To wonder what it would look like if we all took radical steps to tackle climate change.

[RHTawneyonabus]

Was pondering this when stuck in yet another traffic jam on Friday. It’s a journey I happily do on my bike but not safe to do that when I have my kids with me because of all the traffic. Drastically better cycle lane provision would make my life so much easier! I was looking at the amount of traffic and thinking it’s clear we can’t go on like this.

Then this morning someone on the radio saying that Greta et al would have more impact on the environment if they gave up beef for a month rather than going on school strikes.

So if we do everything we need to do over then next 20 years what does that look like?

• city centres with no traffic and vastly improved cycle and public transport provision.
• we all hire electric cars when needed rather than owning one.
• we eat high quality meet once or twice a week and we are veggie rest of the time.
• we can’t waste water on our gardens so Mediterranean planting is in.
• we reduce travelling for work so no flights, Video conferencing work from home more, holiday in UK or France.
• May have to have a cap on number of kids?
• houses have to be much more energy efficient and may need drastic alterations

What else?

Ferret
But that way lies the optimism.
If Europe, North America and Australia all cut their per capita emissions by 25% PDQ we have time to think ...

80% of flights are taken by 20% of people
half of all Brits never fly ....
hence why Jo Swinson's frequent flyer tax is beautifully targeted

A decarbonised economy is an opportunity for innovation
and will make lives nicer for most
and infinitely better for all in the long run

But cutting carbon from flights - whilst undeniably useful - does not achieves as much as changing diet does. The latter, if it was properly supported and funded, also has the benefit of being healthier and making measurable differences to social deprivation and children living in poverty.

83% of farmland is used for livestock, despite the fact it only contributes 18% of calories ( www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth link)

Ferret
83% of farmland is used for livestock, despite the fact it only contributes 18% of calories
But a lot of that farmland if not used for animals would not be used for food production at all as it is not fit for arable

Flying is a luxury
food is not
lets get the luxuries properly paid for through carbon taxes
THEN hit the essentials

the biggest carbon users are concrete and steel - getting better building
and heating and cooling solutions make a much bigger difference
AND
certain countries are not inhabitable in a carbon neutral world the gulf

Well done Cannycat, RHtawney and others. We are getting the hang of actually discussing what Greta is actually worried about, instead of worrying about her personal way of expressing her concern. Brilliant. I would add that we just cannot leave out the parents and their children in the developing world from this discussion. But interestingly they have already taken serious action to get themselves included since 2004, as from then they realised how they can avoid being excluded from the discussion which is in English, which they just cannot afford for their children. This is because they are not operating at anything like the wealth level that we are, and have found a true international language that is one fifth the learning cost of English, which is Esperanto - the only affordable option for them. They have done this because the 7 to 10 years it takes for English fluency for non English children means their next generations have been leaving school well before they have any hope of joining our discussion. To overcome this serious problem they have been sending their children to schools that teach Esperanto giving them fluency in about a year, and so giving Africa a true international language affordably accessible to everyone there. The problem for us, is to share our discussion with them we have to stop asking them to spend money they haven't got, and start joining with them by asking for our children to be taught Esperanto, so we can all start discussing and working together to overcome these most difficult problems of climate change. Fortunately the government( Yes, wow the government!!) here has already approved Esperanto for teaching to children in schools here back in 2017. So we are already so far, about 15 years behind in asking for the appropriate lessons here for our children compared to parents in Africa. But we are being encouraged to catch up at a cost that is a tiny fraction of what it would cost them there to learn English which timewise and costwise isn't possible for their children anyway. Just think of this discussion line taking place between parents(and directly between children) internationally and we will have advanced much more than spending many endless billions more on charities in Africa itself - just by making the right decision. Once that discussion starts we will start hearing about all the news we never hear in English anyway, like how fed up the developing world is with the Language Imperialism they are suffering under, sadly unwittingly being practiced at present by us. So as long as we make the appropriate decision above, our children will be given the gift of being able to participate in international science projects directly with children in Africa and the other continents. They can then start to learn together about the science of Climate Change as well as the needed diplomacy and interest in starting to work together to overcome it while they are young. This discussion is also taking place under the International Education title.

?
Esperanto v English

Climate change mitigation is about the carbon intensive users USA, Europe, Australia making changes
and helping the rest of the world not follow their rubbish past

but the CHANGE has to happen in the West

Turn down the heating and wear an extra layer of jumper :)

Nitgel - agree. And even the ones who go to to fairly near schools should stop driving. Its amazing how many people i see driving kids and toddlers for walkable journey's in the morning

But cutting carbon from flights - whilst undeniably useful - does not achieves as much as changing diet does
I don't think you are comparing like with like. You need an awful lot of people to become vegan to offset one person's one flight.

