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I don't find this helpful. There's the idea of "well, we can't continue doing what we're doing if we want the Earth to continue to be hospitable" even if these

I don't find this helpful. There's the idea of "well, we can't continue doing what we're doing if we want the Earth to continue to be hospitable" even if these predictions are false. While individually we can't do much, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't push for those who can to do as much as they can. In the United States, this means pushing back on things like drilling in the wilderness, voting in politicians who want to keep antiquated, polluting forms of energy generation in place, etc. If there is enough political will in the populace, the transformative effects can be powerful. We've seen it with the bicycle infrastructure in the Netherlands, and we've seen it with social issues in the United States. So yes, we're polluting the earth and making it gross and we should stop that. Let's worry about living a good life, but let's define the good life at least partly about being a good steward of our only planet.

Throwaway197401 5y ago
You might not find it helpful right now, your current mode of thinking taken into account. I would however urge you to dig a little deeper into your beliefs and you might find that you've been thinking about this the wrong way. Why do you think we've done the things we've done? Why do you think we build houses, have conventional farming, create sewer systems, create water purification systems, drive cars, have electricity, heat our houses, fly, have heavy industry, run global supply chains, combustion engines, aqua farming, nuclear power plants, create hospitals, going into space, send up satellites, develop new medicin, use fossil fuels not just for energy but also for 99% of all out materials and material creation? Your phone, the internet, your computer, glasses, windows, airconditioning. If nature provided us with alle these facets naturally we wouldn't have to create them ourselves but as we both know it doesn't. We have to create these solutions our selves. We have to create our own resources by creating knowledge. And yes this process have negative externalities. Each problem we solve, create new problems we also need to solve. But the difference is that the problems we are facing today are better problems to have than those we used to have. Trying to come up with a way to make energy cleaner is a better problem than not having energy to begin with. Trying to deal with plastics in our oceans is a better problem to have than not having access to plastic materials. We have better problems to solve today than we used to and when we solve them they will create new problems that are again better problems to have. That should make you hopeful not pessimistic.

Throwaway197401 5y ago

You might not find it helpful right now, your current mode of thinking taken into account. I would however urge you to dig a little deeper into your beliefs and you might find that you've been thinking about this the wrong way. Why do you think we've done the things we've done? Why do you think we build houses, have conventional farming, create sewer systems, create water purification systems, drive cars, have electricity, heat our houses, fly, have heavy industry, run global supply chains, combustion engines, aqua farming, nuclear power plants, create hospitals, going into space, send up satellites, develop new medicin, use fossil fuels not just for energy but also for 99% of all out materials and material creation? Your phone, the internet, your computer, glasses, windows, airconditioning. If nature provided us with alle these facets naturally we wouldn't have to create them ourselves but as we both know it doesn't. We have to create these solutions our selves. We have to create our own resources by creating knowledge. And yes this process have negative externalities. Each problem we solve, create new problems we also need to solve. But the difference is that the problems we are facing today are better problems to have than those we used to have. Trying to come up with a way to make energy cleaner is a better problem than not having energy to begin with. Trying to deal with plastics in our oceans is a better problem to have than not having access to plastic materials. We have better problems to solve today than we used to and when we solve them they will create new problems that are again better problems to have. That should make you hopeful not pessimistic.