Someone said to me once "Relax! Nothing is under control."

Worry about what you can control —which is very little, especially when facing a world crisis like climate change— and accept what you can't.

The people who should be fixing this mess are not you or I. It's the big corporations and the Governments that should regulate them through robust, uncompromising climate policies. Vote for Governments with honest, solid climate agendas.

Other than that, contributions from individuals like you and I are but a drop in the boiling ocean of global warming. By all means, keep doing what you're doing. It certainly doesn't hurt to lead a more sustainable lifestyle but don't feel bad if you don't do everything you're supposed to do. Don't let the real culprits here gaslight you into thinking otherwise.

Again, if you're worried more about your mental health than the problem itself at this stage, it's ok to feel that way. Many of us do. But the best advice I can give you is to just accept there's nothing you can really do about the situation. Whatever happens, happens. Easier said than done, I know, but once you "learn" to accept this fact, your anxiety will drop right down.

The earth will be fine. It's us that are fucked

First of all, I saw a therapist, and they helped. Truly, if it's bad enough, go talk to someone.

Now what I personally do? The biggest thing was learning that I can't carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. I have a habit of doing that. I'm a very empathetic person so when I see climate change I just fall into a spiral that's hard to get out of. Learning that I need to focus on what I can change is the most important.

So, I do what you already touched on. I am not going to get Shell to stop polluting, but I can change myself, and those near me. I have switched my entire home away from fossil fuels (heat pump, electric water heater), when it was time for a new vehicle I went for an EV, and even then I take the bus and train whenever I can now. I'm looking into an e-bike.

That still wasn't enough so I'm starting to get into local politics a bit. City council issues, local neighborhood issues, those are things I can help control. My city is trying to push a natural gas ban on new housing, and conservatives are frothing, but it's something I can push and help with. I'm pushing for more transit in our area, with more bus lines. And my ultimate one, writing letters and trying to ban fucking leaf blowers god fucking damnit just use a goddamn rake they're so fucking loud and pollute so much.

That helps me personally. And hey, if everyone did these things, we'd make a dent on climate change. I can't change everyone, I can't do everything myself, but I can influence those around me.

An odd thing that makes me feel oddly comforted too. World birthrates are dropping. Conservatives are also frothing at the mouth over this because iNFiNiTe GrOWtH but to me, I view it as another form of evolution. Have we realized as a species we've reached the limit of what Earth will support? Fewer and fewer people are having kids. Idk, in a weird way it feels comforting, like evolution is still at play and something very biological in us as a species is like "nope, can't do any more"

Have you considered eco-terrorism? \s

People saying do nothing, I'm saying do something!

Get out start a community. If one already exists join it. Find ways to improve your community.

Go vegan.

There are so many things you can do. Don't accept doing nothing, be a stubborn fuck and do something to alleviate the sadness.

Earth’s time has started to end. Its death is inevitable.

Even in a worst case scenario life will continue on earth. It's honestly doubtful that humanity will end. This is not controversial among climate scientists. Don't get me wrong, societal collapse, mass human deaths and a huge extinction event are all on the table, but there are many lifeforms that will thrive.

I smoke weed and play vidya.

Take a break from the internet for a bit. I got offline as much as possible for two weeks a few months ago and it did wonders for my mental health.

I realized I was anxious about climate change because I was depressed and not the other way around. I cannot change the world radically but I can do my part, convince others to do the same, vote for the right politicians, pressure companies and politicians to act for climate change… In a nutshell I can do a lot and being depressed or anxious doesn’t help

You didnt mention children, so im assuming you dont have any. If so, keep it up. Staying child-free is likely the most effective personal decision you could make to reduce your environmental impact. Obviously, that doesnt mean you should feel free to dump your used motor oil in the street, but you also arent adding a lifetime worth of consumption to the pile. Further, even if you lived in a cave the rest of your life, someone is one broken condom away from invalidating your (lack of) contribution.

Further, the argument could be made that what we're doing to our environment is the "natural" way of things. Stick a bacteria culture in a petri dish and what does it do? It expands to the limits of its environment and consumes all available resources until there is nothing left it can use. Earth is our petri dish, and we're just going through the motions.

I work in energy r&d, and have for several jobs over the years now.

My sadness is transmuted into passion for solving these issues from the ground up. Top brass is interested in "stock options" and blah blah blah, I'm just focused on solving technical problems to make efficient, powerful energy production that isn't hard on the earth.

The money won't matter if there's nowhere to live. My efforts may not be enough, ultimately, but I'll die knowing I tried to help solve the problems we've caused.

“Evolution had given a bit more thought to species survival”.

… that’s not how evolution works, unfortunately. It requires us to do the thinking.

To be honest I just look at the state of the world and laugh like I'm watching a sad comedy.

And I avoid thinking about how I'm in it and I have basically zero power over it.

I vote for whomever is the least bad candidate and try not to think about it too much the rest of the time.

Climate change is a systemic issue: Capitalism is based on always more production. It can’t be solved by individual actions but only by a radical system change. I put some energy in actions that can help - I hope - for this change.

Notice how public discourse goes round & round in a lively show, but never seems to get anywhere?

This is strawman public discourse, and its largely by design.

Stop thinking, worrying and especially talking about climate change.

Instead talk about pollution & poison

Everyone can see it. It can't be denied or handwaved or debated away.

STOP POISONING OUR AIR, WATER AND SOIL.

WE NEED THEM TO BREATH, LIVE AND GROW OUR FOOD. (duh)

I've accepted that humanity is fucked. Once you get past the existentialism, things get easier. It helps if you've had a bunch of estasential crises before this one.

