Berna,

What an excellent comment. My experience is much like yours -- while you're not encountering optimists as believers in "rainbows and roses," I've yet to encounter anyone that might be called a "doomer" who thinks we should just give up and do nothing. I think there's a lot of nuance and variation in the mix.

My article is really a plea that we not reduce this issue into an internet-friendly false binary of doomer/not-doomer. And your comment here reinforces the idea that we don't have to -- we can have nuance and productive discussions. So thank you.

It's also semantics. I'm okay calling myself a doomer not because I believe we should give up, but because it captures what I'm feeling. I don't have much hope. I am a happy person with a good life, but I am convinced that society will not change fast enough to avoid the most heinous of ecological and social calamities. Heatwaves that kill millions, floods and droughts that hasten global food shortages, and thus, starvation. War, mass migration, incalculable suffering. I think these things are already baked in, and no amount of mitigation can un-bake them.

Because I'm not expecting widespread change enough to avoid doomsday-like scenarios that include the breakdown of our food-delivery systems, I am stockpiling food and developing my own resources. At the same time, I'm making mitigation efforts by not eating meat, driving electric, and weaning our home energy from fuel oil, because I believe every degree (or point of degree) counts, perhaps to delay the worst effects of climate change and give us more time to adapt.

Unfortunately, I don't see people (at least in my community) changing anything significant about their lives. Or, they're willfully opposed to such changes for cultural / political reasons.

Thus, I resolve that I am an doomer-prepper-actionist. Lol

Thanks again for your comment and for reading. :)