Petrified of people’s lack of care to our climate

[delusionalnights]

I just wish more people would cut flying down, go vegan/vegetarian or at least cut down meat, consume and waste less, have less children etc.

I hardly ever fly despite being able to afford long distance holidays because I’m terrified of climate change. We’re in a climate crisis and it’s not getting better. We now have less than 18 months before it’s irreversible, irrelevant of the carbon emissions we cut back after those 18 months have gone as it will have reached a tipping point.

People will lose their homes. There will be mass migration. The fucking Amazon is on fire. Please everyone, do your part and I know big cooperations and companies have a much larger part to play but the change starts with average people, it’s supply and demand, we demand less products, they supply less, hence emissions lowering.

Please everyone do your bit.

I wonder what all these people who are hand-wringing over ordering a meat dish would be like if they were the working poor on UC on fucking zero hours contracts with a child or children with SN more worried about getting out of rent arrears and how to get to the food bank on foot because they can't afford bus fare or how they're going to walk to the Job Centre in shoes full of holes or that hurt their feet because they're all worn out.

'Walk to work!' I'd like to see a fund then, to provide for people who would love to work but there's no way they can afford it.

Phasing out Christmas would be an excellent start.

Well apart from the meal and a small stocking!

Phasing out Christmas would be an excellent start.

Yeah, that is so going to happen

Phasing out Christmas would be an excellent start.

Not in my house. I looooove buying DH presents. And obviously love getting some too.
All our presents are practical. No useless crap and trinkets. I can't think of Christmas pressie we are not using quite regularly.

Why not? Just the mass consumption of shit not the religious bit!

Phasing out Christmas would be an excellent start.

No need to start the competitive Christmas threads just yet, its only august ffs, you're obviously biting at the bit for the most frugal.

@Toitoitoi why do people need to phase out Christmas? Buy things people will actually use, donate toys that will no longer get played with so they get reused, don't send cards, don't go overboard with food- buy the same amount as you normally would but 'nicer' stuff, and if you are dragging yourself across the country to see relatives out of duty rather than because you actually want to see them, Facetime them. Like anything if you expect people to stop everything they won't, encourage people to adjust and be more mindful though and theres potential.

justanotherlurker

Bit confused by your post. I don’t think I said I’m petrified or anything about being vegan (I’m not). Nor did I say I had green credentials. I said I think we should all consider the environment in deciding what choices we make.

I think saying no one can talk about the environment if they have a smartphone is not the killer point you think it is.

‘do our bit’ by going to London ‘to protest’ is so infuriatingly patronising.

Oh, I have a mate like this. She makes me laugh, travels all over the place going to these Extinction Rebellion protests and chiding me for 'not being more proactive'. Bitch, I can't even afford to travel into the nearest city some months because it costs about £30 to get there and back and I don't have it to spare, much less go booking fucking hotels and swanning all over the place.

Re the having less children thing - there’s a good bbc documentary on YouTube called Overpopulated. I can’t remember his name but it is a Swedish professor. He explains that we have actually reached ‘peak child’ and while the population will continue to grow for a while, the increase will be adults living longer. Surprisingly even a lot of developing countries now only have on average 2 children. In the poorer countries where they do tend to have higher numbers of children, there carbon footprints are still teeny because they don’t drive, let alone fly or consume anything really.

The majority of the carbon emissions come from a v small percentage of the population which is what needs to change. It is very eye opening although I think a few years old.

I would imagine the reason why having fewer children in the west is better for the planet is because Western children are likely to have excessive carbon footprints, although the developing world is catching up.

You are so right though OP, people should care. And if they don’t, governments should force them to care and make changes. I’d support a government who made very drastic changes to our lifestyles for environmental reasons. Nobody really needs the amount of meat they eat, crap they buy etc etc.

Overconsumption is what needs to be tackled!

I recycle, switch things off, have solar panels, buy appliances with the best eco rating, have banned plastic at work (am the boss) and various other things.

But I need to fly for work and I like to travel and don't intend to stop. I enjoy eating meat as part of my diet I have 2 children and am keeping them.

At the end of the day though unless Trump and China hope on board the game's a bogey.

Bit confused by your post. I don’t think I said I’m petrified or anything about being vegan (I’m not). Nor did I say I had green credentials. I said I think we should all consider the environment in deciding what choices we make.

