If it’s that bad, why aren’t we panicking more??

[Nightgardenisodd]

Climate change.
I keep reading posts about it and it’s scaring the crap out of me for my DD’s future.
How bad is it? Anyone have any positivity about it?

Climate change is already happening, and it’s interesting that someone mentioned immigration. Climate change is among the factors causing it. All present tense.

news.sky.com/story/climate-change-the-people-forced-from-their-homes-by-floods-wildfires-storms-and-sea-level-rise-12355533

The Netherlands and Belgium going under might wake Britain up I suppose. I’m seriously lacking in faith in that at the moment as we have already had so many wake-up calls, and then it goes straight back to snoozy business-as-usual every time. We should have had change back when WWF and FOE were big news, it seems hopeless in the degenerative mess Britain is now.

You'll have to ask the Con govt why they have invited almost 3m HK citizens into the UK, on top of these other 100s of 1000s you mention.

I personally welcome the 3 million Hong Kong citizens, I’m sorry you don’t. What I’m saying is, it’s inevitable that as the population increases, we will need to build more homes, and that will inevitably have an environmental cost.

Yes, it's that bad.

The world economy is dependent on us destroying the planet though.

So people have kidded themselves that they can keep on buying and consuming, but it's ok as long as it's 'eco'. So buy a newly manufactured car using new materials and fossil fuels to manufacture it and ship it around the world, but then show it off and justify the consumption because it is an 'eco car'. Even the government is promoting this.

And not taking advantage of the huge decrease in air travel caused by the pandemic, but the world economies actively trying desperately to get people to fly again, but this produces about 25% of the carbon dioxide in the world, so simply stopping recreational flying would delay climate disaster. And no, paying for a few baby sapling trees to be planted somewhere is not going to really undo the damage your flight just caused.

And focussing on microproblems like plastic straws is painful. Most plastic in the ocean comes from the fishing industry not your juice box.

If everyone tried to stop the relentless consumption of stuff and relentless air pollution and relentless destruction of the rain forest and relentless breeding of animals for meat, that would help a tiny bit, but the balance is already off kilter and governments are just terrified of the effect on economies of what is really required to stop the destruction of the planet.

@lllllllllll

I believe you can now add a couple of floors to a block of flats without planning permission in many areas. Quite useful in London where there are lots of these with only four or six floors. The cottage with roses round the door will be a distant dream, but a roof should be doable.

It will make no difference. There is nothing individuals can do to stop the inevitable. It needs massive change from all governments across the globe. They won't do it because a) it costs too much, b) they will all be dead by the time it's a problem and c) they don't care about future generations, just what can keep them comfortable in their lifetime.

That's all governments in all countries. They have only ever cared about themselves and that won't change. It has always been thus. We're not panicking because there's nothing we can do about it.

@Soberanne

Offer people help to downsize their homes, especially those living in social housing. My neighbour lives alone in a 3 bedroom property. She wanted to move into a one bedroom house in our area but couldnt afford move.or redecorating.

What we need is accomodation similar to student halls for single people or couples f they choose. When my child leaves home i would happily move into something like student halls, shared living space but own room and shared laundry etc etc. Cheaper accomodation and more people in the one place. And before anyone comments i am not saying people should be forced to live like this but if it was available then i for one would.

I feel the same way. I read an article abput groups of older, single women choosing to live communally.

And yes, in overpopulated countries, it is not acceptable to say, but reproducing more than you need to replace yourself is very bad for the environment (looking at you Boris)

@lllllllllll

You'll have to ask the Con govt why they have invited almost 3m HK citizens into the UK, on top of these other 100s of 1000s you mention.

I personally welcome the 3 million Hong Kong citizens, I’m sorry you don’t. What I’m saying is, it’s inevitable that as the population increases, we will need to build more homes, and that will inevitably have an environmental cost.

Its unbelievably stupid. The UK cannot and does not have the space or resources to house millions of extra people.

Its almost 5% of our current population, many are not wealthy or young.

The HK people will be at no more at risk of persecution than any other Chinese citizen or do you think we should invite in anyone from anywhere in the world with a tenuous link to the UK?

We don't panic, we're British.

But i'm sure they have a sustainable plan for housing transport education and health.

That’s a good point though - it’s not just the new houses we need to build. It’s all the infrastructure we need to go with it, which obviously means even greater loss of green space and wildlife.

It’s worse.

We’re not doing more about it because of course the handful of mega rich who control our media, etc want to keep the status quo - and they will all be ok anyway. They fund and propagate all of the misinformation, greenwash and some seriously dark and shady shit. All around the world, they’re murdering climate activists. I see normal people expressing sympathy for oil tycoons/hatred for Extinction Rebellion protestors/absolutely inane, infuriating shite in denial. Sometimes I think maybe our hastening demise is inevitable or even for the best. But if you think about what it actually entails...

Even just imagining the climate refugees. They’re already attacking migrant boats. It’ll be the military shooting to kill from the borders before too long and most people will justify it.

On the bright side (!), one of Rupert Murdoch’s sons has been sidelined because he has a conscience. So, when RM eventually dies, maybe something will change.

defeated shrug

Its unbelievably stupid.
The UK cannot and does not have the space or resources to house millions of extra people.

@jasjas1973 are you Nigel Farage?

Oh and then there’s the MN thread where ~52% (calling Brexit to mind, funnily enough) of voters agreed that going vegan wasn’t any better for the planet. Followed by pages and pages of bollocks. There’s no hope!

