This isn't our heat wave, but the next one could be

[orangeleavesinautumn]

Or if we mess up the jet stream, arctic winters.

We have really messed up horrifically, haven't we.

I am scared its too late to put right

@helford yes that is true but those obese people in their 30s and 40s will be artificially kept alive won’t they, with advances in heart procedures, meds for blood pressure, blood thinners etc.

How wrong you are @Mummy08m

The poles are linked, they circulate the ocean currents and basically control tge temp of tge oceans. That system is under duress already and it's been calc'd that at 1.5oC temp increase the system may even fall over. So 1.5oC inc is a ohysical limit not a made up government goal.

I don't want to be alarmist but the last ice age took 20 years to happen. The Earth has suffered many mass extinctions. This, the 7th epoch is due to humans :(

I was using figures and graphs from "Our World In Data" which shows that all parts of the globe have seen a fall in life expectancy since 2020/21, though it's stayed level for Oceania.

There may be regions where it has held up, but the picture across the world is down. I'm not sure how UK specifically is doing

@helford no, due to the extent of the sharp decline in birthrates, despite life expectancy still rising in most countries (not the UK as you said) the overall population will start to decline exponentially. a very difficult trend to stabilise once it has set in and the seeds are sewn already: it's already been set in motion. The effect on overall population has just been masked somewhat so far by the extended life expectancies. I don't think people are appreciating the extent to which there will be an ever growing shortage of young people, far worse than now. And the problem won't be one that can be fixed by immigration because as I said, it is happening in the vast majority of countries.

I was using figures and graphs from "Our World In Data" which shows that all parts of the globe have seen a fall in life expectancy since 2020/21, though it's stayed level for Oceania.

That's a short-term effect due to Covid, not the long-term trend.

I wonder what will happen after we are gone.

If it is a quick extinction, relatively speaking, who is going to care about safeguarding radioactive nuclear plants. Probably nobody. I predict there will be some fairly freakish creatures growing larger and uglier due to a few hundred years of radiation.

Giant ants will roam Europe, climbing over long grown over houses and industrial parks, steeped with brambles and ivy, crumbling walls, decay. They will be 8 feet high when standing and may get smarter. They will roam through our houses, picking up bicycles, fridges, knocking them over. Eating the New Forest ponies and stuff.

@Dibbydoos I think you might be muddling the jet stream and the gulf stream etc.

Speaking as someone in the UK, if we became carbon negative in a decade or two, is that us done, no more taxes, policies suggesting that we throw away cars, boilers and other equipment that still has years of useful life?

This - unbelievable! Also, won’t use leftover food.

Big corporations (the super wealthy) are ideologically in opposition to what is needed to slow this down. Places like China and Russia, and the US create so much carbon and useless plastic waste, you or I stopping eating meat makes not a dent. The UK building more homes makes it a dent. Sadly, however committed you are, however much you separate your waste, reduce journeys, limit meat consumption, you’re outnumbered. Outnumbered by thousands, thousands and thousands not doing any of that. Not just the countries above, but so many places in Europe, so many small islands borrowing developing world conveniences with no regard to the impact we all know about. So many Arab states doing exactly as they like, so many African countries seizing and using what they can to drag themselves forward.

The rich tell us ‘we give enough’. I’m not sure how they work out ‘enough’ - does this mean one less car? One less house? One less holiday? Until it is all shared equally, you will have those without doing everything they can to try to be nearer those with. And Fuck the earth.

our children and their descendants are the last of the humans I fear/hope

I walked round my office this evening and turned off probably 20 lights and ten computers, if people can't even be bothered to turn off a light, it's very difficult to imagine individuals making a difference.

I'll still be turning off the office lights, but I'm only there 2 days a week, so its more lose than win.....my #nevergiveup

I think the biggest problem is that the ‘solutions’ being proposed are simply not working and we need to find things that work and are practical. For example, the council where I am have rolled out loads of low traffic neighbourhoods, ostensibly to help the climate and improve air quality. It’s not working. The cars are still coming, they’re just being squeezed onto fewer roads, and 5 minute journeys have turned into 20 minute ones. The air quality has nosedived on boundary roads, but it’s as though people living there don’t matter. The council is making a fortune in fines though. You can see why people might be cynical about these initiatives and if you want people to make changes, they need to be brought along. It’s difficult to do that during a cost of living crisis when most people are simply trying to survive.

Wrong for the larger businesses.
Businesses tell you what to demand.
You think it’s your idea and buy it.

To an extent. I mean I know how marketing works.

Still consumers have a choice. It’s why companies try hard to get them. I can choose one over the other and do all the time.

Since we're all jumping on the bandwagon about how to solve the issues of climate change and consumerism let me add another.

Work.

Yes.

Consumerism started in the early 1800s with people buying absolute nonsense for their homes and whatnot. Ever since then it has gotten a lot worse. And with consumerism came the need for people to work.

"Come you must enter employment if you want nice things."

It is still the same now two centuries later.

People go to work so they can buy a new car, pay the rent or mortgage for their house that no one is likely to live in (several of my family members have experienced this in recent years) or for that lovely exotic holiday that they desperately deserve.

It beggers belief that we can consider consumerism a huge factor but still console ourselves that work is major part of life, and of course in some ways it is. It is vital to our self-worth, or supposedly. What is even worse is that working conditions are disgusting and just down right unexceptable but yet we keep going.

Why is that?

Fear of being homeless? Fear of not being respected by society? Or just being too proud of how resilient we are in retrospect?

There was a lot of talk years ago about a general strike and how people scoffed saying it was a socialists dream when in fact that would be 'sticking it to the man and government' and showing who is really powerful. If consumerism only works because of businesses making it readily available then surely the buck lies with workers agreeing to make senseless things that are meaningless and harmful.

