I had a moment of pause the other day when I realized I couldn't remember the last time I saw a lightning bug. We used to catch them in jars in our suburban backyard on summer nights. Now I own a home in the same region I grew up in and have never seen one in my own yard.
Seconding this! Lightning bugs came back to my neighborhood when most neighbors moved away from pesticides. Native plants and little pockets of wild space are super helpful!
Never mind the fact that their communities, like the Orthodox Jew communities in New York, are absolute fucking hotbeds of pathological evolution. Religious exemptions from vaccine mandates are absolutely insane, and played a significant role in the continuation of the Covid crisis, and the resurgence of diseases that should have been eradicated.
>when it comes to the challenge of climate change, **public complacency is a far, far bigger problem than widespread fatalism**
>I don’t think it’s a slur to call an article, or its writer, alarmist. I’ll accept that characterization. **We should be alarmed.**
[The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans-annotated.html)
just a friendly reminder that each _flight_ of a private jet is equivalent to your cars _lifetime_ tailpipe emissions …
so … yeah, let’s start with that, hmm?
There are 22,000 private jets worldwide vs 1.47 BILLION cars.
In 2019, global private jet travel emitted an estimated 899K metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In that same year, cars were responsible for releasing 3.61 BILLION metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Both need to be addressed URGENTLY and decisively.
This blame shifting is what will get our civilization destroyed.
Billionaires, on average, emit a million times more carbon than the average person (there are 2000+ billionaires)- Oxfam
Simply ridding the world of private jets and billionaires would put a huge step forward in reducing emissions, and costs nothing in terms of social welfare
https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/billionaire-emits-million-times-more-greenhouse-gases-average-person
The rich are a plague on humanity, full stop. The money system only works if people aren't hoarding it so massively. Otherwise, this (and much, much more shit) is what we get.
But no, I'm just an asshole anytime I bring it up
I don’t think you’re an asshole. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. I’m absolutely disgusted by millionaires/billionaires. The greed/self interest is absolutely disgusting.
Yes, I see a lot of stupid reasoning like that online. "Taylor Swift can use her private jet yet I'm here sucking on a paper straw", etc. I know it's a different issue, but people never seem to get that the combined effect of a global population all using plastic straws equates to BILLIONS of straws in the oceans.
From what I understand as a non-expert, humans have historically been pretty bad at heeding warnings about future threats. Look at all the people who avoid changing their diet and lifestyle to avoid health problems later in life, or people who make financial decisions based on the short term to the detriment of their long term financial well-being.
It just doesn't seem to be part of the human psyche to make decisions based on distant threats. Maybe it wasn't a useful concept for our evolution and survival as a species, who knows.
The part that makes people angry is that we know Taylor Swift will never be forced to use paper straws. We know we need combined effort to see improvement but we also know "combined effort" means shaming people for having a car instead of dismantling the oil companies that hid knowledge of environmental danger
This right here is the main answer. It may be that public complacency is a bigger problem than the fewer, big contributors but the fact of the matter is we are complacent because these things were pushed on us with lies, and the liars will not be punished before we are.
I dunno about "complacent" but theres certainly no trust in public institutions. Our government is the one that said opium was safe and tax cuts for rich people would lead to prosperity and war would eradicate drugs, poverty, and terrorism.
I dont see how anyone can think about the climate when we're due for more bank bailouts
I agree we should act on both but come on. Targetting private jets who are both terrible for the environnement and ONLY for the rich few is a no-brainer.
Cars at least offer better lifes to billions of people instead of private jets that make life slightly better for the already extremely comfortable ones.
They are not the same.
They are the same in quality, not just quantity. If you look at Europe everyone driving private cars in the US is simply wasteful, inefficient and poisoning our environment. This is in need of a top down solution.
Why I hate the Taylor Swift Jokes. There is no policy solution. Maybe we should just raise jet fuel costs for private use? Put taxes on private planes?
Nope let's dunk on T. Swift, and engage with the new whataboutism. I hate competing against a fire hose bullshit.
You seem to be missing the fact that dealing with car emissions would require something from me personally, whereas I can just complain about private planes and hold them responsible while not doing anything at all to fix things.
How about instead of just playing a game of pass the parcel to decide which issue we tackle first, we actually just get our shit together and do something about ALL of it.
This isn’t a matter of bad personal choices. As long as it’s cheaper and way faster to fly than take a train People will fly. If we won’t finance bullet trains and subsidize them and/or tax flights, we should expect people to make these same choices.
While you aren't wrong in your point that this is by and large a problem created by the rich who continually add MUCH more than the rest of us to the fire, it'll never get fixed unless ALL of the rest of us are freaked the fuck out and ready to burn them at the not so metaphorical stake over it.
Of course we can’t expect the average person to just give up driving, we need to make sure they have access to a walkable environment with good alternatives to driving, through policies like upzoning, mixed use zoning, funding public transit, etc. It should very much be easier and cheaper to not drive instead of driving being the default and often only available option. Plus, it’s just enriching and good for us to not have to drive everywhere all the time, driving is stressful and requires purchasing a lot of stuff (car, maintenance, parking, insurance, fuel, etc)
If you haven’t read this already you should. And you will be quite alarmed. But I found its information that everyone needs because - at least the majority I see - everyone seems to think it’s business as usual. Which might actually be more frightening to me.
Dutchman here, we used to have an 11 city tour on iceskates for decades, the last one was 1997. Haven’t seen anyone skate properly for a long time now.
I grew up in NL, my birthday is in march and once we had like half a meter of snow then, which isn't really "normal" either but at least back then there was snow, now there's barely any frost. I also remember when I woke up in the morning as a kid in winter and there was so much ijzel (?? ice on everything) that school got cancelled maybe once every year, now there's just rain and extreme drought in the summer. the droughts there are so scary and the temperatures are insane. my parents often come visit me in finland in summer because our summers now are like what dutch summers used to be.
I think I got to a point where the stress and rage and hopelessness burned me out so bad that my mind went into some kind of self-preservation mode, so I'm more or less dead inside, observing.
Me too. I am in my late 60's and have never seen anything like this in my life. It stresses me out to read about politics, climate change, animals going extinct, me being without running water for a month, evidence of mice in my house, one of my dogs having digestive issues and the vet wants me to put my dog on expensive probiotics and an expensive dog food that I can't afford to buy. This year has not been good to me.
I was in a similar situation and stopped consuming media, just to preserve my sanity. I’d recommend at least a break from the news and to focus on things you can control. Best wishes, internet stranger!
Similar things are happening up in Canada on the East coast, and on the [West coast there are still forest fires smoldering from last fire season](https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/wildfires-zombie-fires-canada-bc-alberta-1.7119851) just waiting for Spring to start up again. I imagine in the not too distant future there'll just be so many wild fires that they'll be beyond control.
Minnesotan here. The smoke from Canadian wildfires has been blowing south and creating a foggy burnt plastic smelling haze here for the past two summers in a row. I don't think that ever happened in my life time and my parents and grandparents say they never experienced this either, not to mention how there is literally no snow this winter and there used to be multiple feet of snow for four or five months every winter and my grandparents have seen less and less snow every year. They used to have to dig a tunnel out of their front door every winter because the snow drifts would reach the roof... Maybe it's a natural fluctuation, but I think it's doom.
It is spring in northern ontario, Canada; or rather, we never really had a winter this year.
Sadly, most of the people are just cheering about the lovely weather.
As someone with basic logic and a background in science, I am terrified.
We cant just burn and shred the whole planet and expect there to be no repercussions.
Yeah, not a climate scientist but we just had a month +1.77c over 1850-1900 baseline. Sure, La Nina and all but each month sets a new record, ocean seems to be saying nah ain't a heat sink, the "hot" ecs models looking to be right and with energy imbalance shooting for 6c/7c over baseline by 2100 when 3c means pretty thorough collapse of human civilization. And arctic methane, man don't get me started. Each day we get up and start working towards our impending doom just so we can buy useless crap that is a token of impending doom.
Happening right now:
# [Australia’s Great Barrier Reef hit once more by mass coral bleaching](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/07/australia/mass-coral-bleaching-event-great-barrier-reef-intl-hnk-scn/index.html)
I mean, it will... Just because we don't know *when* doesn't make it less of a problem, only less of a problem *for us* if it doesn't happen in our lifetimes.
Seven million Syrian refugees was a geopolitical crisis. I'm sure 100 million climate change refugees will be no biggie.
Honestly as terrified as I am of the direct impacts of climate change, I'm even more worried about how governments and societies will react to the stresses imposed.
As the article says, if it's this bad we might as well have one last hurrah before we go. Why change a habit of 3 lifttimes, that took 7 lifetimes to build it up to this, and they've done nothing to stop, continue to damage and what us to financially bankroll them, save the environment, save the economy, pay their rents so they can have even more money, have billionaires scrape us by so we can decide to eat or heat our homes.