I believe you can now add a couple of floors to a block of flats without planning permission in many areas. Quite useful in London where there are lots of these with only four or six floors. The cottage with roses round the door will be a distant dream, but a roof should be doable.

@SpaceshiptoMars Oh, why not add a couple of storeys to the cottage with the roses around the door too? A lot has been said by our current prime minister about “levelling up” the UK and ensuring we’re less Londoncentric. So these new homes should be built all over the country, let’s spread the wealth.

@lllllllllll

But i'm sure they have a sustainable plan for housing transport education and health.

That’s a good point though - it’s not just the new houses we need to build. It’s all the infrastructure we need to go with it, which obviously means even greater loss of green space and wildlife.

Yes and importing the labour to build the roads schools etc plus opening up more immigration routes for workers to staff the schools/hospitals etc.

All these extra folk will need... you guessed it! HOUSES!!! etc!

The UK already has the lowest bio diversity of any other european country.

We need to try and limit/reduce our carbon foot print, not increase it.

Oh and then there’s the MN thread where ~52% (calling Brexit to mind, funnily enough) of voters agreed that going vegan wasn’t any better for the planet. Followed by pages and pages of bollocks. There’s no hope!

@CrankyFrankie not to mention the one where posters were furious about the plans to outlaw the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2030!

@CrankyFrankie

Oh and then there’s the MN thread where ~52% (calling Brexit to mind, funnily enough) of voters agreed that going vegan wasn’t any better for the planet. Followed by pages and pages of bollocks. There’s no hope!

48% going vegan would be headline news though! And tbf, I'm not sure that living off Quorn and chips is as environmentally friendly as you'd like!

@lllllllllll

Its unbelievably stupid. The UK cannot and does not have the space or resources to house millions of extra people.

@jasjas1973 are you Nigel Farage?

Rather than a stupid question not worthy of a reply, perhaps you would like to explain where millions of extra houses and infrastructure can go? who will build it and who will pay for it?

Plus what is its environmental impact?

Seeing as your a supporter of mass immigration for no gain.

@sotiredofthislonelylife

And please don’t blame those of us who have artificial grass for exacerbating flooding - how ridiculous! Have you not seen 8 or 10 lane motorways? How much free-draining land do they use? Building homes on flood plains? Following EU rules on not dredging rivers? Hopefully, at least that can now be restarted. Whoever dreamt up the idea that life at the bottom of rivers must be protected to the detriment of those that live on the land should be made responsible for the damage caused.

No one is arguing that owning artifical grass is single-handedly causing all environmental problems but we all have to do what we can, don't we? The total area of all UK's gardens is larger than all of the UK's National Nature Reserves combined. That's an awful lot of lost habitat if everyone decided to cover their gardens with plastic grass. And that's without taking into account the fact that chemicals like zinc have been found in water run-off, that as the material degrades over time microplastics migrate into the soil (and water) and once it reaches the end of its life it will sit in landfill because, despite what the industry tells people, it's actually quite difficult to recycle as it's made up of so many different plastics.

Here is some accurate information about river dredging fullfact.org/online/EU-dredging-floods

And let's say you live in a country that imports maybe half of its food. It is much better for the environment to make those import journeys as short as possible and import that food from your closest neighbours.

The very worst case scenario for the environment would be to aim to import that food from countries on the opposite side of the world to yourself. That would require very much more use of fossil fuels for shipping/air transportation and lead to worse climate change.

Ditto that scenario for all imports.

Trade with your nearest neighbours and reduce unnecessary shipping and air transport.

Whoops. The current government are massive hypocrites and their fundamental reason for being (brexit) is bad for the environment. They are trying to push the responsibility onto the little people by promoting eco cars and new boilers. But that just requires new manufacture of new good using new raw materials and more fossil fuels in manufacturing and transportation to get them here.

@jasjas1973 well, a lot of them will inevitably be built on green land won’t they? And countless wildlife habitats will be destroyed in the process. But hundreds or thousands of people are moving to this country every year, and they need places to live. You sound very anti-immigration - I presume you voted Brexit.

I agree completely with jasjas about HK immigrants, we already have an acknowledged shortfall of 1 million homes and cannot feed our population. So it’s in our best interests to make sure that people can bloody survive back in their own countries!

@lllllllllll

Oh and then there’s the MN thread where ~52% (calling Brexit to mind, funnily enough) of voters agreed that going vegan wasn’t any better for the planet. Followed by pages and pages of bollocks. There’s no hope!

@CrankyFrankie not to mention the one where posters were furious about the plans to outlaw the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2030!

No point banning fossil fueled vehicles if the alt is even more damaging.

EV vehicles, batteries, power and charging infrastructure all have a significant eco cost

a better solution, until hydrogen and battery tech improves would be to limit engine size, no one needs anything more than a 1400 for example, some exceptions for rural perhaps, and no, caravans are not a necessity.

That was the beauty of being in the EU, we had global clout and collaboration, now we are a small country, beholden to the US, who basically dont believe in climate change.

The very worst case scenario for the environment would be to aim to import that food from countries on the opposite side of the world to yourself.

If I recall rightly, DH bought some lamb from Ocado last year without looking properly at the country of origin etc. When it arrived we were amazed to find that it had come all the way from New Zealand - madness.

It is that bad. If we keep overpopulating the earth, not doing anything because we either don't want to or it has some minor impact on our lives, we can just stand back and watch the disaster. My neighbours (1 son + mum & dad) have a car each although the 2 adults work in the same village and leave for work at the same time. Its infuriating and they don't even recycle properly, they don't care. So we are up against it.