Feminism and Climate Change

It makes sense for a nation that has achieved population stabilisation slightly too successfully to go for encouragement to get numbers back up a bit. I doubt they are aiming for four children per family or anything. Merely two per family average again I would guess.

It's actually evidence that human numbers are perfectly controllable if some countries want them back up to replacement level again. A stable population is not a bad thing for planning purposes.

Now imagine asking most people to give up their car when a large number of them have lifestyles that are heavily dependent on car travel with limited practical alternatives.

Perfectly do-able in London, unless one deems maintaining a lifestyle exactly as it is - no compromises acceptable - to be more important than not harming one’s own children and everyone else’s children.

Just make the change and the rest will follow.

Don’t want to isn’t the same as can’t.

I think for some people, they haven't realised how serious it is because they don't see much change over their own lifetime. They've been hearing about climate change their whole lives, but they think things look about the same. The human lifespan isn't long enough to see the clearer changes for a lot of people, especially if they live disconnected from nature as many do, especially in cities.

And then, I live in Canada, and a lot of people think our government now is doing what needs to be done. It was a major platform point, and JT has done a lot of campaigning to show how green he is.

But in a lot of cases, I think habit is a huge factor. People have a hard time imagining a really different lifestyle. They feel immediate pressures to do things like buy gifts for birthdays or have certain clothes for work, to give their families certain experiences. I struggle with this myself, I rarely fly, maybe one every five years, but last summer I flew on an overseas holiday, the first time I've ever flown internationally. But would I have done that if I was really serious about climate change? And yet, that feels so depressing and unfair, and if we aren't going to fix it anyway, which is a real possibility, why not have one trip to the place you've always imagined going to? I think that kind of feeling can end up justifying a lot.

I disagree. It’s a case of volume, if enough people do it then it absolutely makes a difference. So do it, influence others, spread the message, help each other find solutions, it all matters if enough of us keep doing it.

I think this massively underestimates the scale and complexity of the problem.

Take air travel as an example. By now most people in the developed world most know that air travel is bad for the environment, but still demand for air travel is rising. And air travel is something that should be relatively easy to give up, as it's not a necessity for most people.

Now imagine asking most people to give up their car when a large number of them have lifestyles that are heavily dependent on car travel with limited practical alternatives.

So many great points on this thread, hardly know where to start.

Just wanted to comment on OP's first point about population. It is estimated that around 40% of pregnancies globally are unintended/unwanted. I believe that women's access to contraception, abortion and the freedom to refuse marriage/relationships would control population extremely successfully without there needing to be draconian China-type policies.

Local charities in various nations try to talk to men and male religious leaders about contraception because that is where they see a major problem - men refusing to allow women bodily autonomy.

Grab, sorry if I’m coming across like I’m having a go at you personally in responding to parts of your posts. I’m really not, just thinking about why we are, collectively, so stupid.

Time to grow the fuck up, fast.

Absolutely

We can't even scare up more than a handful of politicians willing to say "humans are sexually dimorphic" so how any of them are going to get the balls to tack on "also, we'll probably be extinct in a few hundred years" is beyond me.

We ask to be given information by scientists and ask politicians and legislators to set boundaries on our behaviour in light of the information, then we punish them for telling us truths we don’t want to hear and spoiling our fun.

Time to grow the fuck up, fast.

What I meant to say was "the bar for people's tolerance on putting in effort to do things they don't already want to do is extremely low."

Yeah I think it plays it’s part. We are a very disconnected society, so people are racing around busy making money in order to buy more stuff and holiday more, with huge overheads and demands on them. To try and be a conscious consumer and research things to change that lifestyle, is quite a shift in thinking. People are incredibly disconnected from their food and how it gets to their table, for example. That’s why it’s important to have these conversations and try and steer them into a solutions discussion. What can we do?

Does anyone here want to do more and have an area of their life they’d like to focus on? Have help with? Let’s have a discussion about what reducing our consumption and environmental impact looks like!

Ok, but why would anyone not want to save lives, or preserve quality of lives (their own, possibly, or their children’s or grandchildren’s)?

Seriously, this is what we’re looking at. Why doesn’t this desire dwarf the desire for a house full of useless crap, for example?

What is stopping people from seeing it like that?

Making small individual lifestyle changes is a decent and worthy thing to do, but those changes are going to have very little impact on carbon emissions unless they lead to the above outcomes happening within the next decade or so.

I disagree. It’s a case of volume, if enough people do it then it absolutely makes a difference. So do it, influence others, spread the message, help each other find solutions, it all matters if enough of us keep doing it. I’m not waiting on corporate giants to pull their finger out, they’re reactive, they’ll only change when we do- or they’ll cease to exist in my ideal paradise!

Interesting thread.

Someone posted about the best way to reduce population size, I think, but I can't find the link above now. Basically, maternal education, maternal health and infant health are the most effective (humane) way to address the issue - the better all of those are, the fewer children women have (as well as access to contraception, which is sometimes limited, as in, say, Taliban controlled-Afghanistan).

Women do have a lot of consumer power that they can exercise, at least in this country.

An optimistic view, perhaps, but I see the necessary dismantling of capitalism and degrowth of our culture/economy as something that could be positive for women.

I mean, in a post-apocalyptic waterworld at least we won't be shamed for our hunter-gatherer consumerist choices, will we? It'll just be a case of spear what you can get.

Sorry, trying, but not feeling overly optimistic about humanity's future right now. How likely is it really that Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Theresa May are going to voluntarily give up all their wealth for the sake of everyone else's children's future?

How many politicians are willing to risk their necks to speak up on important issues?

That likely. That's how much hope we have.

Oh dear.

The bar for people's tolerance on putting in effort is extremely low.

This is highly selective.

Women put in massive effort on fashion and ‘beauty’ (not my opinion, look at the money spent annually and the time) because want to.

Suggest there may be numerous reasons why this isn’t in our best interests, and you get a response of ‘But I like it’ and ‘Anyway, it’s all too difficult to solve, businesses/government need to fix it’.

Reining it in is no harder work than complying with this shit. I think it’s easier, personally, but people choose what they choose.

Change on an individual level prompts others to join in.
Young Greta was a girl on her own, now she is supported by thousands.
I was originally influenced by a single friend who lived deliberately green. I influence my friends. It's slow- but building quickly! David Attenborough is helpfully making those of us who live a lower carbon lifestyle look a little less like cranks.

The kind of things that would make a significant impact on carbon emissions would be taking all petrol and diesel powered cars off the road, stopping non-essential air travel and closing down all fossil fuel power stations.

Making small individual lifestyle changes is a decent and worthy thing to do, but those changes are going to have very little impact on carbon emissions unless they lead to the above outcomes happening within the next decade or so.

The power is in the hands of ordinary people, we just don’t realise it.

Precisely.

And because ‘government’ and ‘big business’ is made of us. They’re not separate god-like entities to whom we must pray for guidance in order to know what to do and when to do it, ffs.