Don't shame people for how long it took them. Be grateful for the insight they now show. Shaming them online makes it scarier for people to change their world view
this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2026
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I think it is mainly the fact that we have been shouting this from the rooftops for years, and all we got was ridicule.
And now, suddenly, when they realise they are also fucked, we are expected to be the bigger person.
These are the same people who always had a “what about...” ready. The same people who never wanted to sacrifice anything or make hard choices. No, they needed the bigger car, the cheap flights, the endless convenience, and they laughed while others tried to go net zero.
“It is pointless anyway, because big industry are the real polluters,” they said, as if that excused doing absolutely nothing.
I do not fear what is coming for me. I fear what is coming for my children because of years of selfish, egocentric people refusing to think about what they were doing to everything around them.
So yes, I understand the point about not making it scarier for people to change their worldview. But I am not going to pretend it does not matter how much damage was done while they mocked the people who saw it coming.
But you didn't "only get ridicule". It's accepted fact in wide swathes of population. You don't even know (I don't think?) that this person was any kind of skeptic, they've just adjusted how important they think it is.
I think you're doing exactly the wrong thing here: you're taking the worst example of anti-climate-science people and projecting it onto this example you have a single sympathetic post from.
"It's accepted fact in wide swathes of the population" who still mostly didn't do anything to change their behavior in response. What's the difference between a climate change denier who refuses to reduce driving and a climate change acknowledger who refuses to reduce driving? Practically speaking, not much!
I am in the same position as OP. This summer has made me fear global warming even more than before.
That doesn't mean I've done nothing. Don't project onto other people, some people actually do make sacrifices.
I, for example, do my daily commute on public transport. Which takes me 40 minutes each way. While I could easily drive to work, which would be 15 minutes instead. That's 50 minutes I lose every working day. I also work from home as much as my boss lets me. Of course, that's not really a sacrifice, but there's actually people that go to the office when they could easily WfH.
I also avoid using the elevator as much as I can. Less than 3 floors means I'm taking the stairs every time. For a year or 2 I had to go up to the 8th floor once per week. Not once did I take the elevator.
I avoid LLMs as much as humanly possible. And I actively try to convince as much people I can that LLMs are a huge waste of resources.
I wear my clothes until they're actually broken. If they no longer fit me, I store them, in case they fit me in the future. I own 2 pairs of shoes. One of daily use, the other in case the main ones break or are otherwise temporarily unusable (drying or whatever). It's not a money issue, I could easily buy new clothes.
I use my electronics until they break or become otherwise unusable. Until ~3 years ago my second monitor was a 4:3 screen with less than 720p resolution. ~3 years ago that screen stopped working.
When I do buy new electronics, the EU energy rating is one of the most important features I consider.
I don't order food delivery. I just walk to the restaurant and bring the food home myself. Either walking or on non-electric bike.
Before buying online, I first search for a physical local shop that would sell the item.
There's plenty of things you can do as a normal citizen that can help slow global warming.
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This guy is pretty explicitl that he believed in it, he just didnt feel it yet. It was an abstract, far-off issue in his mind until it was palpable, which I don't think is unreasonable, thats kinda just how our brains work
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That's not insight, it's still the same selfishness as before: "This is bad for meeeeee!"
There's levels to it. They have clearly recognised that they need to adjust their behaviour.
Nothing in the image suggests that. And we're talking about someone who opens with "I believe it's happening, but I haven't noticed it."
The kicker is that it's not individual consumers that need to change anyway. It's large corporations and governments. If there's any individual behavior that needs changing, it should involve armed resistance.
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We've known this was a potential issue since the 60's. The 1860's.
As of the 90's, scientists were saying that increased CO2 presence in the atmosphere could lead to global warming. The 1890's.
Yeah... Gets pretty old pretty quick hearing my older relatives scepticism around climate change while our seasons get visibly more extreme year over year.
Heatwaves of >30C were literally unheard in my area when I was younger, yet now they occur multiple times in a single summer.
And same with the cold snaps in the winter. It was rare when I was younger, and now it also happens multiple times a winter.
Its like people see all this and yet still can't put two and two together that maybe this is the climate change scientists have been crazily screaming into the apathetic void about for the last half a century.
And worse still, some will say "its natural for the climate to change over time". Which is true... OVER CENTURIES of geological time!! These extreme climate changes over the matter of a couple of decades are not the same as the natural shifts in climate over time!
My well-educated dad used to deny climate change as late as maybe 10 years ago. Recently he always goes real quiet whenever the topic comes up, and doesn't raise it himself anymore. I wish it would feel good as a late win.
Same here. I used to talk politics with my family, but over the past two years it's slowly brought up less and less and they're not nearly as enthusiastic as they were before. It's hard to feel good about that when everything is objectively worse.
