Soft Climate Denial Ft. St Andrew

I'm good, I'm good. You know, it's rainy, it's chill. It's better than the kind of hot weather we've been getting lately. So I'm good. Yeah, it's raining and chill here. But that's seven months of the year. Uh. I think there's slightly different uh climates in Portland, Oregon and Trinidad, probably, I've been told. Um. So we have had you on a couple of weeks back to talk about solar Punk, and we're gonna be bringing you back on about twice a month to talk about, um, whatever the hell you

want to talk about. And so I'm going to now hand the episode over to you, um and trust like a little lamb that you'll lead me somewhere beautiful and filled with good forage. Yes, sunshine, rainbows, the promised land. Yeah. Okay, So I think we've all noticed that the environmental this smoothment kind of sucks jumping into it, has not done the things that has not accomplished. Has been around for like over half a century or actually really more than that,

and you know, where are we know? You know? Um, of course we do have to confront and acknowledge that, like there's the sc where oil company has literally suppressed a whole bunch of information and you know, co opted like a lot of the earlier movements and stuff. But we've kind of known for a while now and we are still here, so it's like what gives you know? Um, I think there's kind of an interesting phenomenon that I wanted to talk about today, um known as soft climate

change denial. So are you're familiar with that or what you'll think it is? Based on foot impressions? UM, I mean, yeah, I've heard the term. I would think it's sort of um, I mean a number of different things, including the idea that like, well there's nothing we can do, so nothing should be done, you know, m hmm. Yeah, what what

what what's your garrison? Yeah, most of my understanding of the term is like someone like saying they like know, the climate change is the thing, like they recognize that, but they are kind of more in denial of what solutions can be done to really change anything. That's generation understanding of the term. When I see it like online

or something, Yeah, what what's your Chris? Yeah, I usually see it's it's like it's usually in the context of people, you know, can in the US, there's the whole um, there's whole political factions whose entire thing is saying, like, we believe in science, and then they'll go talk about like how much they believe in climate change, and then two seconds later and around they're like signings. Yeah, So that that's that's that's my understanding of it, right. Yeah.

So according to everyone's favorite source um Wikipedia, soft climate change denial is a state of mind acknowledging the existence of global women in the abstract what re meaning to some extent impartial psychological or intellectuals and nihilism, what it's really t or impact. And so when I was spoken about in my channel in my most recent video where I was talking with the different facets of solar punk.

You know what sola punk is, what it needs, um, things that probably potentially drag down the solo punk movement, and things that people have been using to try to drag it down. Because so the punk is kind of building in popularity, and with anything that builds in popularity, there are attempts from all sorts of angles to co opt it and to repackage it and to modify it

and all those things. So I've kind of noticed with the soula punk phenomenon that there's this effort by people who professed to care about the climates and stuff to try to push it away from more radical directions towards something more appealing and appeasing to the status cool into the system um and I mean according to the Wikipedia definition, you know, it's they call it a state of mind. I think it's also like an implicit philosophy that undergodes

like entire groups and entire movements. You know, so like for example, obviously you know in affects individuals, where you know, people will um miscalculated its risks and think that climate

climate change is just extra storms or something. But then they also, like people a really the movements that would neglect its urgency with just these platitudes and these um directionless actions that just to like this kind of middling reformism, um like, they underestimate the extent of social change required to like mitigate climate change, so basically don't seek to change its out of school, but just to sort of tweak it ever so slightly to like capitalism with a

carbon tax or something. Um. And then of course they're people who kind of straddle that that fence or maybe small a spectrum between soft climb change nile and hardclim change nile, where they might overestimate the extent of scientific uncertainty, so they might think that, oh, well, you know, um yeah, club warming is happening, but we don't exactly know how much it's going to change the climate or how much it's impacting our lives and that kind of thing, so

they basically tune it into something that's still up for debate, you know. And A's why I say it kind of straggles that line between soft line and hardline, because obviously the hard climb change nihilists they're just like, oh, well, you know, it doesn't exist, or if it does exist, humans don't closet if you and still course there's nothing we can do that kind of thing. Have you all had like experiences with soft climb change nil, like and

