Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
[flagged] Ask HN: What stage of grief are you at regarding climate change?
26 points by drsopp 11 months ago | hide | past | favorite | 63 comments
Five years ago I joined the "green party" in my country wanting to make a difference with regards to climate change. I found out I'm not really cut for political activism, so I left after a couple of years. When I read about record after record being broken these days, I realized that I am at stage 5: acceptance with regards to climate change. We are going down, and there is nothing I can do about it. What stage are you?



Acceptance at this point, but still this deep sadness. It hurts knowing the irreparable damage we've done and continue to do to our only home, but I don't lay awake at night freaking out about it anymore.

I left tech to pursue med school - I feel compelled to do something to help other people now, with all of the looming problems in front of us. And feeling like I'm doing more than just making monthly donations to NRDC and others helps.

We'll survive as a species... but many people will die and we'll lose a lot of Earth's natural beauty and diversity.

I had a gut feeling that we wouldn't do anything to cut emissions until we were feeling the repercussions on a regular basis and sadly that seems to be the case.


>Five years ago I joined the "green party" in my country wanting to make a difference with regards to climate change.

The green party of my country has successfully revitalized the coal industry, by getting rid of nuclear energy.

My "stage of grief" is that even in western countries only a minority cares. Outside of the west they regard it as an inevitable crisis where the only question is what you can do now to come out on top. Believing that climate change can be stopped by political activism (especially by a group of hypocrits) when the two largest popultion groups on earths clearly are not interested in stopping it, at best, extremely naive.


I used to be scared, but lately I'm starting to change my mind.

I'm not saying it's not an issue, it's just that I'm very optimistic for the (near) future. And most of the scare comes from some very wrong estimates of expert's inability to recognise an S Curve of progress and not a linear one.

I recommend everyone to watch the Brighter series of videos from RethinkX [1]

Especially in episode 5 there's some graphs with every year's estimate of coal use and renewables that are really crazily wrong. I really can't understand how can "experts" be so wrong for tens of years and keep going.

It's already cheaper to install PV & Wind instead of any other fossil fuel alternative. And the price is only going down with scale. Also battery prices are going down so the problem of renewables intermittency will be solved as well.

Also, because of the fact that we need to have more power installed than consumption (because of intermittency) we will have more and more extra power (what Tony Seba from RethinkX calls Superpower or what we hear lately in news that energy price is negative). And with that what we can do is dump that energy into CO2 capture that was not feasible before because it was generating more CO2 with the power it used than what it captured.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk9VQt5Nt64&list=PLxB143vg5_...


I was a lot more jaded than I currently am. I recently switched jobs to a food eco calculation app [1], and while yes there are problems there's much better advice out there now for how you can contribute, rather than just "switch off your lights". We've been working on recipe swaps so you can see kgs off your daily habits.

Also speaking with clients, corporations want to help. Yes there is some marketing and tax incentive, but we've seen more interest in making permanent change beyond just a PR stunt.

[1] https://klimato.co


"We are going down"

Really? That's no way to live man, cheer up. No one can predict the future, and doomsayers have always been around and will always be around. Sure: things might get hairy, but even then we will manage (or perhaps some of us will).

And if not: then not. Enjoy yourself in the meantime while doing the best you can in terms of being environmentally conscious


Thanks for your encouraging words. I am a stoic though, and this impending doom is not really affecting my mood.


Acceptance.

We all know we're watching a slow moving train wreck. We all know our lives are going to be greatly impacted in ways we can't even imagine, up to and including dying as a result. We all know we could have prevented this catastrophe but refused to do so for reasons.

What I sincerely hope is as humanity comes out the other side of this disaster, they will have learned how to spot the disingenuous, the charlatans, and the liars. Those people will still exist, of course, and there will still be people swayed by them, but hopefully they'll be on the fringe and have no power to effect their lunacy.

