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A big flaming stink posted:the goal of these elites will be profiteering, though, not decarbonizing. All attempts at pushing decarbonizing has led to such perverse incentives that they have been utterly useless, and I have no idea how you would ensure the capitalists comply with the spirit of the laws. Yeah, the current leadership castes of our nations will not allow things to happen if they aren't specifically designed to funnel them a 30% take off the top
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Apr 9, 2022 23:26
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It would be extremely good to overthrow the capitalists and replace them with a force actually motivated to pursue decarbonisation for the public good. This is, I think we can all agree, a best case scenario. At present, it is extremely unlikely. The democratic system is not capable of achieving this in the near term, in the US and UK, at least. A massive effort to decarbonise through the systems we have now is a more sensible focus at present. It is unlikely to happen, but it is more likely right now to gain widespread support and political acceptance. I don't think that such an effort would be perfect, or sufficient to avoid disaster, but it gives us a chance at a better outcome than we are looking at now. It will be just as possible to overthrow the capitalists in the future if they are profiteering from decarbonisation, or fossil fuels.
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Apr 9, 2022 23:45
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Eddy-Baby posted:It would be extremely good to overthrow the capitalists and replace them with a force actually motivated to pursue decarbonisation for the public good. This is, I think we can all agree, a best case scenario. At present, it is extremely unlikely. The democratic system is not capable of achieving this in the near term, in the US and UK, at least. my retort is twofold. Firstly, the amount of decarbonization required to actually meaningfully combat climate change is utterly staggering, and would require a global effort that is unprecedented. And secondly, because of the scale of that required effort, the capitalist mode of production is inherently opposed to it. They would represent an immense hindrance to expropriation and accumulation. It will never, ever be in capital's class interest to provide the necessary effort to decarbonize, and any appearance to the contrary will be just that.
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Apr 10, 2022 02:34
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Thorn Wishes Talon posted:Three hundred years is grossly optimistic IMO. The resource wars will come much sooner, and they won't be pretty. It's a good time to prioritize autarky, before poo poo really hits the fan, instead of scrabbling after the fact.
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Apr 10, 2022 11:09
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That will make things worse, btw.
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Apr 10, 2022 18:29
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Thorn Wishes Talon posted:Three hundred years is grossly optimistic IMO. The resource wars will come much sooner, and they won't be pretty. I gave a number that I know is insane because this thread already gaslights me and others for being “dormers”. We’ve got 10-30 years of being able to pretend things are good, (if we ignore how many 3 world folk will die,) and that’s for the most privileged of us.
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Apr 10, 2022 19:39
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A big flaming stink posted:my retort is twofold. Firstly, the amount of decarbonization required to actually meaningfully combat climate change is utterly staggering, and would require a global effort that is unprecedented. And secondly, because of the scale of that required effort, the capitalist mode of production is inherently opposed to it. They would represent an immense hindrance to expropriation and accumulation. It will never, ever be in capital's class interest to provide the necessary effort to decarbonize, and any appearance to the contrary will be just that. We have to start decarbonising right away. The existing systems are not fit for purpose, but they are actively going full speed in the wrong direction right now. Let's get them pointing in a less genocidal direction. Waiting for the overthrow of the existing system seems like a bad idea to me, because (a) it doesn't seem to be happening, and (b) there is no time left to do that. The turbofucking increases in magnitude for each day, hour, minute we continue business as usual. If we want to make changes in a time efficient way, we have to try to use our existing, lovely systems. As citizens in a nominal democracy, we can possibly do this through influencing our terrible, right wing governments. Do you want to fight a civil war first? I also disagree that the capitalists would not be on board with decarbonisation in practice. It's a massive infrastructure investment from the public purse, that the operating companies can profit from selling the services of. Governments will be on the hook to subsidise these systems until the end of the world, and there will always be demand.
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Apr 10, 2022 23:32
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It says a lot about how hosed the human brain is at understanding scale that you think an overthrow of capitalism is the harder option compared to avoiding climate gigadeath. The revolution is just killing people and changing minds. Climate mitigation is inertia and physics and energy. It can not be cheated nor finessed.