your own personal organizing? Oh yeah, yeah, I would say so I have encountered. Um. I mean it's kind of a thing you encounter constantly in American politics because it's it's really like often times your best option, uh, in terms of like it's that or the people who say

that talking about climate change is socialism. Yeah, you know, so I was in verminal Studies mature for most of college and then I decided not to do it and then I got like a minor instead because like one class off well, long story, but you know, it was interesting seeing it there because like you know, there there were basically like two possible reactions to learning that. One was like people who you know, okay, what one was

you get incredibly depressed and that's what I did. Or and then that's the second one was people would you know and these people who like actually you know, you know, I mean these are rebial studies madis right, Like these people have spent a lot of time studying this stuff and they kind of like, I don't know this is almost like like this kind of intellectual retreat where you could see people businesally just like convincing themselves that like

somehow this would be okay, and they'd like, I don't know, people would just get like completely obsessed with like electoral maps and you're like no, no no, no, no, no, okay, okay, if if if we win exactly this number of seats in this year, then like we can we can start doing carbon credits or like, I don't know, it was

it was. It's really interesting to watch because it was like it was it was I mean, because like I think I think that there's there's like there's very there's bad faith versions of it, and then I think there's also versions of it that are just sort of like people genuinely not want to accept, yeah, like the what's

necessary to stop this? And so they're sort of like that they can't even really like think about what's necessarily because because of how the education system works, and just I could go on like long runs about the education system. It really it really really um it really limits people's ability to think outside of like this very very strict box of possibilities because you know, so much just left out of um for example, history classes, and soone just

left out of um, really all the subjects. There's this very clear ideology that you're expected to come out of the education system with. And so even when you reach academia and high education and stuff, you're still stuck with

that mode of thinking. And even as you're presented with all this new information, because your brain currently like handle like the great extent of what climate change is, you know, it kind of retreats into this sort of simple kind of all, we just need to vote, because voting is all I know. Voting is a tool to do. Voting

is politics, and politics is voting. That's the extent of it, right. Yeah, It's like this weird form of self preservation that people need to do and or to kind of like keep their keep them from in their mind, you know, like spiral like out control, because this is the only thing that you know, they have. They need to focus on their own life right now, in their own current problems.

And if they think about this because this like large looming threat too much, it just freaks you out right, and you have in order to in order to just keep going on with your life. A lot of people like segment off this type of thing in their own brain so that you know, manifests in a lot of cases, and this kind of soft denial so that you can just keep on going. Yeah, yeah, and I see with

with friends, and I see with the family. You know, obviously they'rely handful of people who still, at least in my experience, we still deny climate change. But then there's like a bigger portion of people whose whole understanding climate change is just this or but we just need to recycle and we just need to like switch to electric vehicles,

and once we do that, you know, we'll be okay. Um, which is tweak a couple of things, get some solar panels and yeah, you know, the understanding of it has been completely limited to like this, are you restricted conversation that is like um, basically cultivated by certain interest groups on certain um lobbying groups and that kind of thing. You know, Yeah, that's only a certain amount of change

is allowed, and that's what we're allowed to think. So that's what we're like shown for examples of in like media and pop culture or whatever. Right, So this is you know, this is kind of what um, you know, like all of the YouTubers who got money from Bill Gates.

