Opinion: State-of-the-art climate models show warming stops once we stop emitting carbon. That means there's still time to stop the worst impacts of climate change.
Sure, I can understand that. I think maybe I didn’t explain myself particularly well. I was mostly referring to the discourse you tend to get online, including Lemmy, where any even vaguely positive climate/environment news is dog-piled by comments stating how it’s not enough, won’t work or is otherwise ‘actually a bad thing™’.
We have been so saturated with negative news around climate change etc that anything to the contrary is misinterpreted as false. It’s exhausting, and risks drowning any positivity and motivation under a torrent of defeatism. It also becomes a convenient scapegoat, facilitating the excuse of doing nothing under the guise of ‘well, we’re all doomed so why bother even trying?’. That isn’t the kind of false reasoning we can afford to foster.
Im obviously not advocating that we bury our head in the sand and pretend everything is fine, but we do need more fairly balanced reporting to ensure that everyone stays informed, and that optimism and positivity can be used to encourage and motivate, rather than trying to replace that with fear, hopelessness and depression. Fuck knows there’s enough of that about as it is.
I guess my real issue is my own selfishness. I think the problems will ultimately be solved, but at my age, I doubt I’m likely to see anything other than the “worse” in “things will get worse before they get better,” no matter how aggressively we act.
Yeah, you and me both. It’s only natural. It’s not really selfishness, I’d argue it’s more like survival. I think that things are likely to get real ugly just when my partner and I hit retirement and start getting frail. Not much I can do about that other than prepare, but ultimately you and I are not going to see the end of this issue in our lifetimes, but we can collectively help ensure that the younger generations do. ‘A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit’ and all that. It sucks but that makes it all the more important learn to celebrate things like this article that’ll help make it suck less. Enjoy the little wins.
Sure, I can understand that. I think maybe I didn’t explain myself particularly well. I was mostly referring to the discourse you tend to get online, including Lemmy, where any even vaguely positive climate/environment news is dog-piled by comments stating how it’s not enough, won’t work or is otherwise ‘actually a bad thing™’.
We have been so saturated with negative news around climate change etc that anything to the contrary is misinterpreted as false. It’s exhausting, and risks drowning any positivity and motivation under a torrent of defeatism. It also becomes a convenient scapegoat, facilitating the excuse of doing nothing under the guise of ‘well, we’re all doomed so why bother even trying?’. That isn’t the kind of false reasoning we can afford to foster.
Im obviously not advocating that we bury our head in the sand and pretend everything is fine, but we do need more fairly balanced reporting to ensure that everyone stays informed, and that optimism and positivity can be used to encourage and motivate, rather than trying to replace that with fear, hopelessness and depression. Fuck knows there’s enough of that about as it is.
I understand that point of view as well.
I guess my real issue is my own selfishness. I think the problems will ultimately be solved, but at my age, I doubt I’m likely to see anything other than the “worse” in “things will get worse before they get better,” no matter how aggressively we act.
Yeah, you and me both. It’s only natural. It’s not really selfishness, I’d argue it’s more like survival. I think that things are likely to get real ugly just when my partner and I hit retirement and start getting frail. Not much I can do about that other than prepare, but ultimately you and I are not going to see the end of this issue in our lifetimes, but we can collectively help ensure that the younger generations do. ‘A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit’ and all that. It sucks but that makes it all the more important learn to celebrate things like this article that’ll help make it suck less. Enjoy the little wins.
Thanks for helping me look at things from a different angle!
No problem :) Here’s some more good news stories. Stay happy if you can, friend.
https://futurecrunch.com/goodnews/