Maybe I went a bit overboard with my post above, I do have some optimism but I wanted to explain why there is a big tendency to be pessimistic.
I realize there is a danger of thinking “technology will solve all” and relaxing, but what I am saying that it’s part of the solution, and at least a cause for some optimism fueling further action.
Oh I am definitely not at the doomer stage. I do think that we will be able to limit the heating of the climate to something of the effect of 2,x Kelvin. That’s pretty shitty though and will still cause a lot of global change. I do agree, we likely will have even better ways in the future. What annoys me is that we have technology right now that would be way better than oil/gas based systems for heating houses and driving vehicles. We just managed to make the people poor enough so they can’t afford the higher fixed costs, so they will be locked out of enjoying the lower variable costs. (Which means we will have to subsidize them which means political debates with compromises that will probably be met half-ways between the green and liberal party currently in control, which will probably satisfy none really)
Also I see that some understanding of the need to act is increasing in the Western Europe population, is it not?
Yes, but very very slowly. That’s because there are two blocks left unconvinced:
People that just flat out deny climate changes is human based, or claim that it will not affect us germans in a meaningful way. These are relatively few but still substantial. Somewhere between 10 and 20% in Germany.
People who prioritize in a shorter timeframe. A lot of people have to think about today and tomorrow just to get by. They hear that the changes needed to protect the climate will make some things even more expensive, or just more inconvenient and do not want that because they think they won’t be able to handle the additional burden. These are a lot more than the first group.
We also see that while a lot of people (around 65%) claim that they support the climate protection movement in general acceptance of specific laws is always way lower. Meaning that they have not fully realized that to protect the climate we need to actually change some things, and sometimes dramatically so.
Technology development itself raises further difficult political questions, about ownership of new tools deriving from commons (like LLM AI), viability of common space in privately managed companies (social networks), and so on. People need to be engaged in this else the decisions will be made for them and not in their interest (even if their consent may be sometimes formally acquired following some misleading campaign).
This potential for action, and recent history of progress, in two related directions, technology and political agency, seems to be the cause for optimism.
For that to be a cause for optimism would require me believing that we as a people will want to and be able to seize that potential for action. Which I seriously doubt at least for germany.
Even raise of fascism, as worrying as it is, indicates that people are striving for change, they just do not see a better option since it is not sufficiently developed and communicated to them yet.
The reason driving a lot people towards conservatives and even the fascist parties in germany is their promise of “getting back to the good old days” which the conservatives are actually currently failing to communicate well because they have a elected a leadership that is pretty market liberal which makes the party currently a weird economically liberal and socially conservative amalgam which do not always go well together. Compared to that the AfD is publicly still putting up the charade of keeping and upholding the “good old values” while getting more and more obviously racist and fascist. Both these developments additionally to a lot of people who, out of protest against the last and the current government, vote for them to make a statement, have made them poll at more than 20% with no tendency of stopping.
So no, I don’t think people turn to fascism for change, at least not here. They turn to fascism because of the promis of keeping everything as it is or even go back a few steps.