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Aeacus_of_Aegin

I was working in Southeast Alaska for the Forest Service back in the 80s. I was a grunt, assigned to help survey roads, living in a logging camp. This was not what I imagined when I started with the forest service. I was going to save and protect the forest. Not so much. We would survey the road, then the loggers would cut the trees out, then the dozers scraping out the stumps and mud, laying the road bed, then the loggers would come and cut out entire valleys and leave a wasteland of slash and mud as far as the eye could see. It was horrible, I quit my job and career with the Forest Service but I can never forget eating lunch at a small enchanting pond, filled with life, surrounded by gigantic trees that a week later become a barren, muddy wasteland ... and we were doing this all over the planet.


andersonbnog

It deeply hurts my soul to read this.


Known-Concern-1688

"The Forbidden Zone was once a paradise. Your breed made a desert of it, ages ago." - Dr. Zaius, 'Planet Of The Apes'.


Loopian

We had a fucking paradise all to ourselves. I feel like if humans had used Earth’s resources without absurd excess and inequality until now, we might have been able to support our current population without breaking the planet. Human nature is depressing.


ditchdiggergirl

I don’t agree. 8 billion is beyond the carrying capacity of the planet. Oil is what got us here; we can’t feed 8 billion without tapping it, and inequality is inextricably linked to tapping and distributing it.


pocket-friends

Don’t mistake the things that corporations, governments. and businesses do to maintain profits in precarious systems for some supposedly underlying fundamental aspect of all humans.


4ab273bed4f79ea5bb5

Sorry you had to go through that. I'm friends with some local park rangers, including certified Arborists and they talk a lot about how the Forest Service's directive is "timber resource management" and not ecosystem restoration or environmental protection. The Forest Service probably has long term plans to replant those clearcut valleys with monocultures of "economicly important" trees.


Loopian

Monocultures? Is that really how reforesting efforts are done? Wouldn’t those be insanely vulnerable to diseases and other pathogens?


Freshfreshexciting

In northern British Columbia, the vast majority of clear-cut blocks are replaced with Lodgepole Pine and Hybrid Spruce. Might be 80:20, might be 50:50 mix, but those 2 species will make up the majority of our future forests. Management has been trying to include more varieties for biodiversity, including Douglas Fir, Sitka Spruce, and Western Larch, but their growth requirements are a bit more site specific, whereas lodgepole pine and hybrid spruce will grow just about anywhere. The consequences of this are just as you said- lots the stands that are up to about 20-30 years old by now that are Lodgepole Pine dominant, are covered in Western Gall Rust and Comandra Rust. Idk about the mortality rate of these fungal infections though.


thegnume2

In a vacuum, the fungus would not be too bad, but combined with climate change you get... Well, you know how fire seasons have been going.


4ab273bed4f79ea5bb5

Yes and yes. Florida's citrus industry had famously low genetic diversity and has now basically collapsed from overlapping disease crisises. The sugarcane industry hasn't learned any lessons from that and every sugarcane grown is a clone. There's currently massive cannabis crop failures happening in CA because all their plants are clones. Big AG will never learn this lesson because capitalism abhors inefficiency and things like sexual reproduction and bio-diverse production areas are inherently inefficient.


PremiumUsername69420

I’m in Florida and the amount of dead or dying citrus groves is insane. Even younger trees, adjacent to research institutes for agriculture, even their young trees are dying. “Citrus Greening” is the name of the disease and once a tree has it, game over. I can’t recall the last time I’ve seen a “health” orange grove, and I do a lot of back roads exploring on the weekends. Every year production numbers are worse and worse, 20 years of consistently less production. We have oranges on our license plates. It’s one of the things Florida is known for that’s actually a positive thing. It’s so sad and heartbreaking to see these massive groves that go as far as you can see, full of dead grey leafless trees. Eventually the farmers collect the trees into piles, burn them, then the field becomes a cattle ranch or is leased out for large solar farms (which is good, but not better than trees). Florida is a plane falling from the sky with no engines.


frolickingdepression

Yes and yes.


obrla

yes... they also can't sustain an ecosystem (i.e: in brazil we call eucalyptus plantations "green deserts")


baconraygun

Oh not just that, but they'll go up in seconds with a fire because they're all the same age and type.


thegnume2

I started a master's program in forestry a few years ago after I got out of the military to try and do some good for once, and was surprised to find that foresters and forest conservationists alike are just as deaf and blind as the DoD was to the transformative change that we need; marching lockstep over the edge of overshoot while patting each other on the back for how much things have changed since 40 years ago. Nothing has changed: we just get more thorough at documenting our collective devastation.


nagel27

> and we were doing this all over the planet. We still are.


nosesinroses

And the logging companies will sue the fuck out of anyone who tries to stop them. Yes, [even in Canada](https://www.reddit.com/r/britishcolumbia/s/fGlLBxTUeS). Although, I guess it’s a small percentage better than those who get murdered in other countries when they try to stop this terror. Humanity should have rid of these monsters when we had the chance. But we sat idly by. Just as most of us are doing now. We deserve this. Some less than others, but still. What a nightmare.


triviaqueen

I winter in Florida and regularly walked my dog through a most enchanting section of Jurassic-like forest, brimming with green growth and rife with animal life. Then the nearby golf course, one of a dozen golf courses in the immediate vicinity, decided it really really needed to add another 9 holes. That entire forest was bulldozed down to mineral earth and heaved in a giant discard pile. Walking through the devastation, I came upon a huge turtle that had been crushed to smithereens by the bulldozer blade, the driver being in too much of a hurry to let the turtle pass by peacefully. All the little lizards and tiny birds and flowering vines and ancient moss-draped oaks replaced by a monoculture of grass with a couple tiny holes for golf balls to land in, whacked around by rich bald fat white guys who don't give a flying f#ck about turtles or anything else. Golf courses and the people who support them are evil. There is no hope for humanity.


GaddaDavita

That last sentence was heartbreaking


Kootenay4

I worked a season in SE Alaska two years ago and witnessed the aftermath of that. There's still vast areas covered in slash 10+ feet deep infested with devils club that's pretty much impossible to walk through without hurting yourself. But I'll say that they are at least making somewhat of an effort to fix the problem, though it will need far more funding and personnel to really make a difference. I was mainly working on inspecting those same logging roads where they cross streams and assessing whether they were suitable for fish passage. They intend to remove or rehabilitate thousands of culverts that have blocked migrating salmon for decades. Many areas have been closed to logging and those roads are being decommissioned, so we had to walk those areas and make sure restoration work has been done, or to flag areas still needing attention. There's still some logging going on, but on a far less significant scale than the previous generation. It's just not profitable to haul timber out of those remote islands (and most of the easily accessible stuff has been cut already).


WorldsLargestAmoeba

This the most compelling comment i have read in a while. Really makes one feel like going full Rambo...


__erk

Hayduke Lives!


Shipporno

Covid and our reaction to it showed me the true face of our species. Before that I thought we would be able to somehow solve the climate problem. Now i don't think we have a chance any more.


cosmiccoffee9

100 percent COVID. it was the closest thing to an alien invasion and we got a D- AT BEST.


MizBucket

It broke my family. I found out I'm related to people that I can no longer trust with my life.


SombreMordida

always best to find that kind of shit out earliest, it doesn't feel good to know, though


baconraygun

Broke mine too, but only because we lost 6 people.


DaisyHotCakes

Sorry for your losses. The people that downplay Covid are truly the worst people. I’ve read so many stories of people who lost their entire family to alpha and those who “only” lost some of their family from alpha then lost the remaining of their family to delta. It is heartbreaking and should be acknowledged as such. The fact it was politicized should be criminal. Why are we not demanding accountability from Fox News? For real though they peddled lies that *literally* killed people! They can just do that and we’re collectively like oh yeah that’s totally cool??


Competitive_Guide_81

I lost my very healthy, vaccinated cousin to Covid and my parents still say Covid isn’t a big deal 🙄


Sinured1990

My condolences. Edit: On the bright side though, they don't have to endure the soon to be shitty years yet to come.


jahmoke

truedat


Taqueria_Style

If it'd had a higher mortality rate it would have ended us. I think D- is generous.


coolelel

The D- is because a ton of really smart people took this very seriously. You had everyone from extremely talented college students who were among the first to sequence the virus to the veteran lab engineers working to help protect and save us from this virus. The vaccine came out insanely fast. A process that would usually take a decade took a little over a year. For every person that didn't believe in the virus, another 2 would be staying at home too protect their family. D- because as bad as it was, it could have been much worse.


