If you discover any singular big issue, and you go down deep enough, it will eventually prove to be this metastatic microcosm of all these other broadly systemic issues.

For example, let’s say I am fighting ocean plastic. If I tunnel into that issue, there are energy and material inputs (a fraction of our raw oil we need to extract has no other use), there are economic considerations (why plastic is used because of the cost, how much it would cost to clean it up) and on and on. You almost can’t tackle any issue without eventually at a broad level seeing the whole system as all connected in combined crises.

But we are in planetary overshoot. Humans eat at least double the food than what natural regeneration can provide on this planet. We are committed to artificial life support AND all the technical industrial processes because they literally make our living a possibility. Nothing is sustainable. So it comes back to this logical fork: do we choose to carry on and kill the ecosphere or commit suicide as a species in advance of natural die-off?

Well…a part of what brought us to this place is that we were not wise enough. We were smart when we sat down and manufactured the green revolution, but we unwisely increased the stakes of the game. I think we are still somewhat stuck in a solutions seeking / problems solving cultural paradigm.

I think we can’t muddle out of this with siloed thinking, we need to at least mentally acknowledge that it is systemic in nature.