Is anyone really making any actual sacrifices to combat climate change?

[Cam77]

Saw a news article about a well known celebrity who is very outspoken on climate issues having another child, which is of course literally the worst thing you can do in terms of your climate footprint. But anyway it got me thinking: Does anyone make any actual sacrifices/significant life style compromises for climate change? Or do we instead merely big up choices that we would have made for different reasons anyway?

For example, I'm vegetarian and when people ask the reason I'll cite the effect of beef and pork farming on the environment as one reason. But the truth is I wouldn't eat them anyway, as I hate the idea of inflicting suffering on other intelligent mammals. Or sometimes I tell myself not owning a car is me "doing my bit" but the truth is I don't really enjoy driving and don't need a car for work. Anyway, it often seems when you scratch the surface, there are nearly always reasons of immediate self-interest attached.

Of course, people are good at spending a few minutes to sort and separate their rubbish now, and we take more care to turn off lights we're not using. All good. But how many people are really making significant life style compromises for purely altruistic reasons. 1 in 100? 1 in 1000?

tbh it's those kind of anti-human nihilistic views that alienate me from the environmental movement. I also find it incredibly preachy.

I do get your point but tbh I find that argument infuriating, because even if you think anti- human views are pure shite and are irritated by preachiness, you still can't escape the knowledge that we do need to do something about the environment. "I won't do what needs doing because I don't like the way people talk about it" is just... argh!

The whole of the UK only represents 1.1% of global emissions so you could close the entire country down and it wouldn't make a ha'penth of difference. Dragging pink boats around Trafalgar Square and vandalising Churchills' statue is utterly futile, but that's no the point , is it ?.

@Cornetttttto

I get where you are coming from but placing pressure on everyday folk instead of the huge, multimillion industries that drive the destruction of the environment is a tad unreasonable. I can, as an individual, not stop deforestation, glacier retreat, or even the fact that arseholes hunt animals. Can I?

I agree - placing responsibility on the general public is a bit like taking individual tiny stones out of a river bed when you want to change it’s course instead of moving the fifty big rocks.

I could say that I choose and have chosen not to fly for environmental reasons. Truth is, I’ve only been abroad once in my 33 years because I could never afford it.

Yeah @unmarkedbythat like I said I know I'm being irrational because obviously I want me and my friends and family and all our future generations to live on a nice unpolluted planet and I get that we have to take action and assume responsibility to make it happen. But I just find it difficult to get over the reflexive pull away from anyone who comes at me with information about this when their starting point is that me, everyone around me and everyone on the planet is abhorrent.

In 2019 I had a New Years resolution that was “one eco swap a month”, I’ve made many changes, but wouldn’t call them sacrifices as such?

• use cloth sanitary products

• use cloth wipes for DS and when new baby born (but detest cloth nappies, that would be a sacrifice to use them over disposables, and not a sacrifice I’m giving the time of day!). Also don’t use cloth for me or DH.

• we got rid of our diesel car, and have one petrol now that we will change in the next few years for a hybrid. I hate only having one car and does DH. That said, a majority of the time we wouldn’t be using both (especially now both wfh)

• I buy big bottles of cleaning stuff so they last longer, opting for refills where possible etc

• refuse to buy into fast fashion where possible, and get eco friendly/organic etc. A lot less clothes now but not a bad thing! Also buy second hand.

• we’ve hugely reduced our meat consumption, and only eat meat twice a week now. We’re cow milk free (allergy) but have eggs.

• buy DS eco toys etc where possible and second hand

• take our own drinks in flasks with us when out

• stopped using bottled shower gel/shampoo etc and use soap and shampoo bars (still haven’t kicked the conditioner, I can’t find a good one! Again a change not sacrifice)

• had planned on only 1 DC but the pill had other ideas! 🙈😂

• use cleaning cloths instead of kitchen roll etc.

• recycle and compost

Not huge changes really, and certainly no huge sacrifices. Just what is manageable for us. It’s far better everyone makes a few small changes rather than a few making massive ones.

