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I'm glad I'm older and feel deeply sorry for the generations to come. I feel deeply sorry for all the creatures and plants and ecosystems we are in the proces

I'm glad I'm older and feel deeply sorry for the generations to come. I feel deeply sorry for all the creatures and plants and ecosystems we are in the process of destroying. I've come to believe the world would be a better place without any people at all. We are headed towards and earth in which there's few other large animals except us and the animals we farm. Earth might possibly have been the most precious jewel in the entire universe and we've trashed it.

mattmaroon 3y ago
You listen to too much doom and gloom propaganda if you believe this.
- silverquiet 3y ago
  I live in South Texas and the last summer was the most brutal one I have ever experienced. I've never seen so many trees die and it was indeed quite depressing. I keep bees and worried about them as well, but do supply them with water and that seemed to get them through. I didn't need to listen any propaganda, I simply had to go outside and feel how hot it was or see all the death that drought brought.
  - monero-xmr 3y ago
    And this winter was one of the coldest in memory. Maybe the earth is starting to cool? I mean I walked outside
    - doubleg72 3y ago
      I don’t think the ground ever even froze this winter.. not sure where you hail from, but sounds like in a cave.
    - silverquiet 3y ago
      https://www.noaa.gov/news/us-had-its-warmest-winter-on-record https://www.noaa.gov/news/us-had-its-warmest-winter-on-recor...
      - monero-xmr 3y ago
        https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/15/us/winter-weather-cold-snow-forecast.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/15/us/winter-weather-cold-sn...
        silverquiet 3y ago
        I'm pretty sure the refusal to acknowledge reality is causing more nihilism at this point than the truth ever could.
    - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
      Where the Hot is, and the Cold is, is shifting. US Midwest is being hit by a 'weaker' Jetstream, that allows more cold arctic air in the winters. So winters are getting colder even while the summer is hotter. It is called Climate "Change". It is a giant complex system, the effects are dynamic and to the random person walking outside can appear random, floods in the desert, moisture in different areas. Some areas getting dry, some wet, some hotter, some colder.
  - mattmaroon 3y ago
    That’s a far cry from “there won’t be much left other than us and our farm animals.” Or the belief that the earth is better off without us. I’d argue intelligent life is worth it if the cost is having no more polar bears. (Obv it’s better to have both and they’re not mutually exclusive, just making the point.) Earth is just a big rock floating in space and full of bugs without us.
  - dingnuts 3y ago
    Anecdotes aren't data, and one summer isn't climate. The climate warriors absolutely pounded that into my head for decades, but you experience a drought and the world is literally ending? C'mon Maybe the world IS ending, but anecdotes and single summers are not valid talking points
    - mattmaroon 3y ago
      That’s true but to be sure, data is on the same page. I was not denying climate change.
    - silverquiet 3y ago
      I did not say the world is literally ending, I said that it is depressing to watch so much death. How much death do I need to see before it goes from anecdote to data? Does it matter that it was also, by a significant margin and unexpectedly, the hottest year on record for the entire world?[0] [0]https://www.noaa.gov/news/2023-was-worlds-warmest-year-on-record-by-far https://www.noaa.gov/news/2023-was-worlds-warmest-year-on-re...
halfmatthalfcat 3y ago
If most people hold these nihilistic/defeatist sentiments, then yes, we really are doomed. Thankfully, I don't think that's the case.
- InvertedRhodium 3y ago
  Then you aren’t paying close enough attention to the metrics. We’ve blown past the target of 2 degrees, in fact today it was 1.57 degrees. We’re rapidly approaching several tipping points after which parts of the biosphere simply won’t recover. See: https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-2024-world-experienced-warmest-january-record https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-2024-world-experien... https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Space_for_our_climate/Understanding_climate_tipping_points https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Space_f... And the trajectory for emissions is still only going up and not expected to change until 2040 at the earliest. We’re royally screwed.
  - mattmaroon 3y ago
    Those metrics don’t mean anything because climate models are no more scientific than a monkey with a dart board. That’s exactly the propaganda I mean. It’s like we only have people who either deny climate change is happening at all, or swallow this bullshit wholesale, and nothing in between. We have the technology to generate all of the energy we need from renewables. We have electric cars. We can use as much energy as we want and still get back to 1800s level carbon emissions if we just decide it’s worth paying for, and the worse things get, the more we’ll think that. We’re not going to wait until New York is under water. It’s now even getting to where we are doing so just because it is cheaper. In 2040 nobody will be building a fossil fuel plant. Barely anyone is now. Over 80% of new power generation is renewable globally, a number that will only increase. It’ll be fine.
    - MattRix 3y ago
      I feel like you’re missing the point? Once the temperature has risen it’ll already be too late, it doesn’t really matter if you then reduce carbon emissions after that point because all kinds of drastic non-reversible effects will have taken place.
monero-xmr 3y ago
The climate has been changing forever. Mesopotamia was once fertile and tropical, now it's Iraq. Humans survived the ice age. There is no such thing as a constant environment. Are humans causing climate change? Absolutely. Is the world going to become uninhabitable? No. We adapt, we use technology. Don't depress yourself into nihilism. Apocalyptic thinking has a rich history, you are becoming a member of yet another fad.
- MattRix 3y ago
  This is pure hubris. It is absurd to say “don’t worry, we’ll adapt” while also telling the people who care about climate change that they’re taking this too seriously.
  - monero-xmr 3y ago
    I'm not saying "don't care", but to literally think the human race is going to go extinct, and to stop reproducing or wish people would stop, and to live in general anxiety and fear, is absurdly ridiculous.
- forgotmyinfo 3y ago
  Yes, and when the climate changes too much, everything dies. I mean, I don't see too many dinosaurs left. The sheer hubris to think that it can't happen again...
