BG 130 – Curb our greed

What if we stop producing and consuming a lot of unnecessary products? Those products that are produced only to keep the economy going and to fill the infinitely deep pockets of the rich industrialists. Especially disposable products.
What if we focus on what we really need and produce that in the most sustainable way possible?
That we make considerations: better a little more of this and a little less of that.
On the Earth’s surface that we now use to produce meat, especially beef, we can grow a hundred times as much plant-based food.
That way we also remove a lot of carbon from the air, instead of adding more to it.
We don’t necessarily have to become vegetarians, after all we are omnivores by nature, but a few days a week without meat will do us no harm, if we make sure that we get the nutrients we miss that way through other products.
What if we strive for a circular economy, in which waste materials form the raw materials for the production of other, sustainable products?
In which we give away what we no longer need to someone who does need it?
What if we choose not to make everything we do revolve around money?
What do we really need? Food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and means of communication, of good quality, and the means of production and transport necessary for this. Preferably with the smallest possible ecological footprint.
Art and culture can also be made more sustainable.
What if we decide to implement global birth control to solve the problems we are currently experiencing due to overpopulation?
What if we financially compensate the poorest people for this?
What if we return large tracts of cultivated land, such as those cow pastures, obsolete industrial areas and outdated residential areas to wild nature?
And what if we turn large tracts of the seas and oceans surrounding us into protected areas?
We could continue to produce enough food and it would do us and all other living things a lot of good. It would restore the natural balance.
What if we significantly improve public transport in a sustainable way and as a result need fewer cars and less asphalt?
Then we can give even more land back to nature.
What if we go back to using natural building materials and natural and reusable packaging materials?
What if we stop pumping billions into the war industry and instead put that money towards the livability of our planet?
What if we realize that sustainable production of energy, food, building materials, etc., for our concrete needs, produces more meaningful work?
That it will make us happier in the end?
What if we start to realize again that we are part of the nature that surrounds us, and that we cannot continue to plunder it with impunity?
Settle us on Mars? Are you crazy? The Earth is much more suitable for human habitation. We just need to stop destroying her.
What if we curb our greed from now on?