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How do you deal with depression about climate change? (programming.dev)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I started getting sad about climate change two years ago after seeing Planet Earth and many documentaries. I completely changed my lifestyle to reduce my part and put significant effort into it.

But seeing rich celebrities who use as much as a common man's lifetime resources in a week or two, and others who barely put in any effort to combat it, and corporations fucking the entire planet for quarterly profits, barely any efforts towards fighting it even though we had known about its consequences 30-40 years ago, I get this feeling that my efforts are even worth it.

Slowly, I told myself that evolution failed itself by giving a bit more individual selfishness over community/species survival. Just like human beings, Earth's time has started to end. Its death is inevitable. Everything should come to an end. Only if evolution had given a bit more thought to species survival, we would be in a much better place.

How do you all deal with this?

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

You didnt mention children, so im assuming you dont have any. If so, keep it up. Staying child-free is likely the most effective personal decision you could make to reduce your environmental impact. Obviously, that doesnt mean you should feel free to dump your used motor oil in the street, but you also arent adding a lifetime worth of consumption to the pile. Further, even if you lived in a cave the rest of your life, someone is one broken condom away from invalidating your (lack of) contribution.

Further, the argument could be made that what we're doing to our environment is the "natural" way of things. Stick a bacteria culture in a petri dish and what does it do? It expands to the limits of its environment and consumes all available resources until there is nothing left it can use. Earth is our petri dish, and we're just going through the motions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Staying child-free is likely the most effective personal decision you could make to reduce your environmental impact.

How do you reach this conclusion ?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

If a person doesnt exist, they don't consume anything. No food, no air travel, no electricity needs, etc..I'm not saying that anyone who has, or wants to have, a child is some kind of asshole, its our biological prerogative after all. Just saying that when comparing individuals and their contribution to climate change, those who sired children are subsequently responsible for a lifetime, or possibly several lifetimes, of carbon emissions.