The fear we face is the destructiveness of our industrial mindset. It is two edged. One edge is the destruction itself, which lays waste to the natural heritage of our planet at a rate far greater than the four billion years it took to build. The other edge of fear is that we are powerless to control our appetite. The first is real and quantifiable. As such we can address it directly and measure our success in doing so. The second is psychic and paralyzing. It is embedded deep inside our belief systems. It is the greater fear, for it prevents us from dealing with the first. The first will overwhelm us, but only if the second prevails. Our millennium mission, therefore, is to drive out the psychic fear that we are unequal to the historic task that lies ahead.

So we turn to hope, not in idle wishfulness, but in the gilt-edged gleam of vision through which we see a better way. If we see the brighter future through the eye of vision, we will believe it in the mind of reason. Our truly momentous task, therefore, becomes the quest of vision, to know through foresight that we can meet the challenge-because we have been there in our minds and seen ourselves triumphant. That is the quality of hope. It feeds itself with compound interest until it becomes so strong that fear cannot stand in its way.

How will our destiny play out? We cannot know the details, just as they were never known in the past as life struggled ever upwards to greater complexity, but suffered devastating setbacks along the way. But the central feature now is clear-the principle of human co-creation with Original Consciousness. So far our vision can see. It reveals us using the full capacity of the human mind, armed with the technology that it has invented, to meet our partnership requirements. What does this mean? It means engaging all our faculties of knowing, the strands of which can be traced over the past few millennia in which human civilization emerged.

And therein lies our greatest challenge. It brings us full face with the dilemma of our age and the source of the storm cloud now hanging over future prospects. For we

The story of modern economic industrial society is the story of a struggle of the human against the natural. Humanity's relationship with the Earth did not begin that way. During the early times of our emergence some 40,000 years ago as the species Homo sapiens sapiens, we knew our place in nature. We knew our fortunes depended on our ability to live within the rhythms of the wild and untamed world of which we were a part. Even today indigenous peoples carry the same understanding in their core beliefs and relationship to the Earth. But industrial society runs on another path.

Until more recent times, however, the break was not so great as to be serious. The absolute number of human beings on the planet was not large compared to the size and diversity of the biosphere, and their activities, while clearly controlling in intention, could not, except in isolated geographical regions, cause severe disruption to natural systems. However, the seeds to change all that were sown in the 17^th century when men like Francis Bacon began to think in a new way, and assert that it was possible through observation and experiment to control the processes of nature. This was the birth of Western science. Added to other intellectual, philosophical and religious traditions that set the human apart from the natural, this newfound way

This Manifesto is a call to action for all those who understand the peril of the long established trend of human alienation from our origins. It is a call to oppose the deeply ingrained beliefs that threaten the collapse of civilization. It is a cry to concerned citizens everywhere to bond in one great movement to reverse the destruction of the biosphere by industrialization.

Our response, however, cannot just be one of angry confrontation. The rift goes far too deep for that to be effective. No. Nothing less than a deep spiritual

The first is to refire a faculty that lies in abundance in every human mind on the planet. This is the faculty of imagination. It is the source of all our hopes and dreams and visions. It is tapped every time we envision a future moment of pleasure or achievement. It is the gift of positive anticipation, believing that a future state holds promise and reward.

The faculty of imagination can be stirred for goals both noble and reprehensible. The strategy for those who would aim for the noble goal to slow and eventually reverse the current headlong rush towards ecological collapse, is to engage the imaginations of countless millions worldwide with visions of humanity in harmony with nature. Powerful forces of media and communication are available to do that. Currently they are being used more effectively to promote the industrial lifestyle that is triggering the collapse than they are for showing the pathway to sustainability. But the change is only a mindshift away. And millions are already at that

Let this Manifesto be a call to those who can envision the state of human harmony with nature to proclaim their visions and find the linkages to those who share these dreams!