The OP is petrified, I was inferring that into your comment.

I think saying no one can talk about the environment if they have a smartphone is not the killer point you think it is.

I don't think it's a killer point, I'm pointing out that everyone has limits on how far their green credentials reach to. It's ironic posting a thread about being petrified about environmental disaster whilst using some smart tech that is produced because of mass mining rare earth materials with no fucks given to environmental concerns, some are just wanting a pat on the back about being "aware" so long as they don't poke holes in the circle jerk, it's a common online rhetoric

Phasing out Christmas would be an excellent start.

No thank you

Whats all this about in another 18 months it will be irreversible? Surely if that was the case the whole world would be stopping stuff.

100 companies are responsible for over 70% of the worlds emissions

I always think this is a bit of a flimsy excuse. Companies exist to serve the wants of humans, systemic change is important but also we have to want less, use less, buy less.

The hardest thing is that making a change is guaranteed to lower people's quality of life, at least a bit. For example use plastic all the time because it is convenient, cheap, light and hygienic, so getting rid of it will usually mean we lose out on one or more of those benefits. On the other hand we do get to keep our wilderness and our atmosphere, which really should be worth the sacrifice - but apparently not, judging by so many threads on here with people who cannot fathom giving up pre-moistened wipes and the like..

Fuck me, this is depressing.

Being petrified is a perfectly reasonable way to feel, in light of the vast, vast majority of scientists involved agreeing that there are going to be catastrophic consequences from climate change. If you have young children, there is a good chance they will experience these consequences. I find it difficult to understand how that wouldn't scare someone.

It is scary, and it is hard to quite know how to react. Personally I am not convinced that anything I do is going to make the slightest bit of difference and that the vast majority of the human race is doomed, and the planet will carry on quite happily and certainly more healthily without us. But...just in case I am wrong....I am doing what I can.

Good thread op. Hard to change mass over-consumption but worth saying again and again.

The world survived an ice age, It'll come back.

Your holier than thou post just makes me switch off, I don’t need to be told by someone who is so dramatic (being terrified) about what’s happening, like others I do my bit, just as lots of us do. Instead of preaching on here engage with the 100 companies, India, China, USA, Africa, Brazil and all the rest. The 18 months is down to them am£ big changes being required, not individuals in a country that’s already leading the way. Off for my roast now

Companies exist to serve the wants of humans, systemic change is important but also we have to want less, use less, buy less

But our lifestyles are set up in certain ways that can't be easily changed.

People are reliant on cars (due to lack of public transport in rural areas). They work long hours because they can't afford to pay the bills otherwise. That means they can't buy their food the local grocer or market, and are instead reliant on supermarkets like Tesco, who package things in layers and layers of plastic.

It's all interlinked. Telling people to stop driving/eating cheap meat/whatever else is all well and good, but it's not as easy as that. When you don't get home from work until 7pm because you've had to drive for nearly an hour (because there's no public transport to your town/village), you have no choice but to get your food from the local 24h supermarket.

Money does things like buy the luxury of choice. It buys the luxury of a housekeeper or a SAHP who can shop during the day at local stores that sell local goods. It buys time, so that people can walk to where they need to go. It allows people to spend extra on locally grown food, on local meat from the farmers' market.

If you can afford to make those choices, maybe take a second to consider that not everyone has the same luxury.

I'm always annoyed by the phrase "do your bit", because no one can agree on what constitutes an individual's "bit". (But, funnily enough, it always seems to be something that the person urging me to do "my bit" finds easy, not something that would be inconvenient.)

Plus it always seems to be relative rather than absolute, ie: it isnt worked out by the idea that each person has an individual resources allowance that they can use. It just seems to mean "using less" - that is to say, only eating meat once a week rather than every day, or using public transport "most of the time". So it always devolves into petty "well, I shop locally and use a moon cup" one up man ship.

In the developed west, I suspect that we use such a disproportionate share of our dwindling resources each, that even the most eco friendly person would be way over that personal allowance.

YANBU OP. It's attitude of "Oh it'll affect me and my lifestyle too much I'll just ignore it" going on i was on a reusable nappy thread where people were just rubbishing the idea through laziness or lack of education genuinely not realising the catastrophic damage they were responsible for its frustrating to say the least when the minority like me and doing their utmost to live sustainable low impact lives when other are literally shitting on our efforts with their selfishness