This may not happen of course, but I hope it does. Which brings me to the sixth stage of grief: hope. Now that I've accepted what's going to happen to us, I hope our civilization is so much the stronger for it and we can set aside the BS that's been plaguing us for centuries once and for all.


Is feeling sorry for the billion or so people unconstructively worried about this a stage of grief? All the big trends that will solve this particular subset of ecological disaster are trending in the right direction (population growth is about to reverse in the coming decades, electric cars, better insulation, renewable energy, governments have even begun thawing to the ultimate solution of nuclear energy) so sit back, live your life and stop wasting energy on worrying when you could be a lot more productive on smaller problems that have no clear positive trend (read beat first things for some ideas).

Note: this is not to say don't worry at all about climate change, just that the big picture trends are moving in the right direction for a reversal so the appropriate level of worry isn't at the point where you should be stopping basic things like family formation, like many of you have.


I'm not concerned, for some reason. I an optimistic that humanity will deal with climate change and avoid catastrophe.


I'm also in the 'denial' stage(1). Cars are quickly electrifying, CO2 consumption per capita is dropping. I'm also totally convinced we can find more extreme solutions (solar reflection, nuclear powered co2 absorption, etc, ) if we get really desperate

(1) I don't deny the potential impacts of climate change and the need for something to be done, rather, I'm in denial that there will be a catastrophe (and very selfishly I acknowledge that it will be a catastrophe for others).


Total CO2 emissions are only increasing however, and the rate of increase is increasing too.

The problem is that CO2 emissions values are largely estimated and modeled. So there are model precision issues, and political bias issues of the model author (include some factor, exclude, give different weight etc.). On the other hand actual CO2 level in the atmosphere can be measured directly and can't be fudged in any way. It's a cold uncaring fact which we can't appease or talk to persuade.


When I check per capita for the US(1) and countries in Europe(2) you can see it is droping rapidly. Yes increases in overall gdp is causing overall increases in co2 but we have grounds for optimism.

I really do want to emphasize that we need to do something about the situation. But, my view is more of being in a house with hundreds of dirty dishes with more piling up by the minute. Yes if we did nothing about it the house would fill with rot and insects and we will all die. But, much is already being done and my suspicion/delusion is the amount of effort will only increase as the problem gets worse.

1 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon... 2 i looked at Germany and France.


I started studying science when I was 7. I tried to get people to learn it as well, but nobody wanted to. Just nobody. Then when they didn't like some results of scientific process, they came up with most stupid pseudoscientific arguments why things are actually the way they want them to be. When I understood that the same people vote for our leaders, I thought we'll be doomed for sure..

That's how I've seen the world. My grief has always been that with current scientific process and progress of technology we should be moving much faster towards better, more just world. Instead climate change, the first major problem we encountered with our new technology and powers, we completely screwed up our response and are taking a huge risk of massive loss of lives and ecosystems, while we're fighting about the most stupid stuff and choosing ridiculous leaders with bad reasons. Instead of critical thought, lots of people just get stuck with opinions they want to have, no matter how clearly they're wrong and based on lies and feelings.

And I've felt it's quite hard to stay motivated in this world. My motivation has always been really finicky, I can get extremely motivated on correct circumstances, but have a complete lack of motivation when things are wrong. During past decades these have led me to do a lot of drinking (I've finally mostly stopped few years back) and progressing through life really slowly, sometimes just stopping for months or even a year. I wish I could get over it, but it feels harder and harder. Everything I predicted how the future would be screwed came through, just much much worse I ever could have figured. Even if we beat climate change, there's other problems on the way and I'm not so optimistic how we'll handle those. Feels though to try to be building a better future when it feels most people don't even try or care, when they could affect so much change for better for so little.


I'm fairly positive in believing the tech and government regulation are probably going to save us from the very worst of climate change.

My faith in humanity generally has been near fatally wounded by this experience though, so if any other big problem appears I can see us ending civilization rather than sorting it out.


