With forest fires burning across Europe and another heatwave on the horizon, how much are you personally willing to change your lifestyle for future generations?

[Chocolatefreak]

Genuine question for discussion purposes. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that you believe tackling climate change and environmental degradation is a shared responsibility, involving not only governments and corporations but also individuals.

With that in mind, how much would you personally be willing to change your lifestyle if it meant giving future generations, including your children and grandchildren, a better chance of living on a stable, healthy planet?

For example, would you be willing to:

a) Dramatically reduce your consumption of meat and dairy, so that more agricultural land could be used to grow food directly for people rather than feed livestock?
b) Restrict air travel and most car journeys to occasions where they are genuinely necessary?
c) Stop buying more than you need, only getting clothing, gadgets, and other consumables only when they are genuinely necessary rather than for convenience or entertainment?

If not, where would you draw the line? What changes would you consider reasonable, and which would you consider asking too much?

Again and how many miles currently people travel is determined by their disposable income, their willingness to travel and the prices. Not by a government rationing system (which would be incredibly inefficient and decimate the aviation sector)

Margaret in Tunbridge Wells
eating was dairy and shopping out of oxfam won’t make a jot of difference.

its pissing in the wind.

we need global and immediate action and that’s where to focus our attention and about the only thing I personally can do is protect and vote accordingly.

I used to feel like you OP. I didn’t fly for years. Then i saw the fuckers fly in on private jets for their COP summits to discuss global warming….

The kind of life you have refusing to fly when the planes fly anyway. The places you'll never be able to see. What a life.

Ok, and I also don't owe it to you to spend my day re-explaining while you decide whether you think Aristolean ethics are plausible, so have a nice day.

?

That is a weird way to engage in a discussion on a discussion board. You don’t owe it to anyone to discuss here.

Haven’t read the full thread, but we do none of the above. We eat meat, travel when we want and fly when we want. We do have an electric car and are getting solar panels, but that’s because it makes sense financially. I think the big issue here is that people have “main character syndrome”, they think that their actions will make a difference.

UK emissions account are just under 1% of global emissions. If we all did the right thing for the environment and stopped being alive and consuming anything (a little extreme I know…), the normal rise in global emissions would replace uk emissions in just 1 year. Uk emissions mattered at the start of the Industrial Revolution but are irrelevant now.

its china and the US that need to fix this, unfortunately in any real sense, anything that the UK does is just virtue signalling to say “well at least we tried” when the climate crisis really kicks in. It’s a real shame but, sometime you’ve got to be realistic. And when we’re living in domes and eating protein cubes, at least we’ll be able to think back to all the lovely burgers and holidays that we had in the before times.

If i did B I'd be out of a job (along with many others in my industry) but then I suppose i could do C as I'd have no money.

You're suggestions are all well and good but what you're proposing would decimate industries and put thousands if not millions of people out of work.

The UK has decarbonised a lot already.

So? This thread is about what one would be willing to do if it saved the environment for future generations. I'd be willing to support various forms of rationing. It's just a thought exercise in which rich people could still buy ration tokens from poor people if poor people wanted to sell theirs, but only a sustainable limit of flights would exist.

Can't say I'd care too much about the aviation industry being impacted - the world economy survived for millenia without planes existing.

It is not common in the US to line dry laundry. In fact it is forbidden in many (most) communities by the HOA. I've often wondered about their fascination with dryers since I'd love a big backyard with great sunshine to dry MY laundry outdoors year round! But no, even though they can, they are not allowed to. Disturbs the aesthetic of the HOA community I suppose. That's where things are ridiculous. I understand apartment living and the need for a laundry room/dryer in the home in that scenario.

And US are big into cruising and flying and driving massive distances (no choice in many cases), and as pp said, they will drive their kids to the end of the driveway to catch the school bus. But maybe that's to prevent the kids from being shot en route. Lots of things being done in the US that we are amazed at when we are trying to do our little bit every day (well a lot of us!).

I find it sadly pointless me making those changes when the reality is most of the pollution comes from the incessant burning of fossil fuels , deforestation etc over which little old me has absolutely no control.Happy to do my bit, but major governments need todo theirs too

Done abc already, though we’re not a fully vegetarian family (one meat eater) and still fly a bit but never long haul. Most holidays we’ve done taking our electric car.

however these are all relatively small drops in the oceans
What we have also done which has far more impact on our personal carbon footprint
d- super-insulated our home
e- whacked solar on the roof
f- got an EV (powered by the solar in summer and mostly by renewable energy in winter)
g- got a heatpump, also almost entirely powered by renewables
h- switched off the gas

I think you should be asking who is prepared to do the above. The answer is very few (nobody we know has done all of this), partly cos it’s so bloody expensive. Yes we benefitted from government grants but as things stand you really have to WANT to make these changes

Cows and sheep eat grass so your point is not true as far as I’m concerned.

Commercial aviation is perfectly fine. It's only contributes to 3.5% of warming. The environment will be fine. The best form of "rationing" we have now is the price system and the market economy that allocates scare resources.

I care about the aviation industry. The skilled pilots working as well. They have jobs to do and families to feed. Cabin crew and ATC staff as well. I'd rather live in the 21st century than in ancient times..of course things are better now than they were in the past.

It's too late. All these things might have made a difference 20/30/40 years ago but we weren't aware then (and probably wouldn't have done anything anyway). It's way too late now. Tell your children not to have children, that's the only useful thing you can do.

FFS.Terrifying children and young people into hopelessness and doomerism is exactly the worst thing to do, and what Big Oil wants.

Done!
I hope they listen.

Only eat meat but it comes from a farm 2 miles away. Much better than the avocado eaters

So you are happy to lie? Look at France and Spain today. Fires so large they are altering the weather. Look at any statistic – life on earth is going to get worse for everyone. Even the homes of the superrich will burn.

But hey, let's not frighten the children...

If any of us really cared we would abandon sites like MN and not do anything that that was not completely basic at all. You can buy your shoes made out of recycled tyres and only eat soya but people are kidding themselves. If people hardly consume any resources because they are dirt poor they are doing the world a favour.

Thomas Malthus predicted these future issues way back in the1700’s running out of resources due to over population. There is a lot of debate that he was wrong but there were certainly many truths.

I gave up meat but it was to costly to make different meals to the rest of the family so I’ve gone back. I live rurally so I need a car and only fly once a year generally. C I do already. I have cut back on clothes and only buy when needed rather than fashion items. I have looked at buying second hand but have never found anything I like/need.

They aren't happening spontaneously. 90% are human caused. Not intentionally by arsonists yes but by mechanical farm failures or cigarette butts being caught.

If this isn't going to change they'll look at landscape redesign.

Exactly this.

We have solar panels which means so no longer taking from the planet here in the UK BUT big flipping BUT the solar panels were probably made in China so I have to go the extra mile to offset the carbon footprint for the build of my solar panels

And for those moaning about China and they are installing a heck of a lot of solar panels in their own country - I'm not sure about India. Majority of the most efficient electric cars are being manufactured in China.

I also hate this attitude that we shouldn't do anything as others are worse, it doesn't cut it with me I'm afraid

Landscape redesign?

Do you mean removing all the stuff that might burn? Like trees?