Utopia
This is the world that I am working towards:
“Imagine for a moment a world where cities have become peaceful and serene because cars and buses are whisper quiet, vehicles exhaust only water vapour, and parks and greenways have replaces unneeded urban freeways. OPEC has ceased to function because the rice of oil has fallen to five dollars a barrel, but there are few buyers for it because cheaper and better ways now exist to get the services people once turned to oil to produce. Living standards for all people have dramatically improved, particularly for the poor and those in developing countries. Involuntary unemployment no longer exists, and income taxes have largely been eliminated. Houses, even low-income housing units, can pay part of their mortgage costs by the energy they produce; there are few if any active landfills; worldwide forest cover is increasing; dams are being dismantled; atmospheric CO2 levels are decreasing for the first time in two hundred years; and effluent water leaving factories is cleaner than the water coming into them. Industrialized countries have reduced resource use by 80 percent while improving the quality of life. Among these technological changes, there are important social changes. The frayed social nets of Western countries have been repaired. With the explosion of family-wage jobs, welfare demand has fallen. A progressive and active union movement has taken the lead to work with business, environmentalists, and government to create “just transitions” for workers ass society phases out coal, nuclear energy, and oil. In communities and towns, churches, corporations, and labour groups promote a new living-wage social contract as the least expensive way to ensure the growth and preservation of valuable social capital.”
- Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and Hunter Lovins
What sort of world are you working towards?