Astronaut descended upon the Plain Green 10 conference last week with high expectations. It was a flurry of inspiring work and interesting perspectives, a testament to how vast and varied the entire sustainability category really is.

Throughout the day, I found myself considering how many of the problems facing sustainability have been or are on the verge of being solved — or at least addressed. If you think about it, there are hordes of problem-solving plans, products and services in the world like efficient lighting, sustainable building materials, alternative fuel sources, and some really brilliant business models to name a few. People are challenging paradigms with such ferocity nowadays that we are bound to make strides.

What occurred to me in the midst of all the fervor is that, ultimately, the fundamental problem is communication. Why else would we have so many pent up solutions, yet still so many unsolved problems at the same time? Why the disconnect? I’m not a math major, but it seems like a solution should cancel out a problem. The bottom line is we cannot expect society to adopt a lifestyle that it knows nothing about or has skewed perceptions of.

For example, processed foods are a problem, but not the real problem. The real problem is that most people don’t understand or even consider the downfalls of shipping food great distances — and full of toxins and additives to boot. There are solutions, if only someone could communicate the merits. If the idea of local, organic, and fairly produced food clicked in the minds of the greater population, the power of the free market could grab hold and force the processed options into irrelevancy.

You can substitute fuel, poverty, healthcare, or any other issue into that framework; the common denominator will always be the power of the free market and the power of public perception. The role of communication is to connect the dots between problems and solutions with the goal of influencing public perceptions, mobilizing people and agitating an immovable force — think avalanche, stampede, or tidal wave.

Now isn’t that exciting? It’s why we come to the office everyday. It’s why I’m standing on my desk with a trumpet reciting excerpts from The Little Engine That Could. It’s why we’re all accountable. And, hopefully, it’s why Utopia is just around the corner.