There is a more extreme version of doomerism which is accelerationism.
So sure, we may be doomed, and since no one is doing anything about it in time… fuck it, let’s speed things up. Build more coal, clear cut forests, kill every insect. Let’s show people how bad it can get and how fast. No one’s grandchild gets a future.
The nice thing about this worldview is that you wake up every morning to good news. New oil pipelines, shrinking aquifers to cool data centres, a couple dozen more extinct species, etc.
This belief system sees humans as a plague on the planet that is luckily self-healing. Good luck to the next wave of humans in 2-30 million years.
Sounds crazy right? Maybe, but since the only historical alternative is class violence, …and since that’s a no-no topic, we are left with the choice to accept a terminal diagnosis and just die like a good peon. We wouldn’t want to inconvenience rich people.
The same rich people who have been spending the past two decades building reinforced under-mountain bunkers and meeting with security advisors for tips on how to keep human security in line in a world where money has no value. But no, that’s just a hobby, they totally don’t think the world is in trouble.
That’s a strawman of doomerism. There’s as many different opinions as there are “doomers”, but most are probably in the realm of “do what we can to reduce the damage, but the science and math is saying we’re way past any great solutions.” I guess some would call that realism to separate it from the doomer label, but whatever it’s called, that’s where we are.
I can’t believe the straight up science denial in these comments lmfao.
Actual, real scientists that have been studying this for decades all agree. Within 50 years, the Earth will witness a mass die-off of all current life forms directly due to runaway climate change.
And you have lemmings calling this shit “doomer”, so they can feel good in their little liberal bubble about their metal water bottle and paper straws like that’s making any fucking difference.
“Drastic change in the current human way of life” is not just switching to recyclables. It’s fucking over and the liberals, in predictable fashion, are doing nothing to stop it besides feel-good band aids that don’t actually do anything.
What most scientists had not foreseen with an eye so fixated on the artillery of denialism, was the sustained and one would presume well-intentioned misuse of science from the other end of the spectrum, by those who do accept the reality of climate change. When Extinction Rebellion began in England, it conveyed a sense of being witnesses to the cascade of plant and animal extinctions that are escalating around the world as many habitats become less habitable. There is no scientific quibble with that. However, the narrative soon escalated to human death on a massive and imminent scale. As the prominent co-founder Roger Hallam saw it, the burning question had become: ‘How do we avoid extinction?’
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I get people coming up at my talks, or sending in an email, then being disappointed when I tell them that I only partly buy into the fears stimulated by prominent alarmists. Because I say I’m sticking to consensus science – even knowing that it can never be bang up to date and that its expression will be sure but probably cautious – I suspect they sometimes think that I’m the denier. A climate model researcher in Sweden dropped me a line, saying that he gets the same disappointed reactions, adding that ‘some teenagers are distraught on this, so the alarmism of such actors is taking a heavy and unjustifiable psychological toll on others.’ Those who work with young people warn of the consequences of growing ‘climate anxiety’(27).
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Michael Mann concurs. He sees ‘doomism and despair’ that exceeds the science as being ‘extremely destructive and extremely influential’. It has built up ‘a huge number of followers and it has been exploited and co-opted by the forces of denial and delay’. ‘Good scientists aren’t alarmists,’ he insists. ‘Our message may be – and in fact is – alarming . . . The distinction is so very, very critical and cannot be brushed under the rug.’(30)
Mann actively tried…sorry, still tries to shift blame for not doing anything on so many of these “alarmists” who are waving their arms pointing at the problems getting worse (yet agrees that the facts are alarming - which is it Michael?) I note that the author uses the term “alarmists”, almost lock in step with how “doomer” is used as a negative. Jesus, the house is on fire, AND we’re trapped in the house, and everyone is asking what’s for lunch. Yes, I’m alarmed and shouting! I guess at least the alarmist name doesn’t imply pacifism or apathy, it “only” paints the guy screaming things are worse and we’re still not doing much as crazy.
I turned doomer/alarmist when the IPCC showed their true colors and not only lagged way behind the breaking science evidence (which I realize has some reasons, but there are some like methane that should have had footnotes back then), but in the last major announcement decided that we’re probably going to shoot past the limit they had set as a “we don’t dare go past this” mark, but it’s okay because we’ll just use technology we have then in the future to draw things back down. They really think the average science-aware person is this stupid. But it made their string-holders economists and politicians feel better, so it’s all “scientific”.
