[Music]
hey everybody how are ya little spoiler
alert probably not gonna hear the word
conservation coming out of my mouth but
can hear some other stuff I’m going to
talk about is sustainability and a new
grand strategy for America in the 21st
century but first before we get into
guts of that that’s gotta throw this
quote up here it’s might fit my favorite
quotes of all time you know Thomas Paine
like in 1776 wrote a little pamphlet
called common sense you know don’t you
wish someone a GAC out a new one at part
two today huh but common sense very
first page says the cause of America
isn’t a great measure of the cause of
all mankind well that’s cool huh well
you know when 1776 when Thomas wrote up
cranked out that pamphlet he was talking
about self-determination I mean that
nutty idea that maybe people ought to
have not only a say in the government
they have but maybe they even
participate in it you know pretty kooky
stuff
what a cool cause to wrap your arms
around to wrap a country around well I’m
here to tell a skew to a good question
today in the 21st century what is our
cause today here in America because I’m
here to tell you after about thirty
years just under thirty years of being
in uniform
I’ve yet to figure it out alright and
I’m never gonna apologize for America
but I’m not gonna make any freakin
excuses either right now what are we for
I can sure as hell tell you what we’re
against but what the hell are we for all
right and the only way we can actually
come to grips with this idea of what a
nation is for is we got to come to grips
with this idea of grand strategy it’s
the only organizing logic the only
discipline that allows us to take on
what the cause of this nation ought to
be and I think that was the sense of
Admiral Mike Mullen in 2009 when he was
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
when he asked me when I was a Marine
colonel and a Navy captain named Wayne
Porter to consider this idea of grant
strategy what it’d be the direction that
our nation could take so we could pursue
or enduring interests of prosperity and
security in this new 21st century world
all right
and I don’t know whatever my mother
wanted us to do but what ed Wayne and I
ended up getting out was this document
called the National strategic narrative
and what does that mean I don’t know it
doesn’t matter but what we wrote was as
in this paper was we hope we really want
to pursue
our enduring interest of prosperity and
security in this new complex dynamic
open systems type of world that we face
we’ve got to get past this manic crazy
focus on threat and risk and maybe just
maybe we had to start looking at
opportunity in the world after all we
are the land of opportunity we’re not
the land of threat and risk right and
maybe just maybe we could take a
different approach to the world and what
as we’ve looked at how the world
dynamics our wealth all the
interdependencies all the connections
the open system nature of it one central
concept kept coming back to us now mind
working for the Admiral Mullen chairman
the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the
Pentagon and about ready to say a word
if there’s any Marines out there please
forgive me all right but we said that in
one concepts got to be sustainability
that organizing logic within a strategic
ecology as we as we call it how this
nation could pursue our enduring
interest of prosperity security that’s
not just because it’s a greeny thing it
pisses me off whenever one says the
sustainability’s green it isn’t
it’s an organizing logic for a system we
as a nation are a system and we looked
at the scientific definition of
sustainability at least the one that we
use was an organism’s ability to remain
diverse and productive over time it maps
directly to our enduring interest of
prosperity and security diversity let’s
look at it diversity means depth
it means redundancy it means resilience
it’s our national capacity to take a gut
punch and come back swinging
that’s where we’ve got to go and if you
think that security is just about the
fence I’m here to tell you there’s a
card-carrying lifetime marine you know
it’s not just about the fence it’s not
about keeping the bad crap from our
shores outward away from us because get
over in America I don’t care if it’s a
hurricane and I don’t care if it’s Isis
something’s gonna happen you’re gonna
skin your little knee you just gonna
have to stand up brush it off you know
and suck it up all right there’s not
enough bubble wrap in all the world to
wrap around every American’s head to
keep you safe so deal with it all right
thank you
but security in a 21st century has more
to do with how do we integrate our
systems of food water energy built
environment transportation education
industry so that we’re actually
addressing the human condition and not
so worried about keeping the bad stuff
away alright but there’s also that thing
in that definition about being
productive that’s what we’re talking
about prosperity but we’re really
talking about growth and we got to come
to grips in this nation that the
quantitative measures of growth are