The second strategy for turning the tide against ecological destruction is to take industrialism's central inspirational source and let it serve the higher purpose of harmony. That source is science. While its products and processes are used by industrial thinking to fuel the way of life

Filled with this revelation we can again turn to the awesome grandeur of the natural world and feel ourselves flow into it. We will be conscious that every moment of our lives is a moment of celebration. We will want to give witness to our blessings in nature by creating special times for honoring our connection to such a Universe and world of wonder. We will find our fulfillment beyond any physical state of material wealth in a deep spiritual identification with all of creation.

The call to re-establish our sacred connection to the Earth is the first and primary call of the new age of co-creation. It is the call deriving from the reality that we are Earth creatures living in one great protective and nourishing biosphere. However, we are also social creatures. Just as our physical well-being depends on the continuation of healthy life support systems in nature, so our social well-being depends on healthy systems connecting us to each other. So numerous and interdependent have we now become on the planet that we have built beneath the dome of the biosphere an equally all-embracing sociosphere. This is a product created entirely by our human minds, and today it stands in just as great a peril of collapse as the natural systems on which it depends.

Let this Manifesto be a call to engage our energies in this

Enough! Let this Manifesto be a call for people everywhere to recognize the ultimate futility of continuing down that path. Even one generation more can bring us to the brink. Let us marshal now our reserves of moral energy and creativity and do what must be done. Let our minds be guided by revelation of evolutionary growth to

The ideas and patterns for renewal are now rapidly emerging. Across the planet bands of citizens are forming in loosely networked groups and organizations to bring the change. Increasingly they are giving voice to criticisms of the flawed concept of the term globalization where multinational corporations dominate two-thirds of global trade and markets are steadily divorced from even national policy-makers, let alone the people who live in communities and neighborhoods.

Equally serious is the totally unrealistic decoupling of finance from the "bricks and mortar" of the real economies of our communities. The specter of global currency trading by those who seek to create wealth without a foundation in the real world exceeds by huge orders of magnitude even the trade controlled by the multinationals. The whole becomes a nightmarish web of non-sustainable greed in which people and their governments are increasingly deprived of the resources they need to address the other cross-border spin-offs of such profligacy-climate change, pollution, loss of bio-diversity, erosion of arable land, organized crime, drug trafficking, and so on.

Let us move with urgency to reform systems of national accounting to include the value of the unpaid work that goes to support a healthy society. Do we really believe

Adding to this dilemma is another endemic problem we have inherited from immersion in a culture of separation.

There is much to be done at all levels: from global to local, within the international community, in national and regional jurisdictions, and at the corporate level. The time has come to put aside the differences that divide and realize that part of the great work of our time is to reshape the global economy, not on the same practices of competition, conflict and greed that are pushing us to the brink; but on the eternal principles of cooperation, collaboration and respect. Let this Manifesto be a call now to engage the task with our full energies.

Rebuilding the sociosphere will be accomplished in part by addressing economic and social deficiencies, but only in part. Renewal also depends on reconnecting to the Earth as our sacred center. That is another part. As we rediscover our humanity in harmony with nature, we will also choose to turn away from practices that upset that balance. It is all part of a flow: a reinvention of humanity grounded in veneration of life in all its forms.

This Manifesto speaks also to this gravest and most distressful of human problems. How do we learn to

To achieve this freedom people must withdraw legitimacy from conditions that work against it. Foremost among these is the unprincipled pursuit of wealth by private interests that impoverish governments and communities and prevent them from doing good. No less tragic is the enormous wealth squandered on military expenditures. All this stands in the face of freedom, for no nation or community is free when it is driven by fear to expend resources on protection and security that far outweigh what is spent on education, nurturance and care.

This Manifesto is a call for people to devote their energies to building freedom and respect for law and justice as the only way forward to a better world. There is no future in looking backwards to redress old

But still we are left with the issue of how to handle grievances from the past. Here we must turn to forgiveness. We cannot move forward while every new generation is schooled in hatred and vengeance. No

Another front on which to engage the struggle for a sustainable future is the formal education system. If future generations are to grow up in the ethic of cooperation and sustainable global living, we must look to what we are teaching young people in this foremost socializing institution of the modern industrial state, from preschool to graduate studies.

