To wonder how the general public would actually react if the government took drastic climate change measures?

[tequilasunrises]

I’m talking about measures that would severely restrict people’s ability to live how they choose. For example, implanting a one/two child policy, heavy restrictions on animal products and car and air travel mileage.

From reading threads on here and talking to people in real life it is clear that many people agree something needs to be done to stop climate change but aren’t willing to make the bigger sacrifices.

So, who thinks there would be uproar and who thinks the public would be behind extreme measures?

I’d be very sad to have my travel opportunities limited but would be behind it for the greater good.

To be honest I've no idea what to do for the best with eco friendly choices sometimes. I mean if you go vegan because meat is bad for the planet you have to get protein from somewhere.

Also having a similar dilemma with reuseable nappies, obviously less to landfill but would you use more energy washing and drying the things to cancel that out?

I used a washing service but think they closed down. It was awesome and very green

I can imagine bulk washing rather than each user doing lots of little washes would be greener. I've not really heard of any services being offered, I'm guessing more people would need to start using the nappies for it to be viable.

You could hardly ban having more than two kids but you could make harder re taxes etc. Actually think we already have restrictions on benefits for more than two but people on here often suggest that’s a terrible thing because it stops poor people from having kids not the rich. Is that the lesser evil?

The other stuff yes I think we’d need to do sooner rather than later. We could for example ban or limit car journeys under five miles unless disabled. Would require complete reimagining of cycle networks / car clubs etc but seems achievable.

Businesses could start by working out how to manage without constantly flying staff around

Things is everyone will just say what’s the point while other countries/ the rich carry on as they please.

We could for example ban or limit car journeys under five miles unless disabled.

Or small business owner🤷

That would feel a bit police state, surely a carrot strategy would work better. Reliable and affordable busses and trains would be a good start.

In rural areas, short journeys are going to be the hardest to serve with public transport. For example, I live in a village - we do have a surgery and a dentist, but there is no bus service that would allow me to get to appointments at either, and it is too far for me to walk - I am not disabled, but I do have reduced mobility. Both the local shop and the chemist which I visit regularly for the various different medications I am on, are beyond walking distance for me, but less than 5 miles. Same goes for less important stuff like the hairdresser.

Fine me for short journeys, and I will end up stuck at home, or choosing to go to shops that are further away, and burning more fossil fuel, simply because the longer journey won’t incur a fine.

Simple answer to the public transport issue is increase fuel tax or introduce distance taxation, and spend that on public transport.

The problem is no one wants to give up the "freedom" of car ownership and use.

Lentils are funny old things. Yes you can dehydrate them for shipping but due to eu legislation they don’t only dehydrate them they are also packed and labelled in their country of origin. We don’t allow the importation of unlabelled sacks of lentils so all processing is done at origin.
90% of American lentils are sold on to Asia markets which is strange considering they are large producers themselves.

Simple answer to the public transport issue is increase fuel tax or introduce distance taxation, and spend that on public transport.

Putting the cart before the horse is pointless. It's not about individuals greed in wanting a car, it's the fact that privatised public transport as we have now is astronomically expensive and inefficient, rendering it nigh on impossible as a means of transport in a 27/4 economy and if you increase the taxes on fuel then you ultimately decrease the coffers and have even less to spend on public transport when people stop using. Penalising people who are trying to get to work makes no sense.

keepithidden and what about those of us who rely on our cars for our actual job? As I said a few pages back I work in rural district nursing and can easy cover 60 miles just at work, I drop my children off at school and then straight in to work for 8.30-9, how do I do that on public transport?

I would welcome it. I think putting a cap on how many flights people could take would be a good compromise. Heavily subsidised public transport , better bus provision in rural areas and spending on improving rail links and stock would be a start.
A complete ban on plastics in supermarkets and encouragement for alternative, biodegradable packaging.
Stop flying in good from other countries,eating seasonally. Encourage community garden schemes and garden plots in cities.
The government could do so much ,but they do very little.
A complete ban on private jets.
We really need to act now.

Food not good! Also cycling lanes everywhere. A ban on diesel cars. Electric cars sold much more cheaply and with incentives.

I agree that we need to act now. It can be much cheaper to fly from Southern England to Scotland than to take the train, and it really shouldn’t be. Public transport is ridiculously expensive in the UK compared with many other European countries. On the other hand, the cost of a plane ticket doesn’t reflect the true cost to the environment.

Keepithidden
Simple answer to the public transport issue is increase fuel tax or introduce distance taxation, and spend that on public transport.

The infrastructure needs to be there before you price people out of their cars.

Besides if they do it your way it will just get spent in cities like it always does.

Another thing with this utopia of public transport.

How are you going to run it so that everyone gets to be where they are supposed to be on time?

Are you really suggesting that these services will take into account shift workers and emergency staff?

My mother had to leave the village she lived in for over 40 years because of the lack of public transport. There was a bus to the local market town (too small to have even a Tesco metro) and back once a week, and another to a bigger town, about an hour away on the bus and back again. That was it. You could only get out of the village on public transport on two days of the week, and your time in the town was limited.