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Apr 11, 2022 01:39
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Eddy-Baby posted:We have to start decarbonising right away. The existing systems are not fit for purpose, but they are actively going full speed in the wrong direction right now. Let's get them pointing in a less genocidal direction. Waiting for the overthrow of the existing system seems like a bad idea to me, because (a) it doesn't seem to be happening, and (b) there is no time left to do that. The turbofucking increases in magnitude for each day, hour, minute we continue business as usual. If we want to make changes in a time efficient way, we have to try to use our existing, lovely systems. As citizens in a nominal democracy, we can possibly do this through influencing our terrible, right wing governments. Do you want to fight a civil war first? you literally cant. the people's ability to lobby for policies that will actually curtail climate change is immensely outweighed by the power of capital interests. carbon goals will always be 2 to 3 decades away. there will always be a topical excuse to go whole hog on fossil fuels "just this once". structural problems demand structural solutions.
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Apr 11, 2022 05:12
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Bar Ran Dun posted:That will make things worse, btw. Can you explain your reasoning?
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Apr 11, 2022 06:41
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Lmao, these days whenever I ask colleagues, young adults who just had their first/second newborn, what world they think their children are going to grow in they have no loving clue what the gently caress Im talking about wrt climate change. Anyone who needs concrete proof humanity is not equipped to tackle CC just needs to look at how the world dealt with Covid. Even today you have large groups of people who think it's a hoax. A conspiracy of the elite for control. Media alarmism is a big one too. This isn't even about the corporations and conglomerates up top being responsible. They won't be touched, and any fantasy of the poor finally eating the rich in some grotesquely satisfying revolution is already pure optimism. The poor will devour themselves as resources dwindle and the slow decay sets in. Your neighbor is probably going to prefer coming after you if things get bad enough, rather than going on an international manhunt for Elon Musk or some other CEO in one of their untold hundreds of secluded locations. It's not as if the problem stems from above, like, that there's a want from below to change things up top. There is no pressure nor urgency exerted upwards. The poor are willing to do anything to secure a few crumbs of wealth to escape the absolute terrible state of poverty. Millionaires are idolized. Exactly which change do you think is possible in this kind of environment?
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Apr 11, 2022 10:01
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Oh I agree, basically zero chance of an uprising. And still it's a less intractable proposal than what would need to happen to prevent the worst of climate change at this point.
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Apr 11, 2022 11:44
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In the US, the present government was elected on a platform of tackling climate change. The net zero goal by 2050 is shared by the UK. Obviously, they will fail at these goals, but they have made the commitments, so your task is not so much to change government policy in the strategic sense but to foster outrage at the vast gap between those declared policies and reality. You have allies in this; anyone who voted for climate reasons is a potential supporter. The scientists, the UN, are now unequivocally supporting you. Look at this nerd, maybe there is a way to help him and his group get the message out. Civil resistance and disobedience is the best you can do within the sphere of nonviolence.
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Apr 11, 2022 12:18
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Tony Tone posted:Lmao, these days whenever I ask colleagues, young adults who just had their first/second newborn, what world they think their children are going to grow in they have no loving clue what the gently caress Im talking about wrt climate change. What are you trying to accomplish when you do this?
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Apr 11, 2022 12:44
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BIG-DICK-BUTT-gently caress posted:What are you trying to accomplish when you do this? If you alienate all your friends and family, you won't have to expend as much carbon visiting them occasionally
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Apr 11, 2022 13:33
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Eddy-Baby posted:In the US, the present government was elected on a platform of tackling climate change. The net zero goal by 2050 is shared by the UK. Obviously, they will fail at these goals, but they have made the commitments, so your task is not so much to change government policy in the strategic sense but to foster outrage at the vast gap between those declared policies and reality. You have allies in this; anyone who voted for climate reasons is a potential supporter. The scientists, the UN, are now unequivocally supporting you. Look at this nerd, maybe there is a way to help him and his group get the message out. Civil resistance and disobedience is the best you can do within the sphere of nonviolence.
