Inertia

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I abhor plastic waste. But I still consume it. Loads of it, frankly. Along with everyone else around me–except perhaps a few nameless sustainable monks that apparently exist and have figured a way out.

As appealing as a life without plastic may be, I don’t have time to be a monk. None of us do. And therein lies the problem: How do we address plastic waste–or any problem that plagues us–without being monks?

I believe the answer is uniquely simple. It’s money.

Not bad 4-letter word money. But good utilitarian money. The single greatest tool of humanity that we cannot live without. So great that I refer to it as the Lifeblood of Humanity, but we’ll dig into that later.

The point to make here is that in order to effectuate change, you have to have and effectively use money. Anything else is wishful or delusional. Pay to play or don’t pay and remain frustrated. Because without action there is no change. And without tools there is no action. Seems to perfectly sum up where we are. The world as we know it is coming to an end, but we’re all talk with insignificant action to beat any of the deadlines to slow global warming. Scary stuff, no doubt. But with a very clear path forward, if you ask me.

This is where Capitalism comes in.

Some suggest that Capitalism is to blame for our environmental problems. I respectfully disagree. Forgetting for a moment that Capitalism will never be replaced because it is the premier economic system that perfectly aligns democratic ideals with private property rights and human nature, the issue at hand is not Capitalism. It’s how we apply it to our economy, which is to say:

Unsustainably.

How then to apply it sustainably? That is the question that is the sole focus of my work. Because in my opinion, the answer to all of our problems–from the environment to our economy and our healthcare system and beyond–is sustainability.

The good news is that sustainability is and has always been inherently part of Capitalism. We’ve just run afoul of the field of play. So we toss a yellow flag and apply a penalty. We know this game all too well.

The bad news though is that a game of penalties will very likely never get us to where we need to go to protect our planet. Not in time, anyway. We have to become more knowledgeable and proactive, which takes us back to money.

Instead of waiting on others to enforce rules that we have to protect the environment, maybe it’s time for us to look into the mirror and decide that we are going to take personal responsibility for the choices that we make that unquestionably harm the environment. We can lay blame all day at companies whose products damage the environment–and to be clear, we should continue to hold them accountable through necessary regulations–but the harsh reality is that companies do not produce anything that we do not buy and use. Period.

This leads us to an inevitable but promising solution: Stop buying harmful crap!

It may sound simple, but the path to environmental sustainability is by and through financial sustainability first. We’ll see why as we blog along–as consumption is but one component to the financial sustainability we are talking about. But recognize that as ardent capitalists, we must be true to what we are. There is no path forward without Capitalism.

Yes, we are consumers, and yes, we consume alotta unuseful, harmful stuff. But we have amazing and intelligent brains that not only have the capacity to reduce or eliminate purchases of harmful stuff, the cry for collective action to save our planet has never been louder.

All we need is a beacon for solutions with meaningful positive results.

It’s the sole purpose of this blog and the work of the Green Shadow Group.

It all starts with a simple focus on money.

Building a necessary and basic understanding of the power that rests in all of our wallets.

Just as it always has.

But nevertheless where everything now begins.

-Jack Wonders