It may help you to ponder that in the 1980s, a lot of people were extremely confident human civilization was doomed, doomed, doomed by certainly no later than 2000, and even setting the date that late was terribly optimistic.
There are people who profit from selling this doom. Buy less of it.
I'm not a binary thinker, so just because I'm saying "don't feel quite so doomed" does not mean I'm advocating for the polar opposite blindly sunny disposition either. I said "buy less of it" rather than "stop buying it" quite deliberately. But doom has been "real soon now!" for, like, 60+ years, and it's an important perspective to keep that in mind when you hear today's confident doom-mongers promising immanent doom Real Soon Now (TM). (More than 60 years, really, you can find people complaining about how society is going downhill in antiquity. But the modern brand is about 50-60 years old.)
The difference now is that we feel potentially doomed by inaction as opposed to reckless action, even though one could think of our environmental damage as the result of many compounded actions without awareness of their result.
Making comparisons to antiquity is useless because we didn't have any mechanism for ruining the planet. Now we have all of the tools necessary to make that happen in a few hours through action (nuclear weapons) or a few decades through inaction (climate change).
And your comparison to the 1980s is even more nonsensical considering we came very close to doom a number of times in the 50-60 years you cite:
"And your comparison to the 1980s is even more nonsensical considering we came very close to doom a number of times in the 50-60 years you cite:"
I would consider this support for my point, not contradiction.
Before replying, please do me the courtesy of at least trying to imagine how I might consider that the case.
I also reiterate my point about this not being a binary situation, because I can't help but think you did indeed, despite my explicit discussion, interpret it as a claim you shouldn't be worried about anything.
> It may help you to ponder that in the 1980s, a lot of people were extremely confident human civilization was doomed, doomed, doomed by certainly no later than 2000, and even setting the date that late was terribly optimistic.
I imagine a lot of people thought things were going to be fine too as the Roman Empire collapsed. Or at the start of the Dark Ages. Or when the Black Plague began. Or when the 1929 market crash that kicked off the Great Depression. Or on the eve of both of the World Wars.
The point being: yes, most of the time, humanity muddles its way through its crises successfully. Until one day, it doesn't...
Of those, I would only classify the plague and the wars as some sort of crisis for humanity.
For example, the fall of Rome did not involve a decrease of average living standards. Rather it is the opposite that is the case as it happened at roughly the same time as the abolition of slavery in Europe.
You should not conflate crises that affect only the ruling classes with crises for humanity.
What are you talking about? The fall of Rome involved the loss of a huge amount of technology and learning, as people abandoned the idea of specialization of labor and cities so they could go work as serfs in the fields for feudal lords. For the citizens of Rome (not just the ruling classes), it was absolutely a large decrease in living standards, and in overall civilization. There's a reason the period following is called "the Dark Ages": there was very little education any more, and no one wrote anything down like they used to, so that period is largely a mystery (relative to how much we know about the Roman times). It took 1000 years for western civilization to get anywhere near the level of civilization that Rome had developed.
Now you're right that it wasn't exactly a "crisis for humanity" because it only affected one part of the world--western Europe (the eastern Roman Empire continued), and also didn't involve a massive die-off, just a regression of civilization in that one area.
We muddled our way through those crises, too, just with a lot of pain at the time. In the distant future those will looks like minor setbacks in the glorious development of humankind.
There are people who profit from selling this doom. Buy less of it.
I'm not a binary thinker, so just because I'm saying "don't feel quite so doomed" does not mean I'm advocating for the polar opposite blindly sunny disposition either. I said "buy less of it" rather than "stop buying it" quite deliberately. But doom has been "real soon now!" for, like, 60+ years, and it's an important perspective to keep that in mind when you hear today's confident doom-mongers promising immanent doom Real Soon Now (TM). (More than 60 years, really, you can find people complaining about how society is going downhill in antiquity. But the modern brand is about 50-60 years old.)