AIBU not to buy in about all of this net zero/environmentalism?

It really is though - carrying my own bag, which took significantly more resources to create and transport (by a factor of 100s), and which requires washing (once every 6 months or so, and yes, I can put them in with other stuff, but that's still using resource - it's not resource free.

Lets try some sums.

1 old style carrier bag (exactly like the type I buy now to line my bins) weighs 7g of plastic.
1 lidl cotton bag (hilariously with plastic coated labels declaring it to be 100% cotton) weighs 150g.

The cotton bag is bulkier, so takes up more space to carry in a container. I'd estimate that in the space I can fit one cotton bag, I can fit 8 folded plastic bags. If they were in shipping packaging, compressed together I would confidently double that.

The plastic bag has half the carrying capacity of the fabric one, so I need 3 fabric for the weekly shop or 6 plastic.

The plastic bag was made in this country, the lidl bag was made in India.

So for my shopping trip previously, I would have been transporting 42g of plastic 50miles (estimate, I know where the bag factory is) - to the shop for once, and then 20 miles home with me. Those bags would then be used as bin liners, going to landfill.

Obviously if the bags came from China this would be different, although still transporting 7g only twice (to the store, and then home) is much less resource than transporting 450g to the store, then every time you go shopping

For my shopping trip now, I transport 450g of cotton 5000 miles to get to the shop, then 40 miles for every shopping trip - there and back. Then every 6 months I run them through the washing machine - which takes 6kg, so the bags take up 1/12th of a load/soap. I do that until the bags are destroyed.

So you tell me? Is it a simple sum? Is transporting a bag that weighs 21x the weight and takes up 10x the space being shipped 5000 miles before we even begin going to be made up vs. the impact of a conventional carrier bag?

How about when we add in that everyone I know still buys bags to line their bins, where previously they re-used the carrier bags? So plastic usage for most people hasn't actually changed a lot, but non-plastic bag resource has rocketed.

Or lets talk about the people who they were targeting, who would never bring their own bag - like my ex. He just buys bags for life and chucks them, just like he took normal carrier bags and chucks them - so his environmental impact, similarly higher, as the bags for life are so much thicker.

It's not simple. Just be up front about that. Neither the bags, nor people's behaviour is simple, and pretending it is is my whole problem with the whole shebang.

The world is literally burning, we as a nation and globally are doing far too little, far too slowly. I think once the UK start to experience more and more of the sort of extreme weather events that much of the world already are now as a result of climate change people like you OP might start to wake up but it'll be way too late. The economy as a reason not to strive towards net zero is an absolute myth - there is so much evidence about the economic growth that would come from greater investment into net zero as well as greater energy security and lower prices for consumers if we weren't so reliant on imported gas - as a country and as individuals we would be better off if we went heavier on net zero but unfortunately many of those lobbying govt and in power have conflicts of interest..as for recycling- do you think all those huge mountains of rubbish you see documented or all the evidence about ocean pollution etc is made up? Or do you just not care?

The cost to implement the changes though was relatively minor.

Just replace the gas used as a refridgerant with something else. There are alternatives and at that point in time the world was a lot less developed so a lot fewer devices holding CFCs around.

It's probably the kind of difference between saying are you prepared to pay £5 a year to achieve something of global importance or are you prepared to pay £1000 per year and at the same time make some pretty extensive changes to your lifestyle ?

Fossil fuels are a lot more pervasive in society and a lot more central to the way modern society operates than CFCs.

I have only reviewed the first one. Just estimates and bullshit isn't it?

The World pulled together and acted over the damage to the Ozone layer. Naysayers said it was nonsense. The World resolved that issue.
Why do you not believe the scientists now?
Are you a Trump supporting Lawrence Fox loving troglodyte generally, or just about this?

That graph shows that the share produced from renewables is increasing not that the amount produced from fossil fuels is decreasing. It is in fact increasing, because energy consumption in those countries is massively increasing.

Because a juggernaut does not turn on a dime.

Iraq, Yemen, and Libya were the last, according to my reading.

So why are China still building them then ?

If we can accept a 3C world because it is better than a 5C world, why not just scrub some of the net zero policies in the UK and save everyone some hard earned cash on their heating bills ?

How many people were on the planet in the last interglacial period and where did they live ?

The worlds climate has varied hugely in the past. We've had vastly different percentages of oxygen, co2, the world very hot and the world very cold.

I don't think people should worry for the earth. It will sort its own problems out and always has.The earth has been hit by giant meteorites, devastated by volcanic eruptions etc and life has always survived.

But the populations of the worlds species/the earths habitability has varied hugely in the past as well. I doubt very much that super hot/super cold earth or an earth just hit by a giant meteorite is compatible with supplying the needs of 8 billion people.

The same cheap energy WE benefited from. Why didn’t we adapt earlier? Why didn’t we innovate and move to EVs sooner? If other manufacturing economies have leapfrogged us, we only have ourselves to blame.

All? Not from what I’m aware they haven’t.

Plus signing it and then acting on it are two different things. There’s plenty who aren’t doing much/enough.

It was what was warranted.

Oh dear. Your argument is a hashtag.

"All the lecturers considered it nonsense" #things that didn't happen.

Of course climate change occurs over epochs. Sometimes it results in things like the great dying. Life recovers, eventually, but it's not so good for human civilisation.

The Royal Society have stated that we'll need 100 TWh of energy storage. At current prices that equates to £30 trillion of batteries.

That's 12x our annual GDP and it's such a bonkers number that it simply can't be done.

Firstly, it's not an all or nothing thing. A 2C hotter world is far better than a 5C hotter world. Any change is good.

Secondly, if you think about coal power stations that had building resumed in 2024 - proposals for those projects would have been written several years ago, and therefore based on energy prices that are now hopelessly out of date. Energy prices have changed hugely in recent years, but it takes time for this to trickle through.

Five to ten years ago, it made economic sense to build a coal fired power plant. This is no longer true.

And to all the people that are espousing global doom, how do you explain this chart that shows the owner has experienced warmer interglacial periods with zero human input?

It all looks very normal to me.

(I studied geochemistry at university and the lecturers all considered it to be nonsense that wasn't supported by the geological record).

Could you possibly explain with some detail how this will “wreck the economy”? How much GDP growth do you estimate that we will forgo?

All the people saying that Net Zero is too little too late, are you prepared to accept lower benefits, lower pensions, scaled back or privatised NHS, much lower SEN provision in schools, virtually no PIP/DLA, etc, when the economy is wrecked by these disastrous policies?

Let me guess, you think it can all be solved by 'taxing the rich'.

Climate Action Tracker, Carbon Brief, Centre for Research for Energy and Clean Air (CREA)

All reputable research orgs.

What’s your reliable source of information?

Sadly the planet and the greenhouse effect doesn't really care one jot about that or any other political spin people like to put on it.

The only relevant factor that is important is whether or not total emissions are increasing or decreasing.

Building more coal plants increases total emissions.

It's quite the achievement to be this misinformed on so many different issues in a single post.

I mean, look what is happening in lower income countries.

What I find is that the proportion of electricity sourced from coal ( compared to renewables) is dropping in China, and this trend is expected to continue.