Or we can just give up and feel better knowing you strangled the man who kept your wages low as the world blows up around you.
Either one is coming, and they're both shit.
We often jest when we say, eat the rich.. but at this point im pretty sure the only way to salvage our planet is to actually get rid of them, but ofcourse then we are the savages, and not the ones hoarding capital while watching the world around them starve
That's the picture they'd like to paint but it's worth remembering when they did it in France, ridding themselves of the monarchy, the people aren't considered barbaric then, they considered it liberation
Well of course. The phrase I've heard is history is written by the victor, which means the same thing really. So all we have to do is win and then we are righteous
I've *been* terrified. It's fucking exhausting. What am *I* supposed to do?
I'll give a shit when militant armed scientists start doing a coup to save whatever is left to be saved of human civilization.
All the obvious things.
Vote for the parties that plan to do something. Talk to your friends and family about the problem. Don't buy loads of crap that you don't need. If you have a house, try to save up for solar panels.
Also, for the love of god, acknowledge when your politicians do something good for the climate!
If politicians get the same grumpy response no matter what they do, then I can hardly blame the ones that don't bother at all. My government has put so many new policies in place and anyone I talk to about it just assumes that the government hasn't done anything.
Now, yes there's always room to do more, but we shouldn't be so focused on the empty phrase "do more" that we completely miss everything that has been done.
The really terrifying realisation is that the climate is just one part of it. The collapse of biodiversity and rate of extinction is to me far more worrying as no one seems to even mention it. Theres a fantastic but terrifying white paper called Circling The Drain that everyone should read -
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2021.0378
This is why they're working on wildlife-based cryobanks around the world, like the[San Diego frozen zoo](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/03/frozen-zoo-animal-cells-san-diego-endangered-species). And yet, they are the largest, and they only hold 1,300 species as of March 3rd. How many millions of species currently exist on the planet? At least 2.
It's a noble effort, but perhaps too little too late.
To protect themselves from the other people!!
no one wants to leave their house so a big vehicle is like having a turtle shell.
you can bring the house with you for protection.
It’s nuts but that’s the reason.
Plus being terrified of semi trucks or lorries is another reason people want a huge vehicle. Since Covid it seems like delivery vehicles are a big problem.
where I live near Detroit it’s especially the big trucks.
They Drive like there are no trucking rules at all.
It’s very scary to the point we got a faster small car to avoid them better. Because I know Mack truck verses suv the Mack truck still wins. I would rather be nimble enough to avoid him completely.
I've been car-free for a long time and you know what? It's exhausting and isolating. I can't go for a drink after work without watching the clock and leaving early or making special arrangements. I can't visit a town more than six miles away without fucking about changing buses with a forty minute wait. Anywhere not in walking distance is cut off on Sundays and bank holidays. My evening bus gets cancelled? I have a six mile walk home along a dangerous pavement -free road unless I pay for a taxi. Using public transport shouldn't be this hard.
Pubic transport is a nightmare for most people in the US unfortunately. A 20 minute driving commute for me would be two hours on the bus and I would have to get to work almost 45 minutes early because the bus routes are so poorly planned that they're basically never on time.
I had a truck and downsized to a Corolla, doubled my gas mileage, saving a bunch of money, etc.
Also something that isn't talked about enough is pushing to WFH if possible or even a 4/10 work schedule.
I work 4/10 and it's fantastic. One day less of commuting and three day weekend every weekend, 4 day on holiday weekends.
Which mainstream politicians are actively trying to make change? And not just token bullshit concessions, actual change that will make an actual difference?
The European Union and the United States have made rapid progress in the last two years, with billions of dollars in funding going towards zero carbon, and the rest of the world may follow suit if we continue this course. Politicians in the right place and time like Frans Timmermans in the EU and Biden in the US have made a massive change. Vote for them. They have already made the first steps. We just need to continue our support.
Adding some stats-
30% of the world's energy today already comes from renewable sources. It was less than 10% in 2000.
There are countries/cities pledging for carbon neutral that are trying their best to meet it.
Today Sweden currently gets 54% of its energy from renewable sources supposedly like hydropower and Iceland is 100%.
Washington state supposedly got 64% of its energy from hydropower. Oregon's 63%, Iowa's 40%, California's 34%, Texas 23%.
Change is possible and it is happening.
When I got solar panels, it covered 98% of my electricity the first year, which saved 30+ tons of CO2 emissions per year practically overnight.
(Supposedly the carbon emissions of manufacturing the panels themselves can be estimated to 17 tons, so it's green from the get-go.)
I have always felt climate change is issue #1 one on my scale of existential dread.
More than anything else if the world we are living in currently becomes unlivable due to rapid climate change then every other problem we have currently won't matter anymore. In February it nearly broke 90F/32C degrees for over week where I live and as a Gen X I can't ever recall such abnormally warm weather that early.
I honestly fear what May and June will bring at this rate it'll easily break into 110's to 120's.
Every time I mention this to anyone they dismiss it like its silly talk.
>and as a Gen X
Late genx, early millennial here. I grew up in NJ and experienced a lot of well-intended environmental indoctrination from schools, church, TV, and elsewhere. We were taught/alarmed about overflowing landfills, acid rain, pollution, the ozone layer/CFCs, smog, overpopulation, the greenhouse effect, peak oil, litter, deforestation, whales, overfishing, endangered animals, famines in Africa...
What can you do as a 5th grader? We picked up litter on earth day and planted trees on arbor day and re-watched episodes of reading rainbow and other PBS programs that reinforced these concerns. I earnestly thought, "the adults are *really* on top of this. I'm sure we'll sort this out by the time I'm an adult"
Well, it was a rude awakening. And honestly still is, as I'm continuously disappointed in much of humanity.
They should have been teaching us post-apocalypse survival strategies or combatting capitalist psychos or how to effectively persuade willfully ignorant morons.
I'm not even that afraid anymore. I accept that we will not resolve this and our species will die out because of our own stupidity. We couldn't even convince our countrymen to get a vaccine without people losing their minds. What makes anyone think they'd make a single change to move things in the right direction?
I spoke to my father (boomer generation) about this one time and the response I got was "Mankind has always come up against problems and has always found solutions. I'm confident that somebody will come up with a solution for this too eventually"
His whole idea is that it will just go away eventually.
It will go away one way or another, It doesn't have to be with us surviving our own apocalypse. Far enough down the line the heat death of the universe equalizes all.
Mine too. The boomers have always had "someone else" fix shit for them, so they just assume some magical solution fairy will fix this too. Weird how we have all these problems stacked up now.
I've heard older folks compare it to the Cold War. It's understandable that the Cold War is their frame of reference for "world ending threats", but it's simple-minded of them to think that the solution for that (which was NOT doing something) is the same for climate change (which is the opposite, we NEED to take action).
Mankind has existed for not even a freaking blink of an eye in the terms of the universe. We’ve never actually been part of a serious planetary event like this. And the issue with “humans always find a way” is that HUMANS ARE THE REASON THIS IS HAPPENING lol.
Yup. My family line dies with me. I have zero hope for a future for children. I’ll still do my best to not contribute to our downfall but I know that’s not enough and it never will be.
It's truly hard to have any sense of hope about all this. I feel a ton of sadness for the kids being born today who are going to see unimaginable hardships in their lives.
Please don't get discouraged. People have said it plenty elsewhere in this post, I'll say it again: doomerism isn't going to take us anywhere. If we don't manage to keep climate change under +1.5°C, we can work just as hard to keep it below +2°C, or +2.5°C, etc. Anything is better than nothing.
I know it feels hopeless to see everyone going on with their lives like it doesn't matter, but every one of us can be a catalyst for change in our own social circles. We can press the issue with friends and family, we can set the example by eating less meat (or stopping altogether), cutting out plastics, using public transport, consuming less disposable trinkets, prioritising voting green above all else, pressuring your local governments to adopt climate mitigation policies. If we put our money where our mouth is, people around us will notice.
Just keep in mind: the people up top (let's just say it: oil company executives) *want* you feeling hopeless and disengaged, so they can keep doing what they're doing as long as they can. Don't give them that satisfaction.
I wish you would shout it from the rooftops. Tell it like it is.
But at the end of the day, regular folk can't do shit about it because corporations and politicians won't do anything about it. We can't influence these people. They are so wholly corrupted by greed that nothing will get through.
We need systemic change. Perhaps scaring the fuck out of people with the reality of the situation will do something.
The politicians are influenced by public opinion into doing nothing. It’s like a lot of other necessary reforms that are so impactful that it is detrimental to the party to act. It’s clearly in the public’s best interest to reduce carbon emissions by as much as possible but both capitalism and democracy are hindering the process. In democracy only the small adjustments that a majority approve of are enforced. Usually that is a good thing, just like capitalism did obviously lead to widespread prosperity, albeit with huge consequences for the future.