When Bill Gates wrote his climate book, right, all all of the things that they were talking about is like, it's like this kind of stuff because the only way from Bill Gates to keep his money well you know, talking about climate change is to have these kind of half fast like solutions that are actually deny the impending reality and deny that. No, the only way to actually fix it is by taking all his money, um, which

he's not as big a fan of. Yeah, I mean have you all seen the video on climate change and economy coming? What did you want? Climate change in a nutshell? It's like this like that so people can find it, but people will I think people people know. I think a lot a lot of people know what it is. Or you can just search in a nutshell on YouTube. Key you are, I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try, k you are? No, it's ku r g? Was it ku r z? I think it's ku r z g E s A A G T right, it is. It is

a It is a weird one. But what what what are you talking about? The can you fix climate change? Yeah? Yeah, yeah? Where the whole thesis is basically vote with your ballots and vote with your wallet. Yeah, that's the only thing that you're really allowed, right. Yeah, And I believe this is one of the videos spots they put this, um yeah they did. It was and then they had this whole line about some people think we need to change like our systems from climate or from from capitalism, but

we're not so sure about that. We don't know the answer. So it's just like shrug towards all system. It's from with the system. But they basically gave it no attention, you know. But their channel is literally about like quite

deep into research about things. So it's very obvious that if they spent no time like doing any kind of research into like why people have the system and critique that, obviously Bilkie It's hand is very deep in their pockets, you know, because I believe that I believe the researchers actually kind of know that, but they're not. They just

can't say you're not allowed to. Yeah, And I mean like, yeah, I think they're making the bargain a lot of people make where they're like, Okay, well, if we can push for you know, the immediate necessary changes, we can worry about you know, stuff like that later on. It's it's just important to get something done. Um, and so we'll compromise and will not will not call for what we

know is actually necessary to deal with the problem. We'll just we'll just go with a half measure because at least it's something we've got to do something now, right. The thing that's always been very grim about that to me is like you look about how how that plays out, right, and it's always like, well, okay, so our our half measure is gonna be we're gonna we're gonna just like put put put a monetary value on indigenous forests so that governments can like steal them and get paid for

taking the land. And it's never stuff like why don't we like make more marshes, which is you know, if if you're gonna talk about stuff that like could actually be done, right, it's like, okay, well, but what do re marshing do we want? Like that's that that stuff like is easy and doesn't need you know, you don't literally have to overthrow capitalism to get people to like

restore marshes. But it never happens because this that's you know, the whole basis of the sort of soft anihilism stuff is not actually you know, it's not actually the type of self climate change. They just want to make money and it's extremely grim. Yeah. Yeah, there's this video that the storyteller was this YouTuber UM he did recently on co opting movements, and he was explaining that, Um, with

the March in Washington right during the Civil Rights movement. Um, that was an organic movement that you know, the people had come up with, right, but obviously a mass movement. The FBI isn't going to just sit back and let that happen, right, so they brought in these leaders. Um they're called the Big Six, and um, the storyteller was explaining that basically they were paid to co opt the march,

to basically become its figureheads and its leaders. They hadn't organized it themselves, but they came on afterwards and became the leaders in the march and read the speeches that they were supposed to read in that kind of thing. And so that sort of mass movement was basically be found like that. I mean, obviously reforms were made and you know, Civil Rights Act was passed, But then you know, after all that happened and MLK got disillusioned by the

system as a whole. And wanted to start pushing even harder against capitalism and whatnot. That's when oh, well, coincidentally, you gotta pullet you know. So, I think it's interesting that these movements they're able, they're they're comfortable with these movements up to a certain point, um, and comfortable these leaders going these certain directions at to a certain point. But then when you actually start posing a threat to the stat of school, that's when you know, you become

a problem in like a major way. Not to say that okay, it wasn't a threat to the stat of school, but just to say that, you know, um, there was. They have certain limits that they don't want people across. Yeah, capitalism. One of the things that's that makes it such a robust system in terms of its ability to to not get overthrown or destroyed is that, up to a certain point, it loves dissent. It loves anti capitalism because you can market that very easily. Like there's a lot of money

in in in anti capitalism. There's a lot of money and being critical of the system. It's just when you hit a certain point, um, then it then it becomes you know, the c i A or the FBI or some person who's been um convinced to shoot use problem

like it. There's a there's a point at which, uh, that's no longer accepted, but quite a bit of criticism and even like agitation to change or end the system can be accepted because it's monetize herbal and speaking of that, you of what time it is time for a serious Absolutely is oh boy, time for an ad or or that's the CIA at the door. We won't know until we come back from break. Ah, we're back. It wasn't

