Things came to a head at dinner one night earlier this year, when my girlfriend suggested the chat was too depressing.

She believed in climate change, she just didn't see the point of being so negative.

"Are you going to waste your life worrying about climate change?" she asked. "Yes, the world is going to hell, but you need to enjoy yourself."

She added: "We all die someday."

We broadly agreed on the facts of climate change and that the future was looking dark; where we differed was how to properly respond.

She wanted to keep living her life as normal, and I wanted to freak out.

And then we broke up.

Since then, I've become interested in psychological adaptations to climate change: Who hasn't had the surreal experience of hearing the latest statistics about how humans are destroying the planet, and then returning to your normal life, which continues as before?

We live with a nagging sense of disquiet, knowing the present calm will not last.

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Whatsapp Climate change activists lie on the floor in a die-in protest in Berlin in April 2019.

For the past few months, I've been listening out for these moments — any time a shadow of doom lightly touches on an everyday conversation.

There was the time a Sydney journalist friend told me her parents have started planting veggies, and they aim to become self-sufficient year-round.

"It's like they're preppers," I said, joking.

"No, they are," she said. "That's exactly what they're doing."

Or another friend told me his dad had taken a "cosmic mysticism" approach, finding solace in the fact the sun will consume the Earth in a billion years.

If nothing matters, why don't I just stab that person over there?" my friend asked him. They were at a restaurant. "I'm just looking at the big picture," his dad said.

Or there was the time an ABC colleague casually remarked about the climate strikes, "Shame it's too late. We're already f**ked."

We argued, without either one of us convincing the other. Then we turned back to our computers and resumed the daily grind.

I was seething. Maybe these conversations have been going on for years and I've been blissfully ignorant, but they seem to be happening a lot lately.

Is this too morbid?

It's nothing compared to my journey through doomer Facebook.

'Welcome to our world Mr Franzen'

The phrase 'doomerism' was popularised in the commentary around Jonathan Franzen's 2019 article in the New Yorker, in which the famous American novelist argued we have no chance of averting catastrophic climate change, and we should just admit this.

The essay was titled, "What if We Stopped Pretending?" and it argued that Green New Deal progressives were, in fact, the ones in denial.

"All-out war on climate change made sense only as long as it was winnable," Franzen wrote.

The internet tore it apart. Franzen had gotten aspects of climate science wrong and misrepresented the priorities of environmental groups, it turned out.

But his greatest sin, many said, was strategic and moral — he sounded like a climate denier.

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But there was one corner of the internet where Franzen was drawing cautious admiration.

That part was doomer Facebook. Members of groups like Near Term Human Extinction Support Group (NTHESG) and Abrupt Climate Change believe they've been rejected by the mainstream for speaking the truth — that it's too late to avert civilisational collapse.

"We get attacked daily, welcome to our world Mr Franzen," one member wrote.

A few minor setbacks

The Near Term Human Extinction SUPPORT Group was set up in 2013 and now has 6,400+ members and a description that reads: "For people who have accepted that HUMAN EXTINCTION IS INEVITABLE IN THE NEAR TERM due to anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and the consequences, based on trends determined by scientific research." (Their caps locks).

It politely adds: "This is a forum for friendly and non-threatening discussion."

But clarifies: "Note: If you believe that humans will survive, we ask that you join other more relevant groups such as Positive Deep Adaptation."

The admins of the group proved hostile to me, a random Australian reporter.

I was first suspended and then outed — one of the admins posted in the general discussion a screenshot of my request to interview the admins. Members got in touch to express their terror.

Many are very distressed, traumatised and in a state of shock," one told me via Facebook message.

"We give a pledge of confidentiality to each other so that everyone feels safe to post their innermost fears and thoughts. People who break guidelines are excluded. We all care for each other, and many of us have made close friendships through the group. Now we are concerned that you have been in the group for over a week and only now have announced that you are a journalist and wish to write a story. Some people cannot discuss this with their families, and their private lives and jobs could be in jeopardy if their membership of the group, and their posts and comments were made public."