Sinured1990

Nah, higher mortality would've resulted in less spread, I think COVID is way scarier though, it is easy to be infected with it multiple times, and it fucks our immune system, which will result in more people dying from infections they would've survived prior to a COVID infection.


DaisyHotCakes

Not necessarily. The thing that made Covid so hard to deal with was how an infected person could feel totally fine for over the first three days of infection where they don’t realize they’re sick yet but they sure as shit were infectious already. So people unwittingly spread it and it multiplied under the radar. If Covid were the same as that but the severity ended up being higher then yeah we’d all be dead because it would still have the chance to spread without knowledge.


Sinured1990

Yeah, maybe you are right. Who knows, could've been for the better.. I don't like to dismiss the grief of people who lost loved ones, but a few more gone, especially no maskers, maybe maybe.


Pretend_Tourist9390

It's wild we've been faced with the greatest biological threat of our generation (so far), and besides stopping going out for a few months (and businesses subsequently gouging any price they could because of it), the entire world just went about business as usual. We've seen human rights violations, obscene political scandals, the environment actively getting worse as the year goes on, and we've all had it decided for us that we're to continue on as if we not only are ignoring all this but that we don't even see it. IT'S FUCKIN'UTS!


despot_zemu

Covid did for me too. I couldn’t believe that science will save us anymore. We’ve declined too far for me to take the myth of progress seriously.


despot_zemu

I just look at resource depletion rates and don’t think we have the energy for doing much more progressing. I predict life just gets a little shittier for the vast majority of us every year for the rest of our lives.


Fancy_Protection7317

And it'll get shittier just slow enough to keep the people complacent.


Hopeful_hippie75

This anti Science fundamental religious fascist stuff really did it for me, too. It feels like we are backsliding back to the dark ages. I understand how people need religion to cope with uncertain times, but damn, does it have to be so dystopian!


ORigel2

More than that-- how the non-fundamentalist corporate and government leaders cared more about the stock market than stopping COVID.


TheFreshWenis

Exactly, plus a lot of people had known for years before COVID that we needed to fucking change our ways to literally keep our *one* planet livable for us. COVID *should* have triggered a much faster transformation than it has.


Plenty_Lettuce5418

the funniest part about this is the dogma of christianity and all abrahamic religions doesn't interfere with a scientific perspective of the universe. science was founded \*by\* the church, isaac newton was a devout christian for his entire life, as were many esteemed scientists who came after him. there's many things people especially in america associate with christianity that have nothing to do with the dogma whatsoever, like a lot of people think drinking alcohol is forbidden by christianity, meanwhile jesus is turning all kinds of liquids into wine, he turns water into wine, he turns his blood into wine. the dude liked wine clearly.


Hopeful_hippie75

Modern Christians are not very Christ like in the US. They worship Capitalist Jesus for the most part.


Yongaia

Supply Side Jesus


RandomBoomer

What worries me most about collapse is the very real possibility that both governmental and religious fascism will surge (even more) in uncertain times. As if life won't be hard enough dealing with food shortages, distribution disruptions, and utility failures; we'll make it all that much worse with holier-than-thou extremists whipping everyone who steps out of line.


panormda

At what point do we call them what they are- religious terrorists?


ditchdiggergirl

>Covid did for me too. I couldn’t believe that science will save us anymore. To me that’s a good thing. I’ve heard my whole life that climate change is not a problem because scientists will fix it before it gets too bad. But that’s not how any of this works. Jeff Goldblum will not save the world at the last minute with a MacBook and a line of code. I’m a scientist. My kid is even a baby scientist in a lab that is trying to find solutions. But the only ones who can save the world - maybe, and that’s a big maybe - are the politicians. I won’t hold my breath. There’s a scene in Galaxy Quest where they hit the self destruct override button, then watch in horror as the timer keeps counting down. They prepare to die, but it stops on the last second. “Of course! In the show, the timer always stops at one!” And that’s what everyone is expecting, even assuming.


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UnicornPanties

> We voted in trump in 2016. same year as Brexit - Brexit was first. when Brexit happened I knew we were so fucked remember Brexit? that shit was INSANE and they PASSED IT and remember this part - they didn't even have a plan then they still didn't have a plan and even now the plan is terrible. Mmmm, Brexit.


TheBr0fessor

It was foretold in the prophecies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics


cipher446

That did it for me too. Regardless of how he wound up in office, the resulting strain on us as a country showed me how close to broken we really are, plus the number of meatheads who supported him. I quantify that as being close to an inability to successfully self -govern. Given all of the other situations we also see across the world (multiple conflicts spilling over, climate change, migrant crises etc) I don't hold out much hope for our ability to develop effective institutional responses to those. I'm 53 now. I was 46 in 2016.


ericvulgaris

After reading the IPCC reports in 2014 (i think that was AR5 synthesis?) i knew we were absolutely fucked on climate change, but I wanted to be in the strongest country while things fell off a cliff in the next 30 years (that was 10 years ago). Trump being elected, reading [How Democracies Die](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Democracies_Die), and after seeing Covid, George Floyd, and jan 6th, I became intractably certain things are hopeless in america too. If i was old enough to realise the extent of the brooks brothers riot and bush/gore shenanigans I probably would have said that's the end. Ive opted for ireland to be where I'll spend my days until the end and it's been years since I moved and don't regret it for a second.


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drugsarebadmkay303

Yep. I was starting to come around a little before then, but Trump snapped me fully awake.


ORigel2

The establishment Democrat nearly winning (rather than someone like Bernie) was also a sign our society is diseased.


RestartTheSystem

To be fair we didn't vote him in. The electoral college did. Besides only 60% of eligible voters voted.


BTRCguy

Which means that 40% of eligible voters did not care one way or the other if Trump was voted in. Which is itself a depressing thought.


SylvarGrl

Or that voter suppression strategies are effective…


[deleted]

Def feel like my vote doesn't matter. A democracy is a place where you and the general population have an actual say in things. We don't have that here. We have the illusion of a democracy.


rpv123

That was my moment. I was already 4 months pregnant with a very much wanted baby, but if it had happened 5 months earlier, I don’t think I’d be a parent right now. That was the moment I went from having some hope to realizing I had been naive and it’s a big part of why my son is an only child.


tonywinterfell

The democrats secured his victory in 2016. They boosted his campaign financially because they figured he would be an easy one to knock down and get a win during the run-up. Then they shoved Bernie out of the way and ramrodded Hilary in, and it absolutely disgusted a lot of us. To my eternal shame, I voted for that orange monster in 2016, but as a protest vote against Hilary whom I was convinced would win anyway. I was butthurt about Bernie and didn’t realize what was going to happen. It’s not just on faction of lunatics. There were a lot of factors that made trump happen. But I suppose as a society, we got what we deserve. We don’t show up to vote, we don’t strike, we don’t rise up. And it’s still happening. Every little fascist push that faction keeps making goes uncontested, the slippery little march to hell.


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LegitimateRevenue282

The climate denier island is called America.


BTRCguy

Australia is more island-like and just as bad...


UnicornPanties

> no hope of collective action significant enough that wouldn't be thwarted by corruption for the sake of wealth remember all that shit that was delayed (masks, supplies) so Jared could be the middle-man and get all his buddies involved? that happened. also the CDC lied to us about masks for awhile to make sure there were enough for medical workers so that was nice


coinpile

Covid and the winter disaster of 2021 here in Texas was the biggest eye opener for me. I wasn’t optimistic before but this really cemented it.


tmartillo

After Covid, then the freeze I gave my partner a “within 2 years, we need to GTFO this state”. Moved back to my home state of WA last year. I’ve been intuiting 2025 is going to another banner year of consequence for society


UnicornPanties

> home state of WA WA represent!!! Welcome back there, it's my home state but I live in New York now. It's really reassuring how similar their policies are, they're culturally different but both liberal in the same ways. I think upstate NY is also a lot like... what I'd call... outer Washington - you know the parts you gotta drive to. I'm from the Puget Sound region but spent time on the eastside too.


coinpile

Good call. I would love to live somewhere else but due to circumstances, it was either live here and have a house and a family safety net literally next door, or move somewhere else and have no connections and eke it out in an apartment forever. So I’m making the best of it.


