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What do I even do with this information? Something I haven’t seen articles or research about is how to psychologically cope with the slow collapse of our ecolog

• quenix 5y ago
  This is my question too. I feel a sense of despair, uncertainty, and powerlessness reading these. Yes, awareness is important, but... what the actual hell am I supposed to do with this information?
  • malloryerik 5y ago
    Maybe join or build a company or some kind of activity to help us survive.
    • quenix 5y ago
      I'm an undergraduate student and in no financial position to start or join a company. This just further illustrates that a large segment of society is powerless against things like this. The headlines don't help, they just actively worsen my mental health.
      • CalRobert 5y ago
        If I might ask - how are you not in a position to join a company? Is getting a job not a normal thing to do when you're in a rough spot financially? Climate.careers might be worth a look (I'm not affiliated, just keeping an eye on it myself)
        • quenix 5y ago
          Thanks for the link.
      • FabHK 5y ago
        I'd look at the positive trends. Dire warnings have, in the past, often lead to improvements that prevented the worst outcomes. Fatalism and resignation are not good nor helpful for you as an individual, nor for society as a whole (they also forestall meaningful corrective action). The fact is that large trends have mostly pointed in the right direction over the last century or so, on a worldwide scale. (Examples: [1]-[17]) Some literature I'd look at as counterpoints: - Steve Pinker, Enlightenment Now [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_Now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_Now] - Matt Ridley, The Rational Optimist [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rational_Optimist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rational_Optimist] - Hans Rosling, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factfulness:_Ten_Reasons_We%27re_Wrong_About_the_World_–_and_Why_Things_Are_Better_Than_You_Think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factfulness:_Ten_Reasons_We%27...] - Julian Simon, The State of Humanity Note: Some of these writers and arguments are co-opted by rabid libertarians or ideologues that argue that all is well, there is nothing to worry about, and nothing needs to be done (and certainly no government regulation of business) [N1]. That is nonsense, and not a position I advocate. There are many worrisome trends, and we have to do something about them. But, there have been predictions of doom since the dawn of mankind (see: Malthus [D1], Ehrlich [D2]), and they have not panned out, either. Conclusion/TL;DR: Things have largely gotten better for humanity over long timeframes. There are still many problems now (inequality, climate, etc.), but if we apply ourselves, there is a good chance we can tackle them. Footnotes [1] Life Expectancy [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?tab=chart&time=1770..2019&country=Africa~Asia~Europe~OWID_WRL~Americas~Oceania https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?tab=chart...] [2] HDI [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-development-index-escosura https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-development-index-e...] [3] Child Mortality [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/child-mortality?tab=chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/child-mortality?tab=chart] [4] Suicide rates (not improving, but not worsening) [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/suicide-rates-by-country https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/suicide-rates-by-country] [5] Air pollution [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-air-pollution?country=~OWID_WRL https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-air-poll...] [6] Polio [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-estimated-paralytic-polio-cases-by-world-region https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-estimated-paral...] [7] Cholera [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cholera-deaths-in-great-britain https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cholera-deaths-in-great-b...] [8] Tuberculosis, Malaria, HIV/Aids [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-from-infections-of-currently-noneradicable-diseases?country=~OWID_WRL https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/deaths-from-infections-of...] [9] Anemia in children [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prevalence-of-anemia-in-children https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prevalence-of-anemia-in-c...] [10] Access to electricity [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-with-access-to-electricity?tab=chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-w...] [11] Death from indoor air pollution [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-by-source-from-indoor-air-pollution?tab=chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-by-source-from...] [12] Death from unsafe sanitation [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-deaths-unsafe-sanitation?tab=chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-deaths-unsafe-sanit...] [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-sanitation?tab=chart https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-sanitation?ta...] [13] Share of people who say they're happy [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-people-who-say-they-are-happy https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-people-who-say-t...] [14] Use of agricultural land per capita [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/agricultural-area-per-capita https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/agricultural-area-per-cap...] [15] Forests [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/forest-area-as-share-of-land-area?tab=chart&time=earliest..latest&country=England~Scotland~FRA~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/forest-area-as-share-of-l...] [16] Famine [https://ourworldindata.org/famine-mortality-over-the-long-run https://ourworldindata.org/famine-mortality-over-the-long-ru...] [17] Child labour [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/various-measures-of-child-labour-incidence https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/various-measures-of-child...] [https://ourworldindata.org/child-labor#long-run-history-of-child-labour-in-today-s-rich-countries https://ourworldindata.org/child-labor#long-run-history-of-c...] [N1] Julian Simon himself was one of those over-optimistic libertarians. But the data he collected is still eye-opening. [D1] Malthus: "This constant effort as constantly tends to subject the lower classes of the society to distress and to prevent any great permanent amelioration of their condition." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_on_the_Principle_of_Population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_on_the_Principle_of_P...] [D2] Ehrlich, in 1968: "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb] But a UN report in 2010: 'the percentage of the world's population who qualify as "undernourished" has fallen by more than half, from 33 percent to about 16 percent, since Ehrlich published The Population Bomb.' See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon–Ehrlich_wager https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon–Ehrlich_wager
    • wayoutthere 5y ago
      This is basically what “communism” is. And I do think communism is the only answer for a world facing a lifetime of declining resources and productivity. Capitalism is great for a world based in perpetual growth but under long-term deflationary pressure it will deliver a worse quality of life and be more oppressive than a more collective form of government (and it must be violently oppressive to keep the mass of starving people from threatening the meager profits that will remain). You’re already seeing this in the younger millennials and Gen Z. We’re smart enough to see what’s coming and more of us are radicalizing every day.
