The 24 hour news cycle created a “boy who cried wolf” problem for actual crises. Not that those things arent bad, but when news anchors scream bloody murder over a dumb inter personal drama between politicians it creates crisis fatigue quick
As someone working on a doctorate in the hard sciences, I've realized there's another aspect to this crying wolf situation. Everyone needs money for their research, and the more dire the need for your research, the more likely to get that good good grant money, etc.
Tell me about it. I’m a Doctor and I am currently trying to allocate grant money for my research. I believe 1 billion should be sufficient.
Why get one billion dollars for your research... When you could get one... million? \twirls mustache**
I'll do it for just half a billion!
I've also seen various research articles that just straight up say we've been past the point of no return for decades and now we're just doing damage control.
Except we aren’t really doing damage control, are we
We're planning to do damage control... after the damage is already done. Too little, too late.
Yeah, anyone that's looked into environmental science even an inch below the most superficial level (like a facebook post by some political campaign) can tell it's way too late to prevent anything, that ship sailed in the 90's.
The 90's-00's could've been damage control, maybe delay things a decade or two. 2010's onwards is too little too late, at that point it's like we're going full terminal velocity into a wall 2 meters away and just then getting the idea maybe we should use the brakes.
2020 comes in and the continent of Austraulia is literally on fire, we're fucked regardless of what we do.
All science is hard. Can you be more specific?
TY
Paired with how a lot of the crisis's aren't the fault or within the personal effort of 99% of the world population, it's up to people in power to care anyways. One billionaire produces more CO2 in a year than basically the entire population of the world that makes less than millions in our entire lives.
"Oh, the world is going to end if I don't start riding a bike to work? How about you stop flying in your private jet to climate conferences when you could just have a goddamn phone call."
I can help reduce pollution and litter, etc... in my local area to keep it nice. To whatever extent the world is being destroyed by pollution, nothing I do will meaningfully offset the damage being done by the people telling me I need to tighten my belt.
Exactly. There is nothing us ordinary people can do. And as such, ignore it. I already do what I can to be as clean and responsible as possible. Can't even afford recycling at our poverty level. So I tune it all out. Those in significantly greater positions than I, that use literally millions of times more energy than me, are yelling in my face to do something about it while THEY, do nothing? Yeah, no thank you. Fuck off and leave me alone
There are plenty of people that care. The problem is power lies in the multibillion dollar corporations. Everyday people just can’t seem to touch them. So it’s more of a “I can’t do anything so why bother” mentality.
Adding on, Y2K, Cold War / Cuban Missile Crisis, 2012, Hawaii's missile threat (threat of global nuclear war & fallout), ebola outbreak, swine flu / H1N1, global coronovirus pandemic, economic / housing collapse-
I'm sure there's more.
Edit:
Good point about GWOT
To clarify, I agree that climate science and associated complications are generally valid, but crisis fatigue is also 100% a thing.
I mean just using the ozone; that being a crisis helped, the hole in the ozone layer not only stopped growing but has healed.
This. The world's been "about to end" for one reason or another since I first became aware of the hysterical rhetoric (the 1970s), and going back to 1950-ish for my parents. Nuclear annihilation, plant/animal extinction, sun blotted out by pollution, new ice age, ozone layer depletion, global pandemic... the end is always near.
Do you think the risk of nuclear annihilation has gone away? The ozone layer was fixed by global action, which is now being ignored in favor of saying that clearly it’s all just alarmist rhetoric.
It's almost like problems go away if the global players actually get their asses up to fix it. Now do climate change.
Didn't hurt that dupont was able to monetize the solution
Honestly this is why scientists need a PR. They're kinda terrible at communicating to the public about the problem in a way that actually makes them care. Like when people talk about saving the planet, people have more immediate problems but when you only see the solution you want, you can't start solving people's actual problems. Making people feel guilty about a whole planet's situation is not it.
Message should have been, it's us humans who are fucked. Who cares about animals and plants. The Earth is gonna keep doing its thing way after us
Basically every scientist I know follows the logic of "If I explain it they'll understand".
I wish it was that easy, but my experience and many others has shown that most people don’t want to learn or be wrong. Most don’t even want to think about the possibility that there are problems that an individual can’t just fix.
