"By the Time I Grow Up, the World Probably Won’t Exist Anymore"

I had a conversation with my teenage son the other day, a conversation that deeply affected me. He and I were driving home from dinner, and as always when we ride my motorbike together at night, we talked about the day: about what happened at school, about his friends, and about my writing.

Suddenly he said to me:

“Mum, you know what. When people ask me what I want to be or do when I grow up, I normally say that I don’t know.”

I said that that is perfectly fine and also very normal not to know what you want to spend your life doing when you are a young teenager. But that was not what he meant.

He said: “No, I do know what I would like to do, but by the time I am grown up the world probably won’t exist anymore, so it doesn’t really matter. You know, with all the global warming and pollution and stuff.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. I immediately had a horrible feeling in my stomach that he felt like that. No one at his age should have to deal with worries like that, and I had no idea that he did.

So, I responded: “Yes, there are a lot of pollution-based problems for sure, but there are also lots of good things happening, like new sustainable inventions and sustainable design that makes use of trash and cleans up the environment. I read about and meet sustainable pioneers all the time. Of course, the world will exist when you grow up.”

And then he said, which made me a bit happier, as it revealed his beautiful zest for life: “Well, in that case, I want to be an actor or a game designer.”

This conversation with my son made me realise that one of the most vital tasks for the sustainable designer/innovator, if not the most important, is to generate hope for the future by creating products and design solutions that enable us to change our patterns and alternate the lifestyle that has gotten us to where we are now: a world overflowing with waste, affected by climate change, with oppression of workers and animals, and extensive pollution to and extinction of ecosystems.

As one of my friends, art awareness activist Liina Klauss, said when I interviewed her for my blog: “I would say that the human mind is the biggest environmental problem. And, even though it sounds illogical, the human mind will be the solution.”

We are all guilty of contributing to unfair working conditions for those in the manufacturing industry, the enormous amounts of plastic waste in our oceans, the climate changes that are causing an increase in natural disasters, the pollution of our natural resources by consuming the way we do — buying loads of new, cheap, unneeded things every month — by eating lots of meat, by travel- ling by airplanes, by throwing away masses of garbage without thinking about where it ends up, etc.

We do these things, because that is what you do; it is the “normal” way to live in a late-modern developed society, and we don’t question it, or at least not enough and without attempting to change our ways. Because it is the norm, we don’t feel particularly bad or guilty about it either. We are just living our lives, following the trends and customs of our culture, and we don’t consume any more stuff or any differently than anyone else.

Let’s have a look at the concept of guilt for a moment through the eyes of existentialist philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard was very occupied with guilt in his philosophical investigations and was inspired by Socrates. According to Socrates, nobody can will evil, while knowing that it is in fact evil. If we will and choose something that is actually evil, it is because we believe that it is something good, or at least neutral or normal. Therefore, we are able to deny our guilt and excuse ourselves — and that way we feel better about ourselves.

So, does that mean that the more informed we are, the more ethically we act? I presume that to an extent that is how it works, which is also why facts-based and story-based communication about environmental issues are definitely important.

But, however important doomsday scenarios might be in order for us to understand the impact of overconsumption and single-use plastic packaging, they can also be discouraging — as reflected in the anecdote about my son’s despair — we don’t need hopelessness ad stoicism. We need action!

Not enough sustainable action comes out of the current frightening scenarios talked about in various forms of media. Why? Because we are mean or indifferent? No, of course not. As Kierkegaard puts it no one can will evil. I think the problem is that drawing a line between buying a cheap trendy dress and wearing it only once before discarding it or saying “yes please” to that plastic bag to put tomatoes in in the supermarket and the melting Antarctic ice or whales with bellies full of plastic waste is too large a jump to conceptualise.

A large part of the communication about sustainably and environmental issues is communicated as if to a child that you want to eat well using don’t language:

“Don’t use plastic bags,” “Don’t travel by airplane,” or “Don’t buy fast fashion,” or else “something bad might happen.”

There are rarely immediate alternatives served, and the consequences of not stopping our plastic bag, airplane travel, shopping-based behavior are presented as doomsday scenarios: starving polar bears, melting poles, an increased amount earthquakes and other natural disasters like heatwaves and ice storms, etc.

Drawing a line between our personal, individual responsibility, our seemingly insignificant, innocent consumption of fast fashion, single-use plastic and these horrific scenarios is too hard, and so, does not inspire enough civil action.

In order to get involved in the battle against unsustainable usage of natural resources and pollution as well as inequality and oppression it is important to feel engaged; one must feel deeply committed in order to act accordingly—and one must also feel empowered to make a difference.

We are in serious need of sustainable solutions and storytelling that creates bonds and a community feeling, and that enable us all do something.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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