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The sky is falling! The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Nobody cares. We're too busy trying to get through our lives. No, I'm not a climate change denier,

The sky is falling! The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Nobody cares. We're too busy trying to get through our lives. No, I'm not a climate change denier, I'm a climate-change not-care-er. I keep my heat/AC where I'm comfortable. I drive a large comfortable ICE vehicle. Would I buy an EV, solar panel roof, home backup batteries - if they were cheap and as convenient as what I have today? you bet. Persuade me with things that make my life easier, or cost me less than what I have today.

gjm11 4y ago
Well, then, congratulations on being smugly selfishly indifferent to everything other than your own convenience. But I don't understand why you expect anyone else to be interested in your lack of interest.
- pseg134 4y ago
  You were interested enough to respond and so were many others. Seems like an interesting comment.
jnmandal 4y ago
> The sky is falling! The sky is falling! The sky is falling! > Nobody cares. We're too busy trying to get through our lives. No, I'm not a climate change denier, I'm a climate-change not-care-er. I keep my heat/AC where I'm comfortable. I drive a large comfortable ICE vehicle. Would I buy an EV, solar panel roof, home backup batteries - if they were cheap and as convenient as what I have today? you bet. Persuade me with things that make my life easier, or cost me less than what I have today. This is the perfect demonstration of the type of attitude that is pervasive among the high energy use, heavy emission segments of humanity. Most people simply do not like to face the consequences of their actions; they believe their lives must be constantly made easier and more comfortable as part of modernity, progress, human development -- whatever you want to call it. As became evident in the last few years, its far too late to avoid the effects of climate change. Now its a question of how bad it will get. Well as long as this is the prevailing attitude (and while I have no source to say it is, I feel this to be so), we are ensured to have no short term solutions; so we can count on a future with intermittent catastrophe. What I find most interesting about this wicked problem is that its loudest proponents also make themselves doubly vulnerable by emphasizing the importance of individualism and downplaying the need for communal response. So its interesting to me to see at what threshold the "make my life easier", "I want a big pickup truck", "I deserve comfort" sentiment starts to be the driver of demanding assistance for natural disasters, drought, famine, etc. We are already seeing it happen in parts of the US southwest, in south florida, and to some extent in the California central valley. Anyways, I would argue its wrong when people describe climate change as a technical or scientific problem. As we can see, its very much a social and cultural issue -- maybe secondarily an economic one. I think the above sentiment provably captures that.
monktastic1 4y ago
> Nobody cares. Actually, a lot of people care. It's just easier to pretend that it's "nobody" so that you can maintain the philosophy that your personal comfort is what matters most in this world.
- NotYourLawyer 4y ago
  Nowhere near enough people care to make a difference. Almost nobody’s gonna drastically alter their lifestyles for the sake of the climate. The only way things get better is via technology that allows people to use the same amount of energy in ways that are less destructive. Anything else is fighting against human nature and wasting your breath.
  - timeon 4y ago
    Average climate-change denier in Slovakia produces less CO2 emissions than concerned person in US. So apparently there are ways. Human nature is irrelevant. If not, it will be one day.
    - NotYourLawyer 4y ago
      Sure. And that’s even more true in Afghanistan. Doesn’t mean the American is gonna be interested in living like that. > Human nature is irrelevant. Nope. If your plan is to make people do what they don’t want, instead of making what they want tolerable, you’ve already lost. >If not, it will be one day. Definitely nope. Climate change will change a lot of things, but even in the most extreme projections, it doesn’t come anywhere close to wiping us out.
  - CalRobert 4y ago
    I moved thousands of miles so I could live a better life and not have to drive everywhere. Driving sucks. More emissions != happier.
- ragingrobot 4y ago
  > Actually, a lot of people care. I can see where a lot more people than we care to believe follow a philosophy in the same vain as that which was stated. Go ahead, do a survey and I bet you get a lot of "I care about climate change," but who's telling the truth and who's just trying not to look like a selfish a-hole? More people will lie, saying they care than will admit the truth and say they don't care.
waboremo 4y ago