There's a lot of fear surrounding A.I and how people's jobs are at risk but we are turning into robots by the day. We watch TV, listening to media sites which are run by billionaires and we believe it. And they're sensational for scaremongering. A.I won't be perfect in a lot of respects but at least they won't be sheep in the long run.

As for the U.N and the W.H.O don't get me started about their dirty laundry! Where was the U.N when disabled people were being denied care and requirements or when they'd died due to the stress and dehumanisation. Don't tell me that they care! They're scummy like our government. And where are they with the war regarding Ukraine and Russia? I don't see them stepping in 'helping'.

So, yes rose tinted glasses all round, really.

In this case, yes we are to blame.

100% 👌

As someone said though, we all contribute to co2 emissions, so what the hey? 😏

The statistics I looked at said my country was one of three which has life expectancy increasing, after a slight dip between 2020-2021.

That is what I’ve been saying earlier on this thread (or the other similar one)
I’ve been met with a range of ‘oh well, we can’t sacrifice the old for the young’ or when I’m 70+ put me out of my misery or the classic from one poster ‘not many young people will go into care work anyway’
Its just like whattttt? How are you missing the point so badly!?
Not enough young people severely affects everyone- not just the old!

What is your preference?

Increasing population without reverse

Not sure what your alternative is

🤣🤣🤣

That is what I’ve been saying earlier on this thread (or the other similar one)
I’ve been met with a range of ‘oh well, we can’t sacrifice the old for the young’ or when I’m 70+ put me out of my misery or the classic from one poster ‘not many young people will go into care work anyway’
Its just like whattttt? How are you missing the point so badly!?
Not enough young people severely affects everyone- not just the old!

I know @PurpleWisteria1 , it's bonkers. I think people just don't understand the statistics or what "exponential" entails. I've corrected it multiple times too when I see yet another silly comment talking about the "exploding population" 🤦🏻‍♀️ and pointed people to the data and even a short film with visual representations of the statistics to try to help them to understand and yet the same comments just keep coming.

Ok so I’ll ask you too. What’s your preferred alternative

Are you wanting continual growth?

I get it’s easy to scoff but I don’t get what you are actually after

And don’t forget the changes that had to made to the electric grid to accommodate Sunak’s swimming pool.
And here we all are with our paper straws.
People will not take steps themselves while our leaders completely take the proverbial.

I dunno what you're smoking, but perhaps you should inhale less frequently.

Ok so I’ll ask you too. What’s your preferred alternative

Are you wanting continual growth?

I get it’s easy to scoff but I don’t get what you are actually after

I am not "after" anything. I think people need to be realistic and there is no point discussing something if pseudo-information is thrown around, like us having a population explosion. Due to the ageing effect global population will continue to rise overall for a short while longer (but with an ever smaller proportion of young people), then plunge exponentially. This trend, once set in, is extremely difficult to reverse to even stabilise the population once it has reached levels people consider to be acceptable: that's the nature of an exponential trend. The endless comments about there being a population explosion going on are misleading, that's why I have called them out. I have also called out those who have stated that the coming collapse in population will fix the problem, because that is also completely wrong given the extent to which the age disparities will accelerate.

In a similar vein (in terms of having rational discussions) it is frustrating to see so much of discussion on the topic of climate devolve into irrelevancies every time it comes up: People arguing about the number of paved driveways in the UK or people not recycling yoghurt pots. Demonising people going on a holiday. While I agree that obviously it's a good thing to minimise the damage each of us does within reasonable parameters, some view of the wider scale and statistics is necessary to have a meaningful conversation that doesn't just become circular pointlessness. The reality, as I said earlier in the thread, is that even if the entire population of the UK was vapourised overnight - so never created any further carbon footprint or ecological damage whatsoever - it would not make any measureable difference whatsoever to the climate trajectory. That is how insignificant it is.

As I've said repeatedly, climate change is now baked in. With the emissions made to date the temperature will continue to rise significantly, even if all emissions ceased immediately. Which they will not: they are still rising. The effects happening now are due to emissions decades ago. Much more is to come. It would be a miracle if we could limit the rise to 2° now, and I think that is extremely unlikely in itself.

Obviously it makes me extremely sad. I campaigned for change as a child, back when something could have been done to avoid the worst of it. It's too late now. I have small children so obviously I am not thrilled at the reality but I don't think people denying the reality and kidding themselves helps the situation.

A sensible discussion to have at this point would be around why nobody is insisting our politicians at least try to mitigate the inevitable impact on the UK population to the greatest extent possible. Again, it's been left very late to do so because this also requires long-term planning (but not quite so long term IF they get their act together as implement the necessary steps to ensure energy, food and water security to the greatest extent possible). But no, of course they are also obsessed with irrelevancies and not doing this. It is shocking that no serious policy proposals that would make any significant difference in these regards are being proposed by our Government or the opposition. Pressuring for that is something practical people could do, before it is too late for that as well.

The reality is we'll be dealing with multiple catastrophes at the same time:

Population collapse (very fast decreasing proportions of younger people compared to older people);

Mass migrations on a scale never seen before (8/10 most populated global cities are likely to flood, some island nations will flood entirely, many areas will become uninhabitable due to extreme heat or weather and other areas will have huge water/ food shortages);

Wars over the remaining resources;

Huge falls in living standards causing civil unrest;

problems with our own water, food and energy security if we do not take steps now to try to mitigate this.

I guess my point is that there is only one of the above that we can realistically do anything about: the final one. So personally I'd rather we did that rather than alternating between squabbling about things that will make no difference to the situation, and ignoring the entire issue when it comes to election time. Not addressing the final point in my list now will certainly become a "repent at leisure" issue, if it's not done soon because it will take time.