Progress or Betrayal: How We’re Failing the Future

I’m a self-proclaimed mouthpiece for tiny living.

That most unlikely movement among Americans who, despite a near-manic appetite for bigger, better, and more, have discovered that living with intention — and “just enough” — feels like freedom.

It’s not just about downsizing square footage or tossing out clutter; it’s a sharp-edged critique of what we’ve done to our only home in the name of progress.

Progress. A word we’ve polished and paraded until it gleams, distracting us from the wreckage it leaves behind. The felled forests, poisoned waters, and smog-choked skies.

This preoccupation — the gnawing awareness of what we’re destroying — compels me to speak my mind. But it also persuades me to read, to fill my thoughts with something sharper than outrage before unleashing them on you.

This morning, I read Julia Steinberger’s post, “The Kids Are Not Okay.” She visited a high school to give a presentation on climate change and left not with the glow of inspiration but with the sting of hard truths delivered by the young.

The children of her story — the ones who should be carefree — were anything but. They spoke with a clarity that made me both ache and admire:

• Concern for adults they once looked up to but now see as complicit.

• Disdain for international agreements that feel like theater.

• Anger at blame-shifting and hollow gestures.

• Frustration with the hypocrisy of those who say all the right things but act in ways that betray their words.

• Despair over greenwashing — brands, NGOs, governments — all of them cloaking inaction with a shiny veneer of “eco-consciousness.”

Their conclusion? The system is not just broken; it is intentionally stalled. And the very people entrusted to fix it have bound their identities to its machinery.

Julia found hope in this stark reckoning. She adapted her presentation, carried the children’s voices into her classroom, and renewed her resolve to fight for change.

That’s admirable. But what grips me — what festers — isn’t just their anger. It’s their betrayal.

The bitter taste of realizing that those you trusted to protect the world are not only failing but are, in fact, part of the problem.

This betrayal is real.

The greenwashing is systemic.

The empowered agents of change are uninterested.

And it is this betrayal I want to explore with you.

This is not progress. It is erosion.

Here’s the rub: they aren’t wrong. The greenwashing, the hollow pledges, the hypocrisy — it’s all real. But worse, it’s by design. The system defends itself. Like an old oak ringed with rot, it stands tall while hollow inside, its weight supported by lies and inertia.

To love this earth as Leopold did, you must be willing to grieve it. You must feel the bruised air against your cheek, taste the bitter tang of poisoned waters, and know the weight of what we’ve squandered. To honor it, you must do more than eulogize it.

But what can I do, you might ask? One small voice against the roaring tide of corporate and governmental indifference?

Well, let me remind you of frost-hewn wisdom: “The best way out is always through.” We cannot go back, and waiting will not save us. We must go through this moment of reckoning, dragging our reluctant institutions with us if necessary.

It is not hopeless — not yet. But hope demands action.

So what does action look like? It starts with honesty. Stop the greenwashing. Stop pretending half-measures are solutions. Name the problems. Demand accountability.

And while we’re at it, let’s take a lesson from the children. Their anger is not only justified — it’s productive. They don’t care for niceties; they care for change.

We owe them our rage — not the impotent, flailing kind, but the focused fire that fuels movements. The rage that insists on better, even when better feels impossible.

Because betrayal cuts deep. But trust, when rebuilt, can grow even deeper roots. Roots that hold the soil when storms come.

The children are not okay. And we won’t be, either, if we don’t fight for a system that values the earth more than the bottom line.

Progress will be real when it nourishes, not destroys.

And until then, betrayal must meet truth.