we will soon have a collection of articles under the heading "future-possible" as an addition to "present-imperfect" and "past intensive".
recently i was with a group of north american aboriginal elders talking of the state of the world. one said we must get rid of all the radioactive waste, pesticides, bombs and the like threatening the life of our Mother. another replied by saying all that is needed is a change in our perception. we have the power to transmute all poisons into their original life-enhancing forms. we have the power to dismantle the bombs. we can evolve consciously. we just need to look to the vast majority of life forms to re-learn cooperative coexistence.
....Evolution takes time, but when a natural system has pushed itself or been pushed to certain limits, it can reorganize itself with incredible speed. Humanity has now reached such a critical limit. It has also invented everything it needs in order to accomplish a dramatic reorganization into a healthy cooperative body. Particularly interesting is the fact that bacteria invented communications systems prior to organizing themselves into nucleated cells, and that nucleated cells invented intercellular communications systems before organizing themselves into multicelled creatures.
Communications systems, which we humans now have worldwide, are prerequisites to the organization of larger living systems. Transport systems for moving about supplies also play a critical role in the actual organization and function of such larger systems, and here, too, we are well prepared in our transport capability. If the big brain experiment is to be a success--if humanity is to survive as a healthy body, as a holon in the Gaian holarchy--we must use our communications, our information exchange, and our transport as parts of a cooperatively organized body. The sooner we recognize that this is our only viable direction, the sooner we will get on with the task....
-- Earthdance: Living Systems in Evolution, by Elisabet Sahtouris; Chapter 11