#climate doom

⚖️🌱💪 Australia's environmental laws are set for their largest overhaul in decades! The changes include more protections for native forests, stricter rules for land clearing, and a limit on coal and gas projects! Aiming to protect the environment for future generations, the reforms will speed up projects in key areas across the country like housing, renewable energy, and mineral resources.

I think it’s okay to be a doomer.

I know, a doomer saying this is shocking. No, seriously, who could’ve seen this coming? But on a serious note, I don’t agree with the attitude of “but fossil fuel companies want you to give up, you must have hope.” Seriously, it’s like toxic positivity. Yes, fossil fuel companies have used that as a talking point, but I hate to say this… some points fossil fuel companies have made have just straight up been true, like that we need a transition rather than the utopian idea we can just cut off fossil fuel production cold turkey. You know what happens when you do that? Look around. Bad shit. It would lead to starvation. The issue is that they are being insincere. Yes, fossil fuel companies will show interest in renewables, and as they have gotten more profitable/cheap that has increased, but fossil fuels were always the cheaper option, they did not actually care about a transition, but that didn’t mean there was no point. But it does mean they were lying. Hell, fossil fuel companies have done nothing but lobby against change. But unfortunately, I hate to say this, fossil fuels HAVE done good for humanity, too. Plastic is made from crude oil and natural gas, and is used in a lot of medical equipment. Manufacturing usually requires this, too. Pharmaceuticals, some of which are life saving. The Industrial Revolution did a lot of good for humanity, but also a lot of bad. Again, in an ideal world, we would’ve found some way to use solar/wind before we fucked with fossil fuels, but solar and wind can’t replace fossil fuels right now. Nuclear would’ve been a good option, but as I believe society will collapse, probably not a good idea to fw that shit now. Maybe, though? Idk. The point is, we should’ve been doing a transition DECADES ago, but these very companies were sabotaging it.

I don’t agree that people should be hopeful for the sake of it. Look at the facts. The science, even on the conservative IPCC side, is not fucking good looking, and it’s okay to look at where we’re headed, especially taking the aerosol effect into account, and feel despair about it. To feel hopeless. Toxic positivity doesn’t help. It’s a weird form of tone policing IMO. Like, do I think we should give up? No. I think even if we’re fucked, we should fight to be less fucked. I just don’t think “we” will. I don’t believe in a united global “we.” I see no reason people will give up their luxury. And yes, you can’t just blame le evil corporation. Our lifestyles are absolutely not sustainable. No one wants to talk about how damaging meat or dairy is for the environment, they want to “no ethical consumption under capitalism” their way out of it. Again, I’m not vegan for environmental reasons, I’m just saying. It’s just an unfortunate situation.

A good series for collapse-awareness I watched when I first became so was this one. It covers more than just climate, but it’s pretty useful. I also recommend Limits To Growth, but honestly? You don’t actually NEED to read it, it’s 99% charts and shit. But know the basics about it. I’ve read other books about this sort of thing, but honestly, mainly from a survival standpoint. Desert by Anonymous (the essay) is also good. There are, uh, certain popular books I also wouldn’t recommend, like one I read where the author was condescending, annoying and suggested we starve the poors instead of giving up our lifestyles. Yeah, no. And there’s also a common fiction rec that personally I don’t like the writing style of, but maybe that’s just me.

Anyway, while I think being a doomer is okay, I personally have some more limits on certain things than others. Like, just a personal thing? I don’t find the whole “dark humor” collage of jokes people keep making about mass starvation. I find it kind of poor taste. Pretty fucked up considering who it’ll affect first. I actually find the suffering of humans and animals pretty shitty. At least it’ll all be over tho. I hope there isn’t alien life. Look up how many animals currently suffer in the wild… yeah.

And by the way, there’s nothing wrong with having hope, either. I disagree that the situation is solvable, but hey, if you’re doing climate activism, you’re doing a lot more than someone like me, and that’s inherently admirable. 🤷‍♀️

On Tumblr, accounts will pop up in the notes to say shit like "the world is going to end anyways", "we can't do anything", yadda yadda. There's a constant stream of apocalyptic rhetoric across the entire site, as tumblr doomers try to sap as many conversations as possible.

Meanwhile on reddit, you wouldn't get that sort of proselytism. Maybe it's because of the forum-esque system that reddit uses, maybe it's because you can actually argue in a way that matters, but reddit doomers mostly retreat to their own subreddits.

For my non-reddit followers, you've never heard of r/collapse. Don't! It's one of the worst places on the internet. It's a cultural meld of Q-Anon cultists with a for-profit suicide forum, all coated in a wet coat of "leftism" or "climate realism". It's a subreddit whose main export is SH-adjacent "I'm better than you for feeling worse" rhetoric. Facts and progress don't matter, because at the end of it all, the world ends.

It has 500,000 members. It's not a small subreddit by any metric. And they all stay there.

If you've reblogged a post on Tumblr with the caption "climate change will get us regardless", you need to understand that you are in a pipeline that leads to communities like this. The only motivation is to hit the bottom first, and your nihilism is exploitable for attention.

Progress has been made and will continue to be made. Remember, problems like CFCs and acid rain have been effectively solved--not by capitalism, but by effective targeted regulation. That ocean temperature graph you're all obsessed with right now? That's a direct result of new UN policy banning many harmful emissions from cruise ships, which has let more sunlight hit the ocean.

“It is so easy to look at everything that’s happening and think that our planet is on fire and that we are all going to die. That we have reached the point of no return and that there is nothing that can be done. [...] I need you to try to listen to what I am about to say.

When it comes to the climate crisis, there isn’t a singular point of no return. There are lots of them. We have not crossed them all. The earth has survived way, way worse than us, and it has bounced back every single time. And it can bounce back from this. But when you convince yourself that we have irrevocably damaged our planet, you are playing right into the hands of the fossil fuel industry. They want you to be trapped in hopelessness and apathy and despair, because that means they can keep getting away with what they’re doing. Don’t let them! We can still fix this, and don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise!”

In 2015, two geographers noticed solar panels popping up on houses in their small US state of Connecticut. Curious, they set out to see if they could figure out what predicted who had them. Would they be in richer homes? Or in areas with higher population density?

Early adopters of solar panels tend to be people who are interested in innovative technology, who find an installer they trust, and who think having solar panels will benefit them. But once an early adopter made their choice, the geographers found, a cluster would spring up around them. Having solar panels on a house near you, where you could see them and talk to a real live person who had them, it turned out, was the biggest predictor of whether you’d get them yourself.