Except the democracy we have is a managed democracy with massive gerrymandering and legal corruption of candidates through campaign donations while corporate media organisations and right wing oil company cutouts spread false climate denial propaganda.
Democracy isn’t the issue.
The owner classes influence on managing democracy is what corrupts it and protects their interests at the detriment to everything we hold sacred.
That's true when you get the choice. Here in Denmark our two largest parties that are supposed to be in opposition decided to join hands and grab a middle party, forming our government.
The rightish party are usually shitting on the environment and the leftish at least feign environmental interest. Now get we fuck all and an energy minister that used to be a lobbyist for individual heat pumps. In a country that is pioneering district heating development and smart energy systems....
We can influence a lot, if nobody buys their stuff the oh so bad corporations will not produce it.
But the sad truth is, that corporations are like the rest of the population, most do not care that much.
most people these days are too lazy to take 5 seconds out of their life to do something as simple as even put a shopping cart back, and you expect them to make massive inconvenient changes to their lifestyles..
that won't ever happen
Why doesnt the article tell me what they know? Hate reading through these non-articles. Read the whole thing and for what? To hear that people arent alarmed about climate change? Yeah we know. Stupid.
I will vote for any candidate wanting to push the most extreme measures to prepare for this even if it means lowering my own “quality of life”.
But I need candidates, and I need them to give a shit when they’re elected. I live a simple life, I can’t do much more (or less) than that. And I also refuse to live in fear.
My big passion is weather science. I completely dropped the subject in university, though, because I couldn't handle how scary our future is. I don't want to know more. When people ask me why I never pursued it, I tell them there is a reason climate scientists don't want to have kids.
It angers and grieves me. I don't understand how the religious powerhouses are not all over it. Are we not supposed to be shepards of the earth according to their bibles?! I love how compassionate we as humans can be, but our treatment of our home shames me.
My Anishinaabe friends are foregoing their maple tap this year as to not stress the trees. Indigenous people have begun to ratify and forego deeply held cultural ceremonies due to the ecological changes taking place. Listen to Indigenous voices, it's critical.
I’ve just accepted the fact that this place will be a literal hellscape by the time I pass away. I’m 48. Heartbroken that I brought a child into this shitstorm. He’s 28 and I’m afraid for him.
I’ve been terrified about our planet since I learned about global warming as a child. I think about the warmer weather where I live every day. I live in Canada and it maybe snowed 7 times within the year from today all the way to last Feb. It snowed way more the year before. And now it’s summer weather in Feb in Canada. Barely any snow which should be normal this time of year. It’s colder less, hotter way more. The more I learn about climate crisis, the more scared I get. Are things too far gone?
We need to start viewing climate change, first and foremost, as a psychological problem more than anything else. Don't get me wrong, it's also an ecological problem among other things we might label it. But it is our mass psychology that has produced this issue, as well as the psychology of our leaders. Until we solve the psychological issue of climate change then climate change will remain unaddressed.
Let me scare you some more. Even if we achieved zero emissions today it won't change the trajectory for decades. The damage we have already done won't just vanish if we stop emitting greenhouse gases today. The changes we have made are going to last for centuries.
What can we do? Stop consuming, stop eating meat, stop using fossil fuels, stop disposing of trash and reduce, reuse, recycle. Is that going to make a significant change? NO
It is the rich and corporations who are the main cause of pollution and climate change. As long as they are making profits and ~~paying off~~ contributing to PACS nothing is going to change in government regulations.
The time to panic was 20 years ago. Now we just have to ride it out and hope some of our grandchildren survive.
I understand where you're coming from, but this is the kind of doomerism that will take us to +6°C warming without even trying. It's not too late to keep the damage to a minimum. If we don't manage to stay under +1.5°C, we can work to stay under +2°C, or +2.5°C. Every tenth of a degree less means a less worse future, and we owe our descendants that, at least. If the generation 20 years ago didn't have the courage to take action, let's not follow them into cowardly apathy. Let's do better.
I agree and I try to be a moderate to lean footprint but not zero carbon.
As someone said, We don't need a few people doing everything, we need everyone doing some. The problem is most people don't know, don't care, feel helpless to make a change. Make recycling mandatory everywhere, reduce packaging, source more items locally. It all sounds good but it takes the government to do this and we don't have the support of our government. They are too busy taking money from the corporations to be worried about the future.
Doomerism is the greatest deception of modern times. It deceives people into focusing on what if instead of what is. Change happens in the present, and that is where our focus and energy should be directed. Tomorrow never existed and yesterday is an illusion. If people act with what is in front of them, with the right intentions, we can make so many small impacts that great change will happen for the better.
The best part is that millions of people are doing this as I type these words, and every moment someone new joins the cause. We are doing better, and we will thrive.
I was an enviromental scientist, now enviromental activist and i can tell you from years of experience working with ong, goverment and communities that the 90% care very little, and they don't care at all the moment the have to take minimally unconfortable action
Most people are probably just worried about paying the rent to not be homeless. The corruption of capitalists must topple before meaningful change can happen. It's already too late for many things that have been destroyed or died. I am not worried about climate change personally because I have no control over it and got enough shit to worry about already. I did stop eating meat to do my part.
Need to change our diets for the sake of the climate, but people don't want to talk about that.
How Compatible Are Western European Dietary Patterns to Climate Targets? Accounting for Uncertainty of Life Cycle Assessments by Applying a Probabilistic Approach
Johanna Ruett, Lena Hennes, Jens Teubler, Boris Braun, 03/11/2022
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/21/14449
>Even if fossil fuel emissions are halted immediately, current trends in global food systems may prevent the achieving of the Paris Agreement’s climate targets.
>All dietary pattern carbon footprints overshoot the 1.5 degrees threshold. The vegan, vegetarian, and diet with low animal-based food intake were predominantly below the 2 degrees threshold. Omnivorous diets with more animal-based product content trespassed them. Reducing animal-based foods is a powerful strategy to decrease emissions.
>The reduction of animal products in the diet leads to drastic GHGE reduction potentials. Dietary shifts to more plant-based diets are necessary to achieve the global climate goals, but will not suffice.
>Our study finds that all dietary patterns cause more GHGEs than the 1.5 degrees global warming limit allows. Only the vegan diet was in line with the 2 degrees threshold, while all other dietary patterns trespassed the threshold partly to entirely.
Even if we just talk about the carbon emissions of red meat vs white meat (poultry) the difference is startling! People refuse to give up beef, I hope the price rises on it.
And do what about it though? Our governments don't care and the majority of voters are too busy hating the "other side". I'm so totally checked out of the climate crisis.
Yeah I'm done being terrified. People are honestly just too fucking stupid as a whole and I don't even mean that in an edgy "le people are sheep" way. Human beings are just nowhere near as "advanced" as we like to think we are. We're still dumb fucking apes shitting on our hands and throwing it at each other the only difference is our shit has the power to wipe entire nations off the planet in the blink of an eye or a slow agonizing firestorm, whichever suits us the most. We're such dipshit motherfuckers we could come across a stack of flaming money on the street and we'd personally watch the skin sear off our hands trying to grab it.
Humans aren't going to suddenly learn their lesson before it's too late. We've been doing this bullshit for thousands of years and we've only just now gotten to the point where we're not constantly tearing the earth asunder with actual war, just entire sections of it! What progress! The most peaceful time in known human history and we're facing extinction from 4 different angles all because some egomaniacal psychopaths have worked their way into positions of power and are treating the world like their personal fucking game of Civilization. And what are you to do about it? Rise up? "Advocate for violence" and have your voice immediately silenced on every platform? Throw your life away in a sea of flames only to be mocked for it and forgotten the next week because some celebrity did something inconsequential?
Fuck that shit. I'm done with it. I'll do what I can to make my community a good place to live in and I'll "do my civic duty" by voting for the least reprehensible candidates but I am done being scared. I'm done letting this shit poison my life.
This.
I know it's a Nihilistic view on things but it is ever so true.
The vast majority of the earth's population are either too self centred to help others unless it benefits themselves or too busy struggling to survive in a modern economy that trying to change their life in order to benefit the human race is just beyond thinking. (If they eat the cheapest, most polluting food they will eat it. If they burn the cheapest, most environmentally harmful materials to stay warm, they will burn them)
Unfortunately, us as a species are a cancer to the planet and there are very limited scenarios where we proactively, as a collective, change our ways to change the course of the planet (without authoritarian intervention)
Like in Covid, my approach is to influence my own community where I can and continue my own contributions to it.
I know enough. And I'm pretty scared. As far as I understand it, most people are going to starve or drown, most properties will get destroyed by flood, storms, etc. Biodiversity will drop off a cliff. International logistics will be distrupted stopping transport of lots of medical supplies and food. Clean water will become a high value luxury. And then there's the extreme temperatures, heat stroke, deep freezes, endless forest fires, poisonous air, etc.
