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The biggest threat to your life from climate change is this kind of doomerism making you suicidal. I've been down that road myself.
Either get off your ass and do something about it or stop worrying about it. You're not helping anyone by making yourself sad.
I'm not suicidal.
I'm not saying you are. You missed my point entirely.
I'm asking for coping methods or strategies. For example, I sing a lot because it doesn't contribute anything to capitalism and more fossil fuels being released, and it releases oxytocin so it makes me feel good. I also read and spend time with others, smoke cannabis, take psilocybin.
That we don't want to die, and don't want the planet to die, shows that we are very much not suicidal so it's just weird you brought that up at all lol.
I don‘t. I‘m accepting that i, as an individual, will not be able to impact it and so i‘m pretty much going with it. Humanity will survive, thats for sure but i make sure to make the most of it in the time where it‘s still bearable.
I am educated in science and I do not think humanity will survive, no. Most megafauna will probably die out. There are ~10 planetary boundaries and we've crossed a lot of them. Earthquakes and volcanoes will start picking up. AMOC collapse could be as soon as 2025.
Uh, what? Earthquakes and volcanoes due to climate changes?
Earthquakes and Volcanic Activity has been tied to sea level and air pressure changes. So one leading theory is that climate changes will more likely than not cause more activity, however the last year has shown no such changes yet Source on last year activity
Does it hit anyone else like a bolt of lightning that probably I - we - won't die of old age?
Wait, do you actually believe this?
Yes. I am friends with ecological scientists, biologists, soil scientists, ornithologists, and other various environmental researchers. The rest of my natural life would be ~40-50 years. We probably have 10-20 at most. Remember, the heating is exponential and delayed, and we've also exceeded several other planetary boundaries. Our governments are decades too late. We are literally already in the middle of an extinction event.
Even if everyone TODAY stopped burning all fossil fuels, we'd still have to sequester millions of tons of carbon in 10-20 years with no infrastructure for it. To do this will release more greenhouse gases. Amd we still have to address the 9 other planetary boundaries we've crossed including ocean acidification, soil destruction, and pollution.
The absolute best shot we have is to deflect a percentage of the sun's rays from ever reaching earth with some kind of space blanket or shield. Likely we will just inject sulfur into the atmosphere with unknown consequences.
That you don't realize how bad it is, is the sadder thing. We have seriously failed in educating people about science. Chemical reactions need specific energy requirements to work, which means specific temperatures. It's a big deal to our very cells themselves that the planet is getting hotter. And again, that is only 1 planetary boundary and we have crossed others.
You can literally see footage online of people's housing falling into the ocean, and their property wasn't oceanfront when they bought it. You can look u0 articles about billions of sea life boiling alive off the oregon coast and baby eagles flinging themselves from their nests to die due to heat. You can see the recent article about Dubai being beyond the wet bulb temp for humans to survive. That's not normal, ya'll. None of this is normal.
But whatever, it's too late. Enjoy your remaining years as much as you can, and don't forget you can always starve yourself to death for free if you don't have a bullet. Good luck everyone.
This is doommongering nonsense.
I'm no climate change denier at all, but the idea that the planet is basically going to be unliveable in 10-20 years is ludicrous.
Even the most pessimistic of scientists don't believe that.
AMOC collapse could happen as soon as 2025.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adk1189
Scientists have been forced to give "optimistic" findings relating to climate change for decades because we were told not to scaremonger. We were told no one would believe us. Well, no one believed us anyway (see: you) and now our conservative estimates are turning out to be wildly too conservative. It is exponentially getting worse and we didn't consider numerous cascading events like the methane bubbles in the arctic permafrost.
We are literally already in the middle of a sixth extinction event relating to passing 6-8 of 9-10 planetary boundaries. It's not doomerism, it's literally reality. Measurably and empirically happening.
I bike as much as possible instead of driving and lobby my local government for zoning reform.
Incredibly based, same here.
I'm a silly goose with young kids and I've been head-in-the-sand trying to deal with my own survival. Once I had an iota of stability, I started to let the outside world in again and often wish I hadn't.
I estimate I live in a place least likely to be dramatically affected by climate change, early on. It's not like I'm in Florida and can't afford to insure my home any longer because of hurricane risk. It's not like I'm likely to be one of the 1.2 billion climate refugees by 2050.
So I try to take little steps to get prepared for something I never thought I'd need to be prepared for. We're growing more and more of our own food, we're expanding our water/food stores and storage. We plan to get a solar system soon (so we're the 1/10 that makes it through an extended grid outage), while global supply chains still function.
I've started a little (20TB) apocalypse library, full of illustrated guides, youtube videos, books, and resources.
My biggest stumbling block is starting community. I generally don't like people and as you've seen in this thread, most people don't take climate change seriously.
And, as someone else said... weed and time in nature.