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Apr 11, 2022 15:17
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cat botherer posted:The Biden administration has literally opened up more drilling. They are not making these promises in good faith. My impression is that it’s kinda like the addict who genuinely knows he should quit smoking and has been promising himself “ok, I’m gonna do it. I just gotta get through this stressful week and then scale down so I don’t get withdrawal and…” every month for the last ten years. He does want to quit in a very real sense, he’s just kinda deluded about himself and has trouble putting short term pain for longer term gain into action. Whether or not the guy is acting in bad faith might be up for debate, but an interesting thing to note is that he himself believes that he is acting in good faith and really means to quit someday.
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Apr 11, 2022 18:51
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Bidens administration was elected on the platform of 'not Trump.' It's nonsense to pretend voters elected the administration based on their (obviously token and bullshit) commitment to climate change mitigation. Yes, plenty of people care about it, no, nobody who can lobby the people who can change things care, they are structurally incapable of that. Laugh or call people doomers if you want, at least we understand the time we have left, whereas half of this thread seems to think Climate change is this Event at some point in the future, 10 to 30 years away. You convince yourself of this obvious falsehood because it lets you think there's time for reform, that a lot of the devastation to Earth isn't already locked in. Climate change is here now. Its not doomerism to be realistic. You tell people to trust the science, then go 'nuh uh sounds fake' when the scientists tell you its too late for many of the things still spruiked in this thread to have any tangible benefit, or that they're so small scale as to be meaningless. The answer to stopping this has been clear for decades decades, and people like the people in this thread constantly argued for reform. The reforms never came, they never will if they haven't by now, any words you see from politicians saying otherwise are just words. There's no reforms capable of making capital work against its nature. There never were. Thank you for killing the world, for killing our futures, with your faith that you can reform a monster. I grew up in an abusive household and had a terrible childhood, and the promise of a future better than that kept me going for a long time. The lie that the world was getting better every year. Now I'm mid twenties and the world has obviously been getting worse. I grieve for the world I thought I would live in now. I grieve for the future I thought I would have. No desire to die, to give up. I like doing things, gardening, writing, photography, seeing friends. I go to therapy. I find pleasure in a lot of my life and I'm sure other 'doomers' do too. But I want to be able to be loving sad, to grieve for this world, for the animals and plants and people that are suffering and will suffer. For myself, selfishly, to grieve that as I work through my own poo poo the world is burning around me. I'm not really sure why I'm bothering opening up like this, because this thread is likely to just mock it, or deny it and say I'm wrong to feel this why. I guess I hope even if most in here read or ignore this and think I'm just another nihilist doomer, some will reconsider their thoughts on this.
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Apr 11, 2022 20:11
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His Divine Shadow posted:Can you explain your reasoning? Those global supply are efficient, significantly more so than autarky. Smaller factories are less efficient and you need more of them and basically there same staffing for each small factory that a large single factory needs. Ocean transportation is staggeringly efficient compared to other modes. Concentration happens because of economies of scale. Take ships bigger ships don’t use that much more fuel than smaller ones. I’ve seen the consumption figures. But they carry much much more cargo because that scales with volume. Manufacturing has similar economies of scale driven by the math but differing for the specifics of each production type.
