To resent the cognitive dissonance that exists around climate change

[JacquesHarlow]

Let’s be real - will anything get better when folk’s priorities are usually about themselves?

Let me explain my rather emotional opening point.

There’s been lots of news this week unsurprisingly about how we had the hottest year on record last year. The last 10 years have been the hottest on record. Wildfires, floods, you name it - the earth is changing.

Yet here in the temperate, largely rainy UK, many people I see around me are very happy to have their head in the sand, while also bizarrely choosing just one or two lines of attack on the climate crisis to shame others.

One of the parents i know has an electric car. It’s nice, I’m happy for them. They also take at least five flight a year. They have three children.

Yet if you hear them talk about diesel cars… it’s as if the owners are personally killing everyone around them.

Now don’t get me wrong. Emissions locally are important, the air our kids breathe is important. that might be a focus.

However you see it in the choice of car journeys over trains, of large SUVs over a normal family car like a Golf.

The latter particularly grates. We have a huge climate crisis. Yet Joanna or Nicola has to have a Discovery Sport for her three kids because she needs to sit high up, it’s easier to load them in, and she worries about crash worthiness.

The history books will show that rather than looking up and out for each other, we’re actually turning more inwards. Our own personal economy will always triumph over needing to protect others. If I’m able to pay £400 a month PCP on a Dispcvery Sport, then “I’ll protect my family over anything”, even though the entire thought process is irrational.

We need to take fewer flights and more rail journeys. working from home should mean more walking to school as the commute has gone. instead we’re seeing more car journeys. More flights. More large purchases; throwaway electronics; fast fashion.

AIBU to think there’s a lot of cognitive dissonance and head in the sand about climate change in the UK, and spending power (and the choices it unlocks) is king?

You'll never get people out of their cars until the shockingly unreliable and expensive rail service is vastly improved.

People tend to get very righteous when they don't have to make sacrifices.

Many people on here boldy claim they would never holiday in Dubai because of its human rights record. Fair enough, but they buy from Apple and Amazon and buy cheap clothes from China.

They weren't going on holiday to Dubai anyway.

They only make a stand when they don't have to do anything as tedious as make a change to their life.

You won't get people in the UK to do anything until India, China, USA and Brazil do something.

Environmentalism is a middle-class pursuit. I don't have a large or expensive car. I love taking a train but... over the holidays I went to London to see my friends. A return train ticket is £98 and it costs me just under £30 to complete the same journey in my car. I don't particularly love driving and I enjoy trains. But I don't have £100 to spare easily on a jolly trip. And I earn relatively well and have no dependents. A family with three kids on an average income is perfectly within their rights to spend £30 on a car journey vs £400 on a family train ride.

So society needs to change as a whole and it's the government's jobs, I'm afraid. I can be as vegan as I like and compost as much as I want but it will make very little tangible difference.

I was reading a thread the other day here about decluttering. More than one poster suggested that the op takes all her unwanted stuff to the tip - life is too short to be sorting stuff for charity shops, giving it away on sites like Freecycle etc..madness.
Add in all the threads about throwing out food that is past its best before date. According to a UN report issued in March 2024, one billion meals per day were wasted in 2022 while 783 million people were affected by hunger and 1/3 of the world's population faces food insecurity. It's shocking.

To be a lot better overall society would basically be back to horse and cart to reduce climate change, until big tech and silicon valley develop better tech to save the world then it will be mixed results

We need to stop farming cows,cut out meat and dairy as well as cars and planes and we have a chance.

A family with three kids on an average income is perfectly within their rights to spend £30 on a car journey vs £400 on a family train ride.

Absolutely this. I WFH 90% of the time but once a fortnight I commute to the office. The train fare has gone from £19 to £40 in the space of weeks. I can drive for £10 and have free parking on site. Spending double on the train was worth it to me - I could do some work on the train but it’s not worth me spending 4 times as much no matter how better it is for the environment.

Electric cars are shit for the environment, just not your immediate environment.

Sending an email, having a streaming service, storing photos in the cloud, your wi-fi being on all the time…all of these have a carbon footprint.

