Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t JoNova; What happens when climate panic turns into despair? Their fellow travellers accuse them of “climate denial”, of course.
Breaking up over climate change: My deep dark journey into doomer Facebook
THURSDAY 7 NOVEMBER 2019 5:00AMThings came to a head at dinner one night earlier this year, when my girlfriend suggested the chat was too depressing.
…
She wanted to keep living her life as normal, and I wanted to freak out.
And then we broke up.
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‘Welcome to our world Mr Franzen’
The phrase ‘doomerism’ was popularised in the commentary around Jonathan Franzen’s 2019 article in the New Yorker, in which the famous American novelist argued we have no chance of averting catastrophic climate change, and we should just admit this
The essay was titled, “What if We Stopped Pretending?” and it argued that Green New Deal progressives were, in fact, the ones in denial.
“All-out war on climate change made sense only as long as it was winnable,” Franzen wrote.The internet tore it apart. Franzen had gotten aspects of climate science wrong and misrepresented the priorities of environmental groups, it turned out.
But his greatest sin, many said, was strategic and moral — he sounded like a climate denier.
1. Climate change is dubious and irrelevant –> no point cutting emissions
— Dr Stuart 'individual AND system change' Capstick (@StuartBCapstick) September 9, 2019
2. Climate change is apocalyptic and impossible –> no point cutting emissions
Seems like society's move from denial #1 to denial #2 has happened in barely the blink of an eye😒But there was one corner of the internet where Franzen was drawing cautious admiration.
That part was doomer Facebook. Members of groups like Near Term Human Extinction Support Group (NTHESG) and Abrupt Climate Change believe they’ve been rejected by the mainstream for speaking the truth — that it’s too late to avert civilisational collapse.
“We get attacked daily, welcome to our world Mr Franzen,” one member wrote.
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‘Activism, but without any hope’
I went back to the NTHESG admins with a question: Aren’t you just giving up?
“Climate emergencies have been declared, so what?” one replied.
“Trudeau approved an oil pipeline, and he’s supposed to be the social justice favourite. All this hate against Trump, but he’s no different, just punching with the gloves off.“
“We humans like to think our activism will solve the problem. [But] we don’t take solace in false hopes. That will only betray in the end.“
But other admins disagreed – a rare moment of internal dissent.
Another said: “Like our members, [the admin above] and I have different ideas. Members are split on this kind of thing. I protest. [The admin above] doesn’t.
…
WUWT covered the Franzen article in September.
It would be easy to write off such despair as the hilariously absurd beliefs of an isolated group of cranks, but there is evidence that a lot of people really do believe the world is doomed.
Last September, a high profile Australian drug rehabilitation specialist testified to a government committee that climate despair is a significant factor driving young people to destroy their lives with hard drugs.
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This is off-topic, but I wondered if anyone else has had the same experience. A few months ago I put in an order for Rex Fleming’s The Rise and Fall of the Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change. Then a few days ago I got an email from Amazon telling me that they had cancelled the order. Going out to Amazon.com, I found that the image of the book cover had the word “Retracted” in large letters above the title. (The URL is amazon.com/Carbon-Dioxide-Theory-Climate-Change/dp/3030168794) I then tried Springer, but encountered nothing but dead links when I tried to purchase the book. Any idea WTF is going on here?
Amazon says “Out of Print” see AbeBooks…$204.41
Published in June of this year – and already out of print.
I just checked the link I posted again, and it still says, “RETRACTED BOOK” – on the front cover above the title. I’ve never seen anything like that. (And there is nothing to this effect on Fleming’s website.)
Interesting …
There’s more than 1 suppliers:
https://www.google.com/search?q=available+Rex+Fleming%E2%80%99s+The+Rise+and+Fall+of+the+Carbon+Dioxide+Theory+of+Climate+Change&oq=available+Rex+Fleming%E2%80%99s+The+Rise+and+Fall+of+the+Carbon+Dioxide+Theory+of+Climate+Change&aqs=chrome.
Do climate psychologists carry extra liability insurance for their professional conduct? just wondered
If you don’t believe it is an apocalyptic global warming emergency, then what is the point of the rage?
Doomsday Global Warminge belief IS a mental health problem, not an environmental one.
