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?

Do you have children?

There is a broad and satisfying sliding scale between sitting in a room and flying to Switzerland 'because you wanted to'.

There is a less destructive way to lead a life and be content.

You may not enjoy travel. I really do.

Just like some people enjoy meat and I don't.

I love our trips back and we have so much fun. My city actually has pleasant and temperate climate all year round. If we're passing the blame game it's India that's emitting a lot of CO2. Poor people need energy to survive as well. Lots of the rooms have AC and/or fans. Outside we carry water and wear a hat. It was actually cooler in my city in India than it was in London during our heatwave!

But then you wouldn't get your selfie in front of that glacier before it disappears altogether 😱

It’s actually a form of torture. Humans can’t survive in isolation in a room. We go mad.

Interesting first ever post on MN.

No, no, and no. I don't have children, which is my contribution to the environment. I need meat and dairy, and I need to be able to fly (I can't drive because I have epilepsy) I do try to limit my consumption of 'stuff', but that's as far as it goes.

But regardless we have lost and continue to lose agricultural land to very large scale solar farms.

For me the argument falls down when we build these on land that once was producing either human or animal food.

I enjoy travel. I enjoy it a lot.

I don't enjoy flying very much at all. But that's OK, because travelling and flying are not, in fact, synonymous.

It’s costing me less to go for four days in Tenerife in November than for four days in Liverpool in September. Most people do enjoy and have a good time on their holidays.

No to a and b. I don't buy clothing or the latest gadgets or tatt or anything I don't genuinely need. I am not materialistic and never have been. I don't do these things to help the environment, it's just me and how I choose to live my life and spend my money. I really worry about the future for my children but not enough to do more, obviously. Perhaps because I believe we are too far gone to make any actual difference on an individual level.

We already do b) and c).

Most of the meat/dairy we buy is from animals raised on land around here which isn't suitable for arable crops. And their manure helps to grow the arable crops. So no to a), not because I don't care about future generations but because it wouldn't help them.

I'm growing more of our food at home year by year, and I make use of food left at the end of the community fridge sessions which would otherwise get wasted, plus we use pretty much every bit of the animal as much as possible when eating meat or fish, so the carbon footprint of our food is very significantly below average.

We do (b). We deliberately chose a house within walking distance of the kids' schools, get the train to work and also are taking the train across Europe this summer. I have a tiny car for journeys where public transport isn't possible.

We do eat meat, I would willingly reduce this but would struggle to remove it entirely.

My amazon habit is the biggest problem.

China has over a thousand coal fired power stations and give the green light to something like another 2 a month, the UK has none. I'd do more if I though it would make a difference. It won't.

I'm Spanish. As a columnist put it today, climate change is the child that pointed out that the Emperor has no clothes – that is, the utter incompetence of this and previ9us government's when it came to managing fire risks. A vast portion of Spain is empty, locals no longer take care of the land as they used to, and armchair environmentalists have passed laws that prevent things like clearing the undergrowth and so on. There is a huge amount of uncleared biomass that will light up at the slightest spark given the right conditions – such as a heatwave.

As this writer also put it, "climatism" – blaming everything exclusively on climate change (real as it is) – is just as bad as denialism. Rural areas have been abandoned amd we are paying the price.

I personally am not willing to do any of those things until the large corporations sort themselves out.
I do think governments should do more - western governments could very easily limit meat production and stop the influx of cheap shit into Europe from china within weeks

I'll probably cut down on the firework parties on dry moorland, ill-judged barbeques in the woods, and flicking my fag butts out of the car window.

Yeah we tried its made really difficult..

cloth nappies / one ev car / stopped at 2 kids / less meat dd is veggie so we mostly just have one meat meal at the weekend. Cycle locally not car. Try to minimise plastic via veg box and refillable toiletries kitchen cleaner etc.

Tried to train or drive on summer holidays but driving was super uncomfortable and train weirdly expensive. Flying is made so easy and cheap that needs to change. We lapsed back into flying as train for 4 of us to southern Europe was madly expensive compared to flying. Not prepared to give up on holidays. Don’t go long haul though.

Really encouraging to see so many people who are making changes on here.

That’s a bit difficult to follow. How many is “too many”. The earth does not need more people in it. Having fewer children reduces the carbon emissions, particularly in the industrialised countries. In the long term fewer people on the planet reduces the legacy effects of over consumption.

Not willing to change much, or any, of my personal behaviour.

Very willing to pay properly carbon-priced increments to offset (or double- or triple- offset) my carbon footprint.

Make it easy for people and more people will do it, with the added benefit that the funds raised can be allocated to the most urgent causes (the ones where they can remove the most carbon).

See the graph above. India's per capital carbon footprint at 2.2 is way less than the UK's at 4.53. And India's poor are really suffering with climate change: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/20/extreme-heat-india-outdoor-workers-poverty

We don't have a choice. There is no version of the world in which my kids can go back to the summers I had as a child, jumping on a plane to see family in Bordeaux (!).

We are vegetarian. I don't fly and if I took my kids away it would be to Scotland or Ireland by ferry. Increasingly it just feels stupid and crass to talk to people who are jetting off for their fourth overseas break in a year. I get angry at the sheer awful waste of the way we live and people being forced back to the office commute when heat is a biodiversity disaster and will determine human welfare everywhere. We are so shortsighted and I am afraid for my children, and what our selfishness means for the world they will inherit. And yes, I am happy to change how I live and I don't care if Americans drive SUVs or whatever. A moral question doesn't wait on 'everyone else has to go first.'

It's really very encouraging to see how most people on here see this as a collective effort, and everyone's responsibility.

To be honest, if this wasn't the case for Mumsnet users, who have above the average level of education, it would be extremely worrying...