Saving the planet

I think the thing that really gets my back up is being preached to by celebrities...telling us all what to do  before hopping on another private jet to a climate change conference...
A lot of us can't afford to be anything other then eco friendly..

We'll have to start fitting air conditioning systems and painting houses white as standard in the UK in a few years time...    I've barely been able to do anything over the last 4 months due to the heat exacerbating my health issues...I dread the summer every year and it's only going to get worse in future.  Sadly a human cull isn't part of the climate fix, I'd be first in line if it was! 

I don't believe electric cars are the way forward either, we're in a transitional period of trial & error right now...  I genuinely believe they'll end up in a pile next to the Betamax's and Minidiscs.  They're alright for a small town runaround, but will never be viable for people driving big mileages for work.  Not to mention the UK's electricity infrastructure isn't there to support them in vast numbers either.

 I agree with @Oxonlady regarding extinction rebellion...if they were putting the effort into viable solutions with costs and timescales considered then they'd have a good argument.  Simply whining that you want something done, but don't know what or how, isn't helping anyone.

As far as generating electricity is concerned this may help in the future
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/laser-nuclear-fusion-experiment-energy

Username_removed said:

I can’t agree re: Extinction Rebellion. The reason this is even on our governments agenda or being discussed here is in large part because of the work they’ve done. The old “if they had viable solutions” argument wholly misunderstands what they’re about. The aim was to cause enough disruption to force the discussion. Does anyone really think climate change in the UK would be any more than an occasional flood, fire, rainfall discussion if ER hadn’t clogged up the legal system. 

Climate change has been on the agenda for over 20 years.  People were being pushed towards diesel cars from 2001 when the gov't changed VED to a CO2 based system. (Not the best idea for other emissions in hindsight, but good at the time).  Plenty of environmental technology has been put in place in the meantime as well, kerbside recycling, low energy light bulbs, cold-only washing machines, vacuum cleaners that suck (or rather, don't!), efficiency labelling on appliances, energy efficiency certificates for properties and grants to improve them, windfarms, energy-from-waste plants, etc.  Travel programmes created by Simon Reeve, Joanna Lumley etc have been highlighting the global issues with climate change for years.  It was quite a large part of our school studies back in the 2000s as well. 

I don't believe the issue is one of ignorance towards the subject.  But more that much of the general public couldn't care less until it directly affects them.  And those that do care are unable to make changes due to finances, accessibility, availability or simply because the UK is now designed around the car.  50 years ago you could get everything you need on your street...no longer since supermarkets and huge out of town stores...and the fact we're having to build further and further away from every town centre now.  Can't get a full weeks shopping on a bus or bicycle even for those able to use them.  The government doesn't have the finances to make the necessary changes (especially after Covid) and they can't force the huge societal change that's needed on the public either.  The change needs to be welcomed by the public.  Frustrating people by blocking roads isn't going to do that...if anything, it's just going to wind them up and make them retaliate by rebelling against the solution, as can be seen across the internet over the last few days.  Human behaviour needs to be taken into account here, same as it was for the Covid restrictions. 

Of course, I don't have a solution either (apart from the above mention human cull) so maybe I'm just as bad here! 

I'm very uneducated and not particularly intelligent so bear that in mind.(I don't mean please be nice to poor little me)..but I kind of think there's no shoving genies back in bottles, rather find better ways to deal with the stuff the genie spewed out... 
More effort and money in making plastic bio degradable ...stop making white goods that are made to be obsolete..
Nobody is going to want to stop driving, flying etc but public transport is rubbish and expensive in this country .
And where the hell were the thinking caps when it came to micro beads in products etc...
I just don't think telling people to stop doing stuff that's been taken for granted for so long is going to work so deal with the problems that, that causes.

Maybe it'll all be left for Hughie dewy and lewie.

