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?

@Artesia
And what are they busy producing to emit all those pollutants? All the crap we demand

Well, yes the things you want and need, but for every 1 item they produce for U.K., also they are producing 10 more to meet domestic demand.

@PlanDeRaccordement I think you are over optimistic if you don’t mind me saying. The population stats you quoted means numbers might level out in eighty years time. Which is enough time to add billions to the planet and completely devastate earth.

And re the hydroplanes these are little more than concepts, concepts created by commercial organisations to make fortunes. How much of the earths resources will they take to mass produce their inventions and what do we do in the meantime to fulfil our need to hop on a flight to Greece? And what about the infrastructure required to create this brave new world? This is only booting the issue down the road.

I have a sneaky feeling that these breakthroughs are being presented to us to distract us from reality. Are they the Emperor’s New Clothes perhaps? I think so.

Indecisivelurcher

Thanks for checking my ‘tonnes’

Yes. I’m not sure if we will make it to 5 but aim for the moon etc.. (but not literally)

We have electric car, don’t fly, eat locally grown seasonal veg as much as possible. Vegetarian diet with minimal dairy (mainly for DC). Hoping to get ground source heat and solar in new house.

My next step is plastic. It crept up when we moved as we don’t have a local zero waste store so I’m slowly finding alternatives to things we use.

I quite like the feeling of knocking a bit more carbon from our footprint. The satisfaction helps offset the feeling of loss of holidays abroad - although we may train it to France one year.

And yes I have been to Morocco twice :)

@LemonSwan
Soil degradation is important and something vegans fail to understand with their utopia of no livestock. They don’t understand that to preserve the soil you have to rotate crops which includes fields also being used as pasture so the animal dung can revitalise the soil. There are sustainable modern farming methods that maintain soil quality...many places just need to start using these methods.

PlanDeRaccordement
I have been trying to explain this on another thread. Its a lost cause and I am a shill for the meat companies apparently.

And re the hydroplanes these are little more than concepts,

Then why are they actually flying prototypes? And why should we give up global travel by airplane if it can be done green? Are you saying you won’t buy an electric car but a horse? Because it’s wrong to have green technology?

On population, we will be ok. We already produce enough food to feed 10 billion. World hunger is a distribution/logistics caused issue. The planet adding 25% more people is not going to be “devastating” Only 1% of the land mass is urban now...we can go up to 1.25%.

DdraigGoch

6 tonnes? That’s awesome! Well done. We are somewhere between 8 and 11 depending on the calculator. I haven’t settled on one yet. I think the UK average is 13?

I hadn’t thought about finance. I’ll look into that.

I think if we can get solar panels and ground source heat, that will take us down considerably. We are in a very cold and draughty rental waiting for a house purchase to go through at the moment so that’s a huge problem. Trying to get landlord to do something but...

@LemonSwan
Lol. Me too. They just can’t comprehend that every plant, animal, human we are all balanced within an ecosystem. You can’t delete one part of the food chain without collapsing the entire eco system.

I mean we didn't even close borders (freight & genuinely essential travel excepted) during a deadly pandemic. People were clamouring for their foreign holidays because they couldn't possibly go without just once or twice. It doesn't bode well for reduced flights.

It's likely the only way planet earth will survive is the human race dying out (naturally, as opposed to death by COVID).

But I don't see most people agreeing to be The Last Humans On Earth (with robot end of life care). So at the end of the day there's no harm in trying to mitigate against the damage.

With flights, rationing would be fairer than higher taxes because the latter would see the rich continued to pollute whilst locking out the poor from a one off holiday or visit to family abroad.

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).

We need to move to a less throwaway society. Recycle when necessary yes, but I the first instance whenever possible reuse.

Next up another cheap and therefore easy action. Encourage smaller families, through education and free access to contraception.

Moving on to cryptocurrency. Hugely energy hungry. Not the most environmentally friendly option.

So that's three actions to get us going with.

Have a read of this article
Stop Telling Kids They’ll Die From Climate Change
Many young people feel like their future is in peril. To make progress on climate change, we must move past doomsday scenarios.
www.wired.co.uk/article/climate-crisis-doom

And of course the measures outlined in my post above won't plunge people into fuel poverty.

It's vital to note that hitting people hard when they're already in difficult or tight circumstances isn't the right or moral thing to do. It will also do the opposite of gaining support for a cause.

