Hacker News Reader

Comment by dariosalvi78 | Hacker News Reader

climate change became to be discussed as an issue since the 80s. I am in my late 40s and I have been hearing about since forever, and yet so little has been done since then. Now you can understand why I, as probably many here, have zero faith in this being solved in any sensible way.

Go and get depressed... or maybe go and eat your Brazilian meat burger, drive your SUV and book your flight to Hawaii, it won't last long.

View on HN

What’s always struck me as interesting about these conversations is that both you and I and many, many of the other people we talk to are willing to make significant life changes to deal with this problem, and yet we all seem convinced the blocker here is that everyone else is an asshole.

It seems to me that assholes do in fact exist, but by all measures make up a much smaller percentage of the population than we’ve been lead to believe, and so the notion that a bulk majority of people would act in the interests of others and humanity at large is perhaps not the unthinkable notion we’ve been told. It might be that the actual action here is to recognize the people telling us everyone else is an asshole are trying to pull the wool over our eyes and treat them accordingly.

I tend to attribute most problems to low intelligence and/or ignorance more than plain asshole-ness. I don't disregard the complexity of fixing climate change, and the need for global cooperation, but we have had plenty of time and too little was done, even in more peaceful times than today.

I think that the problem won't be solved by us, it will balance itself out. A bigger chunk of the planet will become more hostile, human population will shrink, we will live at much lower scales, consume less and pollute less, for thousands of years to come.

I hope I will be proven wrong.

I think the problem is not recognizing the assholes as a separate problem from the ignorance. Ignorant people hear “giant impending calamity that will harm you and your neighbors” and think, “oh, we should do something about that!” They’re currently not doing so because a cabal of assholes has spent half a century muddying the public waters.

And, regarding “living at lower scales and polluting less” - consider how many things in your life are sold to you as disposable items and how many don’t need to be, and how many things can be produced in a substantially more sustainable fashion without negatively impacting their utility or quality. The average person can live an extremely rich, fulfilling, and comfortable life on a low carbon budget.

> low intelligence

You have a lot of personal problems to fix before you have to worry about climate disaster.

I mean, I damn sure hope we can do both in parallel, because if we’re gonna wait for everyone to reach enlightenment, we’re sure not gonna make it in time.

That's fine. We're literally all in this together.

It would help to abandon antiquated ideas of specific superiority, not to mention specified or genetic superiority.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com