Page 12 | To resent the cognitive dissonance that exists around climate change

Mosaic123 · 10/01/2025 12:21

I don't think the stop having children idea is good. And we don't really want to impose a ban on the number of children allowed like China did.

That was not successful.

I guess getting the world to be more politically stable would be very helpful in that energy is not wasted in fighting and producing weapons and clearing up after war damage.

But what's the solution to no more wars?
Fear of nuclear bombs?

Doitrightnow · 10/01/2025 12:21

HettysHandbag · 10/01/2025 09:44

I don't know. Honestly, I don't think you can expect personal responsibility at all. We don't do for anything else that's important on a societal level. We have laws and a government because we already expect people to be as crap as possible and need laws to guide them into doing the bare minimum.

We need to get the government to do its job and to set rules. But the laws need to start from the top. Expecting Nicola and Joanna to sacrifice their children's safety while businesses like Amazon are literally dumping tonnes of unused products in landfill or IKEA is chopping down miles of forest is a bit pointless.

Ban plastic bottles, ban cars, set up a decent public transportation service. Make it free. The governments won't do it because it won't get them elected. So we can all just sit and wait for the floods.

I agree with this. I think meaningful change will only happen if government policy forces it to (like with plastic bags). There's so much crap that really doesn't need to exist.

Personally, if I was a dictator, I'd totally ban wet wipes and disposable swimming nappies, cigarettes and vapes, ration clothing and types of fish and meat, ban internal UK flights, heavily subsidence public transport so it's cheaper than the car, and come up with some kind of ration for air travel!

Theolittle · 10/01/2025 12:13

Another bad thing is all the data storage which is energy intensive. How many of us have thousands of emails and photos that we don’t need. How many pictures of meals are out there???!!! We’re all so frivolous and unconscious of the impact, young people more than anyone

LaurieFairyCake · 10/01/2025 12:13

Obviously we should be taking personal responsibility and the top 3 changes we're supposed to make for the environment are:

Stop having children or have as few as possible

Don't fly or fly as little as possible

Reduce reuse recycle (buy new infrequently and don't throw out food)

Theolittle · 10/01/2025 12:11

”talk to china” - they’re high emissions cos they’re making all our stuff!

I agree with you OP. I am the most conscious of all my friends and family. So many of my friends expect 5 trips abroad a year which they do on the cheap - weekends away etc. none would say they’re rich. One is starting the extreme day trip trend- how far away can you get on a flight for a day trip - what’s the fecking point if you’re flying all day 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️. One flies every other weekend to watch sporting events

I saw a lady who lost her LA home to the fires on TV - she said we’ve got to stop this silly worrying about fossil fuels and tackle the climate crisis properly🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️. She can’t wait for Trump to sort it

Its frustrating and depressing.

Humphhhh · 10/01/2025 12:05

BodenCardiganNot · 10/01/2025 09:35

I was reading a thread the other day here about decluttering. More than one poster suggested that the op takes all her unwanted stuff to the tip - life is too short to be sorting stuff for charity shops, giving it away on sites like Freecycle etc..madness.
Add in all the threads about throwing out food that is past its best before date. According to a UN report issued in March 2024, one billion meals per day were wasted in 2022 while 783 million people were affected by hunger and 1/3 of the world's population faces food insecurity. It's shocking.

Except tips will actually do the recycling it's not just a case of taking it there to put it in landfill sites. (Not that recycling is the answer though)

StandFirm · 10/01/2025 12:04

Bigcheeserolling · 10/01/2025 12:00

But hey, loads of jobs are due to be made extinct by energy intensive AI vastly reducing the market for the labour of people (which will result in more and more societal problems - look at the areas that have lost their primary employer and apply that to much of the country). So what do we do? Live entirely in our 15 minute neighbourhoods, eating solely vegan food while our minimum basic income allowance ensures a degree of monetary circulation and attempts to keep a lid on the level of social unrest, all the while a few rich technocrats control almost all means of wealth creation. Sounds like fun.

Exactly!
And with that kind of society in place, the debate around travel will be neither here nor there as only the super rich will remain geographically mobile.

Bigcheeserolling · 10/01/2025 12:00

But hey, loads of jobs are due to be made extinct by energy intensive AI vastly reducing the market for the labour of people (which will result in more and more societal problems - look at the areas that have lost their primary employer and apply that to much of the country). So what do we do? Live entirely in our 15 minute neighbourhoods, eating solely vegan food while our minimum basic income allowance ensures a degree of monetary circulation and attempts to keep a lid on the level of social unrest, all the while a few rich technocrats control almost all means of wealth creation. Sounds like fun.

MereDintofPandiculation · 10/01/2025 11:59

It's depressing to try to be climate-conscious when our governments are not.