      • inpdx 5y ago
        Unfortunately communism is horrible for individual privacy, liberty, and often life everywhere it's been tried, because humans suck.
        • _jal 5y ago
          I seriously doubt governments emerging from ecological collapse will be as pleasant as one of the 20th century eastern-euro communist governments you're probably thinking of. Surveillance today is already more all-encompassing in democracies than it was in Eastern Germany. Just wait for an emergency that scares people enough, and that becomes weaponized. Individual rights don't last in emergencies.
        • wayoutthere 5y ago
          If you think communism is bad, wait until you see long-term deflation under capitalism.
        • l-_l-_l-_lo_ol 5y ago
          Yeah. It just doesn't cohere with human nature. Capitalism at least manages. Communism seems like something that would happen maybe post-singularity and after scarcity is solved. And we'd be like homogenous spacefarers like the aliens depicted in our stories.
      • dead-snake 5y ago
        Do any of the hundred million murders done in the name of communism give you pause? The stupa of bones and skulls in the killing fields, the pieces of bone and cloth scraps still gradually working their way to the surface, all these years later? No matter how many times I see somebody express eagerness to try it again, it never fails to be baffling and appalling.
    • the_only_law 5y ago
      I’m remember the Netflix documentary Wild Wild Country in which what effectively was a cult purchased a large plot of land that had been killed by something along the lines of overuse/neglect/etc. and all sorts of people scientists/lawyers/engineers came together and basically resorted it, made it arable and wild life returned. Shame it probably couldn’t happen without the cult aspect.
  • truthwhisperer 5y ago
    Go on with Your life what happens happens
  • joelbluminator 5y ago
    What I do when I want to help some cause is donate money to some legit organization. For me it's the most effective way to help out.
  • sixQuarks 5y ago
    Life is absurd, and we may all be in a simulation anyways. Also, we're all going to die and be forgotten, no matter how famous or rich, along with everything in our solar system. Just keep that perspective and try to be grateful that we have this moment of consciousness or whatever the hell reality is.
  • ratsforhorses 5y ago
    Feels like "our" ancestors must have felt in the 30's? The storm is gathering... I'd suggest finding a community of like minded people, (most of the western world remains oblivious) looking into growing insects, mushrooms and stuff with led lights.. also according to "Before the flood" (great film btw) the Gulf stream risks moving too and Europe entering a new ice age..so moving south seems like a good idea, which is great as they are more affordable countries with people generally being more...helpful? Pfaf.org ic.org
• chunkyslink 5y ago
  It's old news but Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding... If we all did it today we would make a huge difference to a collpasing system. https://josephpoore.com/Science%20360%206392%20987%20-%20Accepted%20Manuscript.pdf https://josephpoore.com/Science%20360%206392%20987%20-%20Acc...
  • fallingfrog 5y ago
    I echo this- went vegan last year. It’s not as scary as you think. There are lots of sources of good vegetable protein (tofu, peas, beans) and you can have one of those impossible burgers if you’re craving meat on a particular day.
    • bwindels 5y ago
      or if you're not up for going cold turkey, just drastically reduce your intake. If you eat meat only once a week rather than every day, this already reduces your footprint massively.
      • feanaro 5y ago
        This isn't realistic advice for most people eating meat every day. It's better to suggest trying to not eat meat for a single day per week as a start.
    • joelbluminator 5y ago
      Jeez people downvoting this comment maybe we deserve to all collapse
    • uxcolumbo 5y ago
      Thanks for making the effort. Why folks are down voting your post, especially here on HN - a group apparently made up of rational and logical thinking folks - beats me. Feeding the world with animal meat is not sustainable, it requires more energy and resources. I guess it's called meat addiction for a reason.
• vstm 5y ago
  Apparently buying shitloads of toilet paper is the best coping mechanism for anything.
