Majora Carter: 三个生态行动主义的故事

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http://dotsub.com/view/508bb43b-c216-45e9-a93a-0f5f6806984d
Majora Carter: 三个生态行动主义的故事
今天，我要向大家介绍一些人， 他们一直在各自的街区里工作。 第一位就在芝加哥。 布兰达·帕尔姆-法尔伯的工作 是帮助刑满释放人员重返社会 以免他们重蹈覆辙。 目前，若有一人入狱， 那么纳税人每年就要 支付六万美元。 三分之二的刑满释放人员最后又回到了监狱。 我觉得很有意思， 我们为“启蒙教育”等早期教育 每花一美元， 在将来， 就能在送人入狱这些事情上节省十七美元。 大家想想－那六万美元 把一个人送到哈佛大学读书 都绰绰有余了。
但布兰达并没有拘泥于这些限制， 她审视了眼前的挑战 想出了 一个不那么兴师动众的解决方法： 开办一庄生意， 用蜂蜜的提炼物来生产护肤品。 也许对于你们一些人来说这再自然不过了；但是我不这么看。 扶植真正有无限潜力的社会创新， 这是起步阶段。 她聘请那些别人不愿聘用的人 来照顾蜜蜂，收割蜂蜜 加工产品， 并自己做市场推广， 最后把成品放在全食超市销售。 她把工作与培训结合在一起， 教授员工一些必要的生活技能， 教他们如何控制愤怒情绪，如何进行团队合作， 如何向后来的员工 传授自己的经验， 告诉他们自己所学到的经验教训 以及他们对学习的热情。 经过她聘用的这些人员中 仅有不到百分之四的人 再次入狱。 这些年轻人通过养殖蜜蜂 不仅得到了工作培训，学会了生存技能， 还成为了有作为的好公民。 这真是一个美好的开始。
现在我要带你们到洛杉矶。 很多人都知道 洛杉矶有很多亟待解决的问题。 但是我要讲的是洛杉矶的用水问题。 该市经常缺水， 而一旦下雨，过多的雨水又成了问题。 目前，加利福尼亚州 百分之二十的能源消耗 主要被用于向南加州 调水的工程。 他们花了大把大把的金钱 将雨水疏导至大海， 一旦下雨，这里就会发大水。 安迪·利普基斯的工作 就是帮助洛杉矶 削减水利工程以及城市热岛效应相关的基础建设开支－ 把人，树木和科技联系起来 进而创造更适合居住的城市。 那些绿色的东西能够自动吸收大量雨水， 并且帮助城市降温。 我们应该这样想： 你真正需要的是空调， 还是一个凉爽的房间？ 不管使用那种方法，只要能够达到预期的效果就行了。
就在几年前， 洛杉矶 决定投入二十五亿美元 整修全市的学校。 安迪和他的团队得知 政府将把其中两亿美元 用于给学校四周的路面铺上沥青。 通过展示一个非常经济实惠的案例， 他们说服洛杉矶政府改变计划， 将沥青 换成绿树和其它绿化带， 这样学校在绿化建设方面 节省更多人力物力。 最后，铺两千万平方英尺沥青路的计划 被取消了， 同时，使用空调所需的电力消耗降低了， 绿化带需要人照顾， 这样，许多人找到了工作， 成本就这样被降低了， 同时，师生们得到了更健康洁净的生活环境。
这是朱蒂·邦德斯。 一个煤炭工的女儿。 她家庭的八代人 都住在西弗吉尼亚州一个叫做怀茨威尔的小镇上。 如果有谁会以这个小镇 光辉的煤炭开采史为荣， 以小镇为荣， 那非朱蒂莫数了。 然而，现在的煤炭开采 对比过去她的父亲 以及祖父当年在深井里 几千人同时作业的开采方式，大不相同。 现在只要二十几个人 就能在几个月内把一座山开采一空， 而开采出的煤炭只够使用几年。 这种开采技术叫做山顶煤炭开采法。 它能使一座山在短短数月里 从这样变成那样。 想像一下周围的空气质量－ 到处弥漫着易爆物和煤炭残渣。 我们去到那里的时候，同行的一些人 莫名其妙地开始咳嗽 我们只在那里停留了几个小时－ 不仅是矿工，所有人都有同样症状。
朱蒂眼睁睁看着家园被破坏， 水体被污染。 煤矿公司一旦把山挖空 就一走了之， 使越来越多矿工下岗。 然而，她还看到了一座完整山体上风能的潜力 比另一座 海拔相对低了两千英尺的山体 要多出许多。 用三年时间来开采污染环境的能源， 相比开发能够持续几百年的清洁能源，究竟哪个更合算呢？ 前者会使许多人丢了工作，而后者却有潜力发展专业技能， 提高技术效率， 根据当地情况 最大程度地开发和利用风力资源。 她计算了初始成本 以及回报， 结果表明这对地方，国家，乃至全球经济 都会带来更高的净收益。 相比开采山顶煤矿，风能可以带来长期回报， 而且这种风能源回报甚至是永久的。 开采山顶煤矿给当地居民的回报很小， 并且还让他们吃了不少苦头。 原本洁净的水变成了臭水。 大多数人没有工作， 由此，这里的失业人群 与大城市里失业的人们面临着同样的社会问题－ 吸毒，酗酒 家庭暴力，未成年少女怀孕以及糟糕的健康状况。
