To think we’ve already f****d it up when it comes to the environment.

[MynameisWa]

Am I being unreasonable in thinking we’ve already passed the point of no return when it comes to the environment and that it’s just no one in power or in the know wants to be the one to admit it?

@Tealightsandd

Re cars. Beeching was an idiot wasn't he.

We need to massively improve public transport across the UK.

It was the politicians of the time who wanted it done. Beeching was just the guy who advised which lines to close.

It was never "should we close thousands of miles of railway lines?", it was "which railway lines should be close?"

The result would have been very similar whoever had been given the job. Some lines would have survived but others would have closed.

At the time, railway use was plummeting, especially goods/freight, so leaving the railways untouched was never an option.

I don’t understand how I can get to zero without stopping buying clothes, replacing a Tv or whatever when it needs to be replaced. I do try, I’m not one for cheap fashion. My tv is 15 years old, I have dresses which are 25 years old which I still wear. But yes I do buy stuff and can’t imagine I’ll ever be knitting my own knickers. So how do I get to zero.

You don’t. The campaign to make everyone see this as their own individual problem to solve is a con initially dreamed up by the fossil fuels industry.

The systems need to change - the supply chain that provides your TV, your clothes, where the affordable energy for your electricity and heat comes from, it all needs to change at the supply side.

Demand side will need to shift too, but at the moment without those supply-side changes, demand-side attempts to fix this problem are nigh on impossible.

Looks good to me. Eat the rich.

@Starpleck

I suppose dinosaurs were arguably the dominant animal before the ice age/asteroid weren't they? Not in terms if intelligence necessarily but I wouldn't imagine humans walked around freely without fear back then and we weren't in a position to control them as we do now with animals. It will be interesting to know what the next dominant species will be when we are gone, I'm guessing not an animal in the ocean just because of logistics, so a land dwelling creature; cats perhaps?

Ummm... humans and dinosaurs were not on the planet at the same time.

@Hollyhead

I don’t know why everyone is suddenly handwringing now as though it’s a new thing, my Blue Peter Green Book outlines it all quite clearly in 1991, we’ve had loads of time.

I got a Blue Peter badge for starting a campaign about climate change in the 1980s. People would not listen unfortunately.

[quote PlanDeRaccordement]@Starpleck
Yes we have done a lot of damage but also a lot of good as well. And humans are not parasites, we are apex predators which are in fact part of the ecosystem.

We are not all going to die or go extinct anytime soon. Humans have been around for dozens of Ice Ages and Interglacial periods..some of which were warmer than we are now AND warmer than the “magic” 2.5C “limit” that has been pulled out of hot air.

Why do you think waves of human species migrated out of Africa in the first place? Climate change.

Climate change is not new to the human species. We’ve adapted in the past and can do so again and with more tools than fire and flint at our disposal.[/quote]
How exactly do you think such a migration would work when 8 out of the 10 most populated cities on Earth are in locations that will be underwater if warming is not significantly curtailed? Given the current world population, where do you think these hundreds of millions of people, and all of those who starve due to their countries becoming uninhabitable, or the global famine that will follow?

Do you understand the effect that the warming will have on sea life, and the knock on effect of sea warming on weather systems etc?

I think many people still don't comprehend how hellish this reality will be if we don't prevent it coming to pass. It really will be apocalyptic, from a human perspective. To foresee the apocalypse and be able to avert it and not do so is completely unforgivable.

And once populations are starving and desperate, everyone will be at war over the remaining resources.

@Viviennemary

I think its too late now. And the world population has been allowed to explode to insane numbers and is carrying on growing at a terrifying rate. Until that's tackled it's all a great big waste of time IMHO.

Have you seen David Attenborough's Life on our planet? At the end, he speaks about how populations naturally stop increasing and actually decline when they are removed from poverty. It's been observed around the world. If we want to emerge from this, we need to stop being nationalistic and act as one human race. When women have rights and equality and birth control and choices, they choose fewer children.

Flying aside, one of the simplest ways we could help - and it's something that would save people money rather than adding a financial burden to already struggling people. Call for better made more durable consumer products. Eg. Longer lasting phones and computers (built to cope with software updates, etc).

The EU just passed legislation to do exactly this.

Oh....

There won’t be s as by divine intervention that will save us that’s for sure. I have just leaned that we need to get out carbon footprints down to one tonne per year whereas now it’s about 11. The only way we can do this is to ration carbon. That means that even if you are a billionaire, you only get to have the same lifestyle as everyone else.

[quote LemonSwan]@PlanDeRaccordement

100%

Although I will say I do agree with the population issue. Even though I hate that because of what it means to me personally (on a rather selfish note).

I studied Landscape Architecture and we did a lot of ecology. I remember when studying we did population growth of plants and I couldnt help myself but make the spreadsheet a human version. Its bloody terrifying. 100 years ago we had less than 2 billion people, now its probably 8.

I remember chatting to a wise old guest lecturer on one of our landscape walks about this. Lots of studies say the carrying capacity of the earth is around 7-10 billion based mainly on agriculture capacity.
With the soil depletions thats a real issue, but with technology advances and mad sky scrapers of hydroponics its probably doable we can have way more.

