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#Doomerism is both an easy and effective way to resolve the cognitive dissonance related to how you benefit from the destruction of nature.
When you get yourself to believe there is no way to prevent a complete ecological breakdown, you effectively get a carte blanche to not change anything.
If you still get doubts, you can add mental fortification by believing in a hobbesian war of all against all, and reject all hope of cooperation between people.
It's one hell of a drug.
I've found the best way to try to break through doomers' defenses is to first point out that, according to current science, a runaway hot house is very unlikely. That means every little bit of less destruction is better. Every person saved and every extinction prevented is worth all our effort.
After that (because doomers are in so many cases men), you can try to appeal to their heroic imagination: saving the planet is our generation's big fight. History demands we step up.
@ttiurani my concern here is that Big Climate is not talking much about China continuing to build coal fired power plants. Why not?
Some people are going to conclude that, if global warming means less arable land in the world, the best thing to do is grab as much as possible for themselves.
The winners will be those nations that do not handicap themselves, while getting the West to do so.
Go nuclear, preferably thorium. If you want to replace fire you need something better than fire.
@mike805 I really don't know what you mean with Big Climate but many (small and powerless) climate justice people are talking about China.
https://nitter.net/JKSteinberger/status/1644952523474624515
The reason it hasn't been talked about is that for a long time the per capita emissions of China have been small compared to the big polluters. That's changing, and so is the discussion.
Also "what about China?" is the no.1 excuse to delay any and all actions in the West, so helping boost that diversion tactic backfires easily.
@ttiurani Big Climate = all the big companies looking forward to profiting from green industry (whether actually green or not), carbon credit trading, lending money for projects, etc. They are not talking about China because they are making money or expecting to make money from China.
Good that the activists are talking about it. I still think nuclear is the one way to replace fire with a better rather than worse standard of living than we have now. Hoping climate fear overpowers nuclear fear.
@mike805 Ah, I understand this "Big Climate" now better, thanks.
Wrt nuclear: I agree that it is important, but still only one small piece of the solution. Peter Kalmus wrote about this well here:
https://bird.makeup/users/climatehuman/statuses/1653121530211999749
@ttiurani He got owned in the comments to his Tweet: "What are the other 999? The key problem is supposed to be fossil fuels. Nuclear fission is an abundant source of safe cheap energy that isn't fossil fuels. Problem solved"
If you tell people: You have a choice: (a) live like a 3rd world peasant or (b) deal with worse weather, almost everyone will choose b.
Nuclear is the one energy source that is much denser than fuel.
If the "emergency" is real then we don't have time for 1000 pieces.
@mike805 If you think he got "owned' by that, you seriously need to read up. I mean you do know the problem is crossing most planetary boundaries at the same time, i e. Earth breakdown and not just "fossil fuels"? See e.g.
for the scope of the problem in different countries. Tunnel visioning on GHGs is very dangerous:
@ttiurani if the planet really is maxed out in a number of areas not just CO2, then there are two broad options.
1) Get rid of the excess humans. Those who support this approach should lead by example.
2) Become independent of nature as much as possible. We can distill, recycle, or synthesize just about everything we need in quantity, if we have enough raw energy. Nuclear is the one nature-independent way to get that energy.
All roads lead to either nuclear power or doom IMHO.
@mike805 3) Disincentivize production of those ecologically unsustainable commodities that don't increase well-being.
Wrt 1), "humans" aren't the issue, it's the small minority of humans that take way over their fair share – https://fosstodon.org/@ttiurani/109387167389337207
Wrt 2) You need to read ecology: there is no (non-theoretical and non-abysmal) human life without this one biosphere that gives us life.
Again, nuclear power can help, but it's not "The Solution", just one part of it.
@ttiurani yes we cannot be fully independent of nature. We will need medicinal plants and a variety of foods, for example. We could drastically reduce the load we impose upon nature, with nuclear power.
Right now we could not feed the present population without natgas-derived fertilizer and diesel powered machinery.
If we solved the One Big Problem of abundant cheap raw energy, the other problems would be relatively easy.
If we don't solve that, we cannot solve anything else.
@ttiurani Thanks for this. In the face of climate change and the ensuing disasters, I find it hard to have any hope at all.