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I’d like to point out that “do what you can” doesn’t even necessarily mean trying to prevent or impede climate change directly. It can also mean building community and providing comfort and protection from the worst effects of climate change to the people you care about.
Exactly, well said chad 💪
I’d classify myself as a “reluctant doomer”. I try to minimize my environmental impact and encourage others to do the same, but privately, I think we’re fucked. I act like my assumptions are wrong, though. I hope I am.
You should research, since this is an oil industry astroturfing lie that has taken hold and it is devastating as you can see. You may drop the doomer part and prevent the spread of misinformation as one of your environmental care tasks
What if I’m both, I do everything possible but I know it’s futile and we’re fucked. All my efforts i make in my life can be undone by a billionaire on one weekend trip to Europe.
If the billionaires can do all that then it sounds like you need to redirect your efforts to building class consciousness and mass movements to collectively struggle against the billionaires so they aren’t allowed to waste resources like that anymore.
If you were doing nothing you’d probably feel less fulfilled
I dunno, sometimes I wish I was alone in a cabin in the woods, just an oblivious apeman waiting out his days. It must be nice for those people who can just ignore it all
I also fantasise about this lol
At least you’re doing your part
Absolutely. It’s never too late to keep trying and every little helps:
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/06/too-late-climate-crisis-myth/
https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/can-we-stop-climate-change
https://plana.earth/academy/is-it-too-late-for-our-planet
Doomerism achieves nothing, it’s not helpful: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23622511/climate-doomerism-optimism-progress-environmentalism
And pessimism isn’t realism: https://medium.com/the-ascent/the-magic-that-happens-when-we-stop-equating-pessimism-with-realism-9480a5481540
And individual actions make more of a difference than you might think: https://theconversation.com/climate-change-yes-your-individual-action-does-make-a-difference-115169
Finally don’t get addicted to doomscrolling, it’s bad for your physical and mental health: https://www.ramsaymentalhealth.com.au/en/resources-support/addicted-to-bad-news/
So here are some positive climate stories to motivate and improve your day:
Doomerism is appealing because it tells you its ok not to bother and it speaks to the masochistic epistemology many of us are drawn to.
Reality is that it’s like our clothes are slowly catching fire. We aren’t getting away with just a singe at this point. We’re currently looking at winding up naked in the hospital, but not like “medical coma” level if we do what we need to.
Thank you for the resources!
Sadly none of these things will work, first step to real change is to cull the rich, but people are too complacent now to make that happen. Without getting rid of billionaires, nothing will ever really work, that’s step one
Kierkegaard’s knight of infinite resignation vs knight of faith
I planted 3 trees this week and have been making biochar in winter when fire restrictions are lifted.
Nice work! Keep at it!
I’m hoping to plant some more trees this season but don’t know where yet. Will have to do some more scouting.
I’m just about out of space on my property until my nursery trees are mulched for soil so I’m currently in the market for endemic natives to guerilla garden with.
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Excellent work climate patriot 🫡🌍
I’m doing what I can, and encourage others to do the same cuz why not; but also under no illusion that our efforts are going to even delay our extinction by a meaningful amount.
We’re at the mercy of some miracle-tier scientific breakthroughs, or literal divine/extraterrestrial intervention. There’s a shred of hope in the former, but realistically, we’re fucked.
Hey now, we won’t go extinct. Some of the ultra wealthy will likely survive in their bunkers! That’s probably comforting right
Oh they’ll probably last a few years longer than the rest of us, but their bunkers will only keep em ticking until the AC unit breaks, or… y’know, the plants and algae on the surface die and stop producing O2 and their tanks run out.
Your “realistical” conclusions are parroting oil industry astroturfing lies. We are not doomed because the research is made by them and they are unrelenting in their lobbying and sabotage. Trump destroyed movements and research and every swine with money will continue to sabotage progress on mother earth until we make them stop. Then it ends. Don’t be a problem in this class war and choose sides
Seems like a couple people here are missing the first sentence of my last post.