The people actually trying to just get through their lives are going to be the ones hardest hit (as they have been for years now) so don't play that card. You know the people who are making all those "cheaper" things for you to comfortably exist? The reason you can even afford AC? This also assumes prices will get cheaper, they will not. Climate change will cause prices to increase. It's shocking how little foresight people have about this. You don't have to start screaming in the streets - but to publicly proclaim you have zero empathy... and so proudly too.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
soulofmischief 4y ago
Willingness to make personal sacrifices in order to benefit the greater ecosystem is what separates the weak from the strong. Hedonism is a copout.
faeriechangling 4y ago
It's your prerogative to not care. It is essentially a fact that barring some sort of societal sanction, that there isn't any personal benefit in "going green", because there is significant personal downside to doing so but an insignificant personal benefit to the climate. Even if we could argue that a world where everybody reduced their emissions would be better for your self-interest than a world where nobody did, you seem keen on not personally reducing your emissions anyways so long as you aren't forced to in favour of rational self-interest. Potentially one could convince you to favour forcing everybody (yourself included) to reduce emissions, but this seems unlikely when you start off a post with a mocking "the sky is falling!" with a middle of "I drive a large car and keep the heat comfortable" and end it with "convince me". Why would it be in anybodies strategic interest to convincing somebody openly hostile who affirms a minority position? It's more time-efficient to convince other people to use force against parties that you rely on for goods and services, as well as you directly.
- rufus_foreman 4y ago
  I was going to correct your usage of pejorative with perogative and found out that I don't know how to spell prerogative.
TheOtherHobbes 4y ago
It's your choice not to care, and reality's choice to ignore you not caring - and to steamroller your dreams of a comfortable life as if your existence is an irrelevance. Which on a planetary scale, it very much is. Don't bet against reality. Reality doesn't care what you want. You will always lose.
allemagne 4y ago
The average person concerned about the climate is probably not too far away from this, realistically. Everyone doesn't have to be an activist or even perform outrage (for whatever marginal benefit that has to the cause), but if you're not willing to accept some level of inconvenience then that is a little abhorrent.
eep_social 4y ago
I feel somewhat similarly but rather than the (reasonable) “fuck off” explanation I don’t mind explaining my reasoning which is that any impactful change will have to be at a systematic, not personal, level. Remember how plastic recycling turned out to be mostly a lie? [1] I sure do. Now let’s do the cruise ship industry, a pure luxury. A single ship generates more emissions in a day than my estimated lifetime driving mileage [2][3]. So while I am broadly supportive of any and all efforts to improve the future I also acknowledge that no amount of personal sacrifice on my part will matter. Given that, I prioritize my comfort and convenience over any of the low efficacy virtue signaling that certain faction in this discussion seems to demand. In practice, this means that I sometimes throw dirty plastic in the garbage rather than washing it for recycling. It’s not clear that washing would be making effective use of potable water given the vanishingly low chance that my plastic will actually be meaningfully recycled. And I don’t have a grey water system available for that kind of task. I didn’t own a car from about 2011 until 2019 because I was lucky to live in areas that supported that lifestyle choice. I have two now because I have relocated somewhere that requires one and I like having a high capacity utility vehicle available. Does that make me the problem? In comparison to another individual in Ghana, sure, absolutely yes. In comparison to a whole multitude of industries like cruise ships which have been allowed to leave their emissions externalities unregulated and unaccounted for? No, I don’t even show up on that chart. So yes, I will be using my air conditioning to stay comfortable. And yes I am also very, very fucking angry that I am trapped in a system that gives me little opportunity to address the systematic problems I observe around me every day. So, op, I see you out there but don’t be afraid to engage in the discussion and push back on the virtue signaling requests. [1] https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-... [2] https://www.geekyexplorer.com/cruise-ship-pollution/ https://www.geekyexplorer.com/cruise-ship-pollution/ [3] https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/18351/emissions-from-cruise-ships-and-cars-in-european-port-cities/ https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/18351/emissions-from-crui...
CalRobert 4y ago
Similarly, I enjoy using cheap goods made by enslaved children, so I'm going to keep doing it. Maybe you don't care but your emissions kill people.

