Vision Power, Part 2

by William S. Becker

We are on the edge of a carbon revolution. Everything is going to change. This will matter to you…There is no high-carbon future.
Peter Mandelson, Secretary of State for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, Great Britain

When we give voice to our visions, we identify the destinations we want to move towards. And by describing the steps we can take, we prepare ourselves for action.
- Rob Hopkins, The Transition Handbook

In many ways, the future is an intensely personal thing. Every person, family, neighborhood, community and region is unique. A one-size-fits all plan for progress would be profoundly unsatisfying. It would impoverish us culturally by stifling invention and ignoring the richness of our diversity.

But what if the many communities engaged in envisioning America’s future, and the many organizations helping them, rallied around a common set of criteria for the society we must build for the 21st century? Not a common blueprint, mind you, but common goals that must be met society-wide if we are to successfully survive the economic, climate and energy crises?

Individuals and communities would invent their own ways to achieve the goals, but common goals would help us achieve necessary national and global objectives. They would guide local investments, including the new infusions of stimulus money going to states and communities for work on energy and climate. In the bargain, each participating community would become a laboratory and demonstration project for all the others.

What would that common set of goals look like? One list is being considered by the U.S. Green Building Council...   Continued...

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