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Apr 12, 2022 07:36
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I would say that's exactly why it's so bad for the environment, that's what enables our current overconsumption of resources and worsens the climate crisis (Jevons Paradox), which will cause these chains to break down anyway. Because economic efficiency does not mean good for the environment. Hence any smart country will look into getting as self-sufficient as possible now because the system will break down in a decade or two barring a literal miracle. Smaller units are less efficient but that's not the same as worse for the environment. It's just worse for the economy because things are more expensive. It might even be better out of an environemtal perspective since said factory is likely ot be held to far more stringent labour & environmental laws. So it has pros as well, and when things are more expensive they are produced less, they are more likely to be built better and people are more likely to get them repaired instead of replaced. I think we should aim for that if we want a sustainable future. Consumption needs to be much less a part of our daily lives. His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Apr 12, 2022 |
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Apr 12, 2022 08:03
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Here's a very timely and topical long article about climate anxiety that I imagine people will find helpful and interesting. I just did! I'm going to highlight parts I found particularly resonant and add some comments in [brackets]. ‘I was enjoying a life that was ruining the world’: can therapy treat climate anxiety? People are increasingly looking for help to deal with feelings of fear, helplessness and guilt amid the climate crisis. But can therapists make a difference and is seeking treatment just a form of denial? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/12/climate-anxiety-therapy-mental-health Pete Knapp, 36, who lives in London, has visited North Korea, travelled overland from Kenya to Cape Town, motorcycled through Japan and Cambodia and trekked by horse through China. Until a few years ago, “I felt invincible,” he says. He had never experienced anxiety, or worried about the climate crisis. Then, in 2019, he went to Borneo. “I remember flying in one of those small planes over a part of Borneo that used to be rainforest but is now a palm oil plantation. The whole landscape was this monoculture,” he says. He spent days trying to find orangutans in the wild, and, when he finally found the primary rainforest that remained, he saw “such depth, character, colour and variety” that he felt horrified by the “quiet, dead, grey, nothingness” replacing it. “It hammered home how our lifestyles and diets had caused so much destruction to this part of the world that is so precious. When you go to a supermarket and buy food, you don’t see the cost of it. That was the first time I saw the cost.” It marked the end of his travels and feeling of invincibility, and the beginning of what he now calls climate anxiety. This emotional state includes feelings as varied as fear and helplessness, guilt, shame, loss, betrayal and abandonment, and it can take different shapes in each individual. Anouchka Grose, a psychoanalyst and the author of A Guide to Eco-Anxiety, How to Protect the Planet and Your Mental Health, says some patients describe staying awake all night thinking of coral reefs, bush fires and ice caps melting. Some might “walk into a shop and freak out because they suddenly see it as it is,” how “all the things in front of you are in damaging forms of packaging, freighted from goodness knows where, covered in pesticides”. In her book, someone describes looking at a friend’s take-away coffee: “It makes me sad and alarmed, imagining millions of people out there, just like him, with one throwaway plastic cup, millions of times over every day.” [I definitely experience this all the time these days] For Knapp, it was the feeling of having “the rug pulled from under my feet; that I was enjoying a life that was ruining the world”. For Natasha James, 33, a training manager in Portsmouth, it was reading article after article in a paralysing spiral: “It would get to the stage where I would freeze.” Their climate anxiety began at 12, when their science teacher spoke about the hole in the ozone layer and global heating. “I remember my stomach dropped, and I thought, ‘Oh, my God! I’ve never heard about this before; why are people not talking about it? Why are we not doing anything about it?’”. Molecular biologist Abi Perrin, 32, describes the physical sensations she experienced after reading the 2018 report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): “My heart was pounding. My chest felt tight every time I thought about it – and I couldn’t not think about it. I’d often burst into tears because it felt overwhelming. It’s like a pit in your stomach – you feel weirdly empty. It’s not always the same, but it sometimes takes the form of feeling very sad, hopeless and alone.” [I used to feel this way a lot, a few years ago] The biggest ever scientific study on climate anxiety and young people, published last year in the Lancet, found that nearly six in 10 people aged 16 to 25 were very or extremely worried about climate breakdown, nearly half of them reported climate distress or anxiety affecting