There's a saying in Egypt that goes: "people have gone to the moon and you're still doing so & so". Usually used as a joke amongst friends, but at its core it is a criticism of whatever it is we do that hasn't taken us to the moon yet. And therein lies the problem.

Ever since the space race ended with the Americans putting astronauts on the moon; humanity, collectively, has been operating under a manufactured sense of urgency.

The virtuous notion that we know exactly what we're doing, and that we all need to "do more" of it, has been fuelling every aspect of human activity; more industrialisation, more urbanisation, more construction, more consumption, more scientific research, more economic gimmicks to generate more profits, more wars to spread freedom (of markets apparently), and the list goes on.

And even with a crisis that threatens our very existence, humanity's delusions of grandiosity dictated that more than ever, we still need to "do more"! Behind the same leadership that created the crisis, and under the same sense of urgency, we now have to fly more planes towards more conferences, to come up with more solutions, pass more legislations, change more habits, commit more symbolic acts of rebellion, produce more token tote bags, etc.

When in fact, all we need to do, is do less.

Less than a century ago the majority of the global workforce was working in agriculture. Habits, traditions, and societal structures were pivoted around agriculture; a trade that is sustainable by design.

A couple of generations later, a lot of those agriculture based habits and traditions still exist in most societies. The problem isn't those societies or their behavioural patterns.

The problem, all along, was the trips to the moon!