Paul Hawken -- The Long Green (History of the eco movement)

Great talk by Paul Hawkin given at the Long Now.

Paul Hawken coined the term restoration economy, and popularized the ideas of ecosystem services and natural capital. His current thinking (courtesy of wikipedia)

It is axiomatic that we are at a threshold in human existence, a fundamental change in understanding about our relationship to nature and each other. We are moving from a world created by privilege to a world created by community. The current thrust of history is too supple to be labeled, but global themes are emerging in response to cascading ecological crises and human suffering. These ideas include the need for radical social change, the reinvention of market-based economics, the empowerment of women, activism on all levels, and the need for localized economic control. There are insistent calls for autonomy, appeals for a new resource ethic based on the tradition of the commons, demands for the reinstatement of cultural primacy over corporate hegemony, and a rising demand for radical transparency in politics and corporate decision making. It has been said that environmentalism failed as a movement, or worse yet, died. It is the other way around. Everyone on earth will be an environmentalist in the not too distant future, driven there by necessity and experience

Sound fades out at 41 minute mark. Some great historical nuggets and deep insights.

We live in a time when the dominant myth is end-times. True both for Islam and Christianity. Also Hindu signs of the end times.

In the 1800s and early 1900s, it was creation. It was also creationism, as in spontaneous generation or God made the world in its current form. Some of the same stuff Darwin fought agaist.

He has the Thoreau quote

I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed in there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

This is from late in Thoreau's life.

The myth is important, since (in politics, over at least the last two centuries) theology trumps science.