Does this weather change your attitude to climate change?

[Allotment123]

It seems like everyone is taking about the weather but no one is thinking about their own personal responsibility to climate change as a result, AIBU to think we are all abdicating responsibility while we can see the dramatic effects all around us? I feel sometimes like in the only one concerned

Not human nature. Your own nature maybe, but most people are capable of empathy.

Ignorance works both ways, dontcha know, prat

Whoever it was, that wrote something really stupid about the Third World can save itself, and natural disasters are not new, might want to look up what’s considered the third world. Countries very close to the UK, who are experiencing fires, very high temperatures, etc. aren’t the Third World. I haven’t read the latest posts, so maybe I’m missing something, but what happens to our planet is everyone’s responsibility, and this is coming from somebody who has a disability and who has lived in the UK.

it’s very easy for people to say oh, let’s not take responsibility for anything, somebody else will take responsibility. Maybe more people should start changing their thinking a little bit to what can we do to make the world a better place, including about learning what people actually experience.

No.

The world was capable of acting as one for Covid. Why isn’t it doing the same for climate change? The only way for real change to happen is if every nation acts as one.

So the UK is 1% and we are the ones that need to change…. At 1% what are we realistically going to achieve by cutting down anything.

@Lazyusername , it was 20 odd years ago now, but I remember a similar situation in Barbados, when there was a proposal to close off sections of beaches (at the time all public) for rich people’s villas.

Pleased to say that IIRC the govt. that was proposing it was swiftly kicked out on its arse. I do hope that hasn’t changed.

Climate change is a thing, in fact, the climate has been changing for hundreds of millions of years.

No, the human element is a great way to get people to do things, give them something to be afraid of and they can be persuaded to do things to ensure their "safety". Never forget, it's important to be "safe".

But humans aren't going to damage the planet. At least not currently. Its survived worst than us. Weather is just weather, but it's convenient to blame people for it and use it as a control measure.

If you got of every single ICE in the UK today, not just cars, but planes, trains, lawnmowers, generators, carbon emissions would reduce by sweet fuck all. Less than one percent.

But tell people that their "killing the planet, small children a dying" and you can manipulate them into accepting control measures which greatly increase tax revenue and streamline the collection processes, making them more reliable and consistent.

The Ulez isn't about the environment, its about money. Saddle ows vast sums to TFL and the Cross Rail fiasco. That tells you how much politicians lie.

Mumsnet

Seriously? 😒

Ulez is definitely about money not air quality otherwise the airport would not be able to operate

One fineness, not everyone who lives in ulez areas will have to pay money, so it's not all about money, plenty of londoners do not own cars

Dinosaurs thrived and died out before us. Humans were never supposed to live forever.

This. Exactly. It really highlights the futility of making sure I remember to take my bag for life as the wildfires burn. It frankly doesn't matter whether we caused it or not, we can't stop it, just adapt.

Yes, it's especially stupid when you consider the UK is an isolated little island that doesn't have enough natural resources to meet the needs of it's population (and unless that is drastically reduced never will).

We are at the mercy of other countries, specifically developing ones, to feed, water, power, and enjoy ourselves. We may remain relatively isolated from the impacts while the global capitalist market is still operating (and we are one of the richest countries) but there is a tipping point where that stops and climate change is rapidly adding weight to just one side of the scale.

Just look at food production. Today we grow approximately 170 crops on a commercially significant scale, depend highly on only about 30 of them to provide us with calories and nutrients that we need every day, with more than 40% of all human consumed calories coming from just three staple crops: rice, wheat and maize (corn).

Corn yields are predicted to decline by 24% by 2030, rice yields decline roughly 10% for every additional degree of temperature rise (and are already being severely impacted by changing weather patterns), wheat production is actually predicted to rise but not by enough to cover the other two loses (17%). Similar patters are present in all commercially significant food crops.

While developing country leaders may be happy to subject their populations to lower standards of living in pursuit of economic growth, by selling their products to developed countries, the populations themselves won't willingly accept starvation, so once yields are reduced enough to tip those in poverty into famine the global markets will stop functioning, as will our abundant food supply.

What are all those "I don't care about things happening over there" posters plans for when global food systems collapse?

Also for all those going on about the UK only accounting for 1% of emissions, please read the work the Global Carbon Project / Future Earth and Carbon Breif do in this area to understand why this is irrelevant.

That was the press misrepresenting a small minority of science papers linking the Maunder minimum solely to solar activity. Even back in the 70s the vast majority of papers predicted warming.