Not sure if this will give you hope or not, but one thing to consider is that we could still make it far worse, or put differently, that it’s still in our power to stop that from happening. We can’t change the fact that climate change already has noticeable negative consequences today, nor that global temperatures will rise by at least 1.5° towards the end of the century (compared to 1950-1980), probably more. But we do have a somewhat realistic chance of keeping it at around 2° or below (see e.g. here or here for easy simulations in your browser). The point is that every tenth of a degree counts, and our action or lack thereof now might well make the difference between it “just” getting bad with regular droughts, crop failures, some regions becoming temporarily uninhabitable due to wet bulb temperatures and so on on the one hand, or all of that on a much larger scale leading to societal collapse if we don’t act at all. We live in the worst extinction event the earth has seen since the asteroid that killed the non-bird dinosaurs, but we can still keep it at that instead of turning it into the worst extinction event the earth has ever seen. Luckily, governments (and industry) largely have at least accepted that climate change is a thing, and in Europe and the Americas green-house gas emission have actually already been sinking for the last 15 years or so. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not great, and these governments still should do much more, but it could also be worse, and the fact that we’re lowering emissions despite our politicians generally being very friendly with industry could give at least a sliver of hope. The emissions of China and India (and the rest of Asia) are still rising, but show signs of decelerated growth at least, and in Africa emissions are still fairly low and rising rather slowly, with a chance that some less developed countries might more or less just skip a big chunk of carbon-based industrialisation in favour of renewables. Altogether this means that we’re already on a way to avoid the worst possible scenarios, and still have the power to keep it towards the lower end of the scale as far as terrible outcomes are concerned.
In addition, while individuals have always less power than whole governments or industries, there are nevertheless things anyone reading this could do, e.g.:
Voting for parties that favour stronger climate action, and perhaps even more importantly, not supporting those who do less or even nothing. You can also protest or try to influence your government in some other ways.
Reduce your personal impact by not consuming animal products (in particular meat and dairy), not flying if you can avoid it, not buying stuff you don’t really need, and not having (more) kids. Edit: Also try to favour public transport over driving your own car, and if you need a car, try to use a small, electrical one to reduce emissions.
Tell other people you know who might listen to do those things. Many people favour climate action in principle, but are too lazy, scared or just otherwise preoccupied to actually start doing stuff on their own. You kicking them in the butt or leading by example can motivate them and in turn other people they might now.
If you’re reading this and whether or not you’re already doing some of those things, I’m sure you can find at least some things you could do (I know I can, and I’m trying to put it into practice), which might in turn also make you feel less depressed about the situation. As mentioned before, I’m not saying that we’re in a great situation, but whining about it helps nobody, and we’re still in a situation where we have the power to stop things from getting even worse.
I mean I can vote and get reasonable parties and politicians that will enact reasonable regulations, laws and systems in place, eat entirely sustainable foods, use sustainable energy and means of transportation, recycle and reuse just about everything and get everyone else, as in every single person in the entirety of the United States on the same page and there will still be seven and a half billion people that fucking don’t. I’m not the problem here.
I know that the US isn’t in a vacuum and sometimes one country’s legislation and practices affect others, but I find it very interesting that a lot of these conversations don’t mention insanely populated, growing and polluting countries like China and India that are disproportionately burning this planet without much concern. A lot of your points are just laughable when it comes to China and its government (for example), its deception of its people and their push to have even more kids at all costs. Let’s not even talk about their laughable environmental protection measures.
I know it’s a hot take and maybe it’s foolish and unsympathetic, but while I already do take measures to mitigate some of my impact on this planet, I won’t do it at great personal expense or inconvenience when I fucking know that somebody else will just take whatever gains my actions have had and will fill that vacuum and then some by having more kids and consuming more oil, coal, plastic, meat, fish, etc than I ever will in my lifetime. The last few years have shown that lives aren’t all that precious and I value mine and my comfort above most others and at this point I don’t think I give a shit about people halfway across the globe. They certainly don’t give a shit about me.
