[jowea]

Not the previous poster but it could feel meaningless if you really sincerely think civilization is doomed. At least with optimism for the future you can feel like you mattered to the people close to you, or you were a good cog in a great machine, or you lived a happy life and so will your successors.

Even with daily life, if you think your own life is going to worsen in the future no matter what you do, won't that demotivate you today?

[smeej]

But your own life is going to worsen in the future. To whatever extent you continue to have a future (stay alive), your mind and body will deteriorate. Your relationships will slowly end as the other people die. If you're lucky, you'll build some new ones, but that doesn't reduce the grief of the lost ones.

You might be able to make it happen very slightly slower by making lifestyle changes of varying degrees. But you can make lifestyle changes that will have similar impact on your experience of a warmer world too, if your own life is your concern.

So if you're concerned about everybody's experience, your influence is negligible no matter what. And if you're concerned about your own experience, your influence is slight but diminishing no matter what.

This is still a mortality issue, not a climate change issue.