…is for those who think that life is about something more than being consumers and producers and who see the necessity for a far reaching change in our way of living on planet Earth.

The HOPE Project was founded by Ingemar Warnstrom, founder of the non profit organisation CANHELP, and the Holma college of Holistic Studies in Sweden. In this extract from the Book of Hope’ he says that humankind present– ly faces ecological, economical, ethical and spiritual crises. There are crises in the relationship between nations, be-tween individuals and between mankind and nature. It should be obvious to any-one that a profound change is necessary, based on new ways of thinking and looking at life. We need to introduce new understandings of how to relate to our fellow human beings and to nature.

What we have to do at this critical moment in Earth’s history is to change the direction of our civilisation. It is time to move from being competitive-based to becoming cooperative-based, from fighting each other to helping each other, from greed to sharing. We must turn from the mere striving for profit to the search for meaning, commodifying nature to realising that we are part of nature and must treat it with respect and care. Is this realistic? The answer is: Yes! Not only is it realistic, it is the only sustainable way forward. It is also economically superior to other direct-ions. The old direction, based on competition, automatically led to tension and animosity between in-dividuals, between groups of people and between nations. If we continue in the old direction we can be sure that there will be continued spending of immense amounts of money on the military.

The world’s annual military spends amounts up to 780,000,000,000 US dollars which is far more than the cost for solving all the major human and environmental problems facing us. This is not realistic!

In a world based on confidence instead of fear, generosity instead of greed, cooperation instead of comp-etition, necessary resources would be available for solving all the Earth’s burning problems. The reasons for terrorism would cease to be! The real enemies of humanity today are fear, greed and ignorance.

How do we get there? Athough largely unknown, many people are there already. New ways of relating are practised by an increasing number of people and organisations all over the world.
FURTHER INFORMATION : The first book of HOPE , HOPE-WAVE Fund Raising Foundation and Bokforlaget INSIKT. ISBN 91−87304−09−0 00:00:01
WEB SITE : http://​www​.hope​.se