Starting to pay back

Once, when we were younger, when the world was less damaged, abundance seemed to be everlasting. Oceans were clean and teemed with fish. It was incomprehensible that whole river systems could ever die. Land was fertile. Our surroundings were attractive. It was unimaginable that the world could be turned into a slum. But over a relatively short period of time, with each person saving their own skin, we’ve nothing left in the kitty. The damage is done and we haven’t been able to stop taking. Instead we’ve refined cruelty and increased slavery, wrecked forests, polluted the air and generally become addicted to an increasingly unsustainable lifestyle. Now we’re in all sorts of trouble. From a state of plenty we’ve built up a debt burden. Our collective debts won’t easily be paid back. But try we must - it isn’t impossible, surely?