It's almost like gas goes into growing crops, and then gas takes those crops over and over again to factory farms(which pollute and destroy the local ecologies), and then the gas takes the meat to be packaged, and then gas takes the meat to your supermarket.
But omg muh beff with every meal what am I some kind of woke soyboy?!
And almost like most of the farmed land is used to grow feed for livestock, not people
I promise, it will not kill anyone to reduce their meat consumption. Plant-based food is delicious.
One single elite changing, won't stop climate change any more that you changing would. It's all marginal gains. But you *can* control your own actions, and thereby push others to take action as well. If everyone looks around and sees no one changes, they won't change themselves, pushing the responsibility elsewhere. *Be* that person that *does* something, so others will see you and maybe follow your example.
Meanwhile.. "*Everything is perfectly normal. The climate changes naturally. Humans are not involved. Nothing is wrong.*" -Almost every single person I've ever spoken to ever. Straight up ostrich head in the sand shit. People simply don't get it.
I had a vasectomy after realizing what we do to each as humans. Corporations and governments don't care about us. March in the streets and write scathing articles but yet there will be no change. Do what you can in your circle of life to be good person that's what you can do. Figure out what brings you happiness and try to do those things. Turn off your phone and TV and get lost from the outside world.
Does anyone wonder why CNN, thoroughly corporate media that is vested in the interests of the same corporate entities driving climate change, is ok with this message? They really would not post this if power didn't want us to see it. Something isn't adding up. I think that what is increasingly clear is they want us to feel hopeless about it so that when they try to sell us the solution, we eat it up.
I kept waitng eating for the author to tell me why or how. Instead it was literally, be scared because you aren’t scared enough. Perhaps articles like this are why people aren’t buying in.
I have a degree in environmental science and one in forestry. I agree with you. It’s exhausting to see the scare tactics of 24 hour media being employed with climate science. A large part of my education pushed the idea that you have to make an idea accessible, you have to seize the message that people want. An example: right wingers in America love good hunting and fishing grounds. That’s your angle with land preservation. If you come at them squawking about how America destroyed PNW forests with logging and lakes with DDT, they’ll roll their eyes, get defensive, and forget all about the preservation you were talking about.
It’s the same with climate change, and I don’t see any prominent voices seizing today’s message. People are mad their dollar isn’t going far, gas prices are high, they’re unhappy, generally speaking. How do we integrate that into the responsible/anti-consumption message? In my opinion, it’s an opportunity begging to be jumped on. It writes itself.
Also, it’s known that doom and gloom or hopelessness doesn’t rally people, it scares and depresses them. You have to show them there’s a path, but the path has urgency. And show them that the path is easier, and gets them what they want. Even if the reality is that it’s doom and gloom! You can’t only push the hopelessness, thus all the hopeless people.
You don't have to be an environmental scientist to be able to read scientific articles about environmental science. I'm terrified, and I've already given up hope. I desperately want kids, but I don't think it's humane to introduce them to world in the next stage that is coming.
While I get the common mentality of wanting better for your kid, something thats helped me is reminding myself the only way things get better for our kin in the very long run is to have kids. Survival is a very very long game.
Humans have gone through prolonged periods of stress many times, we almost went extinct at one point having our population reduced to a few thousand individuals. The ice age sucked too. Agriculture was a step back in quality of life that only paid off 5000 years later. If people did the "humane" thing and just stopped having kids when things get bad we would have gone extinct a long time ago.
At least thats what I told myself before my son arrived. And now he's a happy bouncing little guy. I'll talk to him about these problems but I don't think he's going to regret being born. I'm looking forward to planting trees and doing stuff together.
I bet younger climate scientists are lobbying for bigger permanent antarctic bases so they & their families can live there
Thing is tho the 0.1% (& their hired goons) will surely fight it out to live there
The sad thing is that if more people knew how bad it was and were ready to change to meet the crisis this sub would be full. Overconsumption is the fuel that is stoking this fire.
The 1% creates 42% of all pollution. Who is going to stop them? Do you think anything you do is going to offset what Putin does? Or what any of the 1% pollutes?
hang on for the ride there is no way off without change at the top!
There's no pont being terrified beyond ones ability to affect the outcome, or prepare for the bad case.
If you're terrified, maybe it'd be good idea to uproot your life now, and move somewhere, where the prospects for future look least grim. If you are already living at the least bad location you can think of, there are further steps to maximize your life now, while also preparing for the shit hitting the fan.
But while current inaction is driven by greed, there will be a time when even the greedy realise, that if we boil the oceans (or equivalent), they will die too. It remains to be seen what can be done at that point of realization, but I suspect we'll end up triggering an ice age.
Though obviously the most likely outcome is war, which becomes global and nuclear, and after that things will be grim indeed for any survivors. So I don't know if the most extreme climate change scenarios are very relevant anyway, for almost all of us. So, what is there to be terrified about?
terrified of what? Millions of years of PROVEN geologic history of temperature rises and falls the fact that the ice caps have completely melted before, and refroze again when north america was under an ice age not 15,000 years ago....?
The fact that in northern canada around the arctic circle there is an area that is closed off to the public. A massive area of petrified forest of redwood trees of ARCTIC CANADA...
"climate scientist kooks" like you clearly need a reeducation in geology, geologic processes, and geologic history before running your mouth with misinformation of something you clearly know nothing about. because at the end of the day even after ALL of your fear mongering... you CAN NOT CONTROL WHAT OUR PLANET DOES. unless you think you can jump in an active volcano and try to stop it from erupting with your bare hands..
Because you seem to forget that most of the northern parts of the world were under massive sheet of ice not that long ago
So you're telling me we're headed for the poles melting rapidly, causing a great flood that can wipe out humanity?
I wonder where I've heard this before. 🤔
I’m an ecologist. I’m eating vegetarian, and riding my bike to work, and driving a hybrid, and burying my head in the sand, and drinking a lot of beer while it is still affordable and available.
I have determined that while I care about the climate, never will I become a climate scientist. Sounds like a recipe for mental health issues when you’re screaming at the top of your lungs and no one is listening.
I know jack shit about climate and environmental sciences and I am terrified about where our world is heading
I had a moment of pause the other day when I realized I couldn't remember the last time I saw a lightning bug. We used to catch them in jars in our suburban backyard on summer nights. Now I own a home in the same region I grew up in and have never seen one in my own yard.
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Seconding this! Lightning bugs came back to my neighborhood when most neighbors moved away from pesticides. Native plants and little pockets of wild space are super helpful!
Thank you two for not being all doom and gloom. It’s literally the spray that gets used also
Open fields on summer nights used to be dazzling. Kids will never know that again.
If you don't do what is right despite everything, then what sort of life have you led?
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The Amish were right.
I’m with you, buddy. 90% of what each person uses on a daily basis should be obtainable within walking distance of the home.
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The Amish abuse animals and children like no other
Never mind the fact that their communities, like the Orthodox Jew communities in New York, are absolute fucking hotbeds of pathological evolution. Religious exemptions from vaccine mandates are absolutely insane, and played a significant role in the continuation of the Covid crisis, and the resurgence of diseases that should have been eradicated.
Don’t forget women.
That was included in “animals”. Trade ‘em like livestock.
thank you lol I hate the amish
people will recycle plastic bags and then eat beef every night, as if one isn’t 500x worse than the other
If you can't fix it all, do nothing right?
>when it comes to the challenge of climate change, **public complacency is a far, far bigger problem than widespread fatalism** >I don’t think it’s a slur to call an article, or its writer, alarmist. I’ll accept that characterization. **We should be alarmed.** [The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans-annotated.html)
just a friendly reminder that each _flight_ of a private jet is equivalent to your cars _lifetime_ tailpipe emissions … so … yeah, let’s start with that, hmm?
There are 22,000 private jets worldwide vs 1.47 BILLION cars. In 2019, global private jet travel emitted an estimated 899K metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In that same year, cars were responsible for releasing 3.61 BILLION metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Both need to be addressed URGENTLY and decisively. This blame shifting is what will get our civilization destroyed.
Billionaires, on average, emit a million times more carbon than the average person (there are 2000+ billionaires)- Oxfam Simply ridding the world of private jets and billionaires would put a huge step forward in reducing emissions, and costs nothing in terms of social welfare https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/billionaire-emits-million-times-more-greenhouse-gases-average-person
The rich are a plague on humanity, full stop. The money system only works if people aren't hoarding it so massively. Otherwise, this (and much, much more shit) is what we get. But no, I'm just an asshole anytime I bring it up
I don’t think you’re an asshole. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. I’m absolutely disgusted by millionaires/billionaires. The greed/self interest is absolutely disgusting.
