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Comment by cowpig | Hacker News Reader

I find myself oscillating between bargaining, depression, and acceptance on this topic.

Something will happen in the world, like Bolsonaro losing his election and Lula making some promises, and I will gain hope. Then I'll look at the IPCC again and feel depressed. Then I'll make some commitment to change my life habits in some way that's a bit greener and accept that I can't do much more.

But there's still some cognitive dissonance when I reach acceptance. I don't really accept it deep down. I live in fear, especially fear for my kids' generation.

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What's helped me is changing my opinion about what I, my kids and the rest of humanity deserve in the grand scheme of things. I used to think we deserve to live in comfort and safety, with the hope of reaching an old age. I thought technology, knowledge and progress where the reason for all that luxury. Now I believe it's got more to do with a sudden rise in available energy. The trend is going down. Life is becoming more tragic again. I won't lie to my children and let them believe war happens to others. I know the world has never been as safe and rich as it's been recently. But I think the peak is around in my part of the world, and the environmental crisis is going to cause many peaks everywhere.

I often wonder about refugee camps and wonder how I'd fare in one of them. Is it possible to organise theater courses? How difficult is it to find a space to meditate? Would people still care to have intellectual discussions?

A difficult life is still one worth living.

I volunteered at a Ukranian refugee camp in Warsaw. You don’t want to go there, see the despair, the frightened children.

I hope you’re trolling.

Of course I don't want to go there. I don't want the consequences of global warming, war, peak oil, and the likes.

It‘s not a consequence but your imagination. Peak oil and global warming are actually opposites. You can‘t fix climate change and hope to find more oil.

There‘s a big difference between perhaps not doing holidays in a place far away or even not buying a smart TV or new phone and what you describe.

They aren't opposites, they're different things. My energy hungry lifestyle contributes to global warming and it is comfortable in the short term. What's good now and has been good for me in the past causes something bad in the future. The decline of easy energy is bad for my current lifestyle, and I don't think it can be avoided.

But what would be even worse is trying to avoid the decline of easy energy. Because even if there's petrol and coal and gas left in the ground, we should stop burning it, because we have to mitigate climate change. That's the tragedy.

We're faced with a choice: maximizing short-term comfort by putting back the consequences of reducing available energy, or minimizing long-term discomfort (might be a euphemism) by deliberately cutting down on still available energy.

I resent this comment.

What‘s your point? Climate change will lead to war?

> Now I believe

Exactly. You believe. Old age has very little to do with energy and far more with knowledge and progress in medicine.

It has to do with both, but the rate of growth of knowledge and progress have been made possible by the abundance of energy. If you remove energy even in a developed society, people go back to surviving.

For you and others reading this, here's some ways to put your skills to work on solutions:

https://workonclimate.org/

https://www.mcjcollective.com/

https://bootup.airminers.org/

Fear is the problem, not the solution. I recently talked to a friend and he‘s so much in fear that he just gave up on all the good ways to improve the situation.

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