this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
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No one said anything about mindless optimism. You are correct, change is needed and fast, but relentless pessimism achieves nothing except foster defeat. I'm advocating for a realistic approach to how we look at climate change mitigation. Part of being realistic is understanding that things may not be as hopeless as parts of the Internet would like you to believe.
I'm not saying we need to write everything off as hopeless, I'm saying we need to recognize that a lot of current efforts amount to greenwashing and ARE hopeless or even pointless (carbon credits for one are a good scam that comes to mind). The best work is being done by people chaining themselves to trees and sabotaging oil pipelines, not those writing policy with pockets full of cash... and this honestly comes off as apologetic for the latter and more than a little naive to me.
Then I think we're talking at cross purposes. Believe me, I understand the scale of the task and I understand that performative action can be just as damaging as doing nothing at all. However my point is that by only and exclusively focusing on the negative you risk giving the impression that any action is pointless. Those people that you mention chaining themselves to trees etc do so because they believe that it is the only way to achieve the change that is required, but they do believe that change is possible, otherwise why bother? Marinate those same people in a exclusive culture of "we're all doomed, change is pointless because it's too late and it's naive to think otherwise" and soon enough you won't have anyone chaining themselves to anything because you've managed to convince them, wrongly, that it's a waste of time.
There's a psychological aspect to fighting climate change that I think people forget. You need motivation and determination and I belive you get that by staying informed of both the bad and the good work that is being done. Celebrating the little wins so we can continue to push for the big ones. I hope that makes my point a bit clearer? Maybe these articles will do a better job of explaining what I mean, lol:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/26/we-cant-afford-to-be-climate-doomers
https://grist.org/climate-energy/hope-and-fellowship/
Well obviously hope and optimism and nuance are important here, I can't entirely disagree with that I'm just saying we need to support illegalist climate action uncritically (except in the case of complicated, shady organizations like PETA) and we can't expect those in power to act sensibly as a general rule.
Agreed! :) I'm not sure where you are in the world but, if you can, you might be interested in this:
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/chris-packham-is-it-time-to-break-the-law