MereDintofPandiculation · 10/01/2025 11:59

kiops · 10/01/2025 10:00

talk to China.
What we do here is a drop in the ocean.

WE can't influence China if our own house isn't in order

Nannyfannybanny · 10/01/2025 11:57

Why does someone have to come on here and be nasty...i actually read daily, these 2 books are written by experts in the field. One Christopher booker, the second by a climate expert working at The Farriday Institute debunking a lot of the "facts" we have been informed of. I've had a look round, I have about 100 books, and I cannot find it.

Bigcheeserolling · 10/01/2025 11:49

EMISSIONS from importation (not “emotional”)

Bigcheeserolling · 10/01/2025 11:48

Aggressive reduction mandates fuck me right off. All that will happen is more energy intensive stuff gets offshored to those countries where fossil fuels are still heavily used and therefore energy is cheaper. Then we buy them back with all the accompanying emotion from importation. Jobs lost, overall global emissions increase, economic activity declines and the poorest people will always be the ones most negatively impacted.

Justwrong68 · 10/01/2025 11:42

You're being totally reasonable. There's so much irony. Hollywood residents can't easily get away because their cars are on fire, fast fashion is still a thing when we have plenty of reusable clothes, the big cars and flights of the average family. It's natural for people to look inwards now, there's no blitz spirit. I could be smug, I live in a part of london where there's no resident parking so don't have a car and 95% of my clothes are second hand; but I'm certainly no Greta Thunberg; and she's become an object of ridicule here and in the US.

Lentilweaver · 10/01/2025 11:33

Newname85 · 10/01/2025 11:25

You are focusing on people. Biggest impact has to come from corporates. With all the return to office mandates, Nikola’s trips to a local school with her 3 kids in a Discovery sport hardly matters when you compare to 1000s of people doing their 30mile office commutes twice a day.

With that name, Nikola should be driving a Tesla.😁

TriangleLight · 10/01/2025 11:33

I just don’t think most people have it as a priority. They see the very people preaching about climate issues jetting around the world and travelling in fancy cars, warm and heated houses and nice clothes.

It feels very much like the chattering classes telling the oiks not to travel and stay in their lane

astoundedgoat · 10/01/2025 11:33

@jasjas3008 I don't disagree, but they are also the people who are being/will be hardest hit by climate change.

StandFirm · 10/01/2025 11:31

As an aside, and as an additional point to what I was saying about cooling data servers, I'll bet anything that one of the many strategic reasons behind Trump's wish to invade 'buy' Greenland is that it would really help his tech friends to have a massive fridge... (and to get mining for those rare earth minerals used in EV batteries now that China has dramatically reduced their exports to the US in that area)

TonTonMacoute · 10/01/2025 11:31

JacquesHarlow · 10/01/2025 09:21

Let’s be real - will anything get better when folk’s priorities are usually about themselves?

Let me explain my rather emotional opening point.

There’s been lots of news this week unsurprisingly about how we had the hottest year on record last year. The last 10 years have been the hottest on record. Wildfires, floods, you name it - the earth is changing.

Yet here in the temperate, largely rainy UK, many people I see around me are very happy to have their head in the sand, while also bizarrely choosing just one or two lines of attack on the climate crisis to shame others.

One of the parents i know has an electric car. It’s nice, I’m happy for them. They also take at least five flight a year. They have three children.

Yet if you hear them talk about diesel cars… it’s as if the owners are personally killing everyone around them.

Now don’t get me wrong. Emissions locally are important, the air our kids breathe is important. that might be a focus.

However you see it in the choice of car journeys over trains, of large SUVs over a normal family car like a Golf.

The latter particularly grates. We have a huge climate crisis. Yet Joanna or Nicola has to have a Discovery Sport for her three kids because she needs to sit high up, it’s easier to load them in, and she worries about crash worthiness.

The history books will show that rather than looking up and out for each other, we’re actually turning more inwards. Our own personal economy will always triumph over needing to protect others. If I’m able to pay £400 a month PCP on a Dispcvery Sport, then “I’ll protect my family over anything”, even though the entire thought process is irrational.

We need to take fewer flights and more rail journeys. working from home should mean more walking to school as the commute has gone. instead we’re seeing more car journeys. More flights. More large purchases; throwaway electronics; fast fashion.

AIBU to think there’s a lot of cognitive dissonance and head in the sand about climate change in the UK, and spending power (and the choices it unlocks) is king?

Yet here you are complaining about it on the Internet, which emits more harmful CO2 emissions than all global air traffic.

The energy needed to power the digital economy today is far greater than the energy needed to power absolutely everything in the whole world back in the 80s. That's only going to get worse as more and more giant data centres are built.

They want us to give up our cars, never go on holiday but do everything online!

