Green Economy - It most certainly does include you !!!

- Madhav Datt

Our world today could be the subject of an exciting, action-packed thriller. As we sit at the edge of our seats, watching our planet go hurtling towards the brink of disaster, we wonder if the hero will arrive in time. Except the hero, this time, is us.

It is us, as consumers, employees, business owners, citizens, planners, leaders, committee members, writers, investors, dreamers, neighbors, artists, parents, teachers, musicians, homeowners, commuters, students, vacationers, family members and friends– and the choices that we all make every day that will determine whether the Green Economy will get off the ground and pull us out of this nose dive in time.

It is all of us realizing that while our imaginations are limitless, so too can be our appetites. The planet that sustains us, abundant as it is, has limited resources that we will deplete if we continue to consume them faster than they can regenerate. We need to take that awareness as our guiding principle, as we move gracefully towards an emergent goal of quality, rather than quantity, of prosperity redefined as an abundance of connection rather than accumulation, in the direction of the limitlessness of our imaginations rather than our appetites. The Green Economy can be rich and full and delicious and fun, as long as we keep in mind the fact that we are, all of us, traveling on a great big Spaceship Earth that is subject to laws of nature that must be respected and obeyed.

What makes this a truly extraordinary and historic moment in time, is that if we do this, it will be the first time in history that the entire human population aligned itself to a single purpose.

Imagine for a minute, the world under the ocean, with myriads of fish and sea creatures of all kinds, all doing their own thing as individuals or small groups, pursuing their own life purposes. This is pretty much what the human world has been like, with millions of people not even aligned with their own communities, never mind their country, or their country with other countries.

Now imagine all those fish suddenly consolidating into one enormous school, swimming together, turning together as one, even if just for a few minutes. Imagine the power of that.

That could be an analogy for what is in the process of happening right here, right now in our world. People, from all walks of life, speaking all different languages, are suddenly aligning their actions towards the same single goal of preserving our planet as a safe and comfortable place for future generations to live. In the end, all of us want the same thing. Let?s make it happen.