The only two former PM's I can recall being strong enough and committed enough to drive through on their promises (green or otherwise) were Churchill and Thatcher.... not a good sign really, although Boris does fancy himself in this sort of company, these are two of his heroes!
Climate Change | UN Report: Code Red for humanity
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The only two former PM's I can recall being strong enough and committed enough to drive through on their promises (green or otherwise) were Churchill and Thatcher.... not a good sign really, although Boris does fancy himself in this sort of company, these are two of his heroes!
Social pressure needs to play a role here to change what people see as aspirational and acceptable behaviour.
When someone says they flew to the other side of the world for a two week holiday in the sun, the response needs to be less 'oh wow, how cool' and more 'how selfish'.
The same when someone says they bought a petrol or diesel new car. Or when they show off a bunch of new clothes. Or when they say they're expecting their fourth child. etc.
When someone says they flew to the other side of the world for a two week holiday in the sun, the response needs to be less 'oh wow, how cool' and more 'how selfish'.
The same when someone says they bought a petrol or diesel new car. Or when they show off a bunch of new clothes. Or when they say they're expecting their fourth child. etc.
It's a great strategy for ending up without any friends.
With the exception of buying a new diesel/petrol car in 2021, these aren't really things for the individual to resolve. It's up to the aviation companies to figure out how to make flying more sustainable going forward using all their billions. It's up to government's and fashion companies to implement strict measures on fast fashion and instead use recyclable and recycled materials. As for the child bit, well, almost all developed countries already have falling birth rates so unless you mean Africa where there is still huge infant mortality and a lack of contraception, how can you tell them that? Again, it's up to wealthy countries to help them get to a similar point as us.
The problem with your logic there is that it places all blame on individuals rather than forcing government's and corporations to adapt and change their practises. People will adapt if they're given the infrastructure and rules that enable them to. We are seeing it with an increasing number of vegetarians and vegans as the food becomes more popular. We're (slowly) seeing it with electric cars. We're seeing it with recycling which was basically non existent only decades ago. Generally most people, at least under the age of 40, will go for the more climate friendly option if it's feasible to do so.
The bulk of business, consumerism, capitalism, money is tied up in environmentally damaging activities. The idea that you can replace all of this with the same but just make it a green version seems preposterous, and if you genuinely believe we can do that and do it quickly enough to avert serious damage to human habitation then you are fecking delusional. But Bezos went up in a rocket so let's all have a wank.
At the end of day the only way to save the world is for all us to become hippies.
Fair points, and in reality it’s a bit of both. There’s plenty of blame to go round.
Yes, governments need to get the economic incentives right and corporations need to abide by them. But the idea that we can carry on living our current lifestyles while green alternatives are developed is nonsense. Even in the best case scenario, electric-powered commercial aviation is decades away, for example.
Here’s the thing though, this is a massive opportunity to focus on what really improves people’s lives and happiness. If the research showed that buying more and more stuff and living a consumerist lifestyle was what truly made people happy, then I’d agree we’d be fecked. But thankfully, the research doesn’t show that. Living on a hedonic treadmill does nothing for our happiness. We’ve all been sold a lie. The things that tend to actually make us happy are quite straightforward:
- Fresh fruit and vegetables
- Plenty of water
- Regular exercise
- Plenty of sleep
- Helping other people
- Supportive friends and local community
- Meaningful work etc
Yes, it's definitely a bit of both. Responsibility needs to be taken from top to bottom. My point really was that people will only adapt when they need to. We are an inherently selfish species and most people will simply not make sacrifices that massively upend their current way of life without direct intervention from their government. Just look at Covid, any time restrictions were even remotely eased, so many people took the opportunity to go wild rather than still try to follow basic rules set out. People just will not stop travelling or buying cars or buying meat or having kids if they want to without direct intervention. In wealthy countries people want to live the best life they can and right now that sadly involves emitting a lot of dangerous shit into the atmosphere!
Not even pretending to care. I'm pretty sure not doing so will cause a lot more money to be spent in disaster recovery and failing economies than putting some infrastructure in place now...
I was reading a piece in my newspaper this morning how the prevailing narrative on the right (at least in Dutch and UK media) remains 'sure it's important, but it shouldn't cost people though'.
