Climate change: has anyone actually said what life would have to look like to prevent catastrophic warming?

[workwoes123]

I’ve been reading articles about the very gloomy, completely ignored, most recent IPCCC report.

What I can’t find is anything saying what daily life would look like if we adopted the measures that are necessary to prevent catastrophic warming? Like, in the UK, if we were to do what’s necessary:

how would we Heat our homes?
What kinds of homes could we build?
How would we travel / what transport could we have?
What would we eat?
What industries would still operate?

The reports all talk about the need to move away from fossil fuel use. What I can’t find is anything telling me what my life will look like if / when we do this?

I know people make what they think are big changes (eating veggie, holidays in the U.K., bamboo toothbrushes etc) but I suspect all these personal lifestyle changes add up to bugger all on a global scale and that the actual impacts on our lifestyles - however modest we think our lifestyles currently are - would be massive and negative (and that’s why no-one’s talking about this aspect of it). Am I right?

[Daftasabroom]

@Suzi888 “bring in universal laws that will completely change life as we know it”

Please give an example.

[Suzi888]

Won’t happen.
We will ignore it. We are selfish, greedy and cruel.
There will be a fight to the death over resources. WW3 or 4 perhaps.
It’ll be bad. Won’t happen in my lifetime, I think it will happen in DD’s and it scares me. Her life choices (having children) will probably be different to mine.

To change you would need to “bring in universal laws that will completely change life as we know it” Nobody has the balls for it….
“Nothing else is long-term tenable. That's why we can't get people to properly talk about it.” - As another poster stated.

Im short, I think we’re doomed! You can’t even have a decent conversation about milk substitutes posted on the vegan forum on here fgs- without some twat saying I NEED milk or I’ll die….

[Handyweatherstation]

^Stats are from ourworldindata.org/co2/country/^

Aren't those results partly because we've exported our emissions to other countries?

[Daftasabroom]

The three big emitters accounting for about 75% of emissions are, elctricity generation, road transport and manufacturing. Everything counts but getting side tracked soap packaging etc really is fiddleing while Rome burns.

[WanderingFruitWonderer]

@Daftasabroom

@WanderingFruitWonderer trade adjusted emissions are here

Ah, thank you for this. It's not quite as bad as I'd feared...

[Daftasabroom]

@WanderingFruitWonderer trade adjusted emissions are here

[Reluctantadult]

The Centre for Alternative Technology has written a great book called zero carbon Britain : rising to the climate emergency. It sets out steps we need to take sector by sector. Eg chapter on energy. Chapter on land use. By the end it has painted a picture of the sorts of lives we'd be living. It's certainly not back to the dark ages. But it does involve big shifts that we need to get on with!

[Reluctantadult]

Exactly what I was thinking @wandering
Figures given for UK forget we've offloaded our manufacturing and that we're buying the crap other countries produce eg China and helping drive its production.

[WanderingFruitWonderer]

@Onnabugeisha

There’s a bit too much doom and gloom and misinformation on this thread.
First Uninhabitable Earth is a work of fiction.

Second, we’ve been reducing CO2 and implementing environmental changes since the 1970s. This narrative that we have done nothing, made no changes is a lie. My guess is the activists today don’t want to admit they’re piggybacking on the work of generations of activists before them.

We (the U.K.) have made consistent and strong progress since the 1970s :

Each person in the U.K. has lower CO2 emissions per capita in the U.K. than was emitted in 1850. The peak was in 1970 at 11.73tn per capita, compared to 5.5tn in 2020, a reduction of 54%.

The UKs total CO2 emissions are below 1887 levels. This is a reduction of over 66% from the 1973 peak- in other words the U.K. emits 1/3rd the CO2 we did in 1973 despite having an extra 10 million people in the U.K.

Even when looking at CO2 emissions on a consumption based perspective by counting the CO2 used to produce and ship all the stuff we buy from China and elsewhere, our total CO2 consumption is down by 30% since this measure started in 1990.

The UKs share of total global CO2 emissions is 0.93% for 2020.

The UKs total cumulative contribution of all CO2 emitted from 1750 to 2020 is 4.52% which is between Germany (5.37%) and Japan(3.87%), but well below the USA(24.29%) China (14.36%) and Russia (6.77%). So this narrative that we caused climate change all by ourselves and are responsible for it is bollocks.

Do we live like we did in 1850? Or 1887? No we do not. There is no reason to think we need to regress back on time lifestyle wise to fight climate change.

Stats are from ourworldindata.org/co2/country/

I agree that Britain didn't solely cause the climate crisis. But I also think the percentage given here is inaccurately low, as some of China's figure is ours, as they manufacture so many of the goods people throughout the world buy. Britain's a huge consumer of Chinese goods, so we have to take responsibility for some of those emissions too.

[Daftasabroom]

One of the very real problems with climate doomism is that it encourages people to think there is no point taking personal steps, which runs the danger of becoming a self fulfilling prophecy.

[BocolateChiscuits]

Onnabugeisha. Love your post so much.

