To wonder when someone will stop us from destroying the planet before it is too late?

[Ohdoleavemealone]

Last night I watched a documentary about how the biggest threat to our oceans is the fishing industry. Worse than plastics (and actually 46% of the plastic is fishing nets), worse than killing sharks for fin soup or putting animals into captivity.
The bycatch from fishing means we are killing thousands of species for the few we want. We have depleted the oceans resources and killed the seabeds with the harsh methods used.
Of course this is on top of our piles of rubbish, fuel polution etc.
We have been destroying our planet for years but have really accelerated in the last 50 years as corporate companies have no moral compass and the rest of us are just sheep. We believe that we need all the consumer driven shit they tell us and we fund the industries killing our planet.
So how does it stop? Is it too late? Do we just accept it or do we try and fight for it? Are we little people enough?

Full disclosure: I do not do enough on a small level to do my bit but I am looking for ways I can.

I was brought up with, and have lived my life, according to the adage ‘Tread lightly on the Earth’. I don’t replace things until they are worn out, recycle what I can, buy mostly from charity shops. This also includes things like being careful with use of gas, water, electricity, and so forth. I’m vegetarian, walk or cycle everywhere, or use public transport. It’s hard not to have a car, or a TV that has lots of amazing channels when there’s bugger all on,, but it makes me feel like I’m doing my bit. I read and spend lots of time in the open air, and I cherish our planet.

My house might look like it’s all mismatched, and I sport the Orphan Annie fashion look, but I do what I can. It makes me laugh that the number of colleagues I have who pay lip service to putting their cans in the recycling bin, whilst getting a new mobile every year, going abroad on holiday a couple of times a year, and whose kids MUST have this or that...generally more tat that isn’t good for the planet.

Unless more people want to live like they are are in the 1950’s, use less power, less recharging things, cut food waste, and all the other things that could help, I don’t see the planet surviving with us on it. And that’s a decision all of us make individually, every day. Some areas of the world struggle for food, use coal for power, and that’s important for their lives now. Whether global warming is human made or a natural climate change is immaterial, it’s the waste of any resource and the throwaway culture that makes me sad.

The young righteous enthusiasts, activists and preachers seem oblivious to their own use of energy in computers, tablets, phones and the like, while railing against aeroplanes and cars - I don't love cars myself especially those sitting in the street with engines running while the driver is on the phone for half an hour but they do have their uses, especially in the country and are every bit as appealing as iphones for their convenience and uses. Also light pollution is another hazard unmentioned by the students with their garish light shows and the worthy cyclists with their flashing multiple lamps and head torches - not forgetting the latest additional blight of lit-up joggers and even dogs being walked by their earnest owners.

Am I uncomfortable? Certainly not.

And yet despite all this- the planet is still choking. Perhaps because it’s not enough?

And fwiw I asked how uncomfortable Op was prepared to be. You are telling me you aren’t uncomfortable- so you’re not answering the question of how uncomfortable you’re prepared to be.

I doubt someone will be able to save us @Ohdoleavemealone but something may. Artificial Intelligence may take the issue out of human hands.🤷‍♀️

@UhtredRagnarson I don't really see why that's funny? I haven't been able to cut out ALL plastics but with thought you can massively, massively reduce.
The OP centred her post on two points: fish farming, and plastics. So why is it funny to recommend cutting out fish and cutting out, or cutting down, on plastics exactly??

It's not "too late". Yes some degree of climate change is already locked in, but the more we do about it, the less bad it will be.

We can't rely on technology to save us (whether lab-grown meat or carbon capture); not only is it unproven on large scales, but it has energy and resource costs of its own. We already have all the tools and skills we need to address the issues.

Everyone just needs to consume fewer goods and services, and what they do consume, needs to to be sustainably produced. We need simpler lives, and we will likely be happier living that way anyway.

Larger scale things like energy policy changes are already underway (the plans aren't good enough yet, but they will get there).

@tabernacles

It's not "too late". Yes some degree of climate change is already locked in, but the more we do about it, the less bad it will be.

We can't rely on technology to save us (whether lab-grown meat or carbon capture); not only is it unproven on large scales, but it has energy and resource costs of its own. We already have all the tools and skills we need to address the issues.