All this from a request to privately interview the admins of a public group.

As panic mounted, I heard from her again: "Just to add that some members are so upset about your presence and proposed story, they are considering leaving the group.

"This is the only place some members can feel at home."

In the end, I was added to a group chat with the other admins, and encouraged to demonstrate that I too saw the darkness ahead.

"I think it would help if you emphasize your own feelings of impending doom and concern for the future of humankind," one of the admins said.

'We think we are courageous'

I was curious about what demographic the group was attracting.

"The age profile skews towards the middle age," the NTHESG admins told me.

"Most are in their 40s, 50s, 60s."

There are a few more men than women, they said, most are in developed countries like the US and the UK, and "almost everyone is white".

The admins said the five-year trend in membership numbers had hit an "inflection point" around July 2018, when a sustainability academic at the University of Cumbria, Professor Jem Bendell, published a prediction that "climate-induced societal collapse" was about a decade away.

I knew this paper; I'd read about it on VICE.

Most academic papers are read by a handful; 'Deep Adaptation: A Map For Navigating Climate Tragedy', has been downloaded over 100,000 times, and has its own Facebook discussion group. Bendell is a prominent voice in the Extinction Rebellion.

In the paper, the language now and then violently breaks out of the sober academic mode to bring home the fact it's describing our extinction.

"You will depend on your neighbours for food and some warmth," it says.

You will become malnourished. You won't know whether to stay or go. You will fear being violently killed before starving to death.

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Whatsapp A mass 'die-in' under the blue whale in the foyer of the Natural History Museum in London in April 22 2019.

Bendell foresees collapse, but I'd argue he isn't a doomer.

He says humanity needs to urgently prepare for what's coming, and not pretend the future will be a smooth continuation of the present. He wants us to freak out, and to do so collectively and rationally. He wants us to imagine new ways we can live together.

Extinction Rebellion, also, isn't doomerism. Doomers are more isolationist.

"Another aspect to our group is the rejection and scorn we face most of the time if we try to discuss the subject with others in our lives," one admin told me.

"HOPE is held very highly by humanity in general. We think we are courageous for being willing to look at the science and the reality of where this is going.

"That doubles the weight: the reality of extinction bearing down AND the fact that there are very few people in our daily lives we can talk about it with."

Growing poppies for the end times

Roblyn Crawford is the founder of Abrupt Climate Change (5,000+ members). For her 2015 Master's thesis, she surveyed members of the NTHESG about what it was like for them, trying to live in a society which they believed was careering towards doom.

She found one third of the respondents had lost relationships as a result of discussing this topic, and 80 per cent had family members with whom they could not share their views.

Fifteen per cent could only discuss it online with strangers. Impacts including anger, depression, anxiety, complicated grief, existential despair, lethargy, hopelessness, weak attachment, social isolation, and compartmentalization.

"The distress experienced is exacerbated by pervasive suspicions regarding the soberness of their conclusion," the thesis reads.

Due to this difficulty in sharing this information with others, many respondents [lead], in essence, 'double lives'.

Roblyn spoke to me on Skype from her home near Seattle, in the Pacific North-West of US, where she prepares for the future by growing opium poppies.

Why opium? "We need to have painkillers at the end, because who wants to starve to death?"

She summarised doomers like this: preppers optimistically think they can wait out the collapse of society by stockpiling enough guns, beans and batteries.

Doomers agree about the collapse, but are pessimistic about the waiting it out part. They pride themselves on being clear-eyed about the end times.

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Whatsapp A prepper bunker-community in South Dakota.

Roblyn explained that the people she spoke to had found refuge in these online groups after their world had fallen apart. First, they had been traumatised by what they had learned about climate change and the future, and then they had lost their friends and family and their status in the community by trying to communicate the urgency of their discovery to others.

"Many of them only had these online groups to believe them and to talk to them as though they were serious human beings," she said.