working for us anymore if you just
consider our physical condition one
third of our nation is clinically obese
our fiscal condition the amount of debt
we have our political condition are you
me our social condition these
are the issues of our time and maybe
just maybe we could take a more
qualitative approach to how we
constitute or how do we look at how we
are productive maybe just maybe we could
take a little lesson from a small
country called Bhutan where they talk
about gross national happiness right
yeah a marine said happiness to hope I’m
not been in your brain too much but just
because but beyond just our enduring
interests a prosperity security
sustainability also maps to a
quintessentially unique American Way of
doing grant strategy but we do grant
strategy we stand on our economy we let
the economy do the heavy lifting and
then we align our governing institutions
and our foreign policy to take on
whatever the big challenge of the age is
and we did in World War two we were the
arsenal of democracy where we
fundamentally set up an industrial
system so we could arm and equip our
allies to take on this big huge thing of
fascism right
we were the arsenal of democracy it’s a
beautiful thing and it worked by the end
of the war seventy percent of all the
Allied war materials coming out of an
American factory what a what a surprise
and in the Cold War Eisenhower’s
brilliance was that he focused on the
economy yeah we contained the Soviets
with our military but it was a contest
of political and economic systems where
we had faith in democracy but we also
did the hard work of building the
industrial capacity the economy to take
on the Soviet Union
and outlast them and it worked but today
we still have that opportunity but we
got to come to grips with what is the
challenge that we face and I’m here to
tell you it’s not frickin China it’s not
Iran it’s not North Korea it’s not ice
it’s right here it’s all around us the
challenge of our age is this high mass
slow-moving thing of global
unsustainability the global system is
broken it’s unsustainable and the
problem with this problem is that it’s a
wicked problem it’s that you can’t just
go and reduce it down to components and
just take care of them one at a time you
got to take it on all at once and the
way we look at it is there’s four big
muscle moves within that wicked problem
the first one is economic inclusion all
right now everyone gets scared I think
Al brought up that we’re gonna have nine
and a half billion people stumble around
the planet by the middle of the century
right well the one the number that gives
me a sweaty lip in the middle of the
night is the three billion people we’ve
got to fold into the global middle class
and when they arrive their resource
consumption goes up 300 percent which
leads us to part number two of this big
problem is ecosystem depletion I mean we
are kicking Mother Nature around like
we’ve never done before right now it
takes one-and-a-half plan that’s worth
of resources just to support the human
condition one I have planets when those
3 billion people come in the middle
class that’s going to take
four-and-a-half planets look outside the
window there’s one only one of these
pills spinning around out in the
universe all right got to come to grips
with it and oh by the way if you think
that the old economy the one they happen
when we had before 2008 if we just get
back to there we’ll get out of this
Great Recession well that’s –
all right because we’re not in a Great
Recession we are in a contained
depression with extraordinary
intervention on the part of central
bank’s just to keep an old moribund
calcified economic system alive right
and we had didn’t come to grips with the
fact that 2008 was as big of a
catastrophic catastrophic economic event
as what happened in 1929 at least we had
the wisdom in 1929 to redesign to put in
mechanisms to deal with the world as it
was not how we wished it would be and we
haven’t done that hard work because
we’re even if we could get those things
the old economy going the bottom line is
that it’s crumbling from the inside
which is the fourth component is that
we’re in a resilience deficit now our
systems may be hyper efficient and then
he may be really oh goody gumdrops I’m
so glad all right the problem is that
when that changes of the world start
coming particularly the ones that Mother
Nature is going to throw at us in the
form of climate change those systems are
brittle they can’t deal with them and
they are going to crumble we’ve got to
come to grips with this and yet for some
reason we keep doubling down on an old
economic engine that was formed
post-world War two that ran it’s getting
ran out of gas late 70s early eighties
but we keep doubling down and I don’t
want to bust anybody’s other bubble okay
I don’t know how many bubbles you have
but I’m gonna bust another one all right
if you’re waiting on Washington to make
it happen I don’t know maybe I’m only
one thing from maybe there a little bit
ask up right now all right it ain’t
gonna happen from there all right but