现在朱蒂和我－我可以这么说－ 我们志同道合。 我们关系铁得很。 你看，她的家乡是西弗吉尼亚州的怀茨威尔。 他们不是－ 他们可没在跟时尚嘻哈达人争地盘， 压跟就没有。 但是，在她送我的T恤衫背面， 写着：“拯救濒临灭绝的乡巴佬”。 就这样宅女和乡巴佬走到了一起， 非常明确各自的使命。 然而就在几个月前， 朱蒂被诊断 患有晚期肺癌。 真的。 而且已经蔓延到了她的骨头和大脑。 这真是太荒唐了， 她竭尽全力帮助人们防止肺癌， 而自己却得了肺癌。 但是她的 “煤河山风力发电项目” 仍将继续。 也许，她等不到 项目建成的那一天了。 她并没有仅仅留下 一纸宣言， 而是她正详细制定 实施项目的具体计划。 我的这位姐妹正在忙这件事情。 我为她感到骄傲。
（众人鼓掌）
这三个人 彼此并不相识， 但是他们有着惊人的相似之处。 他们都是解决问题的带头人， 我非常幸运能够结识他们并且向他们学习， 我在工作中见识到了许多榜样， 他们就是其中几位模范。 我很幸运地将他们的事迹 作为主秀展示在我的网络公共广播电台的节目 “应许之地（ThePromisedLand.org）”中。 他们都是有远见的实业家。 他们仔细审视眼前的需求－ 美容产品，健康的校园，电力－ 并想办法满足这些需求。 如果你想通过削减员工人数 来解决问题， 那么将有许多人失业， 而这些人可不是省油的灯。 事实上，我认为他们是“最奢侈的公民”， 他们其中有许多人是从中东战场上 退伍回乡的伤兵，他们世世代代贫穷，受伤痛之苦； 另外还有刑满释放人员。 拿那些老兵来说， 根据退伍军人事务部公布的数据， 自2003年以来退伍军人服用的精神方面的药物增加了六倍。 我认为这个数字目前仍然在上升。 他们并不是最庞大的群体， 但却是开销最大的群体之一。 他们是家庭暴力，吸毒酗酒的高危人群， 他们的子女在学校普遍不如其他家庭的孩子， 由于承受巨大压力，他们的身体健康非常差。 我所提到的这三位 都懂得如何有效地 把资金引入地方经济 以满足市场需求， 解决现存的社会问题， 并防止新问题的产生。
这样的例子数不胜数。 例一：废物处理与失业问题。 当我们思考或讨论如何回收利用时， 许多可回收物品已经被焚化或掩埋了， 这加大了城市的回收分流难度， 使回收过程更复杂。 这些废物都在哪里被处理？一般在贫困的社区里。 大家知道，在生态工业的运作模式中- 有这样一种模式，它在欧洲被称为生态工业园区。 在这里，你既可以把一家公司的废物交给另一家公司做原料， 也可以把材料回收利用 生产出新的商品。 我们可以在当地鼓励和创造这样的当地市场需求， 使回收后的材料 成为制造业的原材料。 在我家乡，我们已经在布朗克斯区尝试过这种模式， 可惜我们的市长 更想在那里建一个监狱， 幸好- 我们本想可以创造几百个就业机会- 而多年以后， 这个城市居然决定在这里建造监狱， 感谢上苍，政府已经打消了这个念头。
还有一个问题：不健康食品以及失业问题。 工人阶级以及城市贫困的美国人 并没有从现有的食品体系 得到经济利益。 这个体系过度使用交通运输， 化学肥料，大量水资源， 以及冷藏处理。 大规模农业操作 不仅污染了水源以及土壤， 还生产出对人体健康危害极高的产品 让我们在医疗卫生方面损失了大把金钱， 并降低了生产力。 同时，城市农业 现在成为了一个热点话题， 但它是以园艺为主的， 这对社区建设具有重大意义- 但是却不能增加就业机会， 也不能对食品生产做贡献。 园艺在这些方面的作用不显著。 我的任务之一就是 为把城市农业与农产品体系结合起来做准备工作， 这样就能创造出一个城市农业的国内品牌， “千里送荔枝”的现状就会尽早退出历史舞台了， 这样，每个城市 都能使用本地耕种资源 增加个体农户所拥有和经营的 室内种植设施， 而现在这个市场里只有消费者。 这可以很好地扶持大城市里的季节性农户， 他们由于无力满足 全年生产的需求而逐渐衰落。 这不是在抢乡村农户的饭碗， 而是助他们一臂之力。 这是一个良性的 具有经济活力的食品体系。
它目标在于满足城市里 来自医院， 养老院，学校，托儿所的需求， 并能创造一个地方就业网络。 这是非常精明的基础设施安排。 我们对城市环境的建设 每时每刻都影响着人们的健康与幸福。 我们城乡地区的政府 负责基础设施的具体操作事项- 包括废物处理，能源需求， 由失业，辍学，入狱所带来的社会损失， 还有公共医疗成本的种种影响。 精明的基础设施管理 能够帮助城乡政府 协调好基础设施和社会需求。 我们希望 把那些光靠社会税收救济的人群 转变为纳税人。 想象一下：一个能够创造地方就业机会， 巧妙布置基础设施，并提高地方经济稳定的 全国性商业模式。 希望大家能够看到这里有一个主题。
