AIBU to be terrified by what David Attenborough has said?

[ArcheryAnnie]

He's just said about climate change ""if we don't take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon." He's not the only one saying this - it's now common currency amongst scientists, and indeed anyone paying attention.

www.theage.com.au/world/europe/civilisation-may-collapse-if-climate-change-ignored-attenborough-20181204-p50jzs.html?platform=hootsuite

There's no time left for pissing about. We've got to take radical action now. It isn't something that any of us can ignore.

"By the 2090s, it became clear that Homo sapiens were no longer the dominant species on the planet. Much of the day-to-day running of world affairs was now handled exclusively by ultra-fast, ultra-intelligent machines, robots and virtual entities.”

Well yes, it has to be taken with a massive pinch of salt! It's not a crystal ball, but it does show the up and coming technologies.

I think we need more people to be terrified.

This is our great grandchildren we are talking about.

And STILL no one gives a shit.

But it will be in a few generations time when we won’t be here to see it

"But it will be in a few generations time when we won’t be here to see it"

Think you need to read up on climate change. We're facing huge changes within our lifetime. Our children will 100% be impacted.

I don't think we need people to be terrified. Terror doesn't motivate people, it just leaves them helpless.

It's not a crystal ball, but it does show the up and coming technologies

TBH - I think sites like this one cause complacency and an attitude "the scientists will sort it out" Thats bollox. I agree with glasgow who said I think we need more people to be terrified.

We really do - we need to think that WE have to do something NOW! Not next week or next month - NOW. Scientists don't have to do it for us, politicians don't have to do it for us WE have to do it.

We've abdicated our responsibility for our lifestyles and behaviour. As long as we are alright today we aren't giving a thought for tomorrow - no-one can live long-term like that, be they individuals or nations. Our capitalist society is geared towards infinite growth on a finite planet. It just can't continue.

A lot of green ideas are great but you need to look at your overall footprint, recycling vegan diet etc is all undone by just one plane flight a year
No, nothing’s ‘undone’! Every positive change is a net gain. We’re all here now, so we’re going to be making some kind of impact on the planet and we’ll all have to make choices about how we want to live our lives. A lot of people seem to have reached the point where they’re thinking more about their impact but no one’s going to be perfect all the time because that’s just not possible.

I disagree that we need people to be terrified. Even Christiana Figueres, who is behind the Paris climate agreement, has talked about motivating people with action, rather than paralysing them with terror. She says it just makes people helpless, which obviously leads to inaction.

I don't think relying on technology is lazy - all the data we have shows that it's about the only thing we have at this point. Even if we stopped burning fossil fuels NOW we know that warming will continue.

I have been turning off my
Lights more

It really hammered it didn’t it ? And yet leave the house and all you see is litter , overflowing bins and the lights on

And Xmas waste is a coming

I don’t know what the answer is . The devastation wrought in a few short years

But we are all so stuck in our ways

Flying
Consuming
Plastic
New Phones
Buying shit we don’t need
Consuming power

It does feel overwhelming, but there are things that can be done, and what we eat is emerging as the biggest thing an individual can change.

One study suggested that if Americans swapped beef for beans and did not change any other aspect of their lifestyle that would be enough pretty much to meet US emissions targets: www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/08/if-everyone-ate-beans-instead-of-beef/535536/

Yes, there's a lot that is up to governments, but what we eat is within our own control, and the principle is fairly simple - the more plant-based you eat the better. Reduce meat and dairy. A lot of the IPCC scientists have been pointing to this as the most important behavioural change - more important than transport, say. You don't have to go vegan of vegetarian, but cutting back on animal products is essential.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/10/huge-reduction-in-meat-eating-essential-to-avoid-climate-breakdown

It's something we can at least do in the west to give the planet a break while we work on the other stuff - cleaner energy etc. Norms do change, but it needs individuals to get on board first.

I really don’t get how people can be terrified about something that they will not be really affected by.

Almost everyone on this board will be dead before the shit hits the fan.

Those in the west, which most of us are, will also probably survive.

And being worried for uour kids - they could be hit by a bus tomorrow.

Someone can drop a Nuke on you tomorrow.

In the mean time we have 70-90 years on this earth so frankly I’m going to enjoy what time I have here to the max.

We’re all going to be dead one day - even you grandchildren and children - but the universe and earth will continue and in several
Billion years there be another dominant species on this Rocky planet.