A relative of mine lives in the north. He was so excited for winter, he was gonna finally compete in a dog sled race (well, assist another competitor, which he knew was a gateway for him). He had this whole roadtrip planned to Idaho for it and based his entire winter around making it happen.
Now, if you don't follow the weather in Idaho (I know I didn't), you might not know they canceled several dog sled races this year due to lack of snow. All across the country apparently a bunch got cancelled.
Guy is still repping his Maga pride.
In the 80s while growing up, 30°C in Vienna, Austria was a real heatwave.
We've hit 40°C before summer even officially started this year.
A 30C heatwave happened once per century before the year 2000. There was one in 1976 and they talked about that one for decades. Then after 2000 it became normal and now we just had one in spring.
Of course many folks jump up you just have to adapt to the changing weather. Yes, we're adapting. Events get canceled because of heat or thunder storms. Schools and public instances are holding out their hands for more tax money for cooling. Turns out, that was not the adapting they had in mind.
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It is what it is.
Scientists and experts have tried for 50+ years to warn about it but now it is what it is.
The Greenhouse Gas Effect should have been enough. Altering the reflective properties of the atmosphere and increasing the energy budget of the planet surely must be a terrible idea.
But do we know that it is a terrible idea?
They looked back in time to show that historically more CO2 means increased temperature and changes in the climate system that we may not want.
They looked forward in time to simulate how our emissions will lead to a hotter climate and how it might change in ways we might not want.
They even took all these models that admittedly vary and depend on initial conditions and assumptions and they combined them all so that we aren't sensitive to only one kind of model and method.
Still, people think we cannot know such things.
It is what it is. But one thing I do know for sure is that we have lost the excuse to go back and question things. We can't say "If only we were warned". "If someone really knew, why didn't they say anything?" "Why weren't they more persuasive?" This has been screeched about for most of our lives. Every single person on the planet knows about it. Any skepticism and doubt has been explicitly against the advice of those who know. We chose not to listen.
It is what it is, but I will spend what little money I have and what little democratic say I have to move us into a world with less emmisions. It may be too late, but I'd like to be able to sleep at night.
I bet you there will be a lot of people saying they haven't been warned properly. They could not have known it would be THAT bad.
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So fucking selfish man....
Do you people not even consider that billionaires got to buy another yacht? Or another island? You dirty communists just want to stop these billionaires from owning a 65th yacht just so you can what? Not sweat to death? .... fucking selfish people...
I think this kind of replay only works in favor of turning off any productive conversations
While I understand the importance of having productive conversations I was just making a dumb joke hoping to make someone laugh at a shitty situation. I wasn't really looking to have a conversation about whether we should keep kicking the can down the road.
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I still think about Bernie Sanders’ debate with Hillary where they were asked the top threat to America. His response wasn’t terrorism or drugs or crime. It was Global Warming.
He pointed out that global warming was causing a lot of worldwide problems related to resource scarcity. I found it interesting and wonder how much worse it has gotten since 2016.
Him becoming a US president would have been something
It saddens me that we were robbed of this man’s presidency, but I do think he made such an impact that we’re already seeing his model copied at various levels. Mahmdani being the biggest recent win.
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In a very real sense I'd say this sort of thing belongs in Leopards Ate My Face.
There are a lot of these people who are all of a sudden "Oh, this was not just doomsaying on the part of some radical scientists, this is a real thing." Now that they're actually experiencing the consequences of the last 40 years of complete and total inaction, they are expressing their regret. And, I'm sorry but you all voted for this. You all actively decided to ignore the problem because it was not affecting you at the time. And you didn't really think it would ever actually affect you. And now that it is, you're sad about it. And a lot of these people were even mocking people like Greta Thunberg for her anger at the complete indifference to the global climate crisis we were headed towards. And, to that and them, I say fuck you! We all tried to warn you and you simply ignored us. And now we are all in the same sinking boat together. And for my money, you deserve any and all hardships that you experience due to this climate crisis.
Gore won his election and the supreme court took it away from us. You can't blame the voters completely, at least in the USA.
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One of the frustrating things is people acting like they were engaging this discussion in good faith decades ago. They've gotten away with being extraordinarily selfish for most of their lives, and now turn around and go oops.
This had already been explained to them and they refused to listen when the whole world depended on it.
Is this guy better than someone still denying it now? Sure, whatever. We're still allowed to be mad at them for the damage they've done, like a vandal who suddenly stops and apologizes.
The petrol psyops really did a number on humanity
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"Only now is it clicking???" They literally said they believed in it! This thread is a perfect example of why so much of the fediverse is fucking insufferable. This is not a climate change denier, you fucking morons. So determined to find enemies absolutely everywhere that when someone says something as innocuous as "several years ago I hadn't noticed the physical changes yet," hundreds of people are upvoting unproductive, misdirected, snide mockery.
