To ask what sacrifices you make for the environment

[HarryElephante]

So, do you make any? And I mean actual sacrifices. Not just putting recycling outside your front door or re-using old shopping bags.

And for the sake of this question, I will assume you agree we are harming the planet. If you don't agree that is for another thread!

I make annoyingly few sacrifices but am going to start.

I've not been on a plane since 1986 and that was just the one trip there and back
Don't have a car, don't eat meat

I don't know if not having children helps the environment, surely we need to produce the next generation of scientists to figure out how to live sustainably?

Hearhere, I'd settle for no more than 2 children. That is still below replacement rate (given not all of these children would end up having children themselves) and would, over time, lead to a reduction in population without feeling too much like a sacrifice.

@zoomies1 great! It’s my favourite too, so creamy.

Increased vegan meals, hardly ever have red meat.
Cycle/public transport where possible including my commute
Reduce plastic use as much as possible
Buy second hand clothes etc as much as possible and freecycle/sell/donate anything others might be able to use
Fly less - this one is hard. I fly a lot both for work and personal/family reasons. But I'm much more aware and look for other options plus I've started offsetting personal travel.

Cutting meat consumption would make little difference. The fact is that in the UK we have hill farms that can't produce much other than grass, which we can't eat. But sheep and hardy native breeds of cattle can convert it into meat, wool and leather.

The problem with agriculture is agribusiness and monocropping. Theres nothing wrong with old style mixed agriculture. It doesn't wring every drop of profit from the land, but we've been using it for hundreds of years without depleting the soil.

I buy local produce where possible; all of our eggs and milk and about half of our veg and meat. That means we have to limit what we eat to fit around whats in season, and we eat things like offal.
I've never owned a car, we use public transport.
We don't own many material possessions, and most of what we own is second hand.
We can make and mend quite a few things ourselves.
We keep an eye on our carbon footprint and try to avoid imported goods where possible.

Thats pretty much all you need to do because most pollution and problems is caused by industry, not individuals; so get canny about where you spend your money.

I think you are (all) missing the point here. The things being mentioned here are largely irrelevant.

Do you:

Expect clean hot / cold water when you turn on the tap?
Expect electric power when you turn on yr lights or yr oven or whatever at home?
Want to drive / cycle / walk on a surfaced road?
Live in a detached house, with garden?
Shop in a supermarket?
Shop online?

Think of the global infrastructure that goes into making these basics available to you. Then imagine how they can be made available to 11 billion people. Because they have just as much right to demand them as you do.

That’s why eating vegan, recycling plastic waste and using bamboo toothbrushes is totally irrelevant.

Cutting meat consumption would make little difference

If you did a modicum of research, you would soon realise how wrong you are here.

Again not sacrifices. I rarely fly, last holiday 6 years ago, I don't drive, I have 2 DC, I am low meat eater, I try to actively avoid palm oil, avocados, nestle products.
I pass on the DC decent clothes, use the rest for cleaning rags, I mainly do an eco or quick machine wash.
I could improve by buying less cleaning products, shampoo, body wash.

I live in Australia and only eat home-grown fresh produce, so eat seasonally, e.g no stone fruit/grapes now until December now. Very little meat, but mostly because it doesn't taste so good. Eco machine washes. Three minute showers. Most furniture second-hand/opshops. Avid nature strip shopper. Recycle clothes.

I run a car, but hard to avoid in my bit of Melbourne, but use it tactically to get as many tasks into one journey as possible.

Little meat, cloth nappies, cloth pads and a moon cup, keep cup for drinks, second hand when practicable, use little water and have an electric car for shorter everyday use (we live rurally). Have chickens and grow most of our own veg. Shop locally and wont buy anything in plastic. We recycle but try and have as limited waste as possible. We have a septic tank and are off the water mains so our house runs on tank water from rain. I do have 3 (nearly 4) children though

@BogstandardBelle eating plant based is not irrelevant. Think of the resources that go into keeping 56 billion animals alive and feeding them up to kill them, plus all the methane and waste they produce.

@TheInebriati if you look at the studies I posted a couple of pages back you’ll see the local and grass fed meat is still a major problem for the climate. Going plant based is the single biggest thing you can do.

@Hearhere we have 7 billion people. We could do with at least halving that, which if everyone had only 1 child on average (and we need a lot of zeros to counter those who have 4/5/6 etc) could eventually be a reality.

Of course we also have 56 billion livestock animals which is the immediate overpopulation problem.

@kikisparks As far as I am aware, that is not so much of a problem in most Western European countries, though, where the average amount of children is something like 1.8 - way below replacement rate. It is the wrong place to start in our part of the world, where we should be focusing on reducing our impact through less consumption.