I joined a climate activism group in my local area, frankly it's the best possible way to deal with it. You can make a difference, the messaging we get is often intended to make us feel powerless to keep people from protesting, but it's actually one of the most empowering ways to deal with it. Being with a group of passionate people amplifies your ability to effect change, and given how broken many of our governments are, it's necessary. The biggest thing stopping us from forcing big changes is our lack of numbers, solidarity is strength.
It certainly beats sitting around feeling angry and stressed.
I become a stauncher anti-capitalist every day, since capitalism and its unsustainable and literally impossible aim of infinite growth, and the greed and corruption it encourages, is why climate change is not only happening but also not being treated seriously, and abolishing it is the only hope we have of dealing with the damage climate change will bring and try and minimize it going forward (since its past the point of stopping it entirely).
The whole point of those responsible shifting blame on to individuals who have nothing to do with the decisions that got us here, nor the profits they make, is to get you to the point you're at now - hopelessness which leads to inaction, or desperation that leads to futile action (like banning straws or paying to reduce your "carbon footprint" - a term they made up for this exact purpose, and so on, all of which are there to make sure you're criticising your neighbour for their recycling habits instead of the companies that say they're recycling and get paid to but really send the garbage directly to landfill, or to a developing nation already drowning in western trash).
What you actually need to be is angry and focused, to ensure your anger is aimed at the right people and the systems they uphold that got us here. Those systems are not natural or inevitable or immutable, they are artificially created by and for the benefit of a really small group of humans, a group we could easily be rid of if we actually united to do so.
This could have been written by me. I despise capitalism, capitalists, and if I could, would ensure that every company knowingly polluting or harming people or the planet would be dissolved and their boards put in jail, or worse. I have always hated capitalism, I'm realizing, the older I get, and learning how many of these companies KNEW the consequences of their greed makes me even more radicalized against it.
We glamorize wealth hoarding and that baffles me. I have a 4yo son. I see in him the same things I see in these capitalists. I give him what he wants, say a scoop of ice cream. I get some for myself, maybe a different flavor, and he asks for mine. He gets upset when I tell him to enjoy what he has and that I want to enjoy my ice cream too.
Recently, we got into LEGO and I will be building something, usually just fucking around, and I'll start to make something cool. He'll come up and want it. Even with other blocks, it's what little I have that he wants. Sometimes, there is no amount of persuasion to allow me to continue what I'm doing.
I'm convinced that greed is just a regression/stopping of cognitive development to the level of a child. I would pity these capitalist fuckers if they weren't destroying the planet and our lives for their greed.
Makes me think, sure, go ahead, build that bunker to escape the disaster you [capitalists] created. Nature may not be able to get in that easily, but people didn't become the apex hunters of this planet from giving up. Persistence will reap what you have sowed.
Solar panels to run the aircon.
Just have to hope no storm blows the house down.
Would like an electric car but it's out of my financial reach at this time, so keep the old car repaired and running.
Poorly. We basically didn't have a winter here in Chicago and the summer has been marked by severe storms.
I'm mostly just staying inside this time of year. I personally likely will not die of climate change as I'm privileged enough to be able to keep moving when I need, but I probably will die from micro plastic induced cancer.
Got a vasectomy, because I live in the South and won't risk bringing a kid into the world.
Is Australia that bad?
Where did you get the idea that you’re not going to die of old age?
Depends on the rapidity of the onset of the negative effects of climate change. If it’s slow, we’re gonna lose a lot of people, but we’ll be able to preserve some form of civilization. The worst affected will be the usual poorer people and those who can’t geographically escape the heat for whatever reason.
Worst scenario is rapid onset that disrupts the global network of food, energy, manufacturing, medicines, materials, etc. that literally keep everything working. If that goes tits up in an uncontrolled way just plan on losing a very significant chunk of the world’s population very fast. At a certain tipping point we also lose the people that know how to make things work. Modern society works because we have the ability to free some people from manual labor and subsistence existence to take on highly specialized learning. From fixing the grid, to doctors, to IT specialists, to the academics that teach these specialists. Lose enough of them and you lose the knowledge of how to do anything that makes modern civilization work.
So it all depends on your views if you think you’ll make it to old age. Do you think the world will collapse quickly or will it be a controlled descent? It certainly doesn’t look like we’re going to solve a damn thing regarding anthropogenic climate change, much less reverse anything, and we’re already stuck facing the damaging climate changes we started.
Badly. Really, not much more that I can say about it. The future terrifies me.
related... There are now ac/heat pump mini split units that are set up to be linked directly to solar panel systems and run offgrid or with grid assist.
This is great for a few reasons:
I've had my eye on a system from Airspool here in the US - should help with these warmer summers and help offset a little of the heating need in the winter too.
I would look into a full central system - but I have a relatively new gas furnace and can't justify replacing it and dealing with all the required electrical work.