here’s the good news because we’re
freakin Americans there’s an
opportunities way out but first you’ve
got to strap on some uncomfortable
goggles and they’re called
sustainability goggles but if you strap
on those goggles you can see a market
opportunity way out we have a big deep
pools a demand that exists right now in
our economy that remain untapped that
can absorb trillions and trillions of
dollars of corporate cash that’s just
sitting on the sidelines hedge fund cash
that’s just sitting on the sidelines
retirement funds that are just sitting
on the sidelines all right this is a 1.3
trillion dollar economic opportunity on
an annual basis that we just are leaving
on the table and the three big bins of
demand sustainability points us right to
those solutions first we round walkable
communities housing regenerative
agriculture and then a productivity
revolution let’s talk about housing real
quick 60 according to National
Association of Realtors upwards of 60%
of Americans don’t like where they live
more specifically seek the attributes of
walkable communities in their next
housing purchase yet only about 15% of
the market will support that demand ok
60% demand 15% supply man has a freaking
opportunity right and why is that well
we are at the biggest demographic
convergence we’ve seen in a market in a
long time right now baby boomers and
Millennials make them in the majority of
our population well guess what both of
them are seeking the same type of
housing product walkable communities
mixed use mixed income service rich
transit oriented communities I mean baby
boomers the kids are out of that house
they’re downsizing right they don’t want
to live in a double gated community
sorry Hilton Head they don’t live in a
double gated community anymore
you know where the kids take away their
keys they get stuck in a home somebody
shovels applesauce in their face nobody
wants to live that way the AARP is all
over this Aging in place in a community
where people can get around get to
services be engaged in their communities
right and Millennials they don’t want to
go back to the suburbs anymore either at
least how they’re currently designed
they don’t want to go back there how 70%
of them don’t even want a car
good luck living in the suburbs without
a car this is so huge as its historic
this convergence in the marketplace
demographically is three times the level
of demand to what we saw post-world War
two when the GIS were coming home from
the war black demand signal for a
specific type of housing the form of
suburban sprawl fueled our economy
through the late seventies early
eighties this is huge it’s historic it’s
three times that level number two
regenerative agriculture we already
heard al talk and a little bit about
mariculture this is the general this is
a big moneymaker for this nation
according to the OECD we need to
increase global food supply 60 to 70
percent and 100 percent of that has to
be regenerative nature where we fix our
phosphorus and nitrogen cycles where we
restore our waterways where we rebuild
our soils right huge huge opportunity
and right now we have the technology to
make this happen
in the form of regenerative agriculture
we’re talking about controlled
environment egg we’re talking about
mariculture we’re talking about all
those things all right it’s is an
immense opportunity to create a whole
new generation of farmer entrepreneurs
for kids that are looking for a job who
knows maybe something you know when we
talked about earlier maybe somebody
coming and moving home later when you’re
later yours go on and be a farmer kid
because the opportunity exists right
there it just put those some numbers
around that not only are the yields
equivalent to our current what we can
call industrial AG model acre per acre
but there are thirty percent more
productive in times of drought again
climate change comes to mind and oh by
the way per acre three times more
profitable per acre than our current
system when you consider full
externalities it’s huge and then finally
a resource productivity we have the
technology today in the form of advanced
manufacturing advanced materials
renewable energy to fundamentally
restructure our manufacturing base to
feed that three billion new middle class
aspirants and all their desires and how
they’re going to
build their homes and the products that
they’re gonna have we have those
technologies today and just so you know
it’s just not a big wonky arm wave crap
you know that everyone throws around
this stuff matriculates actually down to
Main Street where we can have real jobs
where we can have real small businesses
where we can revitalize our communities
cuz right now in our economy is I’m
sorry this I taught that sat the bottom
right there that’s just from a
presidential study about manufacturing
but it basically just says for every
dollar that any given sector of economy
and cranks out what kind of ancillary
economic benefit they provide do they
create other jobs other businesses etc
right well right now our economy’s
pointed at the right end of this
spectrum with retail trade consumerism