@SomewhereUpMyArse

NB when I say I'm being irrational I mean that I'm being irrational by the anti human stuff making me feel alienated from the environmental movement, because logically I know that if I act in ways that benefit the environment it's a good thing for me and everyone else.

But actually it's not at root irrational at all to not listen to someone who hates people!

I think it's incorrect to state that I hate people, just because I am rationally able to balance and assess their value in the world, including to each other.

If I invented something that cured death by disease tomorrow, what happens when the population explodes? Do we fight in a big war and many people are killed instead? Did I do a good or bad thing by curing disease related death?

Saying that humans don't individually hold innate value is not the same as saying that humans are awful. And saying that humans might collectively fail isn't saying they're awful either.

If you own an iPhone, you own a product made by child slave labour. Quite probably that applies to a lot in my home too.

I'd rather be the sort of person who understands and thinks about those complexities than who blithely goes "Well, yes, but, the Sistine Chapel and vaccines and observing the universe." Because brushing it over is as sinister to me as discussing it appears to be to you.

Also, I find it amusingly ironic that people who are so pleased by the value of humanity discussing and observing things are quite unhappy with me, a human, discussing and observing humanity!

I mean, didn't you just say you LIKED that? Unless it's a bit personal to feel like you're on the end of the microscope.

The most important thing we can do is lobby the big polluters and vote with our wallets. If we don’t support industries like fast fashion, the ICE car industry and reduce consumption of cheap, throwaway plastic goods they will become unprofitable and have to change.

I don't mind making a few adjustments and sacrifices. But it angers me that all this , the individual, is minor and the real major adjustments: big industries, factories, oil and diesel / are huge contributors, aren't being addressed and held to account first.

I don’t have a tumble drier due to the environmental impact, I eat local meat and produce from a few farms nearby to reduce thre air miles my food does. I no walk to the local shops rather than drive (exercise as well as green). If I do fly I tend to only do it every 2nd or 3rd year despite being able to afford 2 foreign holidays a year if I wanted. My house is a new build so
Is double glazed, smart heating, well insulated..,

@Pyewhacket that's a bit of a cherry picked statistic
The U.K. only produces 1.1% of emissions on fuel consumption emissions but we are responsible for a greater amount as we import a lot of stuff which doesn't add to our CO2 emissions but instead the countries where They are made and we import from (so it's shifting the blame somewhat)
From wiki Territorial-based emissions do not account for global trade, where emissions may be imported or exported in the form of traded goods. Accordingly, a proportion of the CO
2 produced and reported in Asia and Eastern Europe is for the production of goods consumed in Western Europe and North America.
We also rate quite high on the world rating of emissions per capita which means as individuals we are worse than other countries (we are 13th not terrible but could do better)

Most of the changes or things we are doing are things we are happy with anyway, or are of low inconvenience (no children, eco brands, reuse paper, recycle everything etc.). The only thing I do that really bothers me is that I try really hard to be careful with food miles and seasonality. So I barely eat any avocado, even though I love it, and we don't have much variety in our fruit and veg in winter, which is a bit rubbish. Plus it takes a lot of time to work out what the 'least worst' thing is to do (but I try not to worry excessively because we aren't having children, so that's a massive saving!).

I find it really odd - and always have - the way people talk about individuals not having much impact because the problem is governments or organisations. People make up governments and organisations. So we can change things if we want to, and if you convince the right people (as with anything) things will change. Plus, in a capitalist society, putting your money where your mouth is can be powerful.

The final thing that blows my mind on this topic is that we watched a documentary (forget which one) that said Jeff Bezos has enough wealth to save the Amazon rainforest and still be a billionaire. If I was Jeff Bezos I'd do that in a heartbeat - what a wonderful legacy for humanity and an amazing PR stunt. I don't understand why he doesn't.

What could he do to "save" the Amazon? I mean, it's a complex area involving subsistence farming, narcos, paramilitaries, pipelines, indigenous populations, organised crime, large scale drug operations etc. Genuinely interested to hear about a solution that simply involves spending money.

al, not stop deforestation, glacier retreat, or even the fact that arseholes hunt animals. Can I?

