On the 40th Anniversary of the "Limits to Growth"

On the 40th Anniversary of the "Limits to Growth" pretty much says it all. Also, Environmentalism as Religious Doctrine quotes Steven Landsburg's "The Armchair Economist" on his suspicion that environmentalists don't want to seriously inquire into the long-term effects of recycling "because their real concern is with the ritual of recycling itself, not with its consequences. The underlying need to sacrifice, and to compel others to sacrifice, is a fundamentally religious impulse." Of course, serious inquiry into the long-term consequences of anything is in pretty short supply on all sides.

I was just wondering if one could say that we don't truly exist if we're totally misinterpreting our lives. What if although what we perceive is real, it's only a tiny portion of reality, and so poorly interpreted that we actually understand everything in our peculiarly local context that is irrelevant in the larger picture.