A Battle Cry For Future Heroes

Sustainability is about the continued and worthwhile survival of people on this planet. Reducing it to anything less, is not only factually wrong, it is actively contributing to reducing our chances to achieve it. Who are the heroes that thanklessly work to save our children from a miserable future and mass death? 

Anyone advocating that sustainability isn’t an actual problem, is merely a technological challenge about something like energy generation, or that it will resolve itself in time, is a danger to humanity. The scientific proof is there. Science, the only method of proof that we ever accepted as universally true, has been relegated into a corner of a politicized discussion. You cannot argue with gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, or the exponential function. Our planet is literally dying, poisoned, choking to death, materially exhausted, and buckling under the crushing weight of growth oriented economies and materialist consumption.

Wealth and power division has never been so out of balance to critically undermine our justice and policy systems. Yet we try to play along nice, continue to bargain for nationalist economic advantages, as in a marketplace, with systemic failure causing mass starvation, waterfall global migration, and murdering the majority of all life on earth.

Our drive towards survival is not a political one. It is not a right-wing, left-wing, progressive or conservative issue. It is the one thing that all of mankind, no matter anyone’s stance or creed, should fully support. It is the one thing that benefits us all, and all our children, all over the world, for forever. Those that politicize and marginalize this issue cannot have any other motive than self-betterment over the death and suffering of others. Any policy maker trying to negotiate away issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, systemic societal failure, or food deserts should be removed from office as a threat to mankind. Any development not actively contributing to not just a reduction in negative impact, but a turnaround towards repairing the damage should not be considered a feasible investment. Any company knowingly treading on the earth or humanity should be stripped of its license to operate, cut into pieces, and sold off to help fix the damages done.

We call heroes those individuals that sacrifice themselves for the good of the group. The person that enters a burning building to save others at risk of own life, is a hero. Around the world now are talented, passionate, and capable individuals working on the thankless job of sustainability. Figuring out sustainable solutions to situations more complex and difficult than the world has ever seen. Tirelessly crunching impact assessment numbers in endless spreadsheets. Struggling to manage tiny increments in complex policies for marginal improvements against the hurricane of commercial capital interests. Bright people that work for a fraction of what they would have earned if they had chosen to work for any self serving industry. Sustainability officers working without a budget or mandate in backroom offices for global corporations, forced to paint the products green. Social entrepreneurs bending themselves backwards trying to improve short term return rates that investors demand from business models originally intended to have long lasting positive impact. People trying to have a choice out of the mass produced, processed, plastic soup packaged, toxin injected garbage they’ve been forced to buy, because there isn’t an affordable alternative.

To all those people, all of you, I say: you are the heroes of today. Do not give up the fight against the self serving, and those that they have managed to misguide to believe sustainability could ever be anything else than good. Keep fighting your fight. Stay strong. Find each other, and support each other. Build your burning platforms, orbit the giant hairballs, hurdle the adversities, crowdfund new pathways. Whatever path you choose, be sure to support each other. We need it. One day our children and grandchildren will look back and ask with incredulity about what the world has become “What did you to help?”. When that time comes, what can you tell them? Did you move when you got nudged along by the slow masses? Or did you help to clear the way into a world with a better, fairer, cleaner, healthier, and more rewarding existence? Were you a hero, or did you stand aside as a spectator? Did you help the heroes, or did you frustrate their way?

Whoever you are, for whatever organization you work, or wherever you live… if you are not yet engaged in actively contributing to the massive challenge of sustainability, start doing so. Get up tomorrow and take that step. Raise your voice in that meeting and don’t let go. Start that enterprise with systemic green initiatives. Choose that sustainability oriented school. Help. Help all of those heroes. Or better, become one. The future will thank you.