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?

I am also surprised at how little importance the environment is given in politics. Despite everyone talking about, it is still a bit niche. I think it will become a badge of honour to not fly. Travelling long haul for pleasure will be frowned upon rather than boasted about.

We need to hold companies to account. Too many corporations have made fortunes for very few people by exploiting natural resources without thinking of the consequences. We also need to think internationally. The deforestation of the Amazon is not just a problem affecting Brazil. The irresponsible building of infrastructure in China affects surrounding countries as well. We need a will to collaborate internationally and I hate to say it but supporting political parties which focus only on the UK is a recipe for disaster.

It has to happen at all levels: individuals, communities, business, government. We can't point our finger at 'the others' and say it's their fault. We all have to do whatever we can. Big ideas, small actions, positive consequences and build on that.

Take the plastic bag 'tax'. Our local clear up community did an annual beach clean and although there was a lot of plastic rubbish, NONE of it was plastic shopping bags. What a change from a few years ago. I feel like a social outcast if I've forgotten my reusable bags and have to buy a plastic one.

When it comes to Christmas I ask for / buy only things that are needed. PJs for the children, a ladder for my dh That's not to say a life without luxury - smoked salmon, chocolates, champagne, perfume always on my list. But please no trinkets, plastic baubles for the tree. I abhor the complete trashy nonsense around Halloween, Easter etc. On 30th / 31st October you can walk into any supermarket and observe a frenzy of 'disposable' buying - plastic pumpkins, cauldrons, dressing up outfits… You know that by 1st November it is heading for landfill. Shame on all of us for buying into this.

Maybe if we have less car ownership and more car sharing then perhaps many of the concreted over driveways front gardens could revert to grass aiding normal water drainage, or let it go wild with bramble bushes and at least have some blackberries in the late summer!

The plastic bag tax is a good example of a small change changing behaviour

‘The average consumer in England now buys just 10 bags a year from the main supermarket retailers, according to the new data from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), down from 140 bags in 2014 before the charge came into force.‘

I also think that even small nudges can get consumers thinking about what our governments (don't) do. For example, why should I be saving water or recycling tins if the government is pushing for a new runway to increase air traffic. It absolutely doesn't make sense.

Its amazing how many people i see driving kids and toddlers for walkable journey's in the morning

This links to the need for more flexible and home working from employers. I suspect many parents dropping children at school are then rushing straight to work.

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

I work on projects around automation.

It is driven by profit, believe me, I write the cost benefit analyses.

Currently simple tasks can be automated - scanning shopping, retrieving products from shelves, data entry. Automation at this end of the market is cheaper as it has been around longer and more companies are using it = cheaper than humans.

More complex automation is still expensive and so humans are cheaper, for now. As the price of that technology decreases more automation will be brought in.

I've never seen a company introduce automation because they can't recruit humans. Only because automation is cheaper and makes less mistakes.

And it doesn't take much for the automation to become cheaper bearing in mind that a 'robot' (usually software rather than what people think of as a robot) works 24/7. Even factoring in downtime they work much, much faster than humans, around the clock, they never leave for a competitor and they don't ask for pay rises.

I haven't seen the 2040 film but the timeline is interesting - we do need to have changed a lot by then but how much does the world really change in 20 years?

Day to day life hasn't changed very much since 2000 IMO other than smartphones and TV streaming and a little bit of automation (tills at the supermarket) which is nothing like the scale of change we need in the next 20. The pace of change we need to achieve is actually staggering.

Maybe not much has changed but I think we were doing 'better' until 2010 ( or so I heard on the radio today). But now we don't have strong climate change leadership in UK or in Europe - previously Britain and Germany were leading the way.

IF you get a chance go and see the 2040 film. It is using technology and systems that are available NOW. It is interesting that in countries where there has been no government infrastructure for phones, electricity etc they are leading some of the revolutionary concepts about localised networks for sharing solar power.

Unfortunately whatever we do is negated many times over by the Chinese still building huge new coal fired power stations. It's rather disheartening.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50474824

I think day trips to lapland and similar should and will be outlawed!

I'll try to get to see 2040...

I think there's so much that can be done locally. I'm in the middle of setting up a scheme for our village and the next village where people can borrow things like tools, ladders, carpet cleaners, gazebos, BBQs, etc off each other for a small cost (and signing a legal agreement which covers scenarios where something is broken or not returned).

@wheresmymojo I think it depends on the 20 years and in the time period you're mentioning you might find more changes than first appear on the surface.

If you just look at the period from 1999, for instance, to 2019, and how much has changed in that timeline. In 1999, 2001 hadn't happened yet (this really was a major world changing event in so many ways), so airline security was still a relatively relaxed affair, compared to how tight it is today; the Internet for the public (not the military or universities) was pretty much in its infancy; and some aspects of the cost of living was considerably more manageable. And smartphones and what they will allow now for the Internet of Things are also game changers. We've been trying out some Smartplugs and a couple of Smart lightbulbs and they've made us much more aware of the power we're using. More devices will follow....

I've kept diaries pretty much my whole life, and I remember 2001 as being the year that petrol, for instance, suddenly shot up in price. House prices also went utterly mad round about that time and nationally have never fallen back to the overall affordability levels of before that year.

That's without even touching on the environmental issues of flood, fire, drought and millions of displaced refugees due in some cases to climate change.

