Asklemmy

This is going to get some upset

On an individual level, there is not much you can do. Because of that why let it get to you? If you do not effect the outcome it shouldn't be on your radar.

Schadenfreude. Learn to take pleasure in things like massive increases in risk making insurance unaffordable for conservative fuckheads in places like Florida. A fancy beach house on Cape Hatteras just fell into the ocean (creating a wave of nasty pollution).

Climate chaos is coming for all of us, and we have done basically nothing to avert it (lots of lip service). 2023 set the record for carbon emissions, at least until 2024 is in the books.

All that is left is to watch the ensuing horrors and enjoy our comeuppance.

Alcohol

I personally do not care that much about the survival of entire species (including ours); I care more about the lives of the individuals. To illustrate this, it saddens me when we cause extinctions, but a little more because of the animals that suffered in the process and a little less about the whole "loss" of a form of life. Yet, it all is sad.

How do I deal with this climate change sadness? I guess I don't see it separately from other sad things from humanity (and existence, but let's focus on humanity). I have accepted the fact that most human beings are morally questionable in my book, this causes the world to be worse for everyone in it, and no amount of reasoning with most of them (about the benefit for them and others of being more conscious about their lives) will change it for now.

At some point, some have felt that a better society is just a step ahead of us because it's relatively easy in material terms, but now I feel it much farther as the social factors are not as easy. I guess I have surrendered to a certain idea of psychological determinism. If we imagine a person has an object we want at their reach, while it's out of our reach, and we could get it if they only cooperate, we can feel frustrated when they don't. "Why do they make it so difficult? It's as simple as reaching for the object and grabbing it for us. Just do it! Why are they waiting for? Ugh!". But if we start from the idea that there's a chance they won't help us because they simply can't be bothered (different reasons as to why), and that's probably not fixable, we won't feel that level of frustration for their inaction and we will strategize differently how to get that object.

By the way, I don't think selfishness or self-centeredness or whatever is individualism, nor that altruism is communitarianism. I'm inclined to individualism, but that's what makes me think that just as my life and freedom are valuable, so are others'. I do not like societies that are communitarian because they drown the individual (in false responsibilities, in fear of ostracism, etc.), and I hate that. We have one life and only one and we should be as free as possible, even if that means being unattached, different, whatever. The only rule for that freedom and for everything is ethics. And that's the difference for me, that's how I see it. Not individualistic people versus communitarian people, but people that live without an interest in being ethical (whatever that ends up meaning) and people who do.

So... I think I see a lot of these people and I don't get as frustrated as before. I sigh and continue my day. Reading this last part, it reads a little stoic (learning that I cannot change these parts of society and focusing on the ones we can change). Stoicism is like the ibuprofen of life; paracetamol is pyrrhic skepticism. I'm bad at analogies, lol, but you get the point (I hope).

Prioritizing my health (including my mental health) has helped a lot. Good levels of everything in my body do wonders for my energy, but also my resilience, my mood, etc. Emotional regulation skills, combating stress... I know these are just common recommendations, but I don't have more.

I'm sorry that you're feeling down. It's been a hard time...

I'm taking a nihilistic approach to it.

I turn off the lights when I leave a room. I'm conscientious about my water usage. I recycle.

When I find that a company is a mass polluter, I do everything in my power to not give them any of my money.

I'm doing my part.

The fact is every human being on the planet in their own personal circle could go carbon neutral and climate change would still happen because it is industrial processes and commercial shipping that are driving the great majority of carbon and methane release in the atmosphere.

It's not anything that you or I are doing, or rather, in the scheme of things what we are doing is negligible, easily absorbed by the natural cleaning processes of the planet like trees and algae and rain and time.

Our current system has incentivized pollution. There's no amount of personal choice that we as individuals can take to stop it.

What we need are politicians who acknowledge the issue and who override the objections of the vocal minority to fix them even at deleterious costs to the economy.

After all, can't have an economy when the world is dead.

Capitalism is the cause of climate change. Corporations are interested only in max profits. This won't change under capitalist countries, ever. Study socialism and join a local org or party that you ideologically support.

China is controlled by the communist party and its policies aren't driven by short-term profits. There are corporations but they can't go against the interests of the Chinese society, unlike the USA. Look at how China generates more clean energy than the UK total electricity output.

Don't forget to go vegan

Cynicism, trying to do what I can personally, voting and participating in politics, and just fucking hoping we're over estimating the effects or that we'll manage to come up with the political will to mitigate the worse effects.

Also, praying to Cthulhu that boomers hurry the fuck up and kick the bucket... at least the ones that aren't cool.

Looking at Trump's climate priorities (basically, burn as much coal as possible) and the people who support them fills me with disgust... it is as greedy and uncaring as our shitty late stage capitalism and I can't comprehend existing with so little empathy or foresight. The deniers are essentially incomprehensible to me so I avoid them whenever possible and just hope they'll die off faster than sane people.

I gave up all hope that it's going to turn out all right, and more or less stopped caring

I became communist. It does not solve anything, of course, but gave me hope that this dystopian mess that we live in can be solved.

Anger, knowing they will get what they deserve more quickly than I initially thought. I'm not thinking about rich celebrities, they are just a few people. There are so many regular people who refused to modify their lifestyle even a little to mitigate the problem. They will suffer alongside me and I find some solace in that.

View the end of humanity as a positive, the suffering machine will be over (at least until it re-evolves).

You are not alone. The only way to stop it is to go back to regulations. Regulations have been stripped since the 80s. We need to put them all back in place, there is no reason anyone should have that much money. They are going into space and moving bridges so they can fit their yatchs disturbing hard working peoples lives. Capitalism is great but only when it’s regulated. We dont need a formal investigation to know that these people have visions that align and they will fuck everyone for their gain. Also they have underground bunkers ready for anything.

100mg of ketamine every day, half in the morning, half in the afternoon.

The same way to deal with depression about anything. Depression is an illness that renders one incapable of helping themselves or others and debilitates people from contributing to the solution to the problems which contributed to the depression. Depression should be treated as an illness to be cured before anything else.

As far as being not being depressed by events beyond one's control, it requires effort since even being aware and concerned by such problems of this magnitude is highly unnatural and highly unintuitive. It is necessary to consciously come to peace with the world and humanity as it is. The universe is chaotic and we have as much control over the collective will of billions of completely ignorant and afraid people as we do over natural disasters just with less ability to predict when issues will occur. Although it is the case that we have a good grasp of the environmental issue, we have absolutely no grasp of how get plutocrats not to behave like plutocrats having no care for anything or anyone other than increasing their personal fortunes meaninglessly or to get the majority of people to understand the degree to which it is a problem that we continue to allow this. Being upset that humans are failing to achieve stable societies just as we have always failed for the entire 10,000 years we have been trying to achieve them is having unrealistic and unfair expectations of our species. Everyone is trying their best and no one knows what they're doing really. It may be scarier to consider how much less agency people have than they believe they have initially, but it does allow one to have the comfort of more consistently helpful expectations of oneself and others.

Considering the fact that corporations make up about 70% +/- of all the solution and climate destruction, and the fact that politicians are bribed by said corporations to ignore the problem, there's little we can actually do about it except voting.

by worrying about the rampant militarization and progressively hawkish stance of nato with overt threat towards china and russia and how i could escape this hellhole with my family instead.