For thousands of years, there has been a creepy-looking guy on the corner, with a cardboard sign that says "REPENT - THE END IS NEAR", and just because she's a 20-year-old autistic Swede right now doesn't make the message any more credible or relevant.

I personally prefer the guy carrying the sign that reads "KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON" because that's the best individual action we can take.


While I do agree that panic is unhelpful, the "who" is holding the doom sign does make quite the difference, in the same way you'd pay more attention to an oncologist giving you 6 months to live than you'd do to a random guy with a cardboard sign giving you 6 months to live.

The issue is not so much the sign being held by a young activist, but from all the other 100's of k's of scientists and experts behind it.


And what about when you get to see their doomsday come and go? I don't mean to pick on our young Swede, as she's hardly alone in this pattern. But this [1] is a Tweet from her from 5 years ago: "A top climate scientist is warning that climate change will wipe out all of humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years." She chose to delete that Tweet recently, which makes it look even worse.

One can try to argue that she was misinterpreting or misrepresenting something, or her source was junk, or whatever else. But in the end that's what she chose to put on her sign. Where were those "100's of k's of scientists and experts" 5 years ago, telling her that such comments were inappropriate sensationalism? This is really pushing people, including myself, away from caring at all about this issue.

[1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20210520015841/https://twitter.c...


So a 15 year old posting an article with bad predictions is enough for you to not care about climate change? Did it predict that the doomsday would be in 2023 or later if we did not reduce or stop emissions by 2023?

EDIT: Found a Forbes article on it. Seems pretty reasonable, though Greta posted a sensationalised headline of it so I guess all climate change science can be safely ignored now.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2018/01/15/carbon-p...


Read the post that started this, "The issue is not so much the sign being held by a young activist, but from all the other 100's of k's of scientists and experts behind it."

Those "100's of k's of scientists and experts" are completely happy to abide sensationalism, and that's the problem. It leaves me with 0 confidence in anything of what's said, and climate papers are written, in my opinion, in an intentionally obfuscating fashion. I can comfortably read the latest papers in astrophysics or quantum mechanics, yet I find climate papers completely, and needlessly, obtuse.

So I clearly cannot trust what anybody says, I cannot comfortably read the papers. That leaves me left to look at what I've seen happen over the past ~20 years (and what apparently happened in the 20 before it, though that was before my time) and assume that will be the ongoing trend. In that case, climate change is really just not a particular concern for me anymore.


"come and go". Did it go?

What about the Pakistan floods? What about the rising temperature trends and acidification of the oceans? What about the heatwaves and etc. I mean I could go on forever...

Yes, there is sentationalism sometimes. But things are looking potentially really dire. Maybe they are overestimating probabilities but "the chances of being eaten by a lion on wall streets are very, very low. But one time would be enough". If the cost of an event is very severe, the Expected value of the risk is high.


> This is really pushing people, including myself, away from caring at all about this issue.

That is, at best, a childish reaction and, at worst, a sign of oppositional behaviour disorder.

Think about it. Virtually every climatologist is in unified agreement — a rarity among scientists — that extremely difficult climate conditions are going to cause extreme suffering and upheaval. Just the crop failures alone will force mass migration and, inevitably, mass conflict.

But because some kid half a world away engaged in hyperbole, you reject it all. “I just don’t care any more, because «100’s of k’s of scientists and experts» didn’t put her in her place.”

I mean, seriously? That’s just mental.


Her sign is more credible because it's backed by basically every scientific institution, not because she's an autistic Swede.


I agree for some of us, Greta is not doing good PR for this topic. I like the more calm, scientific approach. That being said i think that many people really don't care UNTIL it hurts them directly.

Until then i am on the Kepp calm and carry on boat, but i share my practices of ressourcefulness to others. That starts with how i wash my hands over better planning my food logistics to reduce spoilage/waste to driving around unnecessarily.

I think small things multiplied by thousands of people go a long way and it's really the only thing i can do.


