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.

Seafood might be the product of slavery, but so are crops. Sorry guys but eating plants doesnt solve this stuff.

Ineedcoffee's post is refreshing; i have eczma too and bar soap is shit for it.

What's needed is a clear list of what socially responsible people should do - you can tell from this thread that there's a lot of confusion about what's good for the environment and what isn't (carbon footprint of local produce, for example).

Once we have that clarity and simplicity, promoted by our various governments, then it's a case of making it socially unacceptable to break the 'code' - much in the same way that smoking has become socially unacceptable.

I can't see this happening, tbh - but then I don't have kids, nor any family left other than DH, so am not overly concerned for the future of the planet as I shan't be around to see it. I still do what I can though, because I think it's the right thing to do.

Why should "someone" stop you?
Who is this "someone"?
If you know or believe things are bad, why not adapt your behaviour accordingly.
Did the population during the industrial revolution ask for "someone" to stop them polluting the country?
One easy solution is to stop using the internet. It is kept very quiet, but online activity is one of the biggest environmental polluters.

@Sloth66

Watched the Chris packham programme, think it was called 7.7 billion last night. Shocked to hear david Attenborough say the world population was only 2 billion when he was young. That’s a huge increase and fuels my pessimism that things will ever really improve.

Yeah it was so great when loads of children in the third world died of easily treatable diseases 🙄

But how will the South American economy work if no one can rear and sell cattle - what do you suggest the people do to earn a living. All the fishermen who mustn't catch fish, all the airline staff now we can't fly.

Exactly this! I live in NZ - how does me stopping eating meat (and I really don't eat much anyway, never have) save the Amazon rain forest? Some countries economies are based on agriculture and fishing. What those of you in cities don't seem to understand that it is not just the farmers who are affected - whole towns depend on those farmers for their livelihoods also. I lived in a rural support town during a huge time of economic uncertainty for farming and in fact lost my job (in an accountants office) because of it. It's all very well to have high ideals, but not when you have no clue about the repercussions.

Having said that, people such as @Ineedcoffee2021 are just dicks, and it amazes me how happy they are to advertise the fact

@Inextremis

What's needed is a clear list of what socially responsible people should do - you can tell from this thread that there's a lot of confusion about what's good for the environment and what isn't (carbon footprint of local produce, for example).

Once we have that clarity and simplicity, promoted by our various governments, then it's a case of making it socially unacceptable to break the 'code' - much in the same way that smoking has become socially unacceptable.

I can't see this happening, tbh - but then I don't have kids, nor any family left other than DH, so am not overly concerned for the future of the planet as I shan't be around to see it. I still do what I can though, because I think it's the right thing to do.

Well, I can't either because a lot of what people who are about the 'environment' want is expensive and penalises the poor even more so than they already are.

@YouWereGr8InLittleMenstruators

I hear you, OP, and I'm sorry these threads often seem to end up as some sort of smug-fest for the jaded. It may well be that humanity's time on the planet is limited, and of course the planet itself will recover, but to blythely dismiss and patronise your empathetic human concern for life on the planet, including human life, is a bit rubbish. The well-being of other humans, the very existence of other species, is not ours to 'write off' with impunity. You are thinking straight, OP. Many people are making all sorts of adjustments and sacrifices on an individual level in order to lessen their environmental impact on the land. Good! Yet they regularly get patronised or called sanctimonious or naïve. Or 'shown' some way in which their efforts are likely to come to nought or amount to little. Why would someone go to the trouble of doing that? It is like a knee-jerk response to feeling "told" or "lectured". It is true, individual effort will have less impact than action taken by governments and corporations, but it doesn't have to be either / or; of course we can strive in our personal lives while also campaigning for change on a national and international level. And the PPs who have mentioned being childless by choice, or even regretting the child they have on account of the bleak outlook for humanity, I hear you too. Yet someone is likely to come along on a thread like this and upbraid you for fear-mongering, guilt-tripping and death-culting; so low. It seems your voices stir a special kind of resentment and very little empathy, which is such a shame as it seems obvious to me you are acting out of the very deepest sense of compassion. Surely it is natural, when considering the challenges we face as a species, to reflect on the likely impact on our progeny, and feel fear for those we love, or, for some, to know instinctively that this outlook is not one they wish for a future child? Or even that forfeiting their own reproductive function in a western economy will reduce demand on resources globally. Life for children, (whether relatively insulated in a western economy or infinitely more exposed in the global south), in a rapidly degrading world with growing resource-scarcity, is going to be hard, and we'll know, and they'll know, that our generation still had choices to make that could have made a difference. Instead, they'll watch the extinction of myriad species, the displacement of millions on account of famine, resource wars, rising sea levels, pollution, vast swathes of continents rendered uninhabitable and know that we made other priorities. So I'm with you, OP, and anyone else who feels moved to plug away at making changes to our lives, great and small, because it feels like it is the right thing to do. Soon enough will come the need for adaptation but at least we will know we did our best at mitigation.

