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Although personally I am very concerned about AGW, I think the dismissals that talking about climate change is causing some "existential crisis" among young peo

by js8 4y ago

Although personally I am very concerned about AGW, I think the dismissals that talking about climate change is causing some "existential crisis" among young people are BS. Whenever I hear that theory, it's always an armchair hypothesis. But you could actually go and ask young girls what they are anxious about and how they deal with it. I think proponents of that theory, if they want to dismiss social media effects on personal self-esteem, should do exactly that - it's on them to prove that is the actual concern of girls committing suicide. I highly doubt they will find more significant evidence.

woodruffw 4y ago
This is a personal anecdote: I have family members, mostly younger ones (and I’m in my mid-20s), who are extremely anxious about climate change. They’ve sought mental health services because of their worries. I don’t think that’s particularly unique. I agree that it is absolutely not the only factor, which is the point I was attempting to make with a “weaker” version of Haidt’s argument.
- asdff 4y ago
  I wonder if all the doom and gloom with everything is because people don't really understand statistics nor history. Sure, living through the climate catastrophe won't be comfortable, but given most of human history, living in that future is still a far better hand than all of your ancestors. Say you were born cesarean, are diabetic, broke your arm, had your wisdom teeth removed, got your colorectal cancer cleared up with the immune checkpoint inhibitor, got a covid vaccine then caught it and shrugged it off. Any other point of history you'd be dead 6x over at least with that medical history. That's something to celebrate. Plus I think there is a bias over maintaining the status quo of the earth. Sure, pollution isn't great, but that's from a squandered opportunity of destroying natural resources before coming up with a sustainable way to use them indefinitely. Species go extinct, but for better or worse, that's how previously occupied niches are now exposed for rapid adaptive evolution of what is left over, and how we evolved to be who we are today. We are adding energy into the atmosphere, so if anything the life system will work even faster than before. Will we adjust? Who knows, but if you are on team planet earth it really doesn't matter. Life will find a way. Whether humans make it or not should be irrelevant, considering you have distant relatives who weren't human and only became human due to selective pressures from the environment at the time. We should expect to change when the environment does, dramatically even, as fighting that change amounts to fighting a march to a thermodynamic equilibrium. Consider we also have the head and shoulders advantage of any other species driving a climate change on earth previously (there were many, great oxygenation event, azolla event, and others), of actually being globally aware of climate change.
- bitcoin_anon 4y ago
  Isn't this a social media problem as well? Climate change is a hot topic on social media. When we are frequently exposed to doom-porn, we tend to develop a bleak outlook.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    Read the comment again: that’s the “weaker” argument, one that Haidt fails to make.
burkaman 4y ago
> But you could actually go and ask young girls what they are anxious about and how they deal with it Many people have done that in actual studies. Here's one example: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00278-3/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5.... It's not just people projecting and thinking "I'm worried about climate change so the kids must be as well."
adamrezich 4y ago
I have seen posters on this very website claim that they will not be having children as a direct result of the information they have received about climate change. of course, it's difficult to determine how much of that is ex post facto reasoning as justification for a decision that was already made for completely different reasons…
throwaway2037 4y ago
AGW: Anthropogenic global warming?
revelio 4y ago
Even in just the last few months there have been stories posted here about specific people who killed themselves stating it was because of worry about climate change.

by js8 4y ago

woodruffw 4y ago

This is a personal anecdote: I have family members, mostly younger ones (and I’m in my mid-20s), who are extremely anxious about climate change. They’ve sought mental health services because of their worries. I don’t think that’s particularly unique. I agree that it is absolutely not the only factor, which is the point I was attempting to make with a “weaker” version of Haidt’s argument.

asdff 4y ago
I wonder if all the doom and gloom with everything is because people don't really understand statistics nor history. Sure, living through the climate catastrophe won't be comfortable, but given most of human history, living in that future is still a far better hand than all of your ancestors. Say you were born cesarean, are diabetic, broke your arm, had your wisdom teeth removed, got your colorectal cancer cleared up with the immune checkpoint inhibitor, got a covid vaccine then caught it and shrugged it off. Any other point of history you'd be dead 6x over at least with that medical history. That's something to celebrate. Plus I think there is a bias over maintaining the status quo of the earth. Sure, pollution isn't great, but that's from a squandered opportunity of destroying natural resources before coming up with a sustainable way to use them indefinitely. Species go extinct, but for better or worse, that's how previously occupied niches are now exposed for rapid adaptive evolution of what is left over, and how we evolved to be who we are today. We are adding energy into the atmosphere, so if anything the life system will work even faster than before. Will we adjust? Who knows, but if you are on team planet earth it really doesn't matter. Life will find a way. Whether humans make it or not should be irrelevant, considering you have distant relatives who weren't human and only became human due to selective pressures from the environment at the time. We should expect to change when the environment does, dramatically even, as fighting that change amounts to fighting a march to a thermodynamic equilibrium. Consider we also have the head and shoulders advantage of any other species driving a climate change on earth previously (there were many, great oxygenation event, azolla event, and others), of actually being globally aware of climate change.
bitcoin_anon 4y ago
Isn't this a social media problem as well? Climate change is a hot topic on social media. When we are frequently exposed to doom-porn, we tend to develop a bleak outlook.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  Read the comment again: that’s the “weaker” argument, one that Haidt fails to make.

burkaman 4y ago

> But you could actually go and ask young girls what they are anxious about and how they deal with it Many people have done that in actual studies. Here's one example: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00278-3/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5.... It's not just people projecting and thinking "I'm worried about climate change so the kids must be as well."

adamrezich 4y ago

I have seen posters on this very website claim that they will not be having children as a direct result of the information they have received about climate change. of course, it's difficult to determine how much of that is ex post facto reasoning as justification for a decision that was already made for completely different reasons…

throwaway2037 4y ago

AGW: Anthropogenic global warming?

revelio 4y ago

Even in just the last few months there have been stories posted here about specific people who killed themselves stating it was because of worry about climate change.