gjm11 4y ago

Well, then, congratulations on being smugly selfishly indifferent to everything other than your own convenience. But I don't understand why you expect anyone else to be interested in your lack of interest.

pseg134 4y ago
You were interested enough to respond and so were many others. Seems like an interesting comment.

jnmandal 4y ago

> The sky is falling! The sky is falling! The sky is falling! > Nobody cares. We're too busy trying to get through our lives. No, I'm not a climate change denier, I'm a climate-change not-care-er. I keep my heat/AC where I'm comfortable. I drive a large comfortable ICE vehicle. Would I buy an EV, solar panel roof, home backup batteries - if they were cheap and as convenient as what I have today? you bet. Persuade me with things that make my life easier, or cost me less than what I have today. This is the perfect demonstration of the type of attitude that is pervasive among the high energy use, heavy emission segments of humanity. Most people simply do not like to face the consequences of their actions; they believe their lives must be constantly made easier and more comfortable as part of modernity, progress, human development -- whatever you want to call it. As became evident in the last few years, its far too late to avoid the effects of climate change. Now its a question of how bad it will get. Well as long as this is the prevailing attitude (and while I have no source to say it is, I feel this to be so), we are ensured to have no short term solutions; so we can count on a future with intermittent catastrophe. What I find most interesting about this wicked problem is that its loudest proponents also make themselves doubly vulnerable by emphasizing the importance of individualism and downplaying the need for communal response. So its interesting to me to see at what threshold the "make my life easier", "I want a big pickup truck", "I deserve comfort" sentiment starts to be the driver of demanding assistance for natural disasters, drought, famine, etc. We are already seeing it happen in parts of the US southwest, in south florida, and to some extent in the California central valley. Anyways, I would argue its wrong when people describe climate change as a technical or scientific problem. As we can see, its very much a social and cultural issue -- maybe secondarily an economic one. I think the above sentiment provably captures that.

monktastic1 4y ago

> Nobody cares. Actually, a lot of people care. It's just easier to pretend that it's "nobody" so that you can maintain the philosophy that your personal comfort is what matters most in this world.

NotYourLawyer 4y ago
Nowhere near enough people care to make a difference. Almost nobody’s gonna drastically alter their lifestyles for the sake of the climate. The only way things get better is via technology that allows people to use the same amount of energy in ways that are less destructive. Anything else is fighting against human nature and wasting your breath.
- timeon 4y ago
  Average climate-change denier in Slovakia produces less CO2 emissions than concerned person in US. So apparently there are ways. Human nature is irrelevant. If not, it will be one day.
  - NotYourLawyer 4y ago
    Sure. And that’s even more true in Afghanistan. Doesn’t mean the American is gonna be interested in living like that. > Human nature is irrelevant. Nope. If your plan is to make people do what they don’t want, instead of making what they want tolerable, you’ve already lost. >If not, it will be one day. Definitely nope. Climate change will change a lot of things, but even in the most extreme projections, it doesn’t come anywhere close to wiping us out.
- CalRobert 4y ago
  I moved thousands of miles so I could live a better life and not have to drive everywhere. Driving sucks. More emissions != happier.
ragingrobot 4y ago
> Actually, a lot of people care. I can see where a lot more people than we care to believe follow a philosophy in the same vain as that which was stated. Go ahead, do a survey and I bet you get a lot of "I care about climate change," but who's telling the truth and who's just trying not to look like a selfish a-hole? More people will lie, saying they care than will admit the truth and say they don't care.

