How do we change as fast as possible, because urgency matters?

Civilization finds it necessary to change its patterns of life in a relatively abrupt and comprehensive fashion. When it does, everything from family patterns and scientific frameworks to political systems and spiritual beliefs change in kind. The challenge is to affect this change in a positive, progressive fashion. But few are focusing on the influence of patterns of the mind, which shape our capacity to understand the world and allow us to take effective action in support of it. Mindsets, the nature of their development, and the headway gained through the expansion of human consciousness, are often overlooked in the larger sustainability discussion. While the myriad of shapes and forms of sustainability activity are under study, the acknowledgement of interior mindset development and its significance on affecting real change deserves a closer look.

Sustainability Now! embraces sustainability as the framework for this process, rather than working on economic development measures or environmental regulations alone, because sustainable development is intrinsically about whole system’s thinking. It offers a holistic approach, encompassing all aspects of society that are mostly interconnected. In this context sustainability implies that when making choices for action society assumes responsibility for maintaining the important mix of options and opportunities to meet their needs while not narrowing the range of options that people in other places or subsequent generations can choose among in their attempt to adapt, survive, and prosper. Some would argue that this is the real definition of sustainability. Using Sustainability as our goal, we can begin to identify the biggest opportunities to leverage change, i.e. how do we draw mass public attention and resources in ways that make the biggest difference?

We see the image of sustainable development, that promotes care for one another and nature coupled with a genuine desire for socio-economic well-being, as a powerful attractor for people to engage out of a sense of empowerment and possibility, rather than frustration and fear. Images with this kind of unity can be a catalyzing force in the Cascade Bioregion. While we start at the community level, we also recognize the power of connecting those smaller networks with larger and larger wholes until there is a kind of system of influence that may be able to tip the scales and ignite the court of public opinion.

In fact, Sustainability Now! holds the view that everything, including humans and non-humans, is interconnected, interdependent, and interactive, especially at a bioregional scale. We embrace the concept of synergy, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In addressing sustainability, we also recognize the present condition of our world painfully mirrors the truth that nature determines the limitations of human endeavors. Thus, we recognize the need to promote a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to planning our future, informed by the emerging field of sustainability science, in which the fundamental character of interactions among the two formerly separate objects of study (humans and nature) and also the subjects (the public and the scientist), are understood and used to guide those interactions along sustainable trajectories.