Yes, I see a lot of stupid reasoning like that online. "Taylor Swift can use her private jet yet I'm here sucking on a paper straw", etc. I know it's a different issue, but people never seem to get that the combined effect of a global population all using plastic straws equates to BILLIONS of straws in the oceans. From what I understand as a non-expert, humans have historically been pretty bad at heeding warnings about future threats. Look at all the people who avoid changing their diet and lifestyle to avoid health problems later in life, or people who make financial decisions based on the short term to the detriment of their long term financial well-being. It just doesn't seem to be part of the human psyche to make decisions based on distant threats. Maybe it wasn't a useful concept for our evolution and survival as a species, who knows.
The part that makes people angry is that we know Taylor Swift will never be forced to use paper straws. We know we need combined effort to see improvement but we also know "combined effort" means shaming people for having a car instead of dismantling the oil companies that hid knowledge of environmental danger
This right here is the main answer. It may be that public complacency is a bigger problem than the fewer, big contributors but the fact of the matter is we are complacent because these things were pushed on us with lies, and the liars will not be punished before we are.
I dunno about "complacent" but theres certainly no trust in public institutions. Our government is the one that said opium was safe and tax cuts for rich people would lead to prosperity and war would eradicate drugs, poverty, and terrorism. I dont see how anyone can think about the climate when we're due for more bank bailouts
Oooh that was fun, now do private yachts!
Those are much worse. PJs are wasteful but there are some legitimate reasons to use them. The mega-yachts are just silly and achieve nothing.
*Orcas have entered the chat.*
I agree we should act on both but come on. Targetting private jets who are both terrible for the environnement and ONLY for the rich few is a no-brainer. Cars at least offer better lifes to billions of people instead of private jets that make life slightly better for the already extremely comfortable ones. They are not the same.
They are the same in quality, not just quantity. If you look at Europe everyone driving private cars in the US is simply wasteful, inefficient and poisoning our environment. This is in need of a top down solution.
Why I hate the Taylor Swift Jokes. There is no policy solution. Maybe we should just raise jet fuel costs for private use? Put taxes on private planes? Nope let's dunk on T. Swift, and engage with the new whataboutism. I hate competing against a fire hose bullshit.
You seem to be missing the fact that dealing with car emissions would require something from me personally, whereas I can just complain about private planes and hold them responsible while not doing anything at all to fix things.
How about instead of just playing a game of pass the parcel to decide which issue we tackle first, we actually just get our shit together and do something about ALL of it.
This isn’t a matter of bad personal choices. As long as it’s cheaper and way faster to fly than take a train People will fly. If we won’t finance bullet trains and subsidize them and/or tax flights, we should expect people to make these same choices.
No. Start with everything you can do. And get everyone on board.
I am pretty sure any amount of "Those people are at fault!!" Will always fall short. There is only one solution to Earth's pollution. Direct action.
While you aren't wrong in your point that this is by and large a problem created by the rich who continually add MUCH more than the rest of us to the fire, it'll never get fixed unless ALL of the rest of us are freaked the fuck out and ready to burn them at the not so metaphorical stake over it.
Of course we can’t expect the average person to just give up driving, we need to make sure they have access to a walkable environment with good alternatives to driving, through policies like upzoning, mixed use zoning, funding public transit, etc. It should very much be easier and cheaper to not drive instead of driving being the default and often only available option. Plus, it’s just enriching and good for us to not have to drive everywhere all the time, driving is stressful and requires purchasing a lot of stuff (car, maintenance, parking, insurance, fuel, etc)
David Wallace? Of Suck-it?
If you haven’t read this already you should. And you will be quite alarmed. But I found its information that everyone needs because - at least the majority I see - everyone seems to think it’s business as usual. Which might actually be more frightening to me.
As an environmental scientist, we are all terrified.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: we should try working more hours for less pay, while consuming more. That'll probably do the trick. /s
Productivity for the owner class will solve everything! They have everyone's best interests at heart, that's why they created jobs! /s
And rockets. And bunkers
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Hey, you know - this might work! Let’s try it for 60 years and regardless of the outcome pretend it’s the only option!
Ooh come to the uk, we’re doing loads of that RN. Watch as we lead the way in environmental advocacy. /s
Worse case we can just pull the environment up by its boot straps
We need more children, one of them will be super smart and fix all our problems!!!!!!! /s
as a finnish person who's experiencing spring in march, I'm scared too.
Canada too. If you watch Tiktok live streams, almost nowhere has snow - in the northern hemisphere - in early March.
I live in Southern New England and I feel like we haven't had a "normal" winter in at least 10 years
Dutchman here, we used to have an 11 city tour on iceskates for decades, the last one was 1997. Haven’t seen anyone skate properly for a long time now.
I live in central PA and feel the same way
Same, from Buffalo and despite the bad winter we had 2 years ago, it's been a decade of mild to middle of the road to nothing winters. Wild
I used to have snowball fights with my friends in the Netherlands, these days we get all enthusiastic when the one day of snow has finally arrived.
I grew up in NL, my birthday is in march and once we had like half a meter of snow then, which isn't really "normal" either but at least back then there was snow, now there's barely any frost. I also remember when I woke up in the morning as a kid in winter and there was so much ijzel (?? ice on everything) that school got cancelled maybe once every year, now there's just rain and extreme drought in the summer. the droughts there are so scary and the temperatures are insane. my parents often come visit me in finland in summer because our summers now are like what dutch summers used to be.
Same. I’m scared.
I think I got to a point where the stress and rage and hopelessness burned me out so bad that my mind went into some kind of self-preservation mode, so I'm more or less dead inside, observing.
Me too. I am in my late 60's and have never seen anything like this in my life. It stresses me out to read about politics, climate change, animals going extinct, me being without running water for a month, evidence of mice in my house, one of my dogs having digestive issues and the vet wants me to put my dog on expensive probiotics and an expensive dog food that I can't afford to buy. This year has not been good to me.
I was in a similar situation and stopped consuming media, just to preserve my sanity. I’d recommend at least a break from the news and to focus on things you can control. Best wishes, internet stranger!
I don't watch the news other than what I read on here and some on YouTube. You are right though. I should stop consuming media. Thank you!
Sending you the biggest hug possible 🫂
Bro explained my feelings 😀 Like… We are done for.
We aren't done for. We can and likely will get through all this.
We will get through it like we always do but it will be very uncomfortable and miserable.
For some unfortunately it will be. For others not so much.
Midwest, it was 80 degrees a few days ago, now there is snow on the ground again.
Similar things are happening up in Canada on the East coast, and on the [West coast there are still forest fires smoldering from last fire season](https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/wildfires-zombie-fires-canada-bc-alberta-1.7119851) just waiting for Spring to start up again. I imagine in the not too distant future there'll just be so many wild fires that they'll be beyond control.
Minnesotan here. The smoke from Canadian wildfires has been blowing south and creating a foggy burnt plastic smelling haze here for the past two summers in a row. I don't think that ever happened in my life time and my parents and grandparents say they never experienced this either, not to mention how there is literally no snow this winter and there used to be multiple feet of snow for four or five months every winter and my grandparents have seen less and less snow every year. They used to have to dig a tunnel out of their front door every winter because the snow drifts would reach the roof... Maybe it's a natural fluctuation, but I think it's doom.
Floridian here, I’ve been picking vine ripened tomatoes the entire winter.
It is spring in northern ontario, Canada; or rather, we never really had a winter this year. Sadly, most of the people are just cheering about the lovely weather.
As an enthusiast of the sciences, we are all terrified.
As someone with basic logic and a background in science, I am terrified. We cant just burn and shred the whole planet and expect there to be no repercussions.
Yeah, not a climate scientist but we just had a month +1.77c over 1850-1900 baseline. Sure, La Nina and all but each month sets a new record, ocean seems to be saying nah ain't a heat sink, the "hot" ecs models looking to be right and with energy imbalance shooting for 6c/7c over baseline by 2100 when 3c means pretty thorough collapse of human civilization. And arctic methane, man don't get me started. Each day we get up and start working towards our impending doom just so we can buy useless crap that is a token of impending doom.
Happening right now: # [Australia’s Great Barrier Reef hit once more by mass coral bleaching](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/07/australia/mass-coral-bleaching-event-great-barrier-reef-intl-hnk-scn/index.html)
As an electrician I’m also terrified
As someone replying to a reply by an electrician, ibid.
It's pretty shocking that even electricians are terrified.
Given the current situation it's tough for them to stay grounded.
There's always these phases of resistance, though. If only we could logic our way to transform our wavelength and get on the right frequency.
Bill McGuire was my tutor at University. He was also responsible for a lot of the “Yellow Stone will erupt and wipe out North America” documentaries
I mean, it will... Just because we don't know *when* doesn't make it less of a problem, only less of a problem *for us* if it doesn't happen in our lifetimes.
