What's your point? Their attempt to empathize with the impoverished / war torn is fool hardy and they should try to remain clueless of other people's experiences and whine about their own problems?

How is climate change “whining about their own problems?”.

The LA times author was making the point that, to him and his readers, nothing matters as much as climate change. While what is happening in Ukraine is absolutely terrible, in his mind it does not reach the level of concern that climate does.

Parents response was “oh you’re so privileged”, and my point is that just about everyone on this site is. Frankly, their comment came across less like empathy and more like standard deflection.

Finally, climate change is only “our problem” in the sense that it’s primarily driven by the global rich and privileged. The people who will bear the worst of it are the poor in the global south who did little to contribute to the problem.

My point is that they are not suffering at the levels I compared it to, yet have the gall to tell everyone else not only what to talk about - but that they shouldn't even be talking about anything else.

I may not be suffering either, but I'm not telling anyone that I know better then them what "the real problem is". I thought this would've been understandable, but maybe the clarification helps.

While I don’t agree with the author that climate change is the _only_ thing we should talk about, his premise that there are many issues and crises that compete for our attention is valid, and, further, his point that there needs to be a discussion about what to prioritize is a valid one as well.

Saying “oh you don’t suffer therefore you don’t have any right to tell people what to do!” is classic derailing and it is what the opposition has done with climate change for decades. I don’t doubt that you had good intent with your comment, though.

So basically you think the person is hypocrite and that makes their point invalid. I think you should consider how we are going to achieve climate goals which require political consensus given the point OP makes personally, but noted.

I don’t think Ukrainians are the ones holding back political consensus on climate change.

Privileged people arguing with each other about who has standing to put it forward as an issue certainly is though.

Does that make them wrong?

No, just hypocrites