Page 74 - The Drucker Lectures

Politics and Economics of the Environment [ 55

a plan and a thought-through program rather than good vibra-
tions, which are not particularly useful in this enterprise. We’d
better insist on concentration and work rather than permit rush-
ing around.
For an old ecologist, it is wonderful not to feel totally alone
any more, as I have felt for a long time, and to see all those
friends and all the people who share my concern. It is wonder-
ful to see all the people who are in effect truly conservative—for
there is no more conservative cause in the most profound sense
of the word than the maintenance of the balance between man
and his environment and between man and man and between
man and his values.
But as an old ecologist I am also getting impatient. It’s been a
long time. If we don’t convert all this heat into light and all this
excitement into work, we will, I am afraid, be badly frustrated
and soon give up on the environment. Excitement cannot be
sustained unless there are results. And so what I am concerned
with is not activity but results. What I am concerned with is not
what is wrong with the world but what do we have to do to put
it right.

From a talk delivered as part of the Claremont Colleges Annual Lecture
Series.