Its not getting any better. dont know what to do. I cant live in a future like this. All of the work we have put out is now gone. Ita going to get worse
It is going to get worse, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept the full worst-case scenario.
Right now, a lot of people are hurt and scared, and the fascists know that. That is why they are making big waves right now, to try to capitalize on that feeling of dread and despair.
But they had to put in a LOT of work to suppress the will of the people. This is not the result of a single election season, this is the result of a coordinated effort spanning decades. The actions they are taking now are designed to make you think that it is hopeless, that nobody cares, and that the battle is lost.
In reality, the battle is never over. This is the moment that needs to push us to actually working together against them, instead of talking about what the right thing to do is. Talk won’t help, but local action will.
Join a mutual aid group and help safeguard your friends and neighbors from the economic hardship they are promising. Start talking your friends and family into attending boycotts, marches, and, above all, your local government and board meetings. Connect to the people around you, put up flyers, coordinate phone campaigns, and get people into these meetings to demand protections and change at the local level where it is most important.
Resistance doesn’t come from nowhere. It has to be grown, it has to be planted as a small seed and then watered and weeded and trellised and brought inside from the cold. You may even have to watch it die and then pick yourself up and start from a seed again.
But if we each dedicate ourselves, full time, to a single plant, then we will do far more good than running around frantically worrying about the forest dying. Because yes, the forest is dying, and it is up to us to determine what grows in its place.
We may not be able to save what we have now. But only we can set the stage, as best we can, for those who will come after us. And the more work we do now, the better they will be able to build off of that work, and the better things will be.
I like you.
Somebody reminded me of something Mr. Rogers would often say: “Look for the helpers.” I think you’ve embodied that spirit here.
My guy… It’s not the forest dying, but our sole basis of life. Economic hardships? None of that matters when the climate collapse goes on, and it will. We did fuck all even before Trump, right on our way to 3 degrees Celsius globally. We already seem to have reached 1.5 degrees LONG before even our worst predictions. And under Trump the US will backtrack HARD on any sort of token climate policy. The world cannot compensate for the emissions of the US. And you may think getting people to fight help, but it doesn’t. Trump and his cronies do not care how much you’re protesting, in fact, they’ll have plans for that too to suppress it. But that also does not matter, because here’s the truth of the matter: NO ONE CARES!
Look around, look at how few people actually vote for Green candidates and parties, look at how many are already crying about a bit of inflation and price gauging. Real climate policies, the ones we’d need, would drive our economies into the ground. Remember the economic downturn during covid? If the emission fall of that would’ve gone on until 2035 THEN we would’ve been on track, meaning we’d have to experience this kind of economic freefall continuously - JUST FOR THE TARGETED 1.5 DEGREE GOAL (which again, came MUCH earlier than anticipated)!
Neither corporations, nor politicians, NOR VOTERS, actually care! People who truly want proper climate action being taken are a fringe movement of “extremists”. Maybe we see some of them turn to climate terrorism, but I doubt even that would help. In reality, we’d need a proper global climate revolution, but there’s 0 support for that. And by the time shit is going to hit the fan sufficiently it will be long too late to avoid anything that isn’t some post apocalyptic nightmare full of suffering for the few people that still survive.
This election was decisive, and humanity lost. Fuck Americans. Fuck humans.
Even if that is true, why take out your frustration like this, by raging against those of us who are willing to do all the good we can?
I am not promising that we will be able to fix everything. Heck, I don’t even know if we can fully fix anything. But until every last living being is dead, there is something here that deserves every chance we can give or get.
You don’t have to participate, but to argue against this kind of work is like denying pain medication to someone who is dying and justifying it by saying ‘meds will not save you’. If we can’t save the life, we can at least save them from as much suffering as we can manage.
Deluding yourself is neither going to help, nor is it all the good we can do. And what do you mean I don’t have to participate? I doubt any of your guys footprint is even anywhere near as small as mine. It’s not me that you have to convince to fucking do something when I’m the one who wants those “extremistic” measures being taken.
And where am I ruling that out? I never said that this resistance would always be peaceful. But the sooner you start coordinating with the people around you, the better prepared for that violence we will be, and the better our chances are to prevent a lot of deaths. You can claim otherwise, but sitting alone while my neighbors and friends die is unconscionable to me.