  - the_doctah 3y ago
    Yes the climate changes quite rapidly when an massive asteroid strikes the planet
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - monero-xmr 3y ago
    Some would wish to end the human race, suicide, stop reproducing. My solution is to just adapt, create new technology, get air conditioners. I'm old enough to remember the UN telling us we would all be dead from climate change by the year 2000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Environment_Programme#:~:text=UNEP%20in%201989%2C%2034%20years,the%20effects%20of%20climate%20change%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Environment_Pro....
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
treyd 3y ago
Humans lived in a symbiotic relationship with the ecosystems we were in for thousands of years, even after developing agriculture. Humanity is not the source of the problem. It only became a systemic issue after we developed industrial farming practices without regard for the delicate balances we relied on, by way of extracting the nutrients in the soil to sell on the market in some way or another. This isn't to say we need to dismantle industrial farming, but we should alter the ways we do agriculture to be more conscientious of the natural environment and promote sustainable agriculture. But this may be impossible without some serious crisis in the short/medium term.
- tomrod 3y ago
  We developed these practices to prevent starvation. Unless we have industrialized fungi production for protein replacement, industrial farming is here for awhile longer.
  - teaearlgraycold 3y ago
    > industrialized fungi production for protein replacement, industrial farming is here for awhile longer. What do you mean? This sounds like industrial farming.
    - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
      To feed 8 Billion, we will need 'industry'. But we can make it more friendly. Technology has advanced, it can be the problem and the solution also. Like vertical farming without soil. Or some fungi or insect protein factories, that are powered by solar.
    - tomrod 3y ago
      And done well, it need not be land bound or even earth bound.
- xbmcuser 3y ago
  Humans living with nature for 1000s of years is a bullshit comparison. Human population was less than 1-200 million for those thousands of years. Now it is 8+ billion. The largest cause is the Worlds economic system where we need population to keep growing so that demand keeps growing which results in supply growth and the cycle keeps going on getting bigger. I feel AI powered with cheap renewables like solar and wind is going to end this cycle the result could be non violent population decrease over time but because of how rapid the change will be and how fast it will take economic opportunity out of lot of people hands I think a huge war is more likely.
komali2 3y ago
Climate depression is understandable and I'm not sure what's going on with the replies - is HN a hub for climate change denialism now? Human-caused climate change is as much an established fact as is possible in this field. Alternative "theories" are as much as an established non-fact as is possible in this field. Here are 428 references on the subject which will need to be disputed in order to change that fact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change#References https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change#References (not actually 428 because there's multiple references to the same paper but in different locations, etc. You get my point.) Despite actions like UK declaring a climate emergency, the Paris Agreement, etc, it's not clear to me that the world is going to take the actions necessary to prevent massive climate-change related disasters. When those disasters take root and trigger refugee crises the likes of which human society has never encountered, any green-energy and green-material initiatives are probably out the door as nations turn to the cheapest, fastest, shortest-term energy and materials solutions possible to either handle the influx of refugees or the war materials needed to turn them away. What are you seeing that makes you think this won't be the case? Are you seeing improvements in green technology and believe those will be deployed quickly enough to curtail climate change? I'm skeptical: we had a huge reduction in emissions lain at our doorstep by COVID and for many industries work continued unabated as we did our jobs from home, but irrational established mentalities are forcing emissions back up by making people come into the office at threat of firing. If green energy, green materials, or sustainable practices offend established sensibilities in the same way, why would they take root?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- the_doctah 3y ago
  You linked a wikipedia reference section about climate change, suggesting people need to argue those points, and then immediately devolved into doomsaying with a theoretical war with refugees after theoretical "massive" climate-change-caused disasters.
  - komali2 3y ago
    I demonstrated that in order to dispute human-caused climate change, someone certainly has their homework set out for them! :) Then I shared why many of my generation don't believe we can turn away from this, not because of our technology, but because of our sociology, our politics. Similar to how people believe AI will "free people from labor" despite improvements in technology almost never reducing labor loads but instead just getting people fired.
MattRix 3y ago
While I agree that climate change is an awful disaster, I think humans are way more valuable than you give us credit for. Can beauty exist without someone capable of experiencing it?
- defrost 3y ago
  Many things that some humans subjectively describe as beautiful have existed without humans, many even predate the evolution of humans.
  - MattRix 3y ago
    I didn’t say we create beauty, I said we experience it. What is the point of beauty if no intelligent creature is around to appreciate it?
    - defrost 3y ago
      \1 What we as humans experience is subjective to humans. \2 Who's to say animals don't experience beauty, primates, dolphins, octopus, etc are all pretty high on the IQ scale and likely have EQ. \3 Lastly, what makes human experience such an important factor for the environment in any case? Modern humans have been about at most 2 million years while life on earth has been about for magnitudes more time.
      - MattRix 3y ago
        1. Our specific individual experiences are subjective, but the fact that we experience things is not. 2. It’s possible that some animals can experience some amounts of beauty, but certainly not on the level of humans. Also the lives of humans are rich and varied in ways that other animal lives just aren’t. 3. If you don’t see why preserving something as unique as humans is important… I don’t think you’re really considering how special we are.

