Are We On a Path to Sustainability?

A dear friend wrote me just now, apparently a bit depressed about all the green-washing, all the public ignorance and apathy surrounding sustainability, and all the complexities in determining which projects truly are more eco-friendly than others.

She mentioned my piece on Michael T. Klare’s article “How to Fry a Planet,” noting: “He makes a good point, and if I apply that to my current thinking…the petroleum industry is king and everyone else is connected to it, and so if the petroleum industry isn’t moving, nobody else will be, at least not in any meaningful way.”

My friend  laments: “With the technological know-how on this planet, if everyone applied themselves to solve the limitations of renewables, it seems to me we could come up with some solutions a whole lot faster than 100 years.”

She muses about the financial pressures : “No company would introduce any policy that would cause it to miss growth in the next quarter.  They are not about to change from using toxic elements to non-toxic if that would also cause them to miss their numbers.”  She then continues:

And how much are we to blame?  We still buy their products.  When people line up overnight to buy the latest Apple product, are they thinking about where the old product is going to end up?  I doubt it.  They are thinking about the cool new functionality of the product they are about to buy.

How many of us would be willing to do without plastic bags for food storage?  How many people even know how so many of the products we take for granted are made, and that these processes are causing people to get sick?      

When are “we the people” going to take some responsibility? 

If someone happens across the website after Googling “sustainability” and they don’t know much about it, they will think everything is going very well and that these leaders are doing everything they can to move towards a more sustainable future.  I’m not sure that is the case.  There needs to be an educational component to this, and a broader discussion.   And they won’t necessarily know about 2GreenEnergy or similar websites.

So if there is any hope at all for humanity, it will only come if those of us who know the truth tell it at every opportunity.  The odds are so heavily stacked against us already.

So I’m stuck.  Am I missing something? 

I respond:

You’re asking yourself all the right questions.  The problem is that there are no easy answers.  Yes, of course, we all have responsibility here.  Yes, we buy their products – and the governments (that we elect) that are supposedly watching and regulating all this are monstrously corrupt.  And yes, the only real way out is education, i.e., that people need to wake up.  Fortunately, that is the job that you and I perform.

So, are we winning?  I’m not sure.  But I am sure of this: without people like you and me, thoughtfully looking through this and alerting people to what we see, this civilization has no chance of survival whatsoever.  But keep in mind that there are one hell of a lot of us; there are more than 200,000 groups on this planet whose purpose is social and environmental justice.

I think we need to be aware of how complex this all is.  Suppose I buy a raincoat that was made locally with sustainable fibers by people paid a living wage.  But – oops – the water sealant is a chemical the manufacturing of which has terrible consequences.  Of course, all this took me several hours to figure out.  Can we really expect consumers to go through this?

If it happens at all, the migration to sustainability will happen slowly, celebrating the little victories here and there, each of which could add up to a sustainable future.  Let’s be vigorous in our approach, but let’s be realistic.

Perhaps it would be good for you to think of how far we’ve come over the past few years.  If you haven’t seen it, please check out my piece called Hope, Activism and Climate Change.

Thanks for your thoughts.  Hope this helped.  Keep your chin up! 🙂