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However, I think what that means is that we cannot maintain the same behavior that has led us to this point. As a society we need to change, but that’s been really hard as we’ve seen.
While it’s not much, I have changed my individual behaviors to align with this philosophy of hopeful optimism by not owning a car, volunteering to pick up litter and plant trees, and investing in renewable energy ETFs.
Plus, if the only people reproducing are the ones whose parents believe in endless growth and consumption, who’s going to stop them? We need children who believe in a different system to save our environment.
I hate saying it, but I don’t believe there’ll be societal changes until it’s far too late. I’m disabled (need a cane to walk), and people will happily make my life harder if the alternative is a mild inconvenience for them. Even basics like help holding doors open isn’t reliable. I can’t fathom larger societal changes happening in any form if it means people have to give up on their own convenience.
Maybe I’m just too much of a doomer here, dunno, but it just doesn’t feel likely.
> but for humans as we know them, we are done
This is too nihilistic, even for me...
It is quite clear by now that we are not interested in sufficiently reducing the per-human footprint, so the only option remaining is to reduce the number of humans. Either we do this voluntarily, or our children die fighting in the Climate Wars.
We'll see how high and mighty you are when the entirety of order Cetaecea is made equal, and packing, man-thing.
Seriously, anthropocentrism is a habit that can be broken. The fact that people instantly feel badass at the prospect of challenging something unarmed just reinforces my belief in the fact the only universally respected language is violence;and further that equality without the clear and present capability to reciprocate violence is not true equality at all.
I guarantee every person against preserving the Natural Order would object way louder to equipping and enabling the Natural Order to preserve itself.
You would prefer to have all your fellow humans die to save the planet.
I’m all for improving things and looking for solutions to the problems we created, but this dumb nihilism serves nothing.
If you think that humans are the problem and we should cease existing, why aren’t you in the ground already?
Where do we even fix the issue in the U.S. right now? Solar is still out of reach for a lot of people and states refuse to subsidize it. Everything is built so far apart that we need cars. We can't correct our farming practices without starving the country. It's not even nihilism, it's just that we don't have any realistic options right now.
For example, the low-end supermarket brand here in Berlin actually sells fresh fruit and vegetables, so we don't get the "food deserts" that the US suffers from (or if they do exist, nowhere near as severely): https://www.aldi-nord.de/sortiment/obst-und-gemuese.html
They also sell micro-PV systems for people renting apartments: https://www.aldi-onlineshop.de/p/plug--play-balkon-kraftwerk...
And a nation-wide (non-express) public transport pass costs €49/month.
That's the dumbest statement i've ever seen, why are you equating 1 person to 8 billion people?
A more appropriate response that still points out their absurdity would be to ask why they aren't committing any mass murders.
Also, if my statement is the dumbest you have ever seen, you haven't seen many statements....
I believe that one answer to this is that life is meant to persist and that by introducing and teaching children that are able to enact change may be the world's best hope. One isn't going to stop humans at large from existing, so we might as well contribute to members that can help change the tide, teaching them modifications to human behavior that is more in line with nature.
Every animal, including the boiled dolphins, could benefit by having more offspring and adapting instead of some mass suicidal extinction event.
What if I disagree with this conclusion while those with like minds of yours have power over me? I would be then easily sympathetic to eliminating your kind in order to save the human species from extinction. Do you realize if you or others of this mindset have enough power, you would become the villain of sci-fi stories?
The real "mass suicidal extinction event" is what we are currently doing, sitting idly while we are boiled like a frog in a pot. You are not going to be a hero to your children when they inherit a world where a large percentage of animal species has gone extinct, major cities have had to be abandoned because they are no longer compatible with human life, and dozens of wars are being fought over essential resources.
How are you going to explain to them that you willingly brought them into such a world?
I am already a hero. They know. They are thankful. I took care of them while they were weak, broken, and ignorant. I saved them from certain death on countless occasions.
I will explain to my kids: I was commanded to have children. I am keeping that command.