Or take 1912 (Titanic sank) to 1932 and just look at the changes that happened in those 20 years - a World War, the lead up to the Great Depression, suffragettes leading to some women being given the vote, Easter Rising and Sinn Fein, Russian Revolution, the Spanish Flu, the firs Sex Disqualification Removal Act, women at Oxford allowed o receive degrees for the first time, the formation of Plaid Cymru, the first public demonstration of TV...

I do agree though that as individuals what we can do is limited without government buy in world wide. But I still feel like I have to try, so that when I'm (even more) old and doddery and my great nieces and nephews are asking me what I did, I can feel at least I tried to be on the right side of history in a small way.

*cost of living WERE considerably more manageable. Grrr. Where's Grammarly when you need it!

We would stop giving some more priority to the needs of drivers and car owners and prioritise pedestrian and cycle travel. People would not own cars but use short term hire/share schemes. This would free up valuable street estate for separated bike lane and pedestrian facilities

What a magical utopia it would be! Here's our experience of trying to be green... Instead of buying a second car we couldn't afford to run and which would be environmentally wrong, DH bought an electric bike with the view to cycling the five miles to the train station. We felt good for going against the grain. Then reality struck when the trains were constantly cancelled and DH received a formal warning for being late although obv through no fault of his own. So DH now uses our one car and i have to rely on the one bus a day to my work and i have to work an extra day to make up my hours as the bus gets me there two hours late. We will never be able to get all the cars off the road.. only the rich can afford electric cars and public transport is a joke.

We would happily reduce cars but the reality is I live 90 miles return commute from the office, DH needs to go 40 mins round trip in the opposite direction to his place of work.

Public transport would take me 5-6 hours a day (even if I drove to the station from my house) and DH can't get to his place by public transport at all as we live rurally and his place of work is also rural.

I can't work closer unless we halved our income or more. DH has his own business (a gym) so he can't work closer (he set it up before we met).

So until we can afford an electric vehicle we'll be a two car household doing 30k miles per year...

I think at this point unless you cut out driving and flying you won’t have a house or office to work in !

flights rationed by total distance.
ditto car travel; even electric, the power doesn't come from pedalling unicorns. Out of mileage? Can't go.
power rationing by price - this is coming anyway, what do you think smart meters are for?
maximum temperature for inside a house. Put a bloody jumper on if you are under 65.
all offices and shops to turn EVERYTHING off at closing time. Illegal to leave door open if heating on.
all buildings in the UK that require aircon to be demolished. Bye bye Shard...
all couriers except the Post Office off the road - they are driving round anyway so use them to deliver. You'll have to do without that next-day-oh-so-important item from Amazon.
internet access rationed; servers use massive amounts of power.

pollution reduction; single use cups and takeaway containers outlawed. Bring your own or go hungry. No new gadget unless the old one has actually stopped working. Clothing rationing.

of course all MN'ers concerned for the children will support all this. Yeah, right...

if Thunberg were any use, she would stop encouraging truant and make it clear that stopping global warming means a drop in lifestyle.

To the PP who suggested no private gardens may I point out how many people like myself now garden organically with no pesticides,water butts galore,pollinating plants in abundance,and wild scruffy areas left for nature. Not to mention a beehive,hedgehog house and wildlife pond.It seems a bit harsh to target responsible gardeners.Now the ones with fake grass,plastic flowers and all the shrubs etc that give sanctuary to wildlife ripped out -well that's another matter.

The food trade has been multinational and long distance for a millennium
That will not change

Construction needs to go back to using less concrete and more timber

But mainly Westerners need to consume and WASTE less ....
It takes me 8 weeks to fill my bin
because I try not to waste anything
Houses near me fill their bin every week ....

if Thunberg were any use, she would stop encouraging truant and make it clear that stopping global warming means a drop in lifestyle

This is the elephant in the room I think. And people aren't willing to do it. I don't know what will make the vast majority take action, people don't seem to believe climate change is happening, or if they do they think it's relatively minor or doesn't affect them personally and until it does they DGAF.

Quite frankly it’s impossible to say.

Firstly it’s not clear whether humans are actually the cause of climate change, exacerbating it or completely irrelevant. Most studies find a correlation between rising levels of CO2, human emissions, blog also warming and climate change but there really isn’t enough knowledge of what causes climate changes to prove a causal link, just a likelihood.

Secondly, let’s assume that climate change (this time) is 100% or at the very least mostly caused by human emissions. The question arises what will happen as a result? Is it a bad thing etc etc. There are several factors at play. The output of solar thermal energy has decreased in recent years. The stratosphere is apparently cooling. If this continues to happen than man made climate change would be a happy mistake. But if the trend is reversed then it will be far worse than if output had remained the same.

Thirdly, we need to consider other human activities. It’s possible that, as a result of geothermal engineering alongside other technological advances we will have sufficient control over and independence from the environment to make climate change a non-issue for ourselves. Or we might be so caught up in trying to stop something which we may not even have control over that we loose our chance and succumb to climate change with mass deaths a result.

In conclusion and answer to your question. Dunno. Might make things worse, might have no effect or, might prevent a climate cataclysm for at least a little while.

Firstly it’s not clear whether humans are actually the cause of climate change, exacerbating it or completely irrelevant.

This is very persuasive about nuclear as opposed to renewables. Solar panels are an absolute bitch to recycle.

And Nuclear power plants are a doddle ........ right