The average of zero and a negative number is still negative so we all have to live sustainably, not just some of us.
I generally define sustainability as not lowering the amount of multicellular life earth can sustain. Single-celled life turns out to comprise a lot of life and our behavior may not affect it, but I’m partial to humans and the life we depend on, like other animals, plants, and fungi.
Humans have decreased the amount of life. If sustainability keeps the number unchanged, it’s like a zero net affect. Unsustainability means a negative number. Regenerative means a positive number.
We can only regenerate for so long based on energy from the sun, which powers photosynthesis. Nothing else has been shown to work in the long term, so regenerative doesn’t last long term.
What remains is living sustainably and unsustainably. Today, nearly everyone lives unsustainably. That is, whatever our individual contributions, they’re all negative numbers. The average of many negative numbers is a negative number.
Say many of us start living sustainably. Then many of those negative numbers would become zero. Again, maybe some might live regeneratively for a while, meaning their contributions would be positive, but they’d eventually return to zero or a negative number.
The average of many negative numbers with some zeros is still negative, so even if many people live sustainably, humanity overall remains unsustainable.
The average of eight billion zeros and one negative number is still negative. I’m speaking loosely here, since a few could live regeneratively to make up for a small number of people living unsustainably, but the conclusion is that each and all of us have to live sustainably for humanity overall to live sustainably.
If you think you can fly and drive while other people fix the deadly effects of your polluting and depleting, you’re lying to yourself. We all have to live sustainably for us all overall to live sustainably. Otherwise, we’re still heading toward collapse.
It bears repeating: The average of zero and a negative number is still negative so we all have to live sustainably, not just some of us.
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