I used to be a scientist. PhD in Bio-engineering and everything. Then I went into management consulting and frequently interacted with decision makers. I quickly learned people don't give a shit about who or what is right.
Did he get his water back? What happened?
I mean, isnt it normal to constantly hear about crises? A lot of these problems are best to be entirely avoided. You can't fix environment on an overnight. It takes years upon years. Scientists shout about the environment because it takes a long time to get fixed.
I think we can all agree the doom cycle is probably an intentional creation of the people who benefit most from distracting people from the real issues we're facing.
Maybe not a creation but like, if oil companies weren't shoveling money towards climate change denialists, then they would've been viewed in the same light as flerfers, not seen as a legitimate political movement for over half a century.
"I've survived the world ending 13 times by now. I can manage a 14th."
Are there serious problems out there? I'm sure there are. But I can't tell the difference between them and the bullshit. And in the meantime, I have enough problems with simple things like inflation driving grocery bills up, that I don't have time to worry about large scale existential crises.
At one point the theory was that the Earth was entering another ice age too.
Good I can’t wait till I can just start dressing like this every day.
I can do nothing about it. Company’s do more polluting in a day then I could personally fix in a life time.
Pipe bombs can be used to destroy company infrastructure, just no casualties
Instruction unclear glued babies to pipe bombs /s
dammit! again?
You were supposed to plant the explosves on the server racks holding account and payment data of those with 𝕏 blue checkmark subscriptions not X Æ A-12!
Political pressure is the goal
Political pressure from average people is irrelevant if it means those people have to pay more money. People can't afford living right now.
We are stronger together, also we can just steal the riches money it's only fair
That’s why they keep everyone divided
Not steal, collectivize it
Because that has worked out well before.
Agreed. History has taught us many times that all this does is create a new 1% and nothing greatly changes. Oh except mass starvation as absurd policies are enacted and possibly a whole lot of executions.
Oh yeah, for me as an eastern european its not just history, it’s family history too.
Lobbying: Oh no. Anyway.
What can I, personally and by myself, do to put pressure on not one but enough politicians to make a difference?
Massive amounts of sandbags and maybe put them all in a pressure chamber, idk
Life is easier in an autoclave.
Cool. I'll call up the president of China and tell him to have China reduce their emissions.
Tell Xi you won’t vote for him next election. That’ll do it lol.
Yep, and the corporations are doing and spending more to exert more than anyone.
Nobody can do anything about it lmfao if you’re talking that scale. But you can contribute.
The recycling program was a quite the profitable lie to sell us- clearly consumers are the problem s/
Exactly. I'm fortunate to be within walking distance of work and rarely use my car. What else do you want me to do?
Exactly. I recycle, I use renewable energy, I use public transport.
If there's something I can personally do then great, I'll do it. But just know there are companies which produce my entire lifespan's worth of pollution in a day.
Love it when people like OP make a strawman meme telling me I don't care though. Sorry guys, I'll try harder.
Yea, companies make shit for themselves. Noted...
Yeah I can't do anything about it so... Why stress about what I can't control?
There are far more serious things I need to stress about. Like how do I know everyone isn’t Alpharius.
Hydra Dominatus!
Wait i thought I was Alpharius
No, mam said it was my turn today.
You're one grain of sand on a beach. The difference you can make is making yourself one less grain of sand and hope more grains of sand stop being part of the beach that's the issue. The problem is that every beach is an issue.
It’s the Chinese and Indian governments who do little if anything at all the help with pollution and co2. There is a river of literal shit in one of those country’s and they do nothing to stop it
“I can do nothing about it” said 8 billion people
It sucks...because as individuals, there's very little we can do.
In North America at least, it doesn't matter who we elect, they're all beholden to their corporate masters, so nothing's going to change there.
Lobbying is the worst thing to ever happen to american politics. Now politicians no longer care about what the people they represent want because they're too busy lining their pockets with money from big corporations.
I never understood how lobbying is different from corruption
It's only corruption if a citizen does it.
I have a cancer drug that improves outcomes by 13% over a competing treatment. Ill lobby a hospital to have it adopted.
I dont think thats the lobbying that people are bothered by, it more like "I would lose massive profits if I was forced to update the environmental controls in all my power plants, I'll lobby congress to vote against those bills."
