"Modern humans appeared some 200,000 years ago. Human activity began to change Earth’s carbon balance roughly 200 years ago. Then, just a bit over twenty years ago, the World Wide Web created the potential for humans to communicate, think, and act as a planetary species with a collective awareness of the global impact of our presence."

“In its literal meaning, capitalism means rule by capital, more specifically rule by the owners of capital for their exclusive private benefit.”

“There are more idealized definitions of capitalism, but I refer to the real capitalism—the kind we are living with. This capitalism is grounded in an elitist ideology of individualism supported by an institutional system devoted to the concentration and abuse of wealth for the exclusive benefit of a private ruling oligarchy. It is the capitalism that claims to champion democracy and markets even as it destroys them. The capitalism that claims to bring universal prosperity even while denying it to all but its most favored servants. The capitalism that destroys life to make money and organizes as a suicide economy that destroys the foundations of its own existence—and ours.”

“Fortunately, the emergence of a new consciousness and the new organizing structures required to actualize our potential for responsible planetary citizenship is already underway. Our mutual awakening is unfolding at an accelerating pace as collapse of critical Earth systems unfolds.”

“This month the Green New Deal was introduced in the U.S. Congress with much fanfare, and its opponents quickly mobilized. Opponents, both on the right and in the middle, immediately attacked the plan as unaffordable far-left socialist overreach, clearly hoping that the socialist label would scare people away. I’m sensing that for most of today’s electorate, the threat posed by wildfires, floods, mass extinctions, rising sea levels, and a shifting polar vortex is far more frightening than simplistic political labels. That’s especially the case for labels like “socialism” and “communism,” which date from a time that for many is ancient history. Our living spaceship is dying by our hand, and there are no escape capsules, and no place to go if there were. So people, especially the young, are mobilizing to act and to demand action from both government and business.., In the United States, the middle class is disappearing as the division between rich and poor becomes ever more extreme. It is now evident to most people that we face a desperate need for deep change. There may be no place in a viable human future for profit-driven global megacorporations.”

“I call the next system economy a “living” economy, because its underlying design principles come from our understanding of healthy living systems.”

“As power begets power and competition becomes more ruthless, the appetites of the wealthy become more extravagant and the excluded become more desperate. The growing gap erodes trust and institutional legitimacy, which in turn compels an ever greater diversion of resources to security measures — from car alarms and security guards to police and prisons.”