If we can spend $1 trillion on the Iraq war, then we can afford $1 trillion for a new American Dream.

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In a world that is speeding up while its health is increasingly threatened, what do we need? More speed? More power? Ever-greater military expenditures? More pharmaceuticals? Perhaps that. But we also need something else: a real alternative.

The seeds of such an alternative were contained in remarks at a recent conference when a speaker suggested that our view of terrorism as something that can be killed, the way antibiotics kill bacteria, is deeply flawed. “Terrorism,” the speaker argued, “is a virus. We cannot kill it. We can only manage it.”

If a trillion dollars seems like a lot, then view it in the context of the $2 trillion a day that speeds through Wall Street.

Terrorism is a virus. Overheated globalization is a virus. Unbridled consumerism is a virus. Internet addiction is a virus. Global warming is a symptom of a global virus.

Our world is heating up, and we are not going to be able to eradicate the causes by staring at our computer screens. We have to deploy our financial resources in new, healthier ways. We have to learn to measure our investment success not only by the size of our portfolios, but by the worth of our portfolios, as indicated by the degree to which they enhance or degrade our quality of life and the quality of life of those who come after us.

We cannot expect Wall Street or the philanthropic sector to invent this new kind of investing. At least not fast enough. The task at hand requires galvanizing political leadership. What is called for is a new kind of national investment, an investment that leads in the direction of a new kind of strength – strength measured in healthy households and healthy communities and healthy bioregions rather than in megatons and nanoseconds and market indices.

If this sounds far-fetched or just plain impractical, remember this: The emergence of a patient capital marketplace is already underway. Millions of entrepreneurs, consumers and investors are spending billions of dollars a year for products, services and companies that are steering us toward sustainability. The social investment sector has experienced dramatic growth in recent years. The nexus of venture capital, social enterprise and philanthropy is dynamic. Yet the old habits of “feeding the plant” die hard, and new methods of “feeding the soil” are still in their infancy.

A trillion dollars of patient capital is not the sole answer, but it is the key to a family of answers that have the potential to reorient the juggernaut of production, consumption and pollution that threatens irreparable damage to the web of life.

Faced with the urgency of the global situation, a trillion dollars of patient capital is not overly bold. It is merely appropriate. It is sufficient. It is prudent. Anything less is a derogation of our moral and fiduciary duty to future generations.

The Next Trillion will attract legions of talented portfolio managers and financial entrepreneurs and economic theorists. It will foment social entrepreneurship and financial innovation. There will be plenty to learn, including the development of new benchmarks and new metrics such as “social return on investment” and “living returns.” Plenty of mistakes will be made along the way.

But none so egregious as the trillion-dollar mistake we are now living through and in which we have all been complicit. Nor can we risk making the mistake of inaction, no matter how daunting the world situation.