We’re in the process (maybe/likely already done) of pushing the environment into a totally different pattern that would lead to a new and hotter planet for millennia. The ice age cycles are gone. Past such disruptions led to mass extinctions while other species adapted and changed, but those gave time to do that adaption. We’re doing it geologically as fast as a meteor impact, however what we’re doing is far more than such an effect.
But this is alarmist. I guess part of that label is not because such observations aren’t wrong, but they don’t give some solutions to keep doing what we’re doing and fix the problems. Worse…some say that even if we try and do things, it will still likely be that bad. I guess seen one way that is apathetic and doomer…but does that make it necessarily wrong? Just because you see the train heading towards the stalled car and say, that’s going to be bad, doesn’t make you a doomer and your point should be discarded. It’s just morbid and it’s more comfortable to not watch and hope no one was in the car. Or to be like the IPCC and figure that the car will magically start right before it’s hit, or maybe will start rolling off the track on its own accord.
I wear the labels thrown at me proudly, because I know that even though I can’t provide any answers to those it upsets, at least I’m not pretending it’s fine.
I’m sure even after what I said I’ll get a reply asking “then what should we do?” I can only say to think locally what you can change about your life to make yourself more self-sufficient and knowledgeable of how to get by if you can’t go get something from the store. Know your neighbors and who you can rely on in times of crisis. Reduce what effects you have, not because it will help the planet, but it will help you adapt to a worsening one. Some may say don’t have kids…I think it’s too late for that mindset, and the population will go down on its own once food becomes scarce anyway. There’s the philosophical problem of bringing someone into a setting where it’s bad and going to always be worse, if that’s fair to them, but I’ll let each wannabe parent work that out themselves.
Adapt and mitigate. It’s all we have left. We aren’t going to stop or even slow what’s already baked in, which is much more than that 1.5C limit that was proposed to make us feel better about continuing our society as-is.
It was my opinion. You are quite welcome to toss it out and continue the hope. As for what I said about Mann and his take on alarmists, that’s easily found. It’s in the article even.
I wasn’t trying to convince anyone of anything, just ranting. I’m done already after decades of thinking maybe something could or would be done. How does one cite evidence of one’s experiences? Whatever, sorry to have wasted the enormous amounts of time I’m sure you spent skimming over the text for some links.
I actually started by saying there wasn’t a single doomer opinion as stated by the person who I replied to. There are different degrees, some more and some less optimistic.
I guess you’re more upset that I replied to you directly, seemingly to make it personal. I was just following the chain of conversation and adding in my own thoughts. Move on if you don’t find it relevant.
There is the doomerism timeline. “Well, it’s too late now, no reason to change anything now!”.
Doomerism is just an evolution of binary thinking.
There is a more extreme version of doomerism which is accelerationism.
So sure, we may be doomed, and since no one is doing anything about it in time… fuck it, let’s speed things up. Build more coal, clear cut forests, kill every insect. Let’s show people how bad it can get and how fast. No one’s grandchild gets a future.
The nice thing about this worldview is that you wake up every morning to good news. New oil pipelines, shrinking aquifers to cool data centres, a couple dozen more extinct species, etc.
This belief system sees humans as a plague on the planet that is luckily self-healing. Good luck to the next wave of humans in 2-30 million years.
Sounds crazy right? Maybe, but since the only historical alternative is class violence, …and since that’s a no-no topic, we are left with the choice to accept a terminal diagnosis and just die like a good peon. We wouldn’t want to inconvenience rich people.
The same rich people who have been spending the past two decades building reinforced under-mountain bunkers and meeting with security advisors for tips on how to keep human security in line in a world where money has no value. But no, that’s just a hobby, they totally don’t think the world is in trouble.
That’s a strawman of doomerism. There’s as many different opinions as there are “doomers”, but most are probably in the realm of “do what we can to reduce the damage, but the science and math is saying we’re way past any great solutions.” I guess some would call that realism to separate it from the doomer label, but whatever it’s called, that’s where we are.
I can’t believe the straight up science denial in these comments lmfao.
Actual, real scientists that have been studying this for decades all agree. Within 50 years, the Earth will witness a mass die-off of all current life forms directly due to runaway climate change.