Like a pp says changing fuel needs to be a gradual transition. In the meantime it's polluting to import gas and coal from abroad (and our lack of self sufficiency is also a matter of national security since we have to rely on potentially hostile regimes and geopolitics that we could do well to avoid getting entangled in).

Better we support our economy and boost jobs by producing our own. The key is less demand. Which we achieve through family planning.

Alongside the climate crisis, we need to deal with another very immediate emergency. The public health housing emergency.

There's no tomorrow without a today.

Those families - the children living in housing insecurity and facing a lifetime of it, and vulnerable adults - their today and their future matter as much as anyone else's.

@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.

PlanDeRaccordement

@LemonSwan
Soil degradation is important and something vegans fail to understand with their utopia of no livestock. They don’t understand that to preserve the soil you have to rotate crops which includes fields also being used as pasture so the animal dung can revitalise the soil. There are sustainable modern farming methods that maintain soil quality...many places just need to start using these methods.

You don’t need animal based fertiliser to keep soil nutrient full. Plant based compost can work fine. You can still rotate crops and not have animals grazing on the field. We don’t need to keep animal farming going. We may CHOOSE to, but we don’t NEED to.

E.g. www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jan/12/were-humus-sapiens-the-farmers-who-shun-animal-manure

We have really tried to cut back in our household over the last few years. It does feel hopeless though as it feels so insignificant compared to what we should be doing on a global scale.

My DS is coming up to two. I am genuinely afraid of what life is going to look like for him further down the line. Things seem to be moving faster for the worst than we originally thought they would - it didn’t seem likely DS’s generation would be affected a few years back but now I think that’s likely?
It’s frustrating when you’ve done a lot over the years to do your bit but society just seems to be getting more consumerist and wasteful than ever.

@Suspiciousmind20
Where do the plants come from? You’re just taking the nutrients absorbed by plants from one field and putting them in another by composting the plants. That doesn’t solve the problem as it’s robbing Peter to pay Paul.

We don’t need to keep animal farming going. We may CHOOSE to, but we don’t NEED to.

We do need to.

ourworld.unu.edu/en/reversing-desertification-with-livestock

And in the UK we are not at desertification stage yet thankfully. But its still good for the soils and is also good for biodiversity - orchids, wildflowers and thus the insects, and thus the birds.

publications.naturalengland.org.uk/file/612038

PlanDeRaccordement

Read the article.

PlanDeRaccordement

Plus what do you think the animals are fed on? - massively contributing to deforestation.

@LemonSwan
Lots of studies say the carrying capacity of the earth is around 7-10 billion based mainly on agriculture capacity.

That was true. We’ve hit the 10bn target with modern farming (not GMOs) if you look at yield increases over the past twenty years or so. Last I looked, about 25% of arable land was being used for agriculture. Another 25% is buried under concrete in urban areas (so sad). But we have room to expand a bit...just going up to 30% would feed 12 bn and that is the upper limit of the projected world population. AND do not forget, floating farms are being developed. They’ve started with seaweed and dairy farms, but no reason why we couldn’t build one, dredge some sea bottom soil and grow vegetables and fruit too. Reverse osmosis is so small, cheap, carbon zero way of converting sea water to fresh water. So much is possible now.

PlanDeRaccordement

Totally have faith its possible re. food capacity. Us humans are very resourceful.

Its more our day to day lives and living environment aspect which I dont like the sound of. Selfishly I want a detached house and a private garden and I kind of hate myself for that. But also kind of accept it as I am sure most would choose the 'good life' if they could.

LemonSwan

As it currently operates, meat and dairy production is hugely damaging. There may be some environmental benefits to some animal husbandry but the current status quo is unsustainable as far as I understand and the research suggests cutting down on, or cutting out meat and dairy can have a big impact on CO2 emissions. I’m going to listen to the climate scientists on this one. They have been right for the last 5 decades.

Suspiciousmind20

And just to let you know I did read the article and it was very impressive. What fantastic yields they have achieved sustainably. I think we should do that; but I also think we should have responsibly managed live stock. We need to use everything at our disposal in combination!

Cross post; yes I am all for moderate consumption.

But I am not going to say getting rid of all livestock or a vegan lifestyle is the answer. Its not in my opinion and scientists dont say that.

@Suspiciousmind20

PlanDeRaccordement

Read the article.

Sigh. I did. It’s about a man who wants money so he can invent such a thing. Here is his gofundme if you want to back him? He’s raised €112 so far.... www.indiegogo.com/projects/climate-neutral-biocyclic-humus-soil#/