Climate change - 'too late'

[Isittoolate1]

There have been a couple of threads lately with most people agreeing that it is "too late" when it comes to global warning.

I am wondering what people mean by "too late"?

• it's too late for climate change not to affect us? In this case do you mean "us" in the UK (as it's obviously affecting a lot of people around the world already)

- it's too late to hit the 1.5 degree target? The 3 degree target? - too late for the planet to ultimately survive? - too late for us not to burn and die tomorrow

• etc

I find that the "too late" statement generates anxiety (massively in my case for my DC) but also makes people think there is no need to bother as it's "too late" anyway.

But unless "too late" means the last option above then doesn't every little change helps towards at least buying a bit of time or some "damage limitation" even if just for this generation?

I'd love to hear what people think, though I am bracing myself as I know this topic can be divisive!

'Too late' means that in our lifetime we're going to watch mass migration of people fleeing climate death - and dying

Too late to maintain life as we know it now. Drastic change is coming. There is fear in that.

Humans are the best problem solvers this planet has ever known. There is hope in that.

In the UK, the primary issues will be flooding and migration from the South.

We're all completed fucked xx

I find that the "too late" statement generates anxiety (massively in my case for my DC) but also makes people think there is no need to bother as it's "too late" anyway.

this is such a key point. If we think there is no point because it's "too late" (with no clear definition), that just helps companies that make short term profit off climate damaging industries. We need to believe it is not too late to keep pushing for change (and to limit the extent of the change).

Agree with Laurie, we also don't get four seasons any more. I remember when I was a child growing up in the 60s/70s the amount of insects that were about. Now I only see a few butterflies in the summer, and there are few bees as well. When we used to go out for a long drive in the car the windscreen would be covered with dead flies, now I never have to wash my screen on a journey for this reason. We have really messed this planet up.

I think it's too late to stop climate change because world governments are doing sweet FA about it. The only thing that will get the planet back to 'normal' is when human life becomes extinct. We have screwed up on this big time. I too remember when I was a kid, TONS of different butterflies, bees and insects on car windows. We have been talking about climate change since the fifties. It's beyond belief.

Too late to prevent many effects that are already 'baked in'. Heat waves, floods, wild fires and sea level rises will happen. There will be climate refugees.

But

It is not too late to mitigate what's coming. The more we act, the better things will be.

Small things can make a difference. The council stopped mowing bits of the park and the verges near us. First the variety of plants increased. Then the insects came back. And the small mammals. And now we have owls. A huge change in 5 years.

I'm surrounded by people who don't recycle while I'm taking every bit of plastic to the supermarket to recycle. How are we meant to change if our neighbours can't even do the most basic tasks?! What's the answer to go and knock on everyone's door and tell them what to do? I don't think a lot of people even care which is the real worry for me.

This.

Every action to cut fossil fuel use matters. There are going to be terrible food and fresh water shortages in our lifetimes, the more we can do to lessen the impact the better.

This is the classic position of the right, who are going to go big on opposition to cliamte measures at the next election - just look at Uxbridge - the only thing the Tories could turn to was opposing climate action and being anti ULEZ.

The policy statements of the right go:
Early stages before action: No scientific consensus we need to do anything
Middle stage before action: Too expensive to do anything meaningful
Final stage before action: Too late to do anything

On the climate it is not too late to impact the scale of damage in our children's futures and it is certainly not too late to mitigate the impact of climate change.

However, the situation is very serious.

The trouble is that people don't trust the councils etc to actually recycle - there've been lots of "whistle blowing" about the amount of recycling that just gets dumped in landfill! After all the "targets" are all about how much recycling is collected, not about how much is actually recycled, so as long as the council collect it, they can tick their boxes, regardless of what they do with it!

Same with politicians - lots of words but no real action. The sense of apathy comes because we really can't make much of a difference anyway at an individual level, "green" initiatives cost us money at a time of cost of living crisis, and we look at other countries and see them still building new coal fired power stations!

Yes, people should do a lot more at a personal level, but we need to be led by lions, not by donkeys and there needs to be a lot more honesty as to how being being "green" is going to cost us, how it's going to be paid for, etc.

Recycling is the right thing to do but you are being distracted by a very low impact part of the picture.

The priority would be for you to polictically support climate action (i.e. do not vote Tory if in the UK, all other parties are better on this issue).

After that take action to cut your fossil fuel usage, so look to your diet, your transport and your general energy consumption.

Media outlets like the Daily Mail bang on about things like recycling because they do not want real climate action.

I agree with you OP. I think people use "too late" as a get out clause - there's no point me making any changes because it's too late anyway. It's essential that we change this mindset in order to limit the damage (even though we can't fully prevent or reverse it).