• CalRobert 5y ago
  Find a location that should still be able to sustain life in a few decades, learn self sufficiency and crop growing in harsh climates, emigrate (if necessary) as soon as possible before further refugee crises make this impossible, transition your career to one working to stop this or ameliorate its effects (climate.careers, etc.), decide whether or not to have a kid. Edit: Also, consider running for office, if your government hasn't suffered complete regulatory capture, and if you have money to invest maybe look at things like Engine No. 1's ETF (VOTE)
  • gabereiser 5y ago
    I'd echo this. Sadly. I've been doing research into hydroponic farms and how to build them. Grow my own food in basements. How to build a disaster shelter. All the things the doomsday preppers do. My internet ads are now on par with QAnon conspiracies and how to survive the apocalypse. It's depressing. It's demoralizing. It's real.
    • CalRobert 5y ago
      It's kind of bizarre that "prepping" (I prefer "preparedness" and fortunately like gardening anyway) is associated with the right when we have sober-minded scientists literally saying civilization stands a very good chance of collapsing. I think a lot of people "believe" in climate change, but relatively few people _believe_ in it, if that makes sense. It's coming.
      • bostonsre 5y ago
        I think a lot of people view it as true, but they also think society won't just give up when it happens.
        • inetknght 5y ago
          > society won't just give up when it happens It's happening right now.
• fogihujy 5y ago
  I assume you're in one of the northern parts of Europe that'll take the blunt of this. Look to your ability to handle long winters, short but intensely hot summers, unstable weather systems, and financial difficulties. Making sure your house is properly insulated is a good start.
  • dagw 5y ago
    Also think a lot about the effects of flooding and torrential rains. Try to move to higher ground, out of valleys and away from slopes, and to houses built on solid rock foundations.
• FpUser 5y ago
  >"As a young person, I probably will never be able to own a house" So much for the American Dream.
  • nynx 5y ago
    The american dream died a long time ago.
    • bingidingi 5y ago
      it was always a subsidized by the suffering of other people
• bryanlarsen 5y ago
  The collapse just means that European winters will be like Canadian winters. Europeans in Canada survive and thrive. So all you need to do is embrace winter sports and buy a winter jacket capable of keeping you warm at -40. They exist, it's no big deal. Food prices will likely go up, but that won't really affect Europeans, just the global poor. They're always the ones that get screwed. Edit: and of course the ecology is screwed too. Humans can use technology like coats and furnaces to adapt immediately, animals and plants need thousands of years to adapt.
  • Workaccount2 5y ago
    If European winters turned into Canadian winters, the ecosystem would likely be devastated. Sorry if your post was just sarcasm.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • pvaldes 5y ago
      European nature has survived glaciations before and recovered (more or less).
      • lovecg 5y ago
        Timescale matters. This is often missing from the discussion. Warming up over a period of 10 thousand years is very different from same warming over a 100 years. Evolution in existing species assumes a certain pace of change in the environment, and this assumption is being broken. Sure, other species might survive and thrive. Mammals exploded after the dinosaurs were killed off.
  • hef19898 5y ago
    Ah, so that means we gonna have snow again in the alps? Jokes aside, I have a hard time imagining such a world. And I have zero interest living in one, not that there is much choice so in that case.
  • 5y ago
• tejohnso 5y ago
  You're not alone. Eco-anxiety is real and a growing problem. If you search that term, you might find something helpful. I've seen suggestions that people will go through the typical five stages of grief, ending with acceptance.
  • nynx 5y ago
    Thank you. You’re the first person who actually tried to help.
    • eplanit 5y ago
      No, the other advice is actually more helpful. Rather, this is the first who validated your anxiety.
      • nynx 5y ago
        Both are important.
    • _Microft 5y ago
      Your anxiety might come from a feeling of uncertainty of what is to come and helplessness in face of that. In my opinion self-efficacy works wonders for mental health, so maybe pick a job or other activity actually trying to work against the world going down the drain (or at least giving you the feeling that you do) instead of accepting that it is "invariably" happening.
      • nynx 5y ago
        It certainly does come from a place of uncertainty. I'm trying to work in the space industry in an effort to feel like I'm positively affecting humanity, but I'm not currently having a lot of luck.
  • mellavora 5y ago
    I've been stuck in the first state for over a decade. With loss of a loved one, they are gone and you can move on (either to a new partner, or 'move on' to join your lost partner). With loss of a planet, not so much. The grieving doesn't end, because the destruction doesn't end.
• Throwaway197401 5y ago
  99.9999% of all living species have been wiped out by mother nature herself. You should find solitude in the fact that we might be the only species who actually have a chance of not becoming part of that statistic which we do by making the planet much more hospitable for us than life used to be. We do this by creating new knowledge which we then use to turn useless materials into valuable resources which allow us to solve problems that have always been challenging us. So go on live your life, eat, travel, create, consume. Don't worry about the catastrophist rhetoric, don't worry about going vegan (unless you want to), don't worry about your CO2 footprint or any other things other people want you to care about for their own political ideologies. Be optimistic and worry about living a good life, with good people, doing good and meaningful things and if you have the skills maybe get into something valuable like coming up with how to create more powerful energy forms such as fusion.