and financial services we only get 55
cents to 63 cents out of those sectors
of extra added benefit which is no
benefit at all but looks what happens
when we captured those three big bins of
demand we focus it directly at the
highest end of that spectrum
first of all with manufacturing a buck
35 next agriculture of all things a buck
20 followed by construction and
transportation but you got a design to
that end I mean know if there is no I
Dream of Jeannie I’m gonna blink my eyes
it’s just gonna happen we have got to
plan and design to this to this
opportunity and I’m a big believer and
if you want a new idea you know read an
old book so you read this guy’s book
anybody know who he is Sir Ebenezer
Howard I love the name evany I wish it
was named Ebenezer I mean you just gotta
have swagger when you’re walking down
the street with a name I gave an easy
right sir heaven easer Howard this
roguish devil he came up with this cool
idea called Lee started the Garden City
movement at the turn of the 20th century
because he looked at the Industrial
Revolution and said man that’s not
treating people too well he was put in
the human condition first so he came up
with this idea could you integrate food
water energy built environment
transportation education industry into a
system that put the human condition at
the center and still reconcile that with
the magic and the beauty of capitalism
and he says yes
and it took off it was great it’s kind
of a forgotten idea but I particularly
like this because he thought about
everything he even thought about
national security in this I know you
can’t read this right now but here here
is an insane asylum and here’s at home
for inebriates now you know where you’re
gonna recruit your Marines I mean we got
it covered
I love it well we’re saying is that we
can dust off that idea with called a
full spectrum sustainability we can do
this today again integrating those
functional sectors to put the human
condition to the center and allow market
forces to drive to that end it’s I mean
it is Adam Smith 101 kind of stop this
is cool stuff right but the problem is
is that everyone we start talking about
they said you really can’t happen in
fact when I was in the Pentagon people
said well your utopia now I think
there’s a law against calling a marina
utopian I mean you can’t do that right I
mean it just it kind of pisses you off
all right but then I finally got off my
but I kind of remember he hate you when
you know sir Thomas Moore wrote the book
utopia in 1516 I mean he was he titled
it that used the title to utopia because
it was a pawn and was little play on
words when you break it down to an
etymological drill on the word utopia
you know it’s Greek you know tapas is
place well there’s two ways you can
spell the u part of utopia there’s no u
way and then there’s an e u way
well the o u way is no place the EU way
is good place which one you freakin won
I know which one I’m voting for all
right I’m typing in on the EU kind in
yeah you know what yeah consider myself
utopian that’s right but I want to get
to that good place but I also listen to
my Navajo friends when they say you
can’t get to a good place in a bad way
we just got to fix our way and if you
want to talk about utopia I bet you the
cats that cranked out this document
we’re a wee bit utopian all right I just
want to point out that the first words
up here you know you know aren’t waiting
on Washington there we the people of the
United States we the people of the
United States in order to form a more
perfect union establish justice insure
domestic tranquility provide for the
common defense promote the general
welfare and most importantly to secure
the blessings of liberty to ourselves
and our posterity posterity you know and
Hubert Humphrey reminds us that those
words in this preamble of our
Constitution our action words they’re
verbs form establish and sure provide
promote secure these words not only to
now articulate the promise of this
country they articulate our obligation
to it our obligation to our kids in our
grand
kids that it’s not our present-day
situation that matters most
it’s about our obligation to them and to
this country into this democracy as
citizens of a government of the people
by the people for the people if you
don’t want a parent for it to have it
perish from this earth we’d better get
off our asses and get it on because
these words require constant tending
constant vigilance just like
sustainability isn’t going to be this
instinct it’s going to be a condition
we’re constantly going to have to strive
for constantly there is no end but I can
tell you this much that if we could
embrace this cause of sustainability if
we could form a grand strategy around
the logic of sustainability not only
would we be subscribing to the best and
finest traditions of this country not
only would we taking on a cause it’s
worthy of our kids and our grandkids but
if we embrace this cause of
sustainability we will in a complete
measure be taking on the cause of all
mankind thank you
[Applause]
hey everybody how are ya little spoiler
