It has often been said that all the world needs is love. But imagine, unless we apply it, like hope, a peaceful, sustainable future may well remain a mirage. By 2025 about fifty percent of the world population will be 25 years old or less – the great majority will live in developing countries and fifty percent of them will live in cities. Add into this potent mix the wisdom and influence of the feminine to nurture the young and restless and a field of limitless possibilities appears on the horizon that can and will transform our world. We now share our planet with over 7 billion global citizens, most of them underserved. Our future? It is really up to us, each and every one of us. It is time to occupy and serve the whole.
So let us resolve to conduct our business and lives in 2012 and beyond in the spirit of “applied hope”, which in the words of Amory B. Lovins, author of just released Reinventing Fire – Bold business solutions for the new energy era, means: “we work to make the world better, not from some airy theoretical hope, but in the pragmatic and grounded conviction that starting with hope and acting out of hope can cultivate a different kind of world worth being hopeful about, reinforcing itself in a virtuous spiral. Applied hope is not about some vague, far-off future but is expressed and created moment by moment through choices.” It is no surprise then that Amory Lovins’ new book is a work of applied hope in action.