  • te_chris 5y ago
    This is horrific advice: Just be an uber-individual and hope someone else sorts it. Awful and delusion utopianism.
    • Throwaway197401 5y ago
      Unless you are going to become a physicist or an engineer or related you aren't going to be solving anything with regards to "the climate". No amount of veganism, recycling or spartan living is going to change that. On the other hand, having a positive look at the future and participate in the economy is going to help pay for much of the research we need to help come up with more powerful forms of energy. We need wealth to create knowledge which helps create solutions to some of the issues that the climate has always been challenging us with just like we've done before. Having a positive look at the future is exactly what we need and have nothing to do with utopia, it's just a better framework to think about the world and lead to better results than thinking the world is going to go under.
  • vesinisa 5y ago
    "Think about positive things and suppress negative feelings and thoughts." It might help with coping as an individual but does not solve our problems as a society.
• ipaddr 5y ago
  Ignore it. Ignore all news trying to get an emotion out of you so they can sell you something. There are plenty of doomsday or sad stories.. you don't need to hear another. As a young person who will get older you will have the chance to buy a home everyone did before. Whoever told you different is trying to upsell your emotions.
  • notduncansmith 5y ago
    “Bury your head in the sand like we did! Don’t worry, your privilege will save you!” Delete your post, mate. The only thing most people talking about climate are selling is the idea that we should keep the planet nicer than we’ve been keeping it. With the climate situation being what it is, only Big Money is telling anyone to “ignore it” and saying that just tells us what side you’re on. > As a young person who will get older you will have the chance to buy a home I bet Social Security will be there for us too, huh? This is a dangerous lie. i can’t tell if it’s just utterly useless, or if it’s actually a psyop designed to sow complacency in the populace. Olds and the rich have been using this language to manipulate the rest of us for years. It’s finally coming to light that no, it’s not true, and it was never going to be true for us. We have the data. Home ownership is only getting further out of reach for most of us. > everyone did before And this is where we see that your idea of “everyone” is limited to land owners (now where have I heard land ownership and personhood equivocated before…?). That kind of thinking will only make more of the mess that we have to clean up.
    • nradov 5y ago
      The US home ownership rate has bounced around about 65% for decades. There was a temporary spike during the real estate boom that ended in 2006. Now we're back close to the usual rate. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N Homes are only expensive if you want to live in a popular urban area. In less fashionable areas they're still affordable for most families.
      • dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Homes are only expensive if you want to live in a popular urban area. Compared to the past, homeownership is expensive nationally, and the general trend has long been up although there wasa a sharp, temporary reduction from the late 2000s financial crisis [0]. Sure, there is regional variation, but that doesn't mean that national prices are relatively static. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=kYEb https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=kYEb
• ngcazz 5y ago
  It would also sound those people have packed it in and stopped caring about the very true possibility of misery for millions.
• vegetablepotpie 5y ago
  What I’m doing is getting involved. But it doesn’t seem like climate groups are doing much about GHGs. I signed up with 350.org, and I got put on a mailing list. I signed up with Sunrise, and the events available to me in my area are to pass out blankets to the homeless and campaign for DC statehood. This is frustrating to me, I try to find a coalition to work with and I either get ignored or I get a baited and switched to work on leftist causes. I’m calling my senators and representatives today, and I expect to be ignored. Unless there is someone organizing to cause large social change around GHGs and we can be involved with that, I think we should just accept that our lives will be filled with uncertainty, starvation, and an early death.
  • konschubert 5y ago
    Maybe impact-makers-group.slack.com and climate-tech.slack.com may be what you are looking for?
    • vegetablepotpie 5y ago
      Thank you for the comment. How would one get added to those slack channels?
      • konschubert 5y ago
        Hmm, not sure. I just checked and they seem pretty dead…
  • debo_ 5y ago
    I joined the Citizen's Climate Lobby, and I've found them to be very well-organized and super effective. Please give it a shot!
• Lutger 5y ago
  I'm not sure, honestly. I don't have any references but there definitely is research about anxiety and depression caused by climate collapse. I know at least one psychotherapy professor (Netherlands) who specializes in this. There's a lot of literature. One of the terms often used is eco-anxiety. The single best advice is to put limitations on your consumption of climate news. But it's highly personal, some people turn to activism to cope, facing the problem head-on. I did that, but it's very depressing honestly. A powerful image my wife likes to use is sitting at a loved one's deathbed. You don't have hope, you know he or she is going to die, but that makes the remaining time extra special. We are all sitting at the deathbed of the world as we know it. That makes the time we have left extra precious. And we're running out of time.
  • theplague42 5y ago
    tl;dr just ignore it?
  • rytis 5y ago
    > The single best advice is to put limitations on your consumption of climate news. I'm not sure if this is a good advice. It's like hiding in the woods, but once you're out, you'll be in for a massive shock. May be that's better than gradual adaptation? I don't know.