I'm the owner of the other treatment that is less effective. I'll counter lobby to keep my treatment used
still corruption, even if it’s for a good cause
You mean bribing
The type of changes needed will never get some one elected.
You basically need America to completely change their culture and habits. Who's gonna vote for the guys who says we have to severely reduce the amount of live stock we produce and in turn cause a spike in animal product cost.
That's what we need, but people aren't going to keep that representative around long when all their favorite products double in cost.
It's mostly oil and gas, but factory farming is right up there. Renewable energy and less copious consumption are some solutions. Unfortunately, it requires people to act together, consciously...and that won't happen so long as everything is Red V Blue.
Exactly
The fuck am i meant to do about it?
I mean your fault fix it! 🔫
Fix it, IT'S YOUR FAULT
yea it's his fault!
Ah shit mb didn't mean it
When the world finally comes to and end, people will look up and say, “fucking u/Dumb_Siniy that lazy piece of shit”
We should have our nation's leaders and popular celebrities around the world fly out on their private jets to have a summit to bring attention to the issue and virtue signal, accomplish nothing, then fly back to wherever they came from.
It's us plebians that should feel bad and stress out about optimizing our individual carbon footprints.
And the billionaires pushing it are buying beachfront condos while screaming the oceans will rise. lol
"Do as I say! Not as I do." -billionaires
Millionaires too. Millionaires be private jetting round nonstop. They might be willing to take forst-class from one major city to another but from the time you tell them that there’s no first class on the plane or there’s a connecting flight then they’re calling up their “person” to get onto a private flight.
This also applies to the formerly poor and newly rich, so it’s safe to assume that many of us would do the same exact thing as them were we in the same situation.
Yeah when people like Al Gore are taking private jets between their climate controlled mansions it really makes the situation not feel that important
The cost of a beachfront condo is nothing to billionaires. So the loss of a beachfront condo due to rising ocean levels wouldn't really mean anything as they still have tons of money to buy other houses that they'll never burn off in their lifetime
Okay but why would they even buy those places in the first place if they truly believe that they’re gonna be inhabitable shortly? They didn’t become billionaires by making stupid choices like that
Everyone fucking cares but theres nothing we can do about it, nothing we do, no amount of riding to work and paper straws and being energy conscious will make a difference, the elite will make wealth by exploiting the earth then have that wealth for when the earth collapses, we're fucked now and we will be fucked then.
Don't be too discouraged - the wealthy will be just as fucked as we are. We've been looking for new habitable planets, and we haven't found any. Well, Mars can be made habitable, but it will take from 50 years to 100 million years - so that's not a given.
When Earth goes, we all go, wealthy or not. They can hide in fancy bunkers, but if apocalypse does come, the living will envy the dead, so at least it won't be the 99% doing the envying.
That doesn't really make me feel better.
Well, best I could do.
You have to join a political group of some kind. Straws won't ever do anything, just ignore that bs. The powers that be want you by yourself they are scared about what will happen if you link up with others, and they should be.
I do, actually care.
Finally, a non doomer take on here.
We pass a "point of no return" like once every 3 years since the fucking 60's
Facts
Haha, I have noticed that this gets brought up every few years with the goal post being moved.
The goal post never moved. We just keep getting further and further behind it.
Every single report has a few different predictions if anyone bothered to actually read it. The one that gets reported is always the worst one, where no action is taken or actions are reversed. That’s the so called ‘hockey stick’ graph where things get exponential very quick. Things are getting worse for us, and the results are clear, we’re doing something but not enough and people who essentially write the whole thing off without ever reading it are part of the problem.
Can youbpont me to a paper which discusses us being close to the point of no return? I keep seeing this on reddit and I don't know what people are talking about.
Honestly it’s difficult to pick just one apocalypse to focus on. We’re all so spoiled for choice.
Of course it's a problem, but when you hear it your whole life and practically nothing changes, you start to wonder. Also there's not really anything I can do about it.
“Can I work from home, for the environment’s sake, where I reduce my consumption of gas?”
The CEO on a private jet: “No.”
If scientists hadn't been saying that since the 1970's people might be more concerned.
The scientists who had been saying this in the 1970s were... Exxon Mobile's scientists 🤔. And they tried to cover it up.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/
Yeah every few years they claim the sky is falling when it's just rain.
