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Literally "This is fine."

Ignore the triple digit temps in the ocean, that's not apocalyptic! Relax!

So what if a few people died of heat exhaustion just by... Walking outside for a few minutes. Normal. Not apocalyptic.

So what if regular rains are delivering hurricane levels of flooding. That's just nature doing it's thing, dude. Quit overreacting.

Malaria is in NJ, but like, mosquitos fly so that was probably bound to happen.

And really, like, 110 isnt that hot, especially if it's not humid.

Relax.

He's technically right, though; climate change isn't going to drive us to extinction. Yes, it's going to cause the total collapse of modern society in our lifetimes and more death and sufferring than any other event in recorded history, but there will almost certainly be tens or hundreds of millions of survivors. Maybe even billions.

I think he is just saying people shouldn't doom post. I think there is a fine line because a lot of zoomers i interact with are hopeless and have given up. This is a generation who never experienced a functional (American) government who worked for the people. So they just don't care and you can see it reflected in their memes.

I don't know the rhetorical path we should take. We need to get people motivated and fired up but not apathetic and despairing. I mostly want to see politicians crumble and the rich eaten and i think that's messaging many will get behind.

Did you even read the article, Mr/Ms climate scientist?

He’s asking people not to talk like the world is going to catastrophically end once we hit that 1.5 degrees milestone, because it’s making people feel hopeless and apathetic, which is actually slowing our efforts to change.

And he’s totally right. If the government told people a meteor the size of Texas was going to impact earth in 12 hours, there would be effectively zero effort to stop it. If you tune in to a lot of the conversation around climate change from people who are not climate scientists, but who want to leave a better world for their kids and believe climate scientists, they feel hopeless. It feels like a foregone conclusion that we are going to go over the 1.5 degree goal (probably because it is), and if we think the biosphere is going to collapse when it does, it is really, really hard to take action.

It’s not saying to undersell the risks, he’s saying to be truthful about the risks. We can definitely still salvage complex life on earth with optimistic, consistent effort, but recent media coverage has been giving the impression that it’s too late. This is bad and counterproductive.

Keep on fighting the good fight brother/sister.

I understand his sentiment. I have an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness because most CO2 emissions aren't even made by normal every day people but the entities that do create a majority of it don't care. This means anything we attempt to do is as a whole is only a drop in the bucket compared to what these entities are producing. I purchased a hybrid vehicle to curve my driving emissions and I recycle. I planted grass and a tree in my yard to prevent run off and produce oxygen. I am looking into getting solar power for my home but I am not a rich man so the price is a little beyond me right now. Things I can do I try to do but in the end regardless of what I do entities are polluting our water and air, producing plastics, and are trying to place the blame on normal people. It can be a little heavy on the soul.

I already feel helpless. I try to use my vehicle less and use public transport. I just moved somewhere walkable so there are days that I don't use my vehicle (will be weeks eventually when I get used to it). I try to buy local and reduce my waste.

I live in a southern state though so my vote doesn't do shit. Even if I did, this feels like a political issue at this point and neither the right or the left of the country has the will to "do what needs to be done".

Capitalism is exploitative by its nature and the market will never solve the problem until we have extracted all the fossil fuels in the earth.

I know it is not your problem, but how can we NOT feel helpless?

I think the issue here is who you're looking at for the audience. At this point, we can agree that anyone who doesn't think there's a problem is delusional, and it's a waste to time to convince them otherwise.

If we assume the audience is all people who believe this is an issue, then this message makes sense. It's trying to convince people that they should still care and not be nihilistic about it.

God that must be depressing work.

I think climate change is a big fucking problem, full stop.

That being said, do you know how much of a relief it is to read "we're not going to turn into Mars, just keep trying to fix the problem we got this humanity"? I legitimately have had existential dread due to the messaging around climate change. At least now I can continue trying to do my best to fix it without asking "what's the fucking point?"

Exactly. It's not like this is an existential threat to human civilisation and the current ecosystem of the planet... oh wait, that's exactly what it bloody is!

The reason for all the apathetic people is because they see the writing on the wall. It's not too late now, but by the time the assholes up top actually pull their heads out, it will be.

Title rage baited?

What’s weird is you claim to be a scientist yet don’t understand fundamental social science.

Any scientist worth their weight has a basic understanding and any effective scientist understands how to use the field to their advantage. He is not wrong at all.