Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
—Helen Keller
The goal of this site is to create a conversation that “comes from” the premise that a world that works for all is not only possible but necessary. It is the compelling truth from which we must live our lives, and we invite you to join us on this remarkable journey.
It is now part of the shared understanding of humanity that our planet is in peril. While there may still be a few self-proclaimed denialists, the vast majority of people recognize that there are serious environmental, social, and political threats to our habitat, our peaceful coexistence, and our freedom. Which of these is paramount varies by time and place; but they are real and intertwined and increasingly global. In times of war and conflict there is little regard for the environment; radioactive materials and toxic chemicals are distributed along with land mines and cluster bombs. And in circumstances of oppression there is little incentive or opportunity to restore or protect the ecosystem.
To solve our ecological problems we may need to also solve our economic and political problems. In the 1960s Buckminster Fuller recognized that we had to make a choice between utopia and oblivion. Either we make things right for the vast majority of people, and commit to making them right for all, or we condemn future generations to endless war and to a poisoned environment. Indeed, we already have the endless War on Terror being waged by vast secret armies; and an increasing number of abandoned areas, from low-lying islands to contaminated sites.
The question has to be, “what can I/we do about it?” This is where we must start.
The Center for Regenerative Community Solutions (now, more aptly and more suggestively, Possible Planet) is committed to creating and discovering real solutions to the problems of carbon pollution and climate change, of war and conflict, and of oppressive inequality and unfreedom. Our principal initiative is the expansion of available financing for the energy and resiliency improvements we need to make to our built environment, through the development of the New Jersey PACE program. But this is only one step toward a larger goal: creating an economy, and a society, that is capable of sustaining life because it meets the needs of people.
There are a number of related initiatives that can be seen as leading up to this challenge. Recognizing the need for more than just “appropriate technology,” we created a site for recognizing and documenting “appropriate solutions.” Trying to discern the economics of a world that works led us to study the role of alternative currencies and to create Altonomy.com, and the Altonomy Prize — a Nobel-equivalent award for the best ideas for a sustainable economy, to be paid in an alternative currency.
The mission of the “World That Works” project is to engage in a dialogue that is “coming from” a different paradigm of human development — one that assumes a world that serves the needs of everyone and that is in turn sustained by everyone. This is an enormous challenge that calls on all of us to respond. For those of us in a position to take action, it’s a challenging project intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually — it’s an adventure into the unknown.