The Biggest Problem of How You Pollute the World

One is the loneliest number

Here is the problem of how you are polluting the planet.

You see yourself as just one person, rather than as one among eight billion persons.

You might still choose single-use products, or buy more than you need. Everyone wastes, but why?

You honestly feel like it’s not up to you. If you are like me, or almost anyone else, you see the system as immense. Absolutely powerful. You see it as composed of others. You feel that the tiny elite of less than 100 major polluting corporations are working against you. You see your government — any government — as supporting the interests of those polluters. You seldom see yourself as the government.

‘We the people’ is the most powerful idea on Earth.

It was meant to convey the concept of WE, rather than they.

Yes, it was conceived at a time when “We” meant a tiny subset of rich, white, titled, and property owning male elite.

Yet, since then, it has come to mean a biosphere.

We are a biosphere. WE are not even limited to just humans.

One is loneliest number not just because to use a thing once is an awful waste of your living planet, but because one person cannot stop waste and pollution all alone.

Know you are not alone, then. Know it’s best not to waste one resource, or one person. No one is disposable when we join together.

Systems of systems is a better system

Thousands of stories are read each day about the challenges and flaws of our system. But they almost entirely exclude our systems.

Unless you are a flat-earther, our systems come in spheres. Our systems are the living networks of all living beings, enhanced, obviously, by non-living beings: atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere.

In fact, each of these forces is also each a part of the others.

There is no separation between you and pollution, CO2, or what you control if you — we — choose a more viable earth.

Embracing this truth is not an easy fix. It is a hard one. It is a hard truth worth finding.

Just as it took centuries for people to conceive of the idea of equality, it will take great effort for people to see the we in our own empowerment.

Time is not a luxury that we have, however. The time to realize the world is turning toward green and clean is now. Just as planting a tree is better done a decade ago, the best time to realize you are one of us is today.

(Also, get out and actually plant something as soon as you can.)

It’s not all doom and gloom. Things are bad and in need of restoration. It can only happen with all of us, though. Believe it or not, the world is finally turning toward the long-preached ideas of cleaner, more sustainable fuel.

Fuel for machines. Fuel for human bodies. Sustainable practices. Even investment in these cleaner, greener things. The transition is finally envisioned, and beginning to yield results.

Costs of renewables are falling. The common sense of shared access is being realized. The public good of protecting life and diversity is being recognized. We just need YOU.

The financial investment in people and places will never be as high as what we presently pay to subsidize CO2 emissions. That price, as wildfire smoke and storm deaths reveal, is much too high.

Even this realization is beginning to be recognized by every kind of shareholder. And each of us who make wiser choices each and every day are no longer powerless, but empowered.

You are not alone.

Welcome, then, to WE.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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