But what we cant have is detached houses, beautiful streets and private gardens. This makes me sad and when the wise old man told me this I kind of walked off in a youthful grump of indignance at the sheer horror that deep down I knew he was right.

Its not a world I want to live in, or want my grandkids grandkids to have to live in. To have to emerge from a skyscraper to fight for a small patch of sunbathing space in the few remaining shared communal parks.

It makes me sad.[/quote]
That is sad. But how would that even happen? People on the thread are saying they don't believe that people will make even small sacrifices like not buying new plastic Christmas decs every year or tat they don't need, so how would we possibly move to a model where everyone lives in huge tower blocks? Will they confiscate people's houses and bulldoze them and forcibly move them?

I'm all for trying to get climate change controlled but that just seems completely unfathomable. The risk of international wars once resources are depleted it huge, but domestic policies like this would never be tolerated and you'd end up with civil war as well.

@MynameisWa

There won’t be s as by divine intervention that will save us that’s for sure. I have just leaned that we need to get out carbon footprints down to one tonne per year whereas now it’s about 11. The only way we can do this is to ration carbon. That means that even if you are a billionaire, you only get to have the same lifestyle as everyone else.

How will that be achieved? The elites with all of the money own the politicians in the "democracies", they own the policitians in the "communist countries" and ultimately, they'll continue to play them off against each other and move themselves and their money between them as required to maintain their assets and privileges. There is absolutely no way that such a thing could be legislated for and enforced without a whole-Earth Government.

So what’s the alternative? Just give one holistic alternative. There isn’t one.

[quote AlaskaThunderfuckHiiiiiiiii]@DdraigGoch and that’s fair enough but I highly doubt the nhs is going to supply every staff nurse with a car, there is currently 1 between 6-7 of us which is only used by the person doing the furthest run. Yes urban people or city people could probably do without their car but rural people shouldn’t be forced to give up their car especially if moving to electric etc[/quote]
Like I said before, everyone one of these threads kicks off someone will pipe up to say that they live in deepest Argyll and couldn't manage without. It's not (yet) about you! We can start by getting cars out of our cities (where 80% of the population live. The particulate pollution is awful, even from electric cars (tyre wear and brake dust). 54% of London households have at least one car, do they all really need them?

Care organisations mentioned will probably end up forced by necessity to provide cars for community nursing, though alternatives could be looked at: are four wheels really necessary or will two wheels do? I don't know how much kit you have to carry but some kind of electric motorbike would save money. It's surprising how much you can carry on a motorbike. For community nursing in urban areas, bicycles ought to be a practical option. Look at the Cycle Responders employed by London Ambulance Service.

@TowerOfGiraffes

It is a sad image of the future isn't it!

I kind of hate myself for feeling like that as detached houses, suburbia and private gardens are a very privileged thing anyway, but I do really hate the thought of it!

Its not so much that we will confiscate peoples houses. Its that in the next 100 years if we have to find space for people to live due to continued population growth then its either greenfield, or its tighter and tighter development in existing developed land.

Sustainable living for humans which leaves the few remaining patches of wilderness alone will become an increasingly unpleasant living experience. The super rich will probably still have their acreages, but the average jo's sq footage will just become less and less.

But we probably will keep going into the greenfield and we wont save the environment. So no need to worry but equally something to worry about

@blink1eight2

Capitalism has zero impact on environment or climate change.

Oh come on, capitalism increases consumerism.

No. That is an effect of globalisation of the economy and increased wealth plus cultural influences. It has nothing to do with the economic structure of the economy per se. We can see that many non-capitalist countries like China are vastly consumerist. I think some people are confused about what "capitalism" means: it's not the same as "materialism". It's a description of who owns the means of production. Sadly it is clear that that different economic models to date have minimal impact on the manifestation of greed - rather that different versions of social/ economic structure channel the ability to enact the innate urge of greediness to different people - this has been demonstrated repeatedly around the globe.

And how?

Well I thought about it for 20 minutes. I think it would be gradual. So like how in London, terraces became maisonettes, and some maisonettes became flats. And then some estates were compulsory purchased for high rise redevelopment.

Same will happen in suburbs and smaller towns. Everything will become more and more expensive until the majority cant afford the whole homes. And most people have a price and as long as they can buy somewhere better elsewhere they will take it. Until generations later they cant, because there isn't anywhere else left or its too expensive.

I am imagining a slow but consistent supply and demand led drive.

@JassyRadlett

I don’t understand how I can get to zero without stopping buying clothes, replacing a Tv or whatever when it needs to be replaced. I do try, I’m not one for cheap fashion. My tv is 15 years old, I have dresses which are 25 years old which I still wear. But yes I do buy stuff and can’t imagine I’ll ever be knitting my own knickers. So how do I get to zero.

You don’t. The campaign to make everyone see this as their own individual problem to solve is a con initially dreamed up by the fossil fuels industry.

The systems need to change - the supply chain that provides your TV, your clothes, where the affordable energy for your electricity and heat comes from, it all needs to change at the supply side.

Demand side will need to shift too, but at the moment without those supply-side changes, demand-side attempts to fix this problem are nigh on impossible.

