Facing Our Future

From denial to environmental action.

Watch the related video: The masks we wear obstruct our vision and threaten to destroy our future.

Foreward by His Holiness The Dalai Lama

As we approach the end of the twentieth century our world has become smaller and more interdependent. We are united by many positive ties and linked by world-wide communications. However we are also drawn together by the problems that confront us: overpopulation, dwindling natural resources, and an environmental crisis which threatens the very existence of the planet that sustains us. Naturally, faced with such global problems, the individual may feel helpless and overwhelmed. But, to begin with in the context of this new interdependence, even self-interest clearly lies in considering the interest of others.

To meet the challenges that confront us, we must develop a greater sense of responsibility. Each of us must learn to work not just for ourself, our family or nation but for the benefit of all mankind and the generations who will succeed us. This need to cooperate can only strengthen the human community.

Jim Cole’s Facing Our Future aptly illustrates these points. He shows that ignoring or turning away from such problems is no solution. They can only be tackled by acknowledging they exist and concern us all. This will form the basis for actually working together to resolve them.

July 5, 1991

His Holiness The Dalai Lama