To feel so anxious about the future: Climate crisis: 11,000 scientists warn of ‘untold suffering’

[Faceache25]

From an article in the Guardian yesterday. I have made many significant personal changes already, will be voting green, have been involved in campaign groups. But it feels like so little in the face of such a huge catastrophe, I find it difficult to stay positive and not just despair for the future, and for what my child may face in their lifetime.

How do you stay positive?

One aspect which isn't discussed much (yet) is what an utterly joyless world it's likely to be in the future. (Though we seem to be practising for it now

Agreed. If we all do what we probably need to do it’s going to be pretty shit.

Just imagine what local vegan food in the UK in January’s going to be like. Hope everyone likes turnip.

On one hand dogs are bad, however in our part of the world a husky sled team can replace a car.

Technology can often advance leaps and bounds, but Don't really on battery improvements to fix transport.

Needs a lot more free public transport and perhaps a change to how we live

Rely I think ( re-lie) not really

It doesn't need to be joyless.

Tbh, the average Brit is not more joyful than the average person anywhere else in the world. The correlation between happiness and carbon footprint is pretty small

( although I am a turnip lover)

It doesn't need to be joyless

I don’t know how you avoid this tbh.

People will have to give up stuff they’ve become very used to. It’s much harder to forgo these things than if you never had them.

Foreign holidays, ease of driving everywhere, pets, having many kids, imported food, meat and dairy, plentiful use of central heating / electricity, new toys, clothes, house stuff.

I’d miss a lot of that.

I think the icc report does not say you have to give up all that stuff

Yes, less meat and diary. But many thousands of people are already managing that no not feeling that their quality of life has deteriorated
Foreign holidays .. one big trip a year , a month would be nice, not lots of small weekends ?
Central heating...yes you can have that, if the government pulls its finger out as it would probably rely on electricity which needs to be produced renewable
No you can not be drive as much ( I'll be saving my miles allowance for holidays) , but wouldn't it be nice to not sit in a traffic jam every morning? And perhaps we should change the overall work life balance so things can be done slower, allowing us time to walk and cycle mor which will make us fitter and happier. There is no fundamental law of physics that says. 40hr week is crucial to humanity. The money and value are human society choices not laws of physics so again, full time wage for a shorter working week is perfectly reasonable
Perhaps we will get more things locally
Big changes but achievable. And probably positive for many people

@LaurieMarlow your post made me laugh, especially since yesterday a pumpkin and I had quite a battle before the pumpkin agreed to be sufficiently chopped up enough to get in the flippin' oven (and we have sharp knives. Or we had sharp knives. I'll have to sharpen them again now. On a sharpener that's predominantly made from plastic).

@MIdgebabe It isn't just the aspects you've mentioned, some of which will be very positive (more deriving energy from sunlight, for instance, not driving as far/as often, not being as materialistic). It's other things that make me sad. You must have noticed how many bird populations, for instance, have been declining in recent years? (Well, apart from seagulls.) And partly due to people concreting over front gardens and sticking artificial grass down, you don't see as many butterflies in urban areas as you used to (yes, I know it varies year on year - I did the Big Butterfly Count!). I'm old enough to remember the Year of the Ladybirds, for instance - I can't remember the last time I saw an English ladybird, and we have a nice little garden with lots of plants that insects love...

And on the one hand, DOGS ARE BAD but on the other hand some breeds are great ratters....(or should we be leaving the rat population to breed to infinity in the interests of "be kind to all living creatures"? Maybe the next time one wiggles its segmented behind into our shed I shouldn't send the cats and the sonar in...)

This isn’t a scientific review - it’s just a letter with incredibly vague language and imprecise non-scientific ramblings. The people who signed it don’t even say why they’ve signed it. Not only that but some clever young person has actually bothered to do some proper research, you know like journalists who aren’t just activists are supposed to do, and went through the actual names on the document and discovered some fascinating “scientists” amongst the signatories, such as “Mickey Mouse” and “Dumbledore from Hogwarts” and “Araminta Aardvark”. The petition is now offline.

In other words it’s bullshit.

You don’t have to jump every time the Guardian tells you to, you know. Unless you like being a useful idiot for people who want to destroy capitalism, of course.

@Jillyhilly good point, though my observations are based on 50+ years on the planet, keeping diaries, and having worked in a support profession to medics/scientists so making sure responses are evidence-based is important to me.

Meh. I chose not to have children and that is considered the biggest contributor to climate change. I’m keeping my meat eating dog.

Whilst everyone can have a small impact it will take wide scale government change to make any discernible difference; better public transport links, a focus on renewable energy, less reliance on plastic and packaging, heavy fines for poorly performing companies, a focus on the sciences such as synthetic biology to help clean up our planet (I’m fascinated by plastic eating bacteria for example) etc banning plastic straws and buying second hand is less then a drop in the ocean

I'm not sure if its possible or reasonable to stay positive, as there isn't any hope really.

