Two quotes from Tyson Yunkaporta’s Sand Talk that have been running through my mind today.
The second one is an especially heavy one, a reminder that not seeing the harm caused by our lifestyle doesn’t mean there is none. In the same way that most of us don’t blink at the thought of eating meat but blanch at the thought of even the most humane farming practices, let alone the reality of how most animals are actually treated, we’ve exported and outsourced the extractive practices, abhorrent working conditions, wars, dictatorships, and other forms of violence that are required for even the more moderate and thoughtful western lifestyle.

The first one is trickier. Has every civilization failed? Some certainly have, and others have lasted by transforming into something unrecognizable from how they started, which could be seen as success or failure depending on your perspective. And some are still going, waxing and waning and adapting and clinging to power. So you could nitpick the claim. But “Change is possible because it is necessary” — that’s a good one. That’s something to hold onto.