To think people are going to have to be inconvenienced to actually stop climate change?

[Confrontayshunme]

A road near our home was closed to create a Low Traffic Neighbourhood during the first lockdown. Children at the local junior and high schools have benefitted hugely in road safety, the cycle and scooter racks were overflowing and the pollution was measured recently as 40% less (in an area with 3 schools).

And yet they reopened the road because enough drivers wanted to save 10 minutes in the morning. The day after it reopened, half of the bikes and scooters were gone due to safety concerns. Even my coworker who said it made her cycle to work easier and safer was hugely relieved that she doesn't have to go an extra 10 minutes out of her way when driving.

Anyway, I just despair for the planet if adults and people riding in heated, air conditioned, comfortable, waterproof music players can't possibly leave the house 10 minutes earlier to allow our community's children just one intersection's worth of safety and convenience. Plus, the level of pollution driving our children all these miles (when they could be exercising or improving their mental health) inside a car shortens their lives so there isn't any time saved overall anyway!

And before the pile on commences, I realise many people are not able to use alternate transport or active travel due to physical disability or huge distances and I wouldn't include them in this.

Sorry, that should say YABU to think closing some roads to cars will solve much.

Yes people are very used to convenience. Other examples which spring to mind are being able to get any item the next day ( or even the same day) and single use disposable items. People can't wait 10 minutes for something if they could have it NOW.

Yes and we will have to find some ways to discourage children, encourage childlessness and allow legal and safe Euthanasia to mitigate the fact there's less kids to wipe old peoples arses.
It doesn't matter what any of us do. If the population continues as it is or to grow the planet is doomed and is doomed within the children being born now's lifetime.. How we can encourage people to produce children at this stage is beyond me (actually I do know... consumers are fantastic for tax income and GDP and wealth creation so governments adore people creating lots of little consumers and fuck the planet)

@GettingStuffed

Or buy a new phone when their current one works perfectly well.

And recycle their old ones or sell to someone who wants a second hand model.

@Ionlydomassiveones

“OP, we are doomed I’m afraid, as this shows. Too many people wilfully blind or utterly selfish and will never give up any of their comforts. I hope to god my kids don’t have children themselves.”

What utter bollocks. Most of us, unfortunately, are low paid corporate drone slaves who live in urban areas set up to feed the same system. We can’t all start being self-sufficient kibbutz dwellers overnight and grown our own food, produce our own energy and recycle our own waste. We are all trapped in a fairly efficient and self-serving capitalist system. You hope you don’t have grandchildren because people understandably didn’t want to add 10 mins onto their commute? Bonkers.

What utter bollocks. So we can't change our way of life completely overnight (which of course is true), so why bother even trying is your argument?

And yet somehow you don't think that kind of attitude is going to cause massive problems down the line?

And of course this one specific example isn't why I don't want to have grandchildren and you well know that (unless you are an actual idiot). It's sympotomatic of the attitude that is going to ruin us all eventually unless something drastic happens.

@MaryAndGerryLivingInDerry

It won’t happen. Climate change won’t be stopped

It can be stopped but it won't be - the changes required would be too great and the ones that would lose most would be the ones at the top of the chain making all of the money under our current system.

They will never do it voluntarily - their current plan is to make as much money as they can now in the hope that it will insulate them from the things that are coming (or chances are they are old enough now that they will be dead before the shit really hits the fan).

Totally agree @Notthemessiah. People stand to lose far too much money if we all did what needed to be done.

@DdraigGoch No, it’s nearly 30 miles each way. I’d like to live closer but the nearest areas are very nice where a two bed terrace is circa £500k, which I can’t afford. The area I live in is cheap, but there’s no work which is why I have to travel. When I lived down south, it was much easier, I didn’t drive for 5 years as the trains were pretty much all day/night and one town was connected by HS1 and had a decent, reasonably priced bus service. I did struggle with shopping through but I managed just fine. Unfortunately, it’s not doable in a lot of northern towns/cities. Even Manchester, it has decent public transport in certain areas, but others are very lacking.

Sure, go on trying to reduce the less than 1% carbon emissions the that the UK produces while the two big hitters (or should I say emitters) are producing more than 30% between them and continuing to increase. It may make you feel better. Makes no difference to the planet though.

Agreed OP. The number of people in this thread justifying continuing as they are doesn't make me hopeful though.

It's all such a compromise trying to do the right thing. Can see why people give up. I have reduced plastic from my home and try to avoid waste, and I walk when I can to shop etc. And I keep my personal consumption low.
But, I work as a carer in the community. Can't work for my company without a car, and the plastic that we use is unreal. Ppe, wipes, pads, etc etc. I could of course find a job that did not create so much waste, but someone needs to do it. My petrol consumption is high, but I don't see an alternative if we're to continue looking after people in their own homes.
My meagre efforts feel like I'm pissing in te wind if I'm honest.
I don't know what the answer is, but I don't think we can keep blaming individuals.
I think we'll just wipe ourselves off the planet and hopefully not too many other species with us. The planet will sort itself out one way or another.