the CIA this time. Good news, guys, thankfully. I mean the fact that they flew all the way down just to meet me. I'm on it, honestly. Oh, I mean they've come to trend a dad for less. Oh that's true. Yeah, yeah, But like we were seeing, right, there's a school issue of these movements being able to go in a sitting direction,

but only up to a sitting point. Um. I think it's something that Peter Gallus also talks about in how non violence protects the state, in the sense of, you know, these people are able to once they get a certain level of attention, all of a sudden, you know, you're invited to speak of these events, and you're invited to go this place and that, and you basically get consumed into the workshop machine, the angio machine, and the climate

conference machine kind of things. So you end up with all these figures, these organizers, these activists who go from like generally trying to organize their communities and their spaces, and then before you know what they're like at such and such conference because well, they think it's an opportunity to like actually make like a bigger change. But in reality, you know, they just there too be defound. You know, like for example, who mainly comes to mind, it's like

Greater Thunberg. I mean I haven't looked at deeply into her past or anything. Um. I know they are certain right wingers who are very obsessed with her, but I know that she recently said that she's kind of done with politicians. Um. Because when you think of how she basically came up, you know, right exactly, and think what

how she basically came up? It was like she is talking at these events, and you know, people are in fighting into things because you know, look at look at this cute little google um yelling about climate change, right, and she basically becomes this spectacle you know, and that spectacle is entertained up to the point people make big events out of her, you know, like breaking down in front of these politicians and stuff, and you know what,

they just go right back to normal. UM. I think it was copy was last week or the week before UM and representatives from representative I think the Prime Minister of Barbados was there and she had this, you know, a great speech about how the global nothings do more for you know, these countries in Global South because you know they have responsibility. That kind of thing. Cool UM.

But at the same time, you know there's like developments going on Barbados too, you know, basically bring in more tourists and to bring in more UM and like you know, resorts building and that kind of thing that basically add to the UM emissions and adds the UM negative impact

in the environment. You know, same thing with like Tat's government, you know, like the representative that went to including the Prime minister, and you know they're all about things changing and you know, the climate movement UM and the climate change being real and actions need to be taken. And then like this didn't make it in like like mainstream news of course, but in local news. Basically right after primmes of trying to vehicle Dr Keith Rowley, he went

and met up with like Shell. Yeah, like representatives at Shell to like basically bring the country and the company closer together, you know, um, because you know you're not is reliant and oil and that kind of thing. So obviously these sort of leaders and these sorts of movements, they only go up to a certain point. And even then, so much of it is just this performance. Yeah, this

UM act. Basically I'll be I'm putting together a thing on copies six right now, UM because I think it actually it does demonstrate a lot of the soft denial stuff that you're talking about. Like the biggest thing to come out of cop twenties X in terms of like actual deals is just uh progress on carbon markets and carbon offset credits. That's there. That's really the only thing

we actually got. Um And they say red but not not like us, but like you know, the people in charge, they they got this and and the the quote they gave was that the being able to buy carbon offset credits, meaning that like you don't actually make emissions differences, so they said, you you buy pretend emissions differences from other countries that actually did make changes, Um, so that you

don't get penalized. So that's it's buying the credits far but they said, they said, buying the credits can potentially unlock trillions of dollars for protecting trees, expanding renewable energy, and other projects the combat climate change. It's it's the fuckers like, don't climate credits. It's like, um, it's the same as saying like hail Mary's because you you send and you went to your priest and confessed. It's like

I've I've I've done bad things to the environment. Tell me, like how many times I need to go through this ritual in order to in order to cleanse myself of having the atmosphere you know exactly. I think it's bleaker than that in a lot of ways, Like it's it's it's, it's, it's, it's it's really it's the climate version of like the World Wildlife Fund having death squads. Okay, now, Chris, you are a very anti death squad, and I think we need to deal with that at some point because hashtag

not all death squads. Yes, my mother will need to be able to account for by strong anti death squad stance. This is a yeah, you say that now, but you're gonna get a death squad to fight the death squads, And then where are you begin to be ce death squadsption get they get a death squad to fight your death squad, and then it's just like the constant each other outs. Then you have to get another death squad, and then see Marxist Leninism. Yeah, it's a number of

other things too, to be fair to Marxism. Another thing that might make you kind of question the integrity of CUT is that there were more delegates at Cup six from fossil field companies than there were from any individual nation. That makes sense. But then right, that's like another thing, right, because you're talking A six and we have soft climate

change denial gets into that. But I don't think. I think self fund change denial can only be applied so far when it comes to those sorts of big spectacles and those big major events. Because even if they themselves really truly understand the depths of climate change and trust and believe like these wild barns and stuff, they knew like they have all the info right present front of them,

They've done. They're already done. Their like cost benefit analyzes and like risk assessments and kind of thing, so they know exactly like what the impact going to be. They have the money to have access to the scientists, right, But it's not soft clime change denial for them. It's I'm a capitalist, I'm going to do what a capitalist does. You know. It's ultimately a funct Wait, they're operating within a system, you know, so soft time changenial. Um, it

is like sort of a psychological phenomenon. But we also to keep in mind the day is also like a

structural component to it. See that even if they're a person does not face self clim change now is an experiencing self clim change denial that alone, even if they're like fully confront the sue, that's just an individual, you know, and there's still like a whole structure around that individual that we're still incentivize certain behavior, and then of course with the incentives of certain behavior comes like the psychological

justifications for that behavior. So it kind of almost becomes that they end up justifying themselves into self climate change denial, you know what I mean. So it's kind of like it's like a fluid that it's like a feedback loop that reinforces its own existence. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean I think that honestly, Like the feedback loop model is where we have a lot of our problems with the climate

change are. They're all very much linked to the feedback loop model of things trying to justify their own existence. And then you know, certain and then on the reverse side of things, you know, when certain changes in the climate happen, those create their own feedback loops which create more changes to happen. It's like everything, everything, one one massive loop. Yeah. I gets me to like, there's the discourse around climate change and stuff is like halted and

divoted and immobilized, you know by soft climate change. Now, you know, discussions of the very real, very current, very near future and very violent impacts of climate change just basically softened, like like you know when you try to throw a punch in a dream. Yeah, Like you're trying to like push, and then it's like, you know, it's like this kind of soft um or like you throw something in space. I guess it's just you put all this effort into it and then you go in another

direction that kind of thing. Um. I don't know what I'm going with this analogy, so I'll just keep on going. Um, basically that there's an issue with the conversation with the discourse has just been you know, harmed by the psychological phenomenon.

But then, of course there's the other side of psychological phenomenon of soft clan engine enial, not the hard colansin genial side, but rather the I'm so on the opposite end of soft cluanngin chanial that I'm like an inconsolable and like illogical and I can't even imagine the possibility

of anything happening kind of yeah. Yeah, the kind of the kind of extreme dumerism where you recognize how you organize that climp tog is bad, um, but then you you see it as such a massive, overwhelming thing that basically shuts you down from be able to do anything else, and you just like, exactly, there's really no going to do anything if it's going to be this bad, There's really no one's you know, it's such a hard capitalism and the systems that are working to keep it going

or such a hard thing to overcome that it seems like the best thing to do is just sit down and do nothing. Yeah, And that's the thing right, Like these are slash collapse people, right, Um, I mean I appreciate that they don't shy away from like the really difficult stuff, and they also stumble into this kind of like hoop, that's dumorism, Like it's dramatic kind of we are screwed. We're all going to be fighting this mad Max style arena. Like that's not how you know, clime

chine is going to play out. You know, it's not a movie. You know, like if things are going to break down in suit and places and other places are gonna lockdown in suiting weez, but it's not going to be like this certain globe devolution into madness like that. You know, that's not really how social change. That's already how collapses how you know, functional history. You know, of course we live in a like a global civilization, and

