To find it strange no one is talking about this?

[FruminousBandersnatch]

The latest IPCC report - a result of looking at 6000 climate change studies. It’s horrifying. The world as we know it is going to change so quickly and not enough is being done.

Why is this not being discussed here?

Dottsimum18 Totally agree with what you say especially regarding overpopulation. Been saying that for years.

Things that are too big, scared are ignored. Ostriches come to mind!
We all need to think of small steps we can do rather than worrying about the horror of doing nothing!
For me it not using plastic bags, eating less meat and turning down my heating.
Other suggestions welcomed!

The population of the planet has been wiped out several times by climate change. So if that's it for humans then there you go. Something else will replace us.
I am not living like a peasant ( grew up poor and cold) just to drag the human race on another few hundred years.

Bump

Bigchair I swing from thinking the same to thinking we should really be proactive in doing some.

"The super rich all have large ocean going yachts for a reason."

I read that and thought of the film waterworld

I for one don't know who or what to believe when we are told things like this, also what is going to be done about it? We get told stuff but the world carries on as normal. Unless every country and person did something nothing will make a difference

In reality domestic recycling, turning heating down etc. is simply throwing deck chairs off the Titanic.

We need to reduce emissions to 18th Century levels and embrace the joys that would bring in the form of things like reduced travelling, poorer health, increased infant mortality etc.

No so appealing

I sort of agree that perhaps we as humans have a finite time on the planet and even if it was not climate change then it would be war or something similar.

In terms of reducing population limiting tax credits/child benefits/nhs/free education could prevent people having too many children but would be hugely unpopular and unfair. I also don't see how in a free society you can 'tell' someone to have fewer children unless there is some sort of financial penalty for doing so.

Also, most of us are hypocritical. Would the person saying to limit children be happy to ban overseas holidays, nice clothes and extravagant lifestyle. Look at Leo DiCaprio and his environment awareness campaigns - flying in by private jet etc..

Not true that reducing carbon means a lower quality of life.

We did the WWF calculator to estimate our carbon output and we were at 85% (100% is the share we would each have for the UK to meet their targets of reducing carbon output by 2020), we decided this wasn't good enough and have reduced to 70% by making lifestyle changes, and our quality of life has gone up massively.

Buying shit we don't need, eating lots of dairy and red meat, sedentary travel, eating fruit flown in from Peru, saving a few quid on electricity bill that we could spare, none of these things were making us happier or healthier. I despair that people would choose to prioritise these things over our childrens' futures.

Hard to reduce much further as a major contributor is the way things are organised in the UK, but we are trying.

footprint.wwf.org.uk/carbon/footprint

One easy thing we did recently was switch to a renewable energy firm, they are competitively priced.

So many people just don’t care what’s happening to the planet, the thread a few days ago about having your heating on so you can wear a t shirt and shorts in your house made me want to cringe, selfish entitled people who think putting on a jumper is a hardship, fuck the planet let’s just turn the heating up cos I want to wear shorts in my house 🙄

Mydogisthebest - try wholearth peanut butter - no palm oil in there.
We do our best. Being brought up in an ecologically aware family I’ve been aware of this since the 80s. If humanity is wilfully heading towards self- destruct the I am going with as clear a conscience as possible. We’re not well off as a family, which (oddly) helps.
One child, one car, small modern house, mainly meat-free, not much buying of ‘stuff’, ecologically aware food shopping as far as possible, eg buying British apples at the moment
I think the thing people find it hard to get their heads around is that the current system is not set up to take into account that the planet is finite and governments and businesses behave as if continual expansion is not only possible, but actually desirable.

YANBU

And the biggest problem is over population

Which is the thing that no one is willing to talk about!

Not true that reducing carbon means a lower quality of life

That wasn't quite what i said, i said quality of life would be lower if we reduced emissions to the required level. The changes you made to your life are still of the Titanic deck chair magnitude unfortunately.

Hard to reduce much further as a major contributor is the way things are organised in the UK, but we are trying

If by "organised" you mean 24/7 emergency care, national road and rail networks, telecommunications etc., then yes I agree.

I thought the major contributors were agriculture, intensive farming, air travel and industry?

It feels like a complete waste of time and attempt to distract people, telling the, that their efforts might have an impact. They won’t.

But it means the people that give a shit end up wasting their time doing the little things instead of focusing the fear and need to change on the people who can actually effect change that would matter...but then I think money will always win out in those people’s decisi’ns until it’s dire enough to be too late.

Surely one of the things governments could do is invest in public transport? Where we live in the North of England traffic is absolutely diabolical as public transport is virtually non existent and where it does exist it is unreliable and expensive.

