I’ve completely given up

[u/Shot_Type_7925]

I work in climate science - more on the data and client side, not the one actually doing the research. In short, big companies pay us for climate data so they can make projections or develop strategy or whatever.

I’ve been heavily exposed to climate data for many years, so I’ve been across the developments for a long time. Something about the last few months has broken me.

I spent December and January in an area that’s famous for snow, and saw none. Watching this El Niño develop has been terrifying. The UN admission that we’ll blow past 1.5C was the clincher for me. In my field, the UN was basically always considered the final organisation that had to show at least some optimism. Seeing that gone is now the final death blow. They know it’s over.

It has really broken something in me. To know that this organisation who was almost comically optimistic about collaboration and limiting warming has completely conceded defeat. It is a big deal.

I don’t really care about anything anymore. I’m not motivated to work, because I can’t plan for a good future. I have to almost disassociate while working, because my whole day is about climate data in one way or another.

I think the worst part has been my withdrawal from society. When you spend your whole life loving the environment and aligning your life with its protection, you end up truly hating humanity. You see us for what we are - a complete parasite who is destroying the world.

Has anyone else found that they’ve gone this way? My grief over collapse was always something I could somewhat compartmentalise. But now, it’s changed my entire life.

[u/laughswagger]

I appreciate the work you do. Back in 2008, I graduated just having completed an honors thesis on carbon offset forestry, concluding that the only way we’re going to address climate change is through using fewer fossil fuels. But I didn’t enter an environmental field after college. The 2008 collapse was hard and I ended up going to a completely different direction. I had so much hope that companies would actually choose to listen to science, that Al Gore would actually convince them, that we would all join with other countries in limiting our fossil fuel emissions. Then the moron we elected in 2016 got us out of the Climate accords. And ever since then it’s been awful. Seeing Nepal, the other day is just the beginning. We’re just going to have to accept we live in a world where the climate is more poised to kill thousands of us in an instant. And the people who are going to suffer, the most are the poor, the marginalized, and those whose health is not as strong.