Call me an edgelord, hurl insults at me, but I won’t lose sleep over it. In the grand scheme of things, I’m not the problem here and I don’t give a shit anymore.
I know this won’t change your mind or anything, but this is probably pretty close to the mindset of some other ~1.5 billion first world countries’ populations’ mindset. And those combined account to currently around ~37% of CO2 emissions. So if all people like you (if you consider first world countries’ people to be people like you) all came together and did more we could have some pretty huge impact. Of course the other ~63% may still fuck things up, but this is a much different comparison than just you against the rest of the world, you’re not very unique in that regard.
I’m so tired of people turning everything into an awful prisoner’s dilemma. Everyone should just aim to be the best person you can be and stop fretting about whether everyone else is trying quite as hard as you. It doesn’t need to be complicated.
Right? On a global scale, though, “best person you can be” should be something like, “let’s try to behave in such a way so that if everyone behaved like me, the world would be a good place”. That is hard though, to think like that.
What can help is the knowledge that by doing so it is impossible not to on some level inspire others to do the same to some degree by example.
If you’re a selfish jerk that will cause people around you to be .001% (or something) more selfish and jerky. If you are kind and good that will push the needle the other way similarly.
Except the amount more those people are better or worse for knowing you then also influences how much better or worse the people they know are etc and so while it is a small effect per person, the diffused effect is meaningful, cumulative and self-reinforcing. It doesn’t take a lot of people within a community either giving up and being the worst or finding enough of a spine to try to be good to start to tip the balance of the whole community in either direction. It also means that as you are better and kinder, your immediate external world gradually becomes a little better and kinder which makes it easier and more rewarding to be that way in an endless virtuous cycle.
Ok now apply the fact that at least 45% of the western world is brainwashed by the fossil fuel industry. They’re low IQ repeater bots who would glady kill every single one of us because climate change is a “hoax”.
I think a very small minority “would gladly kill every single one of us”, not 45%. If it were 45%, there’d already be open civil war all over the west.
Thank you this was actually really nice to read. I feel like everywhere I look is more bad news about the climate it’s nice to see we can at least still mitigate it
Not sure if this will give you hope or not, but one thing to consider is that we could still make it far worse, or put differently, that it’s still in our power to stop that from happening. We can’t change the fact that climate change already has noticeable negative consequences today, nor that global temperatures will rise by at least 1.5° towards the end of the century (compared to 1950-1980), probably more. But we do have a somewhat realistic chance of keeping it at around 2° or below (see e.g. here or here for easy simulations in your browser). The point is that every tenth of a degree counts, and our action or lack thereof now might well make the difference between it “just” getting bad with regular droughts, crop failures, some regions becoming temporarily uninhabitable due to wet bulb temperatures and so on on the one hand, or all of that on a much larger scale leading to societal collapse if we don’t act at all. We live in the worst extinction event the earth has seen since the asteroid that killed the non-bird dinosaurs, but we can still keep it at that instead of turning it into the worst extinction event the earth has ever seen. Luckily, governments (and industry) largely have at least accepted that climate change is a thing, and in Europe and the Americas green-house gas emission have actually already been sinking for the last 15 years or so. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not great, and these governments still should do much more, but it could also be worse, and the fact that we’re lowering emissions despite our politicians generally being very friendly with industry could give at least a sliver of hope. The emissions of China and India (and the rest of Asia) are still rising, but show signs of decelerated growth at least, and in Africa emissions are still fairly low and rising rather slowly, with a chance that some less developed countries might more or less just skip a big chunk of carbon-based industrialisation in favour of renewables. Altogether this means that we’re already on a way to avoid the worst possible scenarios, and still have the power to keep it towards the lower end of the scale as far as terrible outcomes are concerned.
