Adding to the chorus of gratitude for this piece and all of your efforts. Converting my subscription to paid today! This message needs to be amplified.
As a Gen-X parent of Gen-Z young adults, I believe that growing their resilience is the most important thing I can do for their future and that of my (hopefully) grandchildren.
I think there is too much overstating of climate change on the Left and associated media that is unnecessarily increasing climate anxiety that needs to be called out more, i.e. too many people are led to believe that things are worse than they really are. The further right always gets called out, but never the further left, which is just as damaging. As just one example, Greta tweeted a climate prediction from a scientist in 2018 exclaiming catastrophe in 5 years...she then deleted the tweet in 2023 when that catastrophic prediction didn't come true...this is coming from the most influential climate advocate for young people in the world at the time. How much unnecessary anxiety did this cause? Too much. There is a clear pattern of the left overblowing and presenting biased information about things like wildfires, hurricanes, and more, when much of these events are much more complicated and can't just be chalked up to climate change. Furthermore, they aren't offering any real solutions as far as energy or or transportation alternatives, seeing as how none of them are living any more frugally than they could be if they simply chose to do so...i.e. energy demand is not going to go away.
Well yeah, there are total lunatics on the extremes of every political question. They're dumb, obvs. Life's too short to sweat the dumb shit dumb people say.
The more I see young generations working, the more optimistic I am. At the same time, I agree, "people will come around, because the alternatives are just unthinkable". The question is when in a systems, non linear world where points of no return exist.
Thank you Quico! “Climate anxiety is, in the end, a rational response to being asked to put our faith in pint-sized solutions to tanker-sized problems.” Yes!
Restoring a safe climate through nature’s most powerful CDR processes…is the antidote to climate anxiety and the climate crisis itself.
Good overall point but let’s also face the fact that the entire world has failed, so far, to adequately address the problem. So saying that “This is why normal kids despair: they’re not dumb, they can see the solutions grown-ups are selling to them are not up to the task. “ is a understating the fact that politically the world has absolutely failed to act in emergency mode and take the steps needed to get closer to a solution. A lot of people despair because we’ve had the ability to move much faster to address the problem but, year after year, are not taking steps to actually get to zero emissions, drawdown, and planetary cooling.
The climate movement has an unrealistic, grounded-in-nothing, ideological commitment to a program of crash-decarbonization that —surprise!— voters find toxic.
Politicians, who aren't suicidal, refuse to implement such a program, because it's entirely unrealistic and incompatible with democracy.
But because we're not doing the crazy, impossible thing the climate movement defines as "climate action", people get the idea that we're not moving at all. Which is nonsense!
Please send me an email to Alex Carlin pynotic@hotmail.com - I am a climate journalist for Center for Media and Democracy - I would like to interview you - thanks!
Adding to the chorus of gratitude for this piece and all of your efforts. Converting my subscription to paid today! This message needs to be amplified.
As a Gen-X parent of Gen-Z young adults, I believe that growing their resilience is the most important thing I can do for their future and that of my (hopefully) grandchildren.
I think there is too much overstating of climate change on the Left and associated media that is unnecessarily increasing climate anxiety that needs to be called out more, i.e. too many people are led to believe that things are worse than they really are. The further right always gets called out, but never the further left, which is just as damaging. As just one example, Greta tweeted a climate prediction from a scientist in 2018 exclaiming catastrophe in 5 years...she then deleted the tweet in 2023 when that catastrophic prediction didn't come true...this is coming from the most influential climate advocate for young people in the world at the time. How much unnecessary anxiety did this cause? Too much. There is a clear pattern of the left overblowing and presenting biased information about things like wildfires, hurricanes, and more, when much of these events are much more complicated and can't just be chalked up to climate change. Furthermore, they aren't offering any real solutions as far as energy or or transportation alternatives, seeing as how none of them are living any more frugally than they could be if they simply chose to do so...i.e. energy demand is not going to go away.
Well yeah, there are total lunatics on the extremes of every political question. They're dumb, obvs. Life's too short to sweat the dumb shit dumb people say.
The more I see young generations working, the more optimistic I am. At the same time, I agree, "people will come around, because the alternatives are just unthinkable". The question is when in a systems, non linear world where points of no return exist.
Another homerun. Thank you so much, Quico
Thank you Quico! “Climate anxiety is, in the end, a rational response to being asked to put our faith in pint-sized solutions to tanker-sized problems.” Yes!
Restoring a safe climate through nature’s most powerful CDR processes…is the antidote to climate anxiety and the climate crisis itself.
You have a brilliant kid!
Good overall point but let’s also face the fact that the entire world has failed, so far, to adequately address the problem. So saying that “This is why normal kids despair: they’re not dumb, they can see the solutions grown-ups are selling to them are not up to the task. “ is a understating the fact that politically the world has absolutely failed to act in emergency mode and take the steps needed to get closer to a solution. A lot of people despair because we’ve had the ability to move much faster to address the problem but, year after year, are not taking steps to actually get to zero emissions, drawdown, and planetary cooling.
I don't agree with this at all.
The climate movement has an unrealistic, grounded-in-nothing, ideological commitment to a program of crash-decarbonization that —surprise!— voters find toxic.
Politicians, who aren't suicidal, refuse to implement such a program, because it's entirely unrealistic and incompatible with democracy.
As a result, we we are decarbonizing at a steady, sustainable rate (see — https://substack.com/home/post/p-166020515.)
But because we're not doing the crazy, impossible thing the climate movement defines as "climate action", people get the idea that we're not moving at all. Which is nonsense!
Please send me an email to Alex Carlin pynotic@hotmail.com - I am a climate journalist for Center for Media and Democracy - I would like to interview you - thanks!