Just been wading through some of the Topics and I'm a bit saddened that even Neven needs to ask 'Why bother' so hows about a nice thread as to why those able should be doing their damnedest to prepare to survive anything that our climate shift may throw their way?
I can't promise my answer will be nice. Life isn't nice. People aren't necessarily nice. The world of today isn't nice.
Nonetheless, an answer in several parts:
The personal levelWhen I was younger (11 or 12), I spent some time contemplating life from the top of a building. The question was simple - is it worth living? Why bother? I grew up in a poor family, and poverty introduces certain negative aspects in itself - but also - for my entire childhood, my family moved around every 1-1.5 years. Every year or two (at very most) I would be injected into a fresh environment (school, etc) as an outsider, and people don't like outsiders. Not being a particularly social individual, that tended to result in the same scenario each time. No real need to go into details.
To the extent that I didn't try to kill myself, the question was essentially abstract. Nonetheless, at that time I decided that at heart I was a fighter, not a quitter. I decided that nothing could be achieved by defeat and that one might as well at least try to fight.
Approximately two decades later, it is still that decision at that time that I fall back on in difficult circumstances. My first law, as it were - underneath everything else that I am. That point in time also arguably represented the start of growing up - and process I maintain I had essentially completed a couple of years later (you can argue that means I never grew up, if you prefer).
The bigger pictureI think it's fair to say I somewhat despise the modern world. It isn't a nice place. Just about anything bad you can think of is happening right now in multiple locations on the planet. People are being tortured to death, starving, being raped, abused, etc. every minute of every day. Once you grasp that, suffering is just a question of scale and statistics.
The world contains groups of people who think it is OK to let their neighbour starve as they dine on banquets, telling themselves their wealth makes them better and more deserving. They think it's OK to go and take anything they want in the selfish interests of short term power, wealth and pleasure from any other group that is unable to resist. To sally forth with nuclear submarines, drones, stealth bombers and men with machine guns in the pursuit of resources for which the only claim they can make is that might is right. They think it is OK to destroy the resources today and to leave the children of tomorrow nothing except ashes. To consume and destroy even those who are innocent, who do not contribute to the world in which they must live and suffer by being born into it.
So to anyone who thinks it is not nice to talk about the future and what may happen, I ask a simple question - what, exactly, is nice about the world we have now?
For many people with a comfortable western lifestyle, it seems they automatically assume that the world today is nice and the future awful (assuming they study climate change and the implications).
From where I stand, that is the province of those who don't know enough about the world and about living in it. The province of those who have spent too much time soaking up a comfortable lifestyle and who aren't willing to look closely at the world beyond it - at the people on the fringes of society and "civilisation" and how people behave today.
And so, in a strange sort of way - not only am I not sure I would miss the world of today, that I have grown up in and found to be pretty negative and unpleasant - but I think wiping the slate clean would in principle offer our species - in however tenuous and improbable a way - a fresh start. A chance, however remote, to build something
better.
The stranglehold of the rich and powerful and their vested interests upon our species combined with the infectious memes their behaviour imparts means there is no other credible route I can see to doing so. Hence even in the collapse of civilisation and the plummeting of human population - hope and opportunity for the future continues to exist. At least, that's what I believe.
PhilosophicallyAll things die. Individuals, species, stars - perhaps even universes and (if one thinks they exist) gods. Our demise is inevitable at some point, and not necessarily something in itself to fear (unless you believe in hell, for which I can find no evidence).
Given the inevitability of death and an end - if the outcome is the same no matter what - why not have a damn good try at doing something in the middle? What can you lose that means anything on a bigger scale? I realise the counter argument exists, and that's fine - but I encourage making an active choice, not merely using it to justify apathy.