ITS MORE RAIN WE'VE EVER HAD IN RECORDED HISTORY THO
Nevermind the vast majority of human history we couldn't record the amount of rain, so that's really not saying much
People older than 20 know they've been saying this decades, the purported dooms day comes and goes every time.
older than 20 here and I watched with my own eyes how my Home turned from a winter Wonderland into a depressing rainy winter. I don't know What's going to happen but it is getting warmer. weather is getting more extreme we have longer rain periods and longer drought. i don't think I'll drown or dry out but I do believe that crops will get fucked and food will get more expensive. I think a ton of people will get shot at borders because Refugees are only Welcome if a countrys Economy can support it. you already have climate Refugees. Will only get more
I'm so sick of the doomerism. It's fucking everywhere.
OP truly believes the world is ending but does nothing about except collect useless internet points
wtf can one individual with no real power in the world do, is it really that hard to not try and tear people down
OP is pretty much doing the only thing they can do. Going to a mass space and starting up the conversation people desperately try to run from is a good start
2010 wants its meme back
Might be helpful if we weren’t “about to pass the point of no return” for the last 15 - 20 years.
In 2009, a college professor told us that no matter what we did, parts of major coastal cities would be uninhabitable by 2030 due to rising sea levels as a result of climate change, and all we could do is stop it from getting worse.
Like most climate change modeling, those predictions were wildly overestimated and quite possibly outright fabricated. But this is the pattern of climate change alarmists. Whenever their doom and gloom predictions turn out to be false, they just push those goal posts out another few decades.
So if you don’t like the cavalier attitude people have toward climate change, blame climate science’s long history of wildly incorrect predictions and fearmongering. More realistic, but less sensational, predictions that ultimately come to fruition would increase confidence and remove this criticism of climate science.
Sorry, too busy constantly worried about money.
We are more interested in not starving to death and is powerless to do anything impactful anyway.
Passing the point of no return is something they've said every year for decades now lol. Climate change is a narrative they spin to manufacture our consent when they push their bullshit agendas on us.
Why would I waste my time doom posting about something I can't change? Life's too short to be depressed
There's basically nothing we can do as individuals and our leaders don't care. All we can do as individuals is try to position ourselves to survive. Accumulate wealth, move to resilient areas, plan and supply. Unfortunately climate change won't hit everyone equally, poor people and countries will eat the worst of it first.
The same shit head scientists have been saying that shit for fifty years.
It’s been a good ride, oh well.
My problems start in the pantry, there's a long way until I can make the apocalypse a priority.
Cuz I just got done watching 2012 and Day After Tomorrow. Until shit starts looking like that out there, nobody's taking the alarmist screeching seriously. Especially when it's coming from people gluing themselves to highways and trying to destroy priceless art pieces and pieces of history.
Those guys are the worst.
The Ice Poles are melting!
- Proceeds to throw shit at the Mona Lisa's protective glass.
Hooray! The ice poles are regenerating, for every piece of art defaced a new iceberg is formed in the artic sea.
Like...Seriously, what's the thought process behind those guys, if they want people's attention they should yell something like Fire, Fire! Or something, otherwise people are putting all environmentalists in the same basket as those numbskulls.
And all thanks to the Media.
They glue themselves to highways, causing hundreds of people to have to idle their cars until they can finally get moving again, adding God knows how much CO2 to the atmosphere that wouldn't have been added had they not blocked the fucking road and stopped traffic. Then they go to the Taylor Swift concert, who flies her private jet from her kitchen to her bathroom. Then we have Leo DiCaprio on his mega yacht shaming us all for pollution. Then you have climate summits where each person attending flies their own private jets and the richest people have their own personal motorcade. None of the climate alarmists are serious at all about it so why should we take them seriously? John Kerry, the US climate chief, can't stop flying private all over the world but we're supposed to give up our gas cars at his request.
I would rather die eating steak and drinking shake through plastic straw than live and eat bugs
Yes, continue to complain about cows producing methane when China is building a hundred new coal power plants.
I'll complain about both
This is such a surface level take. China is the 2nd biggest population.
China is both the most polluting country and also the country with the biggest green energy industry.
