this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2026

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The end of 2025 must be the end of the inane rule of climate ‘optimism’ | The world missed its opportunity to prevent climate change. We need to focus our resources on adapting to it. (www.resilience.org)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net

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We were supposed to have gone net zero by now: that was XR’s central demand, when we formed it, seven years ago. Can we all please at last acknowledge and take seriously the utter failure to do so? Only such acknowledgement will prevent us from continuing collectively to basically ignore the increasingly pressing need to actually focus resources on a strategy beginning with climate adaptation. We should admit that widely-mandated climate optimism has been actively harmful to the needful acknowledgement of reality – and to the active collective self-protection that we now desperately need to get serious about making happen.

[...]

Here at the end of 2025, we are already living with the consequences of delay. Flooding, heatwaves, droughts and wildfires are no longer rare events; they are becoming features of normal life. And in some cases – look at California, or Sri Lanka, or (closer to home) at the many floodplains that have been and will be built on – the consequences of their not being taken seriously enough as our new never-normal have been deeply disastrous, or indeed very deadly. The idea that we can still prevent at source very serious damage is an illusion. What we can do is reduce harm, protect the most vulnerable and adapt in ways that for starters do not worsen the problem.

This is the moment to prioritise resilience at every level — from reinforcing critical infrastructure to strengthening the social fabric of communities on the frontline of climate impacts, from learning from how global South frontline communities have already been practising transformative adaptation to shared inner work turning climate despair into climate courage.

I'm not sure how much I agree with this, but I certainly found it thought-provoking.

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[–] ziltoid101@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

It's far too late to prevent climate change but the EXTENT of change matters just as much as wether there is a change at all. Every fraction of a degree of warming counts for so much.

We absolutely need to be investing in adaptation alongside our reduction of greenhouse gasses, but I worry the narrative of "it's too late" sends a counterproductive message (I.e. we failed, may as well continue polluting an enjoy our lives). Even if we have 2 degrees of warming it would still be worth fighting to avoid 2.1 degrees of warming imo.

[–] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 29 points 3 days ago (2 children)

People will start reacting when the death toll is in the millions. It'll be far too late and they'll probably end up blaming the wrong people anyway.

[–] etherphon@lemmy.world 33 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Just look at COVID, people were dropping all over the place and there were people freaking out because they had to wear a mask OH MY GOD.

[–] pipi1234@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

You hit a critical point. The average human being is so self centred, that they won't tolerate the smallest inconvenience unless it is in immediate direct benefit to them.

[–] cravl@slrpnk.net 12 points 3 days ago

The problem is that climate factors in deaths are rarely obvious (to the average person) and this contributes further to general discord. Between worsened natural disasters and heat-related lifespan reduction (incl. knock-on effects like habitats of disease-carrying insects and rodents expanding further from the equator), we're already in the millions, easily.

[–] BigTuffAl@lemmy.zip 12 points 3 days ago

We didn't "miss our opportunity," we are being strangled by an international oil oligarchy.

The only solution is personally killing the Black Snake, probably to a man. That's the only solution, and I am not a part of that solution. Doesn't seem like a fucking "opportunity" to me, it sounds like a desperate war for a dominant species I don't even like belonging to.

[–] RockBottom@feddit.org 1 points 2 days ago

You wrote resources, is that taxes? So will there be private companies in favor of further emissions, because that will keep the tax money coming in?

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The world missed it's opportunity to prevent climate change

Yes?

It's missed it multiple times and it will continue to do so. The Paris climate accords were an absolute joke yet even the outcome of that was just ignored by all the important players. That was when Obama was in charge, now we have trump, good luck with that

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 4 points 3 days ago

Technically we probably missed it even by the first Earth Day in 1970. Repercussions of what we started in the 20th century took a lot of time to manifest evidence, with the oceans probably acting as a filter to hide most of it, until it couldn't.

But the Paris Accords, the IPCC, all the rest, yeah it's a joke.

[–] ordnance_qf_17_pounder@reddthat.com 11 points 3 days ago

Climate change has not caused nearly enough harm for people to start giving a shit in large enough numbers. Individualism and apathy are so entrenched that we need to be at a point where we're scavenging for our next meal before we take radical action. Not to mention disinformation telling us that climate change is a hoax or that we can't do anything about it so there's no point in trying.

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

There will be adaptation either way. It's still lame to shift agenda to "subsidizing adaptation" to support it getting even worse. Our current adaptation path

Pay higher insurance fees for your property (including rental cost) or be homeless.
Declare those fleeing drought and other warming related inhability invaders to get political consensus on subsidizing fosil fuels more.
Every fire and hurricane is more proof of climate alarmist space lasers and chemtrails false flag agenda.

See. No need to worry about there not being an adapting strategy. The part about cutting forest fire mitigation and FEMA budgets doesn't quite make sense, except for boosting insurance premiums.

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Adaptation was not defined. It could mean have the world's rich accomodate the world's poor, but our failure point has been poltiically that we could not sacrifice just the rich oil company's extortionist profit power to reduce our energy costs in addition to future sustainability expenses/compromises. How can that broader failure of direct immediate social benefit translate into future political support for social sacrifice for humanist purposes.