waboremo 4y ago

The people actually trying to just get through their lives are going to be the ones hardest hit (as they have been for years now) so don't play that card. You know the people who are making all those "cheaper" things for you to comfortably exist? The reason you can even afford AC? This also assumes prices will get cheaper, they will not. Climate change will cause prices to increase. It's shocking how little foresight people have about this. You don't have to start screaming in the streets - but to publicly proclaim you have zero empathy... and so proudly too.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

soulofmischief 4y ago

Willingness to make personal sacrifices in order to benefit the greater ecosystem is what separates the weak from the strong. Hedonism is a copout.

faeriechangling 4y ago

It's your prerogative to not care. It is essentially a fact that barring some sort of societal sanction, that there isn't any personal benefit in "going green", because there is significant personal downside to doing so but an insignificant personal benefit to the climate. Even if we could argue that a world where everybody reduced their emissions would be better for your self-interest than a world where nobody did, you seem keen on not personally reducing your emissions anyways so long as you aren't forced to in favour of rational self-interest. Potentially one could convince you to favour forcing everybody (yourself included) to reduce emissions, but this seems unlikely when you start off a post with a mocking "the sky is falling!" with a middle of "I drive a large car and keep the heat comfortable" and end it with "convince me". Why would it be in anybodies strategic interest to convincing somebody openly hostile who affirms a minority position? It's more time-efficient to convince other people to use force against parties that you rely on for goods and services, as well as you directly.

rufus_foreman 4y ago
I was going to correct your usage of pejorative with perogative and found out that I don't know how to spell prerogative.

TheOtherHobbes 4y ago

It's your choice not to care, and reality's choice to ignore you not caring - and to steamroller your dreams of a comfortable life as if your existence is an irrelevance. Which on a planetary scale, it very much is. Don't bet against reality. Reality doesn't care what you want. You will always lose.

allemagne 4y ago

The average person concerned about the climate is probably not too far away from this, realistically. Everyone doesn't have to be an activist or even perform outrage (for whatever marginal benefit that has to the cause), but if you're not willing to accept some level of inconvenience then that is a little abhorrent.

eep_social 4y ago

I feel somewhat similarly but rather than the (reasonable) “fuck off” explanation I don’t mind explaining my reasoning which is that any impactful change will have to be at a systematic, not personal, level. Remember how plastic recycling turned out to be mostly a lie? [1] I sure do. Now let’s do the cruise ship industry, a pure luxury. A single ship generates more emissions in a day than my estimated lifetime driving mileage [2][3]. So while I am broadly supportive of any and all efforts to improve the future I also acknowledge that no amount of personal sacrifice on my part will matter. Given that, I prioritize my comfort and convenience over any of the low efficacy virtue signaling that certain faction in this discussion seems to demand. In practice, this means that I sometimes throw dirty plastic in the garbage rather than washing it for recycling. It’s not clear that washing would be making effective use of potable water given the vanishingly low chance that my plastic will actually be meaningfully recycled. And I don’t have a grey water system available for that kind of task. I didn’t own a car from about 2011 until 2019 because I was lucky to live in areas that supported that lifestyle choice. I have two now because I have relocated somewhere that requires one and I like having a high capacity utility vehicle available. Does that make me the problem? In comparison to another individual in Ghana, sure, absolutely yes. In comparison to a whole multitude of industries like cruise ships which have been allowed to leave their emissions externalities unregulated and unaccounted for? No, I don’t even show up on that chart. So yes, I will be using my air conditioning to stay comfortable. And yes I am also very, very fucking angry that I am trapped in a system that gives me little opportunity to address the systematic problems I observe around me every day. So, op, I see you out there but don’t be afraid to engage in the discussion and push back on the virtue signaling requests. [1] https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-... [2] https://www.geekyexplorer.com/cruise-ship-pollution/ https://www.geekyexplorer.com/cruise-ship-pollution/ [3] https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/18351/emissions-from-cruise-ships-and-cars-in-european-port-cities/ https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/18351/emissions-from-crui...

CalRobert 4y ago

Similarly, I enjoy using cheap goods made by enslaved children, so I'm going to keep doing it. Maybe you don't care but your emissions kill people.