这些事例反映了一个趋势。 这不是我有意制造的，也不是一个巧合。 我早就发现这趋势已经在全国范围内发生了， 更令人开心的是，这趋势正不断增强。 而且，我们都必须参与进去。 这是我们国家经济复苏的重要基石。 我把它成为“国土安全”。 经济的衰退让我们惊慌失措， 然而，这些天来，另一股力量 正在孕育而生。 那就是我们意识到了 经济复苏的关键 在于我们自身。 现在，我们应当行动起来 忧地方所忧，为当地社区做实事。 不管我们的邻居 是住在隔壁，住在邻州， 还是住在邻国- 我们都能给他们造福。 当地的总和就是全球。 “国土安全”的意义在于重建自然防御， 给人们工作， 重筑自然系统。 “国土安全”意在为家园创造财富， 而不是糟蹋千里之外的财富。 把社会问题与环境问题结合起来 同时用同一方法解决， 能够节省大量人力物力， 创造财富，并保障国家安全。 许许多多绝妙的点子 在美国各地迸发。 我们目前所面临的问题是 如何找到并扶持更多的好点子。
尽管“国土安全”有照顾好自己的意思， 但这跟“仁爱先及亲友” 还是有本质区别的。 我最近读了一本名为《爱的领导力》的书，作者是约翰·霍普·布莱恩特（John Hope Bryant）。 书中写道，在一个被恐惧所充斥的世界里 如何成为一个领导人。 读了这本书以后，我重新审视了我的理论， 因为我必须清楚地解释其中的道理。 大家看，这是我父亲， 他在很多方面都非常出色。 他在种族隔离时期的南方长大， 在最艰苦的时期， 逃过了私刑的迫害， 他给我和兄弟姐妹们提供了一个安稳的家， 他还帮助了许多生活困难的人们建立了自己的家。 但是，和所有人一样，他有些坏毛病。 （笑声） 他沉迷赌博， 无法自拔。 对于他而言“仁爱先及亲友” 意味着我的发薪日或其他人的发薪日 正好就是他赌博发财的那一天。 他需要帮助。 有时候，我会把学校打工和暑假工作挣得的钱 借给他， 他只要手气好， 就会坚持连本带利 把钱还给我。 有时候，他很幸运，信不信由你， 他在洛杉矶的赛马场上赢了一些钱- 洛杉矶受欢迎的原因之一- 那时是二十世纪四十年代的事了， 他赚了一万五千美元现金， 买下了一间房子，我就是在这间房子里长大的。 对此，我并没有什么意见。 但是，我对他应负有义务之责。 我渐渐长大。 现在我已经是成年人了。 在成长的过程中，我学会了很多道理。
对于我而言， 仁爱往往意味着给予， 是你分内的事情， 是你一直在做的事情， 也可能是你一厢情愿的付出。 我认为仁爱是 推动事情的发展 将最初的投入增值和最大化， 而不是为下一年增大投入- 我不想纵容父亲的坏毛病。 我花了几年时间 观察那些意在 帮助并支持社区的 良好动机 如何让人们 裹足不前。 在过去的20年里， 我们为解决社会问题 花了不少善款， 然而教育的成果， 营养不良，牢狱， 肥胖，糖尿病，工资分配不均等问题 都在加剧，也有例外 比如贫困人口中 婴儿死亡率有所下降- 但是我们的目标是让他们过上幸福的美好人生。
我多少了解这些问题的实际情况， 因为我曾在非营利性行业里 工作过很多年。 我现在是一名执行理事， 足足干了两年。 （笑声） 在那段时间里，我意识到， 只有因地制宜地发展 我们才能造福当地社区。 我碰到了资金方面的问题。 我们的工程做得越火， 赞助机构给的钱就越少。 实话说，在同一年里既被邀来在TED讲话， 又获得了“麦克阿瑟奖” 大家都以为我已经是个成功人士了。 其实，为了让我的工作继续下去， 我依靠演讲所获得的收入 支付了我机构三分之一的开销。 早些时候，坦白说， 我的项目也就比计划提前一点完成了。 在此之后， 这一片垃圾掩埋场-我在TED2006年的演讲中重点提到过它- 后来成了这个小公园。 我还在这里举行了婚礼呢。 就在这里。 我的狗正把我牵到婚礼举行的地点。 南布朗克斯绿化带 在2006年还只是图纸上的一幅画。 在那之后，我们得到了 将近五千万美元的一揽子刺激计划资金 来建设绿化带。 我们很开心，我看到施工就很愉快， 应为我们能亲眼见证工程的发展。
我希望大家看到 把公益事业转变为企业事业 是多么重要。 我开办了自己的公司，就是为了帮助全国各地的社区 实践他们的自身潜力 从而进一步从方方面面提高人们的生活质量。 “国土安全” 就是我的下一步行动。 我们需要吸引那些有慧眼的人 向这些类型的当地企业进行投资， 吸引那些愿意和我这样的人合作的伙伴 我们都力求找到发展的趋势，适应气候变化的要求， 并理解商业发展的社会成本 是不断增加的。 我们必须齐心协力， 拥抱并修复我们的土地， 修复电力系统， 并进行自我反省。 不要再为 商业广场，监狱， 体育馆， 和其它设施浪费钱了。 我们应该开始构筑 充满生气的希望长城。
非常感谢大家。
（热烈掌声）

