“Greta would be proud” thread

Global warming then…

I’ve long been an ostrich about this sort of stuff. I haven’t been on a plane in 5 years, try to minimise non-work car journeys (I don’t have a choice not to take my car) and we have switched to green energy suppliers at home…

But still, I drive a diesel car (playing work card again here although actual reason is cost of electric cars and fear of them fucking up annual trip to France), eat far too much meat, drink too much milk and basically don’t give enough (any?) thought to this.

Northern Ireland hitting temperature records on top of West Coast US wildfires on top of the NW US heat dome on top of German floods on top of……it’s just never-ending and entirely unnerving.

I’m getting to the point where I suspect my kids are going to turn round and ask, “what have you done?” Both accusatory and asking, what have you actually done to change things?

Anyway, what ideas do people have on how we can actually change things simply in our lives that may make a change? Or are we all fucked, y’know cos China, or cos airlines? Any optimism out there?

I’m not expecting an ST lavender room level of skepticism but hell, I may be wrong…

Whatever changes we make, although helping the cause will be but a drop in the ocean compared to the damage being done elsewhere on the planet unfortunately.

I’ve been very good and cancelled 6 or 7 trips in the last year :wink:

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Stop breeding is the single biggest effect you can have.

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Yeah, think my 5 years sans aviation has been bolstered by children and then pandemic.

You’d like to think we’d have clawed back some bloody good in the last 2 years though, eh?

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I have thank you very much.

Oh, in general?

Yes, I believe the trend is very much towards fewer kids in future.

I believe we can all blame it on Boris then…as with everything…

No, I’d say the opposite. Every bit of ground (read ocean) that was made before COVID on single use plastics and throw away coffee cups has been obliterated.

Plus, with so many people, working from home and increased use on mobile tech, the environmental impact of data centres and MTX across the globe in 5yrs will make the headline grabbing ‘carbon offset’ of aviation look like a kid that’s dropped a sweet wrapper on the ground.

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And Bitcoin mining…

But we need some positives rather than “the world is fucked.” Although the world is fucked. Obviously.

But what can we, as generally a load of middle-aged parents and planet-botherers mostly via buying bikes, do?

I’m thinking I literally wouldn’t survive a vegan diet, but am going to cut down meat days. With regards dairy milk i’m kind of fucked, been drinking 10-15 pints of the stuff for years…anybody manage to quit dairy for some kind of weird plant-based shit?

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I’ve reduced the amount of red meat I eat to a minimum. Tried to make the whole family vegetarian/pescararian but then covid happened.

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I was a vegetarian for 15 yrs starting in the 80s and I’m not now but i probably only eat meat about 4 times a week.

Plant flowers that attract bees. now I’ve just 'scorched earth my garden but everything that goes into our planters is 'bee friendly.

Make stuff last longer. Don’t buy fast fashion and wake up the fact that a lot of things, even techie, can be repaired with a bit of patience and time.

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China has shut down mining, and half the miners/data centres were there. That’s a lot of electricity saved.

Mind you they I believe want to develop their own cyber currency to replace currency. More efficient and coincidentally easier to track everyone’s spending. Mind you Alipay etc are big anyway.

Money is but digits on a computer screen nowadays.

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I haven’t really done anything intentional , but I think my carbon footprint has reduced. We used to have 2 cars, mine was a 12mpg polar bear killer, we just have 1. I used to cycle to work plenty, although now worm from home. We never were people to fly a great deal. Been probably 3 years since I last flew. Haven’t flown longhaul in over 20 years.

Our house is pretty much as efficient as it can get. 11 inches loft insulation. Retro fit cavity wall. It could do with some renewable energy on it, but with the Feed in Tarrifs gone those are expensive.

Household waste we need to work on. We recycle everything but seem to produce more waste than everyone else on the street.

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Yeah us too. Glass, batteries, cardboard, plastics.

Don’t understand those families who put 1 bin out a year. That’d last us a day…

People in general wouldn’t listen when all this was obvious 50 years ago, now they want another excuse to do nothing different.

If all the educated, smart people stop breeding then we have a world filled entirely by stupid people.

Whilst I agree with the sentiment I disagree with the statement - this isn’t a zero sum game. Everything positive done before covid is stuff we don’t have to sort out now.

Tell everyone to stop driving everywhere…but the real gainz are in industry. By badgering the middle class in their personal lives, they will take it to their work lives and have a much greater impact on an industrial scale. This is already happening.

Indeed but plant anything - a greater awareness of how things live and die is good for us and for the people around us.

Come again? :face_with_monocle:

A good step, overall mileage is needed rather than mpg to determine the pollution created though. :+1:

Same here. My wife just won’t stop spending money, so yes financial prudence will help too or simply being stingy.

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I think the UN needs to leverage Covid to attack deforestation and land reclamation. I don’t give a shit what people think was the cause of Covid we need to stop all of it now.

Recycling AAA batteries ain’t gone cut the mustard.

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Interesting, but again respectfully not helpful. I’ve not deforested owt. Indeed the tree that blocks the sun at the bottom of our garden would be well dead by now if not for my veto, having buried multiple cats at its base….

It all still sounds like “it’s someone else’s problem.” I’m ok with that, if it is that hopeless. Unless doing something at such an atomic level would indeed make real world differences….

But I don’t see how I can influence Honduras, Nigeria, the Philippines etc ie apparently the currently most guilty culprits in deforestation. Never mind Brazil and the US/ Canada and their unfortunate forest fires…

I did find it interesting reading about Las Vegas the other day…apparently water loss is so bad that they’re planning to get rid of all grass verges…to reduce water losses…

Can’t help thinking they’re missing the bigger picture….

People are just giving their opinions. What are you expecting them to say?

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We’re a democracy with nuclear weapons.

Maybe if I was an Etonian with a penchant for discarding kids then…

Eh?

Where have I been snotty?

Just asking honestly if we’re fucked, if anybody has any ideas?