Margaret Meade once said that the only person who likes change is a wet baby. And we would add that even a wet baby squalls throughout the process, only quieting down when it's all over. But change we must.

Our world faces some pretty formidable drivers of change. We are losing every major ecosystem on earth, climate change is real, energy prices are soaring perhaps because the world has reached peak oil production, food is either scarse or costing more and more, population continues to rise, water shortages may prove harder to solve than energy, and China, with India right behind, has entered the world market for essentially everything. At the same time, companies, communities and countries are facing the 'sustainability imperative.'

In April, 2005, the United Nations released the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. The work of 1360 experts in 95 nations from 22 national science academies, the study reported that over the past 50 years a rising human population has polluted or over-exploited two-thirds of the ecological systems of the world on which all life depends. At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning: 'Human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of the earth that the ability of the planet's ecosytems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted.'

Our Ecological Footprint in Nova Scotia is on average four times larger than the rest of the world. To sustain this lifestyle,  we would need four planets. To see how big your foot print is: (adult) (kids) Ways to reduce your footprint  

For a teachers manual for the Ecological Footprint for kids. For the Carbon Footprint of Nations.

The business leader Ray Anderson, rightly ask, "what is the business case for ending life on earth?" "If we are going to ruin the planet, we've got to stop claiming we're a superior species." The only interesting question is how hard we're going to make the change on ourselves. This isn't a question about technology, it's about us. We have to learn to live within our means.