To think most people are concerned about climate change... but

[hopewithoutpanic]

Don't know what they can personally do to make an impact?

We can see the fires, floods and impact climate change is having in both near and far places.

It has to be a concern, right? This is something that could make our planet dramatically different within our and our children's lifetimes.

Would I be correct in thinking the issue is that is individuals just don't know what (aside from recycling / trying to reduce meat etc) they can do to make a real difference?

If you feel climate change is inevitable then there's less motivation to try and stop it. The planet has changed dramatically over time and there's been floods, droughts, valcanic eruptions and ice ages before. Perhaps this planet was only ever going to be habitable for humans for a short period of time? How does paying for a plastic bag change any of that?

The only thing that will impact Britain's climate change efforts is if there is money in it for the Tories and their mates.

I'm no climate scientist, but I suspect that even if every one of us made all the necessary changes and gave up meat and buying food with packaging and bought electric cars and stopped flying etc - ignoring the logistical difficulties, expense, misery with that all - it still wouldn't be enough.

Change on the systemic level is more important so we should be lobbying our MPs to increase our dependence on renewable energy, put regs in to reduce packaging etc.

I think it'd be a lot easier for the biggest consumers to ditch the yachts and the private planes, multiple massive homes and cars... then most ordinary people cutting back on heating and basic travel. Private flights are responsible for about 50% of flight pollution.
I've had 1 short haul return tourist flight in over a decade, have 1 dd and try not to overuse energy. I'm at the limit of stuff I'm willing to give up while the people who lecture us are far bigger polluters than I'll ever be

Yes I think this is the nail on the head.

It's beyond our control using it. We're in the hands of our government.

The main stumbling block is that there is no one solution, but rather a lot of smaller things that nobody wants to do, either because they like them or they make money from them. Many people are willing to do easy things but not any involving sacrifice.

I think until things like the pollution caused by the fishing industry, farming, massive population are changed, its inevitable.

The harm caused by manufacturing re usable bags, straws, coffee cups etc has cancelled out the benefits.

There is so much greenwashing even done by Greenpeace. The real issues are hidden behind telling people the planet is being damaged by plastic straws etc

I'm not sure they care enough. It doesn't affect them directly and it's too important to them to have a big SUV they use daily for a journey that takes 5 minutes by foot. Status is important. I don't think they think it applies to them. Manufacturers need to do more on scrapping single use plastic items. Schools and institutions need to do more. Our high school sells bottled fizzy and flavoured water but encourages the children to take in refillable bottles. When they can buy nicer water they're they won't take in their own. There's 1500 pupils. That's a lot of bottles if even a fraction buy them each day. We need better public transport, school buses, better cycle paths or actual cycle paths to start with. It all costs money and certainly up here in the north there isn't much going for anything like that.

It feels so big and overwhelming almost where to start.

Very true. You can't lecture ordinary folk who only fly abroad once a year (or can't even afford a holiday anyhow). Penalising people for having an older car (Sadiq Can't). The media, the celebrities and the MPs lecture the wrong people. Speak to anyone who grew up in 1960s cities across the UK, they'll tell you the air is much cleaner now. They couldn't even see their way home back then due to the smog and pollution (and that wasn't cars).

In any event, the human race might die out but the planet will eventually renew.

Climate change and plastic waste are two separate issues... I kind of feel climate change is something I can't control much, whereas recycling/using less waste is something I can. One less plastic bag out there for an animal to choke on.

I want to do things but quite a lot of time the choice is literally taken away from me. There used to be a great refill shop in town and I loved going every week with all my containers. But it shut down over 6 months ago due to lack of business and we need to buy food such as cereal, pasta etc in plastic or not eat.

Sometimes this stuff is out of our hands.

I completely agree that people on an individual level, especially now, are not going to make their own lives more difficult and stressful by ditching the car, seeking out individual farm shop food etc (which needs a car to get to anyway) and investing in more eco friendly things like reusable nappies when the huge industries in China etc are polluting on such a scale. Literally on a day to day level as a FT working single parent, I need things to be as easy and convenient as possible just to keep all the plates spinning. I care in a fairly non-specific general way, but no, I'm not going to make my life even more difficult.

@BibbleandSqwauk Agree. We're supposed to make things more difficult, expensive, and time consuming but most don't have extra time, money or resources to do it. Easy to be eco friendly if you have plenty money, plently living space, time to cycle everywhere, and land to grew your own food and resources.

