To ask for a head count as to how many mumsnetters don’t believe that climate change is caused by human activity?

[workingtowards]

There was a thread on MN many years ago, when a good proportion thought climate change was just weather/natural, so it would be interesting to know if views have changed.

YANBU: Yes human activity is causing climate change
YABU: No climate change is natural and there’s nothing we can do about it

I tend not to believe what they say tbh. On the 60s and 70s we were told we were going to enter an ice age. Now they say its heating up.
I think as a species we are culpable for lots of negative impact on the environment, such as pollution and destruction of habitat. But I think the earth as a whole, has it's cycle which, apart from meteor strikes and pole reversal, is not affected by us.
Just my opinion.

There's nothing you can do with denialists.

The facts have been established for fifty years.

My mum's friend doesn't believe in climate change and says she doesn't care anyway because she'll be dead before it all happens.

She also complained bitterly about how hot she was in her retirement flat last summer during the record breaking heatwaves and about how someone should sort it out.

The chinese import issue - microchips for example. How will it stop?

How many of you/us are willing or able to not buy a replacement laptop, PC, tablet or phone until there's a guarantee that the parts are all made here?
That's a loooooong way off.

Climate can't be like Brexit.

We can't let the people who don't understand how any of it works and haven't tried to, but inexplicably think they know better than the experts stop us doing the necessary.

We don't have time to indulge them.

We have to do what needs to be done and save them whether they like it or not.

Climate change is a natural phenomenon and has always happened. Anthropogenic climate change is the accelerating change seen since the 1800s and post industrialisation. The key is the word "change" - it doesn't mean heating up necessarily. However the world is heating up at the fastest rate it ever has been and the impacts, both environmental and societal, are huge.

We're doing climate deniers a favour really aren't we?

If we do what needs to be done and prevent climate change getting dramatically worse the climate change deniers can bang on like they did about Y2K that it was all a big hoax and they knew nothing bad was going to happen .

They love a bit of that.

Like when climate deniers say global warming isn't real because we're not having a heatwave where they are today.

They love a bit of that.

I SO agree with this

We don't have time to mess about do we @Boyonthenres?

@verdantverdure 😂 You certainly wont get a thankyou

But seriously - when i look at the massive pollution caused by industry i wonder what difference me using my net bag for apples in Tesco really has.

I know ''if everyone does their bit then this and this will happen ...'' ect ect. But - can the little people really drive change with our spending habits alone? As i said earlier, we can buy less literal cheap tat from china, but the microchips which run cars, phones, laptops - no one is going to stop buying them.

Also, look at the amount of people who'll say yes, they're worried about the climate and want an electric car, but rip out 'dated' kitchens for new ones as soon as they move house. Or buy a shit tonne of laminate flooring rather than put up with a worn carpet. Or buy loads of plastic camping equipment and drive a big 4x4 to france a couple of times a year and be smug they're not flying.

I live in a part of Greece that was affected by wildfires in July, and then a flood a few weeks ago. Both were terrible. In fact, on 27 July, the worst fire in all of Greece was in my area, it led to an ammunition, warehouse explosion, but apart from a report on the BBC, which did show this, guess what everything else was talking about, the fires in the tourist hotspots.

in the videos from the floods, which have been on social media, people who don’t live in Greece, or commenting along the lines of, that’s a Manchester… Summer in the UK… Etc. Really stupid things to say. I have lived in the UK, and I have also lived in Greece, and anyone who thinks that the weather this summer is “normal“ she’ll think again. This was not normal, many people were not prepared for a flood of this scale, it has never happened before. I am amazed with the comments people can come out with…

What i'm saying is: the answer is that we need all this stuff actually taken away from us. So there's no choice for us to buy shite.

But the majority aren't going to vote for the person who wants to do that.

I agree with most of what you say,, but it's important to remember that we only have to do our bit.

And just as vegans and vegetarians help mitigate the effects of meat eating on the planet, those of us who do more will mitigate the effects of those who do less.

Most companies (except the fossil fuel ones) have already made plans and taken action to align with Net Zero because we're clearly in Last Chance Saloon and the ones who are not a) evil or b) stupid know that the climate apocalypse will be bad for business.

In order to achieve Net Zero gradually and relatively painlessly in stages it's necessary to start decades before the agreed dates. And on the whole business has done that.

And now Rishi Sunak has pulled the rug out from under them.

In order to achieve Net Zero gradually and relatively painlessly

It’s not going to be painless.

Financially anyway. Anyone can do upgrades now, but it’s not easy. Much easier to post about!

We are speeding it up. Yes climate changes naturally, and there could be a massively polluting volcanic eruption ay any time that could negate the efforts we're currently making, but that doesn't mean you give up trying to not f* it up even more.

Not to be trite but the massive terrifying floods we've seen recently,were made up of billions of tiny raindrops.

And our climate effort can be similar.

Lots of people doing a little bit can create a huge effect.

And we'll get better at it. We'll do it gradually to give people time to get used to change.

There are always "early adopters" and people who are slower on the uptake.

The cut off dates were designed to help bring everyone along.

If after December 31st 2030 you couldn't buy a new gas boiler then over the next twenty years, as gas boilers went out of use, the detrimental effect of gas boilers on climate change would shrink away to nothing for example.

And by 2050 we'd have had about thirty years to get used to the idea. That's long enough fir anyone isn't it?

YANBU

I think to some extent it is natural the issue is human activity has spent up the process exponentially

Human beings are natural, no?

So if the activities of the dominant species on a planet are resulting in climate changes on that planet, then that is natural change, yes?

Which negates your question, I think.

Mix of both. Climate change happens, we know that from history but we're definitely speeding the process up

We had to rebuild the country after the war and still managed to create the NHS too.

Germany's been future proofing their energy sector for the last couple of years. It's cost a lot but they'll be feeling the benefits of lower costs and energy independence before we even get a decent government in and get started on doing it in this country.

It's a false economy not to do what needs to be done.

You end up with hundreds of crumbling hospitals and schools all at the same time with that mindset.

Then you have to spend millions on portacabins on top of paying for doing what needed to be done years ago.

Of course the planet's climate will naturally change over time.

But have humans influenced that process to the detriment of the only planet we have? Yes, absolutely. The science is as crystal clear on it as it can be. Anyone who things other wise is, to be absolutely frank, completely and utterly wrong.

YANBU

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 The sheer delusion! It's not even difficult to see how mankind is affecting the planet.

What I will say though, is that I don't think that even if we, as a tiny island, completely stopped existing & therefore no longer polluted the earth, that it would make even the tiniest bit of difference to climate compared to the rest of the world and all the massive continents. We are tiny