To be utterly frightened about our future?

[TheLastLeopard]

50% of the world's wildlife has disappeared in just two generations. Everyone from scientific organisations to accountants is predicting huge, devastating and irrevocable events wrought by climate change.

My parents feared nuclear war. Their parents lived through/fought in WWII. We are looking at something even worse: the systematic destruction of our environment, leading to famine, extreme weather events and widespread extinction - and I'm not concerned about the giant panda with that one (although that's incredibly sad in itself) but about the fact that our food supplies will dwindle.

Is there any hope? Because I am terrified! For the first time I am wondering if I was foolish to bring children into this world - will they be fighting wars over food in 20 years time?

Sorry this is so bleak. But even though we're faced with all the statistics I feel like we're still sleepwalking into oblivion and I just want to shout WAKE UP!

I agree. Staving off disease and famine will require more and more resources, and the required resources can't possibly keep pace with population growth. People only really give a shit about this stuff when it reaches their own backyards so there's little help for developing nations.

No one really gives a shit, do they? Everyone's just burying their heads in the sand.

:(

Look at the range of excuses just on this thread for why the situation is hopeless/we are impotent/there's no point doing anything ergo we can just bury our heads and carry on as before. I agree it's very hard to stare it in the face, but there is still time to avoid the most catastrophic consequences IF we take it seriously enough and commit ourselves to the task.

And I don't mean by separating our rubbish. I mean by sustained political activism and pressure to end an age of global capitalism which is entirely contrary to the interests of our environment.

I feel slightly better knowing that environmentalists such as Jonathon Porritt, Mark Lynas and George Monbiot have had children.

But I do worry a great deal about climate change, the loss of habitats and wildlife, overpopulation, global poverty and much more. I remember my grandparents saying we were all doomed back in the 1990s. I met Porritt in 1994 and he said then that he reckoned we only had 10 years or so to change things.

It is also easy to go about our lives without thinking much about all these issues, despite their importance. There seems to be no real will by political leaders and often individuals to change anything by more than a token amount.

political activism and pressure, yes - but USE LESS.

think about everything you do. Waste nothing. Throw away as little as possible = there is no 'away'.

Yes it scares the hell out of me. Then I have to go read some bloody thread where MN's are washing towels after EVERY use and their bedding daily because of some fear of their own skin cells. Then I realise there is a world of these total selfish idiots and there is no hope.

trots off to put head in the over alongside home made lasagne

This is a massive source of anxiety for me. We need both to tread lightly in our own lives AND sustained activism. We have to show through political voice AND consumer choice how important we think saving our environment is. Money and power talk to each other but collectively, grass roots influence can play a part.

Here's something that needs your attention right now: The Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership is being negotiated behind closed doors between the EU and the US. It will allow private corporations to sue governments that introduce measures which dent their profits - including environmental safeguards.

here's a petition.

Lobby your MEPs via their websites. Lobby your Westminster MPs. There's an election next year; tell your local candidates what they should be doing for you.

Question the provenance of everything you buy. Insurance companies have started to invest in protecting the Amazon. Does yours? What does your pension fund invest in? Cotton is a highly water intensive crop; can you buy second-hand? Is your electricity supplier 100% renewable? There are things we can all do and lead our kids by example.

It's not all doom and gloom though

It's dreadful but something dreadful might be what the world needs to actually do something. Many of us wander around thinking how awful it all is but don't actually do anything to change. I know I'm guilty of that. I'm sat here thinking the world has to change but I'm off on an overseas holiday next week.

Of course environmental disaster has always been 30 years in the future. green party doc from 1972 predicts:

1. all worlds oil used up by 2000
2. Severe world food shortages by 2002
3. there is no hope of undeveloped nations improving thier standards of living
4. High risk of nuclear war
5. copper, lead, platinium, tin and zinc all run out before 2015
6. There will be no significant increase in food yield per acre (in reality since 1973 productivity has grown by 49%)
7. Reduced technology, so no internet on which to review and discuss the errors

That's not a reason to do nothing in the face of the science we have today.

I don't know if you are BU or not OP. When I was younger growing up in a very violent NI, with the threat of nuclear destruction hanging over my young head (I am that old), I was terrified for the future.

But we got through it.

The thing is, People are brilliant! Not all of them and not all the time, but we are pretty brilliant at coming up with solutions to hard problems. Even when we don't mean to. At the end of the 19th century our cities were drowning in horse dung. An International Covention was called to find a solution. It ended early as no one could find a solution.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, very clever people were working on an internal combustion engine. This solved the problem of horses and copious amounts of manure grinding our cities to a halt and the related health problems. Of course the solution created problems of its own, but everything has a cost.

I guess what I'm saying is that when you have people, you have hope. And sometimes the answers to problems are provided by those who aren't working on the problem. Be conscientious, be ethical, but please don't be terrified. Life is too brilliant to spend it being frightened.