To not know how to talk about climate change IRL?

[workwoes123]

I have an academic background in science, and an ongoing interest in it. I follow a lot of climate scientists and activists on Twitter, and read a lot around the subject. What I struggle to bring myself to do is talk to people IRL about it - even they ask me.

For anyone who suffers from anxiety (my sister, my mum) it’s just awful for them as it creates huge worries.

With others, my book group for example, it feels like preaching, telling them off for living their lives in the way they do (they are all pretty affluent, flying frequently for work and pleasure, multiple cars, big country houses, etc etc). When I’m spending time with people I like, I don’t want to be constantly challenging them on their choices / lifestyles or dooming and glooming around.

It’s similar with colleagues at work: they aren’t as affluent but they all drive, fly, eat meat, do up their kitchens because they are bored with the old one, shop as a hobby, run two cars so they can live in a bigger house / further from public transport etc - everything we are told will have to change.

But it’s bubbling up in me. I’m really not given to gloom and doom, but the cognitive dissonance between seeing the train coming towards us and pretending there’s nothing there is starting to get to me.

do you talk to people about this? how do you do it?

Maybe I’ll have to join extinction rebellion or something. Or, conversely, stop following scientists and activists and ignore it.

Rather blunt but I have to agree. I think you could do with a break from studying climate change. I mean following all these activists and climate scientists on Twiitter must be taking over a lot of your free time?

You say it's "getting to you now..You're not one for doom and gloom" so strive for some balance in your life and embrace the relationships you have with friends and family.

I think you've tipped over into obsession if this is always forefront in your mind. It's affecting your mental health and not achieving anything X

At this stage you aren't going to be telling people anything new to them though are you? I don't mean to be harsh with that. It's just how it is. I honestly think everyone has quietly made up their minds, one way or the other.

I have to confess I don't really understand it. Even when I pick up ER leaflets when they protest in London, I don;t fully understand.

I have no idea why cutting out flights during lockdown makes artic melt worse. Please could you explain this @Singleandproud?

OP what if some of us aren't worried? I'm on the fence with it all - I don't think the human race is entitled enough to not die out so what if some of us are accepting of it?

I actually think it rather entitled to think we can live forever and if rather continue my lifestyle than live without luxuries to 'save the planet' if I'm honest.

Because as another poster pointed out without those things to look forward to in life, what's the point?

I don't know how you can convince people that that is an attractive option to aim for.

I guess if witnessing what’s already happening - the flooding, the wildfires, people dying in heatwaves - doesn’t then probably nothing will.

I agree that the message needs to be “do something” rather than “do everything” or “do nothing”. I find the “well unless you’re a vegan who lives in a yurt and eschews all electrical devices you can’t offer an opinion” argument that gets used on here all the time as a supposedly clever “gotcha” really depressing. It’s like saying “I’m never going to be an Olympic athlete, so I might as well spend the rest of my life lying in the sofa eating crisps” or “my child’s never going to be a genius, so what’s the point in teaching them to read or count?”

With others, my book group for example, it feels like preaching, telling them off for living their lives in the way they do (they are all pretty affluent, flying frequently for work and pleasure, multiple cars, big country houses, etc etc). When I’m spending time with people I like, I don’t want to be constantly challenging them on their choices / lifestyles or dooming and glooming around.
It’s similar with colleagues at work: they aren’t as affluent but they all drive, fly, eat meat, do up their kitchens because they are bored with the old one, shop as a hobby, run two cars so they can live in a bigger house / further from public transport etc - everything we are told will have to change.

Your book group are there to discuss books. Maybe join a climate change discussion group if you want to discuss climate change? And your work colleagues may not want to spend their working day discussing climate change either. They might want to concentrate on their work.

What you can do is change your own behaviour. How do you get to work? Have you taken action to move closer to your work so that you can work and cycle? Do you cycle or walk to get your shopping? You could buy as much as possible from a local farmer's shop or butchers, rather than the supermarket and cut down on packaging by ordering less internet goods, for example.

But it’s bubbling up in me. I’m really not given to gloom and doom, but the cognitive dissonance between seeing the train coming towards us and pretending there’s nothing there is starting to get to me.

Have you thought about therapy to help you with this? It seems from your post that you are putting yourself in the position as some sort of leader, with special knowledge, and you consider that very few other people share this knowledge. Your post is all about how superior you are in this sense to other people in your life but its not actually about climate change. You haven't discussed at all what you are doing. Its almost as if the issue of climate change is being used as a vehicle for you to feel superior to other people in your life. I should think if you are constantly attempting to preach at people about climate change, you are at risk of alienating them, even those who are receptive or who may even be taking more steps than you to reduce their carbon footprint. Its a bit...grandiose. Have you had these tendencies before? It might be worth finding a good psychologist to help you with these feelings and how you might discuss them without alienating people.

