I am probably one of the biggest advocate for sustainability that you can find out there. I will never shut up about it, it drives both my personal and my professional life. The momentum for change, toward a more respectful humanity, fairer and sustainable planet and world does drive me, and I am passionate about the problematics that it entails.
Despite this, I am at the same time probably the biggest pessimist you will find when it comes to talking about the future and envisioning political, cultural, economic and environmental structures and realities for ourselves and the generations to come. Yet, I do not find this entirely paradoxical.
I do think we live in a schizophrenic world where, at least in the near future, money will keep overpowering good will, sustainable initiatives, the rise of community power, and most of all, political power.
I recently started a job that consists in bringing governments together to act on climate change, in order to keep climate change under the threshold of 2 degrees. It is about telling a narrative that will bring governments, and therefore the peoples that they represent, together, in order to build a sustainable path for the future.
There are many reasons why this does not work, and they certainly do not all fit in this post, but I think we can touch upon a few. Mainly one.
Neoliberalism: the bad word. Yet, it is important whether you want it or not because it shapes our current global world. Or at least, the narrative it draws is important. Because neoliberalism, which is, by the way, the main economic structure and narrative we currently live it, tells the story that people are not people but they're individuals. Citizens are not really citizens, they are first and foremost consumers. And that the atomisation of society is the only way for it to go forward.
Unfortunately, to build sustainable societies, in the broad sense of living in harmony with the Earth - which is what our capitalist system is based on anyway (remember oil?), you need the exact opposite. In order to build a sustainable economic, social and environmental structure, you need to do it with people, as peoples and for people. Not for individuals and consumers (only).
I still wonder why and how the fact that the environment is falling apart, that our societies crumble under the weight of the widening gap between rich and poor and that women's rights are still an issue in so many places do not engage people more. One of the answers I found is this: the neoliberal narrative, which dictates us to stay apart as consumerist households, disengage people entirely from problems that should matter to them. I've said it before, but sustainability is not (only) about saving the environment: yes, polar bears are probably going to disappear and the sea drowns in plastic but this is not the big issue (yes I said that). The planet will live. We won't, or if we manage somehow, a majority of us won't do it well. Yet, people just don't engage.
But it doesn't prevent me from stopping: maybe there will be a big wake-up call, a catastrophe that will ravage us so much (especially the rich, white people) that we'll do things. I just hope that when it happens, we'll do it as people and societies. Not as individuals and consumers.