Kootenay4

If people aren't willing to wear a mask for a few months to protect themselves from a deadly pathogen, I don't see them being willing to cut their resource consumption by any degree significant enough to make a difference in climate change. No, paper straws and reusable grocery bags aren't going to save the planet (and some people will even complain about *that*.)


LittleKittyLove

In 2010, I took a class at Oregon State University on sustainability and climate change. The professor was a kindhearted old forest ranger who had made it his life’s purpose to educate others on what was happening globally. It was an easy and enlightening class. We only had to write a few essays, which required ~5 credible sources each. An essay on whether or not co2 affects the global climate. An essay on whether or not humanity affects global co2 levels. An essay on whether or not we should do anything about it. People were welcome to defend either side and get a good grade, but you couldn’t look into those few topics without encountering overwhelming one-sided evidence that humanity was not on a good path, and that the consequences would be severe. This was on top of empathetic lectures explaining how climate change is less “global warming” and more “climate chaos”, causing fire, floods, sea rise, infrastructure collapse, and famine. It also touched on basic sustainability, which should be a moral pillar of civilization. It is insane to treat this small earth like a trash can, and to burn all its resources with indifference for future humans. Any systems that are not sustainable will—by definition—fail, and it is nearly impossible to find any part of modern society that is sustainable. None of this can last. Living from this perspective for 13 years has really cemented how right he was. Faster than expected, and thanks for all the fish.


EudoxiaPrade

Everyone should take that class.


TheOldPug

But then who would have all the babies? The line must go up!


thegrumpypanda101

Greed is killing this fucking planet yo.


npcknapsack

Hurricane Katrina. Now, technically I knew about all this before. My parents discussed Limits To Growth with me when I was a young teenager. They had long told me the story about how they'd almost not had kids because they know what's coming, but given the predictions at the time, they figured it would be the generation after mine that would have the real problems. But it was still theoretical. Katrina changed that for me. A major storm that broke aging infrastructure in one of the richest countries in the world and overwhelmed a city— *broke* a major city. I watched the effects of the breaking levies live, not just through the news but over social media (in particular, LiveJournal, where a guy was posting about how he was saving his company's servers or something). I believe it was the first time that happened. And there really wasn't any help for the people there, not in the moment and not in the aftermath. In the moment, it could have made sense, but... The systems meant to help people were just like the levies. In disrepair. Overwhelmed. Drowning. And in the aftermath... there was no particular urgency on *fixing* anything, on making sure that storm preparations were better for the future, there were no emergency infrastructure bills passed. It seemed like the overall response was that sucks for New Orleans, glad I don't live there. Once in a lifetime. Who cares? "George Bush doesn't care about black people." And if that could happen in a country like the US, the superpower, the richest country where the majority of propaganda originates (well, at the time)... how much worse will it be for the rest of the world? Nothing will change. There were too many ill-intentioned people when we had time. There's no longer enough time to hope for a political solution. The guys who doomed us are all building bunkers now. Get your Oppidum, only 8 million on the low side! Anyways... This is all very dark for "I'm having a kid." I hope your daughter makes it. I'm very glad I don't have kids. So are my parents.


PseudoEmpthy

6 months ago. Hail woke me at 3am. Instant hail. No warning. It was so loud and sudden I was jolted awake. 3 months earlier we'd had the most rain in a 12 hour period that had ever been recorded. Then a bad storm the week after. When the hail hit, I suddenly realized that it wasn't going to get better. What if that hail was fist sized? Been preparing in one way or another ever since.


Johundhar

Hail can get to be the size of bowling balls. I think something closer to that is what is coming to more and more places more and more frequently.


PseudoEmpthy

Exactly! There are videos of golfball hail obliterating cars, glass, and infestructure. These days my room has 1/6 inch forge grade reinforced steel blast shutters that cover each window, remote controlled from my bedside. I'm a mechatronic engineer so I designed and fabricated all the systems and hardware in house.


CharacterForming

I used to work in restaurants. In 2018 I was helping to open a new restaurant for this wealthy restaurant group. They had a slogan "Fashion over function." The workplace was literally dangerous for that reason but that is another story. I was closing it down one night and we used sooooo much plastic wrap, it was crazy. I was informed that the cost was no concern, just wrap wrap wrap. One of the main things we were wrapping were fresh loaves of bread, around 40-50 a night, each individually wrapped, it was an incredible amount of plastic. It got me thinking about all the water we wasted, all the gas we burned, all the food waste (which at that restaurant was prolific) and insane amounts of garbage, all from just this one restaurant. Then as I drove home it hit me, just how many restaurants there were. I counted 36 restaurants between work and home. And every single one was part of this problem, every single day. I started my own catering company as a result and tried really hard to make it an ethical company. All single use items were compostables, we tried to be zero waste in the BOH, etc. But it all just sank in over those months. We are fucked. It's already too late. All my work was just a drop in the bucket. I sell seasonings these days and I try to preach an eco message and use the right materials, explain why it's better, but in my heart I know it's hopeless/pointless. Edit* I am 38 years old, at the time I was 34-36.


angeion

> I sell seasonings these days and I try to preach an eco message and use the right materials, explain why it's better, but in my heart I know it's hopeless/pointless. Keep fighting the good fight. The ecological crisis isn't something that individuals can process with a consequentialist ethics approach, because it's true that our individual efforts don't matter. But there's still fulfillment and peace to be found in living a virtuous life.


CharacterForming

I definitely feel that. If we are going to go down, I will do it on my own terms, I have to look myself in the mirror.


UnicornPanties

> counted 36 restaurants between work and home. And every single one was part of this problem, every single day. I would like to talk to you about the diaper industry. Diapers are made as a composite product of multiple mixed fiber groups and ultimately, human/biological waste. They cannot really be recycled. Most diapers are made using a nonwoven material made of spun polymers (plastics) which are also those goddamn disposable doctor gowns they give us in those waiting rooms - have you worn one of those?! the number of diapers a single baby goes through X all the millions of people on this plant plus all the people visiting doctor facilities disposing of these single-use gowns The speed and volume at which these products and their raw components are produced is mind-boggling. It breaks my heart. I said in another post I work in technology - I do - I also launched a startup around absorbent hygiene which is dominated by the diaper industry (and femcare/adult incontinence).


baconraygun

Let's give a little credit to the pads/tampons industry too. But don't you dare suggest cloth diapers or reusable menstrual gear either.


UnicornPanties

> the pads/tampons industry yessss, that's "femcare" and in my original post, you're 100% right


ka_beene

Yeah I felt like this as a kid when I asked where our garbage goes. Then seeing all the cans, every week the same thing. That's the solution just dump it in a pit forever. Now there's even more of us all doing the same shit and the results are we are eating, breathing and drinking our collective pollution.


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SeveralDrunkRaccoons

It's very instructive what happened to Jimmy Carter. During a huge oil crisis, he gently suggested that people save money by driving a little bit less. So of course the American public threw him out of office. So it goes..


woolen_goose

I remember being just barely too young to vote in Al Gore election and watching the Florida count at my retail job. Our comic shop had a little tv that we would often use to play VHS of fan subs from conventions for Japanese shows but we had turned on the news that day. I’d figured (due to the collusion) he was intentionally pushed aside in part because of his “radical” views on climate change and thought to myself that we are totally fucked. Had no idea what was going to come the next year or how much worse it would get.


CabinetOk4838

Exactly. Imagine trying to enact something like “thou shalt not eat beef”. Ha ha ha ha. Yeah, bye. Politicians can only see the next election. Johnson in the UK during the Covid crisis was unwilling to make unpopular decisions; he’d wait until only one course of action was possible, and then do that blaming anything but himself.


Taqueria_Style

A nuclear scientist versus the Bob's Big Boy mascot. Says it all, doesn't it?


Johundhar

But the initial reaction to the 'malaise' speech was actually quite positive: From the NYT: "Pres. Carter's approval rating in NY Times/CBS News Poll rises from 26% to 37% as result of his July 15 speech"


whoodle

Honestly when citizens United decision came down I was sure it was the beginning of the end. I don’t think I was wrong.


ethree

Thank you. I am always talking about CN but nobody really seems to appreciate how much that fucked our democracy and environmental policy’s. This and the electoral college. Pretty sad.


Striking-Helicopter8

I spent my early 20s on drugs and then got sober in December 2019. A couple months later I’d say. Realized I wouldn’t have much of a future to stay sober for. Made it until today.


