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Comment by tmountain | Hacker News Reader

I’m personally exhausted from hearing about all the terrible stuff that’s happening that I have very little to no control over. I have seen countless articles about micro plastics, forever chemicals, fresh water supplies decreasing at alarming levels, Gulf Stream collapse, etc.

It’s enough to make you feel nihilistic. A big part of me feels like these are government problems, as the average person is preoccupied with paying the bills, feeding their kids, and all the other trivialities that we deal with on a daily basis.

That said, most governments are mired in bureaucracy at best, or downright dysfunctional (or anti environmental) at the worst.

So… what’s a guy to do besides “chop wood, carry water” while trying to enjoy life as best I can?

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There is a spectrum in between chop wood, carry water that looks like: - use natural cleaning products - use reusable bags - volunteer in green space preservation - vote in local elections

etc. Establish your principles and live as closely to that as you can, and tune out what is outside of your control. Seriously. Block it. No one needs to see this shit every day.

>A big part of me feels like these are government problems, as the average person is preoccupied with paying the bills, feeding their kids, and all the other trivialities that we deal with on a daily basis.

And what about when those people vote for their immediate rather than their long term needs? The man who just wants to pay his bills and feed his kids wants cheap food and cheap gas, and for prices not to go up. His politicians can't affect the sort of change you're suggesting because their opponents who promise more cheap garbage win too many votes.

It's also somewhat of a boogeyman. I mean they are real problems, widespread even, but the "everywhere-ness" of them is the boogeyman. You dont necessarily have to be as afraid of it as it may seem.

Sure its a real problem and we shouldn't be complacent. But is your faucet suddenly killing you or not? Maybe it's actually not. And maybe you should confirm that it is before being afraid of it after reading articles online.

Keep in mind that there are dozens if not hundreds of different problems, each being presented as catastrophic. If it was all true to the degree claimed, we'd be in far worse shape. It's logically impossible for everything to be as bad as claimed.

In truth, we're doing pretty ok. There's just still lots of room for improvement.

Try to affect the political decisions? Donate to Greenpeace or similar organizations?

No need for question marks. I think we really need to square off with the idea that, while we will personally not cause or contribute highly to major shifts in how the world operates, there are ways to contribute - even a simple e-mail to your representatives - that should be undertaken in earnest by each and every one of us, even if we don't feel that they will make an impact. Most people don't - and that's why the impact is negligible. We really should assertively encourage each other to participate, even to the smallest degree.

I think I and a lot of people around me got used to the relative comfort in life. To the sceptics this may sounds like just more scaremongering, but let's face it, it _has_ been getting worse in many more ways than we wanted or expected over the last decade. The least we can do to try to revert this trend is to attend a march, send an e-mail or try to spare some time to vote. Nobody can ignore the fact, that it will not reverse itself on its own.

Donating to organizations that are anti-nuclear power seems counter productive to me.

Agree, which is why I wrote "or similar".

Chopping wood is no solution - imagine if all the people in a city burned wood for their heating and cooking, it'd be a smoggy nightmare.

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