It Is No Longer Possible to Escape What We Have Done to Ourselves

That's an odd way to spell "what the insatiable greed of like seven corporations has done to us."

New York times being new York times
Don't you put that evil on me Ricky Bobby
Those 7 corporations. Would those be companies whose products we keep buying?
- They have trained you all your life to blame the victims.
- I'm sorry, I can't stop using electricity or gas to go to work because I need to eat and pay rent to live. Because that's the world those rich people made for everyone else.
- Whether you do or not, other major corporations do, and while the money changes hands between a few dozen rich assholes, the planet burns and they laugh while you blame me.
- You mean the products they designed to be as cheap as possible with no care on their impact on the environment, and then brainwashed the population through marketing to make us think we actually needed them?
- Yeah, if people really wanted, they could make their own phones and all they own by hand. These damn socialists!

I'm only in my thirties. I don't really think I had like..... A huge hand in all this.

Well it can't be the billionaires or the boomers, so it must be your fault.

This is what late stage capitalists actually believe
- Booillionaires.
Half of the cumulative CO2 emissions since the industrial revolution have happened in your lifetime.
- And how many in their voting lifetime? About 25% according to that site.
  
  Now how many were in their country? Surely a much smaller portion.
  
  But we're all to blame really, because we all take part in the system. The only way to escape blame is to not live. Although, to be clear, blame should not be evenly distributed here.

I find articles like this so frustrating. It feels like it is aimed at being a wake-up call to the reader, but at the same time offers no solutions, no advice and still lays the blame at the feet of the average person for not doing enough. "What we have done to ourselves" is not advocate enough I guess?

Perhaps I'm not the target audience for the article. I grew up in an environmentally conscious home we'll before it was trendy and have been worried about climate change for as long as I can remember. It's hard to see an article like this as anything other than an effort to drive traffic...

I'd be happy to hear what others got out of the article if it was more positive than my read of it.

Climate despair is the new climate denial, and these doomer editorials are oil industry propaganda pivoting.

If we can't do anything about it then nothing has to change and rich people keep getting everything they want.
- Dead on accurate. These oil execs know they’ll be dead before there’s any significant impact to them. They justify it as the cost of doing business and ensuring they continue to get a fat paycheck. There’s clear evidence of major corps like the tobacco industry seeding doubt and spreading misinformation when it came out how dangerous their product was. Hell even look at things like the corporate influence in the creation of the food pyramid. Really? Everyone needs a giant fat serving of carbs?? They sure do when there’s money to be made.
  
  It’s no different with climate change. Spread misinformation, seed doubt, when that doesn’t work pivot and play on the despair as your angle. Whatever keeps the paychecks flowing and people focused on anything but the truth.
  
  The greed of humanity will ultimately be our undoing.
- I'm honestly super sick of this take. I keep seeing people say that the oil industry is responsible for doomers, and it's as bad as climate denial.
  
  Is it though? Of all the people I know, the only ones that take the situation at all seriously are the ones that actually truly believe we are in serious trouble. Only those people are voting primarly based on climate issues, taking part in protests, or making changes to lifestyle. The vast majority of people don't actually believe we are in serious trouble. The vast majority of media is still feeding us the line that things are basically going to be fine with some incremental changes.
  
  Oil companies are advocating for market solutions to the problem and continuing the status quo as long as possible. The idea they are trying to cause the greater population to actually believe they are doomed is insane. A population that actually believes they are doomed might take drastic action.
- @nottelling @CleverNameAndNumbers
  
  "rich people keep getting everything they want"
  
  Even rich people don't *want* death and destruction. They want money!
relevant video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc1vrO6iL0U

(Also, archive link to top article: https://archive.is/gI427 )

My parents always act surprised when I tell them I don't think I'd want to have children.... Maybe I'm being negative, but if I had to guess this is only going to get worse and will never be fixed. I genuinely don't believe the next generation is going to have a decent future ahead of them.

As soon we start worrying about things other than money, we might actually have a chance, but as I get older I have more and more doubt that'll happen.

we didn't do shit. big oil companies on the other hand...

And who exactly did oil companies sell their oil to? That's right. We. The stuff we buy the miles we travel the lives we live collectively are what creates greenhouse gas emissions. Can't blame an oil company for wanting to heat your home in winter or cool it in summer.
- Big oil companies witheld critical data on impact of fossil fuels on climate change. Source
- I wonder if there are any greener alternatives to oil that can be provided by the companies that currently use oil? Perhaps ones that might incur a bit of a hit to those company's profits? And that hit to profits being the only reason those company's havent shifted to the greener alternatives?
  