You don’t need me to tell me to do the things - I’m doing the things just in case it turns out to actually make a difference. …I’m just dead inside as I’m doing them, cuz I don’t anticipate them making a difference. The info I’m ‘parroting’ is coming from institutions like NOAA.
So… do the things. All of us together, yea they add up, just anticipate that the thing they’ll add up to is 2025 breaking more records. Then again in 2026. Etc - until that miracle tier scientific breakthrough comes. If it does, our efforts may give just enough of an edge for us to see our climate stabilize. If it doesn’t, we’re fucked.
The problem is your dooming inspires others to give up.
one big disease could thanks snap the population. how we would survive afterwards is another question.
but high pop loads lead to more chance of drastic collapse.
I’ve moved to stainless steel for basically everything. Including plates, bowels, cups, etc. So no more microplastics there at least. I’ve tried to find environmentally friendly soap and detergents where feasible.
I started cooking bulk slow cook meals at home to reduce waste in my food, i got energy efficient everything. My dishwasher, washing machine and dryer (heat pump dryer) are near the top of ESR. I installed solar ( self consumption not grid tie) and in the summer with my batteries can almost meet 100% of my power needs. Winter varies but can sometimes still offset 60% i also use heatpump hot water and room heating. All my lighting is custom high efficiency led strip lights running on the 48v if the solar batteries directly.
I drive a tiny smart fortwo which as far as I can tell is one of the least polluting non-hybrid vehicles the road, I would like to eventually get an electric car to compliment my solar but that’s a purchase for later. I feel as though I’ve done all that I can do without unreasonably disrupting my life I just feel sad knowing that it’s basically worthless in the grand scheme of how much companies are polluting
Why stainless over cheap regular ceramic plates or drinking glasses?
I decided part of reducing waste was getting myself something that’s basically guaranteed to last me the rest of my life, I can use these dishes as footballs for a family football game or to practice my hacky sack throwing and never worry about them getting damaged.
Yeah, I guess your only options for any further impact are to persuade as many other people to do some of what you’ve done. The least intrusive changes will obv be the easiest ones to persuade people to make
All of this is incredibly impressive. I don’t own my own place yet or have a car, but I’m hoping to buy an electric vehicle in the next couple of years and then find an apartment. I’ll be chuffed myself if I accomplish even a quarter of what you’ve just described. You say it’s worthless - it has inspired me. Years from now maybe I’ll describe my setup and inspire another, and you’ll have played a part in that.
I’m glad that it has inspired you, but when I say it’s worthless I mean that honestly even if a majority of people did everything I’ve done it would still barely make a dent. The major polluters are not people that is just a lie that’s been sold to us the major polluters are major corporations. It’s nice living more sustainably I genuinely find many of these changes to be nicer than what I had before them I think they can be used to improve one’s life when done correctly. But in terms of helping the climate change process? Despite everything I’ve done I’m still a Doomer because I know that the people can’t fix it
Not if the people eradicated lobbying and unadulterated sabotage of environmental science
If possible don’t buy a car. Cars, even electric ones, have a huge environmental cost. It’s not always possible but we should be using public transportation and bicycles way more than we use cars.
I’ll be buying a second hand electric car and it will afford me a great deal of independence that public transport cannot. And when I can use public transport, I will.
Based
Precisely my point. Even if recycling is a corporate propaganda to shift blame to consumers and the majority of plastics do not get recycled, or that saving water is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of water lost to pipe leaks, it is still better than doing nothing.
Would these doomers have preferred if they had done nothing at all?
The reason the corporate propaganda to shift blame works is because you are spending your energy worrying about and debating it and telling people that every drop counts rather than doing the far more effective work of organising and fixing the actual problem which is the fact that capitalism is destroying our ecology.
They know it works, they’ve reused the same playbook for every major ecological disaster, and it keeps working, because we’re here chastising each other to just recycle, just save water, just reduce your carbon footprint, just don’t use plastic straws, and on and on and on, instead of organising a real solution.