Doom porn has a very negative effect on people, especially youth. I distinctly remember being all anxious and outright depressed over the “population bomb, limits to growth, cold war will go hot any time now and the ice age returning will mean crop failures”. In short “WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE”. Over and over and over.
Then I read “The High Frontier” by Gerard K O’Neil and that snapped me out of it. It wasn’t so much that his idea of building 2000+ times the surface area of earth from the material in the asteroid belt (all self sufficient) was correct. It was just the fact that it was possible and NONE of the “expert doomsters” thought of it.
They had limited their thinking to current technology. A fatal flaw that they all overlooked.
So to all the young people you meet who are depressed over this try to get them to take a break from reading or watching the news. It works.
The Democratic party desperately needs a way out of the Climate business. If they just said the issue doesn’t matter because it’s too late and then just let the whole thing dissolve slowly they could get out. Otherwise I don’t see a way this religion doesn’t end the Democratic party permanently.
The up side might be that there could be 20 or 30 years before we all forget to dismiss “world savers” right out of the gate.
Facebook doomers? Just when you think that you have heard everything! Every time they post a stupid meme or a stupid post with 10 sad face emojis or watch a stupid youtube video, they are burning fossil fuel! This post that I am about to submit right here is no different than hitting the accelerator on my car. If you have no idea what I am talking about, congratulations, you have something new to learn about how the world works today and the relationship between technology and energy consumption. Let me give you a hint: The computer processing power (and expelled waste heat) required for all of us to watch cat videos is massive and these data centers guzzle massive amounts of energy! Let’s get real facebook doomers. If you own a smart phone or use a computer, you cannot claim to be climate crusader! Forgive yourself. You are already part of the problem so free yourself from the burden of carrying the hopes of humanity on your back. If Facebook doomers want to be part of the solution, they need to resist the urge to live their lives online (or go on a serious technology diet) because this is equivalent of driving a massive SUV.
I grow weary of doomers. Fortunately, I can easily get away from them.
Occasionally, though, just to mock them, I’ll make a comment along the lines of, “You’re right. Zero CO2 emissions for the US. But it won’t mean a thing if India and China don’t eliminate theirs. Let’s protest for a war to force them to comply. We’ll call it, the War to End All Warming.
I don’t get any support for the protest, but at least they go away.
https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/11/07/mural-san-francisco-greta-thungberg/
We are watching you
Well, California and Germany might well be doomed with their irrational energy and immigration policies. If Canada or Sweden want to keep following them into that Abyss than that is what their majorities voted for. Trial and error is humanity’s oldest way of progress.
India and China are not going down that suicidal path, sorry.
What progress? Trial and error isn’t the appropriate method here. We know it cannot work.
“climate despair is a significant factor driving young people to destroy their lives with hard drugs.” No, just an excuse to do nothing with our life. The lack of spiritual connection/life is why people are losing hope.
So now we have three groups
Climate Deniers(1)
Climate Realists(2)
Climate Doomers(3)
1. I don’t care much for consensus or models. Show me how to falsify your theory and I may give you a listen
2. Danger. Just give us power, we will sort this out. capitalism has to go
3. It’s too late. pass the dutchie from the left hand side
What will be the backlash -if any- when Gen-Z wakes up -if they ever do- to the fact that CAGW becomes a widely acknowledged fraud -if it ever does?
Happens all the time.
Too many drama queens turn red, puff up, rant, rail and harp about some miniscule minor point and the other person starts thinking “I’m never answering this character’s phone calls again!”
“I’ll move without a forwarding address, if I have too.”
“What a lunatic, How will they act and what will they do about a genuine problem?”
Generation snowflakes.
Ha ha ha!
I know the feeling, climate change destroyed my marriage.
My ex-wife is a fully bought in ‘environmental scientist’ who works in things like environment planning and approvals and so had to professionally sign up to the whole climate change ‘story’ as part and parcel of being in the mainstream.
I’m an engineer and have followed the ‘science’ closely and of course I am sceptical about most of the ‘science’. Apparently my genuine desire to openly discuss other perspectives ’embarrassed her’ professionally, it became a thorn, and combined with some other family stuff lead to the breakdown of our marriage.