YouTube’s climate deniers turn into climate doomers — A new report documents a sharp rise in arguments that clean energy and climate policies won’t work::A new report documents a shift away from climate denial and a sharp rise in arguments that clean energy and climate policies won’t work.
The amount of Doomers on Lemmy and Reddit is depressingly large as well. It’s du jour to act like any talk of climate positivity is naive, change is impossible and collapse is inevitable. Just look at the popularity of whole subs dedicated to Collapse and Doomer material. It’s exhausting trying to challenge the position of some of these users, yet we must try. Hope is an important part of tackling the climate challenges we’re facing, and the glamorisation of defeatism isn’t going to help foster that.
Mindless optimism isn’t the answer either. We need real change immediately, the window to slam on the brakes as a species is already behind us arguably. The only answer is to be both realistic AND ambitious.
No one said anything about mindless optimism. You are correct, change is needed and fast, but relentless pessimism achieves nothing except foster defeat. I’m advocating for a realistic approach to how we look at climate change mitigation. Part of being realistic is understanding that things may not be as hopeless as parts of the Internet would like you to believe.