  But no. Its my fault that i have no choice but to fill up my shitty diesel engine to get to work. Because i can definitely swap to a bicycle to make me already 40 minute at 60mph commute...
- What's the alternative? I am genuinely curious. It's not exactly by choice that I can't afford an EV, ignoring the fact that my city does not the infrastructure to support EVs...
And who bought the gas? Who bought the oil? Who bought the plastic made from the oil? Who bought the food grown from the fertilizer made from the oil?

If you don't live on North Sentinel Island your entire life relies on the products of the corporations that have destroyed the environment. You are complicit. Your parents were complicit. Your children, if any, will be complicit.

Blaming corporations or capitalism or "big oil" is just a way of dodging personal responsibility. It's an excuse for not making inconvenient personal changes in your own lifestyle. It lets you tell yourself that when big corporations consume so much there is no point in you lowering your standard of living to consume less.

The fact that corporations are worse than you does not absolve you of your responsibility for your own decisions and your own environmental sins. We all have to do better.
- You have to be incredibly naive to think a systemic problem can be solved by individual lifestyle changes
- Big oil companies witheld critical data on impact of fossil fuels on climate change. Source
  
  You go ahead and use paper straws all you like if it will give you a moral high ground and let you shit on people like you just tried on me. It will clear your conscience and will help you consider yourself soo much better than the rest. The fact remains - massive corporations do the most damage and will do fuck all to fix it up by, oh, I don't know, changing their production methods, switching to renewables etc. But yeah, sure, it's my fault.
- There are plenty of alternatives to oil that dont require destroying the environment. We as the consumers cant really force them to stop using oil. Theres plenty of groups out there dedicated to stoppi g the use of oil but they are mostly ignored.
  
  You cant say we should all stop using oil and then they will change, because we rely on oil to live our lives. The change has to be made by the corporations. Like the change to EVs that will help with carbon emmisions.
  
  Frankly if the only reason a big company wont switch to greener alternatives to oil is a hit to their profits then i have absolutely no sympathy. They can get fucked. Greedy fuckers.
We've likely kicked ourselves from a path where we would see 4C of warming by 2100 with further warming thereafter to one where we see about 3C of warming by 2100 with further warming thereafter. That's an improvement, but not what we need, with is actual stabilization under livable conditions.
- Again with the "we".

"we"

I feel it's time for people that care to start moving on the the acceptance phase of our future. Whether that is beginning to accept austerity in what we eat/wear/do and wait for the collective "we" to join us when they need to adapt more rapidly than we chose to, or if we give in and join the "it's already too late, let it burn" side.

I try to stay positive, because I've always tried to conserve and be responsible, so it isn't too bad, but I feel bad for the next generation or 2 at least. They asked for this even less than we did. But I feel the sooner we get on acting like this is a done deal the better, because most people aren't going to care until they're hurting.

I feel it’s time for people that care to start moving on the the acceptance phase of our future.

I've recently started to feel this way as well. One need not look any further than this thread itself to see that we're fucked. The discussion here is a perfect example of how we seem to be frozen in some sort of complex "prisoner's dilemma" between the public, the media, the politicians, the industry, etc. All this finger-pointing going around, when the reality is that most people AND (especially) most companies in the entire developed/industrialized world shares a large part of the blame for this, and because of the mentality (human nature) and manipulations (capitalist nature) at play, nothing will be done in time before our species starts to be completely decimated.

I've been recommending this article to people who seem to share this realization, because it not only describes what we're thinking, but it also provides some resources to help us process this.

Edit: At the same time, I still would like to fight like hell to change our course. But I just don't want to fight alone, and I fear that that's what it would mostly feel like. Alone, or very, very few people by my side.
- The prisoners dilemma seems an appropriate analogy. Business doesn't want to budge first and commit to a giant investment that isn't profit driven. It commits then to us and other businesses can eat their lunch while they sacrifice profit to help society. Government doesn't want to move first and drive business or if the county. And selfish people are just going to be selfish.
  
  For your edit comments, just keep living by your principles. Share with others who want to listen, but don't force anyone. Just be you. If you're reading things like this out of curiosity, you're on the right side of things already.

Pretty bad doomerism takes here.

Yeah, I'm getting serious apocalyptic christianity vibes.

We deserve everything that's coming We took this world to our graves, We made its creatures our slaves Shattered the hourglass, an un-erasable past Humans, Demons, deranged and depraved

unless you’re a billionaire

And if you all supported human expansion into space decades ago, this might not have happened. 🤷

Space isn't the answer. Save earth.
- Space is the only answer at this point that makes any sense. Without human expansion into space, we can't solve climate change.