A side note, the only policy that was ever going to, or will ever, stop global warming is a carbon/GHG tax with the proceeds paid to citizens/residents as a dividend. Demonic warmongering for losing wars, along with the divisiveness it invites for inflation and attacks against the economy, with more oligarchist and zionist supremacism as the winning solution is necessary to make you more miserable, and in your misery, lose all concern for human sustainability while consumed with anxiety over your near term future.

Back to adaptation, perhaps a politically relevant class is relatively wealthy residents of Phoenix. Should "we" give them free homes somewhere that is not an abomination to humanity? Compared to trucking desalinated water into Phoenix for 200 years, digging them a canal from the Great lakes would be a bargain. Florida coastal home owners vote in what is sometimes a swing state... should we build them a sea wall for entire state?

Surely, with electric bills set to soar 300% because we politically require all the AI datacenters to bring skynet surveilance state that ensures skynet support (or China wins), cannot tolerate an extra 10% electricity increase to subsidize the poor's access to AC, since Skynet will make the poor unneeded anyway.

The problem with supporting adaptation, is that you give the politically relevant classes a lifeline to support continued climate terrorism. The lifeline being that they will get bailed out after we are finishing arguing about who deserves to survive/be bailed out.

The other issue with adaptation, is that it financially costs less to mitigate worsening than it does spending on ever increasing adaptation. Even if you win political support for the stupid option, it is still smarter/cheaper to mitigate instead.

[–] Ach@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

I say we accept our fate and pollute as much as we can to speed run through global warming right to the next ice age. Get us all frozen to death and the planet can do mastodons again.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 6 points 3 days ago (2 children)

What do you disagree with? Seems like it's just acknowledging the reality of where we are heading.

[–] stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net 12 points 3 days ago

I think it underestimates the value of climate mitigation. A focus on reducing emissions may not save us from a 3 degree world - and a 5 degree world after that, and a 10 degree world after that - but it could delay those milestones and give us more time to adapt. For example, I think a 40-foot rise in sea level is inevitable in the next few centuries - even a two degree rise guarantees both the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets melt - but delaying that 40-foot rise from 2080 to 2150 makes a huge difference in our ability to prepare for it and in the lives of people living in the flood zone now.

I also think climate change is a symptom of the underlying disease of capitalism/technofeudalism. Local and community resilience efforts treat the symptom but leave the disease free to run rampant in new and horrible ways.

(Imagine: a city puts in battery backup in case of grid failure, but the megacorp manufacturing the batteries forces them to use its proprietary software and pay service fees, and when the grid goes down the megacorp hits the city with millions in extra fees and threatens to turn off the power if they don't pay.)

[–] matsdis@piefed.social 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Not the person you asked, but my critique would be: It moves the focus away from decarbonization towards solving very obvious local short-term problems. A move to gain credibility/popularity in the public eye, instead of pushing for long-time measures that have a globally distributed effect. Aka "there is no glory in prevention".

That said, I know it's easy to critique like I did without being directly involved. Perhaps the idea is to then use this new political capital to push for those measures again. It may be a smart move, and it will certainly be a good thing to push for adaptation measures locally anyway, before everyone can finally agree that they are needed. But it does feel like giving up on the cost-effective but unpopular decarbonization.

[–] stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

That's actually a part I don't disagree with. Local short-term problems still do need to be solved. They are the symptoms of the underlying disease that is the global capitalist economy, and we have to fight the disease instead of just fighting the symptoms - but if you don't treat the symptoms, you might end up dying before you can treat the disease.

And, also, the personal is political. People will see the impacts of climate change on their communities, and people will commit the time and effort to adapt to those impacts locally, and that will make people more willing to vote for the national and global collective action we need even more badly.

Credibility and popularity are necessary. Getting people involved and committed on the local level is the first step to getting people involved and committed on the global level.

If climate leaders lead people in that transition instead of stopping at the local level and saying "hey, we rented some solar panels from this fossil fuel megacorp that branched out into solar power, everything's good now, go back to consuming as usual".

[–] dumnezero@piefed.social 3 points 3 days ago

I've been trying to warn people about the optimism trap for years. It's difficult, optimism is a very low-effort and attractive mentality.

[–] velindora@lemmy.cafe 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Exactly. Brace for it.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 3 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Sure, but I mean... how⁉️

[–] morto@piefed.social 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Depends on where you're from. But roughly, trying to build a community, adapting your living place to a warmer climate, adapting your diet, maintaining the best health you can, reducing your reliance on anything industrialized, trying to increase the vegetation cover in your vicinity, learning crafting skills. If you live in a place too close to the ocean and with low altitude, or some place with high water stress, or somewhere likely to hit 50ºC, or maybe a place in the epicenter of likely geopolitical conflicts, consider migrating before people are forced to.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 2 points 3 days ago

Excellent answers:-)

[–] ThatGuy46475@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Sleep pods with ac and a setting to kill all bugs inside of them

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 2 points 3 days ago

Finally a realistic title. We as a society have been so reluctant to talk about adaptation because that means we're going to lose what we have thanks to mistakes, ignorance, greed, and lies.