The trees or the forest?

After scanning Swedish newspapers the last couple of days I get the impression that the story about  climate change has established itself strongly. Everywhere you can find  articles and lists giving suggestions for a more climate friendly life style. My sense is that this story will stick for a while – and that a lot of people are thinking in the line of changing their consumption habits. This is of course very very positive in general.

What is starting to trouble me is that we’re not discussing over all sustainability at all. Or very marginally. The climate issue has sort of "kidnapped" the agenda. Why could that be bad? Well, one thought is that the climate effects in large are symptoms of deeper root problems – that are very complex in nature. By addressing climate change we’re "fixing it" with the linear causes we know something about, i.e. use of fossil fuels. But we will miss all non-linear causes. Not to say that we have a tendency to propose solutions that will stop CO2 emissions – but might be unsustainable because they use other non-renewable resources. Example: wind power plants (I understand) give almost CO2 free energy. But the plant itself is (I assume) made by metal and other materials that are nonrenewable.

This is not an excuse for not doing the climate thing. But we should put in an effort to see the whole. All the time. See the forest and not only the trees. We humans like it simple. But I sense that this isn’t going to do this time around.