Thought I'd better start one

[smashedinductionhob]

So I can look my kids in the face.

Do you think China will take the lead?

I've just found this board today, I'd heard it was being started but I hadn't seen it in Active which is where I mostly look for threads. I hope it gets busier.

It's troubling as climate change will be MASSIVE for our children, but we don't talk about it enough, or do enough.

For myself I think it's a feeling of fear. I know that it's (probably) going to happen and it's very scary and I feel very out of control. So I have made most changes that I can personally make and I vote with environmentalism in mind, but thinking about it further is Scary.

Generally I think humans as a group are not the best decision makes and we find it hard to truly believe in abstract threats and we are terrible at judging risks. Also we like to think that our own behaviour is an exception. And obviously there are commercial and political interests encouraging us to carry on with the status quo so people have to be very determined to make changes.

I do worry about what life will be like for my children in their 30s and 40s and what fears they will have for their own children's futures. I'm trying to use that worry to do positive things rather than get stressed then stick my head in the sand. Perhaps that's what a lot of people are doing.

Gosh I thought this board would be a whole lot busier. Is it that everyone is on the same page but can’t see anything to be done about the fact that we are probably on the way to turning the planet into an oven already in our children’s lifetime? Surely this can’t be all, or our politicians would be prioritising this issue over others to get re-elected.

I look at the baby in my arms and I am seized with worry for his future

There is a great group calling for mass actions this Autumn to try and force government intervention - we are called Extinction Rebellion. You can find us on facebook. We need that mother lioness rage! xx

Anyone still active and want to talk about this?

My husband says I’m being too intense about it but I just watched the Extinction rebellion video explaining recent science and all the stuff that I’ve been feeling paralysed about for a decade that I remember bawling my eyes out about but then not knowing what the hell to do next about has just come to the service and the grief...it just feels like feeling like nothing can be the same again and I’m so gutted I’m so gutted

motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a38zyk/un-secretary-general-says-we-have-a-year-and-a-half-to-avoid-runaway-climate-change

such a surreal feeling to be at the moment safe within four walls but think about what’s coming and what we’ve done. I just read the Lorax again with my son - it terrified and horrified me as a child and now it’s not a story.

Things I’m planning to do - direct debit to Greenpeace. There’s probably nothing that can be done about the Arctic ice sheet and the albedo effect will turn that into a carbon source instead of a carbon sink so we really really need to make sure the forests in Indonesia and Amazon stay in tact and aren’t bulldozed for palm oil if nothing else (and there’s a million reasons else) but so that those carbon ‘sinks’ are preserved

Offer emotional well-being support to the people prepared to be arrested to get this on front pages - I don’t know how to do it yet but I think I can do this at least once in coming weeks

Turn attention to sharing stories and comment from scientists prepared to speak up

Switch bank accounts
Ditch iPhone for ‘ethical’ phone next year
No unrecyclable plastic in kitchen and home
Write to MP about putting pressure on Govt to maintain environmental standards and improve focus on climate change through 25 year environment plan
Write to BBC about climate coverage
Write to consumer brand owners UNICEF and Nestle about sustainable palm oil
Find a way to encourage bees in garden (wildflowers) petition / call persistently local council about their methods of cutting down habitat for pollinators too soon -noticed it this year - cost cutting. May have to try and kick start local group to offer to do it instead at appropriate time of year
Pay for some private therapy - I feel like something has shifted. When I look at my 4 year old I feel sick with worry. It’s the twofold thing of grief that we’ve let it get to this point, disbelief too and grief st what we’re losing, and then actual panic about the social consequences of climate change that are already happening and will affect us. That’s genuinely anxiety inducing - what sort of collapse? Violence? Fascism? It feels so surreal. I feel like it’s a horror /disaster movie and we’re in those early stages where the bad things are being recounted in dispassionate voice by a news reader on the telly in the background while the family’s in the kitchen doing ‘ordinary things’ just before their world ends. Oh my god. I’m sorry I know how ridiculous / hollow this maybe sounds - that’s how I’m feeling. My husband says don’t cry just think of ways to use the passion. I said to him - it’s not passion, it’s terror. Is anyone else feeling like this?

If anyone read that thank you - sort of cathartic to make a list of things to do. Other things - reconciling myself to the fact that I’ll never fly again. I’ve only ever done a couple of long hauls anyway and 3 or 4 short flights. I remember crying at how beautiful the earth was when I saw it from up there the first time I flew. Can’t on conscience do it again though. Gutting.