People who say this when they have kids are actually quite shocking to me. The selfishness towards their own offspring is astounding.

They are basically saying 'I am too uncaring of my own children's futures to even allow change to happen'.

It makes no sense to be bothered about passing down a financial inheritance and yet not care about their actual life conditions.

It's too late to stop it but further massive issues could probably be prevented.

This summer is certainly a sign of what's to come. Europe is boiling but also experiencing giant hail stones. Flash, devastating floods. Thankfully in the UK we're not seeing this yet but it won't be long.

It's like the day after tomorrow is coming true 🥺

Thank you for all your thoughts. I am glad it's not just me who finds the 'too late' narrative so unhelpful.

Surely it makes sense to still try to limit the damage as much as possible.

Like a PP said, I particularly don't understand people with DC who come up with these statements.

I'll just keep educating myself, do what I can and push for change where I can.

Too late to prevent it but not too late to mitigate against the very worst case scenarios. I agree with PP saying that a sense of hopelessness only helps those who want to maintain the status quo but every little action matters now. I think we will all have to change how we live and for some people that is going to be a more dramatic change than for others, but I cling to hope because we are a resilient and adaptable species and a lot of the solutions already exist.

I can understand people without dc not caring (some will of course but I get it if they don’t)

But not those with dc

The biggest reason for me on this is the future they will inherit

There will be a reset and those that survive it will relearn the ways of their ancestors. Then tge worls will start its recovery

Saying it's too late is just an excuse people use so they can carry on living how they want. It's never too late, the environment can always recover, biodiversity can increase, pollution levels can fall etc. You only have to look at the difference lockdown made in spring 2020 from just a few weeks. Imagine what we could do across the whole world over the next decade if everyone made changes.
The problem is, the majority of people (and governments) don't want to make changes. People just aren't willing to sacrifice their lifestyle to save the planet, people on the whole are selfish. We are literally watching Greece, USA, China burn in heatwaves on our TVs yet we don't do anything because it's not affecting us (yet).

It means that there is a delayed effect from emissions. The climate change we are experiencing now is due to emissions made decades ago. Therefore, significant further warming will occur now no matter what we do because of emissions made in more recent years.

This means that the 1.5° target is no longer realistic. 2° is also highly unlikely. IF appropriate action is taken now globally the rise may be able to be limited to 2.5°, but most likely since emissions are still rising it will be 3°+.

It refers to people having been campaigning on this issue in the 70s and 80s when something could have been done to prevent the worst effects and being ignored. And that many countries causing much of the problem are still no on board with change. And that even those who do sign up to targets and agreements don't implement them properly.

It refers to the fact that even if the UK population was vapourised overnight - so never caused any carbon footprint again at all - it would make no measurable difference whatsoever to the trajectory of climate change because our emissions account for less than 1% of global emissions.

Therefore, while of course we should all take reasonable steps to try to limit our personal impact, this is futile at this point in terms of changing the outcome. Arguing over who is worst - those who own dogs or go on holiday or drive or don't recycle yoghurt pots - is a distraction and an irrelevancy.

It means that the best thing we can do now is pressure our politicians to implement the large scale infrastructure plans required to ensure that the UK has energy, food and water security so that it can be self-sufficient in these if necessary, to at least mitigate the very worst impacts on our own population.

This should be policy priority #1 and yet neither the Government or opposition has policies to do anything on the scale required to do this. This will take time to do so needs to be implemented now and anybody concerned about having food/ power/ clean water in the future would be pressuring their MP about this. But they aren't, because people are still not being realistic about the level of catastrophic consequences that will occur when there is a 2.5°-3° rise, or more, which is now pretty much inevitable.

There will be mass displacement of tens of millions of people. A scale of migration and disaster never seen before in human history. 8/10 of the most populated cities on Earth are in areas that will flood at that level of warming. There will be wars over the remaining resources. Many areas becoming uninhabitable or unable to sustain their populations. Some small island nations in some cases will vanish entirely underwater. It will be complete chaos.

The UK is fairly well placed geographically to fare better than most but won't do so if it doesn't do the necessary preparation now. Being reliant on importing half of your food and energy when other countries are in chaos will not go well. Neither will having no proper water infrastructure.

Really good question Op as I think it's too late, but Ive never really thought about what I actually think is too late. I guess temp. rises?

Im also guilty of not always recycling because im cynical of if it really makes a difference and are we shipping it off to the Phillipines etc
I drive an old diesel car as well and will continue until it conks out really don't want an electric because of the battery issues mining etc

However I don't eat meat and fish even though I miss them, after I saw the Netflix documentary about the fishing industry.