@shakeupandwakeup
Do you remember that lovely weather we had during the first lockdown?
When we burn fossil fuels in industry, drive or fly particles such as sulphate aerosols are released into the atmosphere. Unlike atmospheric carbon which has a life span of decades so the impact of Covid is a blip, aerosols have a life cycle of a few days max, so the impact of an increase or decrease is easy to see. The aerosols act as cloud condensation nuclei, the more aerosols the more clouds and the thicker they are and vice versa. Clouds increase the Earth's albedo as the reflect a lot of the sun's energy back to space, the less clouds the more of that energy was absorbed which increased surface temperatures. During lockdown the Northern Hemisphere experienced uncharisteristic warm and dry weather and this has been linked to the accelerated Arctic ice melting along with the unprecedented temperatures in Siberia, Alaska and Canada.

The only other time in history that a similar event happened was localised to the US when the planes were grounded following 9/11.

@shakeupandwakeup
Do you remember that lovely weather we had during the first lockdown?
When we burn fossil fuels in industry, drive or fly particles such as sulphate aerosols are released into the atmosphere. Unlike atmospheric carbon which has a life span of decades so the impact of Covid is a blip, aerosols have a life cycle of a few days max, so the impact of an increase or decrease is easy to see. The aerosols act as cloud condensation nuclei, the more aerosols the more clouds and the thicker they are and vice versa. Clouds increase the Earth's albedo as the reflect a lot of the sun's energy back to space, the less clouds the more of that energy was absorbed which increased surface temperatures. During lockdown the Northern Hemisphere experienced uncharisteristic warm and dry weather and this has been linked to the accelerated Arctic ice melting along with the unprecedented temperatures in Siberia, Alaska and Canada.

The only other time in history that a similar event happened was localised to the US when the planes were grounded following 9/11.

@shakeupandwakeup
Do you remember that lovely weather we had during the first lockdown?
When we burn fossil fuels in industry, drive or fly particles such as sulphate aerosols are released into the atmosphere. Unlike atmospheric carbon which has a life span of decades so the impact of Covid is a blip, aerosols have a life cycle of a few days max, so the impact of an increase or decrease is easy to see. The aerosols act as cloud condensation nuclei, the more aerosols the more clouds and the thicker they are and vice versa. Clouds increase the Earth's albedo as the reflect a lot of the sun's energy back to space, the less clouds the more of that energy was absorbed which increased surface temperatures. During lockdown the Northern Hemisphere experienced uncharisteristic warm and dry weather and this has been linked to the accelerated Arctic ice melting along with the unprecedented temperatures in Siberia, Alaska and Canada.

The only other time in history that a similar event happened was localised to the US when the planes were grounded following 9/11.

@shakeupandwakeup
Do you remember that lovely weather we had during the first lockdown?
When we burn fossil fuels in industry, drive or fly particles such as sulphate aerosols are released into the atmosphere. Unlike atmospheric carbon which has a life span of decades so the impact of Covid is a blip, aerosols have a life cycle of a few days max, so the impact of an increase or decrease is easy to see. The aerosols act as cloud condensation nuclei, the more aerosols the more clouds and the thicker they are and vice versa. Clouds increase the Earth's albedo as the reflect a lot of the sun's energy back to space, the less clouds the more of that energy was absorbed which increased surface temperatures. During lockdown the Northern Hemisphere experienced uncharisteristic warm and dry weather and this has been linked to the accelerated Arctic ice melting along with the unprecedented temperatures in Siberia, Alaska and Canada.

The only other time in history that a similar event happened was localised to the US when the planes were grounded following 9/11.

Ugh I kept getting a server message I didn't mean to post multiple times.

It might have been lovely weather for you sitting in your garden but it was terrible weather for farmers as it was far too dry for weeks on end for grass growth. That meant less yield to make hay for winter and meant that grazing animals had to be fed last year's hay for longer. That might be all right if you are vegan and think the planet should be populated by humans and a few pets, but it isn't ideal for arable crop growing either and meant a lot of artificial irrigation which is incredibly polluting and wasteful of energy in itself.

We live in a grass and arable growing crop belt that is generally self sufficient in all but the worst years for grass production but that year some farmers were having to import hay from overseas which is very unusual.

Yes though to more condensation nuclei in the atmosphere creating precipitation, although its not just planes which cause it.

@achatavendre
That was my point really, reducing the emissions from planes, cars and industry is not as simple as just stopping using them because of the knock-on effects.

In order to reduce global warming countries could just pump a ton of aerosols into the atmosphere and make lots of clouds, but that has the knock on effect of acid rain, flooding in other areas of the world that may not have agreed to the aerosols being used in the first place. As I said in my very initial post it is an incredibly complicated puzzle to solve.

It sounds like "talk about climate change" does mean discussing what people should be doing differently. You should never do that. Individuals choosing to be virtuous is not going to have any impact on anything other than possibly their own self-esteem.

The only things that matter are government policies, so you could talk about what government policy should be.