The Near Term Human Extinction Support Group is a lifeline for people.

I asked if this explained its hostility towards outsiders, and she said, "Yes, they're the chosen ones."

An Australian doomer contacted me out of the blue, asking for anonymity. He said he'd joined the group after years of brooding on climate catastrophe.

"Once the penny drops, suddenly you feel very alone and burdened with this knowledge - I went through a grieving process, two years all up," he said.

"You bounce through the stages of grief like a pinball. Even once you get to acceptance you still get angry and frustrated at times."

"But at least I don't have to worry about retirement any more."

Doomerism v climate rebellion

Recently, one of our leading environmental advocates, Tim Flannery, declared 20 years of climate activism had been a "a colossal failure".

"Words have not cut through," he said. "Is rebellion the only option?"

When I read this, I wondered if, like rebellion, doomerism was driven by a conviction that the usual established political processes were not working.

Unlike rebellion, however, which looks outward, aiming to overthrow the established order in order to effect a better world, doomerism looks inward.

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Whatsapp Berlin climate protesters wearing masks of German politicians, October 9 2019.

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Whatsapp A climate protester is placed under arrest by Queensland Police, October 8 2019.

Doomers speak a lot about their inner journey from despair and anger to acceptance. This makes sense; in the absence of political change, personal development is all that's left.

"It seems to take about a year for them to actually come to a place where they felt more alive, and more awake and more engaged with their lives," Roblyn said.

"They were planning to retire in the future and instead they decided to retire now. They left and started a homestead."

"And many of them pretty much stopped voting and participating in politics."

'Activism, but without any hope'

I went back to the NTHESG admins with a question: Aren't you just giving up?

"Climate emergencies have been declared, so what?" one replied.

"Trudeau approved an oil pipeline, and he's supposed to be the social justice favourite. All this hate against Trump, but he's no different, just punching with the gloves off."

"We humans like to think our activism will solve the problem. [But] we don't take solace in false hopes. That will only betray in the end."

But other admins disagreed - a rare moment of internal dissent.

Another said: "Like our members, [the admin above] and I have different ideas. Members are split on this kind of thing. I protest. [The admin above] doesn't.

The focus of the group is to leave judgement behind ... we have all accepted that what we do or don't do will not change our extinction in a big way.

That reminded me of something Roblyn had said: People who had told her they were powerless to prevent the coming catastrophe had continued to put out the recycling.

"Not because they thought it would help, but because that was their identity," she had said.

I asked, "So activism, but without any hope of change?"

She replied, "Right. It was non-attachment. It was absolute ritual."

I think this sums up doomerism pretty well. Doomers are the jaded offspring of neoliberalism and ethical consumerism, of that receding era when 'going green' meant Michelle Obama planting an organic veggie garden on the lawn of the White House.

There's a note of petulance: we told you that wouldn't work, and you didn't listen.

And like the sap from Roblyn's opium poppies, there's a melancholy allure to all this talk of catastrophe, death, helplessness, and the end.

The future

Then it was September, the month of the climate strikes.

Along with about 80,000 others, I wandered down to The Domain in Sydney and stood in the early spring sunshine, clapping the speeches and checking out the handmade signs.

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Whatsapp The September climate strike in Sydney's The Domain.

After a few hours, I went back to work.

There's a risk of sounding too sentimental about taking part in a march, but it felt good to be a part of something collective, optimistic, and angry.

It wasn't hopeful or triumphant, but that's probably a good thing, since there's so far to go.

It wasn't much, but it felt like we were going in the right direction. Like Flannery, I'm beginning to think climate rebellion is the only way, which is scary.

What's also scary is the question posed by the breakup: How do we plan to spend our lives with each other when the future is dark with smoke?

Not just about romantic coupling, but all of us living together.

One way is to pretend there's no smoke — to dismiss the 'needless anxiety' over climate — and another — the doomer way — is to pretend there's no future.

Here's hoping we find a third option.