Awake long before I wanted to be, my body's clock suspended somewhere over Greenland, I sat in the pre-dawn silence, listened to the rain drumming on the skylight, the wind brushing tree branches against the window, and I thought for a long time about my nation's path ahead.

Editor's note: This post is part of a series. We'll be releasing one of Worldchanging ally Andy Lubershane's original comics each week until the end of the year. While many of the issues covered in the comics have been discussed on Worldchanging in the past, we hope that you'll be able to use this new medium in a different way … whether it's in your classroom, on your office wall, or to help explain ideas to friends and family.

October 31 marked the second year since the founding of Worldchanging Canada! This excellent blog has flourished under the direction of editor Mark Tovey, and has set the bar high for our other local iterations.

October 31 marked the second year since the founding of Worldchanging Canada! This excellent blog has flourished under the direction of editor Mark Tovey, and has set the bar high for our other local iterations.

In order for the future to be sustainable, it must be more interconnected than the present. Think in terms of biomimetic design on the grandest scale of all: In order to recognize every possible opportunity to maximize the potential of each calorie of energy that is spent somewhere in the universe, and to capitalize on cyclical patterns of reuse and re-uptake for every molecule of matter to create a zero-waste society, we will need to expand our level of thinking to the very outermost ring.

The task at hand -- to create a new reality; a new way of living with fewer resources while providing a prosperous life for every member of our growing population -- is going to require more than even the best technology that money can buy. It's going to require imagination, open-mindedness, a willingness to live and to understand life differently. With that significant challenge ahead of us, is "sustainability" the best weapon we can bring to the fight?

Editor's note: This post is part of a series. We'll be releasing one of Worldchanging ally Andy Lubershane's original comics each week until the end of the year. While many of the issues covered in the comics have been discussed on Worldchanging in the past, we hope that you'll be able to use this new medium in a different way … whether it's in your classroom, on your office wall, or to help explain ideas to friends and family.

If you want to know where the worldchanging action will be in the summer of 2010, look north.

By Eric Roston

The U.S. Senate organizes its work into 20 committees, from Agriculture to Veterans Affairs. Health, education, labor, and pensions share one committee, which is known by the acronym "HELP."

That's a message: Americans' requirement for health care, education, labor, and pensions is thought of, at least by inference, as a hand-out, something the state shrugs its shoulders and begrudgingly offers to balance the scales. They are anything but.