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.

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

And you are deluding yourself by thinking nothing is ever our fault, that of the consumers, and by trying to find excuses for keeping up the ever increasing demand.

No one makes you spend your money chasing advertising promises.

Did I say nothing is ever our fault? Clearly we bear some responsibility for our own actions but it’s also clear, to those that want to see, where the real problem lies (and where the solution needs to come from).

You also seem to be blaming me personally for buying stuff I don’t need, which is a little strange seeing as you have no idea of my purchasing habits. Maybe I have the same iron-willed, advertising-proof self restraint that you clearly have and I’m purely talking about people in general rather than using this as an excuse to buy plastic tat and three foreign holidays a year?

Yanbu.

Incidentally, I live a ten minute walk from school, but have to drive because a road on the route has no pavement (country lane) and the traffic is crazy unsafe. So maddening, would love to walk.

@Theunamedcat

And no I can't fucking cycle I have to get children from one side of town to the other to childcare then travel to work from there apart from the fact that the children can't actually ride bikes im dyspraxic my knees are bad my heart is bad the list is endless basically it would kill me

Exactly - this whole “ leave the car and cycle brigade “ - do they have three kids at different schools / nursery across town

What would they have us parents do - buy a tricycle and strap the kids on the handle bars and the saddles and gung ho into the rain ( cold snow and ice in Scotland)

It’s just ridiculous

@realhousewifeofmodor

I find it completely bizarre how posters here are harping on about electric cars, reducing private car ownership etc. Those things are all well and good but if everyone stopped using cars now then we wouldn't see any change in the planet for 100 years.

Reducing our methane output is much more of an immediate priority as it will have a much faster impact and something needs to change now.

In short- we need to stop eating meat. Full stop. Drive an electric car and feel smug about cycling to work all you like- if you eat meat then you're a massive hypocrite.

Car ownership has three times the impact of an omnivorous diet.

@Alayalaya

100 companies are responsible for 71% of emissions worldwide. It’s ridiculous to pretend that choosing local potatoes or cycling to work makes a difference.

About 90 of those polluting companies are oil giants. When you fill your car up, you are funding the damage. 80% of British people live in urban areas (on mumsnet it often seems to be the reverse). For such people cycling or public transport is likely to be an option, if they took it en masse it would force OPEC to cut production to keep prices high.

@Momicrone

Alaya, it's not just about saving the planet, less cars on the road makes an area nicer for everyone, especially non car drivers

Amen to that, I was waiting for a bus in a delightful Cotswold town last month. I couldn't help thinking how much better it would be if there weren't parked cars on every inch of road.

@realhousewifeofmodor

So the most up to date fuel report from the IEA (2020, so much more recent than what you quoted) shows that in fact agriculture does produce more methane than oil and gas. Obviously both are awful, and with all of the other gases produced included then oil and gas do have more impact, but methane is the key. If we reduce our methane emissions now then we will start to see a positive effect very quickly. If we 'just' try to reduce carbon dioxide emissions then we won't see the effects for at least 100 years, which sadly will be far too late.

This is why it baffles me that people are ignoring the easiest way of reducing the problem- not eating meat!

Thank you for highlighting more recent data, it is always useful to have more data 😀. However, I did notice the graph in the 2020 methane tracker report (I am guessing that's what you were referencing) in which agriculture emissons are compared to other sources has a note below it stating that the non-energy data, of which I assume means the waste, agriculture and wetlands emissons data, is from the year 2012,so even older than the ipcc stuff and I couldn't find the source for their data. I did a bit more digging on the back of that and did find another source that confirmed agriculture to be the biggest methane producer atm so happy to accept that as fact, although it will be interesting to see if that changes again post pandemic.