    • Lutger 5y ago
      That's why I said limit, not ignore. If you update your knowledge once or twice every month you know enough of what's going on.
  • jjoonathan 5y ago
    Powerful image but bad analogy. The climate does not have a well defined "death" state, unless you water down the definition of "death" so much that it becomes meaningless, i.e. by defining death as change. If you insist on doing this and then get mired in fatalism... realize that the fatalism was rooted in this choice, and maybe reconsider it. Since we don't have the collective willpower to stop pushing the climate, it's definitely going to change, so we're just going to have to adapt. The bad news is that it will involve a staggering amount of destruction and violence as everybody tries to avoid bagholding. The good news is that humans are really, really good at adapting. Staggeringly good. If you look at the history of doomsday predictions -- I'd suggest the Malthusians, since they were rooted in science and rationality but still managed to be very wrong on a large number of issues -- you'll note that their biggest mistake is underestimating adaptability. It's reeeealllllly easy to extrapolate some lines and say "this can't go on, it's going to break, the world will end" and be correct on the first 2 points but wrong on the 3rd. Don't underestimate human adaptability. It's not an optimistic long shot to think that we will adapt. Adaptation is who we are, it's what we do, and we are good at it.
• animal_spirits 5y ago
  Its time for us to roll up our sleeves and get to work! What a challenge we've been given to solve! I'm not backing down
• lmilcin 5y ago
  The basic thing to do is to inform your choices on who you vote for for public functions.
• javajosh 5y ago
  Process your emotions first. Get to a place where you feel positive about facing the problem. At the end of the day, global climate change is a good problem to face, like WW2 was a good challenge, and it decomposes into smaller problems, recursively, and there are real things you can do. Government's are the only actors that really matter; so it's time to get political. Understand the legislative and executive options; if there's something in-play, help out. Politics is, in general, labor intensive so volunteer. The more local the law, the more leverage you have - so don't ignore state and local law. If you work for a carbon intensive industry, quit. Triage your environmental concerns: landfills << carbon emission. Heck, nuclear waste << carbon emission. So don't get distracted by plastic straw bans or Fukushima/Chernobyl, etc. Politically, care about stopping: fracking, offshore drilling, pipeline investment, and (this one is important): carbon money in politics. Culturally, embrace a voluntary contraction: make more things locally, at home, using local material. Replace your PS5 (dream) with a treehouse; replace Spotify with your dad's guitar. Get out into nature, and enjoy her company.
  • sva_ 5y ago
    For a moment I suspected you'd end this with "turn on, tune in, drop out".
  • ben_w 5y ago
    > replace Spotify with your dad's guitar. Now I’m wondering what the inherent CO2 is in those two, and how much variation there is between guitars.
    • ta988 5y ago
      The difference is likely negligible compared to changing one habit like caffeine consumption or numbers of hours using computers or tvs.
  • dantheman 5y ago
    The only actors that matter are technologists developing better sources of energy generation, energy storage, and carbon capture are really the only thing that matters. Isn't fracking a great source of natural gas? Isn't that much better than oil?
• brnt 5y ago
  > What do I even do with this information? Use your vote offensively.
• 52-6F-62 5y ago
  Personally? A deep wading into physics and philosophy. What are we even doing here and what, how, and why does it all work and be at all? I guess just trying to see the things for what they are, versus what you/I/we were told they were or were supposed to be. It at least helps with the acceptance of present circumstances, and allows for establishing enough ownership over your/mine/our own part in it all, however small or great. Unfortunately the myth of our adversarial relationship with our world is still a firmly held belief by many. That's not something anyone has a great deal of control over—especially in adults. Likewise, the idea that we're somehow above everything around us tricks us into thinking we might not just be like a spider who wandered too far into the house and is about to get squished by an ambivalent power [read: Earth's nature] greater than ourselves. --- I see you're from not too far away. Similarly in SW Ontario I've wondered what it will look like when climate change really starts taking its toll around the world. On a recent visit to Vancouver Island, the heat and the dryness already is staggering. The image of BC I had not twenty years ago is kind of gone. It's not the same. Its long-time residents have watched it change year-over-year. SW Ontario remains more or less unscathed. It's as lush as it's ever been and fresh water is plentiful. Somehow, it's almost always insulated from the worst weather effects of every major surrounding ecosystem save for the odd ice storm or low-grade tornado. If it wasn't somewhat land-locked it would probably already have a wall around it filled with compounds of the ultra-wealthy.