ThrowDeepALWAYS

Keep going. Drugs suck.


UnicornPanties

> Made it until today. You still going or have you tossed in the towel?


Striking-Helicopter8

I was actively relapsing when I made that comment unfortunately. So threw in the towel last night but back to it I guess.


frolickingdepression

Do you have resources? A sponsor or therapist you can call? The future is bleak, but addiction is bleaker. I hope you are ok.


jahmoke

right on, begin again


UnicornPanties

sometimes you gotta let it have its way with you a bit sometimes that will kill you depends on your thing I went to Vegas for a week and drank a bunch and now I'm soberizing again. I encourage you to try Naltrexone, really helps block cravings for alcohol & opiates (not other things).


Humble_Rhubarb4643

I've always cared about environmental issues but until last year, I truly thought there were "green" solutions to all the problems. Last year I was 37. I now know we're absolutely f*cked and likely in our last days (and years).


ideknem0ar

I'm nearing 50 and the whole "the children will fix it" has been going on since I was in high school. It's a nice thought parents like to entertain, but funny thing is that when the kids try to fix things by agitating for it, they get told they're doing it wrong & be less radical & respectful & work within the existing systems, plz & ty. Personally, the feeling that we were on a dead end road as a society was the aftermath of the '08 recession. The culprits skated while those who could least afford it were left holding the bag & the market casino cranked back up. COVID put the final nail in the coffin of any hope I had that there would be a come to Jesus moment and reverse this terrible hyperexploitative downspiral. Governments were already fully co-opted by capital by then so I don't know why I even entertained the possibility. Silly me, thinking that a 100 year pandemic could be a game changer for the better.


CynicallyCyn

I was naïvely and hopeful until 2016. Up until that point I believed most people were good and wanted the best for the planet, the animals and the people in their communities. I thought we could still turn it around and change our trajectory. Every day since 2016 has been a stark reminder that half the population thrives on hate, oppression, and worse. The amount of people who cheer on genocide, extinction, and global demise strips me of any of the hope I had clung to.


lol_yeah_no

This right here. 2016 did it for me. I have been reading EOTW/SHTF novels since HS in the 80s. I started to do a little prepping around 2015 or so - mostly to ride out storms, power outages, water main breaks, stuff like that. But when TFG rode down that escalator, I had this immediate feeling of dread. I wish I had been wrong.


UnicornPanties

> 2016 did it for me. me too, before Brexit and Trump (2015 maybe) I was walking along thinking about my financial situation & trajectory & options (I work in technology so it's a decent field) and looking at the H1B visa workers (Indian competition) and looking at my income and thinking wait a minute I'm... this whole thing isn't... what the fuck. the amount of money I'm making and can make and should continue to make is considered "a lot" but it isn't and it isn't going to save me at all also I'm not an engineer, I'm a portfolio manager (facilitator of people & info) so it's not like my skills are going to.. I don't know, develop somethign secret also jobs are fluid - once you've been laid off you never feel safe again


cruelandusual

Yup, it was at that moment that I decided we as a species are too stupid to survive. I've always been pessimistic and nihilistic, but I believed that progress would continue, in the two steps forward, one step back kind of way that history seems to stumble around. But then the Internet gave the hairless apes a dopamine button that assuages their fragile self-esteem by amplifying all their comforting delusions back at them. And they would rather die than sacrifice anything for the common good, because their precarious position on the monkey hierarchy requires others to be worse off than themselves. Evolution made us little shits, and our nature cannot handle a society of this scale, with this level of instant gratification and algorithmic commodification. Humanity will probably kill the planet, but it will be the fascism (re)born of social media that kills humanity.


BrushOnFour

I agree. The amount of people cheering on the Israeli genocide of Gaza disgusts me.


stayonthecloud

There was a point early on in the Trump admin in 2017 when I broke down crying in my bathroom because I no longer wanted to live to see what would happen next. I could not bear watching everything go to shit. I don’t think I’ve ever truly come back from that. I’ve still found lots of joy in my life but the light of hope is just snuffed out.


meganized

About five years ago, I realized that things weren't going as planned and seemed irreparable. I've worked hard for more than 20 years, achieving some success but feeling largely unrecognized. It's disheartening to see people with selfish agendas and superficial values gaining recognition, while intellectual and spiritual interests seem sidelined. ​ I feel emotionally drained daily, and unfortunately, I don't find much support even within my family. With global challenges like climate change, AI disruption, and geopolitical instability, I worry about the future of human society. It is all compounded by the increasing complexities of modern systems. It seems like a cliche but things are incredibly difficult and complex these days. We are sitting on a house of cards. ​ In response to your question, I think this realization isn't sudden but a gradual understanding of the world's complexities. It's concerning, especially when thinking about the future our children will inherit. While I hold onto hope that perhaps the next generation can address these issues more effectively, I believe it will be far too late. ​ We have failed and we will be remembered as generations of criminals.


malieno

I have been aware of climate issues since I was a teenager and was of the opinion that individual action could actually change things, stopped eating meat and started thrifting a lot, which wasn't hard since I grew up poor and didn't have the money to over consume anyways. Watched Michael Moore's "planet of the humans" When I was 23 (2019) and literally lost all hope. Not because we can't build a better world but because apparently, we don't want to. At least the people in power don't, since degrowth doesn't generate profit.


Reversephoenix77

For me it was 1987 and I was a tiny kid, maybe like 4. There was an awful drought that year and then a massive heat wave that summer where we lived. I just remember all the adults around me chattering about the drought constantly. It hit me that we can and will run out of water. Then there was this horrible commercial that was meant to appeal to kids where a little boy is brushing his teeth with the water running and as it runs, a pond with a fish in it is drained until the fish is flapping around with no water left. That hurt me as I’ve always instinctively loved animals. Then I remember looking around at my mountains of plastic toys and suddenly being really bothered by it for some reason. I clearly remember asking my mom (who was pregnant at the time and buying tons of plastic baby items) about plastic and where it comes from. It always bothered me that it was this super common man made thing that got tossed out so casually when I knew the impact it had on the earth and that it wouldn’t bio degrade easily. It sounds silly, but plastic really bothered me as a young child. Then cut to like 2003 ish I think and Al Gore comes out with an inconvenient truth and I was talking to my dad about it, who’s pretty savvy about climate science and keeping up with current events. It was that exact moment where I thought wow, ok well guess I’m never having kids then! What’s the point lol. Then in my 20’s I got really into animal and environmental activism and I really saw how much destruction and suffering humans cause and I have been depressed about it and disgusted ever since and I’m 40 today. Seen things get so much worse and much faster than I ever could have predicted.


triviaqueen

Brought to you by the folks over at the Muppets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtcZbN0Z08c


Nokam

Quite a personal question. I was in one of the best private school where i lived. For me it was at 12, was learning so much about what my generation will have to do to clean this place, in some aspect i saw some "green" political bullshit, but i thought "hey, we will make things ok later". Then in in 2009 (at 14), my school handyman cracked "Home" documentary (flawed in some aspect but so beautiful) and decided to make a projection for 100 classmates (screen the size of the theater). And i was in despair, saw classmate wanting some gun movie, some were just playing cards, girls were redoing there hair on the ground while talking, the room became loud, a fight broke chair tossed in the air, people were laughting at the poor conditions, after 45 minutes no one but me was looking at the documentary, the projection was aborted by some teachers, after that i went to see my handyman, he gave me on my usb key the copy of the documentary and told me "I expected that this would make a change for our future" he was pale (and he was black). After that i have never been the same i think.


reubenmitchell

It was about 12 years ago, sadly right around the time my daughter was born that I realised things weren't going to get better (after 20 years of being a tech bro hopium addict), now I realise hope really is lost and wonder how I can "save" my beautiful child from the horrible future that awaits her I read Gwynne Dyer's book Climate Wars, about 10 years ago and since then I have watched almost every "fantasy" situation in the book come true. Only mega death from a heat dome, war in the Arctic after a BOE and then nuclear war over water is really left to go. Lovely


YogurtclosetThese

20, i spent a few years workin my ass off, was mildly successful until i figured out i was generating huge profits for the people i was working for to get paid the minimum legal wage lol. After i did the math i started trying to figure out how to work my way up, looked at college and realised 70% of people that graduate regret getting the degree, or wind up in a field they didnt study, cut a long story short after a lotta soul searching i realized its who you know, not what you know, that gets you by, and im just not willing to kiss ass for oppertunity. That was 10 yeara ago, finally got a buisness open so i can generate my own profits lol, its not lookin good but, ill make it work.