previous collapses have been fairly localized. But still, you know, climate change is both global and local, so there are certain changes it will only affects it in localities. This is something that actually the book Desert addresses fairly well, and I find it frustram Yeah, yeah, because I find really frustrating because especially on the online left, there's people who treat desert like the Gospel, or at least they say they do, but they're actually extreme doomers who fetishize collapse. Um,

and they're like, oh, everything is hopeless. Read desert but then you but then but you really Desert is like explicitly anti collapse. Same collapse isn't gonna happen. Collapse is a fantasy you tell yourself to keep you going. And for this kind haven't heard of? Desert The Desert is a book that's available for free online about what's coming. Um. It's titled desert because of an old quote about how

empires um leave nothing but deserts in their way. Basically like that's it's it's just like a thing that that empire. I think the exact quote is like empires make a desert and call it peace. Um. And it's it's basically discussing the fact like not just literal desertification, but like, um, that that's more of a more of a better picture of like our future under climate change than kind of these these mad max dreams this like slow dissolution of

resources and uh environments um. And that that's kind of the Yeah, it's a it's a good book. You can read it yourself, and it's it's quite influential online. Um. But yeah, as as Garrison pointed out, there are people who kind of take it in a in a direction that I don't believe the authors. I mean clearly the author didn't mean, because they directly called out that kind of thinking. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like some people treat like collapse and stuff as basically the secular version

of like revelation in the Bible. Yeah yeah, or it's or it's like the non marketus version of like the Revolution. It's like it's like this this kind of mythical event to like prepare for and almost be excited for, but like it's it's fake. It's a fantasy. It's it's something we tell ourselves to keep ourselves going as things are bad.

But it's not. It's it's not real. Yeah, Like any day, you know, the trumpets will sound in the heavens and the screws will be broken and the great, the great beast will arise from the sea and you know all that. Five Yeah, And I don't know what the solution is

for that. I I don't know how both on the soft climate denial side of like how do you go about how do you go about It's like, the only thing we can really do is the people, you know, we know, how how do we go about and tell them that, hey, things are probably gonna be a bit worse and which you're preparing for. Um And how do we tell the people who are doomers, Hey, it's not gonna be like this weird dystopian thing that you're thinking of.

Either it's like it's it's it's interesting because like they're both veering off in two opposite directions, but it both kind of leads to the same point of kind of doing nothing. But one version. One version of nothing is basically, you know, voting for stuff that's not that's never gonna happen. The other version is not just not doing anything in general. Um And I I don't know how to how to reach those types of people very easily. Yeah, which kind of brings me to like my thoughts on like how

we move past soft climate change Nile. Um. I don't think it's just a matter of like trying to like push like campaigns on people. I think it's gonna be like a very personal sort of journey that each person has to go through, right, because each wisnes is different. Each wisnes is like has different worries and dealing things in a different way, you know. Um, so like you want to keep in mind like people's mental health and sort of fortifying your mental health and helping people fortified days.

Because when it comes to mental health with regard to like climate change, doing it an isolation in my experience has not really worked out. I think what has worked best for me is when I am with why I am connected with a group of people or even just one other person, and when I'm feeling down about climate change. Because despite all my messages of what sular punk and you know, we can do this like that that's basically

the message of my YouTube channel. You know, I still experience like those sort of thoughts and feelings public about it. But what I try to do is when I'm feeling those things, I try to be with people who are not currently feeding that, you know, so we're not feeding

all of each other's next of energies. Yeah, so like when I'm in a bad spot, you know, people are on who could lift me up, and when day about dy in a boat spot because it kind of comes and weaves, you know, Yeah, absolutely no, Yeah, it's it's it's silly to deny those thoughts exist because they do. Like they're they're very they're a very easy neutral state at least for me to slip into UM. And the way to get around that is by doing chores at a farm and shoveling poop and taking care of animals

