We are at the defining moment.

All of the oil-producing countries together cannot meet the growing worldwide demand for oil. Nor can all of us together, planet-wide, meet the growing demand for basic natural resources and commodities: copper, steel, concrete, sugar, wood.

Every year from now on we will have less to go around. Less of the plastic, less of the pharmaceuticals, less fertilizer for our food, less electricity.

Oblivious, our leaders promise us still more growth, leading, they say, to prosperity. They talk about preparing our children for global competition yet they spend our dollars on war, refusing to recognize that every dollar we spend on war is a dollar less to prepare our future.

Our infrastructure is crumbling. Everything we built in the past 50 years with a 20, 30, 40 or 50 year lifespan needs replacing. All at many times the cost it took to build in the first place.

Our pension funds are empty. Our biggest industries and companies - GM and Ford among them - are failing. The world is beginning to turn away from the dollar.

It is a failure of our economic system that unable to grow we face collapse. We face bankruptcy on every front. The American consumer - nee citizen - will lead the collapse.

There is no conceivable way to keep the promises we have made to this generation. Not at the Federal level. Not at the state level. Not with prescription drugs. Not with Social Security.

It is a failure of our educational system that we cannot even see such issues of overarching importance. We talk of training our children to compete in a global market but we need them in our local communities.

It is a failure of our political system beyond willful or even criminal negligence. We are responsible. Our lives and the lives of our children depend on the actions we take now.

It is time to put Maine first. Lifeboat Maine. Our next seven generations need land for farms and clean water for fish. Our next seven generations need trees left standing. Our next seven generations need good education - free to those dedicating themselves to improving their communities.

We need local farms and victory gardens. We need solid public transportation and good public health. We need to be largely fossil fuel free by 2020.

We need a lifeboat and we need to start building it now. No one is going to help us. We are on our own.

We here in this little corner of the country we call Maine have a long history of self-reliance. We have watched as some of the nation's economic surges have passed us by, but for what we face now, that appears as a large strength. We in Maine know how to handle ourselves. We have the institutional memory. We know how to invent. We know how to get the job done with the tools in the shed.

Mainers have the inherent sense of long-range planning, even if a succession of politians do not. We need to recognize that wisdom, draw from it, use it, starting now, to survive and prosper in a world on the verge of collapse.

We in Maine can, indeed, get there from here.

We start by ordering the Guard home from war and putting it to work laying rail to connect our communities.

Maine can't wait.