People are pessimistic precisely because they are aware that if we don't do something about the climate crisis, everything will come crashing down. Being optimistic about it, you might say "don't worry, they'll work out a plan" (whoever they are), and then carry on as before, but being pessimistic, you're more likely to think "we'd better do something, and NOW!".
When you realise that Live Aid was one of the earliest reactions to the climate disaster, and that it was OVER 30 YEARS AGO and no real progress has been made: CO2 emissions have continued to rise exponentially, almost unabated.
When you realise that, you realise there is no cause for optimism.
> When you realise that Live Aid was one of the earliest reactions to the climate disaster, and that it was OVER 30 YEARS AGO and no real progress has been made: CO2 emissions have continued to rise exponentially, almost unabated.
The Ethiopian famine, like most modern famines, was largely a failure of government, not a climate problem. People starved because food couldn't move due to strife, and much of that was intentional. Yes, there was a drought, but droughts happen all the time and all over the place, and in a functioning, non-warring country, it's not nearly as calamitous. Live Aid very probably made the situation worse by funding more conflict.
If most people are pessimistic for that reason, why havent they done anything about it?
If you're worried about the zombie apocalypse, you start prepping, you don't start complaining about how rubbish the world is because the apocalypse is coming and no ones prepared for it.
We haven't because we are much more social than we realize. We don't want to break social conventions, if possible. We don't want to tell people who are talking with joy about having kids or exotic vacations or luxury cars that they should hold back. Even though we all know that these things are the cause of the problem.
We are facing a collective procrastination of sorts. Just like when you procrastinate, you know very well that you should be doing something else, and you can even be pessimistic about it. Yet you don't.
That's why the governments, people in charge, need to take action, at the very least, start talking about it openly. Then the rest will follow.
"We don't want to tell people who are talking with joy about having kids or exotic vacations or luxury cars that they should hold back"
But those people, according to you have been worrying about climate change for over 30 years, so they should have made the decision not to fly to their holidays, to buy an electric luxury car.
If everyone is aware of this and spends time worrying about it then you shouldn't have to pressure other people, they would already be doing it.
The fact is, a large number of people don't believe / don't care (enough). That's why you need peer pressure.
Yes, at least in the interest of their own kids. But we are just humans and we fail for human reasons.
> The fact is, a large number of people don't believe / don't care (enough). That's why you need peer pressure.
The peer pressure works both ways. There is also peer pressure to have these fancy things.
Peer pressure is, in a way, a neutral thing. It can work against action or for action. However, without effort it will just pick a high-entropy state of inaction.
When you realise that Live Aid was one of the earliest reactions to the climate disaster, and that it was OVER 30 YEARS AGO and no real progress has been made: CO2 emissions have continued to rise exponentially, almost unabated.
When you realise that, you realise there is no cause for optimism.