The path to reclaiming our dying planet--and our lives--begins in our own back yard. If we are waiting for a great mass awakening that will change everything, we will be disappointed. Awakening happens, one person at a time, but can sometimes go viral, if we're really clever and lucky.

Take, for example, Bill Mollison, the Australian agronomist and visionary who, in the mid-Seventies, awoke to the fact that natural ecosystems are infinitely more efficient than human social systems, and on the basis of that insight, developed permaculture design, based on studying and imitating the self-sustaining logic of natural ecosystems. Then he developed a 70-hour curriculum for teaching others these methods, who in turn taught yet others. Now there are highly successful permaculture projects in place all over the world, all based on Mollison's basic principles, all learning from nature, teaching others what they know, healing their landscapes, and creating a symbiotic, rather than parasitic way of living on our planet.