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

This is a good summary as to why man made climate change is not a conspiracy https://twitter.com/SteB777/status/1679862501867937792?s=20

Superfans I think your sources of information need to widen as there are some very odd ways of thinking there. I am afraid you don’t sound like you have enough expertise to disregard the decades of global, multimodal research that has actually been proven right already.

We are a drop in the ocean though compared to the big corps.
Did the lessening of travel during covid not repair some of the ozone though? That shows if we cut down on travel it would make a difference

@Superfans To what end? What are the scientists getting out of saying Climate Change is real, if it’s not? (Or at least not quite as black and white as they say)

I struggle with the climate change question because our governments clearly don't see it as a problem, and certainly not even approaching an urgent one.

I think, when you see the wanton profligate decisions that the leaders make, it couldn't be a clearer signal from them that they personally categorically do not believe the message that they're giving out.

When Joe Biden (and he is very far from the only world leader like that) flew several of his own vehicles from the USA to the climate conference in Glasgow (and back) - where there are already any number of luxury vehicles that could have been hired - that really was the equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury deciding to do a one-man Chubby Brown & Jim Davidson tribute festival and then expecting anybody to take his next sermon, or indeed him, at all seriously again.

I’m not disputing but am sceptical. There are any number of scientists who query these climate-change models and none of them appear to be lunatics.

I know it's not exactly the same thing, but... whatever the established facts are, all scientists know that any research positions, grants and jobs will be closed to/lost by them if they express any dissent from, or even question, the official line; in the same way that a great many GC people grudgingly stay quiet or grit their teeth and toe the line in order to avoid cancellation and job losses - and therefore would appear by default to be in complete agreement with the prevailing messages about how many different genders there are, there's no such thing as fixed biological sex, some children need puberty blockers and even surgery for 'gender' reasons, it's just common decency to ask people what their pronouns are etc.

What I'm saying is that, even if you are convinced that you have all of the facts about anything indisputably correct, when there is a powerful culture where people are simply not allowed to question or disagree with those facts, it's impossible to genuinely claim that opinion is unanimous.

Well I haven't noticed much change in the weather in the UK to be honest. This summer isn't that different to those I remember as a kid. I haven't felt or seen the differences really.

I don't worry about it. Winters in the 60s were ridiculously cold. The summer of 76 was boiling. It's all cyclical.

I’m very happy with the temp in the UK this week (in my area anyway). Warm (low 20’s) with sunny spells and yes it’s been rainy in parts too - brilliant for my allotment and garden.

I like it 25 best and can tolerate 30. 35-40 is horrible and for the last 2/3 years we have had very hot weather in my area and for a time it didn’t rain for something like 6+ weeks which was awful.

I’m v aware of climate change and try to do my best. Never go to Europe in summer any more as weather is too oppressive. Ultimately though nothing will change unless it’s government policy. I vote Liberal for this reason and Green once (my DH always goes Green) as what good is inheritance tax and other policy when the world resembles MadMax?

🙄

David Attenborough has one of the biggest carbon footprints of anyone on the planet and has also admitted he eats meat while exhorting others not to. I'm sick of hearing about him.
We are all being told to cycle everywhere, give up meat and wear second-hand clothes and yet apparently it is ok for the rich to continue to fly about the world on private jets. Rishi Sunak recently had the National Grid altered so he could power his heated swimming pool.
If the situation is as dire as we are being told, why haven't private jets been banned? Why aren't second homes banned? And private heated pools? No, the elite want ordinary working people to live like serfs while they continue in the manner to which they are accustomed.
The elite, as individuals, are using up far more of the world's resources than the rest of us. Govenrments need to start with them. Show the public they are serious. Because until they do, why the hell should we all suffer? We get little enough as it is.

Don't know why you're rolling your eyes. I answered the question. I don't worry about it.

I don't think we CAN do anything about climate change.

I used to think we could but I have changed my mind.

As a species we seem to have a blind spot in our brains which is stopping us from acting. Which makes me think it is all part of the natural order of things. We have simply reached the point where humans have consumed too much and will now be cut back down to size by the habitat.

Same as locusts, or any other animal that gets out of control.

