Climate change.....it's too late to stop it, isn't it ?

[Banquosfeast]

How long have we been hearing the message to reduce CO2 emissions ? At least 30 years, (Mrs Thatcher the first UK politician to raise with subject, with her 1989 UN speech). Climate change has already happened, as is clear from weather reports from around the world. The rise in global temperatures that have already occurred, irreversible, and will get worse.

Yet, still nobody changes their personal behaviour....at all !

Just today I've witnessed, 1) someone sitting in their car, drinking a coffee.....engine running. 2) twenty people leaving a yoga class, and the room empty.....not one thinks to turn off the lights. 3) at the gym, air-conditioning blasting away....with the windows open ! 4) on the motorway, well it's the Wacky Races out there - nobody driving, as it they are trying to limit their vehicle's CO2 emissions; quite the opposite in fact.

Let's be honest, it's too late.

@Banquosfeast
The ones that will say earth, silicon valley, defense industries etc, failing that abort earth and conquer the galaxies

*save

Yes, definitely too late.

To be fair though, it was never gonna work without large corporations and governments doing their bit. No matter how many drinks I have with soggy paper straws instead of plastic ones.

I also firmly believe it's a key factor in the population decline. If I were of child bearing age now, i'd never bring a child into the world.

The public as a whole will never just choose on an individual basis stop doing things they like and are allowed to do.

Massive global population change is needed which can only be created by coordinated governmental action.

Which won't happen due to politics and money.

Humans are essentially very stupid as a group.

Our only hope is a miracle / several miracle scientific breakthroughs. My main hope is that as things get worse and worse and start to hurt rich people, more money will be poured into finding such solutions and eventually something will help. How much it can help by that point is another question.

Massive global population change is needed which can only be created by coordinated governmental action.

Yes, and this has been gradually put in place globally since the 1970s. Namely, the one thing that has slowed the population growth to its lowest point ever in the history of humanity is - reproductive rights for women and reliable contraception. So fighting for abortion rights, fighting for contraception, fighting for women to be economically active - these are the biggest actions that affect population.

In fact, we are now projected by the UN for world population to be more likely get to zero growth by the end of this century, with even a small chance that world population will begin to decline.

All it takes is giving women rights.

And education (or maybe the right to education).

In many parts of the world women or girls leave education ridiculously early. The expectation being that girls will be married and starting a family in their mid teens. In this situation they tend to have bigger families earlier. Their economic value to the community is also reduced. And the cycle continues.

I have a huge hope that genetically modified crops and plant life could save us.

Thanks for this very interesting.

I might be stretching it a bit asking more, sorry, but do you have a view or know if there is a general view on where we’ll be in 5, 10 years in the U.K.?

In terms of various streams and climate etc

I’m guessing people don’t really know, but thought I’d check

I lurch between hopeless and optimistic tbh. Followed climate crisis if you can put it that way, since the mid 80's. Loads has been achieved (ozone hole, acid rain etc) just goes to show the power of government when it tries but we really are in our barrel about to go over the edge of Victoria Falls.

Can't believe there are posters on here still wanging on about how we've always had ice ages etc 😕

I believe the climate is changing around us, partially because of us and partially for reasons outside our control.

I also believe that that means we need to prioritise energy security because without energy we have no chance of protecting ourselves from the environment.

More people die from climate-related causes in countries that have inadequate infrastructure and no reliable energy. People there live "low carbon emitting" lives and it hasn't done squat for them. (And there'd be earthquakes, fires, snowstorms and heatwaves even if there weren't a single coal-fired power station on earth.)

Fortunately for all of us @Middlelanehogger science doesn't rely on belief.

The climate is of course partly dependent on natural causes. But, recent changes in natural causes, e.g. solar activity, would actually have the planet cooling not warming. Volcanic eruptions also have a cooling effect.

Global warming is man made, primarily due to burning of fossil fuels.

We can't do much about the sun or volcanoes, we can, over time, stop burning fossil fuels.

It's not a scientific question, it's a "what do we do with this information" question.

You can believe that burning fossil fuels influences the environment and you can also believe that not burning fossil fuels has consequences that outweigh that.

Same as how you can believe that COVID is a real disease that kills people and also believe that the consequences of lockdown aren't ones you're willing to accept.

Trust The Science is a thought-terminating cliche. I say this as someone with a science degree.

Very true, education of girls is essential.

So there are many methods of creating GMOs, some more risky than others to human health/life, animal life and the overall ecosystem. So I’m not bothered about gene editing the way I am bothered about cross species gene insertion or irradiation.

The primary risk though of all GMO crops is their lack of genetic diversity. Natural crops are like any natural population of a species- tons of genetic diversity. This is necessary for food security and sustainability because it is a fact that crops with no or little genetic diversity are more prone to complete loss of harvest due to weather, pests or diseases. Complete losses of harvests leads famine.

So I think GMOs have a place, but we need to essentially take a leaf out of natures successes and ensure we preserve the genetic diversity of all our crop plants.

