Sometimes being realistic == being pessimistic

The article We can’t afford to be climate doomers by Rebecca Solnit (Guardian) takes “doomers” to task for failing to maintain optimism in the face of overwhelming resistance.

“Stanford engineering professor and renewable energy expert Mark Z Jacobson tweeted the other day, “Given that scientists who study 100% renewable energy systems are unanimous that it can be done why do we hear daily on twitter and everywhere else by those who don’t study such systems that it can’t be done?””

This means nothing. First of all, all you people spend way too much time arguing with idiots online. Second of all, the fact that it is technically possible has been true for decades.

We only have to reduce. We don’t even need to invent anything. We won’t do it.

We do not have the systems in place to enact anything approaching climate protection in the most wasteful societies. And it is those societies that will determine what will happen.

Instead, an opposing religion has taken such strong hold that even the smartest, most enlightened of the people living in those societies simply can’t conceive of a society mediated by anything other than money, can’t conceive of living with limited resources, believe that “out of sight” is “out of mind”, they drive everywhere in the most wasteful of vehicles, consume, consume, consume, and can’t see anything wrong with it.

They will drag this fucking boat under the water, completely oblivious to their role in this debacle. We cannot stop them. Everything is working against us. You would have to eliminate most of western culture—but, honestly, especially American culture—to save the planet.

Try and Stop UsThere is no way to reconcile America as she is with saving the planet. One of them has to go. And, the way things look, it will be the planet that goes—because no-one can stop America. It eats everything. It corrodes otherwise intelligent people into espousing the most warped opinions.

You can be an Earth-science teacher in a town without drinking water and still talk about luxuriating in 30-minute showers and washing your hair every day. People cannot. Fucking. Get. It. Nothing connects on a personal level. One’s own behavior and benefit will always be paramount. They start off thinking differently, but they all end up the same: defeated by America’s poisonous form of capitalism and dog-eat-dog philosophy (if you can even call it that).

“One day this week, someone told me that she was “angry at people’s refusal to acknowledge what’s happening to the planet” and when I waved a couple of surveys at them showing that in 2023 “Nearly seven-in-ten Americans (69%) favor the U.S. taking steps to become carbon neutral by 2050””

What a fucking joke. Who did you ask? I haven’t met a single person who would say that unless they thought they would be entered in a contest to win a 13MPG truck by saying it. If they did say it, they meant “carbon neutral” as long as it could happen “without sacrificing a single, tiny thing that I have been brainwashed into thinking is important for my life”.

“I don’t know why so many people seem to think it’s their job to spread discouragement, but it seems to be a muddle about the relationship between facts and feelings. I keep saying I respect despair as an emotion, but not as an analysis.”

JFC, please talk to actual people in your own country. Get out of your hippie bubble of planet-saving folks. No-one else in your country cares. They do not grasp the problem. They all want to travel the world, visit places, buy new cars, buy giant houses.

They. Do. Not. Understand.

And those that do? They. Do. Not. Care.

They are laser-focused on personal promotion and do not see any reason to restrict their lifestyles to ones that use less energy.

They don’t even understand the question.

They can’t follow the discussion. Believe me, I’ve tried. People can’t understand what I’m saying. They seem to agree with me, but then cite examples that indicate that they completely missed the point. It’s not a matter of will or determination—they are not even prepared to understand the situation. We are so far away from where we need to be at this point.

Go ahead and “fight defeatism”, Rebecca. You’ll still only be talking to people who basically already agree with you, people who are capable of understanding what needs to be done.

But defeatists and deniers aren’t the reason we will fail to maintain a livable climate. It’s not even apathy. It’s blank incomprehension. It’s the Idiocracy. We are living on Ark B, Rebecca. Most people aren’t even as clever about the climate as the Golgafrinchan captain of Ark B.

Look—really look; watch TV here; look at what people are ingesting—and you too will despair. No-one is even prepared to take a shorter shower or turn the AC above 70ºF for even a minute. Personal comfort is paramount and it isn’t even seen as related to either climate change or the effort required to combat it. Changing attitudes and lifestyles is not even seen as a component of the solution—to say nothing of being the absolute crux of it.