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

I'm sceptical about things which have limited evidence, @BitterAndOnlySlightlyTwisted . Climate change evidence is significant.
How this is resolved is the big, big question.. who wants to go back to living in pre industrial times? We're going to have to produce significant amounts of renewable energy which will require £bns worth of investment.

I do believe Covid has a lot to do with it. Just before the pandemic, Blue Planet was a massive thing and everyone around me started moving in the right direction - less waste, more recycling, generally being a bit more environmentally conscious.

Then Covid happened and suddenly everything had to be disposable. Where we had made such huge gains on plastic tat, suddenly facemasks, syringes, packaging etc. abounded and it will take decades, if not centuries, for some of that to decompose.

The confinement and deaths, in addition to the screw-it on the waste front attitude, has invoked a YOLO point of view for so many that, again, people are far more selfish than they were just before the pandemic.

We need another documentary, Attenborough, what are you up to these days.

In COVID we also saw months and months of reduced car use and a switch to home working so no commuting and yet it has little impact on the climate crisis. So if you can't impact it when the world is literally paused then it makes individual actions seem pointless.

I can see switching to green energy as the only way we can do much collectively. And for that you need to remove jolly-jasper who went to the same college old chum as half the cabinet and who now runs whatever oil lobby group makes him the most money. The normal person on the street hasn't a hope in hell of interfering with the games played at that level.

glamrockgoddess
*Climate change has always been cyclic.

We are still warming up from the last ice-age.*

I struggle with the whole climate change message. The planet has been both much warmer and colder over millions of years before man existed. And we need to acknowledge that.

When I was growing up there was so much talk of ‘snowball earth’ based on climate models and I used to worry about this as an anxious child. The scientists seemed absolutely convinced at that point on the climate getting colder. You’d probably have to be over 50 to remember this but it really was a thing at the time concerning the reduction of the earths albedo.

But now it’s the complete opposite. There have been mass extinctions more than once on the planet and some scientists believe these were linked to climate change.

I’m not a ‘climate change denier’ , far from it, it’s just that I think that the climate does change cyclically over time and we should be able to state this without getting slated.

This is what Attenborough has been up to: https://www.vox.com/2019/4/12/18306566/david-attenborough-our-planet-netflix-advocacy

“I find it hard to exaggerate the peril,” Attenborough said at the IMF earlier in April, according to the Guardian. “This is the new extinction and we are half way through it. We are in terrible, terrible trouble and the longer we wait to do something about it the worse it is going to get.”

You’ll get slated for saying that because it’s not really relevant. What’s currently happening is man made climate change, change at a rate vastly in excess of any natural climate change. It is a choice not an inevitability.

Dont listen to me, listen to nasa:
https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

"Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver."

For those suggesting taking necessary action on made made climate change will send us “back to the dark ages”:

1. not taking action will send us to worse than the dark ages;
2. none of the scientifically agreed solutions will do any such thing.

I suggest reading more about the ipcc’s climate mitigation strategies.

I know quite a few climate sceptics from all walks of life, but what they all have in common is an almost pathological aversion to 'being told what to do'. Which means they're also all covid sceptics. And don't like paying tax.
I find this so frustrating. The inability to consider the macro beyond whatever impingement of individual privilege they perceive. The whatsboutery is strong with this type, and it is so wilfully disingenuous: "What about China-Russia-India? / I bet you're typing on a mobile device, aren't you? / The flight will leave anyway, whether you're on it or not." and so on, ad infinitum. I also reject the notion that unless the big corporations drastically reduce emissions, there's no point in individual action. What we need is a re-framing, and a sustainable management of, our expectations for the future in a heating global climate and to act accordingly on an individual and a collective basis.

We should all do what we can on a personal level, but unless the world can convince the worst polluting countries (e.g China) to change it won't slow it down enough.

@clopper rising temperatures mean colder climates in certain areas, more snow, colder winters

No.

Alibaba87
I’m just telling you the message in the newspapers and TV when I was young. The science then was that we were going to be in a new ice age.

I agree with a previous poster that said the disposable aspect of covid and one use plastic has set us all backwards.

@clopper I know what you mean, I thought you were saying it’s confusing as they were saying something different in the past, so you were a bit skeptical now. I’m saying maybe it’s the same message, parts of the world could very much get much colder.https://www.wgbh.org/news/commentary/2021/03/24/weve-known-for-years-global-warming-could-lead-to-a-new-ice-age-why-is-no-one-doing-anything

YANBU OP on another thread, can’t remember the title now, someone posted about the heatwave and another poster responded “stop worrying, it’s only weather “

We used to live in Chile and fly back to visit GPs. The first year the Andes were covered with snow. Thriving ski tourism industry and the snow melt provided water for the surrounding countries. When we moved back in 2015, and stopped flying so much, in the winter there was zero snow.

The Netflix film Don't Look Up is an accurate view on the problem.

Personally I find it anxiety provoking to think about it too deeply. I try to have a sensible lifestyle but acknowledge how me doing a bit of recycling and rarely flying makes no difference. Sometimes I try to be optimistic and think human ingenuity will find way. Other times I read dystopian fiction and despair.

Alibaba87
It is confusing. The messaging when I was young was basically we will all freeze to death! I can’t remember anything said about global warming at all.

I feel I do my bit, always recycle, use a bike, don’t fly abroad, don’t use plastic if I can possibly avoid it, try to use local businesses but it does all feel a little hopeless.

Problem is everyone wants their cheap fashion everyone wants their holidays abroad like a given right. Everyone wants a dog or cat. People want low maintenance party gardens. Nobody wants to give up these things and those of who have given up parts of those things are still told
yeah but you have children do my jetting across the world is fine blah blah blah.

vegmum
You’ll get slated for saying that because it’s not really relevant. What’s currently happening is man made climate change, change at a rate vastly in excess of any natural climate change.

How do scientists know how quickly the climate has changed in the past? I am interested to know this and it seems like you might know this kind of information. Is it ice cores or something?

Adora, snap. In the country where I was born, a part of the world that has always been blessed with ample snow in winter and where a big part of the seasonal economy depends on this, there has now just been a thin dusting of powder in winter for the last 10 years. Ski tourism gone. Santa holidays drying up.

Fruit, I really hear you. It is anxiety inducing and the challenge is to stay with this intense feeling of discomfort and cognitive dissonance which arises as we sit with the reality of the global impact of the climate crisis.
Not flinching is hard.
Not looking away or distracting ourselves is hard.

This ⬆️.

I used to do shit loads in terms of never using cling film or anything single use, taking my little tub to the butchers, going to refill shops etc. Then I realised all I was doing was making more work for myself with no discernible impact on anything.

In the 80s when CFCs were the problem, the government banned them and it had the desired impact. If we're to do anything now the government needs to tackle the biggest problems with effective legislation. However they won't and no amount of popping to the refill shop or walking the school run will do any good at all.

Here’s a useful summary http://www.climate.gov/maps-data/climate-data-primer/past-climate

As you guessed it’s things like ice, rocks, tree rings, ocean sediments etc.

BitterAndOnlySlightlyTwisted

We aren’t far off hitting ‘peak oil’ anyway so we need alternatives. We need to invest in renewables heavily, insulate our homes and reduce consumption rapidly.

The scientists that question it tend not to be climate scientists and are mostly either funded by the oil industry or quoting pseudo science funded by the oil industry. The science is unequivocal. There is no doubt. Using multiple models. And the climate scientists have already been proven right. It’s just happening quicker than expected. This is based on decades of global research coming together.

Well I’m about to get slammed for this and no doubt the post will be reported and deleted at some point.

Let’s just be clear that climate is a complex system, not fully understood by current models. No matter how expert someone appears to be, they cannot say with certainty what the outcome of this highly complex system will be. There is no climate model that will accurately predict outcomes from the past so how can we claim to predict the future. It is noticeable how much censorship and moralising there is around this issue. The “science” is now not to be questioned. If a finding is robust it should be able to be questioned and openly debated. Science is never settled, it works by falsification. Climate science has consistently made incorrect predictions - Maldives under water etc. Whether “extreme weather” events are actually more frequent is questionable and whether that can be directly related to carbon emissions even more so.

Big business is now bought into the climate change/renewables idea however so that is what is being pushed. Even if you believe CO2 is a key driver of warming many of the renewable energy sources don’t even emit much less CO2 if you look at the totality of the outcome (for example, windmills made in China using coal power then shipped to UK, and require back up fossil fuel on standby for when the wind doesn’t blow. Are they truly “carbon neutral”.

Regardless of whether you think man made carbon emissions are the principle cause of a changing global climate or not it should be clear to most that we cannot stop using fossil fuels without widespread poverty, misery and death. Our current technology does not allow it.

Net zero is a complete fantasy and an excuse to decimate the middle class in Western countries. The best option is to invest in our own industry and work force instead of importing everything, use renewables where they make sense, otherwise natural gas and nuclear. Make sure we have energy security and value our farmers. Get the environmental wins that are possible - get the fucking plastic out of the oceans, that’s achievable. Protect more land for wildlife and biodiversity. Support farmers to protect biodiversity and soils while maintaining output. Invest properly In our water and sewerage systems. Don’t listen to the assholes who dare to fly about on private jets while attempting to lecture and indoctrinate us all in this bizarre unevidenced cult.

"bizarre unevidenced cult"
where is the lack of evidence?
why is it a "cult"?