Do you care about climate change?

[julieca]

Not just in an abstract way. But would you be prepared to accept radical changes to your lifestyle to reduce climate change?
Or do you think continuing to live your life the way you want is more important?

YABU - No I don't and I want to continue living life as I want
YANBU - Yes I do and would accept major changes to my life

Can we have a third option? I'm sure willing to make changes and indeed have but honestly I view individual change as really quite pointless in the face of massive industrial corporations spewing our pollution and plastic.

I'm mainly making changes to set a good example to my child

Agree that draconian measures would be the only way to really make a difference. Eg, ban marketing. We're constantly bombarded with adverts to make us think life would be better if we buy this new thing, buy the latest phone every year, etc. But stopping the culture of buying new stuff would them have other implications on jobs, economy, etc.

I care very much but unfortunately most people just aren't prepared to make changes when it comes down to it. One of the biggest things any of us could do is to not eat animal products but again most people won't hear of it. I feel hopeless.

Nope and I am getting sick of hearing about it!!

One change I have made, and it’s a small one, is to reduce the quantity of beauty products I had been in the habit of buying. It turns out I don’t need the vast majority of it! I also love beauty advent calendars but won’t buy one this year. I think the beauty industry has a lot to answer for

We have a decent salary but these proposed changes are still too expensive for us (eg car change, heating change). And if I sell my petrol car, someone else will drive it anyway, so it there a point? I got a quote recently to upgrade some of our large windows but it was 8k and so I won’t be doing that.

I live in a tiny terrace, we don’t fly, don’t drive very often at all, use electric scooters or walk everywhere. Buy local sustainable food. Don’t really buy STUFF at all. But the big proposals are out of our reach. And it does feel pointless when Johnson flew back from Glasgow just for dinner with someone last week!!!! Those in power are doing nothing.

[quote julieca]@DrSbaitso lots of things are proposed. Changes to heating systems, much less flying, much less consumption, less driving, etc.[/quote]
But less than how much?

I'm not trying to be a smart arse. But these changes are very relative.

I care deeply.I have made major changes to my lifestyle and looked into how to raise my child greener

I was born in the 60's we had a milkman deliver the milk and orange juice in bottles which he collected and reused.
Pop came on a lorry in glass bottles which again were reused.
Mum had hessian bags for shopping.
We walked to school.
Me and my friends looked around for beer bottles to take back to the offy and we got money back 1d per bottle.
(We don't mention jumping over the pub wall and getting more bottles to return)
Chips were wrapped in newspaper.
Then the do gooders got involved and plastic was advised as it's better as cheaper and food will last longer.
How many of you have a milkman. Do you use plastic bags.
I still use hessian bags. Milkman only delivers to our house.
I might not be able to save the planet but I do try and help.

@DrSbaitso yes they are very relative. I am not setting out an agenda though. More saying do you care enough about climate change to see significant changes to your lifestyle. The first lockdown for example saw a big reduction in pollution and emissions. It also meant significant lifestyle changes. Climate change will never be tackled by recycling bottles and taking some things to the charity shop/ Significant changes are needed.

I would also like to see more messaging about how to make Christmas, Halloween and other holidays more eco friendly. The shops are full of plastic holiday junk that will soon break or be discarded. There should be a punitive tax on it. My lovely and well meaning DH’s family also keep buying plastic junk for the kids. The worst types of gifts, which I have a drawer full of, is little plastic beads for craft. Hammer beads and those aqua beads should be illegal as I’m sure they’ll eventually end up in the ocean somewhere and probably will survive for thousands of years. New lego also makes me feel uncomfortable. I really want to ask my DH’s family to buy eco friendly presents for the kids but am worried I’d sound like a sanctimonious twat. I would really appreciate more awareness raising on this as most people where I live don’t get it.

I have made major changes already. I no longer have a car. I downsized my living accommodation. I seldom put the heating on. I eat very little meat or dairy. I usually walk or cycle the two miles to work. (Occasionally get the bus if it's really bad weather).

Yes and no, it depends what changes you mean. I don’t have kids, or currently a car, so am doing my bit as far as I am concerned. If America, China, India etc dont radically change their ways it makes very little odds if we do - Scotland is a small nation.

Yes, I care but find it hard to make the lifestyle changes needed. I need to generate an income and could earn less in a job with less travel but I have financial commitments and like my job so don't change.

I care very deeply. I feel depressed at how certain changes that I would like to make are currently unobtainable for me here in Australia. I would like solar panels, but I rent and no rental within my affordability has solar panels. I don’t have a car but very much need one. I would like to afford an electric vehicle but they are very expensive and not that readily available here in Australia, plus I don’t think that there are many charging stations. I’ve only ever seen one.

Environmentally friendly packaging etc costs more than I can afford right now. I do try to cut down on plastic, I try to reuse, upcycle, recycle, mend things rather than replacing etc.

