I'm overcome by feelings of hopelessness (LBN thread)

[Coventina]

I just read the story in LBN about how global warming has reached a "tipping point" of no return.

The perma-frost of Siberia is melting. As it does it will release so much methane that our beautiful planet earth will quickly start to resemble Venus. And we have only ourselves to blame. Not only will we die, but we're going to take everything else with us.

Right now, I feel like I just want to crawl into bed and die.

[Hugin]

1. This ol' Earth has a way of dealing with irritants.

Believe me... It's not the fragile one. We are.

[WCGreen]

3. Cheer up.....

it beats nuclear annihalation

Ot an asteroid collision

Or a giant SHARK ATTACK

[flakey_foont]

2. We owe it to future generations

to at least try and save what we can of this planet

remember, you are not alone

[SoCalDem]

4. Mother Nature always has the "down" card

It might get ugly though...

I feel very badly for all the truly innocent animal life. they have such hard lives anyway, managing on their own while we try our darndest to kill them.. They will pay with extinction.. there are so many of us, humans will probably survive and do it all over again down the road.We are not fast learners:(

[Hugin]

8. This isn't the first time...

One of the first mass extinctions was caused by (believe it or not)
a dearth of vegetarians. The vegetable matter caused a global
cooling (due to the carbon cycle) which killed off almost all life.

Then there were herbavores...

Then there were too many herbavores...

Then there were too many carnivores...

It's an intricate cycle which has found balance over
an unimaginably long period of time.

[MADem]

5. Think globally, act locally

Do your share, reuse, recycle, limit car trips, combine errands, don't buy wasteful consumerish crap, turn out lights, conserve....and badger friends to do the same!

But don't give up. One person can make a difference!

[pitohui]

6. clearly one person can't make a difference

that was the point of the article, it is too late and has prob. been too late for 3 or 4 yrs, when the siberian bog melted, it was game over

methane is much greater contributor to any greenhouse effect or global climate change than carbon, this is why all the jokes in the 80s abt cow farts causing the end of the world, cow eh flatulence is far worse than car exhaust

and this peat bog is releasing more methane than all the world's agricultural and wetlands combined

recycling is just a handjob for the v. corrupt waste collections and disposals industry

i've been doing all you suggest for yrs, clearly no difference was made

at this point seems the wise thing to do is be kind to ea. other, enjoy the time we have left, & avoid bringing children into a world where they have no future

[MADem]

7. Sorry you feel that way

I refuse to give up or give in. But each to their own, I guess.

[pitohui]

13. heh so i am

but we don't choose our feelings

[lpbk2713]

9. As if three hurricanes wasn't bad enough for me last year .....

Soon they will be a year round occurrence.

[Ladyhawk]

10. Damn, I read the article and some DU threads.

I had planned to go to the lake today, but I don't know if I can get rid of the feeling of grief that has taken hold of me.

[XemaSab]

11. Ladyhawk,

go to the lake. Enjoy yourself.

No one gets out alive, and the birds and other critters will be here long after you and I are gone.

Species adapt. All the species alive today are descendents of the same animals that adapted to the end of the ice age... and the beginning of the ice age... and so on.

Many species will go extict, but there have been massive natural extinctions before, and every time nature finds a way to come back bigger and better than before.

Humans will have real problems with the climate change, and that's sad, but humans too will adapt.

Enjoy your snorkeling!

[Ladyhawk]

15. "No one gets out alive, and the birds and other critters will be here long

after you and I are gone."

This is actually what was giving me comfort, but there is a chance that the methane released may kill off everything. Birds and mammals can't live without oxygen.

I figured even if Peak Oil killed off much of life, vertebrates would survive. Peak Oil would have led to the extinction of much of life, as humans overhunted and overfished locally to fill their bellies. Global warming will do the same, but even those lifeforms that escape may be doomed by a poisonous atmosphere.

[pitohui]

12. go go no use sitting & stewing

if nothing else we have an obligation to appreciate the beautiful while it's still here

[Ladyhawk]

14. Yes, I suppose so.

There's no way to know exactly what will happen or when. The earth is too complicated, but I'm still shaking--and hating the fact that I've pretty much ignored this subject. :(

Sigh.

[Terran]

16. I've had my share of depressed days because of articles

I read on DU (Peak Oil is another one that can set me off). But I eventually move on and just tell myself, I have to do what I can. If all people were as aware of these issues as we are, we wouldn't have these problems facing us.

Actually, I doubt the Siberian bog melting will turn the earth into another Venus, but it will have a very bad effect, one way or the other. The detached intellectual in me is reminded of the sci-fi novel "Mother of All Storms," in which a huge undersea shelf of frozen ammonia was released into the atmosphere by discarded nuclear weapons exploding, causing a giant continuous hurricane to develop (kind of like The Day After Tomorrow but without the ice). Interesting concept. If that's all that happens, we'll be lucky.