To illustrate my point, telling people that they should not fly is wrong and pointless. It's wrong because it presumes one solution, which may not be the only or best solution. It's pointless because most people are going to do continue flying while it is desirable, legal and affordable. Suggesting that governments world-wide should put a tax on fossil fuels used in flying would be better. The latter, if high enough, might cause untaxed carbon-neutral synthetic fuels to replace fossil fuels. As a proposal, it doesn't alienate anyone by telling them the world as they know it has to end, it just says they may have to pay more to make it sustainable.

When I’m spending time with people I like, I don’t want to be constantly challenging them on their choices / lifestyles or dooming and glooming around

You can't. Nothing will alienate people faster. All you can do is

1. Be the change.
2. Talk about reasons for your own actions in a casual, non-grandstand-y way - - for instance if there's talk about new phones say you're going to replace yours as soon as you find a good refurb or second hand because it's better environmentally. Then move on. Not a great example but you know what I mean. you can talk about it because you live by it, so it comes up naturally, but you can do it in a low-key way is what I mean.
3. If they ask about these issues talk about them honestly.

If you want to talk about it, that will happen from your actions. If you wrap Christmas presents in recycled paper, walk more places, cut out or cut down meat etc etc etc - people will notice. They will ask about it. You don't need to start preaching to start a conversation -if you think that conversation is even likely to help.

We've hit a point of general public awareness that ten years ago I wasn't sure I'd ever see. People in your book group probably know these things. Most people do. The information has been around for a long time now. I do see people on here who seem to have just started thinking about it and that really shocks me tbh, but it's mostly unlikely that they don't know. They just don't want to think about it/ change. You can't make them do that by being obnoxious. Only by being a sensible person who still raises these things when it's natural to do so, in a non-hectoring way. It can feel like you need to be more vocal. But they will just learn to tune you out and then you will achieve nothing.

I'm not, personally, convinced that Extinction Rebellion is the answer. I don't like to criticise them because they do more than I do in terms of activism but I think their methods can backfire at times.

I always frame the argument in that many of the actions required help reduce dependence on other countries, often with despotic regimes. I also talk about air quality and health as a benefit of those actions. Or just say I don't want to help Mr Putin.

How about joining or starting a local environment group? This could really help with anxiety as you will be with like minded people, but also can take local actions e.g. litter picks, support school streets etc. Things that have an impact locally, that people can see and begin to ask questions about, which can lead to more questions.

It's often said we don't need one person to do everything to reduce their emissions, we need everyone to take a step towards reducing their emissions.

It's great that people want to engage you in conversations about climate change. Blaming people's individual consumption (e.g. the number of houses or flights they take) is counter-productive, because we need to make changes as an entire country/ civilisation. That's where voting and lobbying government or emailing companies can have a much bigger impact.

Speak from your own perspective and what you've made changes in. With climate change, I let people know that if I need to fly, I buy offsets from solaraid, who provide solar panels to poor people who would otherwise be using paraffin stoves, which also impacts on their health and their finances.

For a non-climate related example, I have spoken to people about how surprised I was that slavery is involved in the production of a lot of chocolate and coffee, and that I have tried doing something about that by emailing companies I buy from.

I think that there is so much information about this subject that you really don't need to say anything at all.
If you want to join the lovely people at Extinction Rebellion then please do so. Then no-one will have to ask you your opinion again.

I used to, it used to be the only thing I could think about and so all I could speak about. I'm not in the field or anything.
But now I feel trapped amd there is no way out so I silently do what I can and don't think about it anymore. Well I do but I try not to.

what helped me was prepping believe it or not.
learning how to grow my own food, save my own seed, stocked up on candles and tins just to keep my anxiety low. Set up a veg patch, doing quite well, planting fruit trees and sharing the produce. im also learning to preserve. jam and chutney mostly but I'm hoping to get even more done. every bean, every courgette, every pumpkin (these store whole for months so can be eating them all winter) every jar of jam I share with my family is one last item they purchased from the shop so its one more little contribution to changing.

what also helped was talking about the wins- aka gardening. now we have a couple of friends trying a veg garden in their garden, one has a few pots on their balcony and another has just got an allotment plot. I think the tide is changing. whether it is too late for us who knows? it is too late for some but we live in England and I go from feeling good about the changes people are making to despondent about the changes big billionaires are refusing to change.

I am hoping the rising cost of living has a side effect of reduced emissions. so I suppose I can be happy about that when I'm sat in bed at 5pm with an empty stomach in October.

we are trying, lots of people are trying.

Or get in to working in the sciences where they are looking to develop ways we can live without destroying the planet? Use your degree and make a difference.

@Singleandproud there's no evidence directly linking lockdown with either regional weather events or the melting of the ice caps and glaciers, all of which have been been becoming more extreme for decades. Single short term events will limited impact compared to long cumulative damage from the burning of fossil fuels.

Please back up your conjecture with peer reviewed papers.

this is mumsnet, nobody needs to bring peer reviewed papers here.

@nickthefox I found a metoffice article that makes some almost identical statements to @Singleandproud, it even references a couple of papers but goes on to state "there is negligible impact on climate change'.

The article is here

Write a blog about it, and give suggestions as to what people can do that would make a difference. Then ask your friends to give you feedback on your blog.