The Resurgence of Citizens' Movements
by: PAUL HAWKEN

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. 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 States, 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. 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, on 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.

Paul Hawken is the author (with Hunter and Amory Lovins) of Natural
Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution and The Ecology of
Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability.