What should be done about climate change?

[Rfthyhuj]

There are many people on another thread salivating at the idea of the five climate change protestors going to jail. I’m not an expert, but I know enough to understand that global warming is already having catastrophic effects on the world’s poorest.

What can the world do? What can the UK government do? I believe that we should up aid funding to allow developing countries to invest in green technology. I’ve never thought about it in huge detail, but am really shocked at the vitriol shown to the protestors for attempting to raise awareness of how serious the situation is. I don’t want another debate about the protest or the prison sentence, but am really interested in hearing about what people believe should happen to create change and avoid disaster?

I'm not upset in the slightest. Strange comment.

You asked what could be done and then said perhaps best not to leave it to those with the largest footprints, so I asked, what can we do, those of us who have v small footprints anyway?

OP

You ask ‘what should be done?’ and ‘what should the world do?’

who do you mean when you say ‘the world’? There are no global organisations with the authority to compel individual countries to take actions to address climate change. Look at the UN Paris agreement: definitive science, loads of good intentions and - 9 years later - sum total of bugger all actual action taken.

’Doing something’ about climate change requires countries, politicians and individuals to act against their own short term interests. I can’t remember who said it, but it’s true: politicians generally know what has to be done (to address climate change), what they don’t know is how to get re-elected after they’ve done it. Same for individuals: everyone is focused on themselves and their offspring first which is completely natural. I’m not going to (as I see it) choose to sacrifice or limit my child’s chances of succeeding in life (whatever that means) for the sake of some unknown child on the other side of the world or a few generations forward.

So it’s going to be pretty shit for many people and nations, governments and individuals are going to react to the changes as they arise. Individuals will move, in massive numbers, as their own countries become uninhabitable due to increasingly extreme weather - and governments will try to stop them because their voters will demand it. Life is going to get more and more expensive, and inequality will increase. Those with access to money and resources will be able to insulate themselves against the worse impacts of CC while the poor become poorer - and angrier. Wars are inevitable. How quickly all this happens? No one knows.

so I have a lot sympathy for the JSO activists: if the science as currently presented is correct, then we are fucked. Addressing CC should trump every single other thing that we might be concerned about because the impacts will be so devastating and far reaching… yet it’s all ‘out there’ happening somewhere else or sometime in the future, whereas I have so many things to with about and deal with Right Now!

Stop buying cheap tat from B&M etc made in a fossil fuelled factory in China somewhere and transported across the globe is my suggestion on the topic this morning. Lots more suggestions but we'd be here all day otherwise m.

The friends I have who Shreek loudest about global warming are the ones who have new cars every couple of years, several holidays a year including long haul,new clothes etc monthly.

My friends are the same. Regular long haul flights. Unnecessarily large cars with oversized engines. Constant new phones.

Then they bang on about climate change and how 'something must be done' - of course it needs to be something that doesn't impact them, such as wind farms blighting communities on the other side of the country or taxes for the plebs that they can easily afford to pay, etc.

I’ve got a degree in ecology, PhD in sustainable development. I know my way around a scientific paper. I believe the ipcc reports, I can see what’s coming.

but I am currently on holiday with my parents. I choose to live outside the UK, so we drove here over two days. We need a car as they live in the sticks, there’s no public transport. Today we are driving to the beach with family and my teenage children. We’ll have a bbq - we’re buying disposable bbqs from a big supermarket on the way, plus food in plastic wrapping, imported from god knows where. We’ll be eating sausages, burgers, kebabs, some salads, fruit and desserts. it’s going to be a great family event, especially as my kids get to spend time with my sister who they don’t often see.

but just look at what needs to be in place to enable this pretty simple, family event. The roads and other transport facilities need to be built and maintained to let us be physically close to each other. The buildings and infrastructure that needs to be built, provided and maintained for us to sleep, eat, shop, etc in. The different foods and other items that need to be produced, transported, stored and distributed/ sold. The sheer quantity and complexity of the infrastructure and logistics that needs to be in .

That’s why the ‘individual footprint’ idea is so misleading and so sneaky. I could choose not to do any of the above but it would be a big sacrifice in terms of my life, my time with family, my own personal enjoyment and satisfaction. It would make absolutely fuck all difference in terms of tackling CC. But that kind of choice, personal sacrifice, is what we are being told is the way to tackle CC - and that is bollocks. It’s distraction and division, nothing else.

I think this really nails the issue. When someone is a hypocrite, it undermines the outcome that you're trying to achieve.

I also had a friend like this - note the past tense. I was quite happy to carry on being friendly with her. But at the start of this year she took exception to me very gently asking her not to lecture me about climate change. She asked why I "didn't care about the environment".

I pointed out that she drives a massive SUV despite living in town and has a new car every three years, she did four long haul holidays last year, she buys new clothes each season, she eats a lot of meat and dairy, and her "treat" last autumn was installing a wood burning stove because she liked the cosiness.

All her choices, it's her life to live and I didn't make any criticism about it at the time. But that if she was going to lecture me about climate change, then she needed to take a look at her own choices and consider whether she should be making changes herself, because expecting everyone else to make sacrifices she herself was not prepared to consider, comes across as very hypocritical.

You've got to the crux if the issue. We know what needs to be done but we're dammed if we're going to do it.

This is the main issue.

Modern societies in the developed world are designed around fossil fuel resources. It’s hard to unpick it all.

The most cost effective means of combating climate change and damage to the environment of all types is through population control.

And the most cost effective means of population control is through female education.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth#:~:text=The%20global%20population%20has%20grown,and%2011.2%20billion%20by%202100.

The population control measures would need to be focused on countries where the carbon footprint per capita is high.
And even so, these measures would be too slow to have an effect in the time frame needed.

The average American has a carbon footprint that is more than 1000X that of the average Malawian.

I know this thread is old but it came up on my suggested. I'm thinking about this too.
I suppose what we could all do is start planting more? Gurilla gardening? Grow what you can and reduce what we get imported from here there and everywhere.
preserve our fruit and eat seasonally. (although i suppose the sugar would still he imported)

I have so many ideas 'in a perfect world...' I don't know what to do.
But if it helps, I'm thinking about those questions right now.

possibly the biggest impact would be to get children in schools under our belts. That way the ne t generation would do the hard part for us- if we get the kids of today saying "second hand toys for Xmas yay" or "I don't need this I already have one" then consumption would go down so fast and it would be easy.
how do you make less cool? I don't know.

Silver Spoon sugar is grown and processed in the UK - from Sugar Beet.