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Comment by CodeSgt | Hacker News Reader

As much as I hate to say this, I’ve lost almost all concern for the environment “crisis”. Not saying it isn’t real, but at 24 years old now I’ve been seeing panic-fuel since I was 10 on Disney channel about the hole in the ozone layer (that managed to fix itself), deforestation, the coral reefs, etc.

I’ve been told I should be scared of the world ending because selfish greedy humans are destroying it for literally as long as I can remember, and I’m over it. I can’t bring myself to always be anxious about it. It’s either live a lifetime of worry or say fuck it and live my life.

I recycle, I rideshare when I can, I take the steps that are convenient to me to help, but I just can’t be bothered getting that worked up over it anymore.

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The problem is that this is not scary enough for those who are young, because they do not know from direct experience how it was earlier and how it is today.

I am old enough to remember that when I was a child, where I live, in Europe, every winter there was permanent snow coverage since early December until late March.

On the other hand, in the last 10 years there was no more than a week of snow per winter, and in the last 5 years no more than a couple of days with snow per winter.

There are more than 10 years since I have used for the last time my winter clothes and boots.

Such a big climatic change in less than a human lifetime cannot be ignored and it is not at all certain how it will evolve and which will be the consequences.

Of course it can be ignored. I am ignoring it.

I'm not sure you will be able to ignore for any longer when we will all see massive inflation of basic produces due to crop failure.

Just wait until the mass migrations get even worse. We’re already seeing the waves from South America here. Europe’s seeing them come up over the Mediterranean. A third of the entire nation of Pakistan flooded this year… how many times can that happen before our supply chains start faltering?

> the hole in the ozone layer (that managed to fix itself)

Humans fixed the ozone layer, via the Montreal Protocol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol

>Humans fixed the ozone layer

Humans stopped creating a hole in the ozone layer

I don’t blame you and agree it’s not worth getting anxious about it, but keep in mind you have grown up in an era of complete corporate take over, they’ve managed to make you believe nothing you can do matters and doing a few small things like recycling is really all you can do, when the reality if the complete opposite.

The Ozone layer was fixed because of an international agreement at the global level. Things can get fixed, and this is exactly the type of problem that can only be fixed by governments, but people have to care and get involved/vote or do whatever they can to impact decisions at a global scale.

I completely agree. We have only ourselves to blame for allowing the people to have power.

People should be rioting in the street by now.

Ironically the example you cite of how not caring about things fixes them was actually a perfect example of a whole lot of people caring about something quite a lot and crafting policy to fix it.

Stop caring about the world around you at your own peril. I'd say at risk of moral hazard but clearly that's not an argument likely to interest you.

Could you elaborate on the first point? Ignorance isn’t necessarily arrogance or nonchalance, and I fall firmly into the former on this particular topic.

At 33 years old, I can say that what you’ve just expressed is probably not your end state mindset, nor should it be. I have definitely agreed with your sentiment in various portions of my life, but it stopped serving me. But if it serves you and your life right now, then that is good. It isn’t worthwhile to be worried about climate and never act on it. Live your life, but the problem isn’t likely going to go away or cease to affect you, in a macro sense.

> that managed to fix itself

We fixed it by significantly reducing our usage of the chemicals that were causing it allowing it to repair itself.

I'm a good bit older than you, for me the eye opener is by travelling the world and seeing how much has been trashed. When I was a kid it felt like there was a vast amount of nature out there (even then a lot of damage had been done, but many of the wildlife docs etc were just old enough that when filmed there was more nature).

Growing up in a modern western city I was far removed from it, but then travelling and seeing how much has been carved up and domesticated (as well as the cultural homogenisation), it really feels we are doing future generations a massive wrong.

I agree, and also, I'm not really sure what one nation is supposed to do about it. The US can reduce its emissions all it wants, but good luck convincing China to do the same when it means they'll have to slow down their economy. Not to mention all the measures taken thus far, like mandating EVs and phasing out ICE cars, is just stupid virtue signaling when a single supertanker causes as much emissions as every car in the US combined.

You know just because someone else doesn't play with you doesn't mean you should not play.

Or try.

And yes it makes a huge difference. China is not ignorant if the other world leaders change their whole economy to renewable.

On one site it's a huge market for China and it makes those countries independent. Energy rules the world.

And yes it makes a difference for me if I do my part and it didn't work out or if I did not.

More so, we can't expect China and others to play nice if we don't, so we should lead the way.

Are you seriously comparing the massive economic impacts advocated by these policies to children playing? And yeah, feel free to give me a ring when China purposely weakens their own economy because they saw the West doing it - I'll buy you a beer.

Yes.

And no I believe renewable is the next economy topic.

Transforming everything is a lot of jobs/work and will make energy cheaper and countries less dependent.

OK, fair enough. Sorry for the snark, I had a rough day yesterday. Would love to see a future filled with cheap, reliable, renewable energy.

This stems from unfamiliarity with Chinese economy. China being a late comer to a lot of technologies means that a large portion of their research & patents are in relatively more recent fields, e.g. China has more expertise in manufacturing EVs compared to ICE cars, China is dominating the solar market when they are not as competitive in more traditional silicon industry. Not mentioning the "per capita" argument prevalent in most developing countries, in many occasions, the movement towards reducing emission is helping the economy instead of the opposite, signified by the recent surge of Chinese EVs rendering a lot of western brands obsolete there, VW among the most shocked. This applies or will apply to all the other third world countries such as India, as the mechanism behind this phenomenon is universal.

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