We are at a point in society where we can't simply keep doing what those before us did. We are killing the planet, and every plant and animal on it, including ourselves.
Yes, life is about to get less convenient and we have to give up some luxuries.
It doesn't matter if you don't like it, it a fact.
"We are at a point in society where we can't simply keep doing what those before us did."
Sure we can. And we will. The choices of most of the world's population surely disagrees with this.
"Yes, life is about to get less convenient and we have to give up some luxuries."
I don't think that's the case, but we will see.
For the record, ideologically, I'm on your side. Realistically, I just don't see a world where the majority of people change.
The stop using the plastic straw argument applies to people who don't like straws. Tell the same anti-straw folks to stop traveling, stop having pets, no more children. You see where this goes - It just doesn't work.
For humans, laws and rules are meant to be overstepped : this is how our species got so far : by considering rules, laws and traditions, and say "well, whatever, I will try it my way and see how it goes"
We can though. There's a lot of fearmongering but the reality is climate change won't kill us for longer than we'll live.
There's also a lot of gradient in the effect of environmental laws. As an example my family still has tons of plastic bags that get reused over and over again until they become unusable or land as a trash bag. I don't know the math of it all but considering we buy plastic trash bags anyway we might as well get them from shopping instead of buying them separately. I have no idea what the global impact has been on plastic bag production but it could be interesting to see, assuming such a statistic exists.
> There's a lot of fearmongering but the reality is climate change won't kill us for longer than we'll live.
I really don't like this take when I see it.
Do you care about just the next 50 years, or the next hundreds+? Do you have children/grandchildren? Do you care about an increase in the quantity and impact of natural disasters? The resulting increase in death, suffering, insurance premiums? What about more unpleasantly hot days? Less snow on the ski slopes?
All of that stuff is important to me, even though it almost certainly won't kill me personally. It's just such a no-brainer that the environment and climate is something to cherish and protect. Even if you're generally pro-environment, referring to environment-protection measures as fearmongering only makes it harder to enact them and increase their scale.
I don't mind environmentalism and I also see why people prefer to portray a picture of "you will die" instead of "your grand grand grand kids will die" but I also personally dislike it when people skew the picture to push their agenda, even if it is good and pushed entirely out of their love and care for others.
It might be due to me being surrounded by automotive enthusiasts but the general view of recent environmental laws in my circles is that they exist mostly to motivate spending and move some local pollution somewhere else. It's kind of the combination of nonsensical laws and short term effect exaggeration that offends people, making them stubborn/resistant to accepting things that actually make sense. It's probably offset by people who get a sense of urgency out of it but I withhold my right to dislike it.
we're just in different cultures/societies/circles then. around me, no one's portraying "you will die", and I don't feel at all surrounded by nonsensical environmental laws. if anything, it's the opposite. why aren't builders in my city taxed more for using materials with worse environmental effects? why aren't extremely inefficient vehicles taxed more highly? why such little investment in bike lanes?
Yes, life is about to get less convenient and we have to give up some luxuries.
It doesn't matter if you don't like it, it a fact.