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I think the worst part of it is that its not actually hopeless, at least not in theory. It's just that we, or more accurately the people with actual power, refuse to act because it would mean slightly less profit.

Not sure if this will give you hope or not, but one thing to consider is that we could still make it far worse, or put differently, that it's still in our power to stop that from happening. We can't change the fact that climate change already has noticeable negative consequences today, nor that global temperatures will rise by at least 1.5° towards the end of the century (compared to 1950-1980), probably more. But we do have a somewhat realistic chance of keeping it at around 2° or below (see e.g. here or here for easy simulations in your browser). The point is that every tenth of a degree counts, and our action or lack thereof now might well make the difference between it "just" getting bad with regular droughts, crop failures, some regions becoming temporarily uninhabitable due to wet bulb temperatures and so on on the one hand, or all of that on a much larger scale leading to societal collapse if we don't act at all. We live in the worst extinction event the earth has seen since the asteroid that killed the non-bird dinosaurs, but we can still keep it at that instead of turning it into the worst extinction event the earth has ever seen. Luckily, governments (and industry) largely have at least accepted that climate change is a thing, and in Europe and the Americas green-house gas emission have actually already been sinking for the last 15 years or so. Don't get me wrong, it's not great, and these governments still should do much more, but it could also be worse, and the fact that we're lowering emissions despite our politicians generally being very friendly with industry could give at least a sliver of hope. The emissions of China and India (and the rest of Asia) are still rising, but show signs of decelerated growth at least, and in Africa emissions are still fairly low and rising rather slowly, with a chance that some less developed countries might more or less just skip a big chunk of carbon-based industrialisation in favour of renewables. Altogether this means that we're already on a way to avoid the worst possible scenarios, and still have the power to keep it towards the lower end of the scale as far as terrible outcomes are concerned.

In addition, while individuals have always less power than whole governments or industries, there are nevertheless things anyone reading this could do, e.g.:

• Voting for parties that favour stronger climate action, and perhaps even more importantly, not supporting those who do less or even nothing. You can also protest or try to influence your government in some other ways.
• Reduce your personal impact by not consuming animal products (in particular meat and dairy), not flying if you can avoid it, not buying stuff you don't really need, and not having (more) kids. Edit: Also try to favour public transport over driving your own car, and if you need a car, try to use a small, electrical one to reduce emissions.
• Tell other people you know who might listen to do those things. Many people favour climate action in principle, but are too lazy, scared or just otherwise preoccupied to actually start doing stuff on their own. You kicking them in the butt or leading by example can motivate them and in turn other people they might now.

If you're reading this and whether or not you're already doing some of those things, I'm sure you can find at least some things you could do (I know I can, and I'm trying to put it into practice), which might in turn also make you feel less depressed about the situation. As mentioned before, I'm not saying that we're in a great situation, but whining about it helps nobody, and we're still in a situation where we have the power to stop things from getting even worse.

For those wondering, one degree celsius increase means every kilogram of air has at least increased by 1°C. The specific heat of air is about 1158 J/(kg*C). Now that might not seem like a lot of energy, in fact 4g (one teaspoon) of sugar has 68,000 J of chemical energy.

The thing is, you might have noticed, there's a lot of air around us. About 5.14 x 10^(18) kg of air. So when you take a pretty normal number and multiply it by an insanely huge number, you get an insanely huge number. That's about 5 exajoules of energy. That is the total energy consumption of the US in 2021 for four million years. Or in sugar terms, equal to the energy of sugar if you converted a little over half of the Earth's entire mass into sugar.

We hit that additional amount of energy in our atmosphere in 2017.

An absolute death sentence for folks without air conditioning or another means to stay cool.

From what I know the critical wet bulb temperature is ~31.5°C. it was from a study done last year.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/31/why-you-need-to-worry-about-the-wet-bulb-temperature

Voting matters, but unfortunately it appears to be an incredibly sub-optimal solution for dealing with climate change for the following reasons:

• Just because you can vote, doesn't mean that the option you need is even on the menu. It often isn't.
• Through hard work you can get the option on the menu, but that doesn't mean your politician won't do "deals" after they are in power.
• Lobbyists get access to politicians 24/7 and have a lot of influence, you have one vote every 4 years;
• Even if politicians do what you want, it is unlikely that your country by itself will make a difference, this is a global problem.

Meanwhile we are all fucked. It is likely too late already for preventing severe climate change. Our only hope now is geoengineering. The USA and EU are already considering blocking the sun.

The people who (rightly) have a sense of urgency about this are taking more radical action. They are blocking roads and throwing soup at famous paintings. These are desperate acts that seem rational in the face of the horror that we should strive to avoid, but the majority opinion of our species seems to be that these people are "too radical" and that common folks just trying to get by should not be inconvenienced, and that these radical eco-terrorists should be thrown in a cage.

To be honest, I'm not sure that our species deserves to survive.

Agreed, at least in principle - but your statement is so reductive it really could be said about anything.

It's so hard to motivate people to vote, people are exhausted and finding ten minutes in the day to feel good about oneself, much less performing a (seemingly futile, thanks to those poisonous ideas you've mentioned) civic duty is bordering on impossible. When 1 in 15 people in the UK need drugs just to keep their desire to live one more day in check - and a good chunk of the remaining population from that statistic are barely holding on - fighting the futility for someone else is an insurmountable goal.

I don't know if we can afford to wait for climate to get worse for people to take action. People are dying preventable deaths, if it weren't for the very evident effects of man made climate change being politicised or obfuscated, maybe it'd be just a warm Summer in Europe right now.

How long can we wait for a peaceful solution to form?

If we don't wait - how many heads would we need on pikes next to Mortimer Buckley or Larry Fink before we start seeing positive change? When would be the tipping point for the guillotine to become the most ethical solution?

Sorry, I'm rambling. I just feel so hopeless sometimes, and putting a X in a box 2 or 3 times a decade doesn't do anything to make me feel like we're making progress...!

Voting is still good, but it's the bare minimum. Not everyone has the time, but if you do, you should try to advocate publicly, and preferably in a group. Just like with unions, collective action is more effective. If I give feedback to my city individually, I'm a data point. But as part of an advocacy group, they reach out to us.

My aim is terrible. I really hope I don't have to actively recycle urine.

You mean the same water that's so contaminated with forever chemicals that multiple governments set recommended limits for safe fish consumption?

Hahaha....we're fucked.

For those interested:

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/eating-1-fish-from-great-lakes-equal-to-drinking-months-worth-of-contaminated-water-study/3047513/

"A new study has found that consuming a single fish from the Great Lakes is equal to drinking a month's worth of water contaminated with high levels of "forever chemicals."

(The recommended amount of some species of fish is now 0 in lake Michigan.)

http://www.idph.state.il.us/envhealth/fishadv/lakemichigan.htm

It's not Earth that's in trouble...

If it's any consolation. Earth, as in the spinning ball of dirt, will be just fine for many more millions of years. Humans, and other animal species, on the other hand are not going to be fine if the trend continuous.

Dunno, I find it kind of consoling in a meloncolic kind of way.

Except China is proud of their red.