AIBU not to buy in about all of this net zero/environmentalism?

[ShanCran]

Okay, so I understand the need to look after the planet and all that but just feel that the whole “net zero” agenda is being pushed too hard and too fast. Things like “clean air zones” in cities. Surely that’s just a money making exercise?

I recycle where I can, but not as religiously as most. I also travel about 20,000 miles per year in my (small) petrol car and in my 28 years on the planet have travelled approximately 175,000 air miles. Some will say that I am awful and totally unreasonable - but I suspect that many will agree that the whole concept of net zero is being pushed too hard and too fast.

After all, for all the environmentalist rhetoric that is preached by many politicians, the King, numerous celebrities and the likes - I don’t see any of them being principled enough to reduce their airmiles (often travelling by air for trivial things) or travel less generally. I doubt that the personal carbon emissions of many of such “celebrities” is far from net zero themselves.

I just wish people would be up front, rather than manipulative about it.

For instance the one that gets me is shopping bags.

The paperbags weigh more, so every step of their manufacture and transportation takes more resource than the old carrier bags. They also aren't as robust (particularly in the rain) so I often can't re-use them unlike the old carrier bags. Bags for life (the plastic ones) similarly use 10x (or more) the plastic of an old sized carrier, and the fabric ones even more (and are often still plastic-lined).

plus, now I buy small bags for the bathroom bins/cat litter tray where previously I re-used old carrier bags, and my fabric bags (made of cotton, which is hugely water-intensive to grow) need to be washed - so I'm actually not saving plastic usage, and adding on water and soap usage by switching to bags for life.

This makes the formula much more complicated than is made out - and I wish they'd been up-front about that, rather than just forcing it through.

I feel the same way about a lot of other things. Solar, Wind, Electric cars, the pros and cons of washing at low temperature etc.

Getting the actual full story is damn near impossible, because no-one's honest, and so filtering out truth from intentional lies and conspiracy theories is extremely difficult.

The M4 in Port Talbot with the 50mph speed limit signs to ‘improve air quality’ has always made me laugh given that the steel works is right there throwing out god knows what. I think a lot of it is definitely a money making exercise but recycling is good for the planet because we were sending far too much to landfill.

It's too little too late but also something that can only be solved if the whole world was committed to solving it. Everyone in every country needs to commit to only using clean energy. At the moment some countries are aggressively pursuing clean energy as soon as possible, others adopt a slower view in that fossil fuels should be used whilst other people develop cheap clean energy.

It would be easier to persuade people that net zero was a good thing if it didn't mean people suffering today in the hope that future generations may benefit in future. As a species we are not inclined to think like this. Life is short.

Or here, we have a deposit return scheme on (most) plastic bottles, and drinks cans now.

Net effect on recycling rates? 0.

Net effect on me? I can't crush the bottles/cans and put them in my recycling bin any more, now I need to keep them whole, and feed them one by one into a machine outside the shop, and take my printed token (and I understand those thermal printers are less than environmentally friendly) to reclaim the deposit.

Those machines need to be maintained and emptied by a new big vehicle, meanwhile my normal recycling pickup still exists for the rest of my recycling/bottles that aren't under the deposit/return scheme.

So the impact of implementing it has actually been detrimental to both the environment (extra vehicles) and to me (significant jump in effort required to recycle)

I’m very keen on real old fashioned conservation projects: natural habitat rejuvenation, litter picking, reducing the amount of single use plastic, buying local produce, supporting local organic farmers etc.

I’m far less convinced by net zero government policies. I think that having the highest energy costs in the world, importing oil and gas instead of using our own and exporting manufacturing so that we have fewer job opportunities at home is disastrous for the U.K. economy and makes no difference to global carbon emissions.

Global CO2 levels continue to rise and will carry on rising. India and China will continue to grow their economies using fossil fuels. We will pursue an economically devastating net zero policy whilst carbon emissions from our consumerism will be accumulated elsewhere, mostly China.

I think cleaner air, being less wasteful of the earth's resources and protecting the environment are worthwhile endeavours but I don't think our current renewables strategy is the right way forward.

Actually China will reach peak emissions this year and will trend downwards on emissions.

China installed more solar panels in May this year than the rest of the world combined.

China is taking it seriously.

Quite right, except I've yet to see a sensible answer as to why the current change is so very different to all the others over the millennia - some of them much more extreme

I believe the fashionable, model-driven theory is that this one is "happening faster", but we all saw what was predicated on model's during covid and came to appreciate that they're little more than guesses, heavily driven by what those I'm charge choose to fund

I'll go right on doing my bit with recycling, etc, and don't drive anyway - though I fly a lot - buy beyond that I'm not about to worry over something I can do nothing to change

Their fossil fuel reserves are only limited in the sense that everyone's are.