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Yeah, I have no sympathy. If you can't handle me flaming you for being a sleepwalking dipshit then you haven't fucking learned anything, you're just jumping on the zeitgeist because you're a fucking parrot.
I've had nightmares about climate change since I was about 10 years old. I'm 32 now. I have been watching everyone around me sleepwalk into this as if nothing matters, now I'm expected to feel bad for this fucking monkey because they've suddenly woken up?
No, fuck that and fuck them — this type of person is the reason fascism is winning around the world.
Well, I maybe have good news for this person... AMOC collapse is an anticipated effect of global warming and it would paradoxically make it much, much colder in Ireland. As in "Ice Age" colder.
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A friend of mine went to Ireland one summer about 20ish years ago. Never once did it get above 20 degrees and it rained most days. Someone I know in Mexico grew up in a town where the architecture is designed around rain. The buildings downtown all have roofs overhanging the sidewalks because it used to rain most days, so they designed things to shelter pedestrians. The place also had an airport, but it was unusable most of the time because it was too foggy / rainy. These days it only rains occasionally and can be mid-30s for several months of the year.
There are a lot of places where people used to need heating in the winter, but the summers were brief but pleasant. Now, in a lot of places the winters are still brutal, but now summer days get so hot that air conditioning is also a necessity.
But, what worries me most is farming. Farmers need predictable seasons. If they know the summer will be warmer and dryer they can sometimes switch to different crops. That doesn't work if there's unpredictable weeks-long rain when it's time to harvest.
Humanity is resilient, and humans will survive. But, being a living human in 2226 might be awful. Enjoying the outdoors might just not be something people can't do anymore. All the natural ecosystems of the world might have collapsed, and people just eat nacho-flavoured protein paste and dream about what it was like to eat a raspberry.
It's okay, here at O'hare we understand your needs for fresh, cool, breathable air. So for a limited time only, begin your household's membership to our circular air delivery service at the low price of $299/month.
Don't let those evil billionaires fill your lungs with smog, choose O'hare Air today!
Outdoors is a lost cause, time to start digging tunnels.
Everyone will be yearning for the mines when it's 40C outside.
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South Park mirrors this. Since its a show which acts as social commentary and pokes fun at current events, they did Al Gore dirty and made fun of him for supposedly believing in imaginary climate change (man bear pig). 10 years later, they made episodes saying he was right.
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I remember a staff training session, the trainer said "some people see the problem coming" and pointed off in the distance. Then she held her fist to her forehead and said "some people only see it when it hits them"
Some people have complete inability to entertain the hypothetical. Ted Talk https://youtu.be/9vpqilhW9uI
Whoever called it a "climate warming" should be shot in the head. Because yes, yes it is warming in general, but the choice to call it that was terrible. It's summer, temperature is below 20C today, my neighbors are saying "where the fuck is climate warming? those idiots said it will be hot!"
It should be called climate destabilization, focusing not on hot/cold but on extreme weather.
"Global warming" is the accurate term. So that is what they called it. Science is not now nor has it ever been about branding and populism. The world is, as a whole, becoming warmer and that is leading to the complete destabilization of climate systems across the globe. But the fact is that it is incredibly hard to predict the total outcome of global warming and climate change. So making predictions becomes a very dangerous game. And I would like to add that when they saw that the phrase "global warming" was not getting enough attention they changed it to "climate change" to try to be more accurate in a way that people would understand better (see the dipshit congressman who brought a snowball on to the Congressional floor to "prove that global warming was fake"). But then that backfired too because climate change doesn't sound quite so dangerous. So most people felt completely comfortable in totally ignoring it.
There's also the problem of the consequences of global warming and climate change are future problems that people don't believe they have to worry about right now. There's a very real "fix it in the future" attitude that has become prevalent in society. And the problem with that is, of course, we can't fix it in the future. Because once the destabilization of the global climate system starts, there is virtually nothing we can do to stop it. We may be able to mitigate some of the effects. But not the long-term destruction of the environment that we have become so accustomed to living in.
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How to win over the masses, though? Most people know about climate change, they'll say it's terrible and something should be done, but aren't ready to make any personal sacrifices to do something about it. How do we get them to give up eating meat or taking planes
By changing our economic system so that external costs are internalized.
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Many people got the message, however wrong, that it was nothing to worry about for 100 years, and read things like "2.1C" and figured that wasn't very much.
Of course, our public education system being dismantled by the billionaires hasn't helped at all. At least, it hasn't helped we the poors, they're getting exactly what they wanted.
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Good news! Once the Atlantic current collapse occurs the UK will be cold as hell, too!
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Are you telling me that usually science isn't lying?!
For me personally the tipping point was when research showed large amounts of methane escaping the thawing ice. We really can't reverse something on that level, we're on damage control and assholes are still refusing to control for damage.
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