Examine your own cognitive dissonance and internalised misogyny before you start throwing stones at ‘Joanne or Nicola’s’ big cars, unless you’re typing this on a woollen computer you knitted yourself, and using ley lines to transmit it. None of us are perfect.

Obviously YANBU.

The 'Joanna or Nicola' fucked me off though. Are they the new Karen? Can you make your point without using random women's names?

I think there is a problem with people thinking the visible (electric cars, solar panels), is more important that the invisible (just cutting consumption and living a low impact life).

I don't know. Honestly, I don't think you can expect personal responsibility at all. We don't do for anything else that's important on a societal level. We have laws and a government because we already expect people to be as crap as possible and need laws to guide them into doing the bare minimum.

We need to get the government to do its job and to set rules. But the laws need to start from the top. Expecting Nicola and Joanna to sacrifice their children's safety while businesses like Amazon are literally dumping tonnes of unused products in landfill or IKEA is chopping down miles of forest is a bit pointless.

Ban plastic bottles, ban cars, set up a decent public transportation service. Make it free. The governments won't do it because it won't get them elected. So we can all just sit and wait for the floods.

The new Karen is a Meghan

That literally is going to have to not be true.

YANBU but I get why it happens - I'm guilty of it myself.

Part of the problem is that we've been raised in a system specifically designed to keep us consuming more and more. If we all stopped buying stuff and using carbon-intensive services (the internet included), our whole system would collapse. And it's the only system we've ever known.

In a way I would love to go and live in a yurt (a well-insulated yurt) and grow my own vegetables. But I also wouldn't, because I like Korean makeup and sushi and foreign holidays and all the other luxuries that our global economy has urged upon me.

It's a big ask, to expect people to change the consumption mindset that has been a part of the air they breathe their whole lives - although I agree it's necessary.

Add in all the threads about throwing out food that is past its best before date. According to a UN report issued in March 2024, one billion meals per day were wasted in 2022 while 783 million people were affected by hunger and 1/3 of the world's population faces food insecurity. It's shocking.

Theres a huge disconnect though, me making soup from slightly over vegetables won’t put food on a table thousands of miles away. So people don’t think of their food wasting connection with local or global poverty. The distribution of resources is a real issue.

I’m particularly amazed at friends who massively over bought food in the run up to Christmas who then binned all of the sweets, treats, cheese etc two days into the new year rather than use it up over time. They all started a new year health kick and didn’t want the food in temptations way. And it’s every year, so they never restrict their buying even though half of it will end up in the bin.

That wound me up too. It's like when people complain that women are driving their children to school. Is that because men driving their children to school isn't a problem or is it because men are all driving to big important places where you can't ride a bike.

The only thing that will make any difference to climate change is less people. If the population fell by several Billion, then the environment would recover. But thats not going to happen…so might as well book the overseas holiday and drive a nice car!

Most populations ARE falling though, birth rates in many countries are in rapid decline.

Population decrease may help. I’m listening to an excellent piece on generative AI rn and managing need for workforce plus decrease could coexist

YANBU,,,,but has someone with a discovery sport pissed you off by any chance

It's more about the country you're having the children in. Many African countries have very small carbon footprints but high birth rates.

My family with three children that is very good by British standards is probably terrible compared to a family with 6 kids in some other countries.

You're fighting a loosing battle op. Most people dont really care enough to make any drastic changes to their lifestyle. Too many people in the world all wanting too much. Life is hard work even in the uk for most of us. The climate summits are a farce. They achieve very little. Business & Profit margins will always come first.

It’s really heartbreaking but agree that green choices can be economically difficult to the point of unviability for many. It’s not just trains, or electric vehicles (which truly, pose their own issues), but heat pumps (how much to install?!), organic food, even bloody decent quality clothing which cuts down on need for frequent replacements / fast fashion.

There needs to be a major re-set, carrots and sticks, and it does need to come from the top as well as individual efforts.

It scares me that one of the wealthiest cities in the world has been partially consumed by an inferno and yet it does not look set to be the giant wake up call one might have hoped.

You're not wrong but I think we need to blame governments more than individuals

As long as mass transport in this country is so rubbish and expensive, people will drive

talk to China.
What we do here is a drop in the ocean.