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

Please please try not to say that you won’t do anything because China, because India, because People in SUVs.

Honestly, when people say this kind of thing, what I actually hear is "I have no intention of doing anything because I simply don't want to."

We've already made radical changes to our lives. I used to have a well paid job, but it involved a very long daily commute. 20 years ago, I gave it up and got a more local job on much less money, but it meant car mileage fell from 35,000 miles per year to just 5,000 miles. My OH has always had local jobs to walk to instead of having a second car.

We should buy local, but what if you need to drive to get to the local greengrocer and the supermarket can deliver in an electric van?

Whether from the greengrocer or the supermarket, it's choosing more locally produced products which matters.

I can’t imagine that people whose lifestyles and livelihoods revolve around tending livestock would choose to become vegetarian or vegan.
Me and the whole community around me have a lifestyle and livelihood which revolves around tending livestock.

Pazuzu well theoretically all the livestock would be slaughtered and no more bred, in reality what will happen is farmers will reduce breeding more and more, the increased plant cropping would require more and more chemical fertilisation as soil health deteriorates through lack of natural fertiliser.

You’d have less methane due to less livestock (remembering methane has a half life of Carbon Dioxide) and chemical fertiliser plants will start kicking out their side product of CO2, but that’s ok as we use it to make bubbles in fizzy water and stuff and we pump it to plants artificially to grow faster.

Carbon would sit at the top layer of soil because that’s where cropping roots take it, and every time it’s dug up to harvest or plough it will be released again.

The 0.3 metric tonnes of carbon that permanent pastureland can sequester each and every year and take further down into the soil by extending the roots of the permanent plants and varying the type of lay will be all lost due to the amount of land now needed for cropping.

Oh and the pests and diseases already causing crop losses, and climate events wiping out whole harvests would have a field day starving is all unless we sprayed quite a bit of chemicals or covered everything in (plastic) poly tunnels.

It’s too late to address climate change. People simply will not stop consuming. Not unless the government bans single use plastic. Which will basically put B&M etc out of business.

Going vegan is not the answer. Much of the vegan food chain is unsustainable and involves ploughing up acres of natural forests or grasslands or flying food around the world. The better option is to eat more local and wild food.

Buying beef from a natural herd raised on the Welsh hills is completely sustainable. Eating venison from culled deer in Scotland is both healthly and good for the planet. Drinking milk from an organic source with well-managed cows is not an environmental disaster.

Unfortunately these options are expensive so not something that can be done daily by most people, but perhaps if more people knew where their Sunday roast came from and stuck to locally sourced in season vegan options for the rest of the week it would help.

Thanks it has made interesting reading and good to see honest comments.
This was not a thread to bash people, I am genuinely interested because my own views are not the "correct" ones to have.
I don't like waste. We have very little food waste, have one car, only replace things when they wear out, and avoid unnecessary things that damage the environment. So I would never use single use cleaning wipes and instead I use old cloths cut down from worn out sheets. I used to purposely buy from supermarkets that did not wrap fruit and veg in plastic, but they all do it now. So that all reduces mt families carbon footprint.
But we fly as a family about once a year or once every two years. I am not giving that up unless forced to. My DP is disabled and we do sometimes go for drives for fun, yes not good for the environment, but he enjoys it. I spent too many years on buses with young kids and shopping, I am keeping our one car unless forced to get rid of it.
I cant afford stuff like heat pumps and electric cars, so I just ignore those. And I don't see technology as the way out of the climate crisis. Reducing consumption is the only real way.

I do care somewhat. I do not want the planet to be destroyed for future generations.

However, I believe that we have gone too far. Our society is now built around consumerism, driving, flying, cheap plastic shit, waste.

The poorest and average people shouldn't have to endure all of the cost and inconvenience while the rich carry on doing what the fuck they like, which is what will happen when you talk about major lifestyle changes.

DH & I have never owned a car (we’re in our 40s)
I’ve gone vegan
No passports
No tumble dryer
We don’t consider putting the heating on until it goes below freezing outside overnight.
I use cotton handkerchiefs, we have flannels for the shower & face washing instead of sponges/wipes.
I don’t really buy “stuff” for me. Makeup, fast fashion clothing, etc - I’m not interested. It just costs money, gets used up / doesn’t last (polyester clothes rarely last long) & quickly end up in landfill.

I respectfully disagree that veganism isn't part of the answer (obviously it's not the whole answer). Most leading climate scientists recommend a plant-based diet.
The majority of natural forests and grasslands being ploughed up to grow crops, are for the purpose of growing animal feed, for animal agriculture, ie: meat and dairy.
I once heard George Monbiot say that the best way to reduce soya production is to eat more soya!
Plant-based agriculture is simply so much more land efficient...

perhaps if more people knew where their Sunday roast came from and stuck to locally sourced in season vegan options for the rest of the week it would help.