Totally agree. It requires international leaders in all major world economies to be open about what awaits our children if we don't fix this. Not even our grandchildren, our children.

I can imagine how furious mine will be when they are old enough to understand. That we've known this for multiple decades yet nothing significant was done. This is our last chance really, this next 10-15 years, to save the human race from catastrophy which will kill most of us one way of the other: global war, famine, floods, displacement, hundreds of millions of refugees trying to get to places that cannot even feed their own populations or provide them with clean water or energy. It will be a catastrophe on a scale the human race has never experienced. How have we learned nothing from history? If we are so intelligent then why are we so stupid?? Perhaps this is the "great filter". That technology advances faster than society can keep up with mitigating and managing its implications and a lack of ability to act for the collective good (even for our own offspring!) leads to extinction in almost all cases. Basically that the level of intelligence we have developed is not sufficient to enable us to design systems of governance to rise above our selfish instincts even when we know - unequivolcally - that we'll erase ourselves and all of our descendants by continuing as we are. It is the very definition of madness and pretty much the definition of devolving: we are doing the opposite of what every other organism does, we are actively destroying ourselves and our children when we have a choice.

Frankly, it's bonkers.

@LemonSwan

And how?

Well I thought about it for 20 minutes. I think it would be gradual. So like how in London, terraces became maisonettes, and some maisonettes became flats. And then some estates were compulsory purchased for high rise redevelopment.

Same will happen in suburbs and smaller towns. Everything will become more and more expensive until the majority cant afford the whole homes. And most people have a price and as long as they can buy somewhere better elsewhere they will take it. Until generations later they cant, because there isn't anywhere else left or its too expensive.

I am imagining a slow but consistent supply and demand led drive.

Ah. Well the adage that land is worth buying because it is finite is even more true in the world you envisage. Normal people gets to live in coffin-sized spaces like they do in some Asian cities already and what we should ask ourselves as always is cui bono?

The current landowners, obviously.

Again, without civil war you will not get them to just give it up.

@MynameisWa

So what’s the alternative? Just give one holistic alternative. There isn’t one.

I wish I knew.

@IsleofRum absolutely!

Read ‘Stark’ by Ben Elton. It’s happening...

@TowerOfGiraffes me too. Our entire world is based on oil and we need to create a new world order for this to change. Rationing finite resources is the only fair way to go this. But like you point out putting this into practice is near impossible as it relies on global cooperation and we’ll just end up in the situation whereby corruption will see a small minority using the system to its own benefit at the expense of everyone else. But this would be due to bad leadership, which is a separate issue to whether it not rationing and dividing up the earths resources is actually the right thing to do.

I can’t see any other way than to enforce a kind of carbon communism. Capitalism is not sustainable as by its very nature needs economies to expand through more and more acquisition in order for it to work. It is insatiable which is why consumerism is its best friend.

If you look at the game the tories are playing right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s already in their agenda. Their policies are suspiciously nanny state. We are also almost a one party state as labour is just obliterating itself.

'I don’t understand how I can get to zero without stopping buying clothes, replacing a Tv or whatever when it needs to be replaced. I do try, I’m not one for cheap fashion. My tv is 15 years old, I have dresses which are 25 years old which I still wear. But yes I do buy stuff and can’t imagine I’ll ever be knitting my own knickers. So how do I get to zero.'

I believe that ultimately our individual choices will not matter, I'm sorry. Individual choices we make in a 1st world country will have a minimal impact if you think about carbon emissions/climate change as a global problem. Not climate justice but social justice - the poorest countries will bear the brunt of both increasing restrictions in emissions they will not be able to meet (and have to pay for not meeting targets) as well as climate change effects. I keep thinking we're looking at it from the wrong angle but I don't know what the answer is :(

We’ve got to get to NET zero, not zero. No living person can live with zero carbon footprint. Simply existing creates a carbon footprint. Net zero means balancing the number of mammals and other things that have a carbon footprint with carbon utilizing things such as trees and other plants.

It is excess consumption we need to curb. We nearly all need knickers , but not drawers full that we hardly ever wear. Buy the clothes and electrical items you really need, it’s fine. If you want to upcycle clothes or buy reconditioned electrical items, that’s even better but it isn’t compulsory.

I still have a mobile phone but I’ve stopped exchanging it for a new one every 2 years. The last one was a professionally reconditioned one with a warranty, it’s great and saved me about £500 as well. It’s an easy swap, but I don’t have the time or skills to upcycle clothes so like you I buy the best I can afford and try to keep them for as long as possible before replacing them.

@TowerOfGiraffes

Thats the crazy thing about it. We dont need a civil war. We just need to wait 20-30 years for a lot of the boomers to sadly die off. Thats 20% of the population in the UK, and they hold some very naice, valuable and expensive housing stock.

My parents are sadly in this group. They own a lovely detatched house with private garden on the outskirts between London and Surrey. They bought for 400k in 1997. Its now worth c. 2 million. Sadly my sister and I will not be able to afford to cover the Inheritance Tax to keep it in the family. It will be sold to a developer. All the houses round there are sold to developers.