They have pretty large reserves of coal (4th in the world) oil (14) and gas (7).

They keep building coal power stations (in 2023 they built them at the rate of about 2 per week) because ...drumroll... they've got lots of coal.

To some degree I agree with you OP.

I've always seen myself as really focused on environmental issues, but I think in recent years things have become very odd.

For example the way that instead of finding what would be pretty low hanging fruit like reducing consumption, or changing building patterns to create less need for transportation, we are just trying to find ways to produce the same amount with fewer emissions. Like half the crap we buy could not be eliminated with no loss of quality of life.

Also the pursuit of tech where it's really not at all clear that it will be better, electric cars for example. There may be fewer emissions, but they are still a huge drain on resources. That really doesn't solve the problem.

I also think there is too much focus on emissions and it eclipses things like habitat preservation, for example.

As for climate change itself, I think it's pretty clear it's happening, but a lot less clear how it will behave long term, but that discussion is seemingly not allowed. It needs to be allowed, though. I think there must be some vested interests in not having it.

Ah the old, the rich are worse than me trope.

Don't blame the low bar, just admit you can't be fucked to make an effort. You will probably be pushing up the daisies before life becomes really untenable, so kicking the can down the road is just easier.

Hope your grandchildren have fun with that.

Clean renewable energy does not equal economic ruin. Natural disasters, flood, fire, famine - they will definitely put a dent in the FTSE.

The climate has changed, the horse has bolted. It's au fait complet. We are in damage limitation measures now at best. With some effort we could give ourselves a reprieve from the worst. Shame the dollar lobby has spread such a lot of shite that is believed by so many (like you OP).

I watched this yesterday. It's difficult to know what is the truth anymore. I do wonder what's going on in the background. Whatever efforts we make regarding cutting carbon, it'll have absolutely no effect whatsoever due to what China and India are doing.

It also explains the media hysteria over weather reporting now. Everything has a warning, everything is extreme, everything is reported as being 'the worst since records began' etc.

I recycle where I can, but not as religiously as most.

I don't think most people recycle religiously at all.

My Dad sent this to me. It started off reasonably and rational enough - for me it went downhill after the first 10 minutes.

I like the idea of net zero for a number of reasons.

First polluting your immediate environment is bad. So things like electric cars help with that. Second energy is a strategic resource and net zero diversifies it, making us less susceptible to the failure of one component, and less dependent on the supply of it from places that may not always have our best interests at heart.

I don't think it's contribution to climate change will be that much. Because climate change will be dominated by emissions from other places who do not care or are unable to make the changes we are. It's baked in and going to happen regardless.

There are two issues will net zero for me. One is the cost, which disproportionately falls on the poor. The way to deal with this is to tax the rich harder. Luxuries that are pollutiing, air travel, SUVs etc should be taxed harder. Essentials should be taxed less and more money should be available to ensure essential energy use is minimised.

The other is the implementation we have in terms of energy production. For example we have a lot of wind power. Too much wind power. We should have rebalanced in terms of solar and tidal but didn't. This is going to lead to issues at some point. If we would have continued adding solar at the rate we were in 2015 we would have added a Hinkley Point C in terms of power generation by now. Instead we have fallen well behind. To make it worse, we are slated to spend billions on really stupid things like carbon capture (hopefully this is a future Labour promise and will get axed by future governments) and failing to keep up with the necessary grid infrastructure.

The problem with policies like net zero is they require a long term outlook and long term planning. Our current electorate cycle of 5 years is totally unsuited to this.

@UpsideDownChairs indeed, about filtering the truth from the lies. I just can’t take anything on the news at face value any more.

My big concern about net zero is that it is focused on one issue at the expense of all others. Carbon dioxide is a huge problem. Fossil fuels are a big part of that. But electric cars/solar power rely on metals like lithium that countries are now tearing the earth apart to get. The impact on biodiversity is beyond awful. And in some cases, the carbon this is generating is much higher than projected. Some countries are looking at deep sea mining to get more of the metals without knowing enough about what happens in the deep sea to be able to assess the impact it will have on either the life there or the oceans, which are themselves very important to climate. I find it incredibly alarming that nobody in a position to communicate this to the masses seems to be worried by this. Net zero reminds me very much of what happened during COVID, when governments didn’t do risk assessments to determine what all the likely impacts of lockdowns were, they just pushed them through and anyone with concerns was shouted down or ignored.

In the UK specifically, it makes me really angry that people like Sadiq Khan can force through things like LTNs without consultation, then keep them in place despite the fact the evidence shows they don’t improve pollution levels, they just concentrate it in certain (usually poorer) areas. We all know that’s really about making money by fining people, not the environment. It has an outsized effect on the elderly and disabled, who can’t walk or cycle. Initiatives like ULEZ have forced many people to replace perfectly good vehicles before they needed to, which either just moves the problem, as those vehicles are taken elsewhere to be used in places where there are fewer restrictions, or if the vehicles are scrapped reduces their running emissions but unnecessarily uses more energy to make new vehicles ahead of time.

And as other posters have said, all of it is just a drop in the ocean compared with the emissions of countries like India and China. Of course, a lot of us are buying products from those countries (including, ironically, electric cars) and thus effectively outsourcing our emissions. So we’re not blameless. And from what I’ve read, although the net zero brigade is aware of this, they don’t seem to be totting up all those emissions and including them in the sums that define their ‘success’.

Governments around the world need to look at the big picture. But they won’t, because these days government is only about the current election cycle. I don’t know what the answer is to that. But it’s not the current net zero push.

Governments and the unscrupulous are always going to look for an advantage or cause to make money and control people. Confusing this with the actual science of environmental destruction and climate change is just as stupid.

By all means fight the government and fight big business trying to control you, but you only have to look outside and take an actual notice of our biodiversity and see the change. Its like boiling a frog slowly and it not noticing the water getting hotter.

Simple things you can test how many people on here remember wiping hundreds of bugs of their windscreen and cars whilst driving through the countryside in summer, now take a second to look how clean your windscreen is today?

I remember a fact and still have photos of the massive snow drifts and snow fall when a child in the 70s/80s, compare it to what we get now?

How many butterflies do you see, how many bird populations have declined in recent years, the facts are there if you choose to see them.

Mining for metals associated with renewable energies (such as lithium and rare earths) doesn't impact biodiversity much.

Most of the mines are out in the desert in the middle of nowhere or near salt lakes. Not in the middle of the Amazon.

The process of rare earth metal production is pretty polluting and unpleasant from what I know of it, but again, it goes on in the middle of the desert, not in a rainforest.

The thing is that technology changes all the time, so the demand for different metals varies quite a lot on a decade to decade basis. For example I think colbalt is in demand but technology is progressing beyond it. Palladium/Platinum used to be used in exhaust catalysts but now not so much because we are using electric cars. The amount of lithium needed will be reduced as we move to solid state batteries. And maybe we will move to sodium (there is a lot of that around) instead of lithium electrolytes. The list goes on.

I don't think EVs are the answer, they just create a huge alternative problem.

Better public transport, powered by cleaner energy sources with less cars on the road is a much better outcome.

Making businesses, not individuals responsible for CER (carbon emissions reduction opposed to carbon offset) with tax implications for not adhering to regulations is a much more sustainable approach.

As individuals we must also take responsibility. Mostly to be properly informed and educated.

There is so much mistruth and mistrust on the subject. So much waffling on about the aviation industry when no consideration is given to the impact of tech use for example. The tech industry will soon over take the airline industry in emissions. Few people know or care about this.

We must engage our critical thoughts processes and not believe everything we read on Facebook or see on YouTube.

Who says that their emissions will peak this year? If you believe that, you will believe anything

The idea with paper bags is that you're supposed to use as few as possible. Carry your own bag, which will have used more resources than a plastic bag, but can be used hundreds of times and therefore avoids the production and transportation of hundreds of plastic bags.
A cotton bag doesn't need washing often and can be washed with other things, you're hardly going to put on an extra wash just because of a few bags that need washing. And at the end of its life, a cotton bag is biodegradable instead of ending up somewhere in the environment (if you think most plastics are recycled, you're wrong).
The issue really isn't as complex as you're trying to make it.

44% of "experts" "believe" China will reach peak emissions this year so it must be true and we will definitely be able to rely on any information China publish about how they are achieving their net zero goals.

The Chinese government and the "experts" told us Covid came from pangolins at a wet market so we have proof of their expertise and honesty. (sarcasm obviously)

Not RTFT yet, but I agree exactly with this.

I did a related masters degree, and environment was one of the modules. They were absolutely saying all of this years ago.
none of it is new, but people are now seeing with increasing regularity the impacts of CC.

Completely pointless given the rest of the world doesn’t give a shit. The UK alone can’t make any difference whatsoever, we’re just punishing ourselves while heading for the same result.