alert probably not gonna hear the word
conservation coming out of my mouth but
can hear some other stuff I’m going to
talk about is sustainability and a new
grand strategy for America in the 21st
century but first before we get into
guts of that that’s gotta throw this
quote up here it’s might fit my favorite
quotes of all time you know Thomas Paine
like in 1776 wrote a little pamphlet
called common sense you know don’t you
wish someone a GAC out a new one at part
two today huh but common sense very
first page says the cause of America
isn’t a great measure of the cause of
all mankind well that’s cool huh well
you know when 1776 when Thomas wrote up
cranked out that pamphlet he was talking
about self-determination I mean that
nutty idea that maybe people ought to
have not only a say in the government
they have but maybe they even
participate in it you know pretty kooky
stuff
what a cool cause to wrap your arms
around to wrap a country around well I’m
here to tell a skew to a good question
today in the 21st century what is our
cause today here in America because I’m
here to tell you after about thirty
years just under thirty years of being
in uniform
I’ve yet to figure it out alright and
I’m never gonna apologize for America
but I’m not gonna make any freakin
excuses either right now what are we for
I can sure as hell tell you what we’re
against but what the hell are we for all
right and the only way we can actually
come to grips with this idea of what a
nation is for is we got to come to grips
with this idea of grand strategy it’s
the only organizing logic the only
discipline that allows us to take on
what the cause of this nation ought to
be and I think that was the sense of
Admiral Mike Mullen in 2009 when he was
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
when he asked me when I was a Marine
colonel and a Navy captain named Wayne
Porter to consider this idea of grant
strategy what it’d be the direction that
our nation could take so we could pursue
or enduring interests of prosperity and
security in this new 21st century world
all right
and I don’t know whatever my mother
wanted us to do but what ed Wayne and I
ended up getting out was this document
called the National strategic narrative
and what does that mean I don’t know it
doesn’t matter but what we wrote was as
in this paper was we hope we really want
to pursue
our enduring interest of prosperity and
security in this new complex dynamic
open systems type of world that we face
we’ve got to get past this manic crazy
focus on threat and risk and maybe just
maybe we had to start looking at
opportunity in the world after all we
are the land of opportunity we’re not
the land of threat and risk right and
maybe just maybe we could take a
different approach to the world and what
as we’ve looked at how the world
dynamics our wealth all the
interdependencies all the connections
the open system nature of it one central
concept kept coming back to us now mind
working for the Admiral Mullen chairman
the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the
Pentagon and about ready to say a word
if there’s any Marines out there please
forgive me all right but we said that in
one concepts got to be sustainability
that organizing logic within a strategic
ecology as we as we call it how this
nation could pursue our enduring
interest of prosperity security that’s
not just because it’s a greeny thing it
pisses me off whenever one says the
sustainability’s green it isn’t
it’s an organizing logic for a system we
as a nation are a system and we looked
at the scientific definition of
sustainability at least the one that we
use was an organism’s ability to remain
diverse and productive over time it maps
directly to our enduring interest of
prosperity and security diversity let’s
look at it diversity means depth
it means redundancy it means resilience
it’s our national capacity to take a gut
punch and come back swinging
that’s where we’ve got to go and if you
think that security is just about the
fence I’m here to tell you there’s a
card-carrying lifetime marine you know
it’s not just about the fence it’s not
about keeping the bad crap from our
shores outward away from us because get
over in America I don’t care if it’s a
hurricane and I don’t care if it’s Isis
something’s gonna happen you’re gonna
skin your little knee you just gonna
have to stand up brush it off you know
and suck it up all right there’s not
enough bubble wrap in all the world to
wrap around every American’s head to
keep you safe so deal with it all right
thank you
but security in a 21st century has more
to do with how do we integrate our
systems of food water energy built
environment transportation education
industry so that we’re actually
addressing the human condition and not
so worried about keeping the bad stuff
away alright but there’s also that thing
in that definition about being
productive that’s what we’re talking
about prosperity but we’re really
talking about growth and we got to come
to grips in this nation that the
quantitative measures of growth are