But what am I deluding myself about? I have literally admitted that what we do may not be able to fix things entirely, but we doom ourselves more if we don’t take action. You obviously know that already, given your statement about your footprint, so why are you arguing against another person calling for direct action?
Me too. But i’m gonna fight these fuckers anyway. Please hang in there. I don’t want to fight alone.
It ain’t over till it’s over.
You are correct. It will almost certainly get worse. Will there be awful climate catastrophes? Yes. Will we hit and possibly break 2°C? Probably.
Should we give up, because we know we, in this current generation, won’t live in a future with clean energy? No. Many people who fought for Civil Rights did not live to see the fruits of their labor. Many suffragettes died long before getting the right to vote. None of them knew if they would succeed.
And while many of us will meet the same fate, we have the opportunity to do what our parents and grandparents could not bring themselves to do: ensure the generations after us have a better future than they would have had otherwise. They will face hardships I probably can’t imagine, but I will continue to fight and hope and give them a strong foundation upon which they can build their own destiny.
Take time to grieve. Know that your feelings are valid, and when you’re ready, the rest of us will still be here.
Hey, I study curves of climate change for decades now, and can tell you there is hope.
The world probably just passed peak global emissions - mainly due to China, which counts for a lot more than USA, whose emissions were falling anyway - that trend may slow down but not stop - as renewables are cheaper now. China is manufacturing most renewable stuff now, but the science that drove the transition was led by europe and US, the work wasn’t wasted. Indeed, peak emissions is not peak concentration, and there’s a lot of inertia in the deep ocean and ice-caps, so temperatures will keep rising during my lifetime, but peak temperature, at least below 2ºC, is foreseeable now, we are succeeding to bend those curves.
That wasn’t the case when I lost hope, due to the gap between climate science and policy, back in late 1990s. But I’m still alive now, and glad of it, and would like to stay around longer to see how the future evolves, only wish I’d prepared better for later life, as it’s a long path, not easy but challenges can be inspiring, no simple answers but the complexity is beautiful. Keep going.thanks for your great message, I see some hopeful developments well as, because of technological disruption. It is worth to read some of it here. But I am worried about even more complex issues like biodiversity loss. Though there is absolutely still hope and possibility there to limit damage, it is even more complicated to limit the damage. What do you think about that?
I’m not an expert on biodiversity, although I’d like to be. Of course extinction is forever, and habitat loss is exacerbated by climate feedbacks. But we have to accept change, making less fuss about protecting ‘native species’ (to me this feels rather like nativism wrt human immigration), and recognise that life on earth has suffered and survived worse calamities in geological history, so it will re-adapt to new situations, if we let plants and animals (including ourselves) move with the climate. We can’t save all the old ecosystems (for example from considering thermodynamics of the symbiosis within coral reefs, I have little hope for their survival with combination of higher T and CO2 and SLR), but we might help create new opportunities for new ecosystems in new places. In this context, what matters is the rate of changes - as it takes time for trees to grow, soil to accumulate - rather than ‘equilibrium’ changes.
I don’t know whether the OP was specifically reacting to lack of progress at the Biodiv COP16 in Cali, as well as US election and climate news, but as an old hand at COPs too, I hadn’t expected much, at the end of these circuses the only certainty is that the show must always go on (or diplomatic teams would kill their own job). In my opinion both COP processes have got bogged down talking mainly about money, and the UN system as a whole has not been working for many years, so we need some radical rethinking about global cooperation. Nevertheless on a local and regional level plenty of positive things are still happening. Also human population growth is also peaking, or heading that way, on all continents except Africa, and in many countries there is reforestation recently.
In general, bear in mind that many big science consortiums publish reports around this time of year, with extra-worrying headlines, in a bid to influence the COP processes. This is just part of the new-normal seasonal cycle, like the grey skies where I live, but not a reason to lose hope - brighter days will follow.Yeah, I agree we have to accept change. In the long run sure, life will be okay, and a new totally unique array of different species will exist. I think next to a healthy stable biosphere, which biodiversity is a fundament of, a lot of people feel the grief/sadness because of the loss of all this natural beauty. Be it ecosystems or species. And I think a problem is, that sure nature adapted and shifted due to natural cycles. Deserts and jungles moved north/south/east/west depending on changing circumstances. But next to geographical limits, there is also the limit that a lot of ground is claimed and protected by culture. Be it agricultural or cities.