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Majora Carter: 3 stories of local ecoactivism
So today, I'm going to tell you about some people who didn't move out of their neighborhoods. The first one is happening right here in Chicago. Brenda Palms-Farber was hired to help ex-convicts reenter society and keep them from going back into prison. Currently, taxpayers spend about $60,000 per year sending a person to jail. We know that two-thirds of them are going to go back. I find it interesting that, for every one dollar we spend, however, on early childhood education, like Head Start, we save $17 on stuff like incarceration in the future. Or -- think about it -- that $60,000 is more than what it costs to send one person to Harvard as well.

But Brenda, not being phased by stuff like that, took a look at her challenge and came up with a not-so-obvious solution: create a business that produces skin care products from honey. Okay, it might be obvious to some of you; it wasn't to me. It's the basis of growing a form of social innovation that has real potential. She hired seemingly unemployable men and women to care for the bees, harvest the honey and make value-added products that they marketed themselves, and that were later sold at Whole Foods. She combined employment experience and training with life skills they needed, like anger management and teamwork, and also how to talk to future employers about how their experiences actually demonstrated the lessons that they had learned and their eagerness to learn more. Less than four percent of the folks that went through her program actually go back to jail. So these young men and women learned job-readiness and life skills through bee-keeping and became productive citizens in the process. Talk about a sweet beginning.