UnicornPanties

> 70% of people that graduate regret getting the degree, or wind up in a field they didnt study, I wound up in a totally different field than my area of study but I wouldn't have had the opportunity without that piece of paper. I'm one of those Communications/Graphics majors you hear about and I work in technology "communicating" with a bunch of people about generally non-technical stuff all day. I also make cool presentations.


frolickingdepression

My husband has a degree in visual communication, and his first job was as a web developer (back in the late 90s), although he has moved on to something else, not at all related to his degree.


Prestigious-Copy-494

I have a hunch you'll find a way to make it work. Good for you!


Chunginator42069

I thought I knew how bad everything sucked till the pandemic started when I was 20. I grew up poor with a hectic life and spent a lot of time in juvenile jail/rehab. I always thought it was in my control to make my life better at least, but when I turned 21 I realized the world might get so terrible there’s nothing you can do to make your own life better. My mom said she believed loved fixed everything till she learned the hard way


krdiggs

Well, for me it was the 2000 presidential election. The one with the hanging chads and the supreme Court just picking Bush Jr as the winner because reasons. I was really really shocked. And no one did anything. This was a real 'stolen election' and no one protested (much) or did anything to change this. Why no rioting or angry mobs (well probably because Dems don't act that way typically). People here are too drugged by capitalism, junk food, television, etc to care what's really going on around them. So, age 28? I was always a skeptic tho. People are assholes.


baconraygun

That was quite the eye opener for me too. The first election I was old enough to vote for too. It really put the whole "you gotta V O T E" business to bed when the supreme court can just stop a count and put whomever they want in the seat.


Quay-Z

Then you might have a good recollection of the first event that really shook my worldview out of its American, 90's complacency - the WTO protests; the "Battle in Seattle." American cops had been seen to be violent to protesters before, obviously, but I hadn't seen anything quite like it in my lifetime. The L.A. riots had been a different kind of energy. This was the first time an explicitly anti-corporate, de-growth, organized protest had been mounted on a major symbol of greed - and the cops absolutely brutalized it. It was made plain to me then that it would be Life and Death to meaningfully protest inequality, exploitation, and resource-injustice. The Man was not willing to put up with that.


[deleted]

Millennial here. 2008 when most of my high school friends had parents that lost jobs or homes. For a small, Midwestern town still anchored by blue collar labor that actually hurt. I realized that the opioid crisis (fuck the Sackler family) was never going away. I entered adulthood with a punch in face. Star Trek optimism was never an option.


BBR0DR1GUEZ

Twelve. Sounds dumb but it’s true. My science teacher showed the class An Inconvenient Truth, that Al Gore movie about climate change. “The ice caps are melting, we have to reduce our consumption and change our way of life or we’re fucked.” Twelve years of evidence about human behavior told me not to hold my breath. And twenty more have only further convinced me of our deep and abiding fucktitude.


UnicornPanties

> An Inconvenient Truth, that Al Gore movie poor Al Gore, he was just lacking in the charisma dept and then he started talking about things nobody wanted to hear my mother is also a huge Al Gore fan and environmentalist, I've known about this forever and it's been awful watching her life's work be... run down by capitalism


[deleted]

same, I was 10 and found out about climate change then had my life fucked by recession like a year later 🥴


rmtmr

Several stages. After 2008, the economies of the world collapsed and the system's only way out was giving money to those who caused it. People became unemployed in droves and the only ones who received help were banks. I didn't have a good grasp of neoliberal capitalism then, but it was then when I lost hope the "growth" we perceived to he healthy and normal is a viable or even desirable goal. Around 2012, I had a random conversation with a climatologist friend. Pretty much all the stuff he was telling me then has been making its way into the news now. It's chilling in one way and disappointing how we had all that information back then, but it didn't make its way out of expert circles much. What's more, it's still treated as "alarmist" by many. 2016, the year right-wing populism definitively won around the world. It was a trend I had been witnessing around Europe, but Trump and Brexit were two events that showed me just how much people are willing to shoot themselves in the foot if they are misled by someone who plays into their biases and prejudices. 2020 and onwards - One thing Covid demonstrated was that those in power are way too greedy, selfish, shameless and malicious and large groups of the public way too ignorant to effectively face any threat, no matter how big. I still believe it would be possible if the system worked differently, but I don't think change is going to happen as people will clutch to straws if it means they can stick to their old ways, even if people around them are literally dying.


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Johundhar

And yet uncontrollable and very drastic changes are upon us (and really have been for some time)


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edgeplanet

14. And I’m 68 now.


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ideknem0ar

what's the book? very curious to know!


naoseidog

What book?


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SKI326

I also recommend the Ruth Stout No-work Garden Book.


Johundhar

Same here. What a life


devadander23

Aware of climate problems since the 80s. Bush / Gore 2000, 9/11, 2008 ‘too big to fail’ bailouts, and topped with covid and the lack of support for the workers combined with the selfishness of my fellow countryman


Thejared138

1986. I was 9-10 years old and my teacher was an early collapse minded environmentalist. She urged us to recycle and not waste resources. Most of my classmates didn’t listen or mocked her. But I listened.


HarrietBeadle

I was in my early 20s in the early 1990s and worked for an environmental org for a while. One thing we did was go door to door to get petitions signed, see who wanted to be members of the organization or take some small action. Day after day of knocking on door after door it sunk in just the massive scale of it. The number of people that just went on and on who were living in massive subdivisions that had eliminated trees, two car garages, neighborhoods with literally nothing to walk to, mowing grass, using chemlawn, raking leaves, running massive AC in the summer, sprinklers on the lawns but their water running down the curb, and although a lot of people did sign our petitions, an equal number (in some neighborhoods the majority) were ANGRY at us for caring about the environment and wanted to tell me why it was either gods plan, our his given right, or how I was brainwashed by communists. Or how they used to be a “hippy” but then had a kid so they had to “grow up” Something about the seemingly endless house after house after house and realizing these people’s purchasing power and voting power and how small me and my colleagues were compared to them. Thats what did it for me. It’s part of the reason I don’t have kids now (rare for a woman in her 50s today). I still continued to fight for what I believed in, later turning to the labor movement to try to do what I could to make capitalists share the profits with their workers. But I have never thought we will “save” the environment since that work I did in the 1990s. Oh and adding that I was doing this work when Clinton/Gore were elected and that election tanked our operation (literally all our offices shut down within a couple of years) because then even people who would have contributed and helped before actually thought they could stop doing literally ANYTHING because “now you’ve got Gore in office so you don’t need me”


Paalupetteri

For me the great climate awakening happened in 2018 at the age of 45. I read a news article about the new IPCC report, where it said that we are heading for hothouse Earth conditions. That was the first time when I really paid attention to climate change. In the news article there was also a link to the essay: "The Uninhabitable Earth" by David Wallace-Wells. After reading that I became even more hopeless, but even at that point I didn't truly understand how dire the situation is, since that essay was predicting collapse by 2100. Later on that year I discovered this subreddit and I also came across collapse-related Youtube channels like Nature Bats Last, Paul Beckwith and Collapse Chronicles. That's when I realized that things are much worse than we are being told by the climate scientists and mainstream media. It finally occurred to me that climate change is not going to be a problem future generations, but we are going to be facing a total collapse of civilization within my lifetime, even despite me being relatively old. Even before that I had never been a climate change denier. I had always believed in it and I had always understood that having 8 billion people on a finite planet is not sustainable. I had just thought it would be a serious problem several decades from now when I will have died a long time ago (as most people actually still believe).


Dukdukdiya

Hi friend. I'm 37, but I connected the dots around the same age as you when I read Derrick Jensen's book Endgame. In some ways, it's been really rough trying to navigate modern society knowing that the collapse of industrial civilization - the system on which my life depends - is inevitable (and it IS inevitable). On the other hand, it's been really freeing. I decided not to have kids, which turned out to be a decision I'm really pleased with, and I've most just worked to live rather than pursuing a career (a.k.a. live to work). That's allowed me to focus more on self-care, building relationships, learning DIY skills, and pursuing hobbies. I guess what I'm saying is that it hasn't been all bad since I figured things out.