They'd rather watch everything burn than paying a dime for any of it. It's incredible.
Its not just people in wealthy countries who want to live the best life they can. Its pretty universal and i wont be wagging my finger at people in poorer countries who want the same.
I think you'll find milk was delivered by an electric vehicle and bottle returned and reused (as were fizzy drinks but on a truck), we didn't have plastic bags and bottles and consumed far far less than the current generation. Own personal experience (of UK in the 70's) handed down clothes, parents had feck all money, rented TV, washing machine (no drier as it was clothes line or hung on radiator), no car, so it was walk, train or bus everywhere. Had zero overseas holidays until the 80's. We lived far more sustainably and didn't really have anything that would need to be recycled.
Then came Thatcher and Bush, they kicked off all the mass consumption and endless growth.
He may well fancy himself as an equal of those. But in point of fact, he has consistently shown himself to be anything but.
He likes to pride himself for his green credentials and likes to quote the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the UK.
But the truth is that much of the UK manufacturing has been 'subcontracted' to China and the far east. Where we know only too well that they are using coal fired power to provide the energy.
What really matters is the Total greenhouse gas emissions, not just what we directly produce in the UK.
Sadly true. I do wonder if people have it in them to change on a meaningful level (myself included)It's interesting to me that with Covid the phrase 'get back to normal' is mentioned continuously. Leaving aside the fact that the world was hardly a bed of roses before Covid, the climate catastrophe and the uncertain long term political and economic future mean such a phrase seems wishful thinking. The way should be forward not back.
Exactly.
Nicola Sturgeon was asked a similar thing about licensing new Gas Fields off Scotland. And she was very quick the jump on the 'we cannot do it all right now. And we will still have to provide the necessary gas supplies'.
While this is correct, it still shows the underlying intent to only move as slowly as possible and not drive change. But let change happen naturally.
History is going to be pretty damning about the leaders of the past 30-40 years. Particularly the ones of today, even supposedly green ones.
Ha, well, don't worry - change is certainly happy pretty naturally as it is!
True, but this is one of the facts of life that people conveniently forget about /ignore/or have no idea/perception.
Exactly the pandemic and our response to it (world wide) should be ringing bells, we managed (albeit for other reasons) to create a three four month space globally were significantly less planes flew and cars were not on the roads and the ozone layer started to heal... call it the law of unintended consequences whatever, it shows a possible way forward... but as @Buster15 says, its the totality that is important.
Will the earth survive after humans have been wiped out or will earth become uninhabitable and turn into something similar to Venus?
The Earth will be fine. If humankind were to be wiped out, forests would grow back like mad, and retake a lot of the CO2 from the atmosphere. A new equilibrium would be established, etc.
I mean, the earth has been through worse in terms of heat or drought or basically anything; and life has always found a way to survive and thrive. We'd have to really do something insane to mess up that up entirely.
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It's not clear if it's literally possible for us to do that even if we wanted to. It's probably not possible to just stumble into it. Of course, what we could do, or rather are currently doing, is start another mass extinction.
Life on Earth is probably going to exist for another few hundred million years no matter what we do. And after that the sun will have made it so hot that life is going to not exist on Earth no matter what we do. Hopefully we'll have moved by then, and taken some of the other life with us.
Nice.
I feel like the people laughing so hard the first few minutes don't actually really get what he's saying and where he's going with it.
All totally correct.
I am always amused when people say - we need to save the planet.
Well the planet has been here for over 4,000,000,000 years.
The biggest mistake of mankind is to think that this planet is there just for us. And that we own it and can do with it as we please.
We completely ignore the fact that the whole ecosystem was in balance. Until humans lost contact with nature.
Where we moving to?
Probably Mars to begin with, but the sun is going to feck that up too, so further and further out. Definitely we'll at one point colonize some of Jupiter's moons, maybe have fancy space habitats. Eventually we'll probably get to some other stars and start there, even if it will take us decades or centuries to cross interstellar space.
That is, unless there's some kind of mega AI out there killing everyone.
It is estimated that the Sun is about half way through it life cycle. That is a function of the rate that it is burning, through nuclear fusion, its Hydrogen turning it into Helium.
So much longer than a few hundred million years.
