February 3, 2023

By Thomas Klikauer

Doomism is a kind of melancholic pessimism or as Germans call it, Weltschmerz. It is an overwhelming feeling of sadness and emotional anguish given what we see almost every day: war, torture, crime, human madness, nastiness and suffering, child labour, slavery, mass poverty, starvation, cancer, pandemics, environmental destruction, global warming, the 6th mass extinction, and – seemingly – the looming of an uninhabitable earth.

Doomerism describes people who are extremely pessimistic and fatalistic about the problems they face. Historically, such a pessimistic worldview was linked to the period of Romanticism – 1798 to 1837 – which was filled with unhappiness shaping an inward and conservative reaction to modernity.

The counter argument has been made by German philosopher Habermas in the Unfinished Project of Enlightenment. The philosopher believes that the progressive promises of Enlightenment (e.g. true democracy, the end of human suffering, equality, etc.) have not yet been fulfilled and it is therefore an unfinished project – a project we are still working on.

Doomers believe that there is a distinct possibility – or even certainty – that altogether these problems will bring about human extinction in the very near future. Some climate scientists judged that we are doomed. It is like Hotel California, You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. In short, we are trapped.

Yet, other climate scientists are convinced that no end of the world is in sight. They are convinced that the present climate crisis does not mean the end of the world.

To some extent, global warming might be seen as being about balancing doomism and the trivialization of global warming. Yet, given what we see on our TVs – almost daily – many people today fear that the end of humanity is coming.

Many have argued that doomism – the belief in the end of the world – is, in-itself a disease. Yet in the early 2000s, some people still claimed that the sun was responsible for global warming. These sort of global warming deniers have moved to the outer fringes of society or have largely disappeared – just a decade later.

There is a somewhat macabre in the acceptance that climate science is progressing us towards certain death. Yet, there might also be some truth to that. Today, hardly anyone anymore says that global warming isn’t real – apart from an isolated minority of hard-core deniers.

Instead, people keep on saying that climate scientists are understating how bad it is and how bad it will become. We know – if we carry on with “business as usual”, which we seem to do – by the year 2070, the world has a distinct likelihood that it will indeed be uninhabitable. Millions, perhaps billions of people will die.

We know that research on global warming uses climate modelling to ascertain the veracity of what we are facing. These models have informed on the UN World Climate Report. Some people even know Greta Thunberg’s new Climate Book, published last year.

Meanwhile, climate scientists like NASA’s Kate Marvel rejects the idea that today’s children are doomed to have an unhappy life – or no life at all. One might sum all this up that doomism is unjustified while global warming still represents a huge problem.

Global warming also signifies one of – if not – “the” most important challenges of the 21st century. Yet, the world is not on track to tackle it effectively. As António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, recently said,

Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing.

Global temperatures keep rising.

And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible.

We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.

While the idea of an imminent doomsday might be a bit like a social disease and is a little exaggerated, doomism still has a rather big influence on how bad it will get. Yet, there are many positive trends, such as, for example:

·       falling prices of clean energy,

·       a flattening of global emissions,

·       increased commitments by countries to reach net zero.

In any case, to say that we must prepare for the end of the world is rather disempowering. It also carries the risk that the greedy profits interest of fossil fuel corporations will win. Perhaps just because people no longer get involved. In other words, doomism actually assists polluting corporations such as, for example:

·       Peabody Energy, Kuwait Petroleum Corp, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Saudi Aramco, ExxonMobil, BP (greenwashed by renaming it from British Petroleum to Beyond Petroleum), National Iranian Oil Co, and Royal Dutch Shell.

Doomism and worse, its evil twin brothers of fatalism and determinism, suggest that nothing can be done. All is predetermined. Our faith is sealed. This assists capitalism by taking us – as a critical agency – out of the equation.

It destroys German philosopher Adorno’s Mündigkeit or self-reflective maturity. All three – doomism, fatalism, and determinism – often run under the self-defeating motto of, it can’t be helped; it can’t be changed; we are doomed.

These hallucinations assist the power elite in rendering us not only passive but, worse, asphyxiated inside pre-existing structure – the manipulative media structure of capitalism. It favours the politics of resignation.

