The only time when you have a fractional input on this is at the voting booth and even there the chance is that climate change will not be expressly put on the ballot but you get a mixture of components that you will be able to locally influence. But that sort of mechanism isn't well suited to deal with global problems. Global problems require global coordination and for everybody to play ball. For a variety of reasons (some good, some bad) this isn't going to happen. Climate change is fact. The consequences of climate change are already visible all over the globe. And yet: as long as there is money to be made by industry, wars rage all over the place and various possible checkpoints are passed no single individual that is wondering what they can personally do about it is going to make a shred of a difference by worrying about it to the point that it affects their day-to-day affairs.
Let me be blunt: the time to tackle climate change for real was when we first became aware of it. But all of the above inertia pretty much guaranteed and continues to guarantee that we will not act on a scale where it does matter until it is much, much too late. This year many people will die as a result of climate change. They have no voice but they are affected in the most drastic way possible. Next year it will be more and so on. Until the developed part of the world, and in particular the people in power in the developed part of the world is going to be personally and inescapably affected you're along for the ride.
If this particular thing concerns you and you are not non-stop stressed that only means that you haven't understood it yet.
- your "fact" that democracy is the only way out of this is actually and adequately true
- one or more persons doesn't assume your wild guess is necessarily true and launches a Plan B
It's funny: backup plans are considered good for IT Enterprises, but not for the planet they are located on. Seems illogical, but it is what it is.
Today: oh yeah, climate change is real, but we should have done something about it 20 years ago, now it's too late...
It's frustrating to me on a personal level. Back in the early '00s it was pretty clear to me that we were headed for a massive problem. I did what I could to cut all kinds of ways in which we - as a family - were contributing. But in the end it had zero effect because the real agents of change weren't budging, not even a micro meter. So here we are today. The house I live in is more than energy neutral (my plans have been accelerated a bit on account of Putin's madness). But I make myself no illusion that it will matter, it's just a token bit of resistance, a tiny drop of green in an ocean of black.
Things I wonder about (but no longer worry about): will my children make it through this crisis that we have created? Will our political institutions somehow survive? How big a population - assuming we survive in some numbers - will there be left and will there still be enough structure standing that we don't have to start all over from scratch?
If you really start to think about the possible consequences of climate change you won't be having many good nights of sleep going forward. And there isn't a thing that you personally are going to be able to do about it, except maybe as a figleaf for your personal mental health.
Very, very frustrating.
> If this particular thing concerns you and you are not non-stop stressed that only means that you haven't understood it yet.
That's a mentally unhealthy attitude. Whether something is of importance to you or not should not determine whether you are stressed over it, you can approach it on a balanced constructive way.
If these two variables are not aligned then you're actively adding noise to the system and I'd argue that you are making the system less democratic. The world is fucking complex and the devil is always in the details. You may notice that the loudest voices are not the most knowledgeable voices. They will never seek details unless it is to critique their opponents and go no further. The loudest voices are not those seeking truth, they are seeking competition. Seeking truth is a cooperative game, where the main goals are aligned and there is no singular winner. It is positive sum. But the loudest voices are playing games to win, often creating competition where there may not have been before. Usually they claim a game is zero sum, when often it is not.
The point of democracy is to distribute power, and not necessarily uniformly. Our modern industrial and economic worlds runs on specialization. At the very core. This is because these processes are so complex that no individual can obtain mastery over even a significant part of the system. There are no physicists who are experts in all of physics, no chemists who have mastered both organic and physical, no climate scientists who understand all of climate, no engineers who master electrical, mechanical, aero, and civil, there are no master full stack engineers. Do you really think political affairs are any different?
For some reason we pretend we can be experts in even larger domains where experts struggle to obtain expertise in a narrow niche. If systems are chaotic, where small differences are critical, then overconfidence has disastrous consequences.
if you are concerned about something it does not mean you must be non stop stressed or forever abandon your life for single cause. You can be concerned and act in constructive ways (lead by example, talk about it, raise the issue, vote, etc), making strategic sacrifices but also living life. In fact you will probably be more satisfied this way than if you just felt you can't do anything and tried to not think about the white elephant. And it is the only way things change...