Mum and dad chose to live there - they wanted rural and remote, and they got it. But mum didn’t drive, so when dad died, she became reliant on friends who drove for pretty much everything - shopping, medical appointments etc etc, and as her friends aged, she couldn’t expect their help for much longer, so she had to move.

But that is the reality of living in the country - little or no public transport. The nearest bus stop was 2 miles away, with an hourly bus in each direction - less at the weekend, and the buses didn’t start early or run late, so getting to work on the bus must have been well nigh impossible.

I don’t understand why people are on the one hand worried about Brexit decimating the ecomomy and in the other wanting the same thing for climate change.
Using less means buying less which means producing less.

Another thing with this utopia of public transport.

How are you going to run it so that everyone gets to be where they are supposed to be on time?

Are you really suggesting that these services will take into account shift workers and emergency staff?

I’ve long thought that UK transport ministers should be sent to the Netherlands to learn that it is indeed possible to run a comprehensive, reliable public transport system. When I lived over there, I once had a commute that involved catching a bus from a small seaside town at 5:45 am. Meanwhile, if I went to spend an evening with friends in a nearby city, the last bus back was at 01:04 am.

The Dutch cycle a lot and often use public transport. Because it works over there.

Cattenberg I’ve long thought that UK transport ministers should be sent to the Netherlands to learn that it is indeed possible to run a comprehensive, reliable public transport system. When I lived over there, I once had a commute that involved catching a bus from a small seaside town at 5:45 am. Meanwhile, if I went to spend an evening with friends in a nearby city, the last bus back was at 01:04 am.

I lived in The Netherlands for a while and echo this. I've also lived in Germany, in Munchen, and the S Bahn and U Bahn made it easier just to use public transport. Runs til about 4 am and starts again just after 5am too, trains every 15 minutes so you never had to bother with a timetable.

Same in The Netherlands. Its just easier to use public transport, even if you want to go to small towns or villages. You can cycle the rest of the way. Its less bother than driving and parking. Actually the motorways and roads are really good, its just nicer and easier to cycle and use a bus, tram or train, or all of them.

No need to pre-book seats on trains either.

Britain really is spectacularly bad at providing all of this. For years, the Dutch have had an OV card which you preload and pay for public transport on, a bit like an Oyster card for the whole country. While the UK was still relying on bus passes and paying cash.

The Netherlands is a completely different layout to the UK and has a consistently dense population. I’m sure we could improve public transport use significantly in some areas of the UK: the huge increase in bus use in London under the Livingstone regime is an obvious example of what can be achieved if you have the will. However public transport in, say, rural Shropshire is always going to be inflexible and inconvenient unless you shove so much money and resources at it that you’d be better off giving everyone in the village a taxi allowance.

But actually that’s OK. Persuade everyone who feasibly can to walk or cycle. If they can’t do that then persuade them to use public transport. If they can’t do that then get them to lift share, or car share, or use taxis for the tricky bits. For the relatively few people for whom that really doesn’t work then yes, private (zero emission) vehicles are the answer until we have pooled autonomous cars.

But the UK is particularly bad. In many areas, local authorities have given up doing even the bare minimum. I live 2 miles from a local market town in a busy country area. The local authority have neglected the footpath along the connecting road so badly that it is now covered in undergrowth and completely unusable. They don't cut the grass verges. There are, of course, no cycle paths.

"Creating cycle paths" in too many areas of the UK involves painting magical coloured lines on existing roads and claiming x km of cycle paths "have been constructed".

Local bus services have been cut so that their target demographic can no longer rely on them. And they are expensive.

There seems to be no national standard e.g. a twice daily bus service for villages over a certain size.

Trains in the UK are awful - expensive and have to be pre-booked a lot of the time, especially for the "best" fares.

I don't see how a country which such a poor infrastructure can thrive, tbh.

I guess we will see more taxation on workers, such as road charging, congestion charging and maybe congestion mileage charging. But since only 57% of British adults pay tax , I really think we need to encourage people to work and pay tax, not penalise them. Its not as if only workers drive on roads, is it? I cannot think of any other country that has an equivalent to motability allowance permitting new car purchase every 3 years.

This is why I think authorities should actually think before building estates that aren't connected to anything. It just adds more and more cars and leaves people who aren't able to drive very vulnerable and isolated.

I get that we can't demolish and rebuild the UK but we could stop adding to the problem. The idea of retiring to the country should be challenged. Surely purpose built apartments could be put where boarded up shops are, at least you'd be near things.

I'm probably prejudiced as I don't get the appeal of rural living at all. I remember when we drove to ILs and my DH was all "what a lovely village look at that view" and I was a miserable cow going "Where's the train station? Where's the supermarket? Where's the GP surgery?"

I was a miserable cow going Where's the train station? Where's the supermarket? Where's the GP surgery

Maybe you'd be the cheery cow admiring the view, watching the birds and finding the greenery uplifting if you lived in the countryside