[mikeholler]

This "we are doomed" attitude is unhelpful towards positive change. It forces us towards selfishness and away from empathy and mutual-support. In some ways, it is a self-fulfilling perception of the world. It is an excuse for personal inaction.

I was deeply depressed with this attitude a year ago, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. What helped, was helping. Specifically volunteering and volunteerism. Realizing that the world doesn't revolve around my experience, and that I can make a positive affect on people's lives.

If you're worried about climate change (like I was, like I am), join a cause to address it like Citizens' Climate Lobby, the Environmental Voter Project, or something local. If you're worried about food insecurity, help at a food bank, at your local urban farming project. If you do this, you'll quickly realize that we are not alone in our feelings, and through that togetherness we are powerful.

[HelloMcFly]

I'm in an odd state with this. I refuse to let myself slide into apathy and not have some level of action. I register voters, I support climate activities (financially, letters to representatives, and lifestyle changes) and look for opportunities for local action.

I do this despite truly believing it won't matter and things will just keep getting worse. I'm smart enough to know I'm not smart enough to be confident in that assessment, but it is what I believe and feel. I simply can't face myself in the mirror if I allow myself to be inactive or uncaring because of my own forecasts for the future.

[mikeholler]

This is how I started getting into it, not really believing in my actions but doing something because I felt it was principally, morally right. Through CCL and their science-based approach and reliance on external studies, I've learned that we are on a trend that is far better than most people think. Sure, it's not good. But it's not devastating.

Renewable energy is on the rise like never before. Electric cars are being pushed harder and harder each year. More of our elective representatives support climate initiatives each year. The conservative climate caucus is a brand new thing that is happening. Other countries are introducing carbon pricing with border taxes that will hurt the US economically unless we introduce our own.

It can be hard to do work and not expect to see payoff, but if you take the long view instead of the short view, statistics about support and momentum are actually on our side.

[whimsicalism]

Afaict, and I follow this significantly, we were never going to see significant climate devastation in our life time. With lag, it'll be our children and our children's children.

While the developed world has been able to offset emissions (renewable growth, but also just pushing manufacturing to the global south), it still has not been nearly enough to avert the worst impacts.

And we also don't know at what point positive feedbacks will become runaway and humans will stop being the primary driver.

Things are improving, but not so much that I would be actively optimistic.

[time_to_smile]

> we were never going to see significant climate devastation in our life time.

Curious your thoughts on just these two observations:

Rapid decrease in Lake Mead (and Powell's) water level: http://mead.uslakes.info/level.asp

Rapid decrease of summer arctic sea ice: https://www.arcticdeathspiral.org/

It's very likely within a decade or two we'll see so little water coming out of Mead that the Hoover dam cannot produce electricity.

We also might see a "blue ocean event" in the same time scale.

Do you not consider these "significant climate devastation"? There are many other examples, but since you "follow this significantly" you probably know about them, but for just these two I'm honestly confused how you can see these as non-issues.

[whimsicalism]

Sure, I guess when I am using that phrase I am using it in response to people who are suggesting that there is existential and/or civilization-collapsing level of risk within our lifetime.

Significant climate devastation to me means significantly degraded quality of life or difficulty staying alive.

You can definitely isolate a lot of things that are being impacted by the climate changing, but even if the entire Hoover dam can no longer produce electricity it will not reach those levels to me.

I don't think these are "non-issues."

[HelloMcFly]

To me, it's neither here nor there that the collapse may occur in our lifetime. It's the beauty of the natural world that I mourn, seeing it fail, and diminish, and the world becomes less colorful and whole.

My most comforting thought is that the Earth will continue, life will continue, and even in a worst-case scenario it's likely the complex ecologies will re-establish in the fullness of time.

[giraffe_lady]

The conclusion I drew is that socially acceptable forms of resistance like voting and writing letters are socially acceptable because they are ineffective. Just get more radical it's more effective and you'll feel better too.

[lazide]

Until you get arrested anyway, can’t get a normal job again, lose your kids because of it, etc.

Large scale social unrest happens because increasingly large portions of society have nothing left to lose.

As an individual, that’s not great.

It does eventually result in change though!

[HelloMcFly]

What are you advocating for, giraffe_lady? Am I to throw Molotov cocktails into the windows of Koch Brothers' owned businesses?

Define "radical" for me. I don't know what to do, but I know what I won't do: remove myself from the lives of the people I love.

