Reduce your impact

[Loki]

Met vows to make more pre-emptive arrests after M25 hit by climate action

Police say sections of motorway were brought to standstill after activists glued or locked themselves to gantries

www.theguardian.com

Whilst direct disruptive action might spoil a few peoples day, what alternative is there to (attempt) to make people listen? Everyone has a voice they may say but the ‘government’ has its fingers in its ears whilst chanting “growth, growth, growth”.
I’m not posting to condone their action or to suggest supporting them, but to stop and consider our own actions and their impacts on the environment.

 

[cap n chris]

Buy nothing, travel nowhere, don't reproduce and die young is how to save the planet.

 

[cavingbiker]

Lobby your MP, snow them under with email/letters, make their life hell. It is what they are paid for and signed up to.

 

[aricooperdavis]

Also, vote with your wallet. For example, reduce your red meat and milk consumption, buy in-season local fruit and veg, take public transport, repair rather than replace, switch to a renewable energy tarrif, etc. Not only do all these things reduce your carbon footprint in themselves, they also support low carbon industries.

 

[Pitlamp]

Also, vote with your wallet. For example, reduce your red meat and milk consumption, buy in-season local fruit and veg, take public transport, repair rather than replace, switch to a renewable energy tarrif, etc. Not only do all these things reduce your carbon footprint in themselves, they also support low carbon industries.

All of that makes sense - and I'd far prefer to do it voluntarily than have the government restricting my life through legislation even more than they do currently. But dare I mention one teeny addition to your list? Try to cave locally rather than going on frequent long haul expeditions? (I know, I know - that thought may be anathema to some forum members - but read on before sticking pins in my effigy.)

The travel involved (and heavy equipment movement) has a significant impact on individuals' personal carbon footprint. I'm not saying don't go away on holiday / expeditions (perish the thought!) - I'm just suggesting maybe this is a factor which perhaps might be given a bit higher priority when we're planning the enjoyment of our free time? It was one benefit of the various "credit crunch expeditions" which never really got flagged up. And there are still so many exciting challenges for exploratory cavers to get their teeth into here at home in the UK.

Although I have a car, I try to use it only for journeys for which public transport really doesn't work. We're lucky in having an excellent bus service running up the A65 between Skipton and Kirkby Lonsdale (the 581) and railway lines radiating from Settle to "useful" areas (from a caver's perspective). I'm sometimes able to join caving trips via bus travel and last year I even managed to do a cave dive by travelling there and back on the train. (Admittedly it was just a single small tank dive but the rucsack was still big & heavy. Fortunately the conductor never noticed all the "cave juice" leaking out of the rucsack on the return journey!)

I enjoy the logistical challenge of trying to reduce car use, for environmental reasons. (Obviously this can't work for everybody.) But there's something quite pleasant about letting someone else drive on one's journeys occasionally.

 

[Fjell]

I would be slightly more impressed if they were actually doing something or had anything resembling a plan. It’s slightly narcissistic to assume that only they have actually heard of global warming over the past 30+ years, or done something meaningful. But none seem to be the engineers and technicians who are actually going to design and build the future. The UK‘s emissions are only just above the global average per head and falling, and it actually has a plan of sorts to do something. It isn’t here that anything will be solved if you are honest about it.

China has 30 times the emissions of the UK and its Dear Leader isn’t bothering to go to Egypt. Nor is India, Canada or Australia amongst many others. I can understand Putin not going becuase who wants to be BIlly No Mates at a jolly knees up?

If you want to do something meaningful then campaign for the building of at least 30-40 GW of nuclear power in the UK. Starting right now. It will take 15-20 years. There is literally nothing else that can have a bigger impact. Without it we will be burning gas to charge electric cars in 30 years time for sure.

 

[Pitlamp]

Fair comment Fjell.

But we can still all do things to help direcdtly meanwhile. To paraphrase a well known bit of propaganda from a previous generation:

"Daddy, what did you do in the war (against climate change)?"

 

[aricooperdavis]

China has 30 times the emissions of the UK and its Dear Leader isn’t bothering to go to Egypt.

Our "glorious leader" is only going because the media guilted him into a U-turn. He still intends to talk the talk whilst doing as little as he can get away with without impacting his popularity too much.

On the plus side there's a generation of voters coming up who really care about the climate crisis.

