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Here's my American-centric hot take. People here feel powerless. This isn't a problem which can be dealt with on the personal level. The politicians are largely

Here's my American-centric hot take. People here feel powerless. This isn't a problem which can be dealt with on the personal level. The politicians are largely useless. One party completely denies there's a problem and actively derails any governmental attempt to address it. The other party is often timid, scared of its own shadow, and only proposes weak remedies. Furthermore, most of us here agree that it's happening and don't argue much about the root causes. All of that adds up to lack of discussion. Can't do much about it. Have had little luck influencing those that can. There's little for amateurs to discuss regarding the underlying science. It's sometimes cathartic to publicly pronounce one's feelings of fear & loathing in threads like this, but that also doesn't lead to good conversation. And so we end up talking about silly things like flying taxis because that lets us avoid the soul-crushing doom for another hour.

cjaro 7y ago
I agree - I don't eat meat and I'm not having children, but it feels very futile when you take into consideration the levels of corporate pollution, pollution from China, wasteful practices, corruption and apathy from our government leaders, attacks on personal liberties... it all gets so dismally depressing very quickly. It's great to frequent subreddits like r/antinatalism and r/collapse, just for the pure support, but if you stay too long it gets way too real because the science is there and it's not a good outcome, and we're barreling towards it strapped to the backs of a political system that does not care about it.
- tchaffee 7y ago
  > pollution from China Really from Western consumers if you look at who the vast majority of those factory products go to. The US used to be just as bad a polluter until it became easy for US companies to move to a country with fewer regulations.
anongraddebt 7y ago
I mean, at this point I'm of the mind that either some breakthrough in ML/A.I. will cushion the blow in the future or terrible times are inevitably ahead. My interpretation of the research is that the time to have reversed our trajectory was a number of decades ago. I don't bother debating or talking about the climate anymore. It's likely a defeatist attitude, but... I can't find a way to shake it.

cjaro 7y ago

I agree - I don't eat meat and I'm not having children, but it feels very futile when you take into consideration the levels of corporate pollution, pollution from China, wasteful practices, corruption and apathy from our government leaders, attacks on personal liberties... it all gets so dismally depressing very quickly. It's great to frequent subreddits like r/antinatalism and r/collapse, just for the pure support, but if you stay too long it gets way too real because the science is there and it's not a good outcome, and we're barreling towards it strapped to the backs of a political system that does not care about it.

tchaffee 7y ago
> pollution from China Really from Western consumers if you look at who the vast majority of those factory products go to. The US used to be just as bad a polluter until it became easy for US companies to move to a country with fewer regulations.

anongraddebt 7y ago

I mean, at this point I'm of the mind that either some breakthrough in ML/A.I. will cushion the blow in the future or terrible times are inevitably ahead. My interpretation of the research is that the time to have reversed our trajectory was a number of decades ago. I don't bother debating or talking about the climate anymore. It's likely a defeatist attitude, but... I can't find a way to shake it.