To ask what one thing you would ban to help the environment?

[AngryBirdsNoMore]

Following on from @GADday’s well meaning thread about disposable sanitary products being an option to phase out to help the environment - what one thing would you ban to help the environment?

Let’s not get into sanitary products again. That thread makes clear that disposable sanitary products are probably here to stay for a range of reasons…

Ill go first:

Private planes. I’m struggling to think of any reason why they’re necessary especially for short flights.

I know, and I'm shocked and appalled. The study deliberately accounts scope 3 emissions as scope 1. It thoroughly undermines so much of the fantastic work done over the last twenty plus years to raise awareness and bring about meaningful change by explicitly laying blame for climate change at the door of a very small number of organisations.

Whereas now you can put all your drinks containers in your home recycling, you'll have to take them all (intact - no crushing or damage to the label) to a return point and feed them in individually. For them to be taken to the same place they would be if you put them in your household recycling. So it just creates huge inconvenience.

This is exactly what we did before home recycling collections - took them to the bottle and paper banks at the local supermarket. It wasn’t all that inconvenient. We did it at the same time as the weekly shop. It was quite therapeutic hurling the bottles in and hearing them smash.

Golf courses

"Groups who seriously advocate this route don't plan to euthanise the existing population - the plan would be that we just stop reproducing (anti-fatalism). Obviously if that happened the end-stage of human existence would be very painful as labour supplies for essential services dried up and some people might choose euthanasia rather than go through it, but that's how it would work."

Right I see. So ban any further people being born and consign the existing population of the world to an eventual existence so painful that they choose suicide as a preferable alternative 🤔 Are people really advocating for this?

Some ideas are not really doable especially if you think global, not just UK. Private water companies can’t just be banned, or cars, or oil investments.

I like the ideas that are 100% doable, wouldn’t cost a lot and are about things that we definitely don’t need

• glitter
• limited non-transferrable air miles per person
• balloons
• log burners
• pre-packaged fruit/veg

And the one I would propose to add to the list: ban lit up buildings during the night (inside or out).

Opportunity, though, for people to litter pick and pick up bottles to claim back the 20ps of people who can't be bothered with it.

Groups who seriously advocate this route don't plan to euthanise the existing population - the plan would be that we just stop reproducing (anti-fatalism). Obviously if that happened the end-stage of human existence would be very painful as labour supplies for essential services dried up and some people might choose euthanasia rather than go through it, but that's how it would work.

Before you ask, no, I don't have children.

With no now - probably irreversible - population collapse in all areas outside sub-Saharan Africa having been set in motion now, euthanasia won't be necessary. This is happening whether people like it or not and as usual, Governments have no plan and are woefully underprepared.

I’m sure hardline eco-zealots would ban all private car ownership. Not to mention a Lib Dem fantasy dream.

Shops and attractions lit up all night.

May I ask what's the issue with Frisbees? Not being snippy; genuinely curious.

I know, and I'm shocked and appalled. The study deliberately accounts scope 3 emissions as scope 1. It thoroughly undermines so much of the fantastic work done over the last twenty plus years to raise awareness and bring about meaningful change by explicitly laying blame for climate change at the door of a very small number of organisations.

The entire point of the study was to trace global emissions back to their source, because the focus on end users and expecting them to somehow change things is tinkering at the margins in the same way that it is pointless recommending diets as a solution to the obesity problem when the structural environment creates the conditions for it. I think you seem to be missing the point that the research was deliberately designed to examine the issue from an input perspective, in constrast to previous approaches that have not been effective.

Well, one advantage of not having children is that I don't really care what happens to the human race once I have departed it. I hope the planet is eventually freed, somehow, of our horrible, polluting species, to be honest.

Lol, I knew ‘plastic’ grass would come up several times on this thread. I have plastic grass in my garden. We’ve already had it for a couple of years and it still looks as good as new. As long as we care for it properly then it will last years and years. Its hardly single use plastic is it?

I haven’t been on a holiday abroad for well over 10 years whereas I’m willing to bet the vast majority of the people bitching about plastic grass have. And what’s the betting your wardrobe is full to bursting with clothes made from plastic fibres. All the celebs who go on about the environment and like to preach to masses have each probably racked up a much higher carbon foot print than I ever will in my lifetime. My carbon foot print probably a lot lower.

People can be so judgmental. But hey, let’s suck all the joy out of life - I mean come on, I can’t believe someone on here has actually hinted that flowering plants should be banned because of the pots they come in.

The sad fact is whatever we do won’t make a jot of difference until China etc. take drastic measures to reduce their carbon output.

Why is this a national issue? It isn't.

All of us have a duty to future generations to ensure they have the very best opportunities.

I really don’t think banning things is the way forward and hate to think of my DC choices being limited by self righteous eco zealots who want lots of things banned just because they don’t like them whilst real culprits enjoy unlimited options of travel etc

good post @FaintlyMacabre

May I ask what's the issue with Frisbees? Not being snippy; genuinely curious.

It's the hollow ring ones that are a big problem - they get stuck over the heads of seals and other marine creatures and are absolutely horrific.

Well, one advantage of not having children is that I don't really care what happens to the human race once I have departed it.

What a lovely, altruistic view of things.

Flights. I'd give everyone a small allowance of a free hundred miles every 5 years that could be accumulated but nobody needs to see a relative or have a foreign holiday more than future generations need to live.

Mileage. I'd limit every adult to a hundred miles a week in a car. Use trains or buses, live closer to work or change your work. Again nobody needs to travel by car more than future generations need to live.

Similar to what someone said upthread about having a limit to how often/how far people can fly I'd like to see the same with cars but no idea how it could ever be enforced sadly. People driving less than a mile or two to get kids to school, gym, work etc fucks me off (unless someone is disabled of course), just fucking walk - if people were forced to walk more perhaps it would help slightly with the obesity problem too.

Ok, I’m trying really hard to make sense of this…

Artificially conceived humans account for a negligible proportion of the global population as a whole. Since the birth of the first IVF baby 45 years ago some 8 million IVF babies have been born worldwide. Global population increases by around 70 million every year.

The bamboo toothbrush brigade really struggle to accept the fact that nothing we do as a small island in a corner of northwest Europe makes any difference to the climate. You could go hide in a cave for the rest of your life and eat leaves and still not make any difference.

Why is this a national issue? It isn't.

All of us have a duty to future generations to ensure they have the very best opportunities.

My whole point is that it is not a national issue. But that unfortunately decisions are still made by national governments - even decisions that can't be solved without co-operation (hence the ridiculousness if Brexit etc also) - and so global problems won't be solved by anything the UK does if others are not doing similar because we are a tiny country.

"change your work"? Who then carers for disabled and elderly people in their homes?

Well that’s fine if you have got time to fucking walk 2-4 miles twice a day (a mile or two, there and back, for a drop off or pick up), which a lot of working parents don’t have.