Interestingly, nothing in the IPCC reports and nothing else written by almost all climate scientists actually supports the idea of an imminent extinction of humanity and that we will die out this century due to global warming.

Yet, global warming will certainly have very bad affects – especially in the poorer regions of the world. But this largely depends on our actions.

The overwhelming research in recent years suggests that we are probably heading for a warming of about 30 C. Three degrees sound small but with 3 degrees of warming, the world will be hit hard.

This is not a world that we want to leave to future generations. It will be catastrophic for regions such as sub–Saharan Africa, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. To make things worse, these countries – that are not responsible for global warming – have a very low adaptability to global warming. Yet, even with global warming, it will be a world in which humanity can survive.

On the upswing, there are already commitments from countries and measures have been taken that go far beyond what was common policy only a few years ago. In other words, the world is seemingly beginning to bend the rising temperature curve downwards. Yet on the downswing, it could very well be that we will not reach the most ambitious climate target of 1.5 degrees of warming.

However, there is also a huge range of environmental improvements aiming to keep the world well below 3 degrees. What earth needs to achieve is to remain well below 2 degrees. Ultimately, climate change is a matter of degrees – not thresholds. There might not be a tipping point of no return.

There really is no specific limit in the climate where 1.4 degrees is okay, and 1.5 degrees is not. Or 1.9 degrees means earth is habitable, while at 2 degrees feedback sets in, and when the world gets 5 (or more) degrees warmer – we are all doomed.

This is not how the climate works, as far as we have been able to determine. In other words, it appears to many – if not most – scientists reject the notion of tipping points. Instead, regional systems such as ice sheets, the Amazon rainforest, ecosystems in the northern hemisphere of the earth, and coral reefs may have tipping elements. But perhaps not earth as such.

Significantly, many researchers oppose doomism and so does Greta Thunberg in her climate book. The publisher had invited about 100 scientists to be involved in the book. Many scientists who reviewed the book praised the quality of the book. These scientists also reject crippling fatalism as well as the trivialization of global warming.

To put simply, the extent to which global warming would be catastrophic depends highly on us. We need to push governments, corporations, and companies to take action – and much faster than ever before.

But here, too, the following applies – it’s not about everything or nothing. It is, to some extent, about how far we can ease the impact of global warming. This sort of argument makes more sense, because an “all-or-nothing” view reinforces the idea that we are either saved or doomed.

Beyond all that, we will all suffer from global warming in the near and distant future. Worse, we will not be able to stop emissions tomorrow – no matter what we do.

Perhaps one of the key questions are, how much suffering is caused and how much we can save? It is often said, that humanity's ability to adapt to global warming is underestimated. Yet, many people still live in the harshest environments on earth – from the arctic circle to the Sahara.

However, we – at least those living in wealthy countries – can not just adapt to changes and believe everything is fine. We need to alleviate human suffering on a global scale. We also know that it is cheaper and more effective to avoid any further warming from the outset.

Worse, the world is still full of wars, regional conflicts, the ideology of isolationism, weak institutions, authoritarianism, the irrational belief that the free market will do it, relentless corporate lobbying, and a high level of inequality, and mass poverty.

As a consequence, humanity is much more vulnerable to global warming. This can – and most likely will – push some countries to the edge of the abyss.

To fight global warming, we urgently need a very different and more equal world, have stronger democratic institutions, better security arrangements, a great awareness about global warming, and that doomism is counterproductive.

We cannot separate the effects of global warming from the general human development. Our ability to adapt depends on how well we progress in solving two key problems: polluting corporations and the Uber-consumption of the rich.

If we can solve these two problems, humanity no longer needs to be afraid of the future. This also means that if we fail to solve these two problems – the elimination of polluting corporations and the rampant over-consumerism of present day capitalism – it could end very badly.

In other words, we do not take stronger measures than we take today. More needs to be done – rather urgently. One also needs to fight doomism that prevents us from acting. Instead of fatalism, we have reasons to be cautiously hopeful.

On the downside, we probably will have to live in a world we don’t want even in the coming decades down the track. But it can be a world where children can still live a happy life.

Perhaps there is a reason to be 80% pessimistic about global warming, and 20% optimistic. It is, in fact this 20% why I go to work every day.