The amount of denial on this thread is depressing. How hot does it need to get before people realise we have a problem? 50 degrees, 55 degrees? Oh hang on, that's already happening. Constant uncontrollable wildfires? That's already happening too.
We're going to look at electric cars at the weekend. Don't feel I can justify my petrol one anymore.

@Lazyusername agree with everything you've said.

I think the real issue is peak oil and running out of feasible fossil fuels (in next 30 years by many reckonings). While renewables are great, we do not have enough fossils fuels and other resources to required to shift global energy production over to 100% renewable. We need to massively and urgently reduce energy use. Not switching our current lifestyles to “green” alternatives. Less transport, more walkable local living. Local food not air (or even lorry) -freighted foods and food products. Less automation, more manual labour. It is irrelevant whether you don’t want to go back to the dark ages, it will be foisted upon us. But a planned and managed personal descent will be better than a sudden plummet forced on us by the governments. Collapse now and avoid the rush!

Climate is concerning, but we will be forced to reduce fossil fuel use naturally by not having any to use. The climate crisis is real, but largely a distraction from the real crisis.

Whilst I understand what you’re saying in parts, it seems wildly out of context.

Whilst it’s terrible for the environment, what Biden did will be justified by the fact it’s a national security issue given what 4 US President’s have been assassinated. Those are not regular cars, they are bullet and god knows what else proof. Not saying I agree that’s right but it’s not a fair comparison. I’m

Re. the objectivity of scientists relative to funding, I’d perhaps suggest it’s WAY more lucrative to go work for a dubiously funded. 3-times removed from an oil company, research position and be anti-climate change, especially in the US.

Perhaps I could argue people are down the rabbit whole because it makes them feel better a they’re in denial.

David Attenborough has one of the biggest carbon footprints of anyone on the planet and has also admitted he eats meat while exhorting others not to. I'm sick of hearing about him.

The one that always gets me is that Prince Philip and James Lovelock both spent decades banging on obsessively about overpopulation and how we all had to hugely cut back if humanity were to have any hope of a future... both of them the fathers of four children.

Prince William too - he genuinely doesn't seem to realise what an enormous hypocrite he comes across as when he lectures about caring for the climate and yet still lives the opulent life that he does.

The reality is that whilst nobody wants to ruin the planet, none of us will be around more than a few more decades. Nobody will say it but many (most?) people aren't prepared to curtail their one life for the benefit of people they'll never meet who probably won't be grateful in any case as the world is unlikely to be in great shape either way.

We as the UK public will make such little impact that it's not fucking worth changing anything.

Industry need to change. Government need to put sanctions in place.
But it's still not Gona make much difference. It needs to be the big hitting countries.

Also though I do think people are quick to jump on the "look its july and it's cold so it has to be climate change" bandwagon when actually it could just be a blip....

Do you have dc?

I am prepared to change habits for them

Whilst it’s terrible for the environment, what Biden did will be justified by the fact it’s a national security issue given what 4 US President’s have been assassinated. Those are not regular cars, they are bullet and god knows what else proof. Not saying I agree that’s right but it’s not a fair comparison.

Still not buying it. The whole point of the COP meetings is not to decide that it might be quite nice if we start making a few token gestures, but rather to address the urgent looming catastrophe threatening our global existence that they are telling us about.

Supposing it were discovered and decreed that a certain food item were found beyond any doubt to be killing all humans who ate it within a year, do you think that Biden (or any of them) would still eat it anyway, 'because it doesn't count when a world leader does it'?

😂

Have tried having this discussion on aibu before and all I got was 'the rich are still jetting' 'i want to travel' and 'im buying trash off temu or shein and damn my ethics to hell' or variations of. It's utterly fucked up. We're screwed. In real time. Not in the future.
Now.

Probably a really unhelpful reply but I don't worry about it. It's been set in motion long ago and cannot be undone at this stage, only managed.

I don't quite get the argument about the UK only contributing to 1% of global emissions, and thus that it lets us all off the hook. Not when we, like most of the west, are cheerfully allowing China to produce all those emissions on our behalf in making all of the stuff that we consume.

Same with electric cars: fair enough if it is shown that they are better for the environment overall, but we hear so many proponents trying to hoodwink us into thinking that they are completely emission-neutral, and conveniently ignoring the fact that all of that extra electricity (and associated emissions) has to be produced somewhere.