The US atmospheric chemist on why she doesn’t share the pessimism of most climate scientists, fixing the ozone layer, and why Jacques Cousteau is her hero

Sharing this here as I feel it’s relevant to the GE campaign.

The evidence suggests that in about three weeks, we’re going to give a landslide to the party promising the most radical green policies in this country’s history. Environmentalism is just about to win the argument in Britain, as long as we vote for it on the 4th of July. Don’t give in to cynicism and despair!

  • @[email protected]
    5•5 months ago

    No one is pushing toxic positivity. Positivity becomes toxic when it’s based on suppressing feelings. Instead of accepting and working through negative or challenging emotions, toxically positive behavior simply pushes them away. I’m not advocating for the latter or suggesting we ignore the many problems the world is facing, only that in doing so we don’t also ignore the tangible positives to.

    I’m sorry that the information I provided doesn’t meet your requirements. Personally I believe that optimism and hope is important, and that we shouldn’t let perfect be the enemy of good - any progress is better than none at all.

    Suggesting something isn’t good because it may or may not change in the future is a very negative way of looking at things. Remember, pessimism isn’t realism: https://medium.com/the-ascent/the-magic-that-happens-when-we-stop-equating-pessimism-with-realism-9480a5481540

    There’s also research that demonstrates that positivity increases motivation: https://www.positive.news/society/media/positive-news-stories-bring-people-together-study-finds/

    And that people are more likely to engage with positive content, and that it provides purpose and direction: https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/concern/dissertations/rn3012085

    Indeed we see this mentioned in the article linked in the header:

    …in this case there has long been a group of people out there who believe we should tell the worst stories we possibly can, because then the public will get it and wake up and that will enable change. That practice has not really worked.

    If positivity doesn’t feel right for you, or doesn’t feel right in this specific situation, that’s okay. Sometimes we use worry and other negative outcomes to help us. Just remember to look after your mental health. There’s a lot of negative news out there at the moment and constant doomscrolling is bad for you: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/cravings/202208/are-you-negative-news-junkie

    Maybe take the time to remind yourself of what is going right in the world:

    https://www.positive.news/ https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/

    • DarkThoughts
      -3•5 months ago

      No one is pushing toxic positivity. Positivity becomes toxic when it’s based on suppressing feelings. Instead of accepting and working through negative or challenging emotions, toxically positive behavior simply pushes them away. I’m not advocating for the latter, indeed you will see from my response I was simply providing additional positive content.

      Yet here you are, basically trying to shut me up and go as far as accusing me of mental health issues and doomscrolling. You know what causes change? Anger. You even see it with all the far right movements gaining massively all over the West. People need to be angry at all those things that are actually wrong, people need to demand change. Yet, most people can’t even bother to vote for climate relevant parties or candidates, because they rather live their comfortable lives instead of being potentially affected by actual climate policies that would be necessary.