Can't believe people think this way ?????
Stop buying stuff, buy locally grown food, don't own a car or just make vital journeys, put on a jumper and turn the heating down, don't fly, don't buy veg in plastic packs, don't buy yoghurts etc in plastic packs, etc

How many things do you order from Amazon - how many trees were felled to produce all the cardboard boxes needed.

The Internet Cloud Has a Dirty Secret

The music video for “Despacito” set an Internet record in April 2018 when it became the first video to hit five billion views on YouTube. In the process, "Despacito" reached a less celebrated milestone: it burned as much energy as 40,000 U.S. homes use in a year.
fortune.com/2019/09/18/internet-cloud-server-data-center-energy-consumption-renewable-coal/

Maybe internet use should be rationed

@Oblomov21

I don't mind making a few adjustments and sacrifices. But it angers me that all this , the individual, is minor and the real major adjustments: big industries, factories, oil and diesel / are huge contributors, aren't being addressed and held to account first.

Unless you never step inside a vehicle with an internal combustion engine, consume nothing made in a factory or buy nothing made by 'big industry' (so no phones or computers apart altogether from anything else') then you are one of billions of people who are served by these organisations you want held to account. And before anyone says I know how culpable they are in creating want, in selling a particular lifestyle etc but at the end of the day, they exist only because customers buy what they sell, either directly or indirectly. You might for example think that fertiliser production is very far removed from your own life, that it's an easy win, it's very damaging and should be done differently by the companies that produce it, but that would most likely have downstream impacts on the price of food. Which would in turn have strong political ramifications. Or that if concrete or steel were produced differently, it might add 20% to the cost of a new-build house, or if the true cost of environmental damage was baked in, might indeed double or triple the cost of a new build. As someone else pointed out, we do a very nifty job of outsourcing and failing to properly account for many of the environmental externalities associated with how the vast majority of us in the developed world live, myself included. It is easy to blame Big Business, Big Ag, etc but the uncomfortable truth is that the blame is (literally) closer to home. We all live as only feudal lords might have lived hundreds of years ago, using energy the equivalent of 100 slaves in our daily lives and somehow we have to reckon with that

@AdventureIsWaiting you're confusing net wealth with liquid cash. Bezos is indeed an obscenely wealthy man but he won't have billions of pounds sitting around in the bank (unless he's extremely foolish). The billions of pounds he is worth is tied up in the companies he owns and that worth goes up and down with the fortunes of those companies. In order to access that wealth he'd have to sell or liquidate the companies, which would be bad news for the employees. And at his level, selling that much in one go unless he had a ready buyer would cause a pretty large dip in the markets and basically reduce his wealth fairly drastically.

He is only wealthy because the stock in his company is worth a lot. If he was to divest all of his ownership in Amazon, the stock would slump and be worth much less because the market would be flooded with Amazon shares. It would probably recover at some point but he wouldn't get as much cash for it as you might think.

This is not to say he couldn't do a great deal, but it's not as simple as "he could just pay for everything".

@thecatsthecats. I love your rational approach and I totally agree with you. But on the whole we are a sentimental and fairly irrational species. While this can be of benefit when we mobilise around something to 'save' it, it is too often confined to things we find impressive or cute or appealing. We are typically not so worried about worms or soil or the animals we choose to eat or marine life that's not dolphins or whales or maybe seals. And I agree that while we as a species have achieved amazing things and made tremendous 'progress' for ourselves as a species, the law of diminishing returns kicked in a long time ago and we are now mostly just producing and consuming in ever more damaging ways and taking the rest of the natural world down with us.

[quote AtLeastThreeDrinks]@theleafandnotthetree True, but research suggests most consumers would opt for a 'green' option given a clear choice. The biggest oil firms spend millions lobbying to block climate policies and on misleading campaigns because their drive for profit is greater than their drive to satisfy consumer 'wants'. And shifting their entire business model is expensive and not in the interests of shareholders.