  • steve_adams_86 5y ago
    The worst things I notice here on Vancouver Island are that our lakes and rivers are losing their ability to support life very rapidly. The wet and dry cycles we have mean our river levels are very high then very low, with water temperatures rising higher in summer as a result. The more this happens, and it does every year, the less life they will support. Salmonids which make up the vast majority of river fish can’t handle warm, shallow water. They get sick, tired, develop fungal infections, or get trapped in low areas and run out of food or oxygen. Our lakes are doing better, but declining just the same. When fishing it’s very rare to catch wild native species, instead you’ll find plenty of stocked or invasive fish. Water temperatures are increasing very quickly, meaning very small lakes will fail to support species like trout which need cool, oxygen rich water. Logging has done incalculable damage to our watersheds, and it won’t recover quickly. Warming conditions are compounding the damage from that and perhaps reducing the ability of forests to recover and protect our watersheds. I’m taking my son fishing this weekend for a couple days, and I’ve spent so much time researching to find out which lakes and rivers are doing well or aren’t experiencing too much fishing pressure. There is virtually nothing on the South Island. It’s very sad. We will probably spend a significant amount of time snorkeling and pulling out garbage, especially monofilament from near the shores. I think we’ll see ecological collapse in major rivers like the Cowichan in the next decade. Some years the levels are so low, comparing it to records is shocking. Crayfish (which serve as a sort of canary species and food web foundation) have begun to have die outs and decreasing populations with some regularity.
• kfjman 5y ago
  Is this a joke? Do nothing, keep living and producing. Is it too hard to live sustainably? Oh that's okay, nobody is perfect, surely everything will go fine :) You feeling bad while reading these articles is smallest of our problems.
• alistairSH 5y ago
  1. Process your emotions and thoughts. Do you care enough to do anything? 2. Assuming you answered yes above, take small steps... eat less meat, drink less milk. Vote for politicians who care about the environment. Push for changes locally - bike lanes, mass transit, less car-based society. None of these take massive amounts of effort. Yes, none have a dramatic or immediate impact. But, you have to eat the elephant one bite at a time.
  • Robotbeat 5y ago
    And electrify what cars we have.
    • meristohm 5y ago
      And reduce our use of multi-ton vehicles, because electric or not, the conversion cost of that energy is not cheap. Cars are tools first, far before toys, and they tend to need long, flat surfaces to roll on, which disrupt animal movement and harbor plants that sometimes take over. Driving slower, less often, and on dirt roads seems better for some concerns. Depends on what you care about.
      • Robotbeat 5y ago
        Driving on dirt roads? That is not better for the environment! Requires bigger vehicles, potentially bad for drainage, dirty and dangerous.
        • meristohm 5y ago
          You might be right. What are the costs of bitumen/asphalt and oil on the ground over so much area?
    • barbs 5y ago
      Are you suggesting we somehow make our existing gasoline-powered cars electric? I'm not very up-to-date so I didn't think that was possible. Unless you just mean replacing them with electric ones?
• meristohm 5y ago
  Lobby for change in regulations to make it easier for all of us to change our behavior.
  • cogman10 5y ago
    Vote for politicians that will either take action or won't stand in the way of action.
• jayspell 5y ago
  One thing you can do is realize that experts are often wrong. The prevailing knowledge of twenty / thirty years ago has been proven wrong. Experts never admit they were wrong, they just modify their certainty to whatever the new study says. The fact that their previous certainty was disproven never comes up (think the crisis of bee colony collapse or insect die off). Another thing you can do is accept that changes to the climate have occurred since the beginning, and they will continue to happen regardless of what we do. The last thing you can do is turn off the endless reporting on climate change. The media has a vested interest in working you up (this includes social media). They make money off your attention, don't give it to them.
  • cogman10 5y ago
    I downvoted and here's why. For starters, experts do admit when they are wrong. That comes in the form of later studies and more refined models. Experts in the field of science and research let the data speak. A lot of distrust in "experts" has come from the fact that as new data comes in experts have changed the models they used (for example, abandoning global cooling back in the 70s). What we are seeing in climate change is the evidential weight equivalent to what we have for evolution. It's massive, it's conclusive, and it's undeniable. It's not something that's just one study or a few scientists pet theories, it's accepted by all serious climate scientists. To overturn that amount of evidence, you'd need an equal amount of evidence and, frankly, nothing has been found that comes close to disproving it. If there's been any evidence of the experts being "wrong" it is in fact pointing towards them having underestimated the impacts. > The media has a vested interest in working you up (this includes social media). They make money off your attention, don't give it to them. Or you could do like I've done and look up the research for yourself. It's bleak. Rather than burying your head in the sand and rejecting news that makes you feel upset, it's important to make sure you aren't letting your own biases drive your opinions. I say all this as someone that was formerly a climate change denier. Funnily, it was an "askscience" reddit question that ultimately moved me and changed my opinion here. The responders gave me a plethora of scientific evidence and data which all points to exactly the same conclusion. Man made greenhouse gases are heating up the earth which, in turn, is causing a higher rate of natural disasters. Experts can be wrong, they usually aren't, and when they are they update and change their models to explain both why they are wrong and how the new data fits in. That's how science works. It's a constant process of "being wrong" or learning more and refining the models and predictions.