As I said, I don't disagree with the principle of not eating meat, both in terms of animal welfare and for the environmental considerations. But that doesn't change the fact that CO2 is the biggest climate change driver (I know water vapour is technically the biggest but doesn't get counter in ghg discussions so not counting it here), hence why the focus is on decarbonisation. From what I understand we could easily see methane reduced by around 55-60% by 2030-35, which would see a 0.25-0.5 degree decrease in projected temperature rises. That sounds great until you realise that the business as usual modelling puts us on track for a 3.9-4.5 degree rise. So even if we completely removed methane, but ignored other greenhouse gases, we'd still be fucked. That said, I don't think this is an either/or situation and we should be reducing all ghg emissons wherever we can (especially SF6, my least favourite).

On the topic of not eating meat, I remember reading a UN paper from 2013ish about reducing meat consumption in Europe and the trends predicted in that paper are pretty close to what is actually happening. Perhaps those in power knew we needed to address that issue but that the general population wouldn't take kindly to being told to reduce or stop eating meat, and so they have been embarking on a more subtle approach to push an increase in vegetarianism and veganism. Maybe we need to give policy makers and those in power more credit than we do. Actually, I'm not sure what's more terrifying now, unchecked climate change or a component and cunning ruling class who know how to manipulate us without us realising.

@RubyJam exactly, my village isn’t near my kids school, I have to drop off before heading to my community nurse job so I’m sorry but I need my car and there isn’t much I can do about that

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

I'm surprised you have seen optimism in my post. I think you are the one missing the point.

You're the one who seems to think that telling people to just stop buying stuff will help. Not sure how when they won't stop. It's a simplistic view of stopping climate change and will never work.

The problem is that the world has changed. 50 years ago my village had local jobs in heavy industry and a whole street of independent shops, a school, two pubs, a football field and a cinema. Now the shops and industries are closed, most people commute at least 30 minutes to work and the out-of-town supermarket is 20 minutes away. The Victorian school was demolished and replaced with houses. Another housing estate on the football field and flats on the site of the demolished cinema. The pubs have become a Chinese restaurant and another block of flats. There’s literally nothing here except houses and I can’t see any way back to a local lifestyle that doesn’t require cars.

@Alayalaya

The problem is that the world has changed. 50 years ago my village had local jobs in heavy industry and a whole street of independent shops, a school, two pubs, a football field and a cinema. Now the shops and industries are closed, most people commute at least 30 minutes to work and the out-of-town supermarket is 20 minutes away. The Victorian school was demolished and replaced with houses. Another housing estate on the football field and flats on the site of the demolished cinema. The pubs have become a Chinese restaurant and another block of flats. There’s literally nothing here except houses and I can’t see any way back to a local lifestyle that doesn’t require cars.

This is so true. It’s exactly the same where I live. When my parents got married in 1971, they could both walk to work. Then, the factory my dad worked at closed and the only job he could find that was a match to his skills was 30+ miles away.

We used to have butchers, greengrocers, bakeries. Now it’s nail shops, vape shops and small supermarkets; which are more expensive and less well stocked than the large out-of-town ones.

Parking charges in the town centre are ridiculous, especially when there are barely any shops worth visiting. Buses are also expensive, for two or more people it’s almost always cheaper to drive. I can be at the Trafford Centre in under half an hour and park for free all day.

our village currently has a Spar and another corner shop, the post office a pharmacy, a hairdressers, a cafe, a shop that sells everything from needles to tile grout, a chinese takeaway a sandwich shop a pub a church and a bowling club and a small gym in the village hall, a primary school, 30 years ago it had all this plus a butchers, bakers, a drapers, a fish van twice a week, a fruit and veg shop and a hotel the population has increased if anything so it is no longer possible to get everything for day to day life in the village, a return by bus is £5 it is 16 miles return, the service is hourly which is not bad but it doesn't use £5 worth of diesel my car is old so depreciation is peanuts

I think Covid has helped somewhat. More people are working from home which has allowed local coffee shops and sandwich takeaways to spring up, and saved a bit of petrol on commuting. But employers are pressuring people to return to the office. In the long term I don’t think we’ve gained much, we certainly haven’t retrieved all the local shops we used to have. Gotta keep driving unfortunately, that’s the main issue the government needs to address.

It’s affecting fertility, pregnancies and infant health
www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/15/global-heating-linked-early-birth-damage-babies-health