Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
id575766213
It often seems that people are searching harder for evidence we’re defeated than that we can win.
✏️ Worth trying to understand where this comes from. Feels like a very close cousin to how we seem obsessed with reading/spreading awareness of negative things rather than positive ones. Doomscrolling is a thing; joyscrolling isn’t. I find myself having to consciously make the effort to highlight more positive pieces rather than my usual habit of just annotating the negative ones. So why do we try to evoke defeatism rather than hopefulness? Is the reason simply because it’s easier? Hope is hard work after all, and if one hopes, one is then expected to put in the work to make that hope a reality. Defeated? Well, then there’s nothing to do really but feel the burden lifted from your shoulders. “The systems in power are just too strong, sigh.” 🔗 View Highlight
id575767100
The people putting out defeatist frameworks have more impact than outright deniers, not least because deniers are rightwingers and the right is already committed to climate inaction. Doomers discourage people who otherwise might act, so they’re working toward the worst outcomes they claim to dread. You would expect them to be quietly unmotivated, but a lot of them seem to have an evangelical passion for recruiting others to their views.
id575767296
The physical condition of the planet – as this summer’s unprecedented extreme heat and flooding and Canada’s and Greece’s colossal fires demonstrate – has continued to get worse; the solutions have continued to get better; the public is far more engaged; the climate movement has grown, though of course it needs to grow far more; and there have been some significant victories as well as the incremental change of a shifting energy landscape.
✏️ Here’s the thing. I get that the author is trying to advocate for hope rather than doom. But it’s not all black and white, either. Yes, many of the things in this highlight are positive changes, but the climate conditions are getting significantly worse.. potentially outstripping those positive changes, no? Yes, more people are aware of the situation. Yes, we have these incremental changes in solutions that, collectively, can lead to big changes. What I’d like to know is, are the systems in power willing to implement all those things and cut back on the destructive stuff? 🔗 View Highlight
id575768331
I keep saying I respect despair as an emotion, but not as an analysis. You can feel absolutely devastated about the situation and not assume this predicts outcome; you can have your feelings and can still chase down facts from reliable sources, and the facts tell us that the general public is not the problem; the fossil fuel industry and other vested interests are; that we have the solutions, that we know what to do, and that the obstacles are political; that when we fight we sometimes win; and that we are deciding the future now.
✏️ Exactly this. 🔗 View Highlight
id575768385
I wonder sometimes if it’s because people assume you can’t be hopeful and heartbroken at the same time, and of course you can.
✏️ Two things, even opposing things, can be true at the same time. I know I’ve seen/read/thought this before for other issues, but blanking where. Need to find them because this is a key thing that humans like to assume (i.e. you have to be one thing or the other, but never both at same time). We are freaking complicated and complex. We can have conflicting emotions, thoughts, ideas at the same time and have them all be true. #followup 🔗 View Highlight