I started getting sad about climate change two years ago after seeing Planet Earth and many documentaries. I completely changed my lifestyle to reduce my part and put significant effort into it.
But seeing rich celebrities who use as much as a common man’s lifetime resources in a week or two, and others who barely put in any effort to combat it, and corporations fucking the entire planet for quarterly profits, barely any efforts towards fighting it even though we had known about its consequences 30-40 years ago, I get this feeling that my efforts are even worth it.
Slowly, I told myself that evolution failed itself by giving a bit more individual selfishness over community/species survival. Just like human beings, Earth’s time has started to end. Its death is inevitable. Everything should come to an end. Only if evolution had given a bit more thought to species survival, we would be in a much better place.
How do you all deal with this?
I don’t think about it.
Really, that is it, I don’t deny climate change, it obviously is real.
But I am just an IT guy, I live alone, I commute with public transport, I have a small apartment, my car is a PHEV, bought used, consuming 4,5L/100km petrol on average.
I keep my computer turned off when I am out, I won’t pretend that I am super eco friendly, I do fly from time to time, this year I’ve been to Spain twice. I also enjoy driving my car, but I am cutting back on it.
When celebs and VIPs are bombing around the planet in business jets, companies and governments are actively working against electrified rail or rail in general, and pushing for more car infrastructure, then I can see that me feeling guilty about driving my car for fun or just to get to cool photo spots won’t make a difference.
Add to that the huge waste of energy that us crypto, and I have realized that yes we are fucked, but I have time to see cool stuff before everything goes to hell, so I try to use it.
I am planning on taking a trip down to germany next year and see some cool museums, and won’t feel bad about it.
Have you considered eco-terrorism? \s
Notice how public discourse goes round & round in a lively show, but never seems to get anywhere?
This is strawman public discourse, and its largely by design.
Stop thinking, worrying and especially talking about climate change.
Instead talk about pollution & poison
Everyone can see it. It can’t be denied or handwaved or debated away.
STOP POISONING OUR AIR, WATER AND SOIL.
WE NEED THEM TO BREATH, LIVE AND GROW OUR FOOD. (duh)
But that’s not how carbon dioxide works. It isn’t individual poison - our bodies don’t give a shit whether it’s 350 ppm or 450 ppm. The planet does though.
The planet does
The planet which happens to be where we live and borrow atoms from to make our physical bodies?
Poisoning the planet is poisoning ourselves.
Where do you think that CO2 is even coming from? It doesn’t magically teleport into the air. It’s coming from the very pollution sources we’re talking about. In one year ~89% of CO2 pollution came from emissions sources which are harmful to us and other life.
Stop poisoning ourselves == stop poisoning the planet.
The mentality that we can somehow magically separate one from the other suits the polluting industries very well.
“Slowly, I told myself that evolution failed itself by giving a bit more individual selfishness over community/species survival.”
There are a lot of great answers here already, but I would like to put forth the anticapitalist position that the quote above is likely false. Humans can work together, we have developed systems of cooperation that can deter selfishness from destroying a community. This is possible (and despite decades of propaghanda…popular!) What is stopping it is the greed for wealth and power of the 1% at the expense of everyone else and the planet. The masses of people are constantly trying to stop this, and mostly fail. But cracks in their power do open occasionally, and you just have to do what you can until a Crack is available for you to help widen. I think it’s possible to win, but not through personal lifestyle changes and voting alone. Only through activism and protest is it possible. Most humans keep trying to solve this, and that gives me hope.
By not having kids
This is my solution. I’ve said it before, but think it should be repeated. The global population was half of today’s when I was born. 4 billion instead of the current 8+ billion.
That means if half the population disappeared today, we’d just be back where we were in 1975.
Not having kids is the best thing I can do for both the environment, and myself.
Has the added benifit of leaving me as a passive observer who doesn’t have a biological need to care about the future.
This is going to get some upset
On an individual level, there is not much you can do. Because of that why let it get to you? If you do not effect the outcome it shouldn’t be on your radar.
I personally do not care that much about the survival of entire species (including ours); I care more about the lives of the individuals. To illustrate this, it saddens me when we cause extinctions, but a little more because of the animals that suffered in the process and a little less about the whole “loss” of a form of life. Yet, it all is sad.
