Sustainability is not just about reusable bags or clean energy. At its core, it is about humans examining how we treat our only home, the planet, and each other. And if we are honest, we have not done a very good job.
For thousands of years, human societies have repeated the same destructive behaviors. Rooted in fear, trauma, greed, and terrible leadership, we built civilizations on domination rather than cooperation. Let’s name what is not sustainable: war, slavery, greed, child abuse, rape, murder, victimizing the weak, hoarding resources, exploiting the Earth. These are not isolated crimes. They are cultural patterns. They are lifestyles.
Violence is not just something humans do. It is something we have practiced, refined, and passed down like tradition. Over time, it becomes systemic, normalized, even ritualized. And no, this is not just a male issue, even though the numbers are clear.
Historically, it is overwhelmingly men who have waged wars, enslaved populations, committed mass violence, and engineered environmental collapse. If there have been ten thousand major wars in human history, you can bet that at least nine thousand seven hundred ninety eight of them were started and led by men. And when it comes to space, the very edge of our existence as a species, who filled it with metal debris and satellites that no longer function? Men did.
Still, it would be dishonest to claim that women play no role. Women raise boys. Women have participated in broken systems. Women have held power, and some have abused it. History has its queens who called for beheadings and led campaigns of war. But let us not lose the forest for the trees. The dominant force behind planetary destruction has been male driven culture. This is not about blame for the sake of blame. It is about clarity.
Our emotions, our impulses, our unchecked aggression, they are not sustainable unless they are regulated. And that regulation requires consciousness. It requires wisdom. It requires accountability. These are traits that have often been pushed aside in favor of dominance and short term gain.
If we want a sustainable future, we cannot just focus on recycling and carbon emissions. We must confront the emotional and psychological roots of our destructive behavior. We must call out the patterns, name the truths, and build something better.
Because until we do, nothing about humanity will be sustainable.