@Theunamedcat

Unless and until jobs are available where you live people will still need to use transport I've always needed to travel 20 miles plus to get to work there was no public transport in that area no other way of getting there

People hate working from home and actively fight against it without seeing it could solve a lot of our problems my school is within walking distance work is not shopping is not cut the travel to work aspect out and I've reduced my car time to once a fortnight instead of daily

Same here, as I said earlier when I worked in London and lived in the Home Counties it was much easier. It’s pretty much impossible here, there’s nothing here work-wise. Anything they build now, is usually a massive out-of-town warehouse/logistics place on spare land by the motorway where there aren’t bus routes/train stations or many houses within walking distance, so you have no choice but to drive.

Same with the hospital, not really near the train station and buses/trains don’t run for those on early/late shifts. It’s also quite difficult in most areas to travel between two towns that are only a few miles apart as it usually means going into the centre of another town to change buses/trains, taking up to an hour when driving would take 15-20 minutes.

My friend lived in Maidenhead and liked shopping in High Wycombe, it’s about 12 miles; by train it would cost nearly £25 and she’d have to go into London first. Driving was about 20 minutes.

I agree with you that people will need to be inconvenienced to have any chance of us saving the planet, but I don’t think you’ve chosen a very good example.

If enough cars are having to travel for an extra 10 minutes daily, that’s a lot of extra emissions that don’t need to exist. Moving a problem away from a school and into other areas where families live and work isn’t really solving the problem.

@sst1234

Sure, go on trying to reduce the less than 1% carbon emissions the that the UK produces while the two big hitters (or should I say emitters) are producing more than 30% between them and continuing to increase. It may make you feel better. Makes no difference to the planet though.

This is what I came to say! Even if you re weight the emission figures based on who is producing what for which country (e.g some of chinas / India's are for uk production) it's still no way near as much.

But yes, go ahead make everyone drive ten minutes longer (and produce more pollution).

The low traffic stuff is actually trading childrens health , ability to exercise safely and breath clean air against the profit making adults who want to live in a car based economy

Climate change will require , or more likely force , much bigger changes on everyone but we certainly won't minimise the scale of changes by going "you first " to China whilst driving our cars to earn money to spend in chinas factories

It's sad because I suspect that living a slightly slower , more "experience the moment lifestyle " , focussed on family and friends not big houses snd the corporate bottom line would probably make people happier

Yes I do know that unless you have money behind you , you are caught in the rat trap with no option but to line your bosses pockets to keep food in the table - but if people could at least recognise the trap we might have a chance of changing things

LTNs don't help, they only misplace traffic.

(well designed )Low traffic zones push traffic to better places, typically reduce average travel times ( at the expense of rat runners ) And make it more likely that people will leave the car behind

Loads of European cities have done this successfully

Our economy would entirely collapse if we did what actually needs to be done to stop climate change. It would be pleasant for any of us.

Our economy will collapse as a result of climate change

We face the choice of trying to adjust the economy in a controlled fashion or just let it. Collapse

@bordermidgebite

Our economy will collapse as a result of climate change

We face the choice of trying to adjust the economy in a controlled fashion or just let it. Collapse

It will. But humans are short sighted.

Short sighted & scared of change

People are lazy and will do anything that make their life easier. Our dishwasher died so we didn’t bother to replace it, our dryer recently dried and we have decided to not replace that either because we can and will dry more outside and brought an airer for inside.

We grow a lot of our own fresh food and I personally don’t drive so walk the children to school, we also don’t holiday aboard.

Most people wouldn’t do half of that because it’s not a holiday unless you get on a plane or it’s 10 minutes faster to drive than walk. It’s laziness.

@Whatiswrongwithmyknee

In my experience people are much more likely to tell others to inconvenience themselves tp prevent climate change than inconveniencing themselves.

Absolutely this.

Look at Prince Harry. Fixing climate change, one private jet at a time.

@SoManyOptions I’m the same as you, work in rural community nursing covering a wide rural area, the way things are going they want more and more people kept at home so that’s not going to change. I’ve had people tell me well the nhs will just need to give you a car, that’s laughable when currently there is one pool car between 8 of us and some teams don’t have one at all. Also the pool car can only be used for work so I wouldn’t be able to get my kids to school or get to appointments etc.

The bus service where I am is really regular but it’s the time it actually takes to get anywhere where there are shops, hospital etc. I recycle, I don’t have a tumble dryer, I buy my milk in glass bottles from a machine across the road. My car is a small 1.2 petrol, I cannot afford an electric car currently and don’t live in a house with a drive or anywhere to charge. Unfortunately the people who make decisions don’t have a clue about rural living

I find your story really sad op. In Belgium and Holland bikes are prioritised and it’s safe for children to cycle which has huge benefits for health and well-being. We absolutely need to stop prioritising cars. I get so frustrated that so many people don’t get it.

Where I live the number of car drivers who think nothing of leaving their engine running to heat the car and deice the windows! At my school the buses are rubbish and cycling is pretty dangerous so parents drop of their kids, every morning huge queues of mostly massive cars dropping teens off at the door, the council absolutely could do more but I get the impression most are happy with the status quo.

I have no way of getting to work without a car, but when the petrol ran low, and as it keeps rising, I’m thinking more about an electric car. Even as someone quite keen to be environmentally conscious actually hitting my wallet is a serious motivator.