this is usually an interesting discussion to have, and there are a lot of interesting questions to ask in this field–so let’s ask and talk about a few. feel free to answer as many as you want, or ask your own of people in the comments. here are two groups of three that i think are good to start:
- Do you suffer from anxiety about climate change and its effects?
- Have you ever made significant individual lifestyle choices because of climate change?
- Have you ever thought of leaving where you live because of potential future climactic effects? Have you actually moved already because of them?
- Do you think the world can limit global warming to 1.5C or 2C? Where do you think we’ll “level off” in terms of warming–especially if you don’t think we’ll meet either of those goals?
- What do you think of proposed technologies like carbon capture? Do you think they’re useful, or a technocratic waste of time? Can they be viably used at large scale on any reasonable timeframe?
- Do you support something like climate reparations either now or in the future? Do you think such a thing is even viable?
1 - Not really. I’m past that point, into the ‘acceptance’ part. 2 - Went vegetarian just before Covid hit. Don’t own a car since last summer - mostly because I’m lucky enough to have a route to my work. Never going back to car dependency, public transit is very nice. Eyeing my gaming rig next, but it’d be a major change for me. 3 - I’m in the American Midwest, so besides moving a bit further north, nah not really. 4 - Hell no. World leaders couldn’t figure out how to not kill their own people during a pandemic. The number of leaders actively shouting that nothing was wrong during Covid is something that I’ll never forget. We’ll get there when we get there, and not a milli-degree sooner. 5 - Technology is only as useful as the social will to use it. We could knock climate change dead tomorrow by junking all the cars and building a bunch of streetcars - something invented in the late 1800s. Could fancy schmancy carbon capture be useful? Sure. Will it? Enh. 6 - We’ll be incredibly damn lucky if the well-off countries don’t literally start shooting climate refugees. Would redistributing resources to provide for those less fortunate be a good idea? Sure. Try pushing that idea to anyone who’s not already a leftist.