The overall message here I think is: action is still necessary, but the reality is that we’re too caught up in politics and economics and we missed our chance at mitigation. Now we need to look to how to cope with what’s coming.
The overall message here I think is: action is still necessary, but the reality is that we’re too caught up in politics and economics and we missed our chance at mitigation. Now we need to look to how to cope with what’s coming.
I understand why he’s despairing and frustrated after so many years of effort, but I hope his framing doesn’t quell people’s efforts. It’s definitely too late to stop climate change from happening, but we can still effect how bad it gets, so please don’t give up.
That’s the point, though, is we can’t. Once these points are passed, we could literally be at 0 emissions tomorrow and it’ll still keep getting worse.
Do what you can but face facts. We’re fucked.
That is not a position backed by our current climate science knowledge. We do have a certain amount of climate change baked in right now, absolutely. And it will remain like that for quite a long time, and yes, if we went net-zero, it will stay that way for many decades, maybe even a century or two.
But we can influence how bad that period is, and if it will ever level off (for future generations, not in our lifetime).
If we throw up our hands and do nothing, we are guaranteeing our doom as a species. If we continue to fight, we can ease the pain and horror we and our future generations will have to go through, survive as species, and far in the future, bring the climate back to what it was pre-industial revolution.
I hope youre right.
It will keep getting worse, yes, but we can still impact how many generations down the line that will keep happening. That’s what’s hard at this point: giving a shit about descendants we will never meet.
Look again i get it, im with you
For me, though, my descendents are right here in front of me. And what’s keeping me going, personally, steers closer to anger than hope. They will suffer. My kids.
Humans 100-200+ years from now will know nothing else. Im sorry for them. But im here now, and now is a time to face facts. Civilization is going to end, for all intents and purposes. Our world, the human world, is dying, and we won’t be able to keep up except as mammals 65mil years ago did, hiding in holes.
What we should be doing now, is avenging the future.
Yes we can. We always have been able to. The problem is the willingness is not there yet. It will get worse before it gets better.
As for being able to, there are so many solutions. Watch this video by Gwynn Dyer it’s great.
https://youtu.be/RK5l_0bm6ko
I don’t have kids and I just don’t care anymore. We fucked the planet and humans will never escape it before it collapses us as a species. Fuck em and fuck it. I just gotta make it like 30 more years.
Doomerism isn’t the answer. You may not have kids, but other people still will, and they’ll have to live through the world we leave them. Instead of giving up and saying fuck it, use your anger, hope, love, whatever you need to fuel you, and do what you can. Plant trees to create shade you will not be under, find ways to minimize your energy usage, get to know your community, talk to them, prepare together.
It’s far more fulfilling than waiting out your death in despair, so even if you think it’s all useless, you’ll have a much better time of it either way.
Oh I’m not in despair, eat drink and be merry for tomorrow you may die.
We should stoke anger. Hope made us blind and we sleepwalked into warming.
It’s too late for justice. Now only revenge remains