Comment by scoofy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by scoofy | Hacker News Reader

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Nobody cares... most people are completely ignorant to what is going to happen, so nobody fucking cares. I was in college in '99 taking earth science, thinking people were reasonable. I took up cycling as transit at the time and cut down sharply on meat consumption. I assumed i was getting a head start on the changing infrastructure.

I fought hard for transit-alternatives in Austin... left the city when they ditched the bicycle master-plan to build an express lane on the freeway. I fought for transit alts in NYC, and they've seen a bunch of progress, and I'm fighting for the same in SF now, also seeing slow progress.

To this day, the vast majority of people are so deeply dependent on fossil fuels, the asks put forward are considered unacceptable. How do we run AC in Texas? How do we convince people to, not just build up, but to build anything. How do we turn suburbs into commuter towns? How do we convert interstate highways into high-speed rail. How do we convince people that meat should be a special occasion food, not the basis for every meal. The concept of a carbon tax is so, so obvious, but people have built their lives around carbon every second of every day. We can't even solve the fucking duck curve for electric generation even though getting batteries in every home is an easy solution.

I'm so jaded at this point, but I'll never give up fighting for mitigation, even if it seems so fucking impossible. I have my plans in place to move to places that will likely benefit from the changes... but that's just the world we live in.

My response to you as a ray of hope is that some do care albeit a very small informed few while even less from those few have made proactive lifestyle adaptations. Should the scientific discoveries and interpretation of the data from extracted ice cores hold true then we know what surface temperatures earth will be experiencing in due time with CO2 at 421. “Time” being the key term as few humans concern themselves with events that transpire beyond the scope of an individual human's time, aka “life”. I can greatly respect your anger as expressed from your choice of vulgar words as I at times use the same words under the same expression of statements but I believe we have all but solidified what is to come since very few people are willing to change how they live. I anticipate more and more increased tragedy at all levels as this modus operandi has already begun. One being the regional heat dome anomalous events which will bring many more deaths from the wet bulb temperature effect since nature does not see race, religion, wealth, politics or any of the other human created points that we argue constantly that mean nothing in the grand scheme of our existence. While entities continue to have meetings to discuss how to fix the problem without wanting to change how we live the earth is certain at some point to force everyone's hand while Darwinism continues to play out, with or without humans.

Same here. Built a solar/wind powered off grid house. The only people interested were people that were forced to live off grid simply because the grid didn't reach where they lived and renewable energy hobbyists, people in it mostly for the tech, not to actually switch their dependency or coming from a motivation of sustainability (though there were a couple like that). Interestingly enough this is now seeing something of a revival because energy prices have been steadily rising.

But indeed, jaded is the term. I've pretty much given up, I could no longer justify making all these changes while around me everybody is partying like it's 1999, yes, I'm an idealist and would love for people to wake up but I don't have the energy to be a living example for decades without any meaningful impact.

I still try to drive as little as possible and do the bulk of my trips on the e-bike but I'm not going to overdo it and I'm happy to take the car when it rains. Frustrating, but ultimately a few people are not going to be able to convince a public that 100's of times larger that they should change their ways when society's momentum is still moving the other way, and politicians will not move until they feel that such a move will land well with their electorate. We've made a lot of changes in spite of all that, too little, too late, but given the amount of headwind I still consider that an impressive result.

The dutch have a proverb 'the ship will be turned by the shore', if you don't change course in time then your course will be changed for you, but then by main force. It would have been better to avoid that but apparently collectively we only really learn the hard way. Which is a pity because if humanity would resolve its differences amicably and start pulling in the same direction for a change this place could be paradise, for all of us instead of just for a select few.

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