I do care. I see a species ending disaster hanging over the future. I recycle, I have solar panels, a heat pump, an EV (that I leave on my driveway whenever my bicycle will do the job). But the planet is being ruined by greed on an unfathomable scale and aside from doing what I can and voting for parties that see the problem, I feel like there’s not a god damn thing I can do about it.

>This is literally going to kill millions.

You could be right, but I think the more likely outcome is a 'Ministry for the Future' scenario where India or China just decide to unilaterally implement geoengineering and dare the rest of the world to stop them.

The millions it will kill first won't be among the overconsumers who are driving climate change.

Millions? I don't usually meet many optimistic people in risk management :(

> This is literally going to kill millions.

Unfortunately, given current trajectory that's how the mother nature is going to bring back balance. I wouldn't be surprised even billions die.

this is perhaps the best thing written on the topic https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jul-02-op-gilbe...

> This is literally going to kill millions.

Somebody (maybe Stalin) once said something like one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. A disaster on the scale of millions of deaths doesn't register in a lot of people's brains. It has to be made smaller, more personal.

so I don't want to ignore it nor the evidence, now what?

I'm very concerned personally, but I find it easy to inhabit many minds on this topic...

Firstly, most people just don't see the impacts of climate change that dramatically in their lives so it's easy not to care.

They'll notice slightly warmer summers, but it's not that bad. Food is a bit more expensive too, but that's more to do with global oil supplies and geopolitical conflict than crop failure.

Meanwhile (here in Europe) energy prices are crippling us and businesses. And over the last few years we've been constantly reminded just how vulnerable we are because we don't have enough domestic oil and gas production to cover domestic demand.

Additionally, you have countries like the UK and Germany who (in my view) are massive global PR damage for green energy policies by showing the world just how economically harmful and expensive going all in on renewals is.

Personally I project out and see we're screwed if we don't make a change yesterday, but I also know the UK investing more in green energy will do little more than just make us all poorer. Ultimately climate change is a global problem and we need global solutions. Even if the UK cut it's emissions to 0 that would represent less than a 1% of total global emissions... What's the point?

Okay, so then I try to think about what those global solutions are... Maybe we can collectivise with other countries and assert pressure on others to pollute less with us?

Okay great, but realistically this will kill millions of people... Energy is what keeps the global economy going and increasing energy costs in developing countries will mean cutting them off from the energy they need to survive.

Additionally, this will push up prices of essentials in the West. Maybe people in the West won't die, but for those already struggling to get by, their lives will get far harder...

Okay, so what's the alternatives? Would it be better to tolerate a little more heat? Maybe we can do some geo-engineering to hold down global temperatures a bit instead?

Ultimately it seems to me there are no good answers here aside from a slow transition which ultimately will be forced on us by the fact that the supply of fossil fuels is limited.

Fossil fuels are like a debt which we take out and enjoy the benefits of, then hand down to the next generation to pay back. All we can really do is decide who pays the price.

Do we suffer greatly now for the good of future generations? Or do we hope that future generations will find a technological solution?

As a wealthy European my position would be to take the cost now but I suspect if I were struggling to get by my position on this would be very different.

I don't want to criticize you, but a question: what are you doing in practice to change something? Is your carbon footprint below what is sustainable?

Let's look at me: I don't own a car, live in a smaller town, move around mostly on foot, take public transportation, long distance mostly train. I have two kids and for years my electricity total was 1500kwh a year. Last year it was 1100kwh (heating is gas though, that's what my building has). All this and I do cook a lot with an electric stove. I bought some new appliances before the old ones were completely broken (although they were close) partly because the new ones were all very energy efficient.

But: I live abroad and take my kids to my parents once a year, and fly. Last year I flew four times, including intercontinental (albeit a true outlier of a year). I consume things produced all around the globe, either as items like phones, or food, and the food I do probably daily (I really like fruit, so bananas, mangos, avocados etc).

My point is: my carbon footprint is pretty low, and I try to be mindful about not wasting resources. And it's not that hard, I don't feel like I am missing out on something if I don't drive a car. But I still took my kids to Spain on a vacation, and we still flew there to sit on the beach. Giving that up is hard, and making them sacrifice their childhood fun is hard.

There's a range of what people are ready to give up. I would say I'm on the better side of it, but it's still not enough. Almost no one is ready to sacrifice, and we need almost everyone to sacrifice. Governments do lip service to these goals, but let's see how much countries like Spain sre ready to curb tourism, or countries like Germany and China that live off manufacturing to cut consumption. Who will give up their job to reduce carbon emissions?

The saying train wreck in slow motion has merit.

they don't care who lives or dies. they probably think it only affects "bad" people.

> This isn't a personal risk, either, like riding a motorcycle where you're the only one who's going to get hurt when your number comes up. This is literally going to kill millions.

Just my personal opinion on why this might be the case.

It's perhaps that people have hard time understanding the scale of the issue. They think, few inches so what?? but the downstream effects of it are catastrophic.

Even if as you are suggesting that millions of people might die, its hard to imagine the scale of that or how that might look like.

On the other hand, I have seen people far more passionate even about the lives/death of a single person. Maybe its the story telling aspects of it which plays a part in why a person cares about an issue or not, also how society reacts to problem.

A man looks upwards, if everyone else around him is running saying the sky is falling. He might assume so too, but if everyone else is acting the same nonetheless, (Sure people are speaking but Words are cheap and actions are hard and its actions of our society that we subtly pay most attention to.)

Maybe realizing this, I feel as if its a chicken and egg problem. We want people to care but people care especially more only if society at large cares about it but society is made up of people.

Going on a tangent, I come to this topic of chicken and egg a lot in my life. It feels as if things can be stuck and perhaps this also explains why things aren't improving, because if it did improve then I wouldn't be talking about it.

But because I am talking about this problem, it means that its usually involved of factors including societal/social dynamics and people are complicated and complex and its a hard problem to solve.

But just because it could be hard doesn't mean it isn't impossible. We can try to be helpless or doomerist about it but also Humanity has shown from time to time to do the (hard things) or even impossible things. Humanity is really impressive in that sense but also unpredictable and as such, I have given up the ability to predict the future but I have hope and trust within my heart that we could (together, as a society) fix this issue of climate change for our next generations because our generation borrows it from the next one and we should try to give it in good shape because why not/why shouldn't we.

I hope that we do, in fact, give a better future to the next generation and give them hope. Or certainly we can try to try our best in this possibility and perhaps be aware of the dynamics at play.