By living in denial mostly. Or hoping i die before the planet.

Plant hemp. Plant as much of that weed as you can, harvest the roots and store them somewhere that the carbon can't get back into the air. Underground in a sealed drum or underwater if you have a trash compactor handy, and can dump it into the deep parts of the Pacific.

you be the best possible you, thats enough.

"Slowly, I told myself that evolution failed itself by giving a bit more individual selfishness over community/species survival."

There are a lot of great answers here already, but I would like to put forth the anticapitalist position that the quote above is likely false. Humans can work together, we have developed systems of cooperation that can deter selfishness from destroying a community. This is possible (and despite decades of propaghanda..popular!) What is stopping it is the greed for wealth and power of the 1% at the expense of everyone else and the planet. The masses of people are constantly trying to stop this, and mostly fail. But cracks in their power do open occasionally, and you just have to do what you can until a Crack is available for you to help widen. I think it's possible to win, but not through personal lifestyle changes and voting alone. Only through activism and protest is it possible. Most humans keep trying to solve this, and that gives me hope.

all i can do is my best, and then my part will be over.

i try not to focus on what comes next as the future is too amorphous to worry that much about. humans are resourceful, and weve been in tighter spots. genetic analysis points out that at one point in our evolutionary past we were down to something like 15k individuals.

even if the world temps raise drastically and billions die, i believe humans will live on

I try to watch what I read online, and it truly helps.

Do:

• Keep yourself informed by reading bland articles about climate studies with direct interviews from the scientists conducting them.

• Stay knowledgeable about who to vote for to support reasonable climate policies.

Do NOT:

• Read articles that inject opinions from the web journalist, terrifyingly worded headlines designed to get you to click, or anything written for a secondary purpose (e.g. voter mobilization).

• Get your info 2nd, 3rd, or 4th hand from social media personalities on tiktok, youtube, twitter, or any website with an algorithm than rewards the most extreme takes with more engagement.

• Let fear prevent you from living the life you want to live or making long term plans.

I act local, think global. I also accept that it's largely beyond my control, so there is no point in being that upset about it. It's not like I will be having kids to worry about in the future, either.

I don't think about it.

Really, that is it, I don't deny climate change, it obviously is real.

But I am just an IT guy, I live alone, I commute with public transport, I have a small apartment, my car is a PHEV, bought used, consuming 4,5L/100km petrol on average.

I keep my computer turned off when I am out, I won't pretend that I am super eco friendly, I do fly from time to time, this year I've been to Spain twice. I also enjoy driving my car, but I am cutting back on it.

When celebs and VIPs are bombing around the planet in business jets, companies and governments are actively working against electrified rail or rail in general, and pushing for more car infrastructure, then I can see that me feeling guilty about driving my car for fun or just to get to cool photo spots won't make a difference.

Add to that the huge waste of energy that us crypto, and I have realized that yes we are fucked, but I have time to see cool stuff before everything goes to hell, so I try to use it.

I am planning on taking a trip down to germany next year and see some cool museums, and won't feel bad about it.

You could put more efforts towards making a systemic change rather than just affecting your own life. Protests, promoting green things at your workplace, outreach and education, etc. It's been ingrained that individuals are the problem and they they should recycle more at home and create less waste but the root is always on things being unregulated. Even if you sacrifice some individual benefits you have been at a small systematic change would likely have a much bigger impact.

Focus on progress that has been made, solutions to the climate crisis have been growing exponentially over the past decade. And it's not a binary issue of everything is sunshine and rainbows vs we're all fucked. There's more of a spectrum. Also remember the past environmental successes we've had with like acid rain, the ozone layer, leaded gas, mercury pollution. We've come a long way.

Making any progress, no matter how small makes the future just that much better than it otherwise would be. Yes, systemic changes out of the control of anyone on Lemmy are needed, but if say every person on Lemmy worked towards reducing their own environmental impacts that could have huge ripple effects in the economy of the green transition. Just plan out pragmatically/realistically how much time, mental energy, and resources are worth it to you.

A lot things that individuals can do to help with the climate crisis often also have personal benefits like long term financial savings, less pollution exposure, healthier plant-based diets, etc.

By not having kids

I'm taking a nihilistic approach to it.

I turn off the lights when I leave a room. I'm conscientious about my water usage. I recycle.

When I find that a company is a mass polluter, I do everything in my power to not give them any of my money.

I'm doing my part.

The fact is every human being on the planet in their own personal circle could go carbon neutral and climate change would still happen because it is industrial processes and commercial shipping that are driving the great majority of carbon and methane release in the atmosphere.

It's not anything that you or I are doing, or rather, in the scheme of things what we are doing is negligible, easily absorbed by the natural cleaning processes of the planet like trees and algae and rain and time.

Our current system has incentivized pollution. There's no amount of personal choice that we as individuals can take to stop it.

What we need are politicians who acknowledge the issue and who override the objections of the vocal minority to fix them even at deleterious costs to the economy.

After all, can't have an economy when the world is dead.

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.

Schadenfreude. Learn to take pleasure in things like massive increases in risk making insurance unaffordable for conservative fuckheads in places like Florida. A fancy beach house on Cape Hatteras just fell into the ocean (creating a wave of nasty pollution).

Climate chaos is coming for all of us, and we have done basically nothing to avert it (lots of lip service). 2023 set the record for carbon emissions, at least until 2024 is in the books.

All that is left is to watch the ensuing horrors and enjoy our comeuppance.

Alcohol

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.