mattmaroon 3y ago

You listen to too much doom and gloom propaganda if you believe this.

silverquiet 3y ago
I live in South Texas and the last summer was the most brutal one I have ever experienced. I've never seen so many trees die and it was indeed quite depressing. I keep bees and worried about them as well, but do supply them with water and that seemed to get them through. I didn't need to listen any propaganda, I simply had to go outside and feel how hot it was or see all the death that drought brought.
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  And this winter was one of the coldest in memory. Maybe the earth is starting to cool? I mean I walked outside
  - doubleg72 3y ago
    I don’t think the ground ever even froze this winter.. not sure where you hail from, but sounds like in a cave.
  - silverquiet 3y ago
    https://www.noaa.gov/news/us-had-its-warmest-winter-on-record https://www.noaa.gov/news/us-had-its-warmest-winter-on-recor...
    - monero-xmr 3y ago
      https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/15/us/winter-weather-cold-snow-forecast.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/15/us/winter-weather-cold-sn...
      - silverquiet 3y ago
        I'm pretty sure the refusal to acknowledge reality is causing more nihilism at this point than the truth ever could.
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    Where the Hot is, and the Cold is, is shifting. US Midwest is being hit by a 'weaker' Jetstream, that allows more cold arctic air in the winters. So winters are getting colder even while the summer is hotter. It is called Climate "Change". It is a giant complex system, the effects are dynamic and to the random person walking outside can appear random, floods in the desert, moisture in different areas. Some areas getting dry, some wet, some hotter, some colder.
- mattmaroon 3y ago
  That’s a far cry from “there won’t be much left other than us and our farm animals.” Or the belief that the earth is better off without us. I’d argue intelligent life is worth it if the cost is having no more polar bears. (Obv it’s better to have both and they’re not mutually exclusive, just making the point.) Earth is just a big rock floating in space and full of bugs without us.
- dingnuts 3y ago
  Anecdotes aren't data, and one summer isn't climate. The climate warriors absolutely pounded that into my head for decades, but you experience a drought and the world is literally ending? C'mon Maybe the world IS ending, but anecdotes and single summers are not valid talking points
  - mattmaroon 3y ago
    That’s true but to be sure, data is on the same page. I was not denying climate change.
  - silverquiet 3y ago
    I did not say the world is literally ending, I said that it is depressing to watch so much death. How much death do I need to see before it goes from anecdote to data? Does it matter that it was also, by a significant margin and unexpectedly, the hottest year on record for the entire world?[0] [0]https://www.noaa.gov/news/2023-was-worlds-warmest-year-on-record-by-far https://www.noaa.gov/news/2023-was-worlds-warmest-year-on-re...