I love how Greta annoys some predominantly 30+ men. "You're supposed to be talking about climate change, but not like that!"

How to say you're an aging white man without saying it explicitly.


I've been thinking a lot about what my problem is. It's the talking itself. and talking and talking. It's this instagram-twitter good-riddance "i spread the message for karma" thing that's so hip today. Everybody presents the message, and only the corpos are to blame.

Where's the leverage the consumer has with their behaviour? Why don't we use that? Because it's uncomfortable. People want to travel 2 times a year, they want infinite stock in the supermarket, they want more, now, fast.

I don't mind people talking. But at the end it's useless if these people don't act also until we're fully renewable (or near that)


We still need the talking before anything an happen. In the past 3 years a lot in the public discourse has changed, and climate change is no longer a fringe alarmist issue. It's not enough, but it's one of the few ways to sway the public opinion.


You're low-key confirming the belief that this whole climate change hysteria is more about reducing the economy and quality of life in the west out of racial hatred than anything else. The men at climate change protests are almost exclusively white when I see them, but facts be damned, huh?

If you had said this about any other race your comment would be flagged right now and you might even lose your job if your employer got wind of it. But as things stand, you'd probably be showered with praise if your employer is a big tech, mainstream media, or academia institution.


Eh. I'm not terribly interested in starting a flame war, so you do you.

FWIW, I'm a mid-age white man myself, so no need to be offended for me.


I get it, your mind has been under constant assault for a decade to make you buy into a certain narrative and beliefs, to the point where you think it's OK (virtuous, even! Proclaim it as loud as you can on social media for good boy points! Self-hatred is the most virtuous of hatred after all.) to be racist, because it's against a target deemed valid.

Damn, the shit you've let the establishment feed you...


Man, you know me better than I do, and from 2 internet comments!


The calm scientific approach has been failing to make a meaningful impact for the last couple decades. I am grateful that Greta gets people talking.


I think part of the problem is that "the calm scientific approach" may be apparent to people who work with scientists, read original research study reports, sometimes listen to NPR for entertainment, and generally move in egghead circles.

However, to the general public, science looks like the mild hysteria or sensations attached to every new study by the mainstream media that reports on them. The mainstream media is how the general public consumes their science, and so it's through a deliberately ignorant and sensationalistic filter that wants their engagement and enragement, not their thoughtful and curious discussion.

But hey, it's been about the same for a long time. Remember Greenpeace, and the rainforest controversies in the 70s and 80s? Remember the hole in the ozone layer? There's always room to panic over the environment, calm scentific approach be damned.


People keeping calm and carrying on is the reason we are in this mess. I'm feeling quite weirded out myself how most don't want to talk or understand much about it, just pretending it's not there.


The difference is that one view has an enormous amount of evidence behind it and your all caps sign examples are basically religion.


No matter what stage you're at, actively doing something helps. You don't have to be perfect (because you can't), but keep thinking of ways to make a difference. Plant some trees, even if in the greater scheme of things it might make no difference to the world, it will still make a difference to you.


I'm not accepting it yet, but I'm working on dealing with the anger and sadness better. While it seems that not enough is changing fast enough, a lot is changing actually. The awareness is growing and getting louder. Stay positive, but don't confuse it with expectations in your mind.


