Are we Eco or Ego drive ? Reimagining Climate Action & Education

In the weeks following the World Environment Day, my Instagram feed was filled with green pledges, recycled quotes, and climate action slogans. A celebration of eco-friendly lifestyles, corporate sustainability updates, and ambitious targets from billionaires and the UN. It looked like we’re finally getting it right.

But are we?

There’s no doubt, we’ve come a long way. Environmental awareness is now mainstream, climate action is trending, and conversations once confined to fringe circles are now on global platforms. More people than ever are choosing eco-conscious lifestyles, and the urgency of the crisis is being recognised across sectors.

But let’s not lie to ourselves. An entire industry now thrives on the planet’s collapse. Climate summits burn more fuel than they save, philanthrocapitalism deepens dependency, and tech-driven solutions aim to offset instead of transform. Even activism has become a product to consume.

Yes, awareness has grown but what is the cost of awareness that doesn’t cut to the root? While we talk, forests vanish, species disappear, and the most vulnerable continue to suffer. There is a chasm between what we say, how we live, and what we actually change.

Why?

Systematic efforts to protect nature began barely two centuries ago. But the mindset that separates humans from the rest of the living world is ancient. Coexistence was replaced with conquest. But the real danger isn’t just in numbers or expansion.

It lies in something more personal.

The ego.

What is ego ?

It is not what we usually blame ; greed, hunger for power, or the desire to dominate, but the quieter one.

The one that wears a purpose.

The ego is the story we carry about

who we are.

I am a teacher.

I am a mother.

I am a planet-saviour.

I am a responsible citizen.

I am a changemaker.

I am the voice of the voiceless.

I am here to fix the world.

This “I” is subtle, convincing, and addictive. It fuels us with purpose, but it also makes us believe that we are separate from the forest, from the river, from each other. It sneaks into our movements and makes them about us.

Would you disagree if I said that most of today’s movements are ego-driven?

Not just climate, but many others around gender, race, equality, indigenous rights, and social justice, often carry this shadow. We respond from fear, guilt, anger, urgency, even vanity.

I say this without judgement because I’ve lived it too.

Given the rate of deaths and displacement, these movements must reflect urgency.

But what if urgency were coupled with a deeper approach?

What if our movements were not deepening the division that already plagued humankind?

How can movements fuel compassion rather than separation?

Two years ago, I paused. I turned inward. I arrived at Urvi, a space that invites deep inquiry into ego and consciousness.

Slowly, my reasons for doing the work began to shift. I started seeing that real change cannot come from fractured identities. That love - not performance, not guilt, not fear - is the real force that sustains action.

Love is not romantic or soft.

It is clarity.

It is presence.

It sees clearly and acts fully.

Ego burns out. Love burns through.

What happens when climate action is rooted in this kind of love?

We stop playing saviour.

We start remembering our place in the web.

We stop fixing.

We start relating.

We stop panicking.

We begin listening.

I began to Reimagine Climate Action as I began to see through - rather than reject - the many layers of ego I carried as a climate activist, filmmaker, and educator.

The point is not to villainise the ego, but to become aware of it, so we can play our roles more lightly and with greater clarity and care.

Drawing from my own insights, the clarity with which Bodhi has laid the foundations of Urvi, and the ancient wisdom of the indigenous and small farming communities I’ve lived with, I’m working to develop frameworks, modules, and practices that can help climate efforts shift, from fear to love, from exhaustion to clarity, and from identity to interbeing.

This is not about abandoning activism.

It is about deepening it.

Not about doing more.

But about doing from a place that doesn’t separate.

If this resonates, walk with me.

Let us meet climate crisis

not just with strategy, but with soul,

not just with roles, but with a deeper relationship to the living world,

and a fire that burns steady, not loud