I think, very broadly, climate change can be tackled by collective action or/and technologies which make climate-friendly action economically favorable. There was a lot of progress recently on the second part, including sizable contribution of Germany: rapidly growing contribution of renewables, electric transport, better heating and insulation, etc? I think good people putting themself to work on an important goal can achieve a lot for common good, I see this a lot in my area of research and technology. I realize there is a danger of thinking “technology will solve all” and relaxing, but what I am saying that it’s part of the solution, and at least a cause for some optimism fueling further action. Furthermore, I see that as Europe gained a privileged position due to historical circumstances, it is its moral duty to leverage this position for helping to advance the necessary technologies.
For the first part it’s harder since there is no consensus but I suspect this will be facilitated by progress in technology (yet, it’s important to work on consensus). Also I see that some understanding of the need to act is increasing in the Western Europe population, is it not?
Maybe part of the challenge with US, Arab spring, and far right, is that after the fall of Soviet Union there was too much confidence in neoliberal system automatically bringing democracy, prosperity, and fairness everywhere. While delivering democracy as a gift of historic process is somehow antithetic to the idea of democracy, which implies active agency, individual and collective action. People grew complacent assuming that all gets solved for them by the market, and politics became sometimes a dirty word. Instead, it’d be better if people continued to practice political discourse about tough questions in respectable but honest way. But now it is becoming next to impossible to avoid engagement, which makes some people loose any hope, some turn to fascism, and some searching for a better solution. I think the last, better, way is not yet lost.
Technology development itself raises further difficult political questions, about ownership of new tools deriving from commons (like LLM AI), viability of common space in privately managed companies (social networks), and so on. People need to be engaged in this else the decisions will be made for them and not in their interest (even if their consent may be sometimes formally acquired following some misleading campaign).
This potential for action, and recent history of progress, in two related directions, technology and political agency, seems to be the cause for optimism. Even raise of fascism, as worrying as it is, indicates that people are striving for change, they just do not see a better option since it is not sufficiently developed and communicated to them yet.
I see, thanks, your comments are interesting also because they are representative of what many people feel, it is what I see in social media as well as in “real” life. Plenty of people take the pessimism far enough to stop planning for future generations. That is, some people might choose not to procreate for other reasons, but widely spread pessimism is indeed systemic I find, and I think you point it out as well. I guess my main point that I think it’s a pity people do not find a way to be inspired for constructing better future while there are conditions for doing so. I work in science and technology, natural sciences, and I saw progress in my lifetime which to me is amazing and inspiring confidence in what people can do if they want. This also not only potential for transformational technological progress, but also societal change.
Frankly even the fact that people as a specie are successful enough to change the planet as a whole (some species managed this in the past, but not quite so fast) is kind if inspiring in a strange way. It’s like for an young individual getting strong enough to lift a large weight, it’s impressive, but also a cause to think maybe where we want this weight to be where it will not fall and break someone’s leg or worse.
Although I grew up in eastern Europe, I spent much of my life in rather wealthier parts of western Europe, especially Switzerland, and I see better technologies really establishing: heat pumps, extensive solar panels, high-performance energy storage etc. In recent years even rather selfish and skeptical people realized these technologies are actually a very good investment, in part driven by the energy crisis, in part by accelerating progress in renewable technologies. I think in so much as these privileged spaces are morally acceptable at this time, they can at least be at the cutting edge of sustainable development by concentrating effort, and I think recently this possibility has really started to materialize.
Here I see a challenge of knowledge industry, even philosophy of science. Internet started with a promise of actual knowledge for everybody, but shaped as free-for-all anarchistic space, leading soon for all kinds of fantasy for everybody. Then, just as with free market, turns out it does not on it’s own, automatically, lead to more fair and clear knowledge. Instead, it lead to a form of digital feudalism with no regard even for fairly universal values, favoring instead basic tribal reactions. Just recently, regulations are emerging which are creating institutions necessary for actually positively free and fair space in the web. EU and Germany in particular are making key contribution to this process. Will this be enough I am not sure. But I guess we can all see some at least impact general digital space (even GDPR), and academia (the source of the authoritative knowledge on practical questions) has made a lot more progress than it might be visible from outside. And it is ongoing. Fediverse is somehow related to this process too.
There is no doubt there is a downturn in many concrete aspects of development, as you listed. This makes it harder to plan ahead, and people make worse choices, accelerating the downturn. Even if these people could actually sustain work for the future since they are not so disadvantaged. How to reverse this trend? I think at least it really helps to also remember what positive progress was made more and less recently. Really, literally, learn, teach, and communicate about technologies, history.
For me this probably falls into the veracity of knowledge industry category. Knowing as much as we can what action makes which effect helps to prevent false sense of security that ritual of sorting garbage on it’s own is enough to reverse antropogenic climate change.
Germany produced some remarkable technology, and is on forefront of some sustainable developments. And my own experience with Germans shows reasonably optimistic attitude - although my sample is very biased, and I do really know enough. Do you think there is something which could inspire Germans? It’s not like the majority are living in poverty, so they must have goals beyond survival, right?
So I had some German friends who voted to AfD, surprisingly, for a reason I could not really quite understand, since they seemed like fairly reasonable people, although a bit angry. Or maybe more than just a bit angry, quite unhappy and angry about the way things are going, and angry for being ignored by the mainstream, and finding return to “good old days” to be the answer, since “obviously” the problem is all the new progressive stuff. So my guess is that this reactionary position is a response to lack of future vision.
But maybe some people just inherently fascist, but I do not find most people to be like that.
Anyway it is a problem that even those who focused on reactionary “solution” proving them wrong is hard since the very origin of their position makes it hard to accept a mistake. I do not know what to do about that, especially in Germany, since I am not really in touch. Maybe creating new inclusive narrative for future could help here too. I’d say it’s good to talk to them, but it may border on compromising with fascists which is hard to accept. But if I may suggest, as external observer, very cautiously, I think German can not continue ignoring the`right wing problem, and it can not just arrest them all too, so something resembling dialog might be needed, not speaking to their solution, but to the root of their concern which might be elsewhere. Not sure, dangerous road.