What has helped me cope is getting involved in the climate change protests. I wasn't going to go as I thought it would make me more depressed. But actually it felt good to be surrounded by like minded people who understand and care. I realised I feel the most hopeless when talking to/reading comments by people who are deniers or just out right uneducated.

Of course it won't help, the government isn't listening and doesn't care. But irrationally it made me feel better.

Again there is always a pending cataclysm! No we don't have to give up meat, transport, or central heating! We adapt as we always have. As per my last post industry will change and we will follow, probably with more travel!

Good grief! Don't feel depressed or panicked! I've lived through so many pending disasters- live your life as well as you can. Yes this kind about your impact, but if you are miserable or depressed isn't that a wasted carbon footprint? Relax a little and make that footprint damage worthwhile!

cannycat yes, there are a a lot of bad things happening now, but if we are to fight climate change and environmental disaster, I know we can change those things around. I miss starlings swirling.

We need to design housing estates better ...bring back verges and grassy play areas. We need to reduce car use so that we don't need space for 4 cars at every house. We need to change farming, so that fewer harsh chemical are needed, and smaller fields with more hedges . Productivity suffers, but if we are using less grain to feed animals we can more than recover that loss

People need to stop having children then. Far worse but I suppose things aren’t THAT bad...

Do what fits in with your life. I no longer buy cling film, I recycle, switched to a shampoo bar, use plastic boxes when buying produce from the market, use bags for life etc.

We don't need to stop having children. Hyperbolic.
Why not go the whole hog, and suggest mass annihilation of the whole human race? Now.
We need to reduce the environmental impact of us and our children. If you are not prepared to make any changes, then don't have children but it is possible for a large h7man population to live on this planet without changing it to the extent that human survival becomes difficult

I'm curious- how does having a dog impact carbon footprint

Driving them to places to take them for a walk. Plus all the other aspects a pp mentioned.

Perhaps it's because I'm old enough to remember when the comming cataclysm was running out of oil, the next one was the ozone layer, then warming now climate change

Yes, weren't we supposed to have run out of oil by now? It's surprising, given that, that we are still so dependent on it, you'd have thought there would be more alternatives. It does show that nothing gets done until it has to be done - so the OP may well have a point.

The alternative sources of electricity only go so far. There was an item on a TV programme last week about a solar farm near Broken Hill in Australia which is supposed to be one of the sunniest places in the world. The site is 14 hectares I think (I may have that wrong). They said it generates enough power for Broken Hill (20,000 homes). Admittedly they said it powers industry in the area too, but that seemed to me to be a lot of solar panels for not that much electricity.

We don't need to stop having children. Hyperbolic

We need to stop having so many.

I am all for doing my bit for the enviroment, one car ,DH cycles to work .holidays sometimes on South Coast. Sometimes US ,as friends there.We have a dog ! and she has a low protein diet as Dals cant take too much ,unable to process it .However we as a small country ,can only do so much .What about Countries like China ,India and so on .Are they able to cut their emissions at all ?.

We have been able to produce more CO2 than volcanoes - this is really scary. Not to mention that the number of wild animals alive now is 50% of those in 1970. There is 9x more CO2 going into the atmosphere per year than at the Paleogene Thermal Maximum 55 MYa - when global tempeatures were 8C higher than now and there were temperate rain forests in the high Arctic.

I don't want to be hyperbolic but the reward for complacency is mass death.
That and the fact I am quite the jet-setter because conferences...quite hard to do everything by Skype.

I'm scared OP I won't lie and feel pretty hopeless quote often. I've spent 40 years 'following' climate change and it's so depressing esp re the rainforest.

Some days I feel a bit more hopeful though, yes the ozone layer - we realised what was going on and pulled back from that, same as acid rain - remember that?! The planet is in trouble though there is no doubt about that 🌎😪

How do you stay positive?

I don't. Or at least not in the way you mean. I don't feel particularly negative about it either.

Climate change is inevitable whatever we do. Whilst I totally believe that humans have sped up the process I don't believe we can claw back the damage we've done. Or the damage that occurs naturally.

The effect true change would take a global collective effort and, realistically, that won't happen. If we can't agree what's right to do on a local level there's a cat in hell's chance of agreeing globally. It would also be a radical change to the way people live their lives currently - which I doubt enough people would want to do.

I wonder if there's been any generation who hasn't worried about the world their children are going to grow up in?

I have two diesel cars, one a 4 x 4, four kids, three dogs. Fly for work four times a year.

I do have a reusable coffee cup though.