To think the environment is fucked and no it won't get better?

[clairemcnam]

I have been an environmental activist pretty much my whole adult life. But in that time nearly everything has got worse. Even individual consumer behaviour is far less environmentally friendly than 30 or even 20 years ago.
I am growing very cynical and I think most people simply don't care enough to do anything that will make a real difference.

Well it will get better because the oil with run out.

How long and how much damage that'll be after though ...

I agree that planet Earth will continue and do its own thing adapting around whatever humans do to influence it.

It's easy to get upset over cute pandas and orangatans. The bigger danger is the balance of the less cute insect life that does a lot of subtle work in the planet's cycles. Does it matter? To human lives yes. It will affect us and our forseeable generations. It is worth trying to be more aware on an individual level. But the real results have to come on a global political and economic level. We need to find healthy viable economies that benefit society that aren't based on mass consumption and dumping unused, little used and broken mass tat in landfill.

Where environmental issues are tricky is that changing one factor affects another. Swapping from plastic to glass bottles costs more energy in transport and is still heavy on production resources.

We need to reduce, then reuse, then recycle.

Little changes are a drop in the ocean, but it is worth trying what we can manage, and it does keep it on our concience to keep trying.

I do think there’s hope. My DS asked me what an aerosol was the other day, he’s never seen one. The world actually came together and fixed the hole in the ozone layer. Although climate change is much more challenging, I don’t think it’s impossible that we will be able to mitigate it.

RuffleCrow - Unfortunately it's those multinational corporations and the banks that tell the governments what to do... not the other way around.

Apparently our main source of nutrition by 2050 will be insects

I'm going to find that hard as I'm not that keen when I swallow a fly by accident

@ChequersDog sadly it seems the ozone isn't mending after all

www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/02/06/sorry-earth-the-ozone-layer-isnt-healing-itself-after-all/#4ad076bf5418

It will get better if serious action is taken now. Grow your own veg, ffs STOP flying, change to a green energy provider, drive less, lobby against pesticide, do anything you can :(

Consumerism is crazy. Capitalism isn't sustainable
Go onto the Xmas threads. God its depressing all the crap they are buying. And posters with children who you would think would want to give them a future
It will be starting soon. Links to more and more plastic crap that will be landfill before they go back to school

Those of you that care - how on earth are you tackling conversations about this with your kids? I am terrified.

My Mil for example keeps saying people need to live more sustainable lives every time I see her, yet she goes on two or three holidays abroad every year ... So I guess she means everyone but her needs to make changes

That’s true of almost everyone though. You’re probably the same. I know I am.

Who’s really willing to do what it will take?

No driving, no flying, no consumption, eat only local and vegan, limit number of children and pets? It would require a massive attitude change.

YANBU
We're buggered. Some of us might die before the worst of it but our children will reap the whirlwind previous generations have sown.
In the late 80s I marched, protested, went veggie, embraced reduce/reuse/recycle, but I still went on holidays by plane without a thought.
The world got more disposable, plastic became ubiquitous, buying water in bottles went from insane to common practice, given away at workplaces.
We frittered away our chances to change.

I can recycle as many milk bottles as I like (and I do), but China keeps building coal-fired power plants. What do we do about that?

I don't want to believe that the environment is fucked & no it won't get better - we have to try, & have hope, or nothing will change.

That is the attitude I encounter now - that there is no point, Governments and firms should be doing their bit. But you can lobby and do your bit at the same time.
And when I look back at what was a common way to live in the UK 30 years ago, it involved far less carbon use, plastic and disposable things than now. Most food in supermarkets is well wrapped, Amazon deliveries come in loads of packaging, water comes in plastic bottles, people use disposable cleaning wipes, tampons are now plastic, etc.

Even living like people did 30 years ago with occasional flying, no plastic water bottles, cleaning cloths made from old clothes, cardboard tampons, unwrapped fruit and veg, tins of pet food instead of pouches, much less clothes and used till they wear out - even these things are things that few do now.

There is every point. Governments won't take action if they think no one cares.

Yes exactly. It is very passive to simply leave it up to someone else to sort things out. You have to show you care, to lobby, to write to MPs, to campaign. Ask candidates what their green credentials are. People can change things if enough of us try to.

@laiste a UN report in november 2018 confirmed that it is closing.

YANBU but...
It's not all or nothing!
The more people/government/business do the better the outcome will be.

Apparently our main source of nutrition by 2050 will be insects

Oh the arrogance of mankind. More likely, by 2050, we will be the main source of nutrition for insects. We've had our time, our end is nigh but life will go on.

I worked very closely with the sustainability department, in a university no less and I can count on one hand the amount of people I know in real life who care about the environment /recycling.

Without sounding like I'm the soul savior of all that's right in the world, I don't own a car or have any children, I cycle everywhere and I don't really buy household /electrical goods unless they no longer work and then I blag stuff from friends and family.

I also live in a flat - only 2 storeys and the council refuse to put in recycling bins because a number of residents can't be trusted to not put things in the right place.
Also the, retail park which is a short distance from me, have no recye bins, anywhere!!!!

I think what I'm getting at is, should I forgo my holidays abroad, fill my saddle bags with empty wine bottles /plastics /paper and ride the 3 miles to the nearest recycling bins, when pretty much everyone I know, has bins outside their house, drive everywhere, buy settees /fridges etc to go with their new decor? Why should I make massive sacrifices and give any of this a moments thought when my materialistic friends and family have more to worry about In the future than I do?

It scares me. I do my bit but I could certainly do more. I don’t think it helps that we are all so much more time poor than we were 20 years ago.

My parents grew most of their food, we never had food out of season, milk from the milkman, they bought half a cow and half a lamb yearly which lasted us. Mum preserves what she could for the winter. My dad still shaves with shaving soap and a brush. He never smelt and was always clean and fresh smelling but he never wore deodorant he used talc in a cardboard tube. There was no hand washes it was bars of soap. If mum didn’t make bread it came from the bakers in a paper bag and the fruit and veg they didn’t grow came from the greengrocers in a paper bag. Our lunch boxes were ice cream tubs. They only had one car which dad used for work and to visit family on a Sunday. BUT my mum worked in walking distance from home, dad only worked 20 minutes away. There was no ferrying us to clubs as our little town had everything in walking distance and we certainly didn’t do the clubs that kids do today.

But Dh and I are both doing 35-40 hour weeks. Dh travels an hour each way and I travel 30 minutes each way. We don’t have a greengrocers or a bakery. I wouldn’t even know how to buy half a cow or lamb. I just don’t have the time that they did. I need to prioritise more to make the time.

And then I sometimes think what’s the point? I’m here recycling what I can and trying my best yet there are countries jay are not doing anything. How can what I doing counteract what China is doing?

yanbu I agree with you OP.

I am not asking people to make massive sacrifices, although I think that is what is really need to save things. But it amazes me that people buy disposable cleaning cloths for example. Or disposable bottles of water. That is not being time poor, that is just not giving a toss.

I like the quote 'We don't need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly, we need millions of people doing it imperfectly'.

Change needs to happen on a global scale. Massive taxes on air travel and petrol, or limiting the air miles each person is allowed per year. Charging lots more to import out-of-season fruit and vegetables. Te additional taxes go back into developing sustainable fuel sources or alternatives to plastic.
These are all things we can easily live without.