The planet is fucked, but what region you live in the US will determine to what degree you are fucked. The SW, SE, and lower midwest are super fucked. Based on research it looks like the two best places to live in the US as the climate chaos kicks in will be the PNW and the Great Lakes region. Both with have warmer growing seasons and have access to fresh water, unlike the rest of the country.
Our biggest issue here will be dealing with wildfires and heatwaves like we just experienced. If you are interested, David Pogue wrote this book that has in depth analysis of how climate change will impact the US. I highly recommend it.
There's actually an incredibly helpful book that talks to this and its always on my bookshelf. How to Prepare for Climate Change by David Pogue shows that the general principles are to either move "up" or north.
The theory is that Climate Change doesn't just make the temperatures hotter but changes your areas' typical climate and seasonal weather more volatile. So if you're in SoCal it is not only getting hotter but also drying, making the forest fire situation that much worse. Moreover, if you have an El Nino event, it might swing more violently the opposite way with an even wetter year, causing mudslides and flooding.
The trick is to move North to areas where the climate will not be affected that much by climate change. This includes areas like: 1) the Great Lakes area 2) the Rust Belt 3) the PNW (west of the cascades) and the extreme upper NE (Maine, NH, and Vermont). Or, if you want to stay in the same areas, move up to higher elevation. Places like the the Rockies will fare well. Notice how in the South the Smoky Mountains are doing better than the areas east or west of them.
When David Pogue writes a preppers guide, you know it's time.
TLDR: It's a lot to think about and very overwhelming when you get into it, but the best antidote to despair is action.
Sorry in advance for the novel. I've just been working through this exact subject for a while so it feels good to get it all out and hopefully help someone else.
But honestly? It's a lot to deal with. It started out by having ideas like "Huh, I don't think abusing the environment and destroying this much is good" and "Oh this political environment is bonkers" for a couple years and then straight up losing hope in 2020 and 2021 that we would ever be able to fix any of it. Then I found out that other people felt the same way and that was incredibly validating, especially when people around me told me it would get better when I was older and guess what? It got worse.
It was a weird feeling as a young twenty-something to realize that the future I had been dreaming about or even promised (american dream yo) might not be possible. There might not be a Miami to retire to by the time I'm in my mid 60s. I might never get to visit some of the countries I want to visit because they'll be underwater. The area I live in (southwest USA) might become uninhabitable due to heat within a century and we might run out of water sooner rather than later. I might not ever be able to buy my own home with a yard and a garden and a little workshop shed like I always dreamed. and who knows what the future will look like for the next few generations?
I was a part of those subs for about a year and then I had to leave because it was just too much all day every day. I actually started having severe anxiety after becoming 'collapse-aware' and had to make some big changes to my mental health in order to cope. The biggest support resource that I found for me was Jem Bendell's Deep Adaptation paper and the book How to Prepare for Climate Change.
I appreciate both because they are done by people well versed and educated in the subject, and give some very important information and some action that can be taken. And I feel like actually acting is what made all the difference for me. Here are some things that I picked up that helped me:
The Deep Adaptation has four principles that I find incredibly important:
>Resilience: what do we most value that we want to keep, and how?
Relinquishment: what do we need to let go of so as not to make matters worse?
Restoration: what could we bring back to help us with these difficult times?
Reconciliation: with what and whom shall we make peace as we awaken to our mutual mortality?
Understanding that has really helped. Knowing my priorities, letting go, doing what I can to restore my tiny corner of the earth, and then making peace with my life/mortality has been key. I was going to die eventually anyway.
The next was reading the book How to Prepare for Climate Change and seeing how likely future climate disasters were and then preparing myself for knowledge of how to deal with them. Things like more wildfires, more flooding, more tornadoes. Knowing what to do in those disaster and then helping the people I care about prepare is an action I can do today.
Lastly, there was a beautiful quote that I read while I was really down and honestly debating if it was even worth living through all this, and I can't find again but it said:
>You must believe there is value to human life beyond Western consumerism.
And I don't know but that really struck me. There is a purpose in life beyond consuming and taking more and more and then creating only for it to be consumed by other people. What's that purpose? No idea. But it's out there. And tons of philosophers and monks and wise people and even common ordinary folk have found it, and I will too, even if it takes me a long time.
Here are some actionable items I am taking to help me cope:
So yeah. There is a huge amount of despair and doom and gloom when you realize that the world or your life isn't going to turn out the way you hoped it would. But the best way to combat against that is to take action, today.
I definitely worry about this. I have 3 kids under the age of four. I sort of feel I'm helpless in actually helping to prevent climate change. I drive a low emissions car, we try and keep our energy use down and we recycle everything we can but it's in the hands of the leaders of the world to actually bring about the really meaningful change.
The way I cope with it is to feel like I'm as prepared as I can be. Whether or not my preparedness will really help in 30 years remains to be seen and whether or not my preparadness is completely naive regarding what could happen also remains to be seen.
I personally believe your location and the amount of wealth you have will play a big factor in quality of life in the coming decades. If I were living in California for example I'd seriously be looking to move. In fact if I lived in the US/Asia/southern europe I'd be seriously considering emigrating. Extreme weather is going to get more extreme for every country in the world and these parts of the world are already starting to see the effects of it on a regular basis. My hunch is that within ten years the places that are seeing the extreme effects now will be deserted and uninhabitable.
I live in the UK and the more mild climate is something that gives me some reassurance. Our weather is relatively tame and our chances of natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes etc are lower than other places in the world. I bought my forever home outside of a city (where it doesn't get as hot) and somewhere that there is very low chance of surface water flooding/ sea level rise flooding, which is an issue in the UK.
The next thing that gives me some comfort is my financial situation. As cringey as it is to talk about, I believe the richer you are the more options you and your family will have in the future. I come from a working class family and never had much money growing up but have been fortunate to work in an industry that pays well and have worked myself in to a senior position in that industry. We've saved our asses off and have investments in property (also not on flood plains) and other investments which mean that if in 20 years we need to move higher up in the northern hemisphere we will have the funds to do it (this assumes that those countries will be allowing emigration at that point of course). I've also started looking at buying an investment property somewhere like Iceland with a view to emigrating there with my entire family if need be.
Lastly I read this book https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Prepare-Climate-Change-Practical/dp/1982134518/ref=asc_df_1982134518/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=463021470957&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=4817859737005334237&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9044987&hvtargid=pla-945489548798&psc=1&th=1&psc=1 which has some great tips about things I didn't even think about.
Other small things like having a big water container that goes in my bath in case we have issues with water pipes bursting, lots of fans in the house for heat waves, keeping up to date with what's actually happening climate wise around the world all help me feel ok about it. I feel an immense amount of sorrow that this is happening to our world and I often wonder what sort of world my kids will live in when they are my age and how it will affect them psychologically but this is my way of dealing with it all.