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[–] 188 points 3 years ago (94 children)

The whole situation with climate change feels so hopeless.

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  • [–] 151 points 3 years ago (37 children)

    I think the worst part of it is that its not actually hopeless, at least not in theory. It's just that we, or more accurately the people with actual power, refuse to act because it would mean slightly less profit.

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  • [–] 48 points 3 years ago (29 children)

    I fully believe that if the world comes together, a united global effort, it is solvable, but we won't.

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  • [–] 23 points 3 years ago (24 children)

    Me too, specially when I was younger I thought we could change the world for good if united. I saw cristal clear that the rich wanted to be richer at the expense of the poorer, but as I grew older and saw the reality and stupidity of the world (Like Trump, a massively rich guy being massively voted by the poorest and less educated people) I lost hope. I came to realize that education and stoicism and the best tools the human race has to progress to a healthy society. So that’s what I try to share now when I can.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago* (15 children)

    Though I mostly agree with you, sometimes I feel human nature is just ugly.

    Some very highly educated people have done some very terrible things throughout history.

    (Sorry about submitting the half sentence, I meant to hit cancel and then decided to commit after that blunder.)

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  • [–] 24 points 3 years ago* (13 children)

    Though I mostly agree with you, sometimes I feel human nature is just ugly.

    This is not true. Humans are created by the material conditions they find themselves in. "Human nature" when in an abundant environment is very different, we can see this among remaining hunter gatherer tribes like the Hadza (watch/read the whole thread).

    Living in capitalism is what makes people the way you see them. Competition for resources with your fellow workers and an endless toil for the benefit of someone else enforced by the threat of homelessness and death if you don't take part.

    Being an asshole under capitalism is as natural as coughing is in a smoke filled burning building. If you don't know anything different you can't see that to constantly cough is not the natural way of human beings. When you take people and put them in different material conditions you get a completely different outcome.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    The biggest issue with our environment that drives these problems is that human brains can only reliably grok a few hundred other humans as being people. Beyond that, to a greater or lesser degree, anyone else just feels like an object (which is why we feel upset when people we know die but the statistics of how many people die each day globally don't have a similar effect.)

    Some of us cope better than others but fundamentally any environment that requires humans to be reliant on interacting with over a few hundred other people will lead to people treating each other as objects.

    It's why conservative people often feel it would be inconceivable to mistreat someone they personally know but will casually do profoundly cruel things to people they don't. If you view their actions towards people outside of their sphere of personhood through the lense of what is and isn't an appropriate way to treat an object rather than a person they often seem perfectly naturally.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    I know the research you're talking about here but don't think it should be viewed as something that makes people incapable of empathy to those outside their core group. It makes it harder, but that hasn't stopped entire nations of people moving hard left towards extreme vocal empathy among one another as the working class. Unity, solidarity and love for one another is demonstrably possible among very large numbers it just requires the right set of prerequisites to achieve, these prerequisites are what socialists should be working towards ticking off in order to set the stage for a wider revolutionary movement.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    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 at 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.
    • 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.

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  • [–] 23 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (12 children)

    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.

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  • [+] 11 points 3 years ago (7 children)
  • [–] 10 points 3 years ago* (5 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    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".

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  • [–] 11 points 3 years ago* (38 children)

    Human problems have human solutions.

    The science is clear, now it's an engineering problem.

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  • [–] 46 points 3 years ago (35 children)

    Unfortunately, it's actually a political problem.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago* (34 children)

    Another human problem, so solvable.

    It's not like a super volcano or asteroid.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago* (27 children)

    There's like 100 people with the power to make the change and they've all decided to invest the money and power in self preservation. It's the biggest 'fuck you proletariat scum' I could imagine. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff

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