We can no longer prosper by increasing human productivity. The more we try to do, the more poverty we will create.

What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.

Luck is earned. Luck is working so hard at your craft, service or enterprise that sooner or later you get a break.

We subsidize the disposal of waste in all its myriad forms — from landfills, to Superfund cleanups, to deep-well injection, to storage of nuclear waste. In the process, we encourage an economy where 80 percent of what we consume gets thrown away after one use.

We can no longer prosper by increasing human productivity. The more we try to do, the more poverty we will create.

Business is the only mechanism on the planet today powerful enough to produce the changes necessary to reverse global environments and social degradation.

We are now heading down a centuries-long path toward increasing the productivity of our natural capital - the resource systems upon which we depend to live - instead of our human capital.