Apologies if it’s already been posted but this is a really good article on how reduction of meat and dairy consumption is so important:

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

If you are really concerned about your environmental impact, the good news is that you can immediately and significantly make a difference by switching to a predominantly plant based diet. If everyone did 5 meat-free days per week and, say, 3 dairy free days, the impact would be absolutely incredible.

It’s all very will saying industry needs to change (I agree), but in respect of the meat and dairy industries this is never going to happen while there is still the same level of consumer demand for meat and dairy. Unless we drastically reduce national (and, ultimately, global) demand for these products, there will continue to be mass destruction of habitats, water wastage, intensive cereal crop production etc. This is an area where we can vote with our feet and make a serious difference.

@Tessalectus there’s no wrong place to start. We can only influence our own behaviour. If we halve the uk population that’s still less people to take resources from the planet.

Also, western countries contain people who are bigger consumers and have higher impacts on the environment so it makes more of a difference for a person here not to have a child than it does for say a poor family in India.

without minimising the impact of livestock
even with a plant based diet animals are harmed as no one wants birds rabbits insects etc eating crops so they use weedkillers poisons etc to prevent this which leads to declines in bees hedgerows and the life that lives in them
A lot of environmental damage is done by large scale crop growing the huge wheat plains in america gigantic palm oil forests which support no other life forms and destroy natural habitat, some land used by cows could be used for crops but the land used by sheep and goats is rarely suitable for crop growing as rocky and mountainous or moorland

for centuries in the highlands of scotland it has been very difficult to grow even enough potatoes or oats to feed a family ( the highlands are above the wheat line) people carried seaweed to use as fertiliser to help but it was hard hard work much harder than raising sheep or a highland cow or fishing for mackerel clams etc, they would sell wool eggs etc too try and buy enough oats etc, the further north you go the harder it is to eat a plant based diet, once you get to Iceland Greenland Northern Scandinavia etc the natural diet has very little plant based components but is largely protein based

@TeacupDrama if you look a couple of pages back you’ll see some scientific papers (and discussion papers based on scientific research) I posted which highlights that eating local meat is worse than imported plants.

Also most of the world’s plants are fed to animals at present. Even in the U.K. most of our wheat and oats is fed to animals.

We will need less land for a plant based diet so can re-wild some of the former grazing land and this will allow our wildlife to flourish.

This is what I do:

Not have children
Recycle

I feel that's doing my bit.

I feel that's doing my bit.

According to the experts, it's not enough. But it's an individual choice and for now no-one will force you to do more. That time is coming, though.

@kikispark I was talking specifically about land which is unsuitable for crops the hillsides will only grow grass and ferns which people do not eat, I was not talking about arable land growing crops for animals or people

I was also talking about areas where traditional it has been almost impossible to grow enough plants to live, the highland clearances happened partly because of landowners wanting to create shooting estates instead of allowing the local people to eat the deer, grouse and salmon that they had for centuries

before imported food of any kind was possible the further north you go the more the traditional diet is dependent on fish and animals rather than plants because the shortness of the summer does not allow for many plants to go from seed to harvest easily but these populations are generally small not many people live in the Scottish highlands or Iceland or coastal norway.

According to the experts, it's not enough. But it's an individual choice and for now no-one will force you to do more. That time is coming, though.

What form do you think this "force" will take? A lot of the proposed measures are economic - imposing taxes and other charges that will make many things (flying, eating meat, driving an older car) a lot more expensive. This obviously has a bigger impact on the less well-off, while wealthier people can continue to drive, fly, shop, eat as they like.

Not flying would be a big sacrifice for me. We don't live in the UK and if flying was not an option, we would only see my family once every few years, rather than a couple of times a year. I guess I weigh up the theoretical (not disputing the impact, it's just not right there in my face) environmental cost of flying against the immediate emotional cost of not seeing my family (especially my children not seeing their grandparents and vice versa), and the environmental cost seems like the lesser one.

@bogstandard you are right it will be the little people that will be priced out you won't see your parents but Emma thompson can fly half way around world for a one day protest she would have made a far bigger impact by appearing on video screen every time a celebrity flies to say they are saving environment they are hypocrites as their footprint is so so many many times higher than the meat eating family that doesn't recycle but says in UK and walks as they can't afford car
no amount of vegan eating offsets 20-30 plane flights per year

Do not ask what sacrifices you can make for the planet, but what the planet can sacrifice for you.

What has the planet ever given me, except maybe oxygen, food, water... life.

Oh, ok. As you were