I wish our government was more willing to invest in and support renewable energy rather than continually promoting clean coal.

I sometimes feel quite powerless and a little depressed about our current situation. I feel like humanity needs to collectively adapt to the changes in our environment and that we are not adapting as well as we could. I’m frustrated by some world leaders refusing to act in the best interests of humanity and actually start transitioning away from relying on fossil fuels and transitioning toward more environmentally friendly alternatives.

Australia has vast open places perfect for solar and wind farms. Yet the profits from mining is easy money. Creating other ways of generating income and employment opportunities for regional towns who rely on mining is needed. These are people who will vote for government who won’t take away their income by shutting down coal mining. They need an alternative. This will take effort and initiative from government and community members.

@ParkheadParadise

I've got better things to worry about.

I'm not sure what better things there are than making sure our children, grandchildren etc have a habitable planet to live on but you know.. whatever.

I do care and am reducing my carbon footprint incrementally. It’s a core value for us as a family. We are by no means perfect but trying hard.

I see it as a responsibility to other people on the planet and to my DC and future generations. I don’t see that, as a decent human being, there is any other choice but to do what you can. Not everyone can do everything possible without financial help, but we can all stop unnecessary consumption of goods, food, travel etc.

PP and posters on other threads talk about being turned off the issue by the actions of XR and IB so they don’t recycle any more or whatever. I can see why the activists rile some people but can’t understand the ‘cutting your nose off to spite your face’ attitude. It’s like a surveyor comes to your house and tells you that your roof is about to collapse in but because you don’t like his attitude you chose to purposefully ignore his advice, maybe even knock a few tiles off yourself. It’s a curious position to take. We all live on the planet and food and water insecurity, floods, fires, mass migration and war effect us all. None of us are immune.

I think the fact that even though we all now know what the problem is, what it will do to us and what needs to change, yet still people are refusing to change, is why we need bold leaders who are willing to put in place the necessary measures.

I do my recycling etc but I wouldn't accept any changes that weren't mandatory. Can't afford and electric car, public transport is way too unreliable and the car can slash commute time in half. Life's hard enough already.

I don't care enough to make any radical changes to be honest.

I have only one child, do not own a car, recycle, and buy all our clothes second hand or as ethically as possible. I don't buy much "stuff".

I'm not prepared to give up meat or foreign holidays, and I'm not turning off the heating in this weather. I'm not prepared to be lectured about any of that by someone with 4 kids, a massive house and who drives 5 minutes to the school run.

Yes of course but the changes would have to be brought in by government, I think. I don't fly or drive or have children and haven't eaten meat since the 1980s
I buy most but not all things second hand.
But I buy food that comes in plastic packaging from wherever is cheaper. I use buses or have lifts in other people's cars.

Honestly as a person of limited financial means I feel like there is very little else I can do. We are vegetarian, we buy pretty much everything we need second hand, no crazy consumerism because we can't afford it. We hardly drive any where. We can't change our car to a more eco friendly elecrric/hybrid car because we can't afford it. We don't have our heating on much because we can't afford it. We don't fly because we can't afford it.

I feel like there is this messaging that we all should be doing more and more and more and tbh I feel like what else do you want from me? Our life choices are very much dictated by finances right now. All of this talk of radical changes and I'm feel like I'm just here trying to make it through to my next pay day.

Yea, I care.
My carbon footprint is quite low. It could be lower, but until changes are forced on me due to laws or finance, I will probably keep making some poor environmental choices.

YABU. Tree huggers can fuck right off

And I would also like local government to take environmental issues more seriously! Where I live most kids are driven to school and the school run traffic is terrible. The bus service is so poor that last time I tries to take my kids to school via bus, we waited for over an hour and they were very late for school. I love in the centre of a city! There are radical improvements that our local government could make, but won’t.

Yes, I would - and I do try to “do my bit” (longtime veggie, anal about energy usage, make my family wear sweaters rather than put the heating on, don’t plan on any more long haul flights etc). However, the thing is, it’s all fiddling while Rome (the planet!) burns isn’t it?

Creeping industrialisation and an ever more commercialised, commoditised society has left those of us in the West unable to conceive of living in any other way than how we do now. And, yes, when it comes down to it, I include myself in that. How cold am I prepared to be? How far will I walk in preference to driving (and I live rurally)? Will I really never eat an avocado or a blueberry again?

Then there’s the developing world clutching at our over-heated coat strings. Understandably they want what we have - and, sooner or later, wars will be fought over such basic requirements as somewhere to live that isn’t already underwater.

And then we have the giant coal consumers of the US. Where’s the political will to halt that? It’s a truism but, for all the posturing at COP26, politicians are too short-termist, too in thrall to the likes of Bezos, Musk and the Great God Money.

Oof, it’s depressing. I write fiction but can’t help feeling I’m stepping into the pages of someone else’s dystopian novel that I didn’t want to read in the first place.