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Comment by adamtaylor_13 | Hacker News Reader

Most people don't spend a lot of time wistfully considering their CO2 usage, myself included. The religious zeal by which people feel the need to tell me about the ever-warming planet is honestly more off-putting than most actual religions.

Of the very few "f*cks" I can give in my life, I prefer to spend mine as I choose rather than being scolded for not giving mine to the pressing issues that others deem important.

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The thing is that everyone alive today and in the future is footing the bill for that indifference. It's nice that you don't care, but it's not something I'd brag about.

I too don't want to be a martyr hermit who don't travel and consume just to cur my CO2 emissions in half, while someone else generates 10x of that living a full life. That's just dumb, and I consider this whole movement rich people telling poor people that they should be considerate and sacrifice themselves.

If you truly care about the planet, don't have children.

It's an "all hands on deck" situation, yet everyone seems to think that someone else has to do something. You don't need to be a martyr, just to make an effort.

At the very least don't brag about not giving a crap.

I don't give a crap, in the most boastful way possible. Sorry if my zealotry isn't your zealotry.

Thank you for destroying the Earth!

Thank God I'm a single human and don't have nearly that much influence over the Earth.

"No individual rain drop ever considers itself responsible for the flood."

> If you truly care about the planet, don't have children.

That's a fallacy; people care about the planet precisely because of children. I don't care about the planet for its own sake; I care because of the humans who inhabit it and their future lives.

Also, humanity spent 100,000 years without flying around the globe, and I doubt they were all living hermit martyr lives.

Is the OP flying a private jet or something? Unless he is, it's a useless metric. The people flying private are responsible for a 1000x a regular persons emissions. It's offensive to suggest regular salaried people are supposed to be "doing something" in this CO2 effort.

It's true that a single private jet is causing tons of CO2 emissions. But in the end, all consumers control the market. You can jump one link further in the chain to regions with much lower emissions. Somalia/Congo emit over 200x less CO2 per capita in comparison to the US. Do you think that's fair for them if the "regular salaried people" don't care? If responsibility always gets dismissed by pointing to someone emitting more, nothing changes.

I don't feel it's properly engaging in good faith to say that I don't care. I don't specifically care, in the "feeling shame" sense that the GP had mentioned. As I pointed out, we all have a limited number of things we can realistically care about.

The fact that I happen to care about other things more than this specific flavor of global catastrophe is morally OK.

The way I see it, "from each according to their ability" is the right approach here. If you can afford 30% less flying, red meat etc, then it's your duty to do it. You don't need to make your cat go vegan; just... do what you can, even if imperfectly.

Shame is not necessary, but callous indifference is not acceptable. There is a middle ground where you treat it like a habit to improve, like a step count.

And this is it. This is why we are where we are today. That it is seen as taking a religious zeal to realize how flying very frequently is disastrous for the climate. That's our bar and what we have to work with. Yes, we are properly fucked.

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