Can we talk about the elephant in the room?

[NeptunaOfTheMermaidBattleSquadron]

I feel like as a society we need to start talking about the elephant in the room when it comes to climate change.

All these green measures being put on individuals are surely being wiped out because of all the bombing. Everywhere. All this war and conflict. No one is looking at the impact on the climate. Everything we're doing seems so trivial and pointless because in the same breath we're sending weapons (often called international aid) thousands of miles.

Then there's the manufacturing for it. The weapons testing. All the jet fuel to send the RAF USAF etc all around the world on bombing sprees. The supplies we're sending all over the place, weapons, medicine, rations... it's mind-boggling to think of the sheer scale of this.

And while we're acknowledging and working on fast fashion, home heating, electricity generation, over use of plastics, overpopulation, traceability etc, we're not even talking about or questioning all these bombs exploding everywhere!

We typically think of MAD as nuclear apocalypse, but surely people refusing to actually engage with each other to the point of forcing the world into something with the carbon footprint of a war (never mind several of them) is the climate change version of MAD. We can't reverse it.

I feel like politicians and diplomats just aren't trying hard enough with this because war is so profitable.

Why aren't just stop oil and all those other activists out there trying to protest the most avoidable thing we're doing with the biggest carbon footprint and pressuring governments to go back to diplomacy instead of treating their people as expendable?

IDK what the answer is but we seriously need to get a handle on this and stop using bombs to make points (they're not very good at it anyway) because of this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68110310

Sorry I just needed a bit of a rant. AIBU that they need to try harder to avoid armed conflicts and solve things like adults for the sake of the planet because the stakes are so much higher than one territory or issue? I haven't had much sleep this week so please explain why IABU if you think I am.

Everyone's too busy looking at their phones.

I think the elephant in the room is that all the fudges that are being pushed - electric vehicles, carbon trading, etc - are going to do bugger all. In some cases, like electric cars, it's a total scam.

People aren't willing to face that they will have to significantly change their consumption, and governments and business can't figure out how to make that work economically. So they tell each other, and themselves, lies about how technology will let them continue to live as they do now, more or less.

I don't think war is the elephant in the room, there's a herd of huge elephants.

Climate change is going to be devastating within the lifetimes of people aged 40 or younger. There will be mass migrations, wars, horror. It's already happening.

I just hope that the human race is destroyed sooner than later, so that there's a chance for other species to regenerate.

Completely agree.

One of the most recent episodes of the Last Born in the Wilderness podcast is about this, specifically the US military being 'Earth's Greatest Enemy' - the name of a documentary in post production about it. Apparently the US military is the largest consumer of fossil fuels in the world. No one ever expects the forces to reduce their carbon footprint.

Meh, I have given up.

Humanity appears to have a built in self destruct. I wish I had realised this before I had had kids. But I didn't, so I am focused on trying to make sure my little family are as well resourced as possible to see out the the time we have left.

I hope my kids don't have kids. They are smart and old enough to see the the same thing I do, but you never know.

We have passed the tipping point. The planet will be fine, it just won't be able to support humans for much long (certainly not much past 30 years or so and even that is a stretch).

Humanity is fucked, all that is left to see now is how to goes down.

I think the elephant in the room is that all the fudges that are being pushed - electric vehicles, carbon trading, etc - are going to do bugger all. In some cases, like electric cars, it's a total scam.
People aren't willing to face that they will have to significantly change their consumption, and governments and business can't figure out how to make that work economically. So they tell each other, and themselves, lies about how technology will let them continue to live as they do now, more or less

Exactly this.

Are you aware that the "brutal dictator" Sadam Hussein was the darling of the USA when he was killing Iranians? Just one example how hollow it sounds ...

got it in one OP. the green initiatives look like a farce when we consider all the bullshit various other countries (China, india) and our own governments get upto. however, that is no excuse not to do our part.

whatever I do 'for the environment' is pretty much for my own conscience. I couldn't carry on knowing I was contributing to harming the ecosystem we live in.

the just stop oil protesters are also usually present in the stop war rallies. so not sure I fully agree with you on environmental protesters not recognising the impact of war.

on a slightly related note, I would also ban fireworks if I had the power. People can watch fireworks on big screens if they are so bloody desperate. no need to waste millions, make things explode, cause air pollution and scare the poor animals.

Your view on war is very naive OP. Do you let all the Ukrainian refugees know that their country just didn’t “negotiate hard enough” with Putin’s regime when it invaded their country? Would you feel comfortable telling them that they should sacrifice their culture, language and heritage to save the planet?

Yours is an easy stance to take when you live in a country not directly affected by war.

The solution to climate change is complex and I expect the ship has sailed. Whilst of course warfare does cause environmental damage, your belief that leaders should just work harder to negotiate is on par with the understanding of a child when it comes to how wars arise and why countries choose to defend themselves. Defence is a right every country should have.

As others have said, I think there are more ethical reasons why war is bad. As for the environment; buying goods made in the third world powered by coal power stations and then shipping said goods across the world probably has a bigger environmental impact.

You are not doing what you reasonably can. You don’t need to fly for pleasure. You could engage politically. Instead you are dampening people’s enthusiasm for changing by saying it’s pointless but not stating your source.

You are part of the problem that has already killed many and will kill many more.

Who says ‘we have passed the tipping point?’ I haven’t heard any credible sources that have said that.

Whilst electric cars have their issues. There is a lot of misinformation. If you look at the evidence they work out better than petrol or diesel cars. If the batteries are mad using renewables they are lower footprint at the start but over a few years, no matter how they are produced, taking into account production too, they are lower emissions.