Everyone just needs to consume fewer goods and services, and what they do consume, needs to to be sustainably produced. We need simpler lives, and we will likely be happier living that way anyway.

Larger scale things like energy policy changes are already underway (the plans aren't good enough yet, but they will get there).

Tell that to the people who live in parts of Africa where it is either drying up to a crisp or flooding in unprecedented ways. It is too late.

Noone is coming to save you op.

@UhtredRagnarson

Thanks *@DdraigGoch*. That’s very interesting. Any idea why it was reversed?

I think that President Ahmadinejad being a populist hothead had quite a lot to do with it. He took policy back to Ayatollah Khomeini's bad old ways in many respects including family planning.

There were in any case the usual concerns about aging populations and so on. It is true that reducing the fertility rate too fast will create its own problems.

When you see the global response to covid - especially the first lockdown efforts around the world - you realise it could be possible to make a global change so long as we can ditch economies.

@SummaLuvin

I disagree with Kendodd’s implication that totalitarianism is the way to solve problems!

I'm not sure... I hate to say it but using the UK to Chinas COVID response as an example, totalitarianism works in these situations. Here, people break rules because they can, because they don't fancy isolating for 14 days after a holiday to Spain, because they want to see their friends. In China the government went hard - people were tracked, they had to get permission to leave their home to take rubbish out, and were imprisoned for rule breaking. Which one worked better to prevent spread and save lives? Similar with saving the planet. It won't happen because people don't want to do what it takes and make the required sacrifices, they will never choose it for themselves, and the free world won't be forced to comply.

Ironic because China caused the COVID epidemic to travel around m the first place through their lack of transparency about what was happening in Wuhan.

@Tumbleweed101

When you see the global response to covid - especially the first lockdown efforts around the world - you realise it could be possible to make a global change so long as we can ditch economies.

You do realise that carbon emissions did not go down all that much, right?

Totalitarianism won't save the planet: it works to protect its power structure.

I dont think soecies are meant to last forever. I think they thrive until they get too succesful for their own good then fade and something else will evolve better suited to the environment. I often think how odd this all us and ask what the point of us is.

Species*

Tell that to the people who live in parts of Africa where it is either drying up to a crisp or flooding in unprecedented ways. It is too late

Where specifically is this happening? Lots of amazing farmland in Tanzania, for instance, and good potential to expand beyond subsistence/family farming for export to the rest of Africa and beyond.

That’s just Tanzania. I think Rwanda has the same sort of potential as well.

It’s a done deal now. We will destroy the planet and the Goldilocks era will be over.

On the plus side the sun will burn out in the future and life on the planet will cease anyway. So life on Earth was never going to be infinite anyway.

@UsedUpUsername

Tell that to the people who live in parts of Africa where it is either drying up to a crisp or flooding in unprecedented ways. It is too late

Where specifically is this happening? Lots of amazing farmland in Tanzania, for instance, and good potential to expand beyond subsistence/family farming for export to the rest of Africa and beyond.

That’s just Tanzania. I think Rwanda has the same sort of potential as well.

"Drowned land: hunger stalks South Sudan's flooded villages | Global development | The Guardian" www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/mar/19/drowned-land-hunger-stalks-south-sudans-flooded-villages

@ClarkeGriffin

This is making me think the covid response was the wrong one we should have just let it go crazy and cut out a chunk of the world population.

Yeah it would have solved it. Its shit but maybe its natures way of getting rid of us. I wouldn't blame it.

This is so dumb. You know reproductive aged people were barely affected, right? 🙄

@UsedUpUsername not saying China were perfect, of course their secrecy around COVID-19 has caused issues. I don't want to derail this thread by getting into that. It was simply used to demonstrate that given the choice people choose what is best for them, not what is best for wider society.

This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody.

There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.

It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

A lot of the attitude on this red is the problem. "It's too late" etc may as well read as I can't be arsed to do anything about it as we're fucked anyway so lets not change anything.

Red=thread

[quote littleredberries]@UhtredRagnarson I don't really see why that's funny? I haven't been able to cut out ALL plastics but with thought you can massively, massively reduce.
The OP centred her post on two points: fish farming, and plastics. So why is it funny to recommend cutting out fish and cutting out, or cutting down, on plastics exactly??[/quote]
Because the OP cutting out those things will not save the planet. It’s so far beyond that.