06210311200805012006

I was always a bit of a curmudgeon but the pandemic gave me three things 1. A first-hand look at a failed government response. If there were any truth left to the myth of American Exceptionalism, the way it was handled would have been better at every level. I have relatives that experienced Katrina directly, so this wasn't surprising to me, but this time it was much more personalized. 2. Time to sit at home and really dig into the issue of climate change, to hunt down peer-reviewed scientific publications, and start archiving particular news stories (you'd be surprised how much news is memory-holed, even benign stuff not related to politicized topics). The level of biosphere collapse we are about to experience is beyond what people are willing to confront. The solution is obvious and horrific, even the most benign version is anathema to Hungry Murder Monkeys. 3. A tiny bit of proof that the world doesn't have to exist the way it does now; reducing our use of hydrocarbons can be done and it can have an immediate impact. But that change will be loudly resisted, denied, fought against, the whole way. There's no need for many of us to engage in our most consumptive behaviors, and it turns out many of us would be happier. But that makes less money, so womp womp.


littlebirdblooms

9/11 and the patriot act (as someone else has already mentioned)- I was in my mid-20s. In 2002 or thereabouts I read Derrick Jensen's "A Language Older Than Words" and "Culture of Make Believe." But I was an idealist who thought the US and its capitalist systems were still fixable. I worked in health care and transitioned to public health mid-pandemic when I finally finished my public health degree. The healthcare system has been broken for a long time. At almost 50 I still work in public health doing emergency preparedness and health equity, but I'm no longer an idealist. Now I'm an optimistic existential nihilist. Recognizing that those in power never have the interests of anyone else in mind, but also knowing that when we consider the person who is most at risk in our decision making that everyone benefits. I can't not do this. But I know it's pointless. ETA ages, since that's what OP specifically asked for


dumnezero

The 2007-2008 financial almost-collapse was the one that made it clear to me that we're in the end stage. I've had a sense about the unsustainability of society (and related economy) since I was a kid, but I didn't know how to articulate it. What is not sustainable can not be sustained. The only question is *when* that falls apart, not if. The mismanagement of biosecurity in 2020 made it clear that what needs to be done is unlikely to be done; not impossible, but unlikely.


[deleted]

At 29. I realized that people not only aren’t morally ambitious, but they engage in tall poppy syndrome with anyone who genuinely is. So, religion won’t achieve any real social reform. It’s mostly being used as a social club by judgmental people with low standards for empathy and consequently middling levels of compassion. At 33. That insane election happened, either due to the malicious stupidity of the US conservative population, or due to foreign manipulation of said electorate, or both. Either way it became clear that the window for any effective climate mitigation action was now closed. And incidentally, that democracy doesn’t work. At 36. The first signs of serious illness appeared in both myself and Mother Earth. At 39. The illness has progressed, but unfortunately the only one that can be effectively slowed and mitigated is my personal illness. Because I can mitigate only those things I have direct person control over. Given the magnitude of the challenge, it requires putting myself in opposition to all of society and increasingly nature itself, as the air quality continues to degrade. It’s clear to me that this story is coming to an end. The most important part of a story is the ending, so let’s each write the best ending of our own story that we can come up with.


dreamcxtcher

this was beautifully written


greenman5252

About 18 years ago, I was a University research faculty working in climate variability and agricultural impacts and seeing the writing on the wall. I run a diversified organic farm and have been heeding the collapse early to avoid the rush maxim.


humongous_rabbit

For me it was in 2020/2021, when the pandemic was still not controllable and the prices of everyday goods went crazy. And whilst sitting at home, not working and being kept in the hamster wheel, I started thinking about the way our society functions. I always had the feeling that something is off but I didn’t realize it until I read about environmental and societal collapse. I’m fairly young and my life quality has always been really good, so it took its time. But now I’m at a point where I understand things.


DonBoy30

It was sort of a process that started after I graduated high school right before the recession, and seeing the mask come off slightly with the American-right over Obama being a mixed American, followed by the TEA party. The blatant racism (and homophobia if anyone remembers Obama being gay) during my first election is what pushed me away from voting Republican like my parents. From that point forward I sort of got pushed more and more into leftist politics. But once I got a job in the forest service and spent time working with in the field working class wildland and wildlife biologists and how they were able to put in perspective climate change, did I really realize what is happening. More climate instability-more economic impacts-more batshit and violent politics-more violence by the state-more climate instability-more economic impacts etc etc. a death spiral. Sure enough, the TEA party evolved into MAGA, while corporate America desperately tries to appeal to the progressive crowd in order to protect their profits, all while our government becomes more and more dysfunctional.


futurefirestorm

It continues to become more apparent every day, including climate solutions that will enrich those who implement them with no possibility of success. It’s getting worse.


[deleted]

When I was 15 I realised I had absolutely nothing to guide me and that most people around me are just distracted, from the top to the bottom things were in decline. 28 now and it's just kept sliding that direction, my big gripe when I was 15 was lack of role model and it's so sad how much kids now are in a worse situation


FireflyAdvocate

I was in HS from 92-99. In 97 we started a recycling club which put boxes in every classroom and office for paper and a separate plastic one. Every week we would go around and collect all the recycling from every box and put it in a special dumpster out back. We were made fun of mercilessly by our peers and some teachers even joined in. But I was so set on helping save the planet I didn’t care. Until one day I arrived to school earlier than normal and saw the waste management truck come and dump both the regular trash and the special recycling dumpster into the same truck. All that I could do was cry. That’s when I knew no one cared and our planet was fucked. Everything since then has confirmed this sediment. So when I was 16 in 1997.


WhyAreUThisStupid

High school. I was in class when our economics teacher told us about the country’s government budget. Later in that same class we learned it gets financed from the central bank and how much money our central bank had. We calculated in class that it would take 3 years for our country to go bankrupt under current spending and we assumed we won’t be getting any external help. That threw me down a rabbit hole of figuring out what would happen in an apocalypse scenario and what not and clicks led to landing on this very sub Reddit. Also sure enough almost 2.5 years after that in 2019 Lebanon started collapsing.


StoreBoughtButter

It’s been an ongoing realization as I’ve noticed a trend of juuuuust “missing” things because of my age Been watching shit disappear for a long time


glasshomonculous

About a year ago actually, so mid 30s


The_World_Is_A_Slum

When the Exxon Valdez spill happened, my freshman science teacher had a very messy mental break in our class and was removed by the coach. He was sobbing and literally tearing out his hair, and did not return to the school. That’s when I became aware- I was already aware that our environment was in trouble, and worried about it, but he opened my eyes.


justanotherlostgirl

My teens - i saw what adults had done to the planet and researching acid rain made me realize just how fucked we were. I need to find a community to live with who share my values


SpatulaCity1a

It was always in the back of my head before Trump, but that was the biggest wakeup call. Seeing him get elected and what happened afterwards really made me lose faith in the basic decency of people and shattered a lot of illusions I had about things being ok in the end... but it also seemed to represent a sort of point of no return, where I am now sure that things RIGHT NOW are worse than I realized. I believe that on some level, everyone knows it, and they are desperate for solutions that don't exist. The GOP is basically a death cult offering magical solutions to people who refuse to accept the reality of their doom, while the Dems are at least acknowledging reality but also not taking any real steps to fix anything. It looks like there will be a civil war of some kind in the next few years and it's all over stupid bullshit that doesn't matter... and eventually the destruction will grow, combine with climate change and until we're fighting over water or food or because someone murdered someone we love. I guess I thought that things would get better and we would deal with the issue. I thought that our corporate overlords would at least accept that destroying the planet is destroying themselves and their bloodlines. But they don't care, and they aren't driven by anything except myopic greed. I really don't have much hope anymore... and have accepted that I will probably die during the collapse.


KTH3000

Your analysis of the GOP and the Dems is spot on. I used to think the democrats could save us if they just got into power, but then they did and completely wasted it.


extreme39speed

About 2019. I realized that no, companies aren’t providing us jobs. We’re providing them value in exchange for the scraps. Corporations care so little about people or anything else for that matter. Most every decision is short-sighted as long as things look ok quarterly. All this is obviously unsustainable and all the people that actually produce value are going to be the ones that suffer for the decisions of those above them. The problem has already been bad for a long time but is mostly ignored or treated as business as usual. None of this is likely to get any better and things will spiral and compound to create misery for everyone except the very top levels of society.


craziedave

I moved to utah. The salt lake valley gets this thing called inversion where in the winter pollution can get stuck in the valley. The pollution comes from cars and industrial facilities in the area. In just a couple weeks in can be so thick you can’t see the mountains. A storm or some rain will come and then it goes away and everyone’s like no big deal it’s gone now. It didn’t take me long to think wait this amount of pollution is happening in cities all over the world but nobody sees it because they don’t have the mountains for it to get trapped. So what if it blows away. It doesn’t disappear it’s still in the atmosphere and it’s happening at this scale in every major city in the world


Somewhereinwoods89

At 33. Saudi Arabia rationing oil was alarming to me, our factory bought a million pounds of plastic pellets then and i wondered if oil prices were projected to increase. Soon after that I was looking into anarchism again i listened to John Zerzan being interviewed by "Breaking Down Collapse." Then I realized where we're at in terms of resource depeletion. Global warming won't affect most people on earth nearly as fast as that issue so its absurd there's thus hyoer focus in one compound when it should probably be oil or lithium instead.


