The Challenges We Face

In our quest for a bright green future we must overcome obstacles.

Me must:

-Learn to live in a world of physical limits. This was discussed in a post by Alex Steffen at Worldchanging.com.

-Face peak oil and energy descent and confront it gracefully, minimizing its human, cultural, social, and environmental toll. This is one of the goals of permaculture and is discussed extensively in Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability by David Holmgren.

-Lengthen our time horizon so that we see beyond the immediate crisis and avoid creating more problems with our solutions.

-Build the natural, built and social structures that will support a high-quality, low-energy life for all the world's people and future generations.

-Enrich our lives while consuming fewer resources.

-Increase our natural capital including, landscape storgages of water, healthy soils, functioning ecosystems, and biodiversity. (See principle #2 Catch and Store Energy in Permaculture by David Holmgren.)

-Increase our social capital of meaningful relationships, interpersonal connections, cultural traditions and human knowledge.

-Confront the current environmental crises of global warming, biodiversity loss, habitat degradation, soil loss, and water resource depletion.