To ask you to stop flying

[Walkingthere]

We are facing a climate disaster. Our children will have to live through it. And yet I overheard two women today discussing how many holidays abroad they had been on this year. Both over 60 years of age. Obviously it will not directly impact on them.
This is also very common in my social group, people jetting off 4-5 times a year. Mini-breaks, weekends away, European trips, long haul, hen do's, weddings, birthdays. It's unbelievable how much people are burying their heads in the sand.

We need to stop flying. Urgently. Now. My family have not flown in over 5 years. We used to travel a lot, before we realised the consequences. I am putting this here, to make people think, we all need to urgently reduce (ideally stop) flying now.

Why aren't all new houses/businesses built with solar panels for green electricity & hot water ?

Why arent grey water systems installed too

Why aren't more new buildings created with green plant life incorporated into the design + like Singapore airport

Evidently, it is down to cost

PS
I don't have a paved garden, I have real grass, plants, flowers, bushes. Lots of insects
Also some pots with plants

Why aren't all new houses/businesses built with solar panels for green electricity & hot water ?

When someone can dream up a scam for them, they will be, rest assured.

@WhyTho

Yes. They don't get it do they? That's why they fixed the banking crisis by making money cheap. It's not about Green. It's about consumption.

It's about "services" that politicians bang on about. Services - pensions, welfare, maternity pay, unemployment pay, child support, car homes, social workers, NHS, refuse removal, police, courts, etc . It's about looking after the ford car workers, and the welsh steel workers, and the jamie oliver restaurant staff.

They need low unemployment so people can pay taxes to keep the welfare system running. Without taxes and everybody working, you won't be getting the welfare. By going off grid, you aren't paying VAT. You aren't doing your bit! That's why interest rates are low., They don't want us to save money we ought to be spending.

IMO

Flying isn't that inefficient, simply because there's a lot of passengers on the plane:
www.theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/Transatlantic_Fuel_Efficiency_Ranking_20180912.pdf
For those who work in old money, that 44km/l (per passenger average) works out to over 100mpg.

Easter Island - no aeroplanes !

1passenger on a return flight to Australia will create 7 tons of carbon emissions. One tree growing for 40 years will offset 1 ton of carbon, so that's 7 trees need to be planted and live for 40 years to balance out that one flight. The denial on this thread is scary.

Majority of people where I live have solar panels.

That wasn't quite what the PP was referring to. Not the pretend solar panels that were intended to make a quick buck for the middle classes by making electricity more expensive to fund the FITs that made them a money (but not alas an energy) spinner. But rather the real solar panels. The ones that can generate - and store - hot water on even the cloudiest coldest day.

The problem with them is there's no way to make money out of them. So they weren't promoted.

Proof (if it were needed) that a lot of "green" initiatives are a scamsters dream.

@tenredthings carbonfootprint calculator says return trip London-Sydney is 2.93 tonne. That's a bog difference in numbers there

They need low unemployment so people can pay taxes to keep the welfare system running.

Oh, bullshit! No one is this dense! Taxes go to keep society and its infrastructure - you know, peace that allows people to largely go about their business unmolested and conduct trade, clean water, roads, essential services like police/defense/fire and rescue, transport of goods and food, power and gas supply - 'welfare' the largest percentage of which is public/state pensions, is a small percentage of that infrastructure.

It makes me laugh when people say, 'Well, tax is theft!' So you'd rather live in a place with no centralised government like Britain in the 6th century where raiders and whoever just did whatever the hell they pleased and took whatever they could and hold but hey, no taxes!

Even Alfred the Great levied taxes, you know, to pay for garrisoning burughs and things like that so Viking raiders couldn't keep coming in and taking food, people to sell as slaves, lands, goods, etc. with impunity. He even went a step further and ordered all men over 12 to swear oath to him and give service to the fyrd when ordered because an undefended society doesn't count for much.

Even Alfred the Great levied taxes

As did the Pharaohs 4 millennia previously.

Death and taxes - the two certainties in life.

People like you who don't give a shit about our children's lives do make me despair.

People like you, wanting those with a smaller carbon footprint than you, so that you can feel less guilty, make me despair.

Exactly, Laminate! Taxes pay for defence and infrastructure so trade can be conducted. ALL societies have levied forms of tax to this purpose, and most also demanded military service of men when necessary plus food and goods to feed such defence, conscription is a factor in all societies, the welfare state is a small percentage of this in modern societies, it's a real joke to say people are working solely to prop this up.

'Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's,' as even Jesus was said to have spoken.

'Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's,' as even Jesus was said to have spoken.

