AIBU to feel people are far too complacent about climate change?

What can be done about it though?

excuse my ignorance but I’ve no idea how climate change could be prevented

I also feel like this.
The problem I think is that to limit over consumption in our society which is based on everyone doing what they want would have zero support.
Literally everyone would think that everyone ELSE should consume less. Not them.

I think the cost of living is more of an emergency to be honest.

I agree 100% and I try so hard but in the end it really doesn't matter. I still have to work in a job that creates more waste in an hour than I have managed to save from landfill over several years of hard work. It is so disheartening.

I worry about it to an extent, while also questioning what can be done locally. I don’t see how individuals, or indeed small countries (I’m in Scotland) can actually make a discernible difference when the biggies America, China, India, Russia, etc, don’t seem to give a shit? I’m not saying we don’t try, but let’s be real about how much difference we can make, or influence we can have.
Plus we all make our own choices. I don’t have kids - a significant factor. I didn’t have a car deliberately for quite a few years either. An awful lot of people talking about climate change have both of those things.

Yanbu but this goes down badly on Mumsnet. The wider population is generally more supportive.

It could start with the Royal Family giving up plane travel

I think it fatigue - I've been hearing about it my entire life and little I do has any effect.

Plus we are paying high bills for net zero - but our country produces less than 1% of emmission. Though did read when you look at exported emssions (whcioh also exported jobs) then apply then to imported good we've only cut emssions by a third in decades.

China has reached 50% of energy not being coal - so huge strides are being made - USA could do a huge amount more and many of it's citizens seem completely unaware.

Peronally though we are making changes in our house - awnings - planting looking at how to manage heat - clothing - kids who do badly in heat seriously looking at moving further north.

Because some (wealthy) people believe they can use their wealth / position to insulate and protect their children from the future

Because some (ignorant) people either do not believe what the scientific community is telling them or do not want to believe it

Because many (ordinary) people have been told that all they need to do is switch to bamboo toothbrushes, cycle everywhere and recycle their plastic bags I.e. focus on their 🙄 carbon footprint.

Because it’s a global issue that cannot be tackled on an individual level, human nature is very poorly equipped to make the necessary choices - and it has to be a choice at this stage because political leaders are too afraid to impose the changes that would be needed. We cannot choose to make ourselves worse off - when humans whole drive is to improve our lives.

Because politicians / leaders generally do know what needs to be done - they just don’t know how to get elected again after they’ve done it.

Because the vested interests that keep the current situation going are also our employers, our economic drivers, the foundation of our capitalist systems.

Because, from the UKs pov the problem is still ‘out there’ . This year has probably been the biggest wake up call to date: once climate migration really gets going, we’ll see change and I don’t think it will be good.

Same thing. Have a guess why your food and fuel is more expensive.

We don't actually use all the wind power we generate - though we pay for it

Britain's energy bills problem - and why firms are paid huge sums to stop producing power

We need changes to power grids and possibly regional prices and likely better power storage- which is a government issue - and there's little I can do to influence this.

I think ordinary people feel powerless rather than complacent.

Really? You can’t think of anything?

I think people feel powerless

I also think people get mixed messages. Like reduce food miles but don't eat meat even though the area you live in is only suitable for grazing.

I also think its very frustrating to walk places you could drive to, which limits what you can do in a day, to then see other people fly in a private jet and someone else's car is much less efficient and yet another bomb dropped in Ukraine. It makes it seem futile.

I honestly believe that a huge part of the problem is the lack of 'positive future scaping', we only reallyhave access to distopian futures in the news, on here online, even in our provate conversations- the state of the world is bleak and the future is scary and full of worry and natural disasters and pollution - however we do not have access to to a brighter future to strive for. There is no 'hope' in the newspaper or on here! And I really truly believe that there is hope coming- despite my previous post.

FOR EXAMPLE:
Vinted is so mainstream- people happily talking about second hand goods.
Too good to go- reducing food waste and it is a very well known thing now
Who Gives a Crap toilet paper
There are zero waste shops.
People want to have the change.

When i was a child- to have second hand clothes was very very embarrassing. Now my friends and family (some not all) use vinted proudly- it has been a massive shift.
We all want to do something about it!
Everyone is doing their little bit- but it isn't making the papers so we are all feeling alone and like it is us against the world but actually so many people Do care and Have made changes to their daily lives.

I know that it isn't a drop in the ocean compared to big companies but the amount of people trying gardening, buying chickens, sewing machines for mending and hemming etc. All of this IS PROGRESS. It really is.

We are all so blinded and downtrodden by the constant bad news.

When i was 16 i remember being desperate to have people use second hand- none of my friends or family were on board- several of them have used vinted almost exclusively for everything they needed for their new babies.
When I was in my early 20s i got really into gardening- and again was the odd one in my circle. Now many people have followed suit!