What would help, actually, is if locally sourced vegan options made financial sense. You can buy dried beans produced in Argentina for £1.15 for a 500g bag in Tesco so £2.30 a kilo. If you want dried beans produced in Britain it's effectively Hodmedod's or nothing and they start at £1.99 for 500g. It is possible to get that down to £2.39 per kilo but only if you buy 25kg at £59.70 a time. That 25kg was just £36 in October 2014 so the price has risen by a whopping two thirds in just seven years.

For comparison, you can buy a kilo of chicken legs in Lidl for £1.35. If the financial incentives just aren't there then nobody I know is going to make themselves miserable with green choices.

I would be fine with major changes as long as everyone else falls into line with them too.

But it won't happen, and I'm just continuing to live my life normally right now, so I'm a bit half and half. Never having children though, kids today have no future.

My carbon footprint isn't too bad. I drive a small, economical car and do low mileage, don't go on holidays or fly. Don't use the central heating, mostly stay at home, buy few products and don't eat a lot of meat.

I can't afford an electric car, can't eat soya, have three cats, am not getting a heat pump and have had two children.

I am always bemused by the idea that eating less meat means eating avocados and soya. There are a million locally grown vegetables one can eat instead of avocados.

For comparison, you can buy a kilo of chicken legs in Lidl for £1.35. That is just obscene.

I would LOVE to have radical chances bought in by government because that would mean they could stop gaslighting the general public into thinking their individual efforts can get us to net zero. Huge fines for big companies for their polluting, and the financial sector needs to be completely divested from fossil fuels.

I'm not particularly hopefully tbh.

@derxa

For comparison, you can buy a kilo of chicken legs in Lidl for £1.35. That is just obscene.

Technically, what’s obscene is our casual wastage of meat. Nose to tail eating is the way to go here. Legs are cheap because in the UK we have an overwhelming preference for lean breast meat - so chickens are bred in abundance to support that preference and the rest of the carcass rendered basically worthless. Same reason offal is cheap. And so unfortunately, people who have opted to eat less meat but remain very selective about the cuts of meat they do eat often haven’t really made any significant impact on food animal production levels.

Basic thing like banning huge plastic bottles of shampoo, laundry detergent, household cleaning products. There are now so much options for changing those things. Household brands (Garnier now do shampoo bars, for example) need to be widely and readily available and should be overtaking the plastic bottled crap. Instead you walk into Home Bargains and it's isle upon isle of plastic.

My household cleaning products now come in tablet from which dissolve in water, they're packaged in recyclable film which all come in a cardboard box. 9 bottles worth of tabs for £10, straight through my letterbox with my post. I should have to search those products out though, they should be readily available in supermarkets.

I SHOULD'T have to search out for green options.

No I don't. I have more important things to worry about! It takes up very little space in my head.

@MareofBeasttown

I am always bemused by the idea that eating less meat means eating avocados and soya. There are a million locally grown vegetables one can eat instead of avocados.

Yes, I agree with this. I do eat some soya, mostly in the form of organic tofu. But, I try to get as much locally grown food as possible. In my local refill shop they've started selling British-grown quinoa, which is wonderful, as I think it's a virtually complete food. Not too expensive either, at least cheaper than pre-packaged. I eat a lot of British oats too, which are obviously extremely cheap to buy. I'm on a tight budget, and find I don't spend that much on groceries, in spite of buying mostly organic and local. I make sure I eat the whole vegetable - leaves & stalks etc. Avoiding waste saves money. Ethical eating can also be very affordable.

Both

Yes I care it’s happening, no i am not prepared to make major lifestyle choices where there is so m7ch other countries can do first and don’t

I eat meat, I drive as I live rurally and there is no public transport, I recycle where I can, but buy most stuff online with all that entails for the environment.

And as long as Greta, XR and Insulate Britain carry on preaching and aggregating everyone I have no intention of doing any more, and 8n fac5 am close to stopping what I do do

Technically, what’s obscene is our casual wastage of meat. Nose to tail eating is the way to go here. Legs are cheap because in the UK we have an overwhelming preference for lean breast meat - so chickens are bred in abundance to support that preference and the rest of the carcass rendered basically worthless. Same reason offal is cheap. And so unfortunately, people who have opted to eat less meat but remain very selective about the cuts of meat they do eat often haven’t really made any significant impact on food animal production levels.
I totally agree. I'm a child of the 60s we ate cheaper cuts of meat including offal. We rarely had chicken because it was a luxury.

The thing is that meat isn't seasonal and it is local. We can have a regular supply of beef, pork and chicken throughout the year, regardless of seasons, with very few transport miles.

You can't say that about vegetables and fruit, which is seasonal and limited in the UK therefore we need to import it from all over the World, increasing the pollutions and emissions from dirty shipping.