Newname85 · 10/01/2025 11:25

You are focusing on people. Biggest impact has to come from corporates. With all the return to office mandates, Nikola’s trips to a local school with her 3 kids in a Discovery sport hardly matters when you compare to 1000s of people doing their 30mile office commutes twice a day.

Nightmarewithdelirium · 10/01/2025 11:24

It's why I'm a socialist.
I think this is all connected. In my mind you can't just sit there as an individual and buy your way out of climate change on your own. Climate change issues are massively linked to poverty and exploitation. In an economic system based on permanent growth of course the planet is going to be negatively impacted. Permanent growth is not sustainable on an environmental level. We need to actually be using what we need to live.. but instead we are encouraged onto a roundabout of working and spending money like water. This is encouraged as it promotes growth.. society gets worried if people aren't constantly spending money on crap they don't really need. And there's no escape.. especially if you have limited income. Goods aren't built to last. Poverty is cumulative. If all you can afford is Primark socks for example.. you will be stuck on a roundabout of buying them as they quickly fall apart, costing you more money longer term, but you don't have the initial money to prioritise buying well made expensive socks.. you don't have the free time to learn how to make your own because you are too busy constantly working to afford your primary socks. A silly example but you get my meaning. Most ordinary people are trapped on that roundabout of consumption. Things need to really change in our attitude... but unfortunately the world is having a right wing populist moment... becoming very individualistic and isolationist.
I don't know what will have to happen to swing it back round.
It was the 2nd world war that brought out a lot of progressive joined up thinking.. people didn't want to repeat the horrors. There were lots of ideas implemented worldwide after the end of the 2nd world war..
But people are forgetting. The pandemic might have reminded them the need for everyone to work together... but it seems not.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 10/01/2025 11:23

Nightmarewithdelirium · 10/01/2025 11:09

I think you can't blame people for buying cheap clothes from China if they are available.. and the government allows them to be available. People are struggling with the cost of living at the moment.
I hate to bring brexit into this but that's a part of it.. it's now cheaper to import goods from further away... goods of a lower quality that cause more pollution due to manufacturing and distance they are being transported.
We need countries working together but at the moment there's a very nationalistic shift...
Let's hope this government does some things right on a national level at least..
I'm excited to see efforts towards nationalising the railways for example. Things like this impact climate change.
I'd like to see more industry brought back to the UK and in state control.

People were buying cheap imported clothes long before Brexit.

I’m old enough to remember when M&S had signs saying that 99% of their goods were British made.
But that was a very, very long time ago.

An ex colleague of mine used to buy masses of very cheap clothes and then say, ‘Well, even if I only wear it once…’ And she certainly wasn’t young, so it’s not necessarily a generation thing.
The idea of buying a lot fewer but better quality that would last, didn’t even occur to her.

Lentilweaver · 10/01/2025 11:23

I don't have a car.
But I am not anti-car. I just question the need to have massive SUVs in inner city London. Or 4 cars per family.

UnderTheStairs51 · 10/01/2025 11:21

napody · 10/01/2025 09:43

Obviously YANBU.

The 'Joanna or Nicola' fucked me off though. Are they the new Karen? Can you make your point without using random women's names?

I think there is a problem with people thinking the visible (electric cars, solar panels), is more important that the invisible (just cutting consumption and living a low impact life).

I agree with this.

I am not a climate change denier but I do question some of the so-called 'solutions'. I think electric cars are an environmental disaster. They'll be the new 'everyone switch to diesel ' soon.

I do have solar panels, I have always bought second hand. I recycle etc. Because regardless of climate change I hate the waste culture and filling the ground with all this stuff.

I've not been abroad for 20 years and have only taken about half a dozen flights in my whole life.

I walk all short journeys (some not that short as I consider a four mile round trip better on foot).

But I won't be giving up my diesel car any time soon. I live in rural north Scotland. Nothing else is practical as a replacement.

And you can keep your hands off my wood burner. I don't have any gas and I use very little electric from the grid.

I get annoyed by the very preachy who think nothing of a hen do in Ibiza or a trip to Australia and just do performative 'green' options.

I agree that we all need less stuff and to stop buying shite on Temu.

NZDreaming · 10/01/2025 11:21

StandFirm · 10/01/2025 11:16

Agree; there's a lot we don't need. I've reduced meat, coffee and tea consumption and only try to buy in-season fruit and veg.
I will argue though that we don't 'need' AI, even though it's a revolution that is happening whether we like it or not, so we'll all soon be in a position where we'll have to use AI systems.

Show quote history

I don’t think most people realise that ‘the cloud’ is actually vast data centres that require huge use of land and electricity with intensive cooling systems . AI chatbots in particular are extremely powerful and therefore require huge amounts of data to operate, therefore resulting in significant carbon output.