For a decade, our friend and colleague Storm Cunningham has been ahead of the curve on all things green and sustainable – so far ahead, in fact, that his work in restoration and revitalization almost has nothing to do with those overused marketing tropes. Storm’s work declares that if you want a better, healthier, more prosperous world, you don’t sustain what already doesn’t work, you restore places and make them vital. You don’t need to achieve elaborate engineering and magical green algae juice jetfuel to make the world a better place – just start by improving things, right where you, in all ways ecological, economic and social. This can be fixing up houses, improving school systems, restoring aquifers to being healthy parts of the ecosystem – anything that is the opposite of the entropy that plagues our post-industrial world.

In this talk for TedxMidatlantic, Storm has four huge, important messages for the future:

• Sustainable development is at least 200 years too late.
• We, and future generations, can make the world healthier, wealthier and more livable, for a living.
• The process of revitalizing our ecosystems and communities is finally becoming a rigorous discipline with the proper tools and education.
• Restoring the world can also restore peace.

Yup, huge messages. When you’re done with this talk don’t forget to pick up copies of Storm’s two great, in depth books on this emerging discipline The Restoration Economy and reWealth.