halfmatthalfcat 3y ago

If most people hold these nihilistic/defeatist sentiments, then yes, we really are doomed. Thankfully, I don't think that's the case.

InvertedRhodium 3y ago
Then you aren’t paying close enough attention to the metrics. We’ve blown past the target of 2 degrees, in fact today it was 1.57 degrees. We’re rapidly approaching several tipping points after which parts of the biosphere simply won’t recover. See: https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-2024-world-experienced-warmest-january-record https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-2024-world-experien... https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Space_for_our_climate/Understanding_climate_tipping_points https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Space_f... And the trajectory for emissions is still only going up and not expected to change until 2040 at the earliest. We’re royally screwed.
- mattmaroon 3y ago
  Those metrics don’t mean anything because climate models are no more scientific than a monkey with a dart board. That’s exactly the propaganda I mean. It’s like we only have people who either deny climate change is happening at all, or swallow this bullshit wholesale, and nothing in between. We have the technology to generate all of the energy we need from renewables. We have electric cars. We can use as much energy as we want and still get back to 1800s level carbon emissions if we just decide it’s worth paying for, and the worse things get, the more we’ll think that. We’re not going to wait until New York is under water. It’s now even getting to where we are doing so just because it is cheaper. In 2040 nobody will be building a fossil fuel plant. Barely anyone is now. Over 80% of new power generation is renewable globally, a number that will only increase. It’ll be fine.
  - MattRix 3y ago
    I feel like you’re missing the point? Once the temperature has risen it’ll already be too late, it doesn’t really matter if you then reduce carbon emissions after that point because all kinds of drastic non-reversible effects will have taken place.

monero-xmr 3y ago

The climate has been changing forever. Mesopotamia was once fertile and tropical, now it's Iraq. Humans survived the ice age. There is no such thing as a constant environment. Are humans causing climate change? Absolutely. Is the world going to become uninhabitable? No. We adapt, we use technology. Don't depress yourself into nihilism. Apocalyptic thinking has a rich history, you are becoming a member of yet another fad.

MattRix 3y ago
This is pure hubris. It is absurd to say “don’t worry, we’ll adapt” while also telling the people who care about climate change that they’re taking this too seriously.
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  I'm not saying "don't care", but to literally think the human race is going to go extinct, and to stop reproducing or wish people would stop, and to live in general anxiety and fear, is absurdly ridiculous.
forgotmyinfo 3y ago
Yes, and when the climate changes too much, everything dies. I mean, I don't see too many dinosaurs left. The sheer hubris to think that it can't happen again...
- the_doctah 3y ago
  Yes the climate changes quite rapidly when an massive asteroid strikes the planet
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  Some would wish to end the human race, suicide, stop reproducing. My solution is to just adapt, create new technology, get air conditioners. I'm old enough to remember the UN telling us we would all be dead from climate change by the year 2000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Environment_Programme#:~:text=UNEP%20in%201989%2C%2034%20years,the%20effects%20of%20climate%20change%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Environment_Pro....