This is one on the best posts I've seen for a long time.

People had more time 50 years ago because there were local jobs. People left school to work in local bank/ offices/ farms etc

I left school 46 years ago and had to travel to work in a different town to the one I lived in, it's not a new thing.

A little local meat is going uk be far better for the planet overall.

I laugh at the shite they sell as vegan meat. Made from processed soya (thanks Brazil) and wrapped in plastic

Meat eaters are also destroying the planet.if you read the figures you will see the sums just don't add up.
Fracking needs to stop,fishing needs to be strictly limited and everyone should be accountable for their carbon footprint.We are leaving a destroyed world for our future children,grandchildren,the 'end of the world type films will become reality.
Too little,too late.

Meat eaters are also destroying the planet is a rather simplistic approach.

Where you source meat from, and what type of meat it is has a huge bearing on the impact. Brazilian beef is likely to be responsible for deforestation and cows are merrily burping away. Agriculture in developed countries is also much more efficient, you can get more food from smaller herds these days.

Welsh lamb on the other hand is mostly reared on hill farms which never were woodland due to the topography so the "opportunity cost" is much lower.

Pigs and chickens aren't ruminants so they aren't producing anything like as much methane. Pigs will also eat anything so don't require the same land use to provide fodder - there are some rare breeds ones near me who get fed vegetable scraps from the local greengrocer.

Wild boar don't require any land use change at all, they live in the forest. I have it on good authority from someone who was walking home from Lydney that they'll mug you for your pizza though.
ourworldindata.org/carbon-opportunity-costs-food

Half of methane emissions come from the oil and gas industry anyway so again it comes back to our dependence on fossil fuels.

Fracking needs to stop

Why does fracking need to stop? Would you rather depend on Russia or Gulf states for your fossil fuel needs?

I mean, ok, but I’d rather source it from the US or Canada frankly.

Fun fact is that in the US carbon emissions went down largely due to fracking, it allowed them to shift away from coal to cleaner natural gas.

my gran used to say " man will never be satisfied until he's got rid of everything & then he still won't be" that was 60yrs ago, never a truer word

@Roonerspismed you don’t have to eat processed food as a vegan, it’s not a dichotomy between that and meat. Just eat some beans - cheap, healthy, planet friendly. I did grow some edamame last year though

@mytwocats
Your gran was right.

The planet will eject us.

All it’ll need is a virus with a higher fatality rate than covid.

Perhaps people will remain who live sustainably, unconnected to the rest of the world.

There are absolutely billions of us, far too many.

thankyou,i miss her loads but some of the things she said were quite profound,that saying always stuck with me,found it quite unnerving

It's too late and people are too selfish and greedy. I'm just glad I don't have children that will have to suffer through it.

As another poster pointed out antibiotic resistance is the next think that will be coming and all this over sanitising everything and keeping away from everyone not exposing our immune systems to germs is not going to help.

I also kind of eye roll as you get people saying about building houses on green space, but oh where else will they go? That’s hardly going to help

A group of Sherpas have taken advantage of the current lack of tourists to start cleaning up Everest.
www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/travel/meet-nepalese-climbers-removed-22-tons-rubbish-everest-tourists/

[quote PattyPan]**@Ineedcoffee2021 maybe you should watch the documentary the OP mentions (Seaspiracy), it turns out that so much seafood is the product of slavery I know it’s difficult with fussy kids but I couldn’t have that on my conscience.[/quote]
Sorry, my kids eating comes first.

fish is not really a healthy food anymore due to the crap in the ocean so feed it to your daughter if you choose to, but dont bullshit yourself that you're feeding her healthy food.

Yeah sure lmao
Seafood is generally low in cholesterol
It's rich in vitamins and minerals including iodine, zinc, potassium, and vitamin B.
abundance of Omega-3 fatty acids
and yeah yeah that all may come in plants but if your kid dont eat a huge variety of plants in large enough amounts, well you go with what they do eat, which for us is fish

*Having said that, people such as @Ineedcoffee2021 are just dicks, and it amazes me how happy they are to advertise the fact

shove it where the sun dont shine
You may not like it but its pure honesty
would you rather me go 'oh yeah, i totes do all i can and will change my life' when its simply not true?

We won't destroy the planet, we may destroy life on it, but more particularly ourselves. But then the planet would recover. Human beings turned up about last week in the history of the Earth, it's a bit egotistical to think we can destroy it.

If no-one had children we would destroy human life in about 100 years, by the way. Some people may think this is a good idea of course but I don't personally.

@Roonerspismed

A little local meat is going uk be far better for the planet overall.

I laugh at the shite they sell as vegan meat. Made from processed soya (thanks Brazil) and wrapped in plastic

It's hardly one or the other though, is it?

And millions of people eat ready meals with meat from Brazil in them, or horse, or goodness knows what, not "a little local meat".