Is Our Fear of Death Destroying the Planet? | Sustainable Man

Is Our Fear of Death Destroying the Planet? | Sustainable Man

There is a reason that despite the overwhelming evidence that our exponential, growth-based economic system is destroying the very foundations of life on the planet that change has still been hard to come by. The reason is not because of human greed. Greed, too, is a symptom. It’s not because of a competitive human nature. Humans are actually soft-wired for empathy. It’s not even due to some global conspiracy to rule the world. People just aren’t that capable. The reason we cannot “wake up” to the unsustainable nature of our way of life may be traced to our awareness of our finite life and the linear concept of time that it creates.

As far as we know, human beings are the only animals that are aware that they will die someday. This knowledge could be considered either a curse or a blessing and it changes the way people view time. Knowing that, barring an unexpected injury or illness, you will live around eighty years creates a linear concept of time. We think of our lives in terms of our past, our present, and our future.