messy and
deliriously creative. It doesn’t fit a single scenario written anywhere by
anyone. As for the United States, it will not be a country defined by
technologies, measured in money, or summarized by demographics. It will be,
perforce, a country in a world defined by the acts of restoring life on
Earth—dancing, donning costumes, singing,
performing rituals, enjoying magic, praying, worshiping, and playing. This
is the work of carefully reconstituting what has been lost by creating
conditions conducive to life.
In 50 years, America will be a culture whose industrial materials cause
no damage to anyone, in the short term or the long term; it will be a
society that emulates the design brilliance of nature, which we have yet to
fully appreciate. The great work of this era will be extraordinary for
defining its goals not solely in terms of a decade or even a century, but of
millennia. The American people will have thrown off the tyranny of
compressive time, coercive work, and erosive competition. It will be a
country still rent by massive discontinuities as the momentum of today’s
world extends far into the future, but it will be a country that is
connected, aware, and committed to the future. It will be an America that
can see—and can see that it knows all it needs
to know to sustain and honor life. That alone will distinguish it from where
we are today.