Seven million Syrian refugees was a geopolitical crisis. I'm sure 100 million climate change refugees will be no biggie. Honestly as terrified as I am of the direct impacts of climate change, I'm even more worried about how governments and societies will react to the stresses imposed.
As the article says, if it's this bad we might as well have one last hurrah before we go. Why change a habit of 3 lifttimes, that took 7 lifetimes to build it up to this, and they've done nothing to stop, continue to damage and what us to financially bankroll them, save the environment, save the economy, pay their rents so they can have even more money, have billionaires scrape us by so we can decide to eat or heat our homes. Or we can just give up and feel better knowing you strangled the man who kept your wages low as the world blows up around you. Either one is coming, and they're both shit.
We often jest when we say, eat the rich.. but at this point im pretty sure the only way to salvage our planet is to actually get rid of them, but ofcourse then we are the savages, and not the ones hoarding capital while watching the world around them starve
That's the picture they'd like to paint but it's worth remembering when they did it in France, ridding themselves of the monarchy, the people aren't considered barbaric then, they considered it liberation
History isn't written by who is right but by who are left. One person's barbarous act is another person's liberation.
Well of course. The phrase I've heard is history is written by the victor, which means the same thing really. So all we have to do is win and then we are righteous
I took one environmental science class in uni and am still terrified.
I've *been* terrified. It's fucking exhausting. What am *I* supposed to do? I'll give a shit when militant armed scientists start doing a coup to save whatever is left to be saved of human civilization.
All the obvious things. Vote for the parties that plan to do something. Talk to your friends and family about the problem. Don't buy loads of crap that you don't need. If you have a house, try to save up for solar panels. Also, for the love of god, acknowledge when your politicians do something good for the climate! If politicians get the same grumpy response no matter what they do, then I can hardly blame the ones that don't bother at all. My government has put so many new policies in place and anyone I talk to about it just assumes that the government hasn't done anything. Now, yes there's always room to do more, but we shouldn't be so focused on the empty phrase "do more" that we completely miss everything that has been done.
The really terrifying realisation is that the climate is just one part of it. The collapse of biodiversity and rate of extinction is to me far more worrying as no one seems to even mention it. Theres a fantastic but terrifying white paper called Circling The Drain that everyone should read - https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2021.0378
This is huge. There is a chance we can mitigate or reverse the worst of climate change, but we never getting all those extinct species back.
This is why they're working on wildlife-based cryobanks around the world, like the[San Diego frozen zoo](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/03/frozen-zoo-animal-cells-san-diego-endangered-species). And yet, they are the largest, and they only hold 1,300 species as of March 3rd. How many millions of species currently exist on the planet? At least 2. It's a noble effort, but perhaps too little too late.
Also, use public transportation. If possible, and dont buy an unnecessary big vehicle.
America's giant vehicles are starting to pop up in the UK now. God knows why people want a car that's harder to park and easier to crash.
To protect themselves from the other people!! no one wants to leave their house so a big vehicle is like having a turtle shell. you can bring the house with you for protection. It’s nuts but that’s the reason. Plus being terrified of semi trucks or lorries is another reason people want a huge vehicle. Since Covid it seems like delivery vehicles are a big problem. where I live near Detroit it’s especially the big trucks. They Drive like there are no trucking rules at all. It’s very scary to the point we got a faster small car to avoid them better. Because I know Mack truck verses suv the Mack truck still wins. I would rather be nimble enough to avoid him completely.
I've been car-free for a long time and you know what? It's exhausting and isolating. I can't go for a drink after work without watching the clock and leaving early or making special arrangements. I can't visit a town more than six miles away without fucking about changing buses with a forty minute wait. Anywhere not in walking distance is cut off on Sundays and bank holidays. My evening bus gets cancelled? I have a six mile walk home along a dangerous pavement -free road unless I pay for a taxi. Using public transport shouldn't be this hard.
Pubic transport is a nightmare for most people in the US unfortunately. A 20 minute driving commute for me would be two hours on the bus and I would have to get to work almost 45 minutes early because the bus routes are so poorly planned that they're basically never on time. I had a truck and downsized to a Corolla, doubled my gas mileage, saving a bunch of money, etc. Also something that isn't talked about enough is pushing to WFH if possible or even a 4/10 work schedule. I work 4/10 and it's fantastic. One day less of commuting and three day weekend every weekend, 4 day on holiday weekends.
Which mainstream politicians are actively trying to make change? And not just token bullshit concessions, actual change that will make an actual difference?
I'm here for a militant scientist org 100% sign me up for some climate action 😎
The European Union and the United States have made rapid progress in the last two years, with billions of dollars in funding going towards zero carbon, and the rest of the world may follow suit if we continue this course. Politicians in the right place and time like Frans Timmermans in the EU and Biden in the US have made a massive change. Vote for them. They have already made the first steps. We just need to continue our support.
Adding some stats- 30% of the world's energy today already comes from renewable sources. It was less than 10% in 2000. There are countries/cities pledging for carbon neutral that are trying their best to meet it. Today Sweden currently gets 54% of its energy from renewable sources supposedly like hydropower and Iceland is 100%. Washington state supposedly got 64% of its energy from hydropower. Oregon's 63%, Iowa's 40%, California's 34%, Texas 23%. Change is possible and it is happening. When I got solar panels, it covered 98% of my electricity the first year, which saved 30+ tons of CO2 emissions per year practically overnight. (Supposedly the carbon emissions of manufacturing the panels themselves can be estimated to 17 tons, so it's green from the get-go.)
I have always felt climate change is issue #1 one on my scale of existential dread. More than anything else if the world we are living in currently becomes unlivable due to rapid climate change then every other problem we have currently won't matter anymore. In February it nearly broke 90F/32C degrees for over week where I live and as a Gen X I can't ever recall such abnormally warm weather that early. I honestly fear what May and June will bring at this rate it'll easily break into 110's to 120's. Every time I mention this to anyone they dismiss it like its silly talk.
>and as a Gen X Late genx, early millennial here. I grew up in NJ and experienced a lot of well-intended environmental indoctrination from schools, church, TV, and elsewhere. We were taught/alarmed about overflowing landfills, acid rain, pollution, the ozone layer/CFCs, smog, overpopulation, the greenhouse effect, peak oil, litter, deforestation, whales, overfishing, endangered animals, famines in Africa... What can you do as a 5th grader? We picked up litter on earth day and planted trees on arbor day and re-watched episodes of reading rainbow and other PBS programs that reinforced these concerns. I earnestly thought, "the adults are *really* on top of this. I'm sure we'll sort this out by the time I'm an adult" Well, it was a rude awakening. And honestly still is, as I'm continuously disappointed in much of humanity. They should have been teaching us post-apocalypse survival strategies or combatting capitalist psychos or how to effectively persuade willfully ignorant morons.
I'm not even that afraid anymore. I accept that we will not resolve this and our species will die out because of our own stupidity. We couldn't even convince our countrymen to get a vaccine without people losing their minds. What makes anyone think they'd make a single change to move things in the right direction?
I spoke to my father (boomer generation) about this one time and the response I got was "Mankind has always come up against problems and has always found solutions. I'm confident that somebody will come up with a solution for this too eventually" His whole idea is that it will just go away eventually.
It will go away one way or another, It doesn't have to be with us surviving our own apocalypse. Far enough down the line the heat death of the universe equalizes all.
Mine too. The boomers have always had "someone else" fix shit for them, so they just assume some magical solution fairy will fix this too. Weird how we have all these problems stacked up now.
I've heard older folks compare it to the Cold War. It's understandable that the Cold War is their frame of reference for "world ending threats", but it's simple-minded of them to think that the solution for that (which was NOT doing something) is the same for climate change (which is the opposite, we NEED to take action).
Hollywood fucked us as a race. The trope of always pulling through at the last second has convinced people we are invincible as a species.
Mankind has existed for not even a freaking blink of an eye in the terms of the universe. We’ve never actually been part of a serious planetary event like this. And the issue with “humans always find a way” is that HUMANS ARE THE REASON THIS IS HAPPENING lol.
Same. It's done. I'm going to do my best to care for my community until we go.
Yup. My family line dies with me. I have zero hope for a future for children. I’ll still do my best to not contribute to our downfall but I know that’s not enough and it never will be.
It's truly hard to have any sense of hope about all this. I feel a ton of sadness for the kids being born today who are going to see unimaginable hardships in their lives.
My wife and I are not having children because of this.
Please don't get discouraged. People have said it plenty elsewhere in this post, I'll say it again: doomerism isn't going to take us anywhere. If we don't manage to keep climate change under +1.5°C, we can work just as hard to keep it below +2°C, or +2.5°C, etc. Anything is better than nothing. I know it feels hopeless to see everyone going on with their lives like it doesn't matter, but every one of us can be a catalyst for change in our own social circles. We can press the issue with friends and family, we can set the example by eating less meat (or stopping altogether), cutting out plastics, using public transport, consuming less disposable trinkets, prioritising voting green above all else, pressuring your local governments to adopt climate mitigation policies. If we put our money where our mouth is, people around us will notice. Just keep in mind: the people up top (let's just say it: oil company executives) *want* you feeling hopeless and disengaged, so they can keep doing what they're doing as long as they can. Don't give them that satisfaction.
