My book Sustainability Simplified treats addiction in depth because it’s so connected to our environmental problems. All of those problems result from our behavior. We aren’t stopping behavior putting civilization at risk, harming people globally. Read the book for more detail, but I think you can see our dependence on polluting and depleting qualifies as addiction.

If you want to overcome an addiction, whom do you ask for help: people who have overcome similar addictions or people who do it the most and don’t stop?

If you want to overcome a heroin or cocaine addiction, would you ask help from someone who has overcome a heroin or cocaine addiction or people who use the most heroin or cocaine and aren’t even trying to stop?

If the answer is obvious to you, I think you’ll conclude that the last places we should look for advice on sustainability are Washington DC, Silicon Valley, academia, car manufacturers electric or otherwise, or power companies. They may know their fields, but they know nothing about stopping what they do most of. They don’t know they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Making something you’re addicted to more efficient leads to using more, not less. They want to keep doing what they’re doing.

• ← More reasonable thoughts on population
• See the video from Monday’s book reading →