clearwater (asker) Sep 23, 2013:

I offer these thoughts, not as some kind of expert—our problems transcend established forms of expertise—but as a citizen, of my communities, my country, and our world, concerned about the prominent trends that I see around me: the degradation of our environment, the demise of our democracies, and the denigration of ourselves, with greed having been raised to some sort of high calling. We have to replace this distorting dogma with an engaging worldview, one that can bond the many initiatives already underway and encourage the generation of many more.