Goal isn’t to pollute “a little bit” less or even “a lot” less. It’s zero if you want to sustain human life and civilization.
Yesterday’s post, What is right amount to pollute? Zero is the only answer that sustains human life, puts most sustainability efforts in a new light.
Articles suggesting “ten little things you can do to help the environment” seem woefully out of touch. Think of great atrocities and wars of the past. Would “ten little things you can do” have helped stop them?
Our failure at sustainability is a failure of imagination and leadership. People can’t envision all humans stopping polluting and nobody is putting them on track. Every environmentalist I can think of, save one or two, is addicted to behavior that keeps them from suggesting everyone stop polluting. I hear no message that we will prefer living without polluting. We’ll wish we had transitioned earlier. We won’t want to go back. We’ll cringe at the excuses we today accept, in the way an addict accepts whatever it takes to get his or her hit.
The goal isn’t to live how you normally do with small changes, like a car’s motor being electric instead of gas-powered. That change still pollutes, a lot. The goal is to stop polluting.
Polluting means hurting other people.
Again: Polluting means hurting other people. It’s not necessary for life, liberty, happiness, health, or longevity. Yes, society makes it easier to pollute. We have to change society. That’s the point. Little changes don’t change society.
How much do you accept hurting people unnecessarily? How much do you like people hurting you?
See more thought-provoking memes like the ones with Buddha and Jesus at my post, Imagine well-known people responding how we do to the environment.
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On initiative, leadership, the environment, and burpees