Now, I'm going to take you to Los Angeles. And lots of people know that L.A. has its issues. But I'm going to talk about L.A.'s water issues right now. They have not enough water on most days and too much to handle when it rains. Currently, 20 percent of California's energy consumption is used to pump water into mostly Southern California. Their spending loads, loads, to channel that rainwater out into the ocean when it rains and floods as well. Now Andy Lipkis is working to help L.A. cut infrastructure costs associated with water management and urban heat island -- linking trees, people and technology to create a more livable city. All that green stuff actually naturally absorbs storm water, also helps cool our cities. Because, come to think about it, do you really want air-conditioning, or is it a cooler room that you want? How you get it shouldn't make that much of a difference.

So a few years ago, L.A. County decided that they needed to spend 2.5 billion dollars to repair the city schools. And Andy and his team discovered that they were going to spend 200 million of those dollars on asphalt to surround the schools themselves. And by presenting a really strong economic case, they convinced the L.A. government that replacing that asphalt with trees and other greenery, that the schools themselves would save the system more on energy than they spend on horticultural infrastructure. So ultimately, 20 million sq. ft. of asphalt was replaced or avoided, and electrical consumption for air-conditioning went down, while employment for people to maintain those grounds went up, resulting in a net saving to the system, but also healthier students and schools system employees as well.

Now Judy Bonds is a coal miner's daughter. Her family has eight generations in a town called Whitesville, West Virginia. And if anyone should be clinging to the former glory of the coal mining history, and of the town, it should be Judy. But the way coal is mined right now is different from the deep mines that her father and her father's father would go down into and that employed essentially thousands and thousands of people. Now, two-dozen men can tear down a mountain in several months, and only for about a few years-worth of coal. That kind of technology is called mountaintop removal. It can make a mountain go from this to this in a few short months. Just imagine that the air surrounding these places -- it's filled with the residue of explosives and coal. When we visited, it gave some of the people we were with this strange little cough after being only there for just a few hours or so -- not just miners, but everybody.

And Judy saw her landscape being destroyed and her water poisoned. And the coal companies just move on after the mountain was emptied, leaving even more unemployment in their wake. But she also saw the difference in potential wind energy on an intact mountain, and one that was reduced in elevation by over 2,000 ft. Three years of dirty energy with not many jobs, or centuries of clean energy with the potential for developing expertise and improvements in efficiency based on technical skills, and developing local knowledge about how to get the most out of that region's wind. She calculated the up-front cost and the payback over time, and it's a net plus on so many levels for the local, national and global economy. It's a longer payback than mountaintop removal, but the wind energy actually pays back forever. Now mountaintop removal pays very little money to the locals, and it gives them a lot of misery. The water is turned into goo. Most people are still unemployed, leading to most of the same kinds of social problems that unemployed people in inner cities also experience -- drug and alcohol abuse, domestic abuse, teen pregnancy and poor heath as well.