Because of the seriousness and urgency of the human predicament, educational reform for sustainability must be engaged from two perspectives: long-term and short-term. The former involves the incorporation within school curricula of a values-based approach to education. This can also be called character-building education. By whatever name, it means consciously using the

This brings us to the short-term. We desperately need educational leaders who will assume responsibility for leading the long-term change. Moreover, they need to be joined by a cohort of other professionals-lawyers, engineers, doctors, etc.-who espouse similar values for putting sustainability and the enjoyment of a decent, peaceful harmonious life for all Earth citizens ahead of personal and national aggrandizement through economic and political power. This is the culture of global citizenship. It can grow and flourish only through leadership from the most highly educated members of our professional and scientific communities. Where are the leaders prepared? In our universities and other post-secondary institutions. The call then must go out for an urgent shift in the way these institutions see their role in society.

We have used discipline-centered education in our institutions of higher learning to industrialize the Earth. It has also led to the tragic sense of separation and discontinuity that is now driving civilization towards disaster. Our universities must urgently return to their

It is unrealistic to expect large-scale abandonment of discipline-based education in universities. That is far too entrenched, with much justification, for any short-term change to be expected. What can be done, however, is to introduce a universal unifying course as a requirement for graduation from any university, which would incorporate the values and knowledge required to create a sustainable economy and a social ecology that honors and respects human and non-human life in all its diversity. It will declare the sacredness of life and honor the divine spirit that runs through all.

The world we live in is a complex web of interconnections. The cumulative impact of the interrelationships is what is driving us towards breakdown. Shifts in education, economics and spirituality around principles of sustainability and respect for life will begin to make a difference. However, we also need strategies to shift the direction of industry, the beating heart of industrialism, if we hope to avoid collapse.

Industry constitutes the machinery driving the system. If it is ill designed, inefficient and dirty as well as being massive, then it will overwhelm the Earth's natural systems. The trend in that direction was there from the start more than two hundred years ago, and it has steadily increased in intensity until it reached the level of a juggernaut of destruction by the end of the 20^th century. This Manifesto calls for immediate changes in the practices of industry, which can be implemented relatively quickly and will result in immediate economic benefit to those who do so, because the increase in efficiency puts them in a stronger position than those who don't.

The principles to change this are well known and have been published broadly as The Natural Step. Cut the buildup of dispersed matter from the Earth's crust. Stop the contamination of the Earth with compounds made by technology that won't break down in nature. Discontinue practices that overwhelm nature's capacity for renewal. Implement more efficient means of production and distribute wealth equitably so that large populations are not driven to consuming the last vestiges of their environment in order to survive.

The principles are clear. The consequences for not pursuing them would be equally clear if it were not for the blinders of greed, short-term convenience, linear thinking and blatant corruption worn by many industry leaders throughout the world. Let this Manifesto be a call to a

Together these principles and strategies constitute a paradigm shift in the way industrialization is practiced on

Our cosmological theory tells us that in the first one billionth of a second after the birth of the Universe, three stupendous shifts occurred that laid the foundation for the next 15 billion years of evolution: gravity emerged, matter appeared as unstable particles, and electromagnetic forces manifested to hold things together. After that it took hundreds of thousands of years for atoms to appear, then a billion more for them to form into swirling clouds of galaxies, then more billions for stars to be born with their own solar systems, one of which (out of trillions in the total) we know a lot about, because it eventually gave birth to life on a planet called Earth.

It took several billion years for the Earth to appear and another two billion for life to emerge as primitive cells. However, since then, change has moved at an ever increasing pace, with humanoids appearing in only a few billion years more, bringing us up to just several million years ago. Our own human species, Homo sapiens sapiens, was in undisputed domination by just 40,000 years ago, and only in the last 5000 years have we changed the face of the natural world through our technology. Most of the change has occurred in the last 100 years, and only in the last 50 have we had the technology, which is producing the most change of all-computers.

So we are living at a time even more pivotal than the "hinge of history" metaphor would suggest. We are in fact living in a moment almost as explosively significant to what happens next as was the first billionth of a second after the birth of the universe. For we have now released into the

Whatever the longer-term future holds for the evolution of life through technology, humanity faces an enormous

If we try to meet the requirements for health care using the current medical model, we threaten to put social services under intolerable pressure. A new paradigm in health care is desperately needed to handle this potentially explosive political and social crisis.