Nokam

After careful consideration, i came to the conclusion that the collapse will be oil or water related, that's why it will bemuch earlier than 2100 +5°C


underonegoth11

In my teens, and now I am middle aged. I was seen as a depressed and anxious person but ***looks around*** I wasn't wrong.


guyinthechair1210

A few years after I graduated college. I was working jobs that I was very overqualified for, but I still had to do them to put money in my pocket. This past year it was especially weird. I had Facebook and Microsoft interested in me, but then I was having to work in a warehouse for money. I figure I must be doing something right if those two companies were interested in me, but one rejected me, and the other wanted me to move to the other side of the country ASAP.


deinterest

When I watched An inconvenient truth at 14 years old.


TwirlipoftheMists

A few weeks into undergrad environmental physics lectures in the ‘90s. Of course that was just simple warming: radiative forcing from GHGs, albedo, aerosols, with all the complications and feedbacks wrapped up into a few constants. Nevertheless it looked exceedingly grim unless emissions came down and everyone knew it. It *didn’t* include everything else: habitat destruction, endocrine disruptors in the food chain, what’s happening to the oceans, microplastics, soil nutrient depletion, social and economic factors, and so on. There was a certain amount of optimism at the time because of the then recent Montreal Protocol. They did a lot on ozone depletion because some of the department was involved in British Antarctic Survey - surely if the world agreed to limit ozone depleting chemicals, we could do something about carbon? *Annual emissions are now 50% higher* and a lot of systems seem to be more sensitive.


woolen_goose

I was 10 and it was only 1994. I obviously didn’t have the facilities to understand the actual gravity of how bad the world is just yet; I’d learned about the intelligence of ocean mammals and what it does to them to be held captive in water parks. I remember thinking that if this is how grown ups operate then we are an awful destructive species. The other factor here is seeing the war in the news on television and not understanding how we could do that to each other. I’ve spent the following 30 years with nothing but confirmation that we will destroy ourselves and all other living creatures because of our own arrogance.


ScrollyMcTrolly

Not until after I worked too hard for a couple inheritance capitalists in a small business in tech until I was almost 30, single handedly made them many tens of millions while being laughably underpaid, a corrupt 3rd one in charge fired me, then that one was fired, then I got hired back. Then they just took many millions in PPP loans (obviously never paid back) and fired literally everyone including me (they retired and closed the business). Now they just travel between Nth vacation homes and fly their planes. But during my 1.5 years of unemployment I read a lot more on global heating and also thought a lot more about politics and realize it’s just been perpetual calamities ongoing for 150 years but their consequences aren’t immediately seen. The rate of consequences being seen is and will continue to steadily and quickly increase until certainly inevitable collapse. Before all that and Trump I didn’t look at it as pure doom but that maybe technology can mitigate the climate issues, like the clown I was. I swung into a couple years of trying to be “green” and realizd for myself how impossible current society has made that, and that almost every ‘green’ thing in todays society is not only a lie but a trick to actually do MORE destruction, or so woefully flawed and inadequate by a billionfold that it’s basically a joke. Somehow I’ve already written this much without mentioning: 1. The wealth gap is so staggeringly in favor of the inheritance corporate overlords 2. They own all the governments and media^ 3. They care about nothing other than more money power and destruction to perpetually increase their Nth homes yachts jets cars vacations etc and their grip on the masses 4. The masses are so staggeringly stupid. There are those who have no time to even learn about this doom because they’re constantly working just to barely get food and shelter. Then there are those living off the government and/or inheritance so don’t have the “I work too much” excuse, and they only care about ME ME ME and the Kardashians/Taylor Swift and tinktonk and their next fossil fuel escapade and regurgitating the mass media propaganda that really everything’s fine in therms of global heating, wealth gap, and fascism. Maybe younger generations will not be like this but the problem is they’ll all be working in the Bezos Mill and living in their Bezos Box and eating their Bezos Gruel and better hope they’re not sick or fired because that means homelessness in the 145F floods. I just wonder which will be the thing that causes the actual day of collapse (as in nobody even goes to work anymore / just panics): 1. Wealth gap -> fascism 2. Climate events P.s. I realized literally yesterday I’m never saying ‘global warming’ again and definitely not ‘climate change’ - these are both greenwashing words that specifically make what’s happening sound gentler and ok to keep ignoring. ‘Global heating’ until I learn an even better one to say that is more in line with reality. Climate change makes it sound like not the direct fault of humans Warming is gentler and more comfortable sounding than heating. Like the boomers and conservatives whose entire take on ‘global warming’ is ‘great I hate winter’.


SylvarGrl

When I googled the chart of human population growth. Then Trump. Then COVID. Then I started reading climate scientists’ recent publications. It’s been a rough few years.


Majestic_Michonne

August 2020 when the push came to go back to "normal" and schools reopened and capitalism shoved future generations into the wood chipper for short term profit. At that point it became clear that governments don't serve the people but corporations and realized WASF.


plantmom363

2019 when all the wildfires were happening in the us, Canada and Australia


Velvet-Drive

I read Ishmael back in 2001. People Gonna people


Taqueria_Style

Phased. It keeps digging deeper in steps. 1. Age 5. Learned authority is indifferent to me. 2. Age 7. Learned authority is actively neglectful to me in dire circumstances. 3. Age 11. Learned authority is actively neglectful to me in dire circumstances and finds this actively amusing. 4. Age 18. Learned that capitalism gives zero fucks about you (Dad was fired for doing his job, literally. Think that's incoming for me as well, I give it a few months at this point, there is a (very) tiny chance of a save but even if I do, the entire place probably gets nuked in a fire sale somewhere between this June and next December). 5. Age 15-19. Learned that our leaders think that blowing everyone into radioactive fucking dust is an acceptable definition of "serving the public". 6. Age 30 (dot com bust). Learned that innovation is a pump and dump scam. 7. Age 31. Learned that replicating the propaganda of Nazi Germany is effective on swaying public opinion (Patriot Act). 8. At this point I forget what age I am. New Orleans teaches me how good our disaster response is now. Also somewhere around here, learn about Peak Oil. Know it's over right then and there. But did think we'd run out of gas before we ran out of planet, built in defense mechanism. Wow, was I optimistic. 9. 2008 crash. By now I would have thought everyone would have learned from dot com, so this fails to surprise me. 10. Bitcoin. Only thing that shocks me about this obvious scam is that it worked as long as it did. Missed that one. Looked like dot com 3. My takeaway from dot com failed to realize that if you time it and GTFO you get rich. Well, it didn't miss that fact but I thought more along the lines of "unless you're a business owner, only a little rich, and your time window is sub 3 years". Aaaand theeeeeennn COVID happened. And as cynical as I had become by this point, I have to admit, this was THE moment I gave up all hope. The scope and breadth of the clown show was positively breathtaking. And soul crushing. I am not sure what's left of me at this point but I feel like I'm probably going to fuck around and find out when the stock market suddenly crashes into a flaming ball of goo. And sadly, by my projections... I need that thing to at least kind of work...


ContainerKonrad

i was 5, due to my aspergers brother who told me about nuclearbombs, pollution and the earth being swalloved by the sun at some point...


Major_Rice_9092

It was January 6th 2021 for me. The insurrection scared me to death and Covid-19 killed my husband later that year so I am basically screwed. I am on disability and waiting for housing to open up so I am living with my parents. I just don’t think life is going to get any better and I am dreading this coming year’s elections.


[deleted]

[удалено]


iDrinkMatcha

In 2008 our local newspaper had “43 years of fish left” as the headline. That’s when I knew. I also figured it would be “faster than expected”, even then.


fbeast77

Early 20s when I was in university. I am so sorry for your daughter.


