Learn and Understand

If there is any consensus of these writers, it is that innovation is the easiest way to bring about change ( because it requires no widespread public agreement to occur) and political reform is the hardest (because the political system was set up to institute the changes needed to make civilization 'work' and its very purpose is to defend the status quo).

My answer continues to evolve the more I read, and I'm much less convinced that it's the right answer than I am of the Truth about Nature and the Truth about Civilization. But for those that are interested, here is my answer, as of today:

1. There are a lot of things that everyone can do, and should do, to make the world better. Here's my latest list of 15 things: Trust your instincts; Listen, learn and teach others; Learn and practice critical thinking; Re-learn how to imagine; Use less stuff; Stop at one child; Become less dependent; Become an activist; Volunteer; Be a role model; Be a pioneer; Find or create a meaningful job; Share your expertise; Be good to yourself; and Infect others with your courage and spirit and passion. It's the least we can do. It's necessary that we do these things to be clearer about what else we need to do, because these things by themselves won't be enough.
2. There is a second group of things that we need to work on that will require specialized expertise and talent:
• Innovators and scientists need to work on simpler, cheaper, more reliable birth control, abortion and assisted-suicide technologies, breakthroughs in clean energy technology, and technologies that: reduce pollution and waste; prevent rather than just treat diseases; reduce the need for transportation; enable community self-sufficiency (e.g. solar/wind energy co-ops, indoor gardening); do more with less; replace molecules with bits; conserve energy and resources; create nutritious and delicious animal-product-free food; reduce the need for agricultural chemicals; enhance the ability of activists and problem-solvers to organize, collaborate virtually and share information; help identify socially and environmentally irresponsible people and corporations; prevent and treat mental illness; and enable us to better communicate with and learn from other animals.
• Social activists and teachers need to develop a new non-corporatist, autonomous community-based education system that teaches responsible citizenship, how to learn, how to think creatively and critically, how to get along with others, and how to start and run your own responsible business; they need to persuade people to stop at one child, adopt a vegan diet, buy local and live simpler lives; and they need to teach appreciation of and skills in: community-building, achieving consensus, using citizen-power, effective listening, peaceful conflict resolution; and they need to teach us all how to cope with terrible knowledge, responsibility and change.
• Entrepreneurs need to demonstrate and teach community-based Natural Enterprise, and pledge to buy local.
• Politicians and lawyers (I'm not holding my breath on this) need to revamp corporate charters to refocus corporations on responsibility to community, end business subsidies, reform election and campaign finance laws, shift taxes from goods (employment) to bads (pollution, waste, non-renewable resource use), replace GDP with a genuine progress indicator, restrict property ownership, protect and expand the commons and wilderness, make health and education universal rights, shift spending from defense to humanitarian activities, forgive third-world debts, reduce extraterritoriality (power of companies and nations over the affairs of other sovereign nations), reinstate usury laws, introduce currency reform and LETS systems, and extend anti-cruelty laws.