One friend gave up a car, and some have given up some car journeys and walk sometimes.
A massive difference from the last 20 odd years is that I was considered a hippy/ loony/ fairy type and now my opinion on the state of the planet and the need to lower consumption is MAINSTREAM!!!! I got what I asked for. There has been a massive shift in public opinion on climate issues. That is progress.

We aren't at the end of the race yet- we should be sharing our wins as well as our worries because otherwise we cannot see the version of the future that we need to strive towards.

Our grand children and great grandchildren are going to hate us for the selfish, ignorant, money obsessed twats that we are.
They won’t understand why we needed to fly to Spain or Greece every year, or why we insisted on relying on our cars so much, or why we complained about recycling or why we bought cheap tat of TEMU or were obsessed with fast fashion.
Or why we voted for people who protected big oil or why we thought making money was the most important thing.
Or why we did nothing, claimed we could do nothing, about climate change.

And we have Andy Burnham this week in the words of Trump, doing his ‘drill baby drill’ bit - unbelievable! I don’t think it’s the general public that aren’t on board here, I mean I’m no scientist but I’m deeply concerned, but it’s the total denial from all of the political parties and the rest of the world, and where are the Green Party at the moment? They should be leading this and shouting from the rooftops, instead Polanski is pissing about on social media.

Yes I would like this. Id like to hear much more about whats working, progress and so on.

But no so much Bob has chickens in his garden, but this major corporation has reduced its packaging by 80% or improved its manufacturing process to use less fuel by 50%.

Definitely, when you see what the world leaders are doing, you can only assume that they don't believe in it themselves.

As PP said, the royal family flying everywhere in private jets. Even 30-odd years ago, the then-Prince Charles (supposed champion of green issues) visited our university, and so much was made about him using the train for environmental reasons. Not just a seat on the normal train, mind, an entire train just for him and his staff; and his chauffeur drove up to north west Wales from London in his gas-guzzling limousine, to save him the horror of a ghastly normal person's taxi (or even a bus - you know, the environment, remember?!) for the mile and a bit from the station to the uni.

The COP conferences have been especially profligate too. All of the world leaders in their private jets, with retinues of staff. I'll always remember Biden flying a fleet of limos from Washington to Glasgow - because there are no cars for hire already in Scotland!! Also the cutting down of the Amazon rainforest to make a road to their new meeting venue in Brazil! It's like they see it as a great big joke to see how far they can push it to mock the general public who do actually care about CC.

Also, as has been mentioned, the wars that certain men in charge seem to covet so earnestly. The immense amount of damage they do nullifies any individual person's efforts. It's a bit like the water companies harassing us to use less and less water (just after doubling the prices), whilst they deliberately leave gallons gushing out in leaks across the land, because they'd just rather keep the money for themselves and their own bonuses rather than taking the trouble to spend it on fixing them.

When you have leaders actively working as aggressively as they can against ordinary people's efforts and sacrifices, it's so much harder for people to take anything seriously.

Haven’t RTFT but I want to comment that in my social circle there seems to have been a complete 180 change on climate change concerns.

Most of us were previously at least partly eco-conscious, but now the predominant view is along the lines of:

”If billionaires are taking their private jet for short journeys then I’m going to live my life and feel no guilt about going on holiday”

We’re fucked either way, so we might as well enjoy it while we can.

I honestly believe that a huge part of the problem is the lack of 'positive future scaping', we only reallyhave access to distopian futures in the news, on here online, even in our provate conversations-

This - and too much scolding of normal descions others make - which often aren't as bad as projected or comparable to scolders.

The US military - roughly the 55th largest emitter in the world, placing it ahead of industrialized nations like Sweden, Portugal, and Denmark. When including the broader military-industrial supply chain, emissions rank around 25th globally, polluting more than 171 individual countries. That's one part of the US state.

The U.S. Military Emits More CO2 Than Many Nations

More pressure needs to be put on USA and it's citizens - maybe as it's financial problems mount and it's world reach declines their emmisons might as well.

TBH I think its adapation to heat and flooding that most ordinary people need to consider now.

They aren't do drill baby drill - they are looking at two existing fields so more a gradual managed decline to industry than previously planned - and it makes sense to get that oil and gas rather than import from other countires with tranport adds more carbon output.

Gloably we are ahead of target for renewable electcity production - though transport remains an issue - we can't suddenly go without oil and gas becuase we still need them - and with pretrolum a lot goes into petrochemical manufacturing which we don't always have alternatives for yet.

We can't currently drop oil an gas though we are working towards it.

Wind farm may boost economy by £6.1bn, report says

Omg