like holy shit the bourgeoisie are trying to kill us all actively en masse within our lifetimes and all movement against it feels like it has died come the 20s. Every time it gets brought up it feels like people are either revelling in it, are denying it, are too tired to care, say “someone’s going to fix it so there’s no point in worrying," or get angry asking “well what do you want me to do about it I can’t fix it” or something. It feels like we’re in a moment where we have just abandoned science all together in the decaying west, so the plan is almost like to keep attacking the biosphere out of spite for everyone around us.
It feels Lovecraftian, I can’t think about it because every time I do it paralyzes me in awe of the urgency and scope of what has to be done. Do I just stop thinking about it? I guess the answer is to keep organizing but I’m scared that we don’t have enough time at this rate to address it before it gets catastrophic and has irreversible effects
I guess I don’t know exactly what you mean by blackpilled. It already is too late to avoid irreversible catastrophe. In terms of the people idk, most people are ignorant. Ignorance is somewhat blackpilling I get it but idk.
Even mainstream climate science has abandoned how bad the problem is. But yea people collectively have abandoned even that.
That’s what I do tbh, I want to transition and fix my body. I know the world is ending but I want my little peace, my decade or two.
This binary catastrophe/non-catastrophe dichotomy is a myth and actively harmful propaganda promulgated by the fossil fuel industry. Yes it is too late to prevent the terrible, irreversible effects of climate change.
But every additional tonne of CO2 makes the effects even worse. It’s not like “oh, we’ve locked in catastrophe, we can throw up our hands, there’s nothing left to do.” No, it’s a gradient of severity, and it gets worse the less we do.
Hundreds of millions, billions are going to die from climate change. That is a catastrophe. WhyEssEff was considering/hoping that being avoidable, I’m saying it wasn’t. You and I agree on that.
Yea I also agree with you that more ghg makes the effect worse, makes catastrophe worse, all that. Didn’t say we should throw up our hands. I was just trying to say that its going to be catastrophically bad (again hundreds of millions to billions) and that it isn’t avoidable. Totally agree with you we should make it the least bad catastrophe possible. I’d much rather 2 billion then 4, or have a bit better quality of life, etc. Definitely not worth giving up and not dropping emissions as fast as we possibly can.
Yeah exactly, unless she means she’s absolutely certain that human extinction will happen.
the problem is here specifically for me
The only real solution to your issue is to just not think about it I’m afraid.
There’s patchwork solutions that aid in not thinking about it - Preparing for what comes, organizing so you feel like you’re doing some good, working to alleviate the worst of it, learning about nice things that are happening (mainly in China).
You’ll still end up thinking about it from time to time. You’ll still be paralyzed. Hopefully it will be easier to break out of with some of these.
I’ve never met a mentally healthy person who was aware of what lies in store for us. I’ve never met a mentally healthy person who was thinking about it.
Dread and paralysis are two very separate things.
If you know what to do (especially day-to-day) and have the will to do it, you’re not going to be paralyzed, even in the face of terror.
“Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple.” -Bill Mollison
One of the biggest things that makes it hard to get started or maintain having a revolutionary practice is reconciling it with the things you want to do with your own life.
To live in a way that is personally gratifying yet also consistent (in proportion to the your fraction of all of humanity’s impact) with long-term ecological viability is what will get us somewhere. It necessarily means an orientation, strategy, and lifestyle that are prefigurative.