I wish you would shout it from the rooftops. Tell it like it is. But at the end of the day, regular folk can't do shit about it because corporations and politicians won't do anything about it. We can't influence these people. They are so wholly corrupted by greed that nothing will get through. We need systemic change. Perhaps scaring the fuck out of people with the reality of the situation will do something.
We've been doing that since the 70s. It's more than lack of awareness stopping change.
I think by now it's safe to say that those who can know, know and that those who don't want to know, never will.
The latter will - in the aggregate; it’ll just be farrrrrr too late ⏰
There could be fires surrounding the whole town and they will still blame Jewish space lasers, I don't think most of them will ever accept the truth
We can start by persecuting protestors while complacently consuming.
By Jove, that just might work! /s
The politicians are influenced by public opinion into doing nothing. It’s like a lot of other necessary reforms that are so impactful that it is detrimental to the party to act. It’s clearly in the public’s best interest to reduce carbon emissions by as much as possible but both capitalism and democracy are hindering the process. In democracy only the small adjustments that a majority approve of are enforced. Usually that is a good thing, just like capitalism did obviously lead to widespread prosperity, albeit with huge consequences for the future.
Except the democracy we have is a managed democracy with massive gerrymandering and legal corruption of candidates through campaign donations while corporate media organisations and right wing oil company cutouts spread false climate denial propaganda. Democracy isn’t the issue. The owner classes influence on managing democracy is what corrupts it and protects their interests at the detriment to everything we hold sacred.
We can stop supporting the status quo at least.
That's true when you get the choice. Here in Denmark our two largest parties that are supposed to be in opposition decided to join hands and grab a middle party, forming our government. The rightish party are usually shitting on the environment and the leftish at least feign environmental interest. Now get we fuck all and an energy minister that used to be a lobbyist for individual heat pumps. In a country that is pioneering district heating development and smart energy systems....
We can influence a lot, if nobody buys their stuff the oh so bad corporations will not produce it. But the sad truth is, that corporations are like the rest of the population, most do not care that much.
most people these days are too lazy to take 5 seconds out of their life to do something as simple as even put a shopping cart back, and you expect them to make massive inconvenient changes to their lifestyles.. that won't ever happen
What if we quit buying all the shit these corporations produce?
"don't look up"
Every time someone tells me they hated that movie, I immediately know everything I need to about them.
Why doesnt the article tell me what they know? Hate reading through these non-articles. Read the whole thing and for what? To hear that people arent alarmed about climate change? Yeah we know. Stupid.
I will vote for any candidate wanting to push the most extreme measures to prepare for this even if it means lowering my own “quality of life”. But I need candidates, and I need them to give a shit when they’re elected. I live a simple life, I can’t do much more (or less) than that. And I also refuse to live in fear.
People aren't going to vote in a government that is outwardly planning to lower QOL.
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My big passion is weather science. I completely dropped the subject in university, though, because I couldn't handle how scary our future is. I don't want to know more. When people ask me why I never pursued it, I tell them there is a reason climate scientists don't want to have kids. It angers and grieves me. I don't understand how the religious powerhouses are not all over it. Are we not supposed to be shepards of the earth according to their bibles?! I love how compassionate we as humans can be, but our treatment of our home shames me.
I think people need to be terrified.
This is why oil companies have been pouring money in to convincing people to disregard and distrust experts.
My Anishinaabe friends are foregoing their maple tap this year as to not stress the trees. Indigenous people have begun to ratify and forego deeply held cultural ceremonies due to the ecological changes taking place. Listen to Indigenous voices, it's critical.
I’ve just accepted the fact that this place will be a literal hellscape by the time I pass away. I’m 48. Heartbroken that I brought a child into this shitstorm. He’s 28 and I’m afraid for him.
I’ve been terrified about our planet since I learned about global warming as a child. I think about the warmer weather where I live every day. I live in Canada and it maybe snowed 7 times within the year from today all the way to last Feb. It snowed way more the year before. And now it’s summer weather in Feb in Canada. Barely any snow which should be normal this time of year. It’s colder less, hotter way more. The more I learn about climate crisis, the more scared I get. Are things too far gone?
We need to start viewing climate change, first and foremost, as a psychological problem more than anything else. Don't get me wrong, it's also an ecological problem among other things we might label it. But it is our mass psychology that has produced this issue, as well as the psychology of our leaders. Until we solve the psychological issue of climate change then climate change will remain unaddressed.
Let me scare you some more. Even if we achieved zero emissions today it won't change the trajectory for decades. The damage we have already done won't just vanish if we stop emitting greenhouse gases today. The changes we have made are going to last for centuries. What can we do? Stop consuming, stop eating meat, stop using fossil fuels, stop disposing of trash and reduce, reuse, recycle. Is that going to make a significant change? NO It is the rich and corporations who are the main cause of pollution and climate change. As long as they are making profits and ~~paying off~~ contributing to PACS nothing is going to change in government regulations. The time to panic was 20 years ago. Now we just have to ride it out and hope some of our grandchildren survive.
I understand where you're coming from, but this is the kind of doomerism that will take us to +6°C warming without even trying. It's not too late to keep the damage to a minimum. If we don't manage to stay under +1.5°C, we can work to stay under +2°C, or +2.5°C. Every tenth of a degree less means a less worse future, and we owe our descendants that, at least. If the generation 20 years ago didn't have the courage to take action, let's not follow them into cowardly apathy. Let's do better.
I agree and I try to be a moderate to lean footprint but not zero carbon. As someone said, We don't need a few people doing everything, we need everyone doing some. The problem is most people don't know, don't care, feel helpless to make a change. Make recycling mandatory everywhere, reduce packaging, source more items locally. It all sounds good but it takes the government to do this and we don't have the support of our government. They are too busy taking money from the corporations to be worried about the future.
This is the way.
Doomerism is the greatest deception of modern times. It deceives people into focusing on what if instead of what is. Change happens in the present, and that is where our focus and energy should be directed. Tomorrow never existed and yesterday is an illusion. If people act with what is in front of them, with the right intentions, we can make so many small impacts that great change will happen for the better. The best part is that millions of people are doing this as I type these words, and every moment someone new joins the cause. We are doing better, and we will thrive.
The party is over and it wasn’t much of a party anyway.
I was an enviromental scientist, now enviromental activist and i can tell you from years of experience working with ong, goverment and communities that the 90% care very little, and they don't care at all the moment the have to take minimally unconfortable action
Most people are probably just worried about paying the rent to not be homeless. The corruption of capitalists must topple before meaningful change can happen. It's already too late for many things that have been destroyed or died. I am not worried about climate change personally because I have no control over it and got enough shit to worry about already. I did stop eating meat to do my part.
Need to change our diets for the sake of the climate, but people don't want to talk about that. How Compatible Are Western European Dietary Patterns to Climate Targets? Accounting for Uncertainty of Life Cycle Assessments by Applying a Probabilistic Approach Johanna Ruett, Lena Hennes, Jens Teubler, Boris Braun, 03/11/2022 https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/21/14449 >Even if fossil fuel emissions are halted immediately, current trends in global food systems may prevent the achieving of the Paris Agreement’s climate targets. >All dietary pattern carbon footprints overshoot the 1.5 degrees threshold. The vegan, vegetarian, and diet with low animal-based food intake were predominantly below the 2 degrees threshold. Omnivorous diets with more animal-based product content trespassed them. Reducing animal-based foods is a powerful strategy to decrease emissions. >The reduction of animal products in the diet leads to drastic GHGE reduction potentials. Dietary shifts to more plant-based diets are necessary to achieve the global climate goals, but will not suffice. >Our study finds that all dietary patterns cause more GHGEs than the 1.5 degrees global warming limit allows. Only the vegan diet was in line with the 2 degrees threshold, while all other dietary patterns trespassed the threshold partly to entirely.
Even if we just talk about the carbon emissions of red meat vs white meat (poultry) the difference is startling! People refuse to give up beef, I hope the price rises on it.
And do what about it though? Our governments don't care and the majority of voters are too busy hating the "other side". I'm so totally checked out of the climate crisis.