 

[pwhole]

And because the previous, previous 'glorious leader' is also going, grandstanding his supposed green credentials - after being urgently brought back from a Caribbean holiday (whilst being a sitting MP with Parliament in session, and which included a 'secret' trip to the US for a 'speaking engagement') for a failed attempt at a leadership bid. That a guy with so many personal pointless airmiles can even be allowed to enter the building speaks volumes about the real aims of the show - showbiz for ugly people. I can't see it getting very far without China Russia and India involved, but they still have these 'internal difficulties' to sort out - which I suspect in the case of China may only be just around the corner for some. Robots in a coconut shy doesn't look like leadership to me.

My caving life is pretty much tied to the bus, being a non-driver - but it only works so far. Due to the endless cutbacks I can barely get to places like Calver/Stoney/Eyam now, at least for practical caving - last bus back to Sheffield is 5pm, when I used to be able to go digging and get one at 22.20 a few years ago. Yesterday I got to the Chapel on the bus and then had to get a lift to the cave, which I guess is pretty normal, but I could have got far closer on the bus for the lift - if there had been one.

 

[alanw]

"Daddy, what did you do in the war (against climate change)?"

To which no-one will answer "I chose not to have children".

 

[Fjell]

Hopefully it’s obvious we need to build a power system capable of heating every building in the UK before we convert those buildings to electric from gas. Given that both take decades to achieve it needs to start with the power side.

The UK is currently teetering on the brink of insufficient power due to no new power stations being built, neither the generation or the grid is capable of sustaining any significant increase in electric use, we have been relying on imports from French nuclear (which is currently a bit FUBAR). So you can’t convert houses and buy many more electric cars until that work is done.

Heartfelt emotions don’t solve those issues, but £2 trillion might. Spending that money will be impossible if politicians don’t stop scoring political points when severe constraints on spending in other areas become necessary.

 

[Chocolate fireguard]

To which no-one will answer "I chose not to have children".

If I was ever tempted to post on the Friday Joke thread, it would be something like " I have (2,3,4...) kids so obviously I care about climate change".

 

[alanw]

If I was ever tempted to post on the Friday Joke thread, it would be something like " I have (2,3,4...) kids so obviously I care about climate change".

...5...6...7...8...... just like Boris, having just flown to Egypt for a climate conference.

 

[Rob]

...we have been relying on imports from French nuclear (which is currently a bit FUBAR). ...

Whilst that has been true in the past, it's worth noting that so far this year the UK has been a net exporter of electricity, primarily to France with an average of 1.2GW. Not saying we don't rely on imports to "keep the lights on" at times, but worth keeping in mind.

And as i write this, 49% of our electricity supply is coming from renewables...

Source: https://grid.iamkate.com/

 

[ChrisJC]

Buy nothing, travel nowhere, don't reproduce and die young is how to save the planet.

Entirely true. Yet when I have mentioned solutions of this nature I tend to hear excuses explaining why it's other people who need to make such sacrifices.

Chris.

 

[Alex]

There's very little we can do as individuals with society as it is, we need a fundamental change. We also would not have to make some of these sacrifices if government got off their arse, if we switched to 100% renewables/nuclear with electric vehicles, then we could live almost normally without destroying the planet.

I think beating climate change is through technology. We could even grow GM meat with the right technology, meaning no animals are harmed and no methane produced.

Failing all of that, there's simply too many humans on this world, so we either start leaving via space travel (we are no way near this, despite what Musk thinks, he just want's to escape his own mess!) or we blow ourselves back to the stone age to reduce population (most likely), or climate change will do that for us (also likely).

 

[Alex]

What I am trying to say is the most you can do without changing the government's mind which is what just stop oil is trying to do is just token differences that may make you feel better, but make no real difference while the fundamental problems remain.

 

[grahams]

I've reduced my impact as far as is practicably possible (bike, insulation, new windows, LEDs, solar panels, house battery, HPAC, ID3, bottle jacket and veggie). Could the JSO boys and girls please stop bothering me now.

 

[Ian Ball]

Have a look at a carbon footprint calculator.

WWF Footprint Calculator

Calculate your environmental footprint and learn how you can reduce your impact with WWF's Footprint Calculator.

footprint.wwf.org.uk

Might give you a few thoughts of small measures.

In terms of power generation, do energy reclamation plants count? We've built a fair few of them recently.

 

[Lizzie84]

'You will own nothing and be happy'...this thread sounds like a (WEF) dream. One must be careful what you wish for. Whilst you're all happily abstaining and blowing yourself voluntarily back to the stone age maybe let an eye wander over to what the big guns are doing; how are they living? How many houses they own and how many flights they are taking to tell you to eat bugs and stay home.
Electric isn't as clean as many seem to think it is far away behind the scenes in the huge lithium mines, and GM food isn't ever going to be as simply cultivated as your local farmers and growers market is....