On Human Nature....In Politics and in Life

If you want to become something, you need only act "as if" you were that something - and soon you will be so. If you want to be a happy person, you start acting like a happy person, and soon you'll be happy. If you want to be a physically fit person, you start acting like a physically fit person, and soon you'll be so. In either case, there's no intermediate task or program or vehicle to carry you to the destination - no diet, no pill, no self-help book - just be there. Thoughts and words follow actions, not the other way around.

Politics and environmental stewardship follows the same logic. There's no treaty or symbolic gesture that can compel nations to stop global warming or respect the Earth. If we want to be a society that lives sustainably, we need to start acting like a sustainable society. There's no intermediate step, task, program, or bureaucracy that can compel this transition from above. If a society has internalized the norms and standards of ecological accountability, the symbols and treaties and legislative flourishes will flow naturally.