working for us anymore if you just
consider our physical condition one
third of our nation is clinically obese
our fiscal condition the amount of debt
we have our political condition are you
me our social condition these
are the issues of our time and maybe
just maybe we could take a more
qualitative approach to how we
constitute or how do we look at how we
are productive maybe just maybe we could
take a little lesson from a small
country called Bhutan where they talk
about gross national happiness right
yeah a marine said happiness to hope I’m
not been in your brain too much but just
because but beyond just our enduring
interests a prosperity security
sustainability also maps to a
quintessentially unique American Way of
doing grant strategy but we do grant
strategy we stand on our economy we let
the economy do the heavy lifting and
then we align our governing institutions
and our foreign policy to take on
whatever the big challenge of the age is
and we did in World War two we were the
arsenal of democracy where we
fundamentally set up an industrial
system so we could arm and equip our
allies to take on this big huge thing of
fascism right
we were the arsenal of democracy it’s a
beautiful thing and it worked by the end
of the war seventy percent of all the
Allied war materials coming out of an
American factory what a what a surprise
and in the Cold War Eisenhower’s
brilliance was that he focused on the
economy yeah we contained the Soviets
with our military but it was a contest
of political and economic systems where
we had faith in democracy but we also
did the hard work of building the
industrial capacity the economy to take
on the Soviet Union
and outlast them and it worked but today
we still have that opportunity but we
got to come to grips with what is the
challenge that we face and I’m here to
tell you it’s not frickin China it’s not
Iran it’s not North Korea it’s not ice
it’s right here it’s all around us the
challenge of our age is this high mass
slow-moving thing of global
unsustainability the global system is
broken it’s unsustainable and the
problem with this problem is that it’s a
wicked problem it’s that you can’t just
go and reduce it down to components and
just take care of them one at a time you
got to take it on all at once and the
way we look at it is there’s four big
muscle moves within that wicked problem
the first one is economic inclusion all
right now everyone gets scared I think
Al brought up that we’re gonna have nine
and a half billion people stumble around
the planet by the middle of the century
right well the one the number that gives
me a sweaty lip in the middle of the
night is the three billion people we’ve
got to fold into the global middle class
and when they arrive their resource
consumption goes up 300 percent which
leads us to part number two of this big
problem is ecosystem depletion I mean we
are kicking Mother Nature around like
we’ve never done before right now it
takes one-and-a-half plan that’s worth
of resources just to support the human
condition one I have planets when those
3 billion people come in the middle
class that’s going to take
four-and-a-half planets look outside the
window there’s one only one of these
pills spinning around out in the
universe all right got to come to grips
with it and oh by the way if you think
that the old economy the one they happen
when we had before 2008 if we just get
back to there we’ll get out of this
Great Recession well that’s –
all right because we’re not in a Great
Recession we are in a contained
depression with extraordinary
intervention on the part of central
bank’s just to keep an old moribund
calcified economic system alive right
and we had didn’t come to grips with the
fact that 2008 was as big of a
catastrophic catastrophic economic event
as what happened in 1929 at least we had
the wisdom in 1929 to redesign to put in
mechanisms to deal with the world as it
was not how we wished it would be and we
haven’t done that hard work because
we’re even if we could get those things
the old economy going the bottom line is
that it’s crumbling from the inside
which is the fourth component is that
we’re in a resilience deficit now our
systems may be hyper efficient and then
he may be really oh goody gumdrops I’m
so glad all right the problem is that
when that changes of the world start
coming particularly the ones that Mother
Nature is going to throw at us in the
form of climate change those systems are
brittle they can’t deal with them and
they are going to crumble we’ve got to
come to grips with this and yet for some
reason we keep doubling down on an old
economic engine that was formed
post-world War two that ran it’s getting
ran out of gas late 70s early eighties
but we keep doubling down and I don’t
want to bust anybody’s other bubble okay
I don’t know how many bubbles you have
but I’m gonna bust another one all right
if you’re waiting on Washington to make
it happen I don’t know maybe I’m only
one thing from maybe there a little bit
ask up right now all right it ain’t
gonna happen from there all right but
here’s the good news because we’re
