The main environmental challenge of the 21st century is poverty.

Host: The heat hung low over the city, thick as breath. The air smelled of diesel, dust, and human exhaustion. Evening light smeared gold across tin rooftops, then dissolved into a smoky horizon. Below, a labyrinth of narrow streets thrummed with the rhythm of survival — vendors shouting, children laughing, traffic choking the dusk.

On a small hill overlooking the sprawl, Jack and Jeeny sat on the cracked steps of an abandoned schoolhouse. Behind them, vines crept across the walls where paint had long surrendered. Before them, the world pulsed with contradiction — resilience and ruin in equal measure.

Host: It was the kind of place where hope felt both impossible and inevitable. The kind of place where philosophy had to speak quietly, because hunger always spoke louder.

Jeeny: “Bjorn Lomborg once said, ‘The main environmental challenge of the 21st century is poverty. When you don’t know where your next meal is coming from, it’s hard to consider the environment 100 years down the line.’”
Her voice was low, almost reverent. “He’s right, Jack. You can’t tell a starving person to save a tree. You can’t preach sustainability to someone who’s never had stability.”

Jack: “Maybe. Or maybe that’s just a convenient excuse. Poverty didn’t invent pollution. Greed did. It’s always the rich who wreck the planet — and the poor who pay for it.”

Jeeny: “Greed builds the system, yes. But poverty keeps it running. People trapped in it don’t get to choose what they destroy — only what helps them survive another day.”

Jack: “So survival is a kind of sin now?”

Jeeny: “No,” she said softly. “It’s the first commandment. And it’s the one the privileged always forget when they write policy.”

Host: A child below ran after a plastic bottle rolling in the wind, chasing it as though it were treasure. A woman stood at a makeshift stove, stirring rice with the patience of ritual. The city’s heartbeat — chaotic, relentless — filled the silence between them.

Jack: “You talk about survival like it’s sacred.”

Jeeny: “It is. It’s the root of everything — even morality. But when survival is constant, it leaves no room for imagination. You can’t ask someone to dream about forests when they’re fighting to find food.”

Jack: “Then what hope is there for the planet if half the world can’t afford to care?”

Jeeny: “Hope begins where care becomes possible. Solve hunger, and you make space for compassion. Solve poverty, and you make space for protection. People will defend what they can afford to love.”

Jack: “That sounds optimistic — dangerously optimistic.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s strategic. You can’t build a green future on empty stomachs.”

Host: The sun slipped below the horizon. The first streetlights blinked on — dim, uncertain. The noise of the market swelled as night workers replaced day workers, survival shifting hands like currency.

Jack: “So you’re saying the environmental crisis isn’t about nature. It’s about economics.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The Earth doesn’t need saving from people — it needs saving for them. We keep talking about protecting nature as though we’re separate from it. But the truth is, if people are drowning in poverty, they’ll cut down every tree that stands between them and survival.”

Jack: “That’s the problem, Jeeny. Compassion doesn’t scale. Governments can’t feed every mouth before the seas rise.”

Jeeny: “Then they should feed the ones they can. And teach the rest how to feed themselves. Hunger isn’t destiny — it’s design.”

Jack: “Design?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Systems. Choices. History. The architecture of inequality. You think poverty just happens? It’s engineered — by policy, by neglect, by comfort.”

Host: The night wind blew through, carrying with it the faint smell of charcoal and rain. In the distance, thunder rolled — the city’s eternal echo of something larger, something indifferent.

Jack: “You sound angry.”

Jeeny: “I am. Because we talk about saving the planet as if it’s noble, but ignore the people living on the frontlines of ruin. It’s hypocrisy disguised as heroism.”

Jack: “And yet, environmentalists keep trying. Someone has to.”

Jeeny: “Trying’s not enough when the solutions are built for those who already have everything. We build electric cars for the wealthy while children in mining towns dig for the metals that power them. That’s not progress. That’s irony.”

Jack: “So what do we do? Stop progress?”

Jeeny: “No. Redefine it. Make progress mean more than profit.”

Host: The moon broke through the clouds, pale and unjudging. The light revealed the lines in their faces — his from skepticism, hers from sorrow tempered by faith.

Jack: “You know, I’ve always wondered — if poverty is the real enemy, why do we keep blaming individuals for environmental collapse?”

Jeeny: “Because guilt is easier to market than justice. Tell someone to recycle and they feel empowered. Tell them the system is broken and they feel helpless. So we trade revolution for personal virtue.”

Jack: “Virtue is easier than accountability.”

Jeeny: “And cheaper.”

Jack: “You make it sound hopeless.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. I make it sound human.”

Host: A soft rain began to fall — hesitant drops tapping the roofs below. The scent of wet earth rose, clean and temporary. It smelled like renewal, but also reminder — that even purity couldn’t last where survival demanded compromise.

Jack: “You think the world can ever balance both — the planet and the people?”

Jeeny: “It has to. Otherwise we’ll save neither. The poor can’t afford to protect the Earth, and the rich can’t survive without the poor. Every drought, every famine, every flood connects us — whether we admit it or not.”

Jack: “That sounds like faith again.”

Jeeny: “It’s not faith,” she said, smiling faintly. “It’s math.”

Host: The rain thickened, drumming gently on the tin rooftops below. The city shimmered with reflection — puddles glowing like small galaxies scattered across the streets. The noise of life softened to a lull.

Jeeny: “You know what Lomborg understood, Jack? That empathy needs economics. You can’t fight climate change with speeches if the listener hasn’t eaten.”

Jack: “So the solution is what — charity?”

Jeeny: “No. Dignity. Empowerment. Let the same people who suffer the damage lead the repair. They don’t need saving; they need resources.”

Jack: “You make it sound simple.”

Jeeny: “It’s not simple. It’s necessary. The planet isn’t dying, Jack — it’s being negotiated.”

Jack: “And who wins that negotiation?”

Jeeny: “Whoever remembers that the environment isn’t trees or air or oceans — it’s people.”

Host: The rain eased. The streetlights below shimmered through the mist like stars caught in fog. The city’s noise returned — soft, tired, eternal.

Jack looked out over the rooftops, his expression unreadable. “You know,” he said quietly, “maybe the real tragedy isn’t that we’re destroying the Earth. Maybe it’s that we’re doing it because we’re too poor to imagine a better way.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Jack: “And you think imagination can solve poverty?”

Jeeny: “It’s the only thing that ever has.”

Host: The light from the city flickered in the puddles around them. The two sat quietly, watching as the storm moved east — the air cool, the world washed, if only briefly, clean.

And for a moment, the words of Lomborg hung between them like truth suspended over contradiction:

That the fate of the planet is not written in the sky or soil,
but in the empty stomachs and weary hands of those
who cannot afford to care about a hundred years
when they are still fighting to survive the night.

Host: And perhaps that, after all, is where every green revolution must begin —
not in forests or factories,
but in human hunger,
and the courage to feed both body and earth at once.