Acceptance. But I got there in no time. I'm depressed, that we can be as good and green as we want in EU, we will always have these people having fun just wasting resources like driving rolling coal. We have a globalized world. Covid showed even more issues: We have so many air planes that we cannot really have them all on ground so they are supposed to be airborne. Just looking at Flightradar makes me shudder. We can have nice and green cities, E-cars, bikes, public transport and so on, but I'm also aware of the conditions in Africa and South East asia where thousands of cars, scooter and other outdated tech just pollutes the air and wastes tons by just being stuck in traffic jams. America, where energy is rather cheap, seems to build houses that look like paper to me. Imagine there would be energy passes for buildings that would show how much energy is needed per square meter room it provides. I believe most buildings would his G grades. I'm trying my best to act as rational as I can. I own a car and despite it's sporty type I'm a very judicious driver. I rarely use the breaks to reduce speed by just knowing my care and observe the traffic and situation. After 150k km mileage (60k on my own) I finally decided to replace the brakes. Every time I came in for service they told me, I should renew the brakes. And when I commissioned to renew the brakes the chef called me to ensure if I really wanted to do that because the brakes would last a bit longer. Hilarious! I observe a lot, listen to people's stories, and have come to the conclusion that most people are just not considerate and don't want to be. I understand that it doesn't make sense to lecture them. In 99% it won't change anything. People who are really interested are mostly already optimizing and quite good at it. And then it's circle jerk of a minority while the majority keeps acting dumb from the minority's perspective. All that just leaves me with my depressing thoughts about being a single small being on a planet with billions of people and a stupid system that cannot be improved and most beings just try to get through somehow. And I'm not going to start ranting about all the (energy) waste caused by the greed, profit and lies of minor beings doing scams or powerful beings with great influence in politics and business.


We are not going down. At least it is very unlikely (I wouldn't trust climate models enough to completely rule it out).

Once things are getting too uncomfortable in industrial countries, they will reduce temperatures using geo-engineering and possibly carbon capturing. Today that may be controversial, because people are still dreaming of being able to cut CO2 emissions enough to make a difference, but once things are getting uncomfortable, people will demand a quick relief, and it will be a no-brainer.


And this will most likely create the next horrible side effect we hadn't thought about. Maybe it will make it even worse than it was. But at the time it was a "no-brainer"..


Maybe. Side effects are quite likely. But the bigger the original problem is, the less likely side effects are worse.


I've accepted that we are moving to the worst projection by the end of century, with close to no actions done to start decreasing greenhouse factors. I also suspect that advanced stages of climate change MAY cause an big regional war, or several. So yeah, we can't do much about climate change or (potential) war. At most we can avoid buying property in the soon to be flooded regions or or in the very hot climates.


My state of grief is more related to politics.


For most countries I read about, I think politics and addressing climate change is directly correlated


What stages of grief?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/supersurvivors/20170...


I'm not sure what to think about the fact that this whole thing is playing out exactly like in the movie "Don't Look Up". It's eerie.

I'm between fourth and fifth stage, trying to think how I could best prepare for the uncertain future.


Acceptance. I can't do much more as the blame lies far out of my everyday reach.

I try to focus on the positive things, like the fact that renewables are being rapidly deployed and that the global CO2 emissions have stabilized in the past 10 years.


In The Netherlands we had the heaviest storm on record a few days ago. They said it’s a one in ten years storm. I suspect that the record will be broken in the next few years.

The only thing I do is trying to keep my energy usage as low as possible, but I know it doesn’t matter much. And I vote green, but that vote is wasted, as people care more about keeping refugees out and care less about the future their children and grandchildren will endure. But climate change only creates more refugees.

As long as Capitalism - with its need for endless growth - rules the world we don’t stand a chance. Our wealth and standard of living is based on buying stuff we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like. So we keep on wasting resources, generating needless carbon emissions and nothing will change.

Yes, we deploy more renewable energy to reduce carbon emissions but it will not be enough.

And platforms financed by Paul Graham will help spread misinformation about climate change so the populace will not want to change until it’s too late.


Accepted there's things I can't change, and it seems grim.

Have multiple subscriptions to carbon removal + climate lobbying groups, try to do my part where I can.


>Have multiple subscriptions to carbon removal + climate lobbying groups, try to do my part where I can.

Lol.


Perhaps try to articulate what you find funny about the idea rather than outright mock the person.


I think it is obvious why it is funny that somebody proudly exclaims that he is donating to fraudulent "charities", who totally are going to stop climate change.

What do you think these "charities" are doing? Genuinely curious.