"I really don’t get how people can be terrified about something that they will not be really affected by."

But we WILL be affected by climate change in our lifetime. It's already happening - in the UK we are insulated to a degree. Look outside your own country - it's already happening. If you don't think this will have a knock-on effect on the way we live (eg migration, food prices, security) you have your head in the sand.

I've just started listening to an audiobook on this, called Active Hope by Joanna Macy. She talks about three stories we tell ourselves, to give meaning to what we're living through:

'Business as usual' - i.e. the pursuit of endless growth and GDP. Favoured by people who want to carry on as if there's no problem. Essentially it's the 'lalala I can't hear you' approach.

'The great unravelling' - basically the stories we're all aware of around economic decline, resource depletion, climate change, social division & war, mass extinctions etc. She talks about the need to express our grief at what's happening to the world. But there's also a danger of becoming so terrified by all this we become stuck, rather than letting the terror and grief move through us and allowing ourselves to move on to what she terms:

'The Great Turning' - a shift away from our current industrial system to a life-sustaining system. There are many people and organisations out there already working towards this, but all of us have a part to play.

I found this talk is really inspiring:

I don't think it's good enough to say there's nothing we can do, that it's other people, or other countries, or politicians etc who need to sort it out. We have to start with ourselves, whatever we can do. If our politicians aren't listening, we have to make them listen. There's groups like extinction rebellion starting up trying to do this. If companies aren't listening, we have a choice, we can take our money elsewhere. It takes no time to switch to renewable energy for example. I switched over the Ecotricity and it was so easy (plus got a refund from previous supplier.) I know some people will say that's the tiniest drop in the ocean, and perhaps by itself it is, but what if every single person on this thread switched and got one other person to switch and then they did the same and so on. If people started switching in their tens or hundreds of thousands, that would make a difference. See the link WalnutToast put up re cutting back on meat and dairy.

Also, Joanna Macy suggests reading Active Hope with other people if anyone's interested?

whatdoesitmatter you are the kind of person i really struggle with. Zero responsibility for future generations and grab all you can attitude. It’s so depressing how selfish humans are.

I do like how this thread is ending more positively though

I think we are screwed but im not scared. As a species we dont deserve to thrive if we destroy our own planet.
Its very sad...just hoping sometjing amazing will happen to reverse the damage.

I think even if we do become extinct then life will develop again...

I actually think extinction of the human race would be the best thing to happen to this planet and every other creature on it.

Not about to commit suicide to help it along as I have the same survival instinct as everyone else. Plus I’d hate to die before I see how several things play out and how they wrap up
Some tv series I’m watching.

But I don’t really want to see humans survive too much longer.

While an individual not driving, reducing consumption and petitioning their MP for cleaner, efficient public transport feels futile, it would start to change things if we all did it.

Hey Wonky , I'm in. Maybe we can have a thread? I first connected with Deep Ecology in the early 90s and feel it holds powerful keys to intrinsic, empowered motivation and sustainable change.

I’m environmental as fuck (by accident rather than design so I don’t really get bragging rights for it), but no species lasts forever.

I don’t think the vast vast vast majority of people will even attempt to make changes until we’re too far gone and the weather system has gone completely to shit and food production etc. starts falling apart.

I’ll keep doing the ‘pro environment’ thing in the meantime, but I won’t hold my breath on seeing some huge change.

Change is hard. Think of all the people who keep eating sugar after a diabetes diagnosis (and subsequently lose their vision and/or feet), keep smoking despite the lung cancer risk, use tanning beds even though it’s linked to melanoma (one of the worst cancers out there) and premature aging.

People would rather die than change these habits.

Getting people to change their lifestyles in ways that are less convenient (public transport, rinsing the recycling) and less enjoyable (less meat and dairy, fewer foreign holidays, less energy and water usage) for some undefined future they may not be around to see anyway is nigh on impossible.

I'm saddened and sickened by what we are doing to our beautiful planet.And also by the attitude that there's no point making even the smallest changes-surely if enough people modified their lifestyle, and rather than being terrified got galvanised into collective action we could start to redress or even reverse some of the damage we've all done.
David Attenborough's speech should have been on the front page of every national newspaper.It is time we woke up.And as someone with grown DCs and grandchildren I'm conscious ,and rather ashamed,of the resources I've used up so far.But I can try much harder to reduce consumption and wastefulness,and pass that message on to future generations of my family.
What is also somewhat depressing is that despite a good response to this thread(And thanks OP for starting it)discussions about Meghan Markle and what presents are acceptable for Xmas generate twice as many responses.
Before someone comes along to tell me to lighten up and live for today I am getting on with life and conten day to day in my work and personal life-but also much more conscious of my time left and the legacy we all leave.