We would have to import a lot of veg if we stopped eating meat. Not a lot of veg can be grown where we have sheep and some cattle in the hill regions of the U.K.

Not twenty years but further on population decline. Once we get through the bulge of the demographic time bomb as it’s called and to the other side.

Low employment : The workforce is already ageing and declining. Automation is driven by a lack of workers, not the other way around.

Could you expand on this? I agree with the previous poster that manufacturing much less (and the knock-on effect on the industries of packaging, transporting and selling those goods), cutting the travel and tourism industry, and probably a ton of others that I haven't thought of, such as advertising as we aren't manufacturing much, is likely to lead to a lot of unemployment. You made a comment about a lack of workers - I checked the ONS, and the unemployment rate is around the 3.8% mark. You make it sound as if lack of employment will not be a problem, so what am I missing?

The economy as we know it would collapse if we stop buying things we don't need.

Badlad
Start reading the business press
UK productivity is low because many workers are under used
many UK and western workers are working less hours than they would like
due to demographic change the number of workers will drop
but their productivity will rise
when the tipping pont is reached, as it has in Japan, automation will rise.

Reduced numbers of workers leads to technological change that benefits workers - see the Black death

Tiddler
Straws are a gateway product
Beach cleans are now a big thing
admittedly 2/3 of plastic waste entering the oceans does so from 7 rivers in asia
but if westerners ( who are the carbon problem ) change their habits, they will drive worldwide economic changes

we have to start from where we are

I do read them. Clearly I read different ones from the ones which you read.

According to the ONS, the working age population is not forecast to drop any time before 2043. I can't link because I'm on my phone. It will be less as a percentage of the population, but not in real terms.

I don't doubt that automation will increase or that many workers are working far fewer hours than they want. I can't see how that is an answer to the problem of potential unemployment are many industries are drastically scaled down in size. Your post reads as if you are explaining why a labour shortage (the opposite situation) will not be a problem.

Having a kid is the absolute worst thing, incomparably, that someone can do to the planet, and the kids future, obviously.

Yet no one cares, Childfree women are still, tediously asked continually, ‘but why/it’s different when it’s your own shit genes/a legacy of ejaculation/babies are cute tho/you’re selfish to not force someone into existence/you should force another person to exist so they can wipe your arse when you die, and it’s selfish not to/what’s the point of you existing if you don’t breed, might as well kill yourself.’ (Really.) the fact that people bred now will have food and water shortages, climate refugees (by the millions) and weather disasters in their lifetimes doesn’t seem to matter to society, just keep having 100,000 more every day.

I would be really interested for a discussion on rationing to happen. Surely we need to consume less of everything, and only rules from government will manage this. It could curb excess consumption of clothes, cars, flights, plastic shit etc.

Unfortunately politicians wont bring in unpopular ideas as they will lose votes, thus fuelling short termism. Cross party agreement on climate change policies are needed

ListeningQuietly I wasn’t suggesting that sub Saharan Africa should slow its birth rate to match that of Westernised countries.

“Replacement level” birth rate is not going to solve the issues. It would take (IMO) a far larger and faster population cut to start to turn around the ecological destruction.

The biggest thing we can start with is air travel.

Automation is driven by increased profits - it's cheaper to employ machines.

A few things...

1. I don't think a Mediterranean garden would work in northerly parts of the UK where there are a lot of frosts
2. Agree re: the schools thing, but sometimes it happens because there aren't enough places at the schools to keep up with new build estates on their doorsteps
3. Imho we all need to get used to a bit less space and a bit more sharing. Living in high density blocks with shared white goods and electric cars
4. I agree finding enough jobs for everyone could be a problem, but maybe we just won't need money as much in our new simpler lifestyles. What are people working for anyway? Over inflated rent/mortgage, car payments, endless new stuff?
5. Yes to a more practucal curriculum at school
6. Yes to 2 children max per family in capitalist societies
7. Yes to no/much reduced flying
8. Yes to telecommuting

Sticking a big tax on petrol/diesel would be a good start and taxing airline fuel would be a good start.
But people don't like to have their freedom restricted and non taxed airlines would charge less so win out.

Sticking a big tax on petrol/diesel would be a good start and taxing airline fuel would be a good start.
2/3 of the price of UK fuel is already tax
airline fuel is much trickier but the EU is pushing forward with some good ideas

Automation is driven by increased profits - it's cheaper to employ machines.
Quite the opposite
people are much cheaper than robots for many jobs
it is only a lack of people that drives automation

If westerners walked as lightly on the earth as Africans do, there would not be a pending climate apocalypse

Rather than Mediterranean gardens perhaps we have to give up on the idea of private gardens altogether. It is extremely wasteful to lay lawns and water flowers so why do it? We should let the land go back to the wild to encourage dwindling insect populations which then helps mammals and birds. Public parks and sports fields can be maintained for those who want them.