and cooking for people. That's like the way that I get out of that kind of mindset. And you know, not not to be too hard on all of the kind of doomer nihilists, because there there is there, there is a there's this there's like a sect of like doomer nihilists who use like the actual definition of nihilism, which is like if if things don't really matter, we

should probably fux some stuff up UM. And that's very useful, right like if if if you're if if you're on that train and you're like, yeah, you should be tree spiking, if if if if you're okay with if you think nothing matters UM, and you are you want to be an actual nihilist, then yeah you should make you should make destroy um. Just make sure it's focused on the people with actual power UM. Because if if you're willing to do that, then great, we need we need as

many as many people like that as possible. But it's certainly easier to do that once you have friends and once you're not stuck in this super depressed state all the time. Yeah, and um, I think there's a again.

We we we do take a look at like some of the criticisms people have a the show online, and I know one that's come up a bunch is people will listen to like our when when we'll talk about out, you know, the severity of the problems and then we'll talk about things like you know, mutual aid collectives and small guards, seed bombings and all that stuff, they'll be like, well, that's not a solution. And no, of course that's not going to solve the global problem of carbon emissions from

a civilization of seven billion humans. What it does do focusing on stuff like that, focusing on building soil um, focusing on building community resistance. In addition to like having an immediate impact on the number of people you know, in in in your community, it builds a sense of um,

a sense of power for the individual. It It gives you something to do that isn't just thinking about how bad things are, and that puts you in a mind state that's more useful to actually potentially dealing with the bigger problems at some point. Um, you have to have a sense of your own agency that feels real if you're going to actually change anything, um, And you can. You can build It's a hustle, right, you can build it up by by doing things that are not bigger

but are are part of the solution. UM. And it's exactly valuable to do that for your own for your own mental health, because then maybe you if you're maybe if if your friend group, if your your affinity group, whatever you wanna call it, the people you are hanging out with, if some of them are always engaged in something productive, then when you're in a doomed spiral, you

can find someone who's working on something um and vice versa. Yeah, And it doesn't just help your mental health, but it also contributes to the pre figurative activities that we need to actually make us switch to a different system. You know, like revolution is something that happens overnight or in a future, it's something that's supposed to be happening all now. Because as we build those systems, you know, we are building up power. You know, it's kind of like how the

Black socialst in America described dual power. You know, it should be a building the systems and putting these things in please so that we can push towards like fundamental transmission. This is it's insterative, but a small people build on top of that, you know, that's how the transmission happens. We all also need to contribute. I mean, I think it's it's it's important to talk about this both to acknowledge, like it's a thing that happens and we all deal with.

We all have our moments of like overwhelming despair over what's happening. Um, and and at some some moments of unrealistic optimism too. Yeah, everyone's in a while, and the unrealistic optimism needs to be encouraged. UM, as long as it's not the kind of what we don't need to do anything because someone's I guess there's toxic optimism, and there's helpful. A toxic optimism would be like reading an article about some new carbon capture technology and being like,

oh cool, well I don't need to worry. Um. But but most optimism I think is po positive and I think it's good to build a capacity for optimism by by building your your personal sense of of agency and power,

by by doing ship that helps UM. And I think that accepting that you can do things that are meaningful UM, and that uh there are things to be done that can help the situation is a critical way of fighting against you know this uh soft climate change denial, which which is a um, a major threat because there's I think, honestly at this point, more people who are subscribing to some form of soft climate change denial than there are

people who are uh just denying climate change in its entirety. UM. And that's I think where a lot of the effort has to go. So I yeah, I think this is a really important thing for people to understand and to be vigilant against. Absolutely. Yeah. All right, well Andrew, where can in the audience find you? Outside? To find me

here right now? Yeah, so you can find me on my YouTube channel St Andrew's UM and you can find me on Twitter at und School of Since you excellent, Well, you can find us here where you just found us. We'll be here tomorrow unless this is a Friday, in which case we'll be here on Monday. UM. Have a have a good you know life, have a good life. Take care. It could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media. But more podcasts from cool Zone Media.

Visit our website cool zone media dot com or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.