There are inspiring examples of people thinking, acting and dreaming concepts for a new direction. Knowledge is not the whole answer - we exploit what we know but defend what we love. The atmosphere is now appreciated as a global common so that equal carbon-emission rights, within a sustainable total, would give a basic income to everyone in addition to providing the incentive for all people and countries to reduce emissions. The monetary system could be re-designed to keep us within the earth's carrying capacity, to be stable, encourage local market exchange and end currency gambling. Technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells and biomimicry could reduce damage. Trade could operate cooperatively. Poor countries could be encouraged and helped to nurture their infant industries thus adding value within their borders and finding their own solutions to poverty that are not dependent on charity. Our genetic knowledge could strengthen an organic agriculture that is in harmony with earth's systems, supports rural communities and gives security to productive small farmers. Local participation, local economies and local democracy could reverse the alienation that is crippling society. We could revisit the unique constitution of the United States and the ideals of its Founders who struggled against corporate tyranny and resolved that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.
But change must be radical. These proposals are realistic, not utopian. If the scale of remedial action fails to match the scale of the crises, we face catastrophe.