I don’t totally agree to the COP progress, yes it is a slow process. And totally not moving at a speed we need or like. But at the moment it is the best we have. And as far as climate goes, a lot more has been done because of COPs then without them. Though I certainly hope we can develop better processes and cooperation between countries on these issues.
The great filter is here. Time to see if this global civilization and shrink its ego enough to fit through it.
My partner recently learned of the true scale of death and destruction we’re speeding towards and has been spiraling. I said this:
Babe, I’d stop getting bogged down in all the myriad ways we’re screwed. Now is about accepting it and fighting till the end (whether that be direct action or creating our own community while we can)
Yup. No point in being a decent person anymore. I’ve never been arrested, never touched a kid (backhands don’t count, little removed was asking for it), and i pay deferral income and land owner taxes
But I’m to be put to death because I’m gay. Fights over, decency lost.
The only way i see out is bloody.
It is rational to feel that, you are grieving for the future denied to you and everyone else.
Our language around grief is distorted into toxic positivity except when we talk about losing loved ones, it is ok and natural right now to feel horrible, your job is to grieve well and to give those emotions space.
People are so quick to say don’t focus on the past, you can’t change it, but fascism rises when a society no longer can earnestly look to the past and must blindly and numbly charge on to block it out.
It is going to get worse but we can still make it a better worse so long as we hold space for the parts of us that have been irrevocably crushed. To do that we must grieve, not adopt an unfallibly positive perspective.
Some recommended reading:
“Would abandoning false hope help us to tackle the climate crisis?”
‘Climate Optimism’ Is Dangerous and Irrational
Making the future too bright: how wishful thinking can point us in the wrong direction
“The Neoliberal Optimism Industry”
And some gallows humor for you: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/zwgsdit718nhpvp2u25s0/h?rlkey=3fkknreo30eovbmim8wqnt56b&e=1&dl=0 from https://postdoom.com/
Europe and China and global South were always the only ones interested in a quick energy transition. Oil rich countries will prefer global destruction, but it is only by having customers that they can accomplish it.
Ending the war on Russia will actually reduce emissions more than the US will increase them. The current swing geopolitical area is Europe. Much greater prosperity is available to them by pivoting towards China/clean energy than submitting harder to US diminishment of Russia. It is only by ending war on Russia that you can hope to influence Russia to lower their emissions.
Actually, if you swapped ‘on’ for ‘by’ (and cut ‘US diminishment’ etc.) you’d have a point there - Russian emissions per capita are among the world’s highest and growing, while they decline in the rest of the north - most commentators don’t notice as Russia has no NGOs left to shout about it.
(Note emissions fell since 1992 but from an even higher peak - while soviet industry produced that huge stockpile of missiles, tanks etc. now being used up). Also there are potentially huge climate feedbacks in Siberian forests and tundra, and we should be cooperating globally to help manage that. Maybe ‘europe from lisbon to vladivostok’ was a missed opportunity. I crossed siberia by train, helping local scientists attend COP3 in Japan, even studied many russian songs. Maybe one day we’ll cooperate again. But now I and many others here think the only way to end these wars, is for russians to dump their crazy leadership which started them.Russian emissions per capita are among the world’s highest and growing
And Russian emissions are growing as a result of using 3% of global diesel on Ukrainian war. Also the major inflationary pressure on rest of the world as diesel (heating oil is same) refining has been at maximum capacity. Massive military production increases is also massive energy use. Russia has passed Germany and Japan to be 4th largest economy (PPP) from this war.
If EU has a voice in peace for Ukrainians, they could ask for climate progress. Offering more total idiocy of further subjugation to US to keep a war on Russia is EU destruction in addition to climate destruction.
ending war on Russia
LOL
If Russia stops the war on Europe you mean??
if that is what you want to call peace, yes. You will not be convincing Russians that NATO is a defensive alliance and that Ukraine must not be made neutral. Any other opinion is a war on Russia, and will be viewed as dishonest by Russia.
