#things do change for the better in general just like. slowly and nonlinearly

[ghostcrows]

Human civilisation will definitely make it through climate change intact, and if you live in a developed country, you won't see the worst of it. However, heatwaves, hurricanes, floods, rising sea levels, increasing desertification, species extinctions and wars over scarce natural resources will get more common. It's nuanced! Yes, it's bad to deny or ignore climate change, but it's also bad to get into doomer mode about it! Most issues aren't either "perfectly fine or the end of the world," but somewhere inbetween. I hate how social media's oversimplified world view seems to push us to extremes about this - and just about anything. Both climate denial (it's not happening, it's happening but it's not us, it may be a good thing, etc.) and climate doomerism (the world's going to end no matter what we do, no point in pretending otherwise) promote a "we shouldn't do anything about climate change" mentality. Since climate change denial is increasingly hard to maintain, fossil fuel companies have started to bankroll climate doomers - it has the same "might as well, nothing we can do about it" effect!

It'd be super irresponsible to ignore all the bad things that are already here and will get worse in the future - species extinctions, coastal cities flooded, the spread of deserts, more extreme weather events like heatwaves and floods, etc. But it's also a distorted picture if we don't include the fact that renewable energy is becoming really cheap and widespread, cities and countries are starting to do something about the problem, and the flip side of increased effects of climate change is increased awareness and calls for action. Human population growth is slowing and we're predicted to stabilise at around 10 billion by 2080. Already we've avoided the worst case scenario predictions from 10-20 years ago. Back then there was legitimate talk of temperature rises up to 6 degrees C by 2100, which would have been a mass extinction level catastrophe. Now the worst case scenario looks about 3 degrees C by 2100 - STILL ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE MIND YOU! But also literally not the end of the world. Also, back then the problem seemed insurmountable as fossil fuels seemed the only way to power our planet to allow everyone to have a high standard of living. That's no longer true. We now know what to do to solve the climate crisis, and we now CAN do it! It's just a matter of political will. Also, bear in mind the climate isn't a binary switch going from "everything's fine" to "the end of the world" in an eyeblink, it's not a yes/no thing but a spectrum! Huge and irreversible environmental damage has already been done that we can't fix, sadly, but we still have an enormous scope for slowing and stopping climate change before it gets TOO bad, and maybe even reversing it in the distant future! A lot of people seem to see the future as a choice between an uninhabitable wasteland and a glittering paradise with advanced technology. But the world is already a mix of both in some ways, and will probably continue to be! I don't get why we have to pick between utopia and dystopia and assume that every little step away from utopia is inevitably a step into dystopia. The future probably won't be perfect and it won't be catastrophic - it'll probably be "eh, alright I guess?," with ups and downs like the present and the rest of human history. The great thing about the climate crisis is that it's a human crisis and that's why it's a good idea to be optimistic. Faith in humanity isn't like, for example, faith in religion. Either God exists or he doesn't, and your belief can't change that either way. Same with optimism and pessimism about a disease, a natural disaster or anything else you can't change. But if you believe in humanity, that will affect your actions as a human, and if enough of us do, that will affect our actions as a species. Optimism about the human future is a self-fulfilling prophecy! So - let's not ignore the climate crisis, but let's not fall into doomerism either. Let's have climate action fired up by enthusiastic optimism about the fact that a better world really is possible - we can do this! We can save the world!

You're right

Thank you for sending this cause I get very doomer mode about it all and it's definitely not conducive to action at all you are right about that . And it's good to hear from someone who does have hope in a realistic way

I believe in a better earth...change the world my final message goodbye