Er I don't think he was bigging up taxation so much as pointing out that religion isn't an excuse to dodge your civic obligations. Or that's how I was taught it.

Not that it really matters - if we cared what Jesus thought, we'd stop killing one another in wars. Thank goodness for metaphor, eh ?

There is a discussion to be had about children, but what about pets? I've had a dog for large parts of my life, so once again I'm not blameless, but what about those who have 3 or 4 dogs or 5 or 6 cats. Is there any real need? They all need to be fed & all that cat litter and all those poo bags need to be disposed of.

The most important things anyone can do to help are:

1.Become vegan
2.Get rid of the car and stop driving
3.Have one or less children
4.Not fly

All the other environmentally friendly things people do are nowhere nearly as important as these four things.

I do the first 3. However I do go on holiday abroad every other year. I will try and cut this down further.

There is a discussion to be had about children, but what about pets?

There was an edition of QI a while back that showed a picture of Mum, Dad, 2 kids, dog and car. The question was: what single thing would reduce their carbon footprint the most.

The answer was dump the dog.

And now we'll hear howls of anguish from people that would happily give up flying, but never their pet .....

Part of the reason was unlike humans - who it can be argued can survive on a vegetarian diet - dogs can't. And the amount of land and water required to produce meat for petfood is scary.

I guess wild dogs (aka "wolves") wouldn't be a problem since they'd be naturally constrained by the availability of food. But pets ?

Meanwhile, that clock is still ticking.

Interesting, Laminate. Makes sense.

Also, I read an article about the damage caused by ensuring pets are flea free. I can;t recall exactly what the problem was - I'll look later.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/21/pet-flea-treatment-chemicals-polluting-britains-streams-rivers/

Exactly, Laminate! Taxes pay for defence and infrastructure so trade can be conducted. ALL societies have levied forms of tax to this purpose, and most also demanded military service of men when necessary plus food and goods to feed such defence, conscription is a factor in all societies, the welfare state is a small percentage of this in modern societies, it's a real joke to say people are working solely to prop this up.

Well it might have been when it was introduced at 2% to pay for the Napoleonic wars. Income/NI/VAT/Fuel Duty/Excise Duties, Council Tax, and all the other stuff is swingeing now. Without high employment, the whole ponzi scheme collapses.

Wikipedia
Income tax was first implemented in Great Britain by William Pitt the Younger in his budget of December 1798 to pay for weapons and equipment in preparation for the Napoleonic Wars. Pitt's new graduated (progressive) income tax began at a levy of 2 old pence in the pound (1/120) on incomes over £60 (£6,204 as of 2018),[7] and increased up to a maximum of 2 shillings (10%) on incomes of over £200. Pitt hoped that the new income tax would raise £10 million, but actual receipts for 1799 totalled just over £6 million.[9]

We pay a rapacious 34% now - over a third!
Why don't you all volunteer a bit more for the common good.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_to_GDP_ratio

There is an argument that money is the problem. Many years ago I read quite a poetic piece that basically said money had allowed us to be controlled - after all, why should anyone be allowed to "own" land ? Surely it's there to be lived on and lived from ? But invent money, and then people have to work to earn it. Now maybe that has led to an improvement in the average persons life. Maybe not. But it's a point of view.

But returning to money, as long as you have to have "growth" then no amount of changes to lifestyle are going to mean a thing. Because in 25 years we need to have doubled our economic output. That is a lot of jam.

The entire economic stability of the world has been built - rightly or wrongly - on the implicit fact of growth and confidence in that growth. Lot how quickly things turned to shit when that was briefly shaken in 2008. Thank goodness we were able to quickly delude ourselves that infinite growth was still a reality. Who knows what might have happened otherwise ? Mind you, we'll find out soon enough.

The dog thing does not stand up to any logic.

Firstly, there's now a grub-based dog food on the market (this is what my dog eats) - it's nearly carbon-neutral.

Secondly, even if dogs can't be vegetarian, I expect that most Westerners still aren't either.

Thirdly, my dog eats two bowls of food a day, pretty small, rounded out by table scraps. Her caloric intake is almost insignificant.

Lastly, she'll never buy her own house, have children, buy clothes, shoes, etc. She eats about 800 calories a day and sleeps most the time.

I really don't get this argument and I hear it all the time these days.

Oh, not nice English dogs, naturally.

Only American ones ...

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/carbon-footprint-animal-dogs-cats-america-study-meat-vegetarian-a7878086.html

So a dog eats about 19% of food compared to a human but is clearly the worst offender. More than having children? Hmmm