From Consumers to Conservers...

"Moving toward a sustainable society will also require a shift in consciousness.  We will need to stop measuring “wealth” by the empty numbers traded on financial markets, and begin measuring the true sources of wealth in the condition of earth’s living systems, in human knowledge and skill, in productive enterprises, and in the real assets, both public and private, that actually contribute to our wellbeing. We will need to give up thinking of ourselves as free-floating individuals, empowered by money.  We will need to reimagine our lives as woven into human and natural communities, dependent for our well-being on the goods we share—from watersheds to scientific research, from the transportation system to the judicial system, from language to libraries.  We will need to identify ourselves as conservers rather than consumers, as stewards of the earth’s bounty rather than exploiters.  We will need to recognize our kinship with other species." 

~ Scott Russell Sanders in Traveling at Home | The Geography of Somewhere