'it is so discouraging'

x wrote:

there,  i read some articles in the uk guardian and have a better understanding of what this conference hopes to achieve (not too much, by the sound of it). the time ticks away, and our climate continues to change, and affects so much.......it is so discouraging.

y replied:
yes. it's a hell of a mess we've inherited, and we in turn leave for our kids. but it's becoming clearer to me that national leaders (i can't call them world leaders with a straight face--can you?) are elected to defend national interests. i was watching animal cultural evolution tonight with great interest. how does it differ from genetic evolution. how is it similar? if cultural is not genetic, how fragile is it that i could play a computer game in the 1970s about 18c bce hammurabi, or read about enkidu, translated thousands of years later and read in the 1980s? how is culture encapsulated and transmitted? oh, it's all very exciting!