Now Judy and I -- I have to say -- totally related to each other. Now quite an obvious alliance. I mean, literally, her hometown is called Whitesville, West Virginia. I mean, they are not -- They ain't competing for the birthplace of hip hop title or anything like that. But the back of my T-shirt, the one that she gave me, says, "Save the endangered hillbillies." So homegirls and hillbillies we got it together and totally understand that this is what it's all about. But just a few months ago, Judy was diagnosed with stage three lung cancer. Yeah. And it has since moved to her bones and her brain. And I just find it so bizarre that she's suffering from the same thing that she tried so hard to protect people from. But her dream of Coal River Mountain Wind is her legacy. And she might not get to see that mountaintop. But rather than writing yet some kind of manifesto or something, she's leaving behind a business plan to make it happen. That's what my homegirl is doing. So I'm so proud of that.

(Applause)

But these three people don't know each other, but they do have an awful lot in common. They're all problem solvers, and they're just some of the many examples that I really am privileged to see, meet and learn from in the examples of the work that I do now. I was really lucky to have them all featured on my Corporation for Public Radio radio show called ThePromisedLand.org. Now they're all very practical visionaries. They take a look at the demands that are out there -- beauty products, healthy schools, electricity -- and how the money's flowing to meet those demands. And when the cheapest solutions involve reducing the number of jobs, you're left with unemployed people, and those people aren't cheap. In fact, they make up some of what I call the most expensive citizens, and they include generationally impoverished, traumatized vets returning from the Middle East, people coming out of jail. And for the veterans in particular, the V.A. said there's a six-fold increase in mental health pharmaceuticals by vets since 2003. I think that number's probably going to go up. They're not the largest number of people, but they are some of the most expensive. And in terms of the likelihood for domestic abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, poor performance by their kids in schools and also poor health as a result of stress. So these three guys all understand how to productively channel dollars through our local economies to meet existing market demands, reduce the social problems that we have now and prevent new problems in the future.

And there are plenty of other examples like that. One problem: waste handling and unemployment. Even when we think or talk about recycling, lots of recyclable stuff ends up getting incinerated or in landfills and leaving many municipalities, diversion rates, they leave much to be recycled. And where is this waste handled? Usually in poor communities. And we know that eco-industrial business, these kinds of business models -- there's a model in Europe called the eco-industrial park, where you either the waste of one company is the raw material for another, or you use recycled materials to make goods that you can actually use and sell. We can create these local markets and incentives for recycled materials to be used as raw materials for manufacturing. And in my hometown, we actually tried to do one of these in the Bronx, but our mayor decided what he wanted to see was a jail on that same spot. Fortunately -- because we wanted to create hundreds of jobs -- but after many years, the city wanted to build a jail, they've since abandoned that project, thank goodness.

Another problem: unhealthy food systems and unemployment. Working-class and poor urban Americans are not benefiting economically from our current food system. It relies too much on transportation, chemical fertilization, big use of water and also refrigeration. Mega agricultural operations often are responsible for poisoning our waterways and our land, and it produces this incredibly unhealthy product that costs us billions in health care and lost productivity. And so we know urban ag is a big buzz topic this time of the year, but it's mostly gardening, which has some value in community building -- lots of it -- but it's not in terms of creating jobs or for food production. The numbers just aren't there. Part of my work now is really laying the groundwork to integrate urban ag and rural food systems to hasten the demise of the 3,000-mile salad by creating a national brand of urban-grown produce that in every city that uses regional growing power and augments it with indoor growing facilities, owned and operated by small growers, where now there are only consumers. This can support seasonal farmers around metro areas who are losing out because they really can't meet the year-round demand for produce. It's not a competition,with rural farm, it's actually reinforcements. It allies in a really positive and economically-viable food system.

The goal is to meet the cities institutional demands for hospitals, senior centers, schools, daycare centers, and produce a network of regional jobs as well. This is smart infrastructure. And how we manage our built-in environment affects the health and well-being of people every single day. Our municipalities, rural and urban, play the operational course of infrastructure -- things like waste disposal, energy demand, as well as social costs of unemployment, drop-out rates, incarceration rates and the impacts of various public health costs. Smart infrastructure can provide cost-saving ways for municipalities to handle both infrastructure and social needs. And we want to shift the systems that open the doors for people who were formerly tax burdens to become part of the tax base. And imagine a national business model that creates local jobs and smart infrastructure to improve local economic stability. So I'm hoping you can see a little theme here.

