I personally do not care that much about the survival of entire species (including ours); I care more about the lives of the individuals. To illustrate this, it saddens me when we cause extinctions, but a little more because of the animals that suffered in the process and a little less about the whole "loss" of a form of life. Yet, it all is sad.

How do I deal with this climate change sadness? I guess I don't see it separately from other sad things from humanity (and existence, but let's focus on humanity). I have accepted the fact that most human beings are morally questionable in my book, this causes the world to be worse for everyone in it, and no amount of reasoning with most of them (about the benefit for them and others of being more conscious about their lives) will change it for now.

At some point, some have felt that a better society is just a step ahead of us because it's relatively easy in material terms, but now I feel it much farther as the social factors are not as easy. I guess I have surrendered to a certain idea of psychological determinism. If we imagine a person has an object we want at their reach, while it's out of our reach, and we could get it if they only cooperate, we can feel frustrated when they don't. "Why do they make it so difficult? It's as simple as reaching for the object and grabbing it for us. Just do it! Why are they waiting for? Ugh!". But if we start from the idea that there's a chance they won't help us because they simply can't be bothered (different reasons as to why), and that's probably not fixable, we won't feel that level of frustration for their inaction and we will strategize differently how to get that object.

By the way, I don't think selfishness or self-centeredness or whatever is individualism, nor that altruism is communitarianism. I'm inclined to individualism, but that's what makes me think that just as my life and freedom are valuable, so are others'. I do not like societies that are communitarian because they drown the individual (in false responsibilities, in fear of ostracism, etc.), and I hate that. We have one life and only one and we should be as free as possible, even if that means being unattached, different, whatever. The only rule for that freedom and for everything is ethics. And that's the difference for me, that's how I see it. Not individualistic people versus communitarian people, but people that live without an interest in being ethical (whatever that ends up meaning) and people who do.

So... I think I see a lot of these people and I don't get as frustrated as before. I sigh and continue my day. Reading this last part, it reads a little stoic (learning that I cannot change these parts of society and focusing on the ones we can change). Stoicism is like the ibuprofen of life; paracetamol is pyrrhic skepticism. I'm bad at analogies, lol, but you get the point (I hope).

Prioritizing my health (including my mental health) has helped a lot. Good levels of everything in my body do wonders for my energy, but also my resilience, my mood, etc. Emotional regulation skills, combating stress... I know these are just common recommendations, but I don't have more.

I'm sorry that you're feeling down. It's been a hard time...

I am grieving hard, and grief includes a lot of different feelings and experiences. Yes, there is depression, but there is also anger and reflection and the chance to find joy amidst the horror. My priorities have changed. I used to want to leave a legacy for the next generation; now I want to live in defiance of the evils that have ravaged our beautiful planet. Fuck billionaires, politicians, and cowardly centrist news outlets. Fuck them in perpetuity, until they rot away in their apocalypse bunkers. I will burn bright and hot to the end--that will be my legacy.

Alcohol

I console myself that I am getting older and won't see the worst of it.

This is going to get some upset

On an individual level, there is not much you can do. Because of that why let it get to you? If you do not effect the outcome it shouldn't be on your radar.

Capitalism is the cause of climate change. Corporations are interested only in max profits. This won't change under capitalist countries, ever. Study socialism and join a local org or party that you ideologically support.

China is controlled by the communist party and its policies aren't driven by short-term profits. There are corporations but they can't go against the interests of the Chinese society, unlike the USA. Look at how China generates more clean energy than the UK total electricity output.

Don't forget to go vegan

Cynicism, trying to do what I can personally, voting and participating in politics, and just fucking hoping we're over estimating the effects or that we'll manage to come up with the political will to mitigate the worse effects.

Also, praying to Cthulhu that boomers hurry the fuck up and kick the bucket... at least the ones that aren't cool.

Looking at Trump's climate priorities (basically, burn as much coal as possible) and the people who support them fills me with disgust... it is as greedy and uncaring as our shitty late stage capitalism and I can't comprehend existing with so little empathy or foresight. The deniers are essentially incomprehensible to me so I avoid them whenever possible and just hope they'll die off faster than sane people.

I gave up all hope that it's going to turn out all right, and more or less stopped caring

I became communist. It does not solve anything, of course, but gave me hope that this dystopian mess that we live in can be solved.

Anger, knowing they will get what they deserve more quickly than I initially thought. I'm not thinking about rich celebrities, they are just a few people. There are so many regular people who refused to modify their lifestyle even a little to mitigate the problem. They will suffer alongside me and I find some solace in that.

Considering the fact that corporations make up about 70% +/- of all the solution and climate destruction, and the fact that politicians are bribed by said corporations to ignore the problem, there's little we can actually do about it except voting.

100mg of ketamine every day, half in the morning, half in the afternoon.

View the end of humanity as a positive, the suffering machine will be over (at least until it re-evolves).

The same way to deal with depression about anything. Depression is an illness that renders one incapable of helping themselves or others and debilitates people from contributing to the solution to the problems which contributed to the depression. Depression should be treated as an illness to be cured before anything else.

As far as being not being depressed by events beyond one's control, it requires effort since even being aware and concerned by such problems of this magnitude is highly unnatural and highly unintuitive. It is necessary to consciously come to peace with the world and humanity as it is. The universe is chaotic and we have as much control over the collective will of billions of completely ignorant and afraid people as we do over natural disasters just with less ability to predict when issues will occur. Although it is the case that we have a good grasp of the environmental issue, we have absolutely no grasp of how get plutocrats not to behave like plutocrats having no care for anything or anyone other than increasing their personal fortunes meaninglessly or to get the majority of people to understand the degree to which it is a problem that we continue to allow this. Being upset that humans are failing to achieve stable societies just as we have always failed for the entire 10,000 years we have been trying to achieve them is having unrealistic and unfair expectations of our species. Everyone is trying their best and no one knows what they're doing really. It may be scarier to consider how much less agency people have than they believe they have initially, but it does allow one to have the comfort of more consistently helpful expectations of oneself and others.

You are not alone. The only way to stop it is to go back to regulations. Regulations have been stripped since the 80s. We need to put them all back in place, there is no reason anyone should have that much money. They are going into space and moving bridges so they can fit their yatchs disturbing hard working peoples lives. Capitalism is great but only when it’s regulated. We dont need a formal investigation to know that these people have visions that align and they will fuck everyone for their gain. Also they have underground bunkers ready for anything.

“The Skin of Our Teeth” YouTube is a stage play by Thornton Wilder. It highlights humanity’s long and storied history of careening from one disaster to the next. Each time, surviving by…the titular title!

We’ll wait until the last minute, then we’ll literally redefine Heaven and Earth, as we move them, to save ourselves.

We always have, we always will.

So you can wait for that to happen, or you can start right now by getting involved in politics. Be the voice you want to hear, encourage people to vote for candidates that will support legislation to do something about it.

That’s literally the very old saying, “You can be part of the problem, or you can be part of the solution.”