Can we evolve fast enough--?
is a very critical question.
And people are asking this in many parts of the world
who are radically concerned about the environment,
or involved in sustainability movements,
or even government officials
who are beginning to get this.
There was just a talk last week
at the Yale School of Forestry.
Is China going to run out of water?
I mean, these are absolutely critical issues.
And, if we're concerned about the oil wars,
the water wars are going to be
even more alarming.
I do feel-- Although I don't think we can
predict fully.
But I do sense that the possibility for
human evolution, human consciousness,
is absolutely at hand.
Is already taking place.
And that, with these alternative
ways of being that have
grown in the periphery
of our societies and other societies
around the world,
are coming into the center.
Are being valued.
Ecological economics--
Green politics--
Alternative technologies--
Sustainable farming and food.
All of these that have been worked on
so carefully by people.
Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson
and David Orr. The greening
of buildings and the plant life
of the plains that Wes has been working on,
and so on, and farming that Wendell
has worked on for so long.
These are now being valued.
Van Jones, green jobs.
They're at the center,
I think, of things now.
That suggests that this evolution
is very much in process.
But, if we have a reverence
and respect for moving it forward
with deep spiritual grounding,
I think we can do it.