The Earth has been much hotter than the worst-case scenario for anthropogenic climate change. (It used to be rainforests-at-the-North-pole hot.) Climate change isn't going to kill you unless you're both extremely poor (by global standards, not by first-world standards) and unlucky, although it may significantly reduce your quality of life as resources are redirected to mitigation. Where do these "mass death everywhere" ideas come from? They're not a product of the scientific consensus.
As for me: it seems like the climate where I live is getting warmer. There has been much less snow recently than there was when I was a kid; it's convenient but unsettling. The summers are getting hotter too, although the difference isn't as dramatic. I'd like to move to somewhere further north, or maybe a place like coastal California which is without temperature extremes, but I would want to do that even if the climate wasn't changing.
Where do these "mass death everywhere" ideas come from?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event
The problem isn't that it's going to be warmer. The problem is that it's getting warmer so quickly that populations won't be able to adapt. Ecological collapse is absolutely on the table here. There is no real debate in the scientific community about this, just deceptive propaganda that's disguised as 'conflicting science' but is simply a smoke screen to keep people ignoring the problem.
Yesterday I had a climate change anxiety attack. I came to the conclusion that despite wanting to have children, I shouldn't because the earth is currently dying underneath our feet. Watching outside my window, a cat I've been taking care of brought her litter of kittens to take shelter under my awning, and it had me feeling very bitter, that I would never know the blissful highs and devastating lows of parenthood. All the joy and pain and love that embodies raising a child, past generations have forfeit through destructive environmental/corporate/profit-centered policies.
I was able to calm myself down, oddly enough through a few memes I saw. one of which being an old cunieform tablet that had a transcription of a man from Assyria decrying how the world was falling apart back in 1200 BC. And the second, one of Neil Degrasse Tyson saying simply, "If we can geo-engineer other planets, we can certainly fix our own."
Made me feel a little more hopeful, that we could still prevent the worst of it, and perhaps fix what we couldn't prevent.
Still not sure about having kids though. If I still even can, with the level of microplastic in my testes, and PFAS everywhere else.
I do what I can to reduce my own CO2 footprint - mostly for my own conscience.
In every election I vote for the party with the most focus on CO2 reduction that has a good chance of making it into parlament.
I chose both my work and home specifically so I don't need a car to commute, and am completely safe from "once in a lifetime" floods (which will probably happen every other year soon).
I could make decently more money and rent more living space elsewhere.
Otherwise I don't worry. Cause what else is there to do?
I could die in the climate wars, in an epic storm, in a new pandemic...
Or quietly in my bed at age 100 like my grandparents, who survived 2 world wars, the cold war, and 4 revolutions.
Who knows?
I just don't give a fuck, when I'm dead I won't care about anything. And my own existence is full of problems and worries enough just to worry about the goddamn sun or sea levels.
We live on an ocean-going sailboat. We make our own water and electricity. We have ~25 years of membranes, filters, and most parts. While we have the means to move around to cooler climes, going further northward means more severe storms and shorter working life of everything. So there's that consideration.
Having the escape hatch of the boat does a lot to ease the anxiety.
Other coping mechanisms:
I'm sure I'm skipping over some of my other copium prescriptions, but those are the most salient.
I'm mostly very curious how this all plays out. I'm also a bit worried, but there's not much I can do about that anyway, so whatever.
I wish I could travel a thousand years into the future and read all the history books.
I think these are very interesting times (and as we all know, it sucks to live in interesting times) with all the innovations and political desicions. Even the failures and missed opportunities. It's all very interesting.
100mg Fluvoxamine and 5-10mg Diazepam a day seems to be working for me.
I've been doing occasional psilocybin and hedonism and that's been pretty good so far
I've been keeping my mind busy, learning actionable skills and survival stuff. I am learning foraging, growing food, I've made a real decision to not reserve my happiness for retirement, as that day isn't guaranteed but today is. I convert the worry into little reminders about how today is the most important time to do the thing. I live immediacy and radical self reliance. I recycle, upcycle, reuse, buy second hand, adopt, occasionally dumpster dive, and reduce my negative impact on the planet. I donate to charities that help people in crisis, so more people can enjoy today while they have it. Also, instead of anxious, I get high.
The world is fucked but apparently people like to live the way they do, so I expect worst shit.
Edit: I have to admit I believe there are worst shit why people will not die old.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgMdjyw8uw
I found this video to be helpful in putting things in perspective. Basically, despite all the news, we are making progress and it is a priority. Technology is improving really fast to the point where renewable energy is actually the more economical choice.
A lot of companies are actually making an effort to implement more green policies. I work for a tech company, and a lot of discussions revolve around energy efficiency and performance per watt.
Remember that climate change activists want to make the world seem much worse than it is. That's their "job" after all - to raise awareness and attention. It doesn't mean what they are saying isn't true, just that you should view it as them putting a negative lens on it.
Personally, I worry about many things, but not really climate change. With most issues there conflict between two groups. But I think most people generally think climate change is a real thing, even if they disagree on its priority.