their daily lives, and three-quarters agreed that “the future is frightening”. All the therapists I spoke to reported seeing a significant increase in climate anxiety in their consulting rooms. So, can therapy help? There is a danger, in suggesting that therapy might help, of pathologising climate anxiety; turning it into a mental health problem that needs to be cured – medicated or spirited away with mindfulness or talking therapy . Many people I interviewed were faced with such reactions from friends, family, colleagues, GPs, and, occasionally, even therapists. [I've noticed that some posters on the forums have brought this up, and I agree it's not the right way to look at climate anxiety at all] This is not how the author of Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis Sally Weintrobe thinks. “It is important to say that anxiety is a signal that there is something wrong. It’s a perfectly normal healthy reaction to a worrying situation. We mustn’t pathologise climate anxiety. Obviously it can get very extreme – but I would say that government inaction on the climate crisis is pretty extreme, so it’s hardly surprising that people are very worried.” What Knapp, James and Perrin said helped them most was having their emotions validated in therapy – and understanding that their feelings were meaningful and valuable. [Preach! They are!] Caroline Hickman, a psychotherapist, climate psychology researcher and board member of the Climate Psychology Alliance, says, “I would worry about people who aren’t distressed – given that this is what is happening, how come?” She believes that people are using psychological defences such as denial “as a way of coping and reducing the fear that they feel”. This can leave the climate-anxious with a sense of isolation, frustration and abandonment, as others tell themselves, “Oh, well, the government will save us; technology will save us; if it was that bad, somebody would have done something,” she says. “Those are all rationalisations against existential terror of annihilation – and that’s the reality of what we’re potentially looking at.” To face this reality is to come out of what Weintrobe calls “the climate bubble”, which, she says, “has been supported by a culture of uncare, a culture that actively seeks to keep us in a state of denial about the severity of the climate crisis”. She explains: “The bubble protects you from reality, and when you start seeing the reality, it’s hardly surprising that you’re going to experience a whole series of shocks.” She prefers the term climate trauma over anxiety because “it is traumatising to see that you are caught up in a way of living, whether you like it or not, that makes you a victim and a perpetrator of damaging the Earth, which is what keeps us all alive”. We are living, she says, “in a political system that generates a mental health crisis, because it places burdens on people that are too much to bear, as well as burdens on the Earth”. The thing about trauma is that it can reignite earlier, individual trauma. That experience of coming out of the climate bubble and having your worries dismissed, of realising that you have been abandoned by people who were supposed to look after you, can be particularly triggering. For Weintrobe, this is where therapy can have a role to play, “in helping people to disentangle what is personal to them and their own individual histories, from what is hitting them from the outside”. Perrin describes how speaking to her therapist helped in ways she didn’t expect. She says: “Having that space to have those conversations and be honest about how I felt was really valuable. I went into it thinking I wanted practical advice about how to solve this, but that was not what I got and not what I needed. It helped me to understand that what I was feeling was not wrong.” It also helped her to get a better sense of her anxiety: “I think it might come from feeling lots of things and not actually understanding what they are.” She still experiences anxiety, but it doesn’t escalate in the way it did before. “I know that it’s rooted in something real, and that even if the situation doesn’t change, the intensity of that feeling can, and will, pass.” As a climate-anxious pupil at school, James was told that this feeling was “irrational” by the therapist they saw at the time. It was while reading article after article late at night that James landed on one about climate anxiety, and recognised their own experience. They decided to try treatment again, and contacted Patrick Kennedy-Williams. First, they say, he told them their fears were valid and rational. Then they discussed how to get a better balance of climate news by also reading positive stories about people who are taking action, as well as limiting internet access on their phone. [Personally I can attest to how important it is to keep yourself from doom-spiraling in bad news, and avoiding looking at how people are fighting back] This brings to mind how, in her climate-aware therapeutic work, Hickman draws on her experience, in the 1990s, of treating young people, who were HIV positive, with about a year to live. A significant number were, through therapy, “able to change their relationship with their diagnosis and not just live in fear of death, but learn to live their lives wholeheartedly, with death as part of it,” she says. They left relationships that were unsatisfactory, left jobs that they hated, and “they