Whatever dent we make today will be visible in decades. This is Moses in the desert, people, if we do what’s right, we won’t see the promised land, but our descendants will
It’s hard not to feel nihilistic. Especially because even in the worst case scenario, it’s extremely unlikely that humans will become extinct. No, the worst case scenario is worse than that: the people who are most responsible for exacerbating the climate crisis will also be the ones with the resources available to shield themselves from the devastation. Even if society as we know it completely collapses, people will survive, and on our current trajectory, those people will be the worst of us.
For me, it’s less about saving the planet from the climate crisis, more about doing what little I can to maximise the likelihood that the people who inherit the earth aren’t the assholes who are willfully profiting from human misery — the ones who see themselves as the greater good.
Sometimes when I feel hopeless about humanity’s chance to liberate ourselves before climate catastrophe truly rolls in, I wonder whether it’d be better if humans were gone entirely. Maybe I’d rather see the world burn completely than for it to go to the disgusting people who make me ashamed to be human. Ultimately, I don’t believe this — I’d be dead already if I did. I don’t think my life matters all that much, but I’m not one of the people who would be deemed worth saving by the billionaires and autocrats, so I might as well stick around and fight for, and with all the other forsaken people to build things that are worth preserving; I figure that communities and solidarity will be even more crucial in the future than now.
A few years ago, my best friend was in a coma and on a ventilator for a few months, before eventually dying. The hardest part of that period was when we didn’t know whether he would survive or not, because I had to go about my life despite his absence, and yet I couldn’t grieve yet. That feels sort of like how climate change feels now. I want to grieve, but I can’t, because there’s still work to do. The earth isn’t dead yet, and unlike when my friend was in hospital, my actions do have an impact on the end outcome. The analogy breaks down though, because I did get the chance to grieve my friend’s death, there won’t be a checkpoint like that for me, because the world won’t end, per se. The only thing that’ll be ending is my ability to impact the world, when I’m too dead to grieve for anything.
I imagine my desire to see the world burn rather than hand it over to the undeserving probably stems from a desperate desire to grieve what has already been lost, and what has not yet been lost, but will be. I wish I could allow myself the chance to despair, because that can be healing, eventually, but there simply isn’t time to do that precisely because this isn’t about me and my grief. There’s still work to do, and I can’t let myself collapse now, lest even more of our descendants future is eroded. I feel hopeful for the future because I have to in order to survive long enough to give the people who come after me a better shot at building something I never could. It’s a tremendous amount of pressure though.
That would’ve been true in the 1970s,but we’ve hit too many run away effects. We could entirely stop all fossil fuels use tomorrow and we wouldn’t see a drop in co2ppm for longer than it would take for all things built by humans to decay.
But it wouldn’t increase by 3+ppm per year. It wouldn’t stop temperatures from rising for another 10-20 years, but at a slower pace that makes sub +2C possible.
It would still increase, just not as much… And no, it wouldn’t make sub 2c possible. we have a lot of methane currently suspended from the carbon cycle that is releasing more and more each year at current temperatures. On top of this the wildfires frequent at current temps release more carbon than the natural world sequesters each year.
This is without addressing anything with the ocean.
But these kinds of myths, like those of other religious traditions, have some very important truths about humanity. In this case, it’s that it’s worth struggling for future generations. Early abolitionists might have not lived to see emancipation, but it was still worth it to fight the good fight.
Whatever dent we make today will be visible in decades. This is Moses in the desert, people, if we do what’s right, we won’t see the promised land, but our descendants will
It’s hard not to feel nihilistic. Especially because even in the worst case scenario, it’s extremely unlikely that humans will become extinct. No, the worst case scenario is worse than that: the people who are most responsible for exacerbating the climate crisis will also be the ones with the resources available to shield themselves from the devastation. Even if society as we know it completely collapses, people will survive, and on our current trajectory, those people will be the worst of us.
For me, it’s less about saving the planet from the climate crisis, more about doing what little I can to maximise the likelihood that the people who inherit the earth aren’t the assholes who are willfully profiting from human misery — the ones who see themselves as the greater good.
Sometimes when I feel hopeless about humanity’s chance to liberate ourselves before climate catastrophe truly rolls in, I wonder whether it’d be better if humans were gone entirely. Maybe I’d rather see the world burn completely than for it to go to the disgusting people who make me ashamed to be human. Ultimately, I don’t believe this — I’d be dead already if I did. I don’t think my life matters all that much, but I’m not one of the people who would be deemed worth saving by the billionaires and autocrats, so I might as well stick around and fight for, and with all the other forsaken people to build things that are worth preserving; I figure that communities and solidarity will be even more crucial in the future than now.
A few years ago, my best friend was in a coma and on a ventilator for a few months, before eventually dying. The hardest part of that period was when we didn’t know whether he would survive or not, because I had to go about my life despite his absence, and yet I couldn’t grieve yet. That feels sort of like how climate change feels now. I want to grieve, but I can’t, because there’s still work to do. The earth isn’t dead yet, and unlike when my friend was in hospital, my actions do have an impact on the end outcome. The analogy breaks down though, because I did get the chance to grieve my friend’s death, there won’t be a checkpoint like that for me, because the world won’t end, per se. The only thing that’ll be ending is my ability to impact the world, when I’m too dead to grieve for anything.
I imagine my desire to see the world burn rather than hand it over to the undeserving probably stems from a desperate desire to grieve what has already been lost, and what has not yet been lost, but will be. I wish I could allow myself the chance to despair, because that can be healing, eventually, but there simply isn’t time to do that precisely because this isn’t about me and my grief. There’s still work to do, and I can’t let myself collapse now, lest even more of our descendants future is eroded. I feel hopeful for the future because I have to in order to survive long enough to give the people who come after me a better shot at building something I never could. It’s a tremendous amount of pressure though.
That would’ve been true in the 1970s,but we’ve hit too many run away effects. We could entirely stop all fossil fuels use tomorrow and we wouldn’t see a drop in co2ppm for longer than it would take for all things built by humans to decay.
But it wouldn’t increase by 3+ppm per year. It wouldn’t stop temperatures from rising for another 10-20 years, but at a slower pace that makes sub +2C possible.
It would still increase, just not as much… And no, it wouldn’t make sub 2c possible. we have a lot of methane currently suspended from the carbon cycle that is releasing more and more each year at current temperatures. On top of this the wildfires frequent at current temps release more carbon than the natural world sequesters each year.
This is without addressing anything with the ocean.
Bible stories aren’t real either.
But these kinds of myths, like those of other religious traditions, have some very important truths about humanity. In this case, it’s that it’s worth struggling for future generations. Early abolitionists might have not lived to see emancipation, but it was still worth it to fight the good fight.