These examples indicate a trend. I haven't created it, and it's not happening by accident. I'm noticing that it's happening all over the country, and the good news is that it's growing. And we all need to be invested in it. It is an essential pillar to this country's recovery. And I call it home(town) security. The recession has us reeling and fearful, and there's something in the air these days that is also very empowering. It's a realization that we are the key to our own recovery. Now is the time for us to act in our own communities where we think local and we act local. And when we do that, our neighbors -- be they next door, or in the next state, or in the next country -- will be just fine. The sum of the local is the global. Home(town) security means rebuilding our natural defenses, putting people to work, restoring our natural systems. Home(town) security means creating wealth here at home, instead of destroying it overseas, Tackling social and environmental problems at the same time, with the same solution yields great cost savings, wealth generation and national security. Many great and inspiring solutions have been generated across America. The challenge for us now is to identify and support countless more.

Now, home(town) security is about taking care of your own, but it's not like the old saying, charity begins at home. I recently read a book called "Love Leadership" by John Hope Bryant. And it's about leading in a world that really does seem to be operating on the basis of fear. And reading that book made me reexamine that theory because I need to explain what I mean by that. See, my dad was a great, great man in many ways. He grew up in the segregated South, escaped lynching and all that during some really hard times, and he provided a really stable home for me and my siblings and a whole bunch of other people that fell on hard times. But, like all of us, he had some problems. (Laughter) And his was gambling, compulsively. To him that phrase, "Charity begins at home," meant that my payday -- or someone else's -- would just happen to coincide with his lucky day. So you need to help him out. And sometimes I would loan him money from my after school or summer jobs, and he always had the great intention of paying me back with interest, of course, after he hit it big. And he did sometimes, believe it or not, at a racetrack in Los Angeles -- one reason to love L.A. -- back in the 1940's. He made $15,000 cash and bought the house that I grew up in. So I'm not that unhappy about that. But listen, I did feel obligated to him, and I grew up -- then I grew up. And I'm a grown woman now. And I have learned a few things along the way.

To me, charity often is just about giving, because you're supposed to, or because it's what you've always done, or it's about giving until it hurts. I'm about providing the means to build something that will grow and intensify its original investment and not just require greater giving next year -- I'm not trying to feed the habit. I spent some years watching how good intentions for community empowerment, that were supposed to be there to support the community and empower it, actually left people in the same, if not worse, position than they were in before. And over the past 20 years, we've spent record amounts philanthropic dollars on social problems, yet educational outcomes, malnutrition, incarceration, obesity, diabetes, income disparity, they've all gone up with some exceptions, in particular, infant mortality among people in poverty -- but it's a great world that we're bringing them into as well.

And I know a little bit about these issues, because, for many years, I spent a long time in the non-profit industrial complex. And I'm a recovering executive director, two years clean. (Laughter) But during that time, I realized that it was about projects and developing them on the local level that really was going to do the right thing for our communities. But I really did struggle for financial support. The greater our success, the less money came in from foundations. And I tell you, being on the TED stage and winning a MacArthur in the same exact year gave everyone the impression that I had arrived. And by the time I'd moved on, I was actually covering a third of my agency's budget deficit with speaking fees. And I think because early on, frankly, my programs were just a little bit ahead of their time. But since then, the park that was just a dump and was featured at a TED2006 Talk became this little thing. But I did in fact get married in it. Over here. There goes my dog who led me to the park in my wedding. The South Bronx Greenway was also just a drawing on the stage back in 2006. Since then, we got about 50 million dollars in stimulus package money to come and get here. And we love this, because I love construction now, because we're watching these things actually happen.

So I want everyone to understand the critical importance of shifting charity into enterprise. I started my firm to help communities across the country realize their own potential to improve everything about the quality of life for their people. Home(town) security is next on my to-do list. What we need are people who see the value in investing in these types of local enterprises, who will partner with folks like me to identify the growth trends and climate adaptation as well as understand the growing social costs of business as usual. We need to work together to embrace and repair our land, repair our power systems and repair ourselves. It's time to stop building the shopping malls, the prisons, the stadiums and other tributes to all of our collective failures. It is time that we start building living monuments to hope and possibility.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)