• GnarfGnarf 5y ago
  What do you do with the info? If you live in Europe, start planning on a furnace for your home. Wear gloves when installing fiberglass insulation, it itches. The vapour barrier goes on the outside. London is at the same latitude as Calgary, AB, Canada. Have you been to Calgary? Winter temp. hits -40°C (but it's a dry cold). Every outdoor parking stall has an electric plug for your block heater. Spray ether in the carburetor to get the car started. Welcome to the 51st parallel.
  • aaronax 5y ago
    Hopefully you mean that the vapor barrier faces the "outside" (side out towards you) of the wall cavity as you work on it from inside the house, meaning actually that the vapor barrier is on the side of the insulation nearest the building occupants. The vapor barrier is supposed to go on the warm/moist side of the wall to keep the insulation dry, which in a cold climate is on the inside. Almost no one should be spraying ether in their cars; carburetors are quite rare nowadays. I have found that a fuel injected car will reliably start in extreme cold (North Dakota) as long as you can get the engine to crank well. And I never use a block heater.
    • GnarfGnarf 5y ago
      You are correct: the vapour barrier goes on the inside, closest to the warm room. This prevents the moist air in the room from condensing within the insulation, accumulating water and causing rot and mold. My late father-in-law, who worked in construction, says they found out the hard way in the 1940's when fiberglass insulation was first installed, without vapour barrier. Within a few years, entire walls would just collapse, the studs and framing having rotted like cheese. And I never use a block heater North Dakota is South of Calgary.
• baron_harkonnen 5y ago
  The problem with the collapse of our ecology (and the collapse of our future) is it forces us to deal with existential questions that were always there, we just used to have good ways of keeping ourselves distracted. Every society has developed systems of meaning and value to help us individually deal with the fact that we will die and nothing we will have lived for matters. For many societies the future and present where not all that interesting. These societies typically focused on worship of ancestors, and focused on how their daily actions connected them with their past. This develops into more complex systems of religion and spirituality that help give us meaning. Industrial society has increasingly abandoned these with a new system of meaning: progress. Much of our personal meaning is derived from things like career, contributions to society, our own projects, personal fame etc. We belief we are playing our small part in the future of humanity and that gives us meaning. But now, as that future starts to come into question, so do these essential sources of personal meaning. The trouble is that we can't trivially go back to older systems. This is the crisis of nihilism we see across America, and people will beat on the empty symbols of blind nationalism, religious extremism etc trying to resurrect lost meaning. This is what Nietzsche was trying to warn us of in his frequently misunderstood "God is dead" aphorism. We have destroyed our old systems of meaning but the new ones we have he correctly saw were fragile, and when they break he knew there would be a crisis. The comments to view this as grieving are in many ways correct. You can see the stages of grief everywhere: - denial: "climate change isn't real" or "climate change won't be so bad" - bargaining: "If we just recycle more, development more green energy, etc we'll be fine!" - anger: "It's those damn republicans! they did this!" - depression: "what's the point of doing anything if we're going to lose everything" The trouble is that getting out this grief isn't as simple because there's no return to normal. The loss is part of our world. One approach is study what the existentialists have talked about, their immediate post-WWII felt similarly lost. My HNers like the stoics which is another path to explore. But either way the long term project is to work on establishing systems of meaning that work for you... else you risk falling into a feverish insanity which I think we'll see more and more common place.
  • tribler 5y ago
    Here is a 2003 paper I found that discusses implications of ocean current collapse: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2003.1239 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2003.123... "Abrupt climate change: can society cope?" Mike Hulme Published:22 July 2003 Full Text PDF https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mike-Hulme/publication/9050976_Abrupt_Climate_Change_Can_Society_Cope/links/00463529e063bd39a2000000/Abrupt-Climate-Change-Can-Society-Cope.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mike-Hulme/publication/...
• david422 5y ago
  > What do I even do with this information? Something I haven’t seen articles or research about is how to psychologically cope with the slow collapse of our ecology. Personally, I do what I can and then just accept that I can't control the rest. I try to reduce, I try to re-use, I switched to vegetarian. I own a new house and I'm going to try to get solar, I have an electric lawn mower and I'm planning on my next car to be electric. I try to vote for people that I think will do the best job. I'm sure there is a lot more that I _could_ be doing, or attempting to be doing. But I am only a drop in the bucket. I just do the best I can.