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

treyd 3y ago

Humans lived in a symbiotic relationship with the ecosystems we were in for thousands of years, even after developing agriculture. Humanity is not the source of the problem. It only became a systemic issue after we developed industrial farming practices without regard for the delicate balances we relied on, by way of extracting the nutrients in the soil to sell on the market in some way or another. This isn't to say we need to dismantle industrial farming, but we should alter the ways we do agriculture to be more conscientious of the natural environment and promote sustainable agriculture. But this may be impossible without some serious crisis in the short/medium term.

tomrod 3y ago
We developed these practices to prevent starvation. Unless we have industrialized fungi production for protein replacement, industrial farming is here for awhile longer.
- teaearlgraycold 3y ago
  > industrialized fungi production for protein replacement, industrial farming is here for awhile longer. What do you mean? This sounds like industrial farming.
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    To feed 8 Billion, we will need 'industry'. But we can make it more friendly. Technology has advanced, it can be the problem and the solution also. Like vertical farming without soil. Or some fungi or insect protein factories, that are powered by solar.
  - tomrod 3y ago
    And done well, it need not be land bound or even earth bound.
xbmcuser 3y ago
Humans living with nature for 1000s of years is a bullshit comparison. Human population was less than 1-200 million for those thousands of years. Now it is 8+ billion. The largest cause is the Worlds economic system where we need population to keep growing so that demand keeps growing which results in supply growth and the cycle keeps going on getting bigger. I feel AI powered with cheap renewables like solar and wind is going to end this cycle the result could be non violent population decrease over time but because of how rapid the change will be and how fast it will take economic opportunity out of lot of people hands I think a huge war is more likely.

komali2 3y ago

Climate depression is understandable and I'm not sure what's going on with the replies - is HN a hub for climate change denialism now? Human-caused climate change is as much an established fact as is possible in this field. Alternative "theories" are as much as an established non-fact as is possible in this field. Here are 428 references on the subject which will need to be disputed in order to change that fact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change#References https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change#References (not actually 428 because there's multiple references to the same paper but in different locations, etc. You get my point.) Despite actions like UK declaring a climate emergency, the Paris Agreement, etc, it's not clear to me that the world is going to take the actions necessary to prevent massive climate-change related disasters. When those disasters take root and trigger refugee crises the likes of which human society has never encountered, any green-energy and green-material initiatives are probably out the door as nations turn to the cheapest, fastest, shortest-term energy and materials solutions possible to either handle the influx of refugees or the war materials needed to turn them away. What are you seeing that makes you think this won't be the case? Are you seeing improvements in green technology and believe those will be deployed quickly enough to curtail climate change? I'm skeptical: we had a huge reduction in emissions lain at our doorstep by COVID and for many industries work continued unabated as we did our jobs from home, but irrational established mentalities are forcing emissions back up by making people come into the office at threat of firing. If green energy, green materials, or sustainable practices offend established sensibilities in the same way, why would they take root?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
the_doctah 3y ago
You linked a wikipedia reference section about climate change, suggesting people need to argue those points, and then immediately devolved into doomsaying with a theoretical war with refugees after theoretical "massive" climate-change-caused disasters.
- komali2 3y ago
  I demonstrated that in order to dispute human-caused climate change, someone certainly has their homework set out for them! :) Then I shared why many of my generation don't believe we can turn away from this, not because of our technology, but because of our sociology, our politics. Similar to how people believe AI will "free people from labor" despite improvements in technology almost never reducing labor loads but instead just getting people fired.

MattRix 3y ago

While I agree that climate change is an awful disaster, I think humans are way more valuable than you give us credit for. Can beauty exist without someone capable of experiencing it?

defrost 3y ago
Many things that some humans subjectively describe as beautiful have existed without humans, many even predate the evolution of humans.
- MattRix 3y ago
  I didn’t say we create beauty, I said we experience it. What is the point of beauty if no intelligent creature is around to appreciate it?
  - defrost 3y ago
    \1 What we as humans experience is subjective to humans. \2 Who's to say animals don't experience beauty, primates, dolphins, octopus, etc are all pretty high on the IQ scale and likely have EQ. \3 Lastly, what makes human experience such an important factor for the environment in any case? Modern humans have been about at most 2 million years while life on earth has been about for magnitudes more time.
    - MattRix 3y ago
      1. Our specific individual experiences are subjective, but the fact that we experience things is not. 2. It’s possible that some animals can experience some amounts of beauty, but certainly not on the level of humans. Also the lives of humans are rich and varied in ways that other animal lives just aren’t. 3. If you don’t see why preserving something as unique as humans is important… I don’t think you’re really considering how special we are.