In his new book Paul Hawken writes that considering the human species as an organism, the movement is an immune response to political corruption, economic disease and environmental degradation.
When I wrote this book I wasn’t trying to write a hopeful book or an un-hopeful book. I was simply trying to find out how big it is, how it works, and where it came from. In the process I feel like hope or optimism discovered me. If you look at the data right now and you’re hopeful - you’re not really looking at the data. But, if you look at the people who are addressing the problems and you’re not hopeful - then you don’t have a heart. Both are true at the same time, and one doesn’t obviate the other.
It’s really important that we don’t lose site of this extraordinary uprising and upwelling of humanity that’s occurring right now. Nothing even remotely like this has ever happened before in history. There are no antecedents. There’s no precedence. We simply don’t have a way to even see it.
Encouraging.
59 minutes. Link to Video
There’s also audio available for a similar talk he did for The Long Now. In it he tells a little about the history of the movement. Specifically he tells the story behind Emerson, Thoreau, and Civil Disobedience. “Emerson made it cool to go to jail.” I think that podcast had most of the stuff in this video too, so I’d listen to it if I had to pick one.