• Robotbeat 5y ago
  Let it spur you to action. I’ve started to reduce beef consumption, eat more vegetarian, replaced fossil fueled cars with electric, replaced flights with my family to see extended family with road trips in an electric car (at high occupancy, this is an extremely efficient mode of transport). Next steps are adding some solar power and transitioning my house’s gas heater to electric heat pump. Started planting trees and offsetting the rest of my carbon with planting trees. (I already live in a dense housing area, which is helpful.) Of course, as one person, this does little. But I’ve convinced about 5 other people to go from gasoline to electric for their cars. And taking solid personal steps to address climate change (without the highly ascetic lifestyle, which isn’t as attractive to many) helps give your calls for policy action more intellectual and moral authority. Taking action, beyond “flee for your lives!”, is effective in mustering the political and mental energy we’ll need to address climate change, both in the preventative sense and in the adaption sense. Burning fossil fuels right now for our society is a choice. The biggest struggle is convincing everyone, from the public to activists to politicians and other leaders, that it really is a choice and that real, attractive alternatives exist. It is actively important NOT to cast the solution as something that requires massive societal sacrifice but instead firm, decisive action and hard work. Ultimately, our action sets the stage for luxurious abundance for all, to a level not possible with fossil fuels, while also rewilding the Earth and making most of the Earth’s surface into beautiful National Parks and reserves. We’ve delayed action at this point that climate change will cause damage, but it is absolutely in our hands to what extent we’ll prevent more and then heal that damage and set the stage for both human abundance and a thriving Gaia.
  • dvh 5y ago
    If you replaced your car with electric one, your consumption is at least 10x bigger than mine (assuming you bought $40k Tesla). In 2020 I've spent €4112.09 on everything. Every dollar spent is eventually converted to carbon dioxide, if you spend 10x more, you produced 10x more carbon dioxide. Lower your consumption, that's the only way to save this planet.
    • _huayra_ 5y ago
      I really wish there was a cost-effective way to rent some of these low-usage, but high-carbon items like cars. I really don't want to own a car. I barely use it because WFH + public transport + company shuttle handles most of my day-to-day. However, it is difficult to do some outdoor sports in the US without one (e.g. rock climbing, mountain biking, skiing). I have a Subaru in my garage on a trickle charger to keep the battery fresh only for these kinds of things. I wish I could avoid having to insure, register, and worry about this stupid investment, not to mention the guilt from having this barely-used thing expanding my carbon footprint. However, the math on renting a car every weekend that has all-wheel drive still just doesn't work out, not to mention the hassle of retrieving and returning it. I don't like the "you will own nothing and be happy" way things are going, but I could definitely do that with a car if the economics wouldn't be so rapacious.
• kochikame 5y ago
  I guess it’s not too dissimilar to the nuclear fear felt by kids who grew up in the 70s Only difference is, that was solvable
• marderfarker2 5y ago
  Unpopular opinion but I think we (as engineers) can start by reducing bloat in our software, optimise running processes, to reduce device churn so that we can use our devices for a much longer time. Avoid bloaty software and reward developers that respects available computing power. Computer functionality has been stagnant for a long long time yet system requirements are growing exponentially.
  • rescripting 5y ago
    This does nothing to alter our trajectory, only slow it by some infinitesimal amount. Most developers could slave their whole career making optimizations only to have them overshadowed by the carbon they emit driving to the office. To put it another way: Bitcoin uses more energy than Argentina. Shave 1% off of that and watch it gobbled up by growth in the BTC network within a month.
  • Trasmatta 5y ago
    Device churn isn't the fault of software developers.
• barkingcat 5y ago
  Another idea is to keep personal computers that you power on 24/7 to either sleep when not using them or on a power on/power off schedule. For computers with discrete GPU's this could save a lot of power! When you aren't using lights, turn them off.
  • stuntkite 5y ago
    The only thing that will make any difference is systemic change. It's fine to take shorter showers or turn off your PC, but a handful of companies are causing most of this. Coca-Cola should quit using plastics for instance. That would make a dent. It's not likely to happen. The rich folks in power want us to feel like we are responsible for their mess. This has been going on for years. Turn off lights, recycle (lol), or do whatever... but feeling guilty or seeing it as actually making a difference doesn't effect a damn thing... unfortunately.
  • lovecg 5y ago
    Serious question, does that make a difference if you heat your house using a thermostat anyway? The furnace should just run for less time to compensate. I have the same question about incandescent lightbulbs that seem to have been banned in many places.
• CalRobert 5y ago
  "As a young person, I probably will never be able to own a house." I hear you there. I was you, some years ago. I graduated in 2008 _just_ as the economy completely fell off a cliff and it SUCKED. I only managed to buy a house 10 years later by looking at very nontraditional properties. I wound up with a cottage on a few acres of land for €68,000. There's bargains to be had if you're OK with something outside the norm. I had a look at your page at https://charted.space/ https://charted.space/ - if I may say so, you seem to have a lot of skills that could fetch a good salary - you might wind up able to buy a home (if that's your goal) after all.
• GoodJokes 5y ago
  The first thing to do is to confirm and fully understand the information you are reading. The amount of collapse and when that happens is highly unknown. the error bar is a couple decades to a few centuries.
• taneq 5y ago
  Turtle and tech. Focus on getting as rich as possible as quick as possible, not for the untold debauchery but to increase your agility for the sudden yet inevitable going to hell.