Only because people still want to have the same lifestyles- drive cars, eat meat every day. So instead of saying to people that the 90% of journeys of a mile or less should not be taken by car, we manufacture electric cars. Instead of saying ' eat more vegetables', we manufacture fake ultra processed ' meat' that is expensive and unpalatable. Instead of rationing airmiles for everyone we let the super rich do as they like and then plant some trees. We don't shame the middle classes into stopping their dinner party cocaine habits, even though huge swathes of rainforest, not to mention peoples lives, are being destroyed in its production. If we just, as others said, reduced consumption ( particularly those most able, so the most wealthy), then that would be a start. The reason China has so many coal fired power stations is because they in the main make money by manufacturing throwaway crap to us. They are also investing hugely in green energy. They aren't doing what we did, which was close coal mines and throw people on the scrapheap and not invest in alternative technologies. In 30 years' time, we will be scrabbling around wondering why we didn't invest in new technologies while China and India hold all the power. Because instead of investing in alternative energy we were saying ' but China ...' Short termism as usual.

So true. We could be world leaders in green technology. We were on the cusp. Too many oil related vested interests have a seat at the table. Even at the COP meetings oil companies have strong representation. It’s like allowing tobacco companies a say in policies to limit lung cancer.

ConsuelaHammock · Yesterday 23:09
We could ration air miles?

I agree but surely that would only work if every country agreed to it. Otherwise people would fly to the nearest country then go on from there.

Yes this is the problem. This is what Cop should be doing but we have weak world leaders who don't really care that much.

Herds of elephants in every room.

For instance it’s really common to receive goods ordered online in boxes which are far too big for the contents. Recent examples include a hat, a small bottle of serum, a silicone tray for the air fryer. All of these goods arrived in boxes which could have fitted a shelf’s worth of the product. So the many delivery lorries which drive these goods up and down motorways are mainly transporting empty space. Total waste of space! Appropriately sized boxes would mean fewer lorries, less energy.

There are so many examples where companies have not adjusted their strategies to deal with the crisis we are facing and time is running out.

I meant I'm doing what I can reasonably for me. I know I don't need to fly for pleasure, but I don't intend to stop. I don't do it often. I'm not going to stop driving either. I do ride a motorcycle which reduces my output.

I did quote my source. Pick any scientific study you like that gives a view of the reduction in co2 output necessary, and then match that with the actual output and the projected levels of actual output.

As for engaging politically, I haven't really been successful in that for any particular issue. I didn't want brexshit, but couldn't stop it. I didn't vote for the current shower screwing up the economy, but we have them anyway, and I have been voting based on climate change for decades. All of that is a drop in the ocean and only influences what happens in the UK at best.

Is it dampening enthusiasm, or is it being realistic about the need for alternative solutions?

Mass extinctions of the past (geological past, not human past) have taken thousands of years if not longer, so saying the word won’t be able to support life in 30 years is very much an exaggeration. But those mass extinctions haven’t killed EVERYTHING. Some animals have adapted and evolved and continued. Under normal climate change processes and timeframes, life does have the ability to adapt but the additional challenge here is the timeframe is being sped up (by us).

You can slag off electric vehicles all you like but as someone who walks most places in a city there is no doubt the air is purer with less petrol fumes on the road.

Yes. Animals have adapted to eat plastic and live in our rubbish in the oceans. Life forms will evolve to live in any kind of altered environment. We wouldnt have been able to breathe the air that dinosaurs breathed, andcthey would not be able to live in our atmosphere. The Earth will be fine, life on earth will continue in a different form on and on until the sun dies. The only reason to care about the environment is to save humanity from itself.

There is not always one - but we are quickly silenced and very much ignored. There is very little unequivocal evidence. Yes, CO2 is a 'greenhouse gas' - a 'radiative forcing agent' - but the degree to which it contributes to any warming trends, beyond natural background causality, simply cannot be definitively known!
Climate science is not a monolithic body of accepted facts - climate is an extraordinarily complex system. Models have not managed to effectively predict climatic trajectories, nor can it be said with any certainty that they have managed to correctly ascertain past climatic patterns with accuracy . For instance, when it comes to palaeoclimate, we are dependent on proxy data and dating methods, for which the margin of error is invariably greater than the temperature range being modelled. We simply do not have the analytical resolution necessary to come out with headline-grabbing propaganda such as "the hottest day in human history". Really? Anyway, the very proxy temperature records that feed into the climatic models indicate warmer average temperatures during the last main interglacial (Eemian) than current temperatures. Why did no runaway global warming occur in the past, when temperatures and CO2 levels were higher? When we are told that there has never been a period of more rapid temperature increases - how does that fit in with the scientific evidence for the very rapid temperature changes of Dansgaard–Oeschger events?

I am not going to enter into any debate here - simply because I have been through the experience on enough occasions to know that it is too time-consuming (not because any response has made me 'see the light' - I know exactly what those responses will be because we are subjected to the same unchallenged rhetoric relentlessly). But you should all be sceptical about politicians telling you that the science is settled. Many eminent scientists will tell you differently (eg ) - the IPCC headlines are not sufficiently representative of the underlying complexity of climate science that the IPCC reports actually detail - simple as!

The climate narrative is just one more mechanism of societal control. So, if the climate emergency is really akin to a war, and if humans really have the power to control climate by simply turning the CO2 thermostat down, why are governments not rushing to issue everyone with carbon quota ration books immediately? The truth is the carbon footprint and environmental cost of much renewable technology, EV vehicles etc (not to mention the mining of rare earth metals) carries a cost that wouldn't stand up to scrutiny. So, too does the vegan nonsense. For instance, in very simple terms, grass-fed cattle cannot increase CO2 levels - it is a closed system. The carbon that becomes stored in and released from grass-fed cattle comes from the grass that they eat - which is a renewable resource (grown through storing CO2 from the atmosphere!) Yes, an overly simple example, but it serves to illustrate a point.