“Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” Like so many catchy phrases the problem is there’s indeed a catch. Here the difficulty is that in actual practice that friendly admonishment is largely embraced in reverse order.

That none of it is practiced by a majority remains a steadfast elephant in the room. That the room’s being painted more and more Green only heightens the frustration that factual comprehension seems to have little effect on the power of procrastination, even if that’s a major improvement over straight-out ignorance or some rationalized denial of planetary imperilment.

Most Americans now acknowledge global warming, yet 40% think it’s not a serious threat. 19% believe climate policies do more harm than good, while 30% think such efforts make no difference. So says the Pew Research Center. After all the contentious progress in finally giving science the nod on such matters, environmentalism’s still viewed as an ideological choice people are free to make or ignore in the way various religious preferences compete alongside agnosticism or outright atheism.

Over the last half-century, recycling’s been a persistent means of awakening environmental awareness. Over time its idealism has become mainstreamed. Mostly, that’s benefited municipal waste management budgets more than the environment itself. For many participants, it’s just another way of putting trash out to the curb, and a convenient way of actually avoiding a more seriously committed “reuse” and “reduce.” While significantly decreasing landfill intake it’s also enabled an I’ve-done-my-part feel-good continuance of environmentally harmful consumption: “I recycle therefore I can max out my credit card.” Reuse similarly evades coming to terms with being eco-friendly from the get-go. Even when products are environmentally conscious, manufacturing and shipping are often earth unfriendly. Rarely spotlighted, recycling has its own environmental trade-offs.

Despite its beneficial practice, and its current resurgence as a way of feeling individually empowered against a growing fatalism, recycling remains a quaint baby step in addressing exponentially overwhelming environmental harm. Now, even that’s endangered. Although America’s the world’s most prosperous nation, recycling’s rising cost is increasingly being deemed unaffordable as China increasingly refuses acceptance of our outsourced refuse. China’s own capitalist self-interest is now less and less interested in recycling’s shrinking profitability. All’s good with being Green if it’s economically positive. Take away that incentive and environmental protection quickly becomes a bipartisan can to kick rather than both a short and long-term socioeconomic sustainability no-brainer. Perpetuating a progressively uninhabitable planet is a most curious corporate business model, whether global or domestic. Wall St. brainiacs just don’t get that bottom line. The environmental downside of economic protection and the economic downside of environmental justice need to find common ground towards remedying those obstacles, and quickly.

Though any positive environmental action is way better than none at all, recycling and reuse aren’t going to cut the mustard in what’s required to adequately reduce the economic reckless destruction of the planet. Been there, done that. Nothing’s changed, except for getting worse. Surely worthwhile endeavors, they simply don’t address the most significant aspect of our environmental meltdown. We can’t reuse or recycle our carbon footprint. More critical than ever, “Reduce” is the catchphrase component that should be made the foremost directive.

We have to stop reinventing the same weary wheel of traditional environmental activism. That wheel’s been going round and round without getting any closer to really solving the fundamental problem of an economic paradigm at direct odds with responsible environmental stewardship. Doubling down on purely free-market based environmental solutions, promised for what’s been most of my lifetime, isn’t going to convey us far enough, soon enough, in the ever-shortening window of necessary action before us. So says Greta Thunberg.

The Green New Deal must be implemented as if our very existence depends on it. More importantly, and more accurately, as if the survival of future generations depends on it. What part of the now tragically vogue “An Existential Threat” mantra do so many people fail to comprehend? Saving our planet will take far, far more discipline than our compliance in keeping 6 feet apart. We all need to thoroughly wash our hands of any continued environmental disregard. That should become the most sobering takeaway of the “New Normal” realization that we are indeed all in this together.

Gary Anderson lives in Bath.