And you have lemmings calling this shit “doomer”, so they can feel good in their little liberal bubble about their metal water bottle and paper straws like that’s making any fucking difference.
“Drastic change in the current human way of life” is not just switching to recyclables. It’s fucking over and the liberals, in predictable fashion, are doing nothing to stop it besides feel-good band aids that don’t actually do anything.
Except that’s not true.
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/08/denial-and-alarmism-in-the-near-term-extinction-and-collapse-debate/
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Mann actively tried…sorry, still tries to shift blame for not doing anything on so many of these “alarmists” who are waving their arms pointing at the problems getting worse (yet agrees that the facts are alarming - which is it Michael?) I note that the author uses the term “alarmists”, almost lock in step with how “doomer” is used as a negative. Jesus, the house is on fire, AND we’re trapped in the house, and everyone is asking what’s for lunch. Yes, I’m alarmed and shouting! I guess at least the alarmist name doesn’t imply pacifism or apathy, it “only” paints the guy screaming things are worse and we’re still not doing much as crazy.
I turned doomer/alarmist when the IPCC showed their true colors and not only lagged way behind the breaking science evidence (which I realize has some reasons, but there are some like methane that should have had footnotes back then), but in the last major announcement decided that we’re probably going to shoot past the limit they had set as a “we don’t dare go past this” mark, but it’s okay because we’ll just use technology we have then in the future to draw things back down. They really think the average science-aware person is this stupid. But it made
their string-holderseconomists and politicians feel better, so it’s all “scientific”.We’re in the process (maybe/likely already done) of pushing the environment into a totally different pattern that would lead to a new and hotter planet for millennia. The ice age cycles are gone. Past such disruptions led to mass extinctions while other species adapted and changed, but those gave time to do that adaption. We’re doing it geologically as fast as a meteor impact, however what we’re doing is far more than such an effect.
But this is alarmist. I guess part of that label is not because such observations aren’t wrong, but they don’t give some solutions to keep doing what we’re doing and fix the problems. Worse…some say that even if we try and do things, it will still likely be that bad. I guess seen one way that is apathetic and doomer…but does that make it necessarily wrong? Just because you see the train heading towards the stalled car and say, that’s going to be bad, doesn’t make you a doomer and your point should be discarded. It’s just morbid and it’s more comfortable to not watch and hope no one was in the car. Or to be like the IPCC and figure that the car will magically start right before it’s hit, or maybe will start rolling off the track on its own accord.
I wear the labels thrown at me proudly, because I know that even though I can’t provide any answers to those it upsets, at least I’m not pretending it’s fine.
I’m sure even after what I said I’ll get a reply asking “then what should we do?” I can only say to think locally what you can change about your life to make yourself more self-sufficient and knowledgeable of how to get by if you can’t go get something from the store. Know your neighbors and who you can rely on in times of crisis. Reduce what effects you have, not because it will help the planet, but it will help you adapt to a worsening one. Some may say don’t have kids…I think it’s too late for that mindset, and the population will go down on its own once food becomes scarce anyway. There’s the philosophical problem of bringing someone into a setting where it’s bad and going to always be worse, if that’s fair to them, but I’ll let each wannabe parent work that out themselves.
Adapt and mitigate. It’s all we have left. We aren’t going to stop or even slow what’s already baked in, which is much more than that 1.5C limit that was proposed to make us feel better about continuing our society as-is.
That’s a whole lot of words without a single reference to a climate scientist who thinks doomerism is correct.
It was my opinion. You are quite welcome to toss it out and continue the hope. As for what I said about Mann and his take on alarmists, that’s easily found. It’s in the article even.
I wasn’t trying to convince anyone of anything, just ranting. I’m done already after decades of thinking maybe something could or would be done. How does one cite evidence of one’s experiences? Whatever, sorry to have wasted the enormous amounts of time I’m sure you spent skimming over the text for some links.
You started this thread with “I can’t believe the straight up science denial in these comments lmfao” and now it’s “just like my opinion, man”.
I actually started by saying there wasn’t a single doomer opinion as stated by the person who I replied to. There are different degrees, some more and some less optimistic.
I guess you’re more upset that I replied to you directly, seemingly to make it personal. I was just following the chain of conversation and adding in my own thoughts. Move on if you don’t find it relevant.