The environment will not be saved with individual action. Consumer-level recycling will not have any impact on the fate of we humans on this planet. These are just bromides that corporations with you to believe so that there will be no mass organizing for the real changes necessary, as those changes would irrevocably damage many very profitable corporate entities. Some of them would be out of business within five years. Some would survive, but much-diminished.

Collective action — by government, namely — is the only answer, and I am usually one who advocates individual freedom of action. More than that, though, I am a pragmatist, and I know that no individual actions are going to do a damn thing to halt extinction of much life on earth, including that of humanity. Driving a Prius won’t help. Washing your clothes on cold instead of hot won’t help. Turning the heater down to 65 won’t help. Taking the bus won’t help. These are small-scale solutions, and even if everyone on the face of the planet rich enough to undertake these actions actually did so, it would be a miniscule part of what’s needed to even begin to alleviate the despoilment.

So, what does need to change?

Almost everything. My guess is that the maximum sustainable population for the planet is about 700 million people or so. We’re well past six billion, and still growing. Either we’ll reduce our population the hard way, or the easy way. So far, we’re picking the hard way.

Industry needs to revamp to almost completely eliminate pollution. What can’t be eliminated will have to be sequestered safely.

All energy will have to be renewable. Fossil fuels are done, for many reasons — the main one is that many of them are simply going to run out soon.

True mass transit of an electric nature will help. Wind farms, solar collectors, maybe even space-based collectors will help. Electric cars will help. Breeder reactors will help. Banning houses above a certain size without huge build penalties will help. This list could go on, and would be very long.

Of course, most Americans, and for that matter, most of the world, truly have no idea how much their lives are likely to change in the next 30 years.

My point, though, is that this focus on individual action is a canard, a distraction, deliberately designed to divert attention from what will really make a difference. That this will harm powerful corporations, and that Americans are truly not ready to wake up (and may never, before catastrophe strikes) is why all you ever hear about is individual action.

How long do we have? Probably about 10 years before we’ve fallen so far down the rabbit hole we can never climb out again, is my guess.

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