learned to live their lives fully and with meaning, not in denial that their lives might be shorter, but that that didn’t have to define their lives – it was just part of it”. [This is something I have been working on a lot in the last few years. Reframing, letting go of what I thought life would be, and focusing instead on the world as it exists and how I want to be a part of it] It is perhaps surprising to hear Weintrobe – a psychoanalyst – say that while there is a role for therapy in addressing climate anxiety, it is limited. We need to normalise this distress, she says, but not by pretending it’s not there, or shouldn’t be. “It’s very perverse that normalising has come to mean getting rid of anything that’s disturbing. Can we make it normal that we are very disturbed and bothered by what is going on, and help each other?” She recommends meeting to talk in groups about climate anxiety, such as at the climate cafes run by the Climate Psychology Alliance. Hickman runs psycho-educational groups with youth activists to address the impact of the climate crisis on mental health, where they discuss ways to support themselves and each other. Elouise Mayall, 24, and living in Canterbury, is a master’s student in ecology and a climate activist with the UK Youth Climate Coalition who has taken part in Hickman’s groups and workshops. Her climate anxiety began when she left university and realised how unconcerned others were – what she calls leaving the “green bubble”. In her 20s, she felt intense pressure, guilt, shame and anxiety to produce less and do everything to make up for what others were not doing. After joining UKYCC, her anxiety started to improve, through being part of a community. She says that Hickman’s workshops have helped her and her colleagues to recognise “the emotional strain” of the work they do, and to learn to rest. They are now far more “mindful of each other’s mental health”, and people don’t feel guilty when they need a break, so are less likely to “crash and burnout”. Mayall has also developed a different relationship with her climate anxiety. Previously, she says, “I was very dismissive and grumpy about having it. I wanted to suppress it or get rid of it – I thought it was an indulgence because people are dying, so why was I fussing around with feelings?” She felt she should be happy all the time. Now, she recognises that “it isn’t bad, wrong, or inconvenient for me to have climate anxiety, because it ultimately means that I care about the climate crisis”. She uses an ecological metaphor to describe how she relates to her feelings now: “Biodiversity is important because the more complex an ecosystem is, the more stable it is, and the more resilient it is to any disturbances or damage that comes along”. A monoculture, such as the one Knapp saw from that plane in Borneo, makes for a very fragile ecosystem; the same is true of an emotional monoculture. Allowing herself to experience whatever emotions she is feeling, including guilt and shame, has brought her a kind of emotional biodiversity, and a more sustainable way of life. Since starting therapy James has attended a climate cafe, signed up to workshops, written to their local MP and published articles online to spread awareness. Perrin says therapy has helped her support herself and other activists. She is now researching microscopic algae, and their potential to help us live more sustainably. After what he saw in Borneo, and his research into the apocalyptic impact of climate breakdown, Knapp’s view of the world and of his future collapsed. He felt betrayed by the government, and despairing of the inaction of those around him. He became increasingly isolated and, for a time, suicidal. He found a way out of this by joining Extinction Rebellion, where friends recommended a therapist. He has since changed his life, becoming a researcher in air quality and a climate activist, giving up his beloved Mini, going vegan and making a podcast with fellow activists about how they cope with climate anxiety and what inspires them . He hasn’t been on a plane since. [This is hugely resonant to me. Getting involved with other people trying to find solutions is so, so, so important.] These stories recall a comment from Grose, that the word “anxious” has two definitions: one can feel anxious due to a nebulous fear, or one can be anxious to do something – to be willing to act, with urgency. [This really jumped out at me. I was so anxious to act, rather than just anxious with fear. Taking action has made all the difference in the world, to me] As I researched this article, I noticed an intensifying feeling of unease and tension. Last week, the IPCC reported that it is “now or never” if we are to stave off climate disaster, and the UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned: “Some government and business leaders are saying one thing – but doing another. Simply put, they are lying. And the results will be catastrophic.” I know I need to read the report, to see the scientific reality of where we are, but I am not, yet, able to. I am frightened to leave the climate bubble. I tell Weintrobe about my anxious feelings, and she says reporters often phone her and say, “I feel overwhelmed, being a climate journalist.” I find her next words strangely hopeful. “I feel overwhelmed, too. Sometimes, I find myself lying on the sofa, unable to move because it’s all so worrying. But you get out of it, and you carry on.”