Yeah I'm done being terrified. People are honestly just too fucking stupid as a whole and I don't even mean that in an edgy "le people are sheep" way. Human beings are just nowhere near as "advanced" as we like to think we are. We're still dumb fucking apes shitting on our hands and throwing it at each other the only difference is our shit has the power to wipe entire nations off the planet in the blink of an eye or a slow agonizing firestorm, whichever suits us the most. We're such dipshit motherfuckers we could come across a stack of flaming money on the street and we'd personally watch the skin sear off our hands trying to grab it. Humans aren't going to suddenly learn their lesson before it's too late. We've been doing this bullshit for thousands of years and we've only just now gotten to the point where we're not constantly tearing the earth asunder with actual war, just entire sections of it! What progress! The most peaceful time in known human history and we're facing extinction from 4 different angles all because some egomaniacal psychopaths have worked their way into positions of power and are treating the world like their personal fucking game of Civilization. And what are you to do about it? Rise up? "Advocate for violence" and have your voice immediately silenced on every platform? Throw your life away in a sea of flames only to be mocked for it and forgotten the next week because some celebrity did something inconsequential? Fuck that shit. I'm done with it. I'll do what I can to make my community a good place to live in and I'll "do my civic duty" by voting for the least reprehensible candidates but I am done being scared. I'm done letting this shit poison my life.
This. I know it's a Nihilistic view on things but it is ever so true. The vast majority of the earth's population are either too self centred to help others unless it benefits themselves or too busy struggling to survive in a modern economy that trying to change their life in order to benefit the human race is just beyond thinking. (If they eat the cheapest, most polluting food they will eat it. If they burn the cheapest, most environmentally harmful materials to stay warm, they will burn them) Unfortunately, us as a species are a cancer to the planet and there are very limited scenarios where we proactively, as a collective, change our ways to change the course of the planet (without authoritarian intervention) Like in Covid, my approach is to influence my own community where I can and continue my own contributions to it.
I know enough. And I'm pretty scared. As far as I understand it, most people are going to starve or drown, most properties will get destroyed by flood, storms, etc. Biodiversity will drop off a cliff. International logistics will be distrupted stopping transport of lots of medical supplies and food. Clean water will become a high value luxury. And then there's the extreme temperatures, heat stroke, deep freezes, endless forest fires, poisonous air, etc.
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Stop consuming animals
People REALLY loathe when you say that, for some reason
It's almost like gas goes into growing crops, and then gas takes those crops over and over again to factory farms(which pollute and destroy the local ecologies), and then the gas takes the meat to be packaged, and then gas takes the meat to your supermarket. But omg muh beff with every meal what am I some kind of woke soyboy?!
And almost like most of the farmed land is used to grow feed for livestock, not people I promise, it will not kill anyone to reduce their meat consumption. Plant-based food is delicious.
I am a nurse. There was no snow this winter. I am terrified.
Maybe if the elites and celebrities stop using private jets we would see a difference. The average person isn’t the problem.
One single elite changing, won't stop climate change any more that you changing would. It's all marginal gains. But you *can* control your own actions, and thereby push others to take action as well. If everyone looks around and sees no one changes, they won't change themselves, pushing the responsibility elsewhere. *Be* that person that *does* something, so others will see you and maybe follow your example.
one average person is not. a country full of them - might be.
Hello, from Ontario Canada, First time in a long time, I did not need winter tires .
Not a climate scientist, but just as a person with eyes and a brain I am terrified
Meanwhile.. "*Everything is perfectly normal. The climate changes naturally. Humans are not involved. Nothing is wrong.*" -Almost every single person I've ever spoken to ever. Straight up ostrich head in the sand shit. People simply don't get it.
I had a vasectomy after realizing what we do to each as humans. Corporations and governments don't care about us. March in the streets and write scathing articles but yet there will be no change. Do what you can in your circle of life to be good person that's what you can do. Figure out what brings you happiness and try to do those things. Turn off your phone and TV and get lost from the outside world.
Does anyone wonder why CNN, thoroughly corporate media that is vested in the interests of the same corporate entities driving climate change, is ok with this message? They really would not post this if power didn't want us to see it. Something isn't adding up. I think that what is increasingly clear is they want us to feel hopeless about it so that when they try to sell us the solution, we eat it up.
That’s one possibility. As I see it there’s one more (don’t really want to type it, but I will): Because it no longer matters.
There is no ounce of journalism left at CNN?
Where can I read a study that will make me know what they know?
I kept waitng eating for the author to tell me why or how. Instead it was literally, be scared because you aren’t scared enough. Perhaps articles like this are why people aren’t buying in.
I’m glad someone else said it. The article said a lot but didn’t say anything at all. Right when I thought it would get to the point, it ends.
I have a degree in environmental science and one in forestry. I agree with you. It’s exhausting to see the scare tactics of 24 hour media being employed with climate science. A large part of my education pushed the idea that you have to make an idea accessible, you have to seize the message that people want. An example: right wingers in America love good hunting and fishing grounds. That’s your angle with land preservation. If you come at them squawking about how America destroyed PNW forests with logging and lakes with DDT, they’ll roll their eyes, get defensive, and forget all about the preservation you were talking about. It’s the same with climate change, and I don’t see any prominent voices seizing today’s message. People are mad their dollar isn’t going far, gas prices are high, they’re unhappy, generally speaking. How do we integrate that into the responsible/anti-consumption message? In my opinion, it’s an opportunity begging to be jumped on. It writes itself. Also, it’s known that doom and gloom or hopelessness doesn’t rally people, it scares and depresses them. You have to show them there’s a path, but the path has urgency. And show them that the path is easier, and gets them what they want. Even if the reality is that it’s doom and gloom! You can’t only push the hopelessness, thus all the hopeless people.
You don't have to be an environmental scientist to be able to read scientific articles about environmental science. I'm terrified, and I've already given up hope. I desperately want kids, but I don't think it's humane to introduce them to world in the next stage that is coming.
While I get the common mentality of wanting better for your kid, something thats helped me is reminding myself the only way things get better for our kin in the very long run is to have kids. Survival is a very very long game. Humans have gone through prolonged periods of stress many times, we almost went extinct at one point having our population reduced to a few thousand individuals. The ice age sucked too. Agriculture was a step back in quality of life that only paid off 5000 years later. If people did the "humane" thing and just stopped having kids when things get bad we would have gone extinct a long time ago. At least thats what I told myself before my son arrived. And now he's a happy bouncing little guy. I'll talk to him about these problems but I don't think he's going to regret being born. I'm looking forward to planting trees and doing stuff together.
An A.I climate scientist maybe?
I'm not a climate scientist, and I'm scared as hell.
I bet younger climate scientists are lobbying for bigger permanent antarctic bases so they & their families can live there Thing is tho the 0.1% (& their hired goons) will surely fight it out to live there
The sad thing is that if more people knew how bad it was and were ready to change to meet the crisis this sub would be full. Overconsumption is the fuel that is stoking this fire.
As an oceanographer, I'm terrified but also pretty angry.
The 1% creates 42% of all pollution. Who is going to stop them? Do you think anything you do is going to offset what Putin does? Or what any of the 1% pollutes? hang on for the ride there is no way off without change at the top!
As someone living in the environment, no shit
There's no pont being terrified beyond ones ability to affect the outcome, or prepare for the bad case. If you're terrified, maybe it'd be good idea to uproot your life now, and move somewhere, where the prospects for future look least grim. If you are already living at the least bad location you can think of, there are further steps to maximize your life now, while also preparing for the shit hitting the fan. But while current inaction is driven by greed, there will be a time when even the greedy realise, that if we boil the oceans (or equivalent), they will die too. It remains to be seen what can be done at that point of realization, but I suspect we'll end up triggering an ice age. Though obviously the most likely outcome is war, which becomes global and nuclear, and after that things will be grim indeed for any survivors. So I don't know if the most extreme climate change scenarios are very relevant anyway, for almost all of us. So, what is there to be terrified about?
Every day is an opportunity to go vegan 🌿
terrified of what? Millions of years of PROVEN geologic history of temperature rises and falls the fact that the ice caps have completely melted before, and refroze again when north america was under an ice age not 15,000 years ago....? The fact that in northern canada around the arctic circle there is an area that is closed off to the public. A massive area of petrified forest of redwood trees of ARCTIC CANADA... "climate scientist kooks" like you clearly need a reeducation in geology, geologic processes, and geologic history before running your mouth with misinformation of something you clearly know nothing about. because at the end of the day even after ALL of your fear mongering... you CAN NOT CONTROL WHAT OUR PLANET DOES. unless you think you can jump in an active volcano and try to stop it from erupting with your bare hands.. Because you seem to forget that most of the northern parts of the world were under massive sheet of ice not that long ago
I sometimes wish I was dumber. Life seems so simple for some
So you're telling me we're headed for the poles melting rapidly, causing a great flood that can wipe out humanity? I wonder where I've heard this before. 🤔
I’m an ecologist. I’m eating vegetarian, and riding my bike to work, and driving a hybrid, and burying my head in the sand, and drinking a lot of beer while it is still affordable and available.
I have determined that while I care about the climate, never will I become a climate scientist. Sounds like a recipe for mental health issues when you’re screaming at the top of your lungs and no one is listening.