They did not specify the charities they're donating, so it's very hard for me to form an opinion. Perhaps you have a better insight, judging from the confidence you are displaying?


acceptance.

from what i understand, two main sources of power can concretely help in this regard: solar/wind power and nuclear power (note: i didn't say "or", i said "and).

however a lot of greenwashing goes to cover the shortcomings of solar and wind power, meaning we will not have stable, abundant and clean power in time to stop the climate disaster that's coming.


Stage 5. The climate will change. We are not going down. In fact more people eat today than any time in history. Poverty keeps getting smaller and smaller.

5 years ago Greta said we had 5 years.

"I'm not dead. I'd like to go for a walk now."


Greta did not say any of what you said she did, can you look up the actual quote you are thinking of? Poverty is not getting less, burnt forests are poor, and there's more and more of them. Aso please note that collapses happen very slowly, then all at once, unpredictably, up until the last moment expecting predictions is senseless.


The turkey being fed in preparation of thanksgiving is also seeing numbers being better every day


Since you ask, I think that "climate change" is the über-strawman. No one has argued "constant climate".

Good stewardship of the resources of creation is common sense; let our energies be directed at that.


Mass action has to be a little more imaginative.

Capitalists aren't as bright as ppl think. Most are trapped in infinite loops they don't have the creativity or sense to exit.

We saw during COVID companies and supply chains collapsing just cause demand for x y or z dropped off over night.

That's all it takes - targeting demand of one product globally and forcing them out of their loops.


"Capitalists aren't as bright as ppl think." As opposed to communists? Those paragons of intelligence?

Funny how the solution to climate change (and covid, and inflation..) is always strict top-down control. Just eliminate demand, no mention of the coercion needed to make that happen. Always the same solution, by the same people.

Makes me extremely skeptical of the whole climate change enterprise.


It is a scam


I’ve accepted that our parachute is tangled and the reserve chute isn’t releasing. We are plummeting at terminal velocity and there is absolutely nothing to be done but enjoy the feeling of zero gravity, appreciate the sensations of life, and accept that we all die regardless.

Accept it and make the best of the short time that is left to us.


fully accepted it years ago. my first wife back in the 1960s was half Native American, and she introduced me to some tribal shamans. they told me back then what was going to happen; so far it has transpired exactly according to their predictions. when i asked them how they knew, they said, “our grandfathers heard it from their grandfathers, and so on.” when i shared this with my friends back in what is now silicon valley, no one believed me.

yesterday i happened to tell this same story to a friend on the island where i live in south asia. he responded, “oh yes, it is the same with us. our ancestors knew, but nobody listened.”

the powers that be seem determined to fly this thing right into the ground, while we stand around idly discussing it.


One thing to keep in mind is that if we accept that the world is heating up then you'd almost always expect any given day should be, on average, the hottest ever recorded in modern history, for that day. And at least one of those, per year, should be the hottest day ever recorded - period. So the recent trend of announcing these days like it's some unprecedented thing has, if anything, left me even more jaded.

About 20 years ago I was relatively engaged in climate activism. But my views shifted over the years after endless declarations of 'if we do nothing in 5-10 years, the world will end.' Each of those 5 or 10 years came, and it turned out that not only did the world not end, but I'd have been hard pressed to tell you it had even changed. At some point I began to wonder why should I think the next 5-10 years will be any different than the past repeated decades as it relates to this?

If I were to go back in time and optimize for encouraging activity on climate change I would make it the most boring thing imaginable. Any prediction I might make I would not only make in a clear and falsifiable fashion, but I would also make sure to lowball it. So that each and every one of my predictions could be clearly tested, even by laymen, and shown to not only be effectively 100% accurate, but even understating what was to come. I understand the point of the hyperbole is to draw people to the cause, and that may work in the short term, but in the long term you achieve the exact opposite. And it's not just me. You can see this in the longterm trends data perfectly clearly. [1]

[1] - https://news.gallup.com/poll/1615/environment.aspx




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: