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?

Pretending your actions don't matter is just an example of the cognitive dissonance

Governments don't act because the actions would be unpopular- look at how hard it is to get people out of cars in central London , how it's "war on the motorists " every time a restriction or cost is suggested

If government knew people were really behind change it would happen - but they know most people just pay lip service so they do too

If people really knew what the cost of this inaction and obstruction really would be -!if they could feel what the Californians are feeling now - perhaps they would thing differently

CoL is nothing to what is coming out way

Still it will get people out of cars and planes because you won't have the money for them
But too late

These are very necessary things though.
There's plenty of things we could focus on that aren't as necessary.. meat consumption and mass farming is one in my view. I don't mean for everyone to go vegetarian.. just limits on imports, higher animal welfare standards, limits on how much supermarkets can stock and how cheaply it can be sold. There so much waste!! It's shocking when you look into it.
Supermarkets in general create so much waste. There should be some way to tackle this. Goods are being produced then thrown in the bin.

Yep; many people will die. Probably not the rich ones, unfortunately. Did anyone here read Stark, by Ben Elton?

The planet will recover; humans may just about cling on; we may end up with Waterworld or First Contact. Personally I’d prefer the latter, especially if I manage to ‘Klingon’ 😅

I try to live small; but I also can’t be arsed anymore! Fuck’em.

This. Most people know that what we do on an individual level will make zero difference to climate change.

We buy from China. People have 30 pairs of trainers when 3 or 4 will do.

Agree; there's a lot we don't need. I've reduced meat, coffee and tea consumption and only try to buy in-season fruit and veg.
I will argue though that we don't 'need' AI, even though it's a revolution that is happening whether we like it or not, so we'll all soon be in a position where we'll have to use AI systems.

I’ve got one pair personally but that still doesn’t matter!

I agree, we haven't even began to recognise the real problem... exponential population growth.

Very hypothetically, if we stopped breeding tomorrow, within 20-30 years we (probably) wouldn't have a climate problem.

Ridiculous I know, but it illustrates how drastic a problem we have.

@Nannyfannybanny If you kill off the cows, what happens to the farmers, they cannot all go over to arrible. They don't actually cause much methane.

This here is exactly the huge misunderstanding the general public have about the impact of meat and dairy farming.

Globally, farming uses about 70% of the planet’s accessible freshwater. It takes 15,500 litres of water to produce 1 kg beef, contrasted with 180 litres for 1 kg tomatoes and 250 litres for 1 kg potatoes. There is also the crucial issue of land use, animal farming requires crops to be grown to feed the animals when this could instead be directly used to feed people. Large swathes of forest are removed every year across the world to make more space to grow crops that are used for animal feed. In the amazon rainforest, 80% of deforested land is used for cattle grazing. 75% of the world’s agricultural land is used for raising animals – this includes animal feed, pasture and grazing. Then you consider the additional carbon emissions that are created, not only by the animals, but also the industry they are part of. Every year, over one billion chickens, 12 million turkeys, 13 million sheep and lambs, 10 million pigs, 2.7 million cows and 10 million ducks and geese are slaughtered in the UK for human consumption.

I've been to China and yes, when you're there you realise that very quickly.

But do people here really want that reduced?

I’d say doubtful

Much of that would have huge economic consequences.

EV cars and their battery manufacture is hugely environmentally damaging.

Yes, making clothing very expensive.

Most of what you suggest hit the poorest and thats the majority of the population.

I do. I don't follow fashion, much less fast fashion and couldn't give a shit. But i might be in the minority. I like kids wearing uniform in schools because you can rotate two sets and that's enough for 5 days of the week.

I don’t think most people realise that ‘the cloud’ is actually vast data centres that require huge use of land and electricity with intensive cooling systems . AI chatbots in particular are extremely powerful and therefore require huge amounts of data to operate, therefore resulting in significant carbon output.

I agree with this.

I am not a climate change denier but I do question some of the so-called 'solutions'. I think electric cars are an environmental disaster. They'll be the new 'everyone switch to diesel ' soon.

I do have solar panels, I have always bought second hand. I recycle etc. Because regardless of climate change I hate the waste culture and filling the ground with all this stuff.

I've not been abroad for 20 years and have only taken about half a dozen flights in my whole life.

I walk all short journeys (some not that short as I consider a four mile round trip better on foot).

But I won't be giving up my diesel car any time soon. I live in rural north Scotland. Nothing else is practical as a replacement.

And you can keep your hands off my wood burner. I don't have any gas and I use very little electric from the grid.

I get annoyed by the very preachy who think nothing of a hen do in Ibiza or a trip to Australia and just do performative 'green' options.

I agree that we all need less stuff and to stop buying shite on Temu.

I don't have a car.
But I am not anti-car. I just question the need to have massive SUVs in inner city London. Or 4 cars per family.

People were buying cheap imported clothes long before Brexit.

I’m old enough to remember when M&S had signs saying that 99% of their goods were British made.
But that was a very, very long time ago.

An ex colleague of mine used to buy masses of very cheap clothes and then say, ‘Well, even if I only wear it once…’ And she certainly wasn’t young, so it’s not necessarily a generation thing.
The idea of buying a lot fewer but better quality that would last, didn’t even occur to her.

It's why I'm a socialist.
I think this is all connected. In my mind you can't just sit there as an individual and buy your way out of climate change on your own. Climate change issues are massively linked to poverty and exploitation. In an economic system based on permanent growth of course the planet is going to be negatively impacted. Permanent growth is not sustainable on an environmental level. We need to actually be using what we need to live.. but instead we are encouraged onto a roundabout of working and spending money like water. This is encouraged as it promotes growth.. society gets worried if people aren't constantly spending money on crap they don't really need. And there's no escape.. especially if you have limited income. Goods aren't built to last. Poverty is cumulative. If all you can afford is Primark socks for example.. you will be stuck on a roundabout of buying them as they quickly fall apart, costing you more money longer term, but you don't have the initial money to prioritise buying well made expensive socks.. you don't have the free time to learn how to make your own because you are too busy constantly working to afford your primary socks. A silly example but you get my meaning. Most ordinary people are trapped on that roundabout of consumption. Things need to really change in our attitude... but unfortunately the world is having a right wing populist moment... becoming very individualistic and isolationist.
I don't know what will have to happen to swing it back round.
It was the 2nd world war that brought out a lot of progressive joined up thinking.. people didn't want to repeat the horrors. There were lots of ideas implemented worldwide after the end of the 2nd world war..
But people are forgetting. The pandemic might have reminded them the need for everyone to work together... but it seems not.

You are focusing on people. Biggest impact has to come from corporates. With all the return to office mandates, Nikola’s trips to a local school with her 3 kids in a Discovery sport hardly matters when you compare to 1000s of people doing their 30mile office commutes twice a day.

Yet here you are complaining about it on the Internet, which emits more harmful CO2 emissions than all global air traffic.

The energy needed to power the digital economy today is far greater than the energy needed to power absolutely everything in the whole world back in the 80s. That's only going to get worse as more and more giant data centres are built.

They want us to give up our cars, never go on holiday but do everything online!

As an aside, and as an additional point to what I was saying about cooling data servers, I'll bet anything that one of the many strategic reasons behind Trump's wish to invade 'buy' Greenland is that it would really help his tech friends to have a massive fridge... (and to get mining for those rare earth minerals used in EV batteries now that China has dramatically reduced their exports to the US in that area)

@jasjas3008 I don't disagree, but they are also the people who are being/will be hardest hit by climate change.

I just don’t think most people have it as a priority. They see the very people preaching about climate issues jetting around the world and travelling in fancy cars, warm and heated houses and nice clothes.

It feels very much like the chattering classes telling the oiks not to travel and stay in their lane

With that name, Nikola should be driving a Tesla.😁

You're being totally reasonable. There's so much irony. Hollywood residents can't easily get away because their cars are on fire, fast fashion is still a thing when we have plenty of reusable clothes, the big cars and flights of the average family. It's natural for people to look inwards now, there's no blitz spirit. I could be smug, I live in a part of london where there's no resident parking so don't have a car and 95% of my clothes are second hand; but I'm certainly no Greta Thunberg; and she's become an object of ridicule here and in the US.