freakin Americans there’s an
opportunities way out but first you’ve
got to strap on some uncomfortable
goggles and they’re called
sustainability goggles but if you strap
on those goggles you can see a market
opportunity way out we have a big deep
pools a demand that exists right now in
our economy that remain untapped that
can absorb trillions and trillions of
dollars of corporate cash that’s just
sitting on the sidelines hedge fund cash
that’s just sitting on the sidelines
retirement funds that are just sitting
on the sidelines all right this is a 1.3
trillion dollar economic opportunity on
an annual basis that we just are leaving
on the table and the three big bins of
demand sustainability points us right to
those solutions first we round walkable
communities housing regenerative
agriculture and then a productivity
revolution let’s talk about housing real
quick 60 according to National
Association of Realtors upwards of 60%
of Americans don’t like where they live
more specifically seek the attributes of
walkable communities in their next
housing purchase yet only about 15% of
the market will support that demand ok
60% demand 15% supply man has a freaking
opportunity right and why is that well
we are at the biggest demographic
convergence we’ve seen in a market in a
long time right now baby boomers and
Millennials make them in the majority of
our population well guess what both of
them are seeking the same type of
housing product walkable communities
mixed use mixed income service rich
transit oriented communities I mean baby
boomers the kids are out of that house
they’re downsizing right they don’t want
to live in a double gated community
sorry Hilton Head they don’t live in a
double gated community anymore
you know where the kids take away their
keys they get stuck in a home somebody
shovels applesauce in their face nobody
wants to live that way the AARP is all
over this Aging in place in a community
where people can get around get to
services be engaged in their communities
right and Millennials they don’t want to
go back to the suburbs anymore either at
least how they’re currently designed
they don’t want to go back there how 70%
of them don’t even want a car
good luck living in the suburbs without
a car this is so huge as its historic
this convergence in the marketplace
demographically is three times the level
of demand to what we saw post-world War
two when the GIS were coming home from
the war black demand signal for a
specific type of housing the form of
suburban sprawl fueled our economy
through the late seventies early
eighties this is huge it’s historic it’s
three times that level number two
regenerative agriculture we already
heard al talk and a little bit about
mariculture this is the general this is
a big moneymaker for this nation
according to the OECD we need to
increase global food supply 60 to 70
percent and 100 percent of that has to
be regenerative nature where we fix our
phosphorus and nitrogen cycles where we
restore our waterways where we rebuild
our soils right huge huge opportunity
and right now we have the technology to
make this happen
in the form of regenerative agriculture
we’re talking about controlled
environment egg we’re talking about
mariculture we’re talking about all
those things all right it’s is an
immense opportunity to create a whole
new generation of farmer entrepreneurs
for kids that are looking for a job who
knows maybe something you know when we
talked about earlier maybe somebody
coming and moving home later when you’re
later yours go on and be a farmer kid
because the opportunity exists right
there it just put those some numbers
around that not only are the yields
equivalent to our current what we can
call industrial AG model acre per acre
but there are thirty percent more
productive in times of drought again
climate change comes to mind and oh by
the way per acre three times more
profitable per acre than our current
system when you consider full
externalities it’s huge and then finally
a resource productivity we have the
technology today in the form of advanced
manufacturing advanced materials
renewable energy to fundamentally
restructure our manufacturing base to
feed that three billion new middle class
aspirants and all their desires and how
they’re going to
build their homes and the products that
they’re gonna have we have those
technologies today and just so you know
it’s just not a big wonky arm wave crap
you know that everyone throws around
this stuff matriculates actually down to
Main Street where we can have real jobs
where we can have real small businesses
where we can revitalize our communities
cuz right now in our economy is I’m
sorry this I taught that sat the bottom
right there that’s just from a
presidential study about manufacturing
but it basically just says for every
dollar that any given sector of economy
and cranks out what kind of ancillary
economic benefit they provide do they
create other jobs other businesses etc
right well right now our economy’s
pointed at the right end of this
spectrum with retail trade consumerism
