Re:Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?
by brylie on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @03:07AM
(#18182626)
While I appreciate your optimism, it comes at the risk of failing to take personal action. The general sentiment is that people are uninterested in, or incapable of, making meaningful lifestyle changes , and that some future technological developments will transcend the Earth's carrying capacity to sustain us while cleaning up our collective mess. While there may be some shades of truth to that sentiment, it is still within our power and responsibility to live sustainably.
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Re:Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?
by hueving on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @05:26AM
(#18183267)
That's better than taking action that is actually meaningless and thinking you've done something (e.g. the CA unsolicited drinking water ban or people unplugging inactive phone chargers). People who do things like this to get their virtue signaling credit do even less to make meaningful changes because they "already helped".
There are things you can do to take personal action. The ones that actually matter are usually disruptive (e.g. eliminating your daily commute is orders of magnitude better than eating local). Most of the mainstream 'sustainable living' tips are just a drop in the bucket designed around minimizing disruption and maximizing showing off.
Re:Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?
by jsingleton on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @03:25AM
(#18182730)
This is a good point. Optimism is good for motivation but it has to result in action and not be simply ignoring a problem. Pessimism paralyses people into inaction but by understanding the psychology we can change that.
I wrote a series of posts on this recently with more to come. Far more than I can fit in here. It's a classic tragedy of the commons but there is hope.
https://unop.uk/how-to-help-with-a-big-global-problem-as-a-t...