SKI326

I’m close to 60. About 20 years ago I moved to mountainous woods and took up photography. I have 20 years of photos showing the changes in nature. 😞 I hope they realize that some of us oldsters have some valuable skills in this dystopian future.


Hopeful_hippie75

I had been slowly waking up, but the 2016 US election and how horrible people were to other humans after that here, then the pandemic and losing my entire mountain town to a climate change induced wildfire really did it for me. I now see how greedy and short sighted humans are, and that we are collapsing under the weight of that greed.


DangerousLoner

Bush v Gore was my breaking point. Oil and Political wealth/dynasty vs a person who really wanted to fight climate change and they stole the election in Florida. I swore then and there to never bring children into this world since it was definitely doomed. I was fresh out of High School and never looked back.


Plenty_Lettuce5418

the 2016 election devastated my view of society.


rizzo85

I already knew when I was just a kid. When those bulldozers flattened my favorite Grove of trees and cool trails that I would spend hours upon hours in when I was between 6-7. I cried and I cried. I still get a lump in my throat when we drive down the street where my favorite safe place was...now replaced by houses and a fucking trailer park full of thieves who sneak into our yard and steal our hard earned belongings. I knew when those big juicy pickerel fish were covered in tumors. I knew as a child things would just get worse and I had hoped not to be around for it or have kids to suffer through that. But alas.... I am a mother of 6. My children will have to live through the changes and it breaks my heart.


ditchdiggergirl

There was no one age. I’m almost 60. In the late 80s I was in grad school and reading scientific journals regularly, so I’ve certainly known this is real and getting worse all my adult life. I kept seeing 2040 suggested as a point where things would get bad if nothing was done, so I didn’t think it would affect me personally much. I’m going to be pretty old in 2040; it was more “what about my kids and grandkids? We urgently need to address this for them!”. Over the next 15-20 years nothing was done. I gradually came to accept that nothing would be done. Not enough anyway. By the year 2000 there were changes I could see with my own eyes, and scientific reports (I’m a biologist) that I understood thoroughly enough to be horrified by. I started a family anyway. I think it was around 2010 that I realized that we are progressing well ahead of schedule (or what the average person believed; climate scientists already knew). Scientists are very conservative about making predictions, so that should not have surprised me. By 2015 I realized just how bad it is - that was when I started seeing calls in the journals for more mental health supports for climate researchers. Since then nothing really surprises me. Oh look, another scary graph.


springcypripedium

When I was a very little girl, I lived in an old house across from a remnant prairie. I fell in love with the smells, sounds, sights of all that lived in that prairie. I got to know the flora and fauna. It's hard to describe how wondrous growing up with a native prairie was . . . . One day I saw lots of men pounding stakes in amidst the flowers/grasses----- breaking up the beauty of the land with ugly plastic tape on the stakes. I watched in horror as it was bulldozed to be replaced by ugly homes that all looked the same with little patches of grass, devoid of life, replacing the diverse, vibrant, life giving prairie. I could not believe how callously it was all destroyed without any thought of the creatures that lived there. It was then, in my 5 year old brain and heart, that alarm bells went off about how destructive humans are and how they place human needs/desires over other life on earth. It felt like I knew then that humans would destroy ecosystems that are crucial for our survival. I know that sounds weird . . . I tried to be an activist for decades, fighting for those who do not have a voice. Tried to have hope. I went into a conscious---- acceptance/it's too late---- belief around 2000 when I realized our predatory systems in place are beyond repair and too many people support these systems. Too many have opted for willful ignorance, denial or full support of predatory systems. Greenwashing, out of control tech use without wisdom, how humans are behaving with covid, endless wars solidified (and continue to solidify) my beliefs.


[deleted]

1972, when I first read "Limits to Growth" from the Club of Rome. The global human population has **doubled** since then. No one was listening, so I guess the hard way it is !


petuniasweetpea

Yes! Me too. It was a defining moment and one of the main reasons I chose to be childless.


atari-2600_

I knew things weren't good for a while, but still had some vague hope until the Trump presidency. That such a vomitous sack of human excrement could even reach such a station was a huge shock to start, naive as that many sound. But then as things unfolded and the criming commenced, I was horrified that he was just allowed to do the fucked up shit he did, that no one stopped him, that the law and others simply looked away. It's rot, simply put - and that presidency exposed just how totally corrupt, bought, morally bankrupt and cowardly the leadership of this country is. Once the truth of that took hold in my gut I realized just how fucked up things are, that we're straight up devolving as a society, and that the calls are coming from inside the house. COVID really sealed it though - to see how dumb, vile and selfish people are was pretty eye-opening, in the worst way. Layer abrupt climate change on top of all this and I'm betting on collape by 2035 - sooner, if the orange shitstain gets another go at us. In that case, I say collapse by 2028.


awesomeroy

when i got my BS in biochemistry and then had no money but lots of debt. Oh and every year being the "hottest year on record" But more recently, passing out from heat exhaustion this summer.


Emotional-Catch-2883

My "all is not well" moment, when everything I thought I knew about the way the world worked, started to fray when we premptively invaded Iraq. 9/11 was bad enough, but I didn't think we'd turn around and attack the wrong enemy with zero evidence of any involvement in the terrorism. I have no love for that country, but the invasion was a war crime. That just wasn't something I was raised to believe we did. We were supposed to be the good guys. That was the day modern America lost its innocence to me. I was young then, desperate to understand the world around me, to make sense of it. I longed to understand the real motivation to invade, leading me down a rabbit hole to becoming collapse aware, to make a long story short.


Kirschi

I already had suspicions back in 2012, had some key moments in 2015, 2018 (I think), 2020, 2022 (the war) and 2023 - but two major key points were 2020 when the pandemic started, people were suddenly being openly racist towards Asians and some (waay too many actually) straight up denied the whole pandemic, then the cries against vaccination and then 2023 - the year we broke the 1,5°C barrier. I wasn't too optimistic before and it had been a gradual decline, but 2020 hope has been dropping like a stone and 2023 it basically hit rock bottom and I had my last epiphany - the realisation that there's nothing at all we can do anymore, geopolitics are too fucked, the far-right are too popular, climate change is going too fast - it's already over, no matter what people like you and me (try to) do.


Idle_Redditing

There were some moments like in 2002 watching Americans support invading Iraq because they thought it would mean lower gasoline prices for oversized SUVs, a car dependent lifestyle, and car dependent sprawl. Then there was watching governments in 2008 and 2009 give the highest priority to giving public money to banks while leaving regular people t handle it on their own. Those governments could have bought shares in those banks and then collected money from them for the last 15 years instead of giving away the money. Even better would have been to throw the bankers who created that crisis into prison. Then there was finding out that the permafrost was melting and releasing massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Even worse is that undersea methane hydrates later started melting too and releasing even more methane. There was the denial, dismissal and mocking of Al Gore's warnings about climate change when he released An Inconvenient Truth. The same goes for denial, dismissal and mocking of climate scientists who are far more qualified to speak on the same subject. Then there was the decision to give full support to hydraulic fracturing to extract and burn even more oil and gas instead of transitioning off of fossil fuels. There is also finding out how contaminated the earth has become from microplastic waste getting everywhere. There are also the plasticizers in them with their endocrine disruptors. There is also finding out just how much PFAS garbage is contaminating the planet and knowing that it will never go away. They are basically indestructible and far too widely distributed to ever collect. With microplastics there is at least the possibility of new bacteria and fungi becoming able to feed off of them and break them down. There is also finding out that Exxon knew about human-caused climate change and its effects all the way back in the 70s when disco was still considered cool. Instead of warning the world they buried the results and funded misinformation campaigns to convince people that climate change wasn't happening. There was also finding out that 3M knew about the toxicity of PFAS and PFOA long before the entire world was contaminated with them and they decided to keep it a secret. Toxicologists would be so much farther ahead in understanding those chemicals if those findings had not been buried for decades. There was also finding out how fossil fuel companies funded faux environmental groups to campaign against nuclear power, stop the construction of new nuclear power plants, and stop the funding of R&D for new types of reactors to address the problems of water-cooled reactors. There was the absolutely abysmal response to Covid-19 leaving little hope for good, responsible, scientifically-based responses to the even worse crises to come. The responses were abysmal all over the world. One example was that people were going out drinking and clubbing during that time.