and financial services we only get 55
cents to 63 cents out of those sectors
of extra added benefit which is no
benefit at all but looks what happens
when we captured those three big bins of
demand we focus it directly at the
highest end of that spectrum
first of all with manufacturing a buck
35 next agriculture of all things a buck
20 followed by construction and
transportation but you got a design to
that end I mean know if there is no I
Dream of Jeannie I’m gonna blink my eyes
it’s just gonna happen we have got to
plan and design to this to this
opportunity and I’m a big believer and
if you want a new idea you know read an
old book so you read this guy’s book
anybody know who he is Sir Ebenezer
Howard I love the name evany I wish it
was named Ebenezer I mean you just gotta
have swagger when you’re walking down
the street with a name I gave an easy
right sir heaven easer Howard this
roguish devil he came up with this cool
idea called Lee started the Garden City
movement at the turn of the 20th century
because he looked at the Industrial
Revolution and said man that’s not
treating people too well he was put in
the human condition first so he came up
with this idea could you integrate food
water energy built environment
transportation education industry into a
system that put the human condition at
the center and still reconcile that with
the magic and the beauty of capitalism
and he says yes
and it took off it was great it’s kind
of a forgotten idea but I particularly
like this because he thought about
everything he even thought about
national security in this I know you
can’t read this right now but here here
is an insane asylum and here’s at home
for inebriates now you know where you’re
gonna recruit your Marines I mean we got
it covered
I love it well we’re saying is that we
can dust off that idea with called a
full spectrum sustainability we can do
this today again integrating those
functional sectors to put the human
condition to the center and allow market
forces to drive to that end it’s I mean
it is Adam Smith 101 kind of stop this
is cool stuff right but the problem is
is that everyone we start talking about
they said you really can’t happen in
fact when I was in the Pentagon people
said well your utopia now I think
there’s a law against calling a marina
utopian I mean you can’t do that right I
mean it just it kind of pisses you off
all right but then I finally got off my
but I kind of remember he hate you when
you know sir Thomas Moore wrote the book
utopia in 1516 I mean he was he titled
it that used the title to utopia because
it was a pawn and was little play on
words when you break it down to an
etymological drill on the word utopia
you know it’s Greek you know tapas is
place well there’s two ways you can
spell the u part of utopia there’s no u
way and then there’s an e u way
well the o u way is no place the EU way
is good place which one you freakin won
I know which one I’m voting for all
right I’m typing in on the EU kind in
yeah you know what yeah consider myself
utopian that’s right but I want to get
to that good place but I also listen to
my Navajo friends when they say you
can’t get to a good place in a bad way
we just got to fix our way and if you
want to talk about utopia I bet you the
cats that cranked out this document
we’re a wee bit utopian all right I just
want to point out that the first words
up here you know you know aren’t waiting
on Washington there we the people of the
United States we the people of the
United States in order to form a more
perfect union establish justice insure
domestic tranquility provide for the
common defense promote the general
welfare and most importantly to secure
the blessings of liberty to ourselves
and our posterity posterity you know and
Hubert Humphrey reminds us that those
words in this preamble of our
Constitution our action words they’re
verbs form establish and sure provide
promote secure these words not only to
now articulate the promise of this
country they articulate our obligation
to it our obligation to our kids in our
grand
kids that it’s not our present-day
situation that matters most
it’s about our obligation to them and to
this country into this democracy as
citizens of a government of the people
by the people for the people if you
don’t want a parent for it to have it
perish from this earth we’d better get
off our asses and get it on because
these words require constant tending
constant vigilance just like
sustainability isn’t going to be this
instinct it’s going to be a condition
we’re constantly going to have to strive
for constantly there is no end but I can
tell you this much that if we could
embrace this cause of sustainability if
we could form a grand strategy around
the logic of sustainability not only
would we be subscribing to the best and
finest traditions of this country not
only would we taking on a cause it’s
worthy of our kids and our grandkids but
if we embrace this cause of
sustainability we will in a complete
measure be taking on the cause of all
mankind thank you
[Applause]
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