If you’re going to cherry pick data be prepared to be looked down upon. “BBBBbut China!” Is not a good or acceptable excuse for apathy.
What I hate is how they make it sound like it’s the day-to-day man’s fault, not the mega corporations that own the news.
Don't look up.
This isn’t a meme. It’s just a political rant.
Most people are just trying to survive. It’s telling that if this is the biggest concern of yours and you have the time to worry about it then you are very well off or dirt poor and connected with the land.
Scientists don’t know the future.
What are we gonna do? Die faster so it's more comfortable for you?
They've been saying we've had 10 years for the past 50 years
I'm 30, and I've been through four or five "point of no return" so far. Forgive me for believing its all bullshit
The doomsday scenario for climate change is kind of a fringe theory. The whole 99% of scientists agree thing just means that 99% agree that the climate is changing. The severity though is not agreed on yet
point of no return.
They said that in the 60s, the 80s, and early 2000s.
We've passed the point of no return several times over. And then each and every time they've redefined it to make you shit your pants again.
The thing is, we can personally witness the warming. Sure, there have been overestimations, but one can tell that eventually, we will be at the point of no return. That’s just from what we can tell right in front of us and without getting into how the last year was the hottest on record, and many of the years before have all broken the records as well, afaik.
That’s because in the 1970’s, we were all gonna go through a new “ice age”. When the weather pattern favored warmth, it became “global warming”. It’s a bunch of nonsense to control you. Wake up
How many "Points of no return" have we passed? How many times have we been told "By this year half the world will be underwater!"
Don't listen to dooms day cults they make you drink the Kool-Aid when their apocalypse doesn't show up on time.
Maybe if they hadn't been screaming the last hundred years the world is gunna end in 10 years I'd believe them
We care. The fuckers who keep lining their pockets with more cold hard cash don’t. People who use private vehicles don’t. People who own acres of factories that guzzle gas don’t. If they did. We wouldn’t be talking about it.
china: wow that sucks, anyway
China just built another coal plant while this meme was posted.
This again? Last I checked the climate doomsday scenario has been thoroughly refuted by actual scientists.
So, you don't believe that any of that is being deliberately created by Chemtrails, HAARP, etc., to get fools like you to buy into the Climatard hysteria and further propagate the propaganda?
i did my part. I upvoted 15 i dont give a fuck posts.
The amount of weather modification that is documented every day, week, month, year going back decades upon decades confirms man made climate change 100 percent. Funny how it's never mentioned in the climate alarmist spiel. It's carbon, and it's the fault of peasants.
THATS NOT TRUE
THEY BEEN SAYING THIS FOR 40 YEARS MAN
Would it make you feel better if I ran around screaming instead?
And the average person does less damage to the environment in their entire lifetime than Taylor Swift does in 1 day.
Reason to go the nuclear power route.
Tf is this Facebook lookin ass meme
They’ve been saying the same shit every year for the last 50 years that’s why no one cares. Even if it was a real problem what could we do about it. The 1% account for like 65% of emissions or something. The world is not ending.
I felt like we've passed the point of no return 20 times now lol
what do you want me to do? its over, we’ve lost. consider this, say we get all of europe and north america to stop carbon emissions. like everything; cars, planes, plants, coal, oil, everything. we go to nuclear and wind and hydro. no one can drive or fly, and everyone is forced to work near where they live or go to EVs (which have problems in their own right). you think india and china will follow suit? you think we can do anything to force them to follow suit? you know who has the top 2 spots in population? india and china. they have their own economies and exports and imports and they can easily survive on their own despite any sanction we might place on them. and if those 2 countries keep doing what their doing, we could do absolutely everything in our power to stop climate change and it will still happen.
You should definitely hide under your bed and never come out. This is the only reasonable course of action.
I’ll start worrying about climate change when the billionaires stop buying private jets
Not my problem
Because its not the common people causing it. Its the Indian and Chinese government refusing to limit their emissions, the government leaders do not care about the earth because they will die long before any real problems happen. They just want money. Also celebrities and the elite are also a big part of the issue for simply flying private jets literally everytime they want to go somewhere(looking at you Leo Dicaprio and Taylor Swift).