Likewise, public transport around here is an absolute joke. It's all very well for people living in London and other big cities where billions have been spent on trams/underground/buses etc saying people should use cars less - it's OK for them, they have alternatives. HS2 needs to be stopped immediately and the same amount of money spent on hundreds of more local public transport improvements - it would make a massive difference and help reduce car dependancy. No point making life harder for drivers and increasing fuel costs if there's no viable alternative.

I think being vocal (to the right people) about supporting environmentally friendly options can help influence bigger names, which can make a bigger change.

Not buying a coffee on the way to work might not change the world by saving on the odd disposable cup, though it will obviously make a proportionate difference. But when a lot if people ask for refillable cups then chains and manufacturers can take action. Likewise plastic straws moving to paper.

A few years ago it wasn't usual to use your own carrier bag, now people do bring back their bags for life or at least stop and think, and the thin bags break down more quickly.

I realise there's far more going on in those scenarios though, and other huge problems to tackle than the ones in my quick examples which aren't as easily influenced.

At present, although road fuel is charged excise duty, which represents a substantial proportion of the pump price paid by motorists, aviation kerosene (AVTUR) which is used in jet engines is exempt from this tax. ... Second, it is likely that even an EU-wide agreement on taxing this fuel would have a limited effect.2 Oct 2012
Taxing aviation fuel - Parliament.uk
researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN00523/SN00523.pdf

Air fuel isn't even taxed.

www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/jul/17/neoliberalism-has-conned-us-into-fighting-climate-change-as-individuals?CMP=share_btn_fb

Yes, we can make small changes as consumers, but, as pointed out upthread, we need massive changes in regulation and/ or investment to make a proper difference. But there is one really, easy, simple thing you can do. Just go to the bloody polling booth at the next election and vote Labour. They've been banging on about investing in renewable energy (and banning fracking, etc etc etc) for years.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-big-six-energy-companies-nationalisation-public-ownership-fracking-ban-climate-change-a8204031.html

I thought the major contributors were agriculture, intensive farming, air travel and industry?

Yes that's what I am led to believe.

I've been working in the climate change field for fifteen years, and despair at the increasingly bleak IPCC reports.

I don't really talk about it, but nearly everyone I know works on it, so we try to talk about other things outside of work :-/

I'm currently working on a climate change adaptation programme, so that seems like the most useful response right now as there's no way we're not going to feel the increasing effects of it year on year.

It depends how serious people are going to accept change. This is a sensitive point.

On the population issue, even just in the Western world our aim is to live longer - NHS, new treatments, save lives at birth, vaccinations, IVF (twins are ridiculously relatively commonplace), surrogacy etc. Which government is going to fall on their sword and say to their electorate, sorry guys important outcomes take tough measures?

Oh and then the rest of the world won’t/can’t tow the line with population either.

I think nature is incredibly strong and finds a way and I think it will bite the human race on the bum big time in a few generations time.

And I’m not a “greeny” either.

Doris - you know better than me. We’re going to have to whack population growth on the head aren’t we? We have no influence and can do nothing about the massive population growth in Africa can we? By “we” I mean the U.K. Any assistance is a drop in the ocean. Am I right?

Yesterday 10:45 PippilottaLongstocking

The change needs to start at the top. People reducing their own plastic waste only helps so much, the only real way to stop everyone using for example plastic carrier bags is to stop producing them...

Absolutely this
Before we had plastic bags, everyone had shopping baskets and string bags that could be carried in a handbag- the equivalent of the cloth bags lots of us are using now. For bigger shops, people packed their goods into cardboard boxes... I know the way we live/shop is different now, but it can easily be adapted with very little effort.

Hate bloody plastic bags. What’s the point in charging 5p for them? Just stop making them!

charging 5p for bags has drastically cut the numbers being produced. "Defra’s data for the year from 7 April 2016 to 6 April 2017 shows a very substantial fall of 83% in the number of single-use plastic carrier bags issued by the seven largest retailers to just 1.3 billion single-use plastic carrier bags." If the charge is double (and some shops are doing so) it will drop further.

Write/e-mail and nag your supermarkets about plastic and that too will drop.

More countries are investing in renewable energy www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/19/reasons-to-be-cheerful-full-switch-low-carbon-energy-in-sight

The first 200 mile electric car is now on sale - but wont be sold in Britain.

There is reason to hope but change is slow and the more little bits we all do the more chance there is of having time for technology to solve some of the problems. So now it's not throwing the deck chairs of the Titanic - more like launching lifeboats. They didnt take everyone but they saved more people than would have lived without them.