Sustainability and Hypocrites
One thing that keeps me up at night is the question of how I can live in line with my values. I don’t want to harm humans. I don’t want to harm non-humans. For a long time, the non-humans I was concerned about were animals. Since I came to know more about plants, I became convinced that plants are just as sentinent beings. I sometimes feel bad walking on grass.
Global warming, mass extinction, ecosystem degradation, injustice. They are like objects that confront us with a reality that we have no chance of escaping. In a way, we are all hypocrites. We all have to find ways to handle cognitive dissonance (knowing what we should do and not doing it). We all cause harm by being alive.
We can’t do it right. We might be able to do better. These objects force us into self-reflection of what it means to be human. How exciting.