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?

How?

By building new infrastructure and upgrading existing infrastructure

d) I don’t have children.
e) Are the super-rich giving up their private jets, Range Rovers, travelling by train instead of car and plane etc? Can pigs fly?

Me flying or not flying to holiday to Zurich isn't going to end the world

Honestly ?I can say I shall do this and that

but unlikely to make any big differences to save the planet, as with most people we make small changes feel better that we are doing something and get on with life and leave it up to governments to sort out

You are obviously trying to wind us up if you don't think that air travel is contributing to global warming, but I'll bite.

You keep travelling but the Taj Mahal is going to look a bit unappealing when it has no water around it and the walls are black with the smoke from the fires burning around it but it's okay as you got to see it before it was destroyed

Commercial air travel is 3.5% of warming. We went to the Taj Mahal and to Agra in August in peak Indian summer. It was very uncomfortable, extremely hot. But it's fine. We handled it.

If I see one more person post that the UK doesn’t need to do anything to reduce its own emissions until China does, I’m going to scream!

Firstly, China is investing heavily in renewable energy. Secondly, we could all reduce the amount of unnecessary stuff we buy which is made in China and imported to the UK. This is part of our carbon footprint, but conveniently the UK government does not count it as ours.

The Tories caused an explosion of offshore wind

Not particularly in the context of getting on a plane and being personally responsible for it chucking out my own body weight in carbon emissions per hour, plus sulphur dioxide, soot, noise, damage to habitats, etc, for the purposes of swimming, eating and looking at things, no.

Nobody can be perfect, I'm not and never pretend to be, but roughly 4 tonnes' fewer emissions than average after allowing for the environmental impact of the medication that keeps me alive and functioning isn't a bad thing - perfection is the enemy of progress.

Well that was lovely for you but if we don't control global warming it may not be possible to travel to these places as it will be unbearably hot but at least you will have your memories

And 3.5% s quite a lot

Quite frankly, I don't give a toss about the human race dying out as the mess the planet is in is our fault anyway, but I do worry about animals, habitat etc all of which had nothing to do with the situation. Hopefully the planet will fight back and reduce our numbers at some stage.

I deliberately chose not to have children many years ago (personally my best decision ever), I don't eat meat and I moved to a lovely part of Europe so I don't need to go on holiday again - I travelled enough when I was younger and nowadays everywhere is knee deep in tourists anyway! I also use public transport as much as I can and hardly ever buy clothes. I will continue to do my bit for all the life forms on the planet but there is loads more I could still do I know.

TBH I do (or not do) much of that already. I hate airports, planes and esp. jet lag. Dh is still keen on hopping on planes to anywhere though - whole extended family except me is off to S Spain soon - I think they’re mad, in August, excessive heat and crowds!

I used often to have a go at dh for constantly running the cold tap while brushing his teeth, but have given up…
I use public transport (free for me) a lot rather than the car but dh will still take my car for short trips, when he could just hop on a free bus. And have to pay to park…

I don’t buy unnecessary ‘stuff’ any more, and only the clothes and shoes I actually need.

I will not economise on heating in cold weather, though.

I work from home and when I go to work I go by train (and walk to the station). I have a hybrid car. I cycle and walk to places when I can, at least this time of year (driving is more of a necessity for women due to safety concerns - I am sure most women would rather drive somewhere in the dark than walk).

I am not vegetarian but I don't eat much meat. Dairy from the UK fine anyway, we don't have the massive farms that they have in the US.

One thing that everyone can do is switch to a renewable electricity tariff. The electricity you actually use may not be renewable but the electricity it is replaced with on the grid will be.

I haven't flown this year. As for "what if I wanted to go to Cyprus" I don't so that's not an issue. However, even a ferry to Ireland is impractical from where we live as we'd have to drive all the way to Fishguard or Holyhead.

We need Motorail back! Then we could take our car to Scotland.

I agree - so much of our climate crisis is caused by people wanting status symbols - cars - dogs - holidays - the latest tech - and rich people (men) want large families to prove their virility and the fact they can support so many kids.

I suspect climate change is irreversible now. But we can do more to mitigate it, and we can do more locally. Turn your engines off when you are waiting for your children to come out of school. "Nobody"* works Fridays anymore, so if you are "nobody" walk to school to collect your child on a Friday (or on another NWD or WFH day). Don't have bonfires or fireworks.

Some of this stuff is really simple - and it doesn't have a negative impact on your quality of life at all.

*my local station car park is only ever half full on a Friday

The idea is to choose to do things with care, rather than for the sake of it. And given Brexit and the fact that our youngster can't work in the EU anymore, they have to fly somewhere to do it.

But that is a considered decision rather than getting on a Ryanair flight for a stag do when you could have just as good a time in a UK city.

I thought another easy win too - people could mow their lawns a lot less. Better for wildlife, saves energy (electricity or petrol) and saves noise pollution!

Oh well. That's your choice. You can stay at home. The rest of us will go travel occasionally and explore the world. We loved our trip to Switzerland and saw what a lovely country it is. We flew to ME over Christmas and enjoyed our time there so much. What a lovely cultural hub. And felt so safe. Hopefully next year we can return to India and see our family again.

I went when it was "unbearably hot". I'd not do it again though. Don't really like North. It will be hotter yes, but we're the human race we have ingenuity to adapt and overcome.

I don't get the multitude of MNers who are like "oh I hate humans I only care about the poor animals". My DS is a voracious meat eater and loves eating them. Especially with some nice spices.

They can. They need to apply for a visa. It's not a god given right. If people want to have a stag do in Europe, go for it!

For a different thread but why would they be granted a visa when the Schengen area has the residents of about 30 countries to choose from.

And the "go for it" comment illustrates why we are in the mess we are in. We can't be perfect but we can try to make more considered decisions and not destroy the planet when there are other options.

I forgot to comment on the OP's point 3. I try not to buy crap for the sake of it. A lot of my clothes come from ebay. I would really like to buy a new running watch with my mini work bonus this year but am struggling to justify it when my existing one works just fine.

That was what put me off Meghan and Harry originally - lecturing the rest of us on how to be eco-friendly when they were flying around in private jets.

People from outside the EU still manage to get work visas in the EU. People do immigrate and naturalise.

There are things called trains. If I decide I want to go somewhere, there are alternatives to flying that carry a lower impact - and places that have a significantly lower impact than resorts in the ME.