I get it OP, it’s huge and easy to feel like your contribution doesn’t make a difference.

It’s all based on economics at the highest level.

Never mind the super yachts/private jets, just think about all the single use items in the NHS for instance - everything is single use, in the old days that single use item would have been used time and time again/sterilised/washed.

For me a lot of it feels like a token gesture from the people ‘in charge’ of the process. For instance, I know that my local district council do not recycle in their buildings as I used to work for them. I presume that their decision is based on cost.

When a colleague’s recycling wasn’t collected at home a couple of years ago, the council told them to put it out with the normal rubbish the next week because it all goes to the same place!

Like most people I have an awareness, for me that means I never put my loose veg in a bag, but I’ve never done that anyway. Recycle cardboard, glass and cans. I switched to a soda stream to cut out fizzy water bottles.

I think our individual contributions are minuscule. Never going to make enough difference.

As an individual/family all you can do is try to reduce your energy consumption. E.G. air dry rather than tumble dry clothes where possible, turn down your heating by 1 degree e.t.c. If you have means, change your boiler to something more efficient and switch to electric rather than fossil fuel for your car, insulate your walls and roof more. That's not possible for everyone of course for a range of reasons.

The Tories have built a huge amount of off shore wind - we have 7 of the 10 largest offshore wind in the world (including all of the top 5 largest). Another is due to go online in April adding a further 1,200,000,000 watts of capacity. The next large farm is already underway. The one after that is already in the planning stages.

Thing is - climate change will not be stopped here. The UK is just too small in terms of emissions (2% I think of the worlds emissions?) to make any meaningful difference. It will be decided in China, India and should Africa industrialise - there too. All the UK can meaningfully do is produce scientists and engineers that can invent & develop low/no carbon means and pass this information on to the places where the front line truly is.

But we are the ones sustaining these industries by constantly wanting to consume, consume, consume. It's been proven that growing vegetables/crops for human consumption has more ecological benefits than 'growing meat' in the same area.
Same with the constant: upgrade you phone/house/clothes etc.

@Catoneverychair yes I completely agree.

Climate change and plastic waste are two separate issues... I kind of feel climate change is something I can't control much, whereas recycling/using less waste is something I can. One less plastic bag out there for an animal to choke on

It would be better if more people thought this way.

When cities across the world turn the lights off in unmanned buildings at night, when cities across the world stop lighting up their centres with advertising and other unnecessary stuff, when americans start using sensible sized cars, when india, china, and every other country that burns fossils fuels on an industrial scale stops, when muswell hill and cheshire wives stop taking their dc to school and idling outside school in over-sized cars they can neither park nor control, and when someone admits that cow-farts are only a tiny bit of the problem, THEN our attempts to recycle and be greener may make an impact

I think the big polluters and industries need to make the big changes. Little old me can't do much. I do little bits, like make sure I have pollinator supporting plants in the garden, but that's more for the existing bees than any thoughts of the future.

This planet has finite resources and, I think, unless people are willing to live shorter, less comfortable lives, we're doomed to exhaust it eventually. Other life will then take over. I almost see this as inevitable so I don't worry about something I can't do anything about.

Absolutely agree @follyfoot37, until there’s a massive sea change us washing a yoghurt pot and putting it in a recycling bin is a pointless exercise, not that I bother given what I know about waste to landfill.

While China are using the same amount of concrete the USA used in the entire 20th Century every three years, and commissioning hundreds of coal-fired power stations to charge their mushrooming electric car market, it does seem a bit futile rinsing out our yoghurt pots etc.

It feels futile in the face of such an overwhelming problem. Like bailing out the titanic. If we could really see huge changes and commitments coming from businesses and governments, if plastic packaging were outlawed for example, I would have hope for the future and feel it more worth fighting for.
By now though it feels like a choice between dying in a fiery furnace after a comfortable life versus dying in a fiery furnace after an uncomfortable life.

Until it's tackled, simultaneously, on a global level then there's is little incentive (or point) with the individual recycling, etc.

What we saw when Covid hit us globally is that you're never going to get all governments (let alone the people) to agree on a single strategy for the drastic changes that need to be made. Ultimately, money and power is more seductive than doing the 'right' thing.

I do my bit because I do think you should. I don't believe it will make any difference in the long run.

Nature will win, eventually. The planet will recover and, hopefully, will have rid itself of the biggest plague it's seen - humankind.

That might all sound really negative and pessimistic but, to me, it's more realistic.