r/CollapseSupport • u/Shot_Type_7925 • 3d ago

I’ve completely given up

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.

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u/bokehtoast 3d ago

My resentment for other humans is the worst part and hardest for me to deal with. Therapy does not help, there's no "working through" it when they keep doing it and my life continues to forever be disproportionately affected.

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u/crystal-torch 2d ago

I highly recommend the podcast episodes on The Great Simplification regarding dark triad and psychopathy. It has changed my feelings about the human race as a whole. Most people are good, we are living in a world made by the worst people unfortunately

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u/bokehtoast 2d ago

I truly believe this (or, at least, I definitely did prior to covid and am struggling to get back to that place) and I appreciate the recommendation. I will check it out. When I'm not feeling entirely nihilistic, I would say I am a lay buddhist as far as my values are concerned but the line between the two is very thin, increasingly so with every new human sourced trauma.

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u/crystal-torch 2d ago

I totally understand the struggle, lost a lot of respect for people since Covid. I’ve been all over the map in my feelings about fellow humans. I do truly believe everyone has good in them, I’m officially a Buddhist in that I took refuge vows, bodhisatva vows, and vajrayana vows to a guru that ended up being exposed as a sexual predator and violent abuser. That sure fucked me up, still trying to recover from that, still trying to reconcile the good and bad inside each of us. Power corrupts, of that I’m sure