How do I deal with this climate change sadness? I guess I don’t see it separately from other sad things from humanity (and existence, but let’s focus on humanity). I have accepted the fact that most human beings are morally questionable in my book, this causes the world to be worse for everyone in it, and no amount of reasoning with most of them (about the benefit for them and others of being more conscious about their lives) will change it for now.
At some point, some have felt that a better society is just a step ahead of us because it’s relatively easy in material terms, but now I feel it much farther as the social factors are not as easy. I guess I have surrendered to a certain idea of psychological determinism. If we imagine a person has an object we want at their reach, while it’s out of our reach, and we could get it if they only cooperate, we can feel frustrated when they don’t. “Why do they make it so difficult? It’s as simple as reaching for the object and grabbing it for us. Just do it! Why are they waiting for? Ugh!”. But if we start from the idea that there’s a chance they won’t help us because they simply can’t be bothered (different reasons as to why), and that’s probably not fixable, we won’t feel that level of frustration for their inaction and we will strategize differently how to get that object.
By the way, I don’t think selfishness or self-centeredness or whatever is individualism, nor that altruism is communitarianism. I’m inclined to individualism, but that’s what makes me think that just as my life and freedom are valuable, so are others’. I do not like societies that are communitarian because they drown the individual (in false responsibilities, in fear of ostracism, etc.), and I hate that. We have one life and only one and we should be as free as possible, even if that means being unattached, different, whatever. The only rule for that freedom and for everything is ethics. And that’s the difference for me, that’s how I see it. Not individualistic people versus communitarian people, but people that live without an interest in being ethical (whatever that ends up meaning) and people who do.
So… I think I see a lot of these people and I don’t get as frustrated as before. I sigh and continue my day. Reading this last part, it reads a little stoic (learning that I cannot change these parts of society and focusing on the ones we can change). Stoicism is like the ibuprofen of life; paracetamol is pyrrhic skepticism. I’m bad at analogies, lol, but you get the point (I hope).
Prioritizing my health (including my mental health) has helped a lot. Good levels of everything in my body do wonders for my energy, but also my resilience, my mood, etc. Emotional regulation skills, combating stress… I know these are just common recommendations, but I don’t have more.
I’m sorry that you’re feeling down. It’s been a hard time…
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Staying child-free is likely the most effective personal decision you could make to reduce your environmental impact.
How do you reach this conclusion ?
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I am grieving hard, and grief includes a lot of different feelings and experiences. Yes, there is depression, but there is also anger and reflection and the chance to find joy amidst the horror. My priorities have changed. I used to want to leave a legacy for the next generation; now I want to live in defiance of the evils that have ravaged our beautiful planet. Fuck billionaires, politicians, and cowardly centrist news outlets. Fuck them in perpetuity, until they rot away in their apocalypse bunkers. I will burn bright and hot to the end–that will be my legacy.
I completely changed my lifestyle to reduce my part and put significant effort into it.
This is the source of your problem. Individual action will cost you a lot while accomplishing virtually nothing. Donating some small part of your income to green nonprofits has a greater impact, at a much lower cost to your quality of life.
A climate disaster is going to make us all make sacrifices we don’t want to make eventually, no matter what you sacrifice now. If these are the final days of a healthy planet, don’t deprive yourself while the billionaires are taking joyrides in their gigayachts. Just accept that this horror wasn’t your fault, because if everyone lived with your likely very small footprint, this probably wouldn’t be happening.
A story that’s always stuck with me is: “at a party someone told the group that there wasn’t enough pizza for everyone to have 2 slices, and some people took one slice, and some took three - and that really describes humanity.”
Earth’s time has started to end. Its death is inevitable.
Even in a worst case scenario life will continue on earth. It’s honestly doubtful that humanity will end. This is not controversial among climate scientists. Don’t get me wrong, societal collapse, mass human deaths and a huge extinction event are all on the table, but there are many lifeforms that will thrive.
Yeah I know. It’s just what I told myself to cope about it.
100mg of ketamine every day, half in the morning, half in the afternoon.
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I realized I was anxious about climate change because I was depressed and not the other way around. I cannot change the world radically but I can do my part, convince others to do the same, vote for the right politicians, pressure companies and politicians to act for climate change… In a nutshell I can do a lot and being depressed or anxious doesn’t help
“Evolution had given a bit more thought to species survival”.
… that’s not how evolution works, unfortunately. It requires us to do the thinking.