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Apr 12, 2022 19:00
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How are u posted:This really jumped out at me. I was so anxious to act, rather than just anxious with fear. Taking action has made all the difference in the world, to me This really is the key insight. Once you properly center your own mental health as the principal problem of climate change, the scope of the required solution shrinks from being intractable (trying to fix a system immensely beyond your control) to the more manageable task of doing something that feels productive. Good article.
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Apr 12, 2022 19:50
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Sir Kodiak posted:This really is the key insight. Once you properly center your own mental health as the principal problem of climate change, the scope of the required solution shrinks from being intractable (trying to fix a system immensely beyond your control) to the more manageable task of doing something that feels productive. Good article. This is a false dichotomy though. It could both be true that the scope of the required solution is intractable, and that you can do something productive at a relatively miniscule scale and feel good about it.
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Apr 12, 2022 19:53
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on the other hand, perhaps personal mental health isn't the principal problem of climate change
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Apr 12, 2022 19:57
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Thorn Wishes Talon posted:This is a false dichotomy though. It could both be true that the scope of the required solution is intractable, and that you can do something productive at a relatively miniscule scale and feel good about it. I'm not suggesting it's a dichotomy. As you say, both are true. You can't fix climate change by yourself but you can change how you feel about it and doing something that produces tangible results in your immediate environment is a good way to do that.
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Apr 12, 2022 20:01
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https://twitter.com/ClimateHuman/status/1513564975524024323?s=20&t=nm0uOe4ITmECcISaIz_AAQ How the actual scientists feel.
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Apr 12, 2022 20:06
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maybe they should just change how they really feel about climate change
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Apr 12, 2022 20:08
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LionArcher posted:https://twitter.com/ClimateHuman/status/1513564975524024323?s=20&t=nm0uOe4ITmECcISaIz_AAQ "We need a billion climate activists.*" *with guns
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Apr 12, 2022 20:13
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I don't know why everyone is so worried, I was reassured by this thread that humanity would survive any potential collapse of civilization - even by climate change - because they are adaptive and resilient. Thankfully, Lovelock agrees in The Revenge of Gaia (2006): quote:The Earth has recovered from fevers like this [in the past] … but if we continue business as usual, our species may never again enjoy the lush and verdant world we had only a hundred years ago. What is most in danger is civilisation; humans are tough enough for breeding pairs to survive, and … in spite of the heat there will still be places on Earth that are pleasant enough by our standards; the survival of plants and animals through the Eocene confirms it … But if these huge changes do occur it seems likely that few of the teeming billions now alive will survive
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Apr 12, 2022 20:20
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i think people in this thread would be very well-served by looking up radical acceptance and applying it to their mental health and their ability to affect climate change.
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Apr 12, 2022 21:48
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Sir Kodiak posted:This really is the key insight. Once you properly center your own mental health as the principal problem of climate change, the scope of the required solution shrinks from being intractable (trying to fix a system immensely beyond your control) to the more manageable task of doing something that feels productive. Good article. But not really? One could just as easily come to the conclusion that the problem is intractable and thus should spend time living life. If my own mental health is the principal problem of climate change then I personally would just think of other things and do other things and hope the estrogen keeps flowing.
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Apr 12, 2022 22:32
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Sedisp posted:But not really? One could just as easily come to the conclusion that the problem is intractable and thus should spend time living life. If my own mental health is the principal problem of climate change then I personally would just think of other things and do other things and hope the estrogen keeps flowing. The "principle problem of climate change" is just physics. What the article I shared is about, and what some of us have been talking about, is how to grapple with the overwhelming, global, societal, all-consuming issue of climate change (and how to solve it from a physics and political perspective) in our own, personal lives. Nobody has suggested that coming to terms with the world and finding your place within it is the 'solution' to climate change. It is, however, a solution to climate anxiety. Perhaps I shouldn't even say it's a solution to climate anxiety, it seems more like a final and more productive and useful stage of climate anxiety. I still feel it, but I have learned how to live with it better and how to channel that anxiety into good work and fellowship.
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Apr 13, 2022 00:10
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I don't have anxiety ... I have anger.