And in case anyone asks whether you can do anything to change the capitalist hellscape that we’re living under, I would give your own logic back to you - every little bit works towards the solution. Build local solutions, build mutual aid, wean yourself and your community off of dependence on capital and the state, build mycelial networks of resistance, and you might find that you’re less alone and more powerful than you realised before you did this.
every little bit works towards the solution. Build local solutions, build mutual aid
build mycelial networks of resistance, and you might find that you’re less alone and more powerful than you realised before you did this.
I didn’t mean to say otherwise in my initial comment, but that is what i am trying to say. It is a collective effort-- all from all individual effort, from your neighbours, to yourself, to companies, to politicians, each of which combined together progress towards a meaningful path. We all have to hold each other accountable. It has not come perfectly of course, but at the very least there is some move towards combating climate change, which is better than doing nothing.
My comment is towards those who resign themselves to apathy when they find out that saving water doesn’t do as much or what they put into recycle bin turned up in landfill. These little things are better than doing nothing at all. Some people have a notion that they are some sort of superhero. That’s why I hate the phrase "hero of your own story. No, we are all just mere humans doing what we can to survive and help one another.
Can you explain what you mean by “hold each other accountable”?
Funding for global climate change has no oversight and is rife with corruption.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/climate-change-finance/
A lot of the funds go to strange projects, such as building luxurious hotel with solar panel, and even fossil fuel plants that are somehow considered green.
Nicaragua was right not to sign the 2015 Paris climate deal because they correctly believe it doesn’t go far enough. Governments, businesses and people have to be held accountable if we are serious about this.
Okay, when I talk about mutual aid and mycelial networks of resistance, I am talking about materially undermining those institutions that you seem to think we can hold accountable.
States & corporations are not going to do their part. I am talking about fighting a class war. They are not on our side in any way.
All this talk about everybody doing their part to recycle or whatever is part of the problem, because it distracts us. Instead of fighting against them, you seem to think they can be brought to heel, that we can work with them. That’s simply never going to happen.
While I agree that corporations are scum, we still need some form of governance to manage and actually implement net zero emissions on a global scale. If you are advocating for anarchism, I have a bridge to sell.
I share the same disdain of authority as you, but I would be an anarchist if I weren’t a social democrat.
A drop in the bucket, which is fully comprised of drops ;)
“What is an ocean, but a multitude of drops?”
- Cloud Atlas
Definitely one of my favourite quotes.
Idk, people who were safe in western states called me a doomer and got mad at me for my sadness being unproductive while a hurricane killing people and flattening neighboring towns. No one is an effective activist 100% of the time, maybe let people grieve for five seconds.
It’s even more chadlike to fall and get back up
I mean, sure, it’s not like I died from crying
Doing what I can still basically feels like doing nothing anyway. Like when you finish a mission in Helldivers and it shows how much your team contributed to the total effort.
The tare machine: “You have used a reusable bag for a decade and recycled every recyclable object you bought after using it until it was unuable. You have decreased the effect of climate change by 0.00000000125%.”
Me: Yay! I’m helping! 🥹
You’re helping!
Sounds like Chad just wants praise for performative actions.
ok doomer
I will not engage in climate denial by pretending individual efforts can outcompete corporate & military polluters to save us from climate collapse.
The climate is going to suffer, there’s no doubt about that. When that happens, obviously humans will try to fix it. Why be a doomer now when you could start fixing what you can?
You could broaden the scope of what you believe you “can” do
I think actively participating in anti-capitalist revolutionary efforts is the most meaningful thing we can do. I don’t think we can save the planet without it.
We’re going to have to choose between a few dead oil executives, or a dead planet.
All avenues are important. Effort needs to be put into what you stated, but effort also needs to be put into helping people who are living month to month make the small changes that they are able to. Not everyone is in a privileged position of being able to upend their entire world without life changing consequences.
