I must live in a bubble, the top rated comments here are all depressing.

I don't know a single person that believe or thinks this way (that we're doomed). Maybe they do, but they don't say anything about it.

Fwiw, I live in a rural area, have kids and most of my friends have families. We all are good people, that recycle and try to conserve and not be wasteful. But I spend almost 0 thoughts on this topic and it causes me no worries.

Call it head in the sand if you want but I'd rather live this way than most of these comments.

I'd call it blessed ignorance.

Have a look at this for some very informed and depressing opinions: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/08/...

Group dynamics of doom are an interesting thing. At one point I worked for a company that was taken over by private equity who worked quite diligently to send all the jobs to India. Joining team meetings was a bit surreal; we all seemed to be trying to put a happy face on the situation (myself included) but occasionally there would be cracks. I'd also hear about people breaking down and crying in more private moments.

> Call it head in the sand if you want but I'd rather live this way than most of these comments.

I think denial is an important human quality; ultimately, we are all doomed anyway. It's something I've never been all that good at. I certainly see the dichotomy between those that have children and those that don't. I'm sure there are selection affects there regarding optimism, but if you have children, it's very hard to believe that they will face terrible hardship in the future. But the data is the data, regardless of our belief.

I would say it is more of a mindful philosophy. Worry about the things you have control over, don't worry about things you don't. Do what makes you happy and don't harm others.

The problem with these comments here are that some people suggest that having kids, having a car, a house, or occasionally flying, etc... is harming other people. Humans are not wired for this risk calculation, even so most are doubtful this is a forgone conclusion.

Further, most people (That I know) are not choosing a path based on data and charts. They are happy if the bills are paid, kids are in a good school, little crime and plenty of food TODAY.

So I don't think it is denial, it is a philosophy that allows us to live a fulfilled life, not one out of denial and dispair.

> Worry about the things you have control over, don't worry about things you don't.

Yes, I've never been good at this, but in my defense, it doesn't really make sense to worry about the things you can control since you can... you know... control them. It also doesn't make sense to worry about the things you can't because you can't control them. Then why every worry about anything? I suppose it's just the way some of us are built.

Anything that adds carbon to the atmosphere is indeed harming other people; that is the what we have learned. To some of us, living beyond our sustainable means is the opposite of fulfilling; only living for today can cost you your future. Obviously the actions of an individual are nearly meaningless in the sense that no one drop of water makes the flood, but our own actions are the only things we can control as you say and so perhaps the only thing we should worry about.

> Further, most people (That I know) are not choosing a path based on data and charts. They are happy if the bills are paid, kids are in a good school, little crime and plenty of food TODAY.

Every time I read one of these threads on HN I simply cannot believe the doomsaying, condemnation of the heretics, and repent preaching that goes on in these rabbit holes. It’s like someone transported me to an ‘80s tent revival meeting.

I live my life, do my best to be a good steward of the earth and community, but I am certainly much more worried about the now than what might happen 100 years from now.

Many of the top level comments here are made by people who are fetishizing doom through intelligent-sounding but mostly unfounded and entirely speculative scenarios that they love to talk about as if they knew what they're talking about.

It's common on this site on many topics way outside of tech and if you add in the popularity of making the worst out of climate change, it's only magnified for that subject among a certain social subset that predominate here.

Many of the completely despondent, "we're fucked" opinions here don't even reflect the actual latest scientific consensus on what climate change will likely do, and some HN comment opinions are outright irrational on claiming apocalyptic scenarios.

Nobody who is serious about the good science around the effects of climate change should take them seriously.

Yes. People seem to have forgotten what a catastrophe the 20th century was. WWI, WWII, Spanish flu, famine in China, famine in USSR, Pol Pot. I've never seen predictions that climate change will be as bad as all that, yet people still kept having kids despite all those risks that actually eventuated and humanity overall flourished.

None of those are close to the potential destructive power that a truly global catastrophe like climate change is. Pol Pot? Soviets? WW1 and WW2? Famines in China? You are comparing political events against the laws of thermodynamics in a global scale. Even the Spanish flu has an understandable time period tipping point to be stopped due to how viruses and adaptations to it occurs.

I don't think you comprehend the level and degree of difference between all of those events against the effects where laws of physics dictating how a planetary-level of change in energy retained will mess up with every single thing we as humanity need to survive on this Earth.

You haven't quantified that comparison so you really don't have a clue. Just saying physics is more powerful than politics doesn't mean the outcome will be worse.

Do I really need to get you figures for how many gigajoules are required to heat up the whole world by 3-4C on average, studies on the effects of that energy added to the atmosphere and oceans, and the second and third order effects on the biosphere or are you smart enough to figure that one out?

I assume folks on HN are smart enough to understand the basic premise of what I said, if needed I can track the data for you but you could probably do the same instead of a stupid rebuttal dressed as snarkiness.

Of course that part's simple. What's not is "a planetary-level of change in energy retained will mess up with every single thing we as humanity need to survive on this Earth". Yes, you need to specify what that means because it's just emotional language that could mean anything.

You probably don't know. I've never found anyone who knows what that means, or can even provide even the crudest estimate of the human impact of climate change such as number of deaths, financial cost, etc. that comes close to 20th century disasters.

Or they won't and it might take a long time for societies to recover from the costs that climate change is bringing.

Societies having to spend more in dealing with effects from climate change have to spend less in other stuff that are investments, stuff like education, R&D, healthcare, transportation; to build dikes, pumping stations, purchasing ever increasing food products after crop failures, rebuilding cities destroyed by climatic events (or moving whole cities/population centres that aren't possible to be rebuilt nor protected), building border defences to stop millions of climate refugees from immigrating to dwindling inhabitable spaces. All of that will have massive costs that will make life much harder for future generations.

We don't know what our children futures will be because as humanity we never been through a truly global catastrophe affecting every single corner of the planet at the same time, not even World Wars were any close to the potential destructive power that fucking up our climate is.

I don't think this hope is warranted. Our species is doing awful things to the planet:

* Animals and plants are dying at a mind-boggling rate. This has consequences for us eventually too, but on it's own, this is an atrocity.

* We're stuffing the air, sea and water with plastic, PFAs, insecticides, herbicides, etc. This will also have consequences for us.

* Our polar ice is melting, our vital weather systems collapsing, our topsoil eroding, our old growth forest near forgotten. As noted above, our oceans are doing some terrifying shit. Consequences are imminent.

* Inequality exacerbates all the above, and gives me serious doubt as to how our children will actually fare. Climate refugees are already a thing, and it could get soo much worse if our current path is maintained.

A stunning proportion of our leaders, megacorps, media, banks, and institutions are making this all worse. They subsidize and invest in fossil fuels, arms, big agri etc. They provide cover for them, enable them, and profit from them. They savagely beat anyone fighting against their acts into submission; sometimes with mortal methods, sometimes just with smears and legal abuse.

Have you considered any of this in your declaration of "we're in the best place ever"? I feel like we have a responsibility to our children and grandchildren to be honest about our fuck-ups.

If we're not in the best place now, when in history was humanity ever in a better place?

I don't think you realize where we're coming from. Poverty, famine, violence, child mortality etc are all globally lower than ever and on a downward trend.

Yes climate change is a huge challenge, but it's not likely that we fuck up so bad that we undo all the progress from the last few hundred years (but also not impossible either, I'll give you that)

Mandmandam has made many good points. I feel that we won't be able to fix climate change until we reduce the political power of corporations and make them liable for their actions that have negative social and climate impacts.