In addition, while individuals have always less power than whole governments or industries, there are nevertheless things anyone reading this could do, e.g.:
If you’re reading this and whether or not you’re already doing some of those things, I’m sure you can find at least some things you could do (I know I can, and I’m trying to put it into practice), which might in turn also make you feel less depressed about the situation. As mentioned before, I’m not saying that we’re in a great situation, but whining about it helps nobody, and we’re still in a situation where we have the power to stop things from getting even worse.
I mean I can vote and get reasonable parties and politicians that will enact reasonable regulations, laws and systems in place, eat entirely sustainable foods, use sustainable energy and means of transportation, recycle and reuse just about everything and get everyone else, as in every single person in the entirety of the United States on the same page and there will still be seven and a half billion people that fucking don’t. I’m not the problem here.
I know that the US isn’t in a vacuum and sometimes one country’s legislation and practices affect others, but I find it very interesting that a lot of these conversations don’t mention insanely populated, growing and polluting countries like China and India that are disproportionately burning this planet without much concern. A lot of your points are just laughable when it comes to China and its government (for example), its deception of its people and their push to have even more kids at all costs. Let’s not even talk about their laughable environmental protection measures.
I know it’s a hot take and maybe it’s foolish and unsympathetic, but while I already do take measures to mitigate some of my impact on this planet, I won’t do it at great personal expense or inconvenience when I fucking know that somebody else will just take whatever gains my actions have had and will fill that vacuum and then some by having more kids and consuming more oil, coal, plastic, meat, fish, etc than I ever will in my lifetime. The last few years have shown that lives aren’t all that precious and I value mine and my comfort above most others and at this point I don’t think I give a shit about people halfway across the globe. They certainly don’t give a shit about me.
Call me an edgelord, hurl insults at me, but I won’t lose sleep over it. In the grand scheme of things, I’m not the problem here and I don’t give a shit anymore.
I know this won’t change your mind or anything, but this is probably pretty close to the mindset of some other ~1.5 billion first world countries’ populations’ mindset. And those combined account to currently around ~37% of CO2 emissions. So if all people like you (if you consider first world countries’ people to be people like you) all came together and did more we could have some pretty huge impact. Of course the other ~63% may still fuck things up, but this is a much different comparison than just you against the rest of the world, you’re not very unique in that regard.
I’m so tired of people turning everything into an awful prisoner’s dilemma. Everyone should just aim to be the best person you can be and stop fretting about whether everyone else is trying quite as hard as you. It doesn’t need to be complicated.
Right? On a global scale, though, “best person you can be” should be something like, “let’s try to behave in such a way so that if everyone behaved like me, the world would be a good place”. That is hard though, to think like that.
What can help is the knowledge that by doing so it is impossible not to on some level inspire others to do the same to some degree by example.
If you’re a selfish jerk that will cause people around you to be .001% (or something) more selfish and jerky. If you are kind and good that will push the needle the other way similarly.
Except the amount more those people are better or worse for knowing you then also influences how much better or worse the people they know are etc and so while it is a small effect per person, the diffused effect is meaningful, cumulative and self-reinforcing. It doesn’t take a lot of people within a community either giving up and being the worst or finding enough of a spine to try to be good to start to tip the balance of the whole community in either direction. It also means that as you are better and kinder, your immediate external world gradually becomes a little better and kinder which makes it easier and more rewarding to be that way in an endless virtuous cycle.
Ok now apply the fact that at least 45% of the western world is brainwashed by the fossil fuel industry. They’re low IQ repeater bots who would glady kill every single one of us because climate change is a “hoax”.
I think a very small minority “would gladly kill every single one of us”, not 45%. If it were 45%, there’d already be open civil war all over the west.
I don’t think this is a hot take anymore. Middle/lower class are sick of hearing that everything is our problem. It isn’t.
Thank you this was actually really nice to read. I feel like everywhere I look is more bad news about the climate it’s nice to see we can at least still mitigate it