You didn't make that distinction, and started by stating your belief that climate change was caused in part by natural factors. Global warming aka climate change is not being caused by natural events (feedback obviously excepted).

So do you believe that to continue burning fossil fuels as we currently do outweighs the damage we are doing to the planet?

It is not too late to mitigate and prevent much worse than what we are seeing this year. 2023 is on target to be the hottest year ever recorded and, according to climate scientists, it will keep getting hotter.

There are no limits to the heat that will come if we continue as is, but there are limits to the heat our bodies can tolerate. And to what other animals and plants can tolerate. Extreme heat, droughts, lack of food, fires, storms, floods, on and on. What we are witnessing this year will only get much worse.

I read this today: The latest science shows that global temperature rise would halt almost immediately after we stop burning fossil fuels. We are literally the last people who can try to arrest this and keep it from getting worse. If we don’t, we have sentenced our kids to lifelong hellish conditions. So we still have a choice, but eventually it WILL really be too late to preserve a livable environment.

Have any of you lived in a country that didn't have reliable energy?

@Middlelanehogger Yes, the Southern US. Frequent extended power grid failures during broiling hot summer and severe winter cold snaps.

If we continue on the current path, it will become a vicious circle of unbearable heat and cold snaps = more fossil fuel use = more increased heat and cold = even more fossil fuel use, etc.

Those who have reliable power and can afford the cost may be able to hole up in their houses and survive, but those who don’t have access or can’t afford it will either become climate refugees or die.

I lived in a region of a country that didn’t have mains power or water or sewage for almost four years. I’ve also been to several remote islands for several week visits that were similar. Was very eye opening.

The great thing about how fast our green power technology has advanced is that many of these regions can literally skip the polluting Industrial Revolution stages. They won’t ever need power lines or coal fired power plants. Their water/sewage wont be pumped or treated by machinery running off these power plants.

So it’s not like reliable energy and CO2 emissions + other pollutants are mutually inclusive. Those of us in areas that have had reliable energy are mid-transition to green power and those in areas that do not, are skipping straight to green power.

On what basis do you make this claim - any evidence? One heat wave is not the end of the world. Calm yourself down and do some proper research. And stay away from the tabloid news. It’s their job to be scandalous, doom mongers as those are the headlines that gets clicks.

It’s not correct though. There is a massive lag time. It won’t be almost immediately, it will be in time for grandchildren.

But yes it’s not too late for all of us. The thing is if we (U.K.) continue as we are, we will keep on slashing our emissions. The global average is 4.2 tonnes of CO2 per capita, OECD average is 7.7 tonnes. The EU average is 5.5

High income countries average is 8.7 tonnes

The U.K. is down to 4.6 tonnes per capita and decreasing year on year not just per capita but total emissions.

The problem is the larger we, the rest of the world especially those not doing their bit like
Qatar= 31.7 tonnes CO2 per capita
Bahrain= 22 tonnes
Brunei= 21.7 tonnes
Kuwait= 21.2 tonnes
UAE = 20.3 tonnes
Oman= 15.6 tonnes
Australia= 14.8 tonnes
Saudi Arabia= 14 tonnes
Canada= 13.6 tonnes
US= 13 tonnes
Luxembourg= 12.5 tonnes
Kazakhstan= 11.3 tonnes
S. Korea= 11 tonnes
Russia= 11.2 tonnes
Turkmenistan= 10.2 tonnes
Trinidad and Tobago= 10.2 tonnes

It’s not correct though. There is a massive lag time. It won’t be almost immediately, it will be in time for grandchildren.

Then it is even more urgent as summer temps continue to increase.

I think it's great that we are developing new energy sources and there are many benefits to having decentralised power. I don't think those are contradictory statements. Improving our ability to capture energy from a wider range of sources is great. For geopolitical reasons as well as anything else.

I think that aggressively turning off existing power sources before we have replacements is irresponsible and the kind of thing only suggested by people who have never lived without consistent baseline energy and don't know what it means (people dying in hospitals when life support turns off, dying in natural disasters because infrastructure was insufficient, dying of starvation because food didn't get produced because of lack of industrial agricultural tools...)

Sorry what is urgent? There is nothing more we can do from here or in the U.K. that we are not already doing.

In fact, the XR and JSO protests increased CO2 emissions via their disruption of traffic patterns and have zero impact on the long term reduction both here and the rest of the world.

If they went to the countries that are over emitting CO2, they might have an impact there.

Our country is not the global power it was either. All we can do is keep cutting our CO2 (which is already less than 1% of global emissions) and ask the other countries nicely to reduce their CO2.

I think that aggressively turning off existing power sources before we have replacements is irresponsible

Totally agree. As is banning drilling for oil like JSO is demanding. How do people think all our wind farms, and electric car, boats and plane machinery will be lubricated without oil? How do they think we will produce the vast majority of our medicinal ointments and lotions without oil? How will we grow enough food without oil for our fertilisers?