Look, there's enough going on already, and I'm powerless to do anything about most of it. So I'm going to enjoy my little portion of the world the best I can, taking in as little anxiety-inducing news as I can. Call me what you will, but I'm prioritizing my mental health and the things that are within my control
They’ve been saying that since 1980
They've been saying that for decades and they've been wrong for decades. We're always ten years away from doom and when it doesn't happen they act like it because of their policies. Like recycling plastic, which turned out to be a lie told to the government from petroleum companies.
Turns out there was no plastic recycling infrastructure and no plan to create it, they just wanted government contracts for more petroleum products to make more money.
Well duh, Christ is in control so I help make things better by following Him not some dumb ass scientists...
Let's ban plastic straws!
Meanwhile Taylor Swift's private jet goes brrrrrrrrrr...
Probably because most of the world is poor. You’re not thinking about the environment when you’re trying to feed yourself and your future. You’re not thinking about tomorrow if surviving today is a question.
We forget that the even ‘poorer’ people in the west are no where near as poor as the majority of people on this planet.
Older people Rember this exact same line 40 years ago claiming california would cease to exist in next 30 years
The end of the world has been ten years off for forty years now.
"about to"
It is already happening. And it's not a big single event, it's a continuing situation that IS getting worse and going to CONTINUE to get worse because no one cares.
"Scientists" say this shit every couple of years or some variation of it and nothing is really any different for the average person. No wonder no one cares.
Doomer mentality
When families are maxing out credit cards to pay for groceries, it is difficult to care about an abstraction like climate change.
Why should I care? I'm not enjoying this life, I'm barely scraping by with what I have. Now I must act like I'm going to try and make a difference that would literally require the entire planet's involvement? No, I don't care, because I'm not spending my entire life trying to fight for nothing (because nothing is the result I'd get, it's the result most people would get).
It's called 1st world problems. Don't worry, they'll be saying the same thing long after we're dead. It's their biggest money maker.
Why worry about things you cannot change is my motto
It's because we recognise the crazies screaming about the end of the world version 56937667...
And some of us know this planet needs to be above 1000 ppm to be in normal range. Above 1200 to get the plants in their happy place.
I am deeply concerned by it, but doesn't most of the pollution come from 10 different companies?
A quick, uneducated Google search tells me a giant ship called the MSC Grandiose creates more pollution a year than an entire small town.
My main point being that I'm deeply worried about the earth, but I'm at the point where I know I personally cannot do anything about it.
I was listening to that Smartless podcast and they were talking to Woody Harrelson who was talking nonstop about how good he feels that he does everything to decrease his carbon footprint.. 20 mins later he's talking about his many homes and travelling by private jet.
Scientists have been saying that for the last 30 years. No one believes them anymore.
remember when this sub used to be funny?
So many words. The left can’t meme
Lemme guess? We got 10 years before the point of no return.
Amazing how people overreact everything by about global warming. The earth has cooled and warmed up various times throughout millions of years and yet now that the earth is warming up again people are acting like it’s never happened before.
Maybe because there’s no real crisis and lots of people have real problems to worry about.
The world has been reaching a point of no return for the last 40 years, since I was born in 85 and been hearing the same story.
They've said variations of this for like ever. They killed any kinda concern. Global warming, acid rain, ozone layer depletion, ice age, we have 12 months to live, 12 years to live, 20 years...yadda yadda yadda. Meanwhile those people fly big ol wasteful jets, never flying coach.
If it's going to happen regardless of all this plastic we are not using anymore, at least force McDonald's to give me back my plastic straws so I can enjoy my drink again!
Last time they told us the point of no return was 2015. There have been many more points of no return both before and after for almost a hundred years. At some point people are going to stop caring.
They have been saying that for at least 20 years and nothing came of it.
BuT mUh FrEeDoMs
MuH pRoFiTs
I think there's a certain amount of crisis fatigue. I'm 42, in my lifetime there's been almost no period without some crisis. Just environmentally speaking, we've had the ozone, acid rain, Chernobyl, Fukushima, global warming, smog, countless hurricanes, countless forest fires, global dimming, the Exxon Valdez, massive earthquakes, and I'm sure there's more. Combine it with all the various social and political issues, multiple wars, multiple terrorist attacks, the 24 hour doom cycle of major news networks, and I think a lot of people are so emotionally fried that they just lack the capacity to care.