Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of

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And the gift must move. What is given must be passed on. In
the end, nothing can be held or possessed—a truth grasped by
every culture that approaches what we’ve come to call sustainability.
And in reciprocity, gratitude changes the rhythm. It restores the
cycle of giver and receiver and back again. It extends our awareness
back in time to acknowledge ancient obligations and forward
in time to the far horizon of the future and to lives that we are
obliged to honor and protect. Gratitude requires mindfulness, not
just intelligence. It requires a perspective beyond self. Gratitude is
at once an art and a science, and both require practice.
The arts and sciences of gratitude, which is to say, applied
love, are again fl ourishing in ironic and interesting ways in places
least expected. Businessman Ray Anderson has set his company
on a path to give back what it takes from nature, operating by
current sunlight and returning no waste to the Earth. Biologists
are developing the science of biomimicry, which gratefully uses
nature’s operating instructions evolved over 3.8 billion years to
make materials at ambient temperatures without fossil fuels and
toxic chemicals, rather like spiders that make webs from strands
fi ve times stronger than steel. The movement to power civilization
from the gift of sunshine and wind is growing at 40 percent per
year worldwide. The American Institute of Architects and the U.S.
Green Building Council have changed the standard for buildings
to eliminate use of fossil fuels by 2030. These cases and others
illustrate something that goes beyond mere practicality. The persons
involved, I think, are animated by a deep sense of appreciation
for the beauty of the world and the desire to pass it on intact
to those who will follow us.
Could we, in time, create a civilization that honors the great
gift and mystery of life? The “Great Work” of our generation is to
stabilize and then reduce greenhouse gases, build a world powered
by effi ciency and sunlight, stop the hemorrhaging of life, and
work for a time when every child is well loved and well cared for.
Like previous generations in times of peril, none of us asked for