Mike [removed by moderator] well expressed. I agreed with every word.  People could do worse than looking on-line at the XR policies, and their objectives.  Also, importantly, their appeal  for help from  disabled people and people who don't wish to, or could not,  use transport of any kind to reach a physical protest site.
They have an online campaign.  Everyone can join in.  Their first target is Barclays, who give more funding to fossil fuel than the whole of Europe does.  They also want to protest about governments, including UK, who actually subsidise use of fossil fuel.
The reason they are mainly protesting in the City of London, because pension funds and other major sources of money are pouring it into planet destroying businesses.

The Green Party has had some influence in Europe, due to proportional representation. Sadly, they have grabbed onto simplistic one-size ideas.  They wanted wood fired boilers, so American forests were felled to make fuel pellets, to be shipped to UK to be burned. Wood burning is a disaster. 
 
Diesel cars was one of their demands. They got diesel cars, then noticed they were a disaster. 

They wanted home insulation, which in itself is fine, but it transformed into a one-size obsession with cavity-wall-and loft, which ruined many houses and made them unsaleable. (Spray foam inside roof tiles is having to be removed, because trapped damp rots timbers, and cavity wall filling caused disaster in many cases)

The latest one-size is battery cars, and the idea that tree planting will 'offset' the harm everything else does.
Already the idea of battery cars is being seen as not a one-size triumph after all, and as for tree planting, it has immediately been perverted into get-rich quick schemes. 

Nothing has been done to avoid destruction of peat, which is a terrible thing to do.  Planning consent is being given for ripping them up to create housing estates.   It is still not illegal to dig them up for compost, or even for burning as fuel.   Other peat bogs are being ripped up to plant subsidised tree plantations of single species trees, with the intention of rapidly felling them.

Even now UK is out of EU, and could easily  declare the entire UK coastal waters are marine parks. (It is not impossible Eirre would wish to join in that scheme, EU or not)  The advantage is that it allows fishing to be only using methods a marine conservationist would approve, and only by boats licenced by marine conservationists.   Instead, boats from anywhere in the world but notably France are using dredging which destroys the sea bed and all potential habitat for nurseries for hatchling fish.  In less than 30 years, there will be a greater weight plastic in the seas than of fish. 

Probably the worst thing of all is the elephant in the room of the human population explosion.  Every country in the world needs to have immediate measures to reverse this. 
It's code red for humanity.       As XR say, Act Now Because It's Too Late.
  
P.S. The best thing to do about Christmas and every other form of avoidable mindless consumerism is to use our brains for the reason we evolved to do, and think for ourselves.   

(Children are ahead of elders, and they have a movement to refuse plastic toys. But buying anything new or single use or avoidable is always something to be carefully considered.  'Flight-Shame' is a major movement in Scandinavia. 'New-Clothes-Shame' is beginning to influence influencers, who prefer to be seen in their own clothes repeatedly, or have them altered, or else to hire clothes, or use swap systems, anything to avoid throw-away single wear clothes.  Denim is never acceptable, due to the water use growing and processing cotton and the dye pollution.) 

P.P.S.  Unusually, I left the adverts on T,V. with the sound on, while doing something else. It was astonishing that one after another was advertising products with scent. (Fake lemon scent is a particular problem) Chemical scent is damaging to health, and even carcinogenic. I believe some countries ban those air scenters, which are carcinogenic. No fake scent is safe, and it makes many people really ill. Asthmatics and others can have serious breathing problems if exposed to this poison.   It is every bit as bad as imposing second-hand smoke on people.  Why isn't it banned?  
(Why isn't palm oil banned?)

Surely the point about getting all countries to reach agreement still stands?

We may be doing more harm based on population, but it's still a relatively small population and in the scheme of things just us doing our bit wouldn't be anywhere near enough to make a difference.

I don't think that means we shouldn't bother but I do think we'd be better served dealing with the pollution we 've created and focusing on how to provide clean energy for powering our vehicles and heating our homes etc. Instead of just telling people to stop driving and put a jumper on.

And how do you get countries like brasil to stop clearing the rain forests in order to make land to farm and make a living from?

And population growth?