[Onnabugeisha]

There’s a bit too much doom and gloom and misinformation on this thread.
First Uninhabitable Earth is a work of fiction.

Second, we’ve been reducing CO2 and implementing environmental changes since the 1970s. This narrative that we have done nothing, made no changes is a lie. My guess is the activists today don’t want to admit they’re piggybacking on the work of generations of activists before them.

We (the U.K.) have made consistent and strong progress since the 1970s :

Each person in the U.K. has lower CO2 emissions per capita in the U.K. than was emitted in 1850. The peak was in 1970 at 11.73tn per capita, compared to 5.5tn in 2020, a reduction of 54%.

The UKs total CO2 emissions are below 1887 levels. This is a reduction of over 66% from the 1973 peak- in other words the U.K. emits 1/3rd the CO2 we did in 1973 despite having an extra 10 million people in the U.K.

Even when looking at CO2 emissions on a consumption based perspective by counting the CO2 used to produce and ship all the stuff we buy from China and elsewhere, our total CO2 consumption is down by 30% since this measure started in 1990.

The UKs share of total global CO2 emissions is 0.93% for 2020.

The UKs total cumulative contribution of all CO2 emitted from 1750 to 2020 is 4.52% which is between Germany (5.37%) and Japan(3.87%), but well below the USA(24.29%) China (14.36%) and Russia (6.77%). So this narrative that we caused climate change all by ourselves and are responsible for it is bollocks.

Do we live like we did in 1850? Or 1887? No we do not. There is no reason to think we need to regress back on time lifestyle wise to fight climate change.

Stats are from ourworldindata.org/co2/country/

[PinkSparklyPussyCat]

It might be 'resource efficient' but what a hideous way to live. What about pets? Elderly people who can't manage stairs and need a bungalow rather than a flat with stairs? Children having to be supervised rather than being able to play safely in their own garden?

[Chocchops72]

And if a community of 10000 people is spread out over the space that it would take to provide each household with an individual house and a garden, compared with a community of 10,000 where we live in high density housing and have transport, childcare, medical, education services provided collectively and shared green / leisure spaces: which one is more resource efficient? That’s got to be the top priority.

[Chocchops72]

Green spaces are great, essential I agree. But they can be provided collectively, a shared resource that is available to everyone. Any system that insists every individual must be supplied with their own, individual patch of green is doomed to cover the world in suburbs. 11 billion people with a garden each? How does that work?

[midgetastic]

Why on earth would we need to have no gardens ?

Green spaces good for health and planet
We need to change things like continually pushing for economic efficiency ( a narrow definition of success that by its very nature will always harm the planet ) so people have time for the bus

We are run ragged trying to keep up with a pace of life that suits our economy - change how we value things to give us a better quality of life and a lower footprint

[AntlerRose]

@Chocchops72

I’m playing devils advocate here. We’ve got so used to living very Individual lives, living collectively / sharing space, resources, collectively provided services feels like a step back. But individual lives are hugely resource intensive.

I was mulling over a similar thought.
The whole public transport thing would be solved if we all lived in cities apart from agricultural workers and then in cities there were a lot more multi generation households. Id hate it! But i wonder if thats what will end up happeningm

I remember learning that water scarcity led to the first big towns.

[PinkSparklyPussyCat]

They might not be miserable! Just because it's living in misery for me doesn't mean it is for other people. I have nothing against flats, I live in one but thankfully it has a garden.

I do stand by my view that living in crowded conditions with no outdoor space isn't something to aspire to. You seem to want to take us back to the Middle Ages!

[Chocchops72]

‘Living in misery’

so what about the billions of people that currently live without the things you feel are necessary to not ‘live in misery’? Are all of them miserable?

And if they are and don’t want to live as they currently do, how do we lift them to your standard of living, given that giving it to you (and me and all the rest of us in the developed world) has brought us to this point?

[Chocchops72]

I’m playing devils advocate here. We’ve got so used to living very Individual lives, living collectively / sharing space, resources, collectively provided services feels like a step back. But individual lives are hugely resource intensive.

[Chocchops72]

it’s vastly more efficient to provide services and resources to high density communities than to spread out suburbs. Less need for individual provision, much more efficient collective provision. If 1000 people live within 5 min walk of the local school, no one needs to drive. Ditto a doctor, or any other service. Ditto parks and play areas too actually: a park can be provided for 100 kids to play in, rather than 100 houses with gardens spreading out.

[PinkSparklyPussyCat]

Same here. I've got a small garden but would hate to live in a flat without one again. If I'm supposed to stay at home for holidays I need some outdoor space!

[MarshaBradyo]

I’m not sure why gardens are so bad. I feel grateful for mine, and rely on it and would choose other changes over that

[PinkSparklyPussyCat]

So how does living in 'a small flat without a garden' help? I do get some of it, although I won't necessarily be doing it. There's got to be a compromise, not living in misery.

[Chocchops72]

But our ‘happy’ lifestyle is not sustainable.
It has been enabled and propped up by access to cheap fossil fuels for decades. These are no longer an option. How can we address that?