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Apr 13, 2022 01:34
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A big flaming stink posted:i think people in this thread would be very well-served by looking up radical acceptance and applying it to their mental health and their ability to affect climate change. can't actually tell if you're being sarcastic, but acceptance followed by doing good things anyway is a relatively healthy mindset
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Apr 13, 2022 01:51
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I'm glad we have a place to discuss these issues, and in response to the guilt and anxiety and fury we experience processing this information I'm also glad people are there to lend support. You're not helpful to anybody tearing away at yourself over this, and it's awesome that we're encouraging (what I'm going to call) self nurturing in a sort of communal/human way. If reckoning with this is an unbearable burden, please make yourself healthy and find your way of dealing with this in a constructive way. Everybody has a right to exist in a fulfilling individual life. I let my heart sing with music, my friends and loved ones, working in nature, and, yknow, booze and weed. At the same time, why should we feel comfortable if we're being honest with ourselves. Why should our dreams be of success prosperity and comfort within a system we know is wrong. I don't know that pandoras box (wrt to understanding our worlds structure, it's trajectory, the damage it causes and our complicity in it) can be closed. Wrong is wrong. Bad feelings are natural too, and honestly the critical mass of earth humans don't feel bad enough about how things are going. If and when we reach that point, maybe the call will be answered. I dream of change. I've always been an outsider, changing schools at a young age, put in advanced classes only to cause trouble and dissapoint. I gave up on the success and world promised to me many years ago when I realized it was the source my overwhelming dysfunction and dehumanization. I ask others to do this if they can bear. Give up on "winning" at this life in any of the ways that is presented to you. Our world is wrong and we should not seek to build our place in it in any way that doesn't pursue our truth. I said what I said about myself to acknowledge that it's easier for me because I started that path long ago. It's not like I'm here making monumental change happen because I'm poor, worry my family and friends, and have no will or expectation to "succeed" in this life. Yet rebelling against the order of our world is necessary for things to get better. The sincerity and intent of enough people becomes power. Be angry, disenfranchised, loud and unsatisfied. Be an anti-consumer. Be strong, be a fighter, a soldier. We need that strength and intent whether we are to accomplish our goals or simply survive. And be strong for those who can't, that we might show the promise of a better way simply through our legacy. This might seem like trite fantasy novel thinking, but the reason these are tropes is that this is the way the world has always worked. Perhaps now we've built a world where capital overpowers even that. Perhaps the world should hold our collective loving beer.
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Apr 13, 2022 02:03
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How are u posted:Nobody has suggested that coming to terms with the world and finding your place within it is the 'solution' to climate change. Except for like... that post I quoted which did indeed say that
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Apr 13, 2022 03:25
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GreyjoyBastard posted:can't actually tell if you're being sarcastic, but acceptance followed by doing good things anyway is a relatively healthy mindset That's pretty much the point of radical acceptance yea
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Apr 13, 2022 03:26
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House Dems want the Biden administration to take a tougher stance against Saudi Arabia, for a variety of reasons. But mostly because the Saudis have refused to increase oil production. https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/status/1514072544114008064 quote:The effort, led by Reps. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., and Jim McGovern, D-Mass., currently has more than 20 Democratic members signed on.
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Apr 13, 2022 15:45
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drat I really wanna read a leak of that report. "Remember when the Saudis blew up the World Trade Center? Our analysts suggest that was bad"
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Apr 13, 2022 16:42
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Sedisp posted:But not really? One could just as easily come to the conclusion that the problem is intractable and thus should spend time living life. If my own mental health is the principal problem of climate change then I personally would just think of other things and do other things and hope the estrogen keeps flowing. Sure. But it's good for your mental health to be productive in a way that produces tangible results in your immediate environment. I don't want to paint with too broad a brush, but people do generally feel better about themselves when they feel useful and being able to see the results of your actions makes it much easier to feel useful. And I'm not saying that productivity has to have some symbolic relationship to climate change the way How are u is—though if that works for you I don't see a problem with it—so I don't think you and I are actually disagreeing.
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Apr 13, 2022 20:08
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