[kitkat_new]

civil disobedience

radical doesn't mean violence

[HelloMcFly]

I'm asking for specifics. What specifically do you suggest? I'm open to suggestions, I'm not asking this as a way to deflect.

[kitkat_new]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/03/insula...

Further examples: justStopOil, last generation, scientist rebellion, ...

[whimsicalism]

What does "civil disobedience" look like to you? And when has it accomplished radical change recently?

[lazide]

What I’ve personally found is it is important to recognize that others can’t or won’t do that, and it’s necessary to recognize real threats to oneself and the ones they care about because of it - which necessarily will interfere with a growth mindset.

It doesn’t matter how many soup kitchens someone who lived in Marioupol was going to, if they stayed in Marioupol. They were objectively going to have a bad time, and likely would be dead by now.

I have found that what you’re talking about can help absorb information coming in so one can make better decisions.

If someone is hard locked on worrying about the kids childcare instead of noticing how dangerous the overall situation is, it’s easy to miss the forest for the trees.

[time_to_smile]

> This "we are doomed" attitude is unhelpful towards positive change.

What's unhelpful is the unceasing denial. It's not good for mental health and it creates increasingly hostile and aggressive people. Not being able to talk about the very likely fact that we are going to witness the collapse of everything we know and love in the coming decades is unhealthy.

> It forces us towards selfishness and away from empathy and mutual-support.

I've found the opposite to be true for me. Everyone I know who is "collapse aware" so to speak is much more empathetic towards others. It's the denial in my experience that makes people so hostile. They're scared and angry but aren't allowed to develop towards a state of acceptance. Constant cognitive dissonance leads slowly to derangement.

> If you're worried about climate change ...

If you don't really believe you can fix things, if you don't really believe that everything can be solved (which I an many other don't) doing these things is the textbook example of nihilism.

The acknowledgement that "we are doomed" does not have to lead to a permanent state of depression, that's only the initial phase (once you get past the anger and denial). There is acceptance, there can be healing and there can be asking questions about "how do I want to life in a world in collapse?". The more people that are able to openly admit this and talk about it the less nihilism (and it's dangerous consequences) we'll see.

[whimsicalism]

> Not being able to talk about the very likely fact that we are going to witness the collapse of everything we know and love in the coming decades is unhealthy.

I would be curious if this level of pessimism is a novel thing or has been around for a long time.

I don't see why you would believe something like this, it doesn't seem well supported by any evidence. Even the climate catastrophe is not something that will lead to a collapse in our lifetime, all of the evidence is that the impact will be greatest on our children's children.

[giraffe_lady]

> I've found the opposite to be true for me. Everyone I know who is "collapse aware" so to speak is much more empathetic towards others.

Except for the extreme border fixation by the ascendant far right? Except for the militias and preppers? They use a different vocabulary but these groups are collapse-aware as well.

We don't usually call it this anymore but this is basically ecofascism. Environmental awareness does not inherently come with an outward facing altruism.

[time_to_smile]

> They use a different vocabulary but these groups are collapse-aware as well.

They are not remotely "collapse-aware", the slogan "Make America Great Again!" tells you this. The are many books written about the relationship between nihilism and the rise of fascism. This was Nietzsche's prediction 200 years ago.

These are people that feel the effects of collapse but refuse to acknowledge it. The only difference between these groups and people talking about denying what's happening and fighting against climate change is that the latter group has not been hit with material despair yet. Once they do we'll see an increasing emergence of fascism from this group (we already to do some extent, but it will get worse quickly).

I recommend Nolan Gertz "Nihilism" for a quick overview of the subject.

[bee_rider]

I'm not sure what the article is about, their bandwidth limit was hit. So, just responding to your comment:

I think one thing that "we are doomed" people miss is, no matter how badly we screw up, unless it is like Nuclear War, the world isn't going to switch into Mad Max/Walking Dead all over, overnight. If shit really does end up hitting the fan, it seems like these groups that are trying to prevent the problem are self-selected for people who are

1) aware of the problem, likely have some idea of what it will entail

2) are conscientious and proactively try to solve problems

In a post-apocalyptic movie these are the groups that end up turning into a cult or build a nice little village only to get wiped out right after the protagonist shows up, to show how grim and gritty the story is. But in the real world, seems like a pretty good post-realistic-crisis group to belong to, TBH.