We stand at a crossroads. We’ve come to this junction on a road built by a hierarchical, aggressively competitive power structure fueled on petroleum. If we continue in the same direction, a crash is inevitable. We all know this, if not intellectually, then in our heart or gut. Depending on your point of view, the coming threat might be called global climate change or Armageddon or perhaps unending terrorist wars.

Many people have seen this coming from a long way off. Much of the experimentation of the ‘60s and ‘70s was a homegrown search for alternatives to this broken status quo. Oregonians have helped lead the way for decades in the search for an alternative path. And in fact, that path is now well worn and established. The seeds that were sown by the pioneers of the sustainability movement are maturing. We have helped set national standards for organic agriculture, recycling, green building methods, sensible land use and other facets of permaculture (the commitment to care for the earth, care for all people, conserve resources and equitably share the surplus). People now come from all over the globe to study Oregon’s approach to sustainability.

Over time, a grassroots movement has worked itself all the way up to influence government on a state level. Former Gov. Kitzhaber created an Oregon State mandate for sustainability. He currently speaks out for watershed quality as the guiding principle for forest management. Gov. Kulongoski regularly advocates sustainability and the clean up of the Willamette River in his speeches (though the media puts only a minor emphasis on this). The Oregon Dept. of Agriculture stresses benign, nontoxic, natural solutions to water quality problems in its literature, from kids’ coloring books to pamphlets to farmers and ranchers.

It is prime time for Oregonians to coalesce and embrace sustainability in all its forms, fully transforming our day-to-day lifestyles, our businesses and industries, our farming practices, education and health systems. Let’s make it our number one priority.

There are those who fear change. We all do on some level or another. Some harbor fears that anything but the status quo will lead us back to poverty and ignorance or chaos. But it cannot be stressed enough that slower, more natural, permaculture lifestyles and practices lead to a greater (not lesser) quality of life. Surveys about the quality of life around the world consistently rate Scandinavia, Holland, Switzerland, etc., as the places where the general populace is the happiest - all cultures that are more focused on cooperation, resource conservation and egalitarianism than the U.S.

Most of us are familiar with the term “critical mass” — the idea that when a certain level of understanding is reached, a shift is achieved, a quantum leap forward. It is a synergistic effect, in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It is my contention that right here, right now in the Willamette River watershed, we have critical mass — here in Eugene, in Corvallis, in Portland and points in between, here in a bio-region where 80 percent of Oregonians live within 20 miles of this awesome river — the very lifeblood of our ecosystem. We need to open our eyes and hearts and look squarely at each other and acknowledge that there are way more people here who love and honor our beloved state and its abundant natural resources, than those who are under the spell of the princely and destructive consumer culture. We must move together beyond the system of haves and have-nots. We owe it to our children and generations to come. We owe it to the people who lived here in balance with nature before the pioneers overrode them.

Let us celebrate our legacy of working together to restore our environment. In the Depression, Oregon farmers formed cooperatives to purchase foreclosed farms and sell them back to the owners. In the ‘50s, school children helped replant trees in the devastated Tillamook Burn. In the ‘70s, Gov. Tom McCall rallied the state to clean up the polluted Willamette and conserve energy. We are overdue for a revitalization of cooperative ways and a coming of age of the alternative culture.

Recently I was pleased to hear John Kitzhaber quote Albert Einstein when he said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” I’d like to add another Einstein quote for good measure: “Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.” Simplicity is the essence of nature. The more we can mimic natural systems in our human culture, the better. They are patterns that have stood the test of time, literally forever. I challenge and implore our regional media and politicians to be leaders to bring Oregonians together into a harmonious network focused on the principles of sustainability. We can ill afford divisiveness in these challenging times. Cooperation is the path to peace and true security.

D. Janine Offutt is a writer and activist.