But societally we’re responding in exactly the wrong way, as if getting the complete opposite message. Many of the best minds just can’t comprehend it. I think it goes all the way to the root of our being a “grazing creature” evolved to consume and move on, with the complication of our society being organized on a model of one-upmanship and the idea of “more.” It would explain the illogic of taking the signal that things are running out as an indication to find other things to use up even faster.

The stunning fact that has pushed me to see this is how ALL the supposed alternative solutions are to find new resources to use up as fast as possible with continual exponentially growing uses. I’ve been talking to people in all the professions at various sustainability meetings this year, about how our solutions are repeating the exact error of planning to overuse things that we say is our intention to correct. Everyone generally nods in agreement but then wanders off in silence. I think it’s because I’m suggesting that we not follow our plan #1, when things show signs of running out, to abandon them and “move on to the next harvest” like every good grazing animal has always done. There is also a tangle of other issues involved in our unconscious will for self-destruction,...but I think that people might understand how natural it is for us to be using things up faster as a mistaken response to their running out...

Having better measures will help, as will making them a part of individual decisions. We need different purposes first, I think. All the great solutions in the world, devoted to the wrong purpose, won’t help.