So no, they're not operating in a vacuum, but they are manipulating our collective decisions for their own gains. A tipping point will come from increased investment in finding climate-friendly alternatives to existing products (because companies know it's the right & necessary thing to do) or companies having their hand forced by government policies. We're already seeing the latter happen thanks to the Paris Agreement, which is having a much bigger impact than consumer niggles about pollution.[/quote]
Oh I agree, the big firms absolutely have blood on their hands in terms of how they have created consumer demand, how they try and wriggle out of any changes which might mean they make less money, in lobbying etc, but there is a still a fair old chunk of the damage they do which very directly comes from us buying their products or using their services. It would be burying our head in the sand to say otherwise and we always have at least some choice. I manage to live a very normal, actually quite consumerist and not one bit crunchy life without having bought a single thing from Amazon in over 10 years (for a host of reasons which I'll not go in to) but some people are literally incredulous that such a thing can be managed! I can only conclude that people are buying an incredible amount of tat that they might want but which they definitely don't need.

I'd rather be the sort of person who understands and thinks about those complexities than who blithely goes "Well, yes, but, the Sistine Chapel and vaccines and observing the universe." Because brushing it over is as sinister to me as discussing it appears to be to youIm

But referring to points as ‘blithely brushing over’ doesn’t really suggest someone who actually is taking into consideration all of the complexities as much as you’re protesting.

I’m not suggesting that you should elevate humanities achievements over its failures but just because you don’t see the worth of it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a worth.

@HesterShaw1

Isn't it funny that so many people are 100% committed to turning their lives upside down to combat the risk of catching covid, yet won't do anything to combat a much more dangerous threat?

Because they have to live through one the other is a vague thing that's probably going to happen after they're dead

It wasn’t the only factor in us not having kids but it tipped the balance.

I used to work for an environmental campaigning organisation. Who were much less carbon conscious on their own activities than my previous employer in higher education.

I was shocked by that having been in amateur activism for a while and seen the level of sacrifice people there were making.

At the environmental organisation there were individual people making substantial efforts and sacrifices.

Other who thought things like going on a driving tour of Europe rather than flying there have them impeccable credentials.

And at that time (just over a decade ago), the organisation was only just getting round to thinking about how often people flew for work etc, into making their building energy efficient etc. I’d seen such moves happen in my former employer several years before and with muss less fuss, arguing and squirming.

They also made recommendations for the public about which e.g. IT equipment was the most environmentally friendly buy and totally ignored those recommendations in relation to their own purchasing.

More tellingly, there was significant internal discord over whether or not to commit the significant reserves held by the organisation (and linked organisations- some fairly complex accounting going on) to the fight against climate change.

Basically the younger campaigners wanted to go balls to the wall and spend the money whilst the older staff wanted to maintain reserves to ensure the organisations long term survival.

Significant resource was being expended on exploring and moving into the field of refugee work, as the organisation thought that would be a significant growth area for them when climate changes efforts failed and numbers of refugees from climate change rose. And that there would be considerable funding available for this purpose from both private donors and institutional givers.

There was significant internal discord about the amount of resources being allocated to this shift, and that plans for refugee facilities and transport contained significant provision for prioritising the housing and safe transport of senior members of the organisation, rather than concentrating more fully on necessary field staff and refugees.

I only lasted a few months before exiting in disgust.

Yes, it's true most make choices that also appeal for other reasons.

At the same time, most of us have a limited number of ways to make a difference. And there are other things that go into weighing them. Having an only child may not seem like a great idea to some for other reasons, they may feel having sibling is important, and anyway it's not like the UK or even the US have a problematic birth rate. They might not want to drive a car so much but want to live near family for very good reasons, and crappy community planning makes a car necessary.

I just read an article about Biden stopping fracking and oil production - the journalist scoffed as it just means the US buying Middle East oil instead.
You can't live in the US without a car imv, everything is too far apart, buses? - you'd need millions of them dotting about everywhere trying to pick people up. Probably end up using more fuel.
As long as those at the top jet everywhere why would people change their ways.
The other problem is working hours imv. I remember the 50s when people walked/cycled to work but nowadays work is in city centre offices (though wfh might change this), not up the road (if you remember pics of factory workers walking into work). Perhaps moving work to areas that people can afford to live might help.