There's a lot on this thread about the sacrifices people have to make and how they won't be prepared to do it.

But tackling climate change is not necessarily about reducing living standards, and need not be horribly costly.

The economist Joseph Stiglitz suggests the costs would be relatively small - at most 2% of GDP - and more importantly, that spending the money to tackle climate change would actually create jobs and prosperity. There will lots of jobs in terms of creating forests, green energy projects, public transport infrastructure, etc etc.

By contrast the economic costs of not tackling climate change will be massive. (One small example - just think about the costs of the recent California wildfires - the massive destruction of property and insurance pay outs.)

What is important is that the costs of changing the economy are not all landed on certain groups, who will then oppose any attempts to tackle climate change - eg as is happening in France at the moment, as people who already feel they are struggling to get by oppose fuel taxes. There is an article in the Financial Times today about how carbon taxes have to be combined with pay outs to people/countries who do the most to reduce their carbon, and there are schemes designed for doing this.

As individuals, its not about living a deprived life either. Better public transport would massively improve life for many. Eating less meat will improve individual health for many Westerners. Creating and preserving green space is massively good for mental health and a sense of wellbeing, as well as being good for the planet. Many people in richer societies are getting fed up with "stuff" anyway and choosing to spend more on eating out, yoga classes, cleaners, personal trainers etc - there are all kinds of life-enhancing ways of spending money which are good for the local economy, good for employment and aren't high carbon.

Furthermore, as we invest in new technologies, things like air travel etc will likely become much less damaging, and there are prospects for low carbon artificial meats etc - but we need to make sure we can get to that point, and not trash the planet first.

All these people on here saying ‘why should I worry, I’ll be dead before it happens’ must be living in a fucking bubble.

Do none of you watch the news? Melting polar ice, ever lengthening wildfire seasons and record breaking heatwaves meaning parts of the world are already nearly unliveable at the hottest times of the year. This is all happening NOW.

I mean I don’t even have children or potential grandchildren and I still worry about climate change. One of the reasons I’m unlikely to have children is for environmental reasons. I’ve barely told anyone this in real life as I suspect most people would look at me like I have two heads.

Maybe it’s because I live in Australia and it is hitting us harder here (and I hated summer here anyway.)

Anyway it’s good to know others see the same things I do. I don’t know what the answer is. Just hoping someone else will fix it won’t work.

To kikisparks - i'm an academic on the subject (independent). I'm well aware of the components of livestock diets and '40% of crops fed' yada yada is misleading. A study came out recently which evaluated academic consensus on damage done by grazing livestock and the split was 50/50 whereas most would have you believe its more like the scientific consensus on climate change. I'm not going to do your googling for you. One thing is for sure, conservation grazing happens. Conservation aubergines do not.

If big business doesnt love 'plant based' why are slebs like di caprio and branson funding it? Are they giving up non business air travel? Have they donated all extra property to needy families and gone to live in eco pods in the woods and knit their own knickers? No. It's a money spinner for them. There is far more profit in agri-business owned, highly processed plant based alternatives from a lab, than unpredictable supplies of fresh meat from independently owned farms which are still subject to the vagaries of weather etc. - because they are dealing with natural eco systems. Granted, not all livestick is reared this way, but binning the lot and swapping it for soilwrecking imported veg is madness.

I have no doubt plant based will 'win', but it doesn't make it right. It'll be for businesss reasons rather than environmental ones.

Hi AdultHumanFemale - hooray, yes that would be great! I'll put something up in climate change and link back. Deep ecology is something I've only just started to read about, but it is all making so much sense to me and I already feel more energised to do something.

To add to people saying this is already happening now, what about extinctions? This report says 'humanity has wiped out 60% of animal populations since 1970.' It seems this is due to destruction of habitats, mainly to create farmland. I struggle to understand a mindset that simply doesn't care about that, even if it's purely from a self-interest perspective rather than mourning the loss in and of itself. www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity-wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds

@OnlineAlienator

The IPCC itself is saying meat consumption needs to fall to tackle climate change. At the moment it is actually rising globally.

This big recent study says even the least sustainable plant-based foods are better than animal-based foods.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth