What if I'm wrong?

I know who I am. I am 24 years old, and I’m fairly confident that I know what makes me happy.

That’s a big statement. This idea came to me in the shower a few months ago. It felt like a big moment. I’m thinking about it again right now, on the train from Stockholm to Gävle. It’s a beautiful summer’s day and I’m just spent the past day wandering about Stockholm by myself, savouring the opportunity to just think.

I have centered my whole being, my entire existence on the notion that I am at my happiest when I ignore passing whims and societal pressures and act on what I perceive to be the most ethical option available. Of course, I am not so naïve to think that I’m perfect, or that I ever will be. But I am acutely aware of each time a decision I make does not comply with my ethics. I’m also aware of the instances when I don’t know what my ethics are – I certainly cannot be confident that I have complete information all of the time, nor can I be sure that I know what’s best for the world.

But I try my best. That’s all we can do, right? I know that I would rather take the bus than drive a car. I would rather grow a garden than eat bananas. I would rather buy second hand clothes than go to H&M. I would rather keep an old cell phone for years than get a free upgrade to an iphone. I would rather take the train eight hours than fly one. I would rather shove all my groceries into my purse that get a plastic bag. I would rather ride an old bike than new one. I would rather make my life ‘difficult’ than easy, all in pursuit of happiness. And it genuinely works. I am sad when I get a plastic bag and happy when I delay lunch rather than get it in a take-away container and vice versa.

All of this, based on some intrinsic value that I can barely put to words. To me, it is wrong to waste and it is wrong to take more than you need. Environmental problems, social problems, equity problems – they’re too numerous to ignore, in my opinion.

I’m a member of the sustainability group on campus at Lund, Hållbart Universitet, and was, as such, able to take part in the Stockholm Dialogue on Global Sustainability as part of a larger conference of Nobel Laureates. A morning of panel discussions at the Royal Dramatic Theatre – scientists, academics, nobel Laureates, top bankers, prime ministers, UN advisors, all repeating the message that environmental problems are huge, they’re happening fast, we must do something now. They suggested shifting away from consumerisms, embracing new ways of measuring wellbeing, abandoning the GDP as a measure of success, investing in new energy. Lofty goals.

Not the sort of event you’d expect someone to leave with a question like the one running through my head today. What if I’m wrong? What if we’re all wrong?

I arrived early at the theatre, fearing, as usual, that I might get lost on my way and giving myself my token half an hour to get somewhere that actually only takes ten minutes. I showed my ticket, got a red sticker on my lapel (I wondered if I was colour coded; if red meant: not Lobel-laureate, not dignitary), and entered the room where we would all stand and wait for the doors to the theatre to open. We are so strange, human beings, all so shy and coy when we are put into a room where we don’t know anyone. We are all too intensely interested in whatever happens to be in our hands at the moment – brochures, pens, coffee cups – to admit that we’re really just to shy to make conversation. I read my brochure. I looked around – lots of people were reading their brochures I re-read my brochure. I made awkward eye contact with a girl standing nearby, but she soon spotted two people she already new. Missed my chance. I looked at my brochure again. Eventually, I made eye contact with another guy to my right. I wasn’t going to pass this one by. But what to say? I settled for, “is this where we go in?” gesturing awkwardly at the obvious entryway (lame, I know), followed by “have you ever been to this theatre before?” Good enough I suppose, as it got the conversation going and before long we were talking about nuclear fusion, greening the Sahara, nuclear power to fuel de-salisation of seawater, and inhabiting other planets – all with the premise that the world needs unlimited population and economic growth to spur innovation and technological advance.

Hogwash. Right?

Investing so heavily in technology and infrastructure just so we can continue on our current trajectory that espouses exponential growth with no recognition of the basic fact that we are an economy, a society, based on a finite amount of resources?

But… what if we’re not? Nuclear fusion – creating our own energy source? Moving to Mars – not a citizen of earth, but a galactic citizen, or, even more difficult to fathom, a universal one?  My entire belief system, I’ve realized, is based on the concept of the finite. We have a fixed amount of resources on earth. We can’t grow forever. There has to be a limit. An end. A ceiling on the growth.

For this to be challenged is mind-boggling. I’ve always struggled with the concept of infinity. Show me someone who hasn’t. It simply does not exist in my conception of reality. Certainly, though, that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. Is confining ourselves and our potential to this idea of limits simply putting a cap on our ability to innovate, to flourish, to blossom?

I haven’t put much serious thought into the idea that I might be wrong. That environmental problems might all be solved by human ingenuity, that we will prove wrong the teachings of the laws of thermodynamics and our seventh grade science teachers by creating new energy, that we might inhabit new planets and not need this old one anymore. The reason that I haven’t put much thought into these possibilities is not that I don’t agree that they might be possible. Rather, it’s that it doesn’t matter. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe there isn’t a finite resource base, maybe we can figure out a way to recycle our waste in a sustainable way that enables us to all get a new laptops every year and new clothes every month. Maybe one day it won’t matter that every single thing we eat comes in a disposable single-use container.

Maybe. Maybe technology will solve all the world’s problems and enable us to live increasingly consumerist lifestyles and preserve the natural world. When this happens, I will celebrate with everyone else (setting aside my other basic belief: that money and things don’t make people happy anyways).

I refuse, however, to live my life now as though this is already a reality. Even if it means one day admitting that all this preservation stuff was for nothing, that it was all unnecessary. I made my life “difficult” for years, all for nothing. One day swallowing my pride and admitting I was wrong is much more appealing to me than one day gloating that I was right and watching the continued degradation of our planet, the worsening of global inequality, the erosion of local community. I’ll take being wrong any day.

There are two options. Take action now or don’t. It I take action now and reduce the negative social and environmental impacts of my life – either it makes a difference, or the problems are solved by technology. If I don’t do anything now, either technology spares us all, or we are headed down a frightening path of environmental catastrophe and global inequality and suffering.  Taking action now, reducing consumerism now, embracing local communities now, encourage a drastic shift in our economic ideology now – this can only yield positive results.

There’s no harm in trying.