Unfortunately (well, I probably won't be alive, so I guess that's not the right word) the sun is giving off more and more light, and will keep doing so. So life on Earth will be impossible long before the sun enters its final phase. In a billion or so years there will only be single-celled life, and complex life will mostly be gone a few hundred million years before that.
Edit: that is to say, probably. Life may evolve other strategies once photosynthesis stops working properly, and some life could theoretically continue underground. Once you get above 1 billion years though, all bets are off.
Oh the sweet sweet irony of people who want to shame others for a holiday trip once a year yet contribute 20k posts on a forum to support a sports club where the teams flies around England/Europe every week so they can kick a ball somewhere away from home, including a baggage of fans that follow them.
The football industry is pure "unnecessary" entertainment that produces incredible amounts of emissions. From stadium constructions and maintenance, lighting, television and radio broadcasting, travel, fan article production, servers that run 24/7 for fan forums like Redcafe, not to mention enabling multi-millionaire footballers with gigantic Carbon footprints that own private jets, yachts and 20 bedroom villas with 10 cars in the garage.
Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor spectators parking lot:
But yeah, back to my mate and his 10 year old evil petrol car which he needs to get to work.
No, the things I enjoy are fine.Oh the sweet sweet irony of people who want to shame others for a holiday trip once a year yet contribute 20k posts on a forum to support a sports club where the teams flies around England/Europe every week so they can kick a ball somewhere away from home, including a baggage of fans that follow them.
The football industry is pure "unnecessary" entertainment that produces incredible amounts of emissions. From stadium constructions and maintenance, lighting, television and radio broadcasting, travel, fan article production, servers that run 24/7 for fan forums like Redcafe, not to mention enabling multi-millionaire footballers with gigantic Carbon footprints that own private jets, yachts and 20 bedroom villas with 10 cars in the garage.
Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor spectators parking lot:
But yeah, back to my mate and his 10 year old evil petrol car which he needs to get to work.
Disgusting behaviour from Mike
Oh the sweet sweet irony of people who want to shame others for a holiday trip once a year yet contribute 20k posts on a forum to support a sports club where the teams flies around England/Europe every week so they can kick a ball somewhere away from home, including a baggage of fans that follow them.
The football industry is pure "unnecessary" entertainment that produces incredible amounts of emissions. From stadium constructions and maintenance, lighting, television and radio broadcasting, travel, fan article production, servers that run 24/7 for fan forums like Redcafe, not to mention enabling multi-millionaire footballers with gigantic Carbon footprints that own private jets, yachts and 20 bedroom villas with 10 cars in the garage.
Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor spectators parking lot:
But yeah, back to my mate and his 10 year old evil petrol car which he needs to get to work.
You're right, the only choice is doing nothing because you're not going to fix it on your own and some people are worse. That way you get to feel superior and do nothing, it's win-win.
@Cait Sith has some kind of point though. Why exclude anything? Football clubs are rich enough - is United (or any other club) doing this carbon offsetting thing, and if not, why not?
Unfortunately (well, I probably won't be alive, so I guess that's not the right word) the sun is giving off more and more light, and will keep doing so. So life on Earth will be impossible long before the sun enters its final phase. In a billion or so years there will only be single-celled life, and complex life will mostly be gone a few hundred million years before that.
Edit: that is to say, probably. Life may evolve other strategies once photosynthesis stops working properly, and some life could theoretically continue underground. Once you get above 1 billion years though, all bets are off.
That is very interesting and I thank you for showing that.
I have to say that I don't quite understand how its luminosity is increasing while its temperature remains constant. But I will try to read about that.
Two problems with that: the hand brake wasn't put on for that long, and after taking the handbrake off people tend to accelerate a bit faster to make up for lost time. By December last year we were already emitting more year-on-year, and China were the early indicator of what the post-lockdown bounceback would look like: an economic rebound, as demanded in the current economic model, precipitates a spike in emissions.
We saw huge drops in emissions in flights, and huge increases in emissions from home development. Significant drops in commuting emissions, and significant increases in home temperature control (heating / air con).
With the incentives and value systems we have, it's very easy to just displace those emissions from one activity to another, or from one time to another. And that depends upon the blind hope that some technology or act of god will just suddenly save us. Covid has shown us why that act of god isn't a likely solution.