The elements of the new paradigm have been emerging in recent decades, but they still remain obscured and disparaged by practices in the mainstream. One of the great thrusts of the new millennium must be to proclaim the understanding that the physical, mental and spiritual domains of human existence are inextricably interwoven and to establish a model of health care which embraces all these domains in a nurturing whole.

In achieving this shift we must come to greater awareness of who we are as our essential selves. One of the great misfortunes affecting western industrialized societies is the unquestioning acceptance of material reality as the dominant factor in our lives without a sound understanding of the role played by consciousness in the physical universe. Spiritual sages throughout millennia have drawn attention to the non-material essence of being, but the population at large remains poorly informed about this. At best vast numbers hold religious beliefs mediated by spiritual leaders with a vested interest in their own teachings.

In the 20^th century discoveries in quantum physics have shown that matter rather than being the solid three-dimensional phenomenon perceived by our senses is a flow of energy. The universe we perceive is essentially a construction of our own consciousness. If this is all we know, we are missing the greater part of reality, which is the unified field or virtual domain out of which the physical universe emerged and in which it remains contained. This is the Source of everything, which we cannot "know" as we know our physical world, but which we can

The call of this Manifesto with regard to physical health is that we encourage personal responsibility for health by teaching the power of conscious intention, and by rewarding people for practicing good nutrition and pursuing regular exercise. The paradigm of life being a journey of personal responsibility for one's own well-being and a compassionate caring for the well-being of others and the natural world, is the fundamental shift in consciousness on which a sane humane future depends.

Can we do it? Yes. But only if enough people worldwide quickly grasp some fundamental truths. First, we cannot hope to manage large-scale global issues while we continue to think narrowly of personal, local and national self-interest. The challenge now is soul-sized. The call we

We are now reaching out to play with the same hand as the Universal Intelligence that created us. At that level, ego-ethnic-centered, nationalistic thinking takes second place to ideas that promote universal bonding. There, our inspiration flows from the eternal principles of justice, equity, compassion and respect. This is our first challenge.

So now we have come to it. Vulnerable and interdependent we know we succeed or fail together. This Manifesto is a call for people everywhere to stand tall and embrace the challenge. The possible future exceeds all bounds of current imagining. Our greatest work still lies

This Manifesto draws on ideas, teaching and commentary from many sources. Though the synthesis and emphasis are that of the author, the following contributors to the ideas expressed are acknowledged. The readings referenced are recommended for anyone who wishes to become broadly informed about the challenges that lie ahead.

• Thomas Berry, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future (New York: Random House, 1999)

• Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1961)

• Deepak Chopra, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind (New York: Harmony Books, 1993)

• Paul Davies, The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999)

• Richard Fortey, Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1998)

• Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and Hunter L. Lovins, Natural Capitalism: Creating the New Industrial Revolution (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1999)

• Walt Hays, "The Natural Step," Timeline, March/April, 1995

• Hazel Henderson, Beyond Globalization: Shaping a Sustainable Global Economy (West Hartford: Kumarian Press, 1999)

• Barbara Marx Hubbard, Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential(Novato: New World Library, 1998)

• Fred H Knelman, Every Life is a Story: The Social Relations of Science, Ecology and Peace (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1999)

• Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (New York: Viking, 1999)

• Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1996)

• Robert Muller, The Birth of a Global Civilization (Anacortes: World Happiness and Cooperation, 1991)

• Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson, The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World (New York: Harmony Books, 2000)

• James Robertson, The Sane Alternative: Sign Posts to a Self-Fulfilling Future (London: Villers Publications, 1978)

• Peter Russell, From Science to God: The Mystery of Consciousness and the Meaning of Light (Sausalito: Peter Russell, 2000)

• Elisabet Sahtouris, "Changing World Views, Changing World," Timeline, September/October, 1997)

• Desmond Tutu, No Future without Forgiveness (New York: Doubleday, 1999)