Environmentalists talk about the possibility of a future collapse. They talk about the harm happening far away.

I don’t want to take away from those problems and risks, but they are missing what’s happening here and now with all of us.

We can’t look our children in the eye and tell them they’ll live in a safer, healthier, more secure world. Since we can’t, we tell them what we do doesn’t matter, that only governments and corporations can make a difference on the scale we need, and dozens of other rationalizations and justifications. Since enough of us say it enough times, we act as if we’ve convinced ourselves of them.

Once we believe them, or act as if we do, we keep doing what makes the world less safe, secure, and healthy. So most people probably don’t say it out loud to their children, but they know they are making their children’s worlds and future less safe, secure, and healthy. We can make up reasons—that is, more rationalizations and justifications, like that we can’t help it or we don’t want to—but they don’t stop that we buy plastic, fill our gas tanks, and so on.

That’s how twisted up inside we’ve become: instead of looking our children in the eye and telling them we’re helping them, we hurt them, don’t look them in the eye, and think or say, “I hope you’ll fix the problems we contributed to. Good luck!”

They know our parents hoped we would fix the problems but we’re exacerbating them.

Are you a free market advocate?

Maybe all this care talk isn’t your style. Maybe you believe free markets allocate resources to people who can solve problems best. As long as we let prices reflect values and let people trade freely, the market will enable people to solve problems.

Well, pollution destroys life, liberty, and property and government doesn’t just not stop it, more than allowing it, government profits from allowing me to destroy your life, liberty, and property by polluting. Allowing pollution means we live not in a free market but a coercive one. No one consents to getting cancer from carcinogens or kids being born with birth defects from endocrine disruptors. Cancer and birth defects aren’t externalities. They are what even the most small-government advocates say what government must do: to protect life, liberty, and property.

Without that protection, people don’t benefit from civilization. What motivation do you have to work, improve your life, and trade with others if you expect the fruits of your labor can be taken or destroyed. You have to protect yourself. We become isolated and lose civilization.

An Alternative: the Spodek Method workshops

My point isn’t to bring people down, only to show polluting and depleting affect everyone here and now, including you and me. It undermines our lifestyles, futures, families, and civilization.

There is a way out. The Spodek Method transforms individuals and societies. I won’t cover it exhaustively here, but you can read about the workshop teaching it here.

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