The Fork in the Road: The Road Not Taken (By Humanity)

Growing up, I was a ‘weird’ kid. At least, in the United States of the 1960s, I was considered weird. And what made me ‘weird’ was that I loved being out in nature, and loved studying and getting to know all the birds, plants, mushrooms, butterflies, and animals.

When we had outdoor recess at school, sometimes I’d play games or sports with the other kids — but just as often, I’d go off by myself and happily wander around the overgrown edges of the playing field. I’d wonder at the profusion of wild plants and insects, and devour handfuls of luscious blackberries.

It was… delightful! It amazed me that none of the other kids were the slightest bit interested in the natural wonders surrounding us.

The birth and death of environmentalism

Later, in the early 70s, I got to experience firsthand the birth of the ‘environmental movement.’ I was overjoyed during the first-ever Earth Day in 1970, and was soon filled with hopeful optimism: Recycling! Gardening! The Environmental Protection Agency! Environmental Sanity!

Finally, humanity was starting to wake up and relate to life and the earth in new, healthier ways.

It truly seemed as if humanity was turning a corner and embarking on a healing journey down a new and far better road. Yes, it sure seemed that way… for a decade or two. But then harsh reality came crashing in.

Looking back from the vantage point of 2025, it is clear that humanity faced a major choice, a test if you will, over the past 50 years. We came to a decisive fork in the road: we could choose to continue with destructive ‘business as usual,’ or shift our focus and really transform our economies and societies.

What’s clear now is that we pretended — briefly — to do the latter, but soon our self-centered ‘business as usual’ thinking and practices elbowed their way in again and took over (not that they ever fully receded). We lost our healthy forward momentum, and reverted to our former endarkened ways.

We collectively chose the wrong road.

WHY did it all go terribly wrong?

I like to seek out and understand the ‘big picture.’ So, I’ve been contemplating the course of the last 50 years and trying to grasp exactly why it all went so terribly wrong.

After much research and analysis, I’ve come to some stark and frightening conclusions. To me, it’s clear that all the various movements toward greater awareness, responsibility, and social justice — including the civil rights movement, women’s liberation and feminism, men’s liberation, equal rights for LGBTQ+ folks, and the environmental movement — posed imminent or actual threats to the ‘powers that be’ and their capitalist and/or patriarchal belief systems.

There were four major shifts we needed to make if these movements, and especially the environmental movement, were to spread, grow, and be effective. In the U.S., these shifts included reining in our capitalist excesses, developing cost-effective ways to reuse and recycle most materials, finding ways to limit or reverse our rapid population growth, and passing the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) for women.

But lo and behold, none of these things became major priorities for us, and none of them came to full fruition.

It’s beyond the scope of this essay to explore all of these major issues, so I’m going to focus only on environmental and population issues. But these two issues alone reveal the utter contempt we (humanity) have shown toward our wondrous Earth. They reveal the intense selfishness underlying both capitalism and our over-the-top population growth.

For any meaningful environmental movement to spread and thrive, we needed to find ways — fast! — to control or limit both capitalism and our global population. Yet, we were unwilling to do either.

Sure, we made polite noises about ‘caring for the planet’ and slowing global warming, but our actions almost always supported more growth, intensive capitalist ‘development,’ and an uncontrolled population boom.

We totally blew it.

It’s the combined ‘population and over-consumption bomb’

Consider this astounding fact: Over just the past 50 years, our global population has more than doubled, from just 4.069 billion in 1975 to 8.2+ billion today. This means that, in reality, the environmental movement never stood a chance.

That’s because our rapid population growth was accompanied by the out-of-control spread of capitalism, consumerism, global over-consumption, and global waste and pollution. These four factors became an unstoppable juggernaut, rampaging over our planet and turning the ‘environmental movement’ into a sick, sad joke. Most former ‘third world’ nations, for example, are still busily trying to catch up with our Western ‘consumer freedoms’ and excesses, and have NO intention to back off or slow down.

And why should they? They are just ‘catching up’ to US, after all, and to their minds have every right to do so. But their out-of-control ‘growth,’ combined with our out-of-control ‘growth,’ has effectively doomed both the environmental movement and any hope of reining in our fast-growing population. Hell, despite the much-lamented decreases in human fertility, our global population is still increasing by around 70-80 million every… single… year, like clockwork.

That’s 70-80 million more mouths to feed every year… which requires even more agricultural and industrial development… which depletes our global resource base even faster… and also contributes greatly to the ongoing pollution of our planet and the rapid collapse of many ecosystems and animal species.

The past 50 years have proceeded like a vast global ‘Ponzi scheme,’ in which (some of) the current human denizens of Earth make out like bandits while later generations will be stuck paying the humongous bill… or, worse, be relegated to deprivation, starvation, and suffering. And that’s not even taking into account all the animal, insect, and bird species that will suffer or even disappear completely.

Dammit, it didn’t have to be this (crazy, suicidal) way!

The saddest thing of all is that it didn’t have to be this way. In the 1970s and early 80s humanity began to wake up and reform our stubborn, selfish ways. We were collectively starting to create a viable path forward; we were presented with a true ‘fork in the road’ of human destiny.

We started down this new path, ablaze with optimism — but then the forces of greed, selfishness, and ‘convenient’ consumption (laziness) came roaring back and overruled ecological and environmental awareness and progress. From that point on — starting in the late 80s — our collective fate was sealed.

We could have chosen — really and deeply chosen — a much better and saner path forward. But apparently, humanity just wasn’t ready, or strong enough to counteract rampant greed, ignorance, and non-awareness.

We could have made the right, healing choice — and for a brief period, we started to. But then this new direction collapsed — or more accurately, was intentionally murdered by the greed-heads and rabid ‘growth’ proponents. It was a slow-motion murder — but murder, nonetheless.

Now, just a few decades later, it’s truly too late. All our pious ecological platitudes and well-meaning (unmet) climate goals mean nothing in the face of dire ecological mayhem, growing climate disruptions, and the accelerating ‘sixth extinction.’

We were on our way. We could have made it.

We could have changed direction and saved both humanity and millions of other species. But we took the wrong road, and now the ecological and societal destruction we’ve unleashed is getting increasingly out of control.

Oh, how I yearn for that other road. How my heart yearns for that wiser, saner reality we were starting to envision and create.

I am thoroughly, painfully disappointed in humanity.

Every day, I deeply miss that healing, inspiring, nature-respecting road — the road not taken. And I hate and despise the way humanity totally blew our final opportunity.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.