Is Climate Change Our Fault?

[top4718 838]

What happens when we make all these changes, tax people to the hilt etc and the climate still changes??

[tinfoilhat 11]

14 minutes ago, top4718 said:

What happens when we make all these changes, tax people to the hilt etc and the climate still changes??

What if we do nothing?

[Mr Bloke 1,445]

10 minutes ago, tinfoilhat said:

What if we do nothing?

Hmmm...

I suspect this is a good example of just how these climate change conferences go.

 

Answering a question with another question is just a waste of everyone's time...

[El Cid 218]

34 minutes ago, tinfoilhat said:

49 minutes ago, top4718 said:

What happens when we make all these changes, tax people to the hilt etc and the climate still changes??

 

 

34 minutes ago, tinfoilhat said:

What if we do nothing?

Same outcome, it will take decades for the climate to change.

[Jim Hardie 527]

18 minutes ago, El Cid said:

 

Same outcome, it will take decades for the climate to change.

I thought it was already changing or is that just the weather?

[AndrewC 307]

I'm usually the last person to defend Johnson, but for once I have a tiny iota of sympathy for him, though he could have chosen his words more carefully (as always).

 

He was saying that recycling alone will not do the job of solving plastic pollution issues, and he's right. We have to couple recycling with an overall reduction in how much plastic we use in the first place. Perhaps if more eco-friendly plastic products, or a more effective eco-friendly way of disposing of plastic products comes along, then we could use what we want, but we're still short of that at the moment.

 

There are parallels in this with car use. Simply replacing every car with electric cars and maintaining existing levels of car use is not good enough. We have to reduce our levels of car use by switching as many journeys by as many people to alternatives like public transport & active travel. Electric cars are not entirely green (far from it, in fact) due to issues during construction, materials used, and also because they still create particulate pollution from braking. And you still have issues with congestion, road safety, inefficient use of urban space for transport infrastructure etc. etc.

 

Put simply, recycling, greening processes etc, doesn't quite cut it. We need to reduce unsustainable processes altogether.

1 hour ago, top4718 said:

What happens when we make all these changes, tax people to the hilt etc and the climate still changes??

The thing is, most solutions to climate change also tend to be beneficial to human society in a host of other ways, so it's not like they're things we shouldn't be trying to move towards anyway.

[top4718 838]

10 minutes ago, AndrewC said:

I'm usually the last person to defend Johnson, but for once I have a tiny iota of sympathy for him, though he could have chosen his words more carefully (as always).

 

He was saying that recycling alone will not do the job of solving plastic pollution issues, and he's right. We have to couple recycling with an overall reduction in how much plastic we use in the first place. Perhaps if more eco-friendly plastic products, or a more effective eco-friendly way of disposing of plastic products comes along, then we could use what we want, but we're still short of that at the moment.

 

There are parallels in this with car use. Simply replacing every car with electric cars and maintaining existing levels of car use is not good enough. We have to reduce our levels of car use by switching as many journeys by as many people to alternatives like public transport & active travel. Electric cars are not entirely green (far from it, in fact) due to issues during construction, materials used, and also because they still create particulate pollution from braking. And you still have issues with congestion, road safety, inefficient use of urban space for transport infrastructure etc. etc.

 

Put simply, recycling, greening processes etc, doesn't quite cut it. We need to reduce unsustainable processes altogether.

The thing is, most solutions to climate change also tend to be beneficial to human society in a host of other ways, so it's not like they're things we shouldn't be trying to move towards anyway.

A lot of the "solutions" seem to involve a tax or a price increase of some sort, surely making things like public transport cheaper and more viable would depreciate car use, we also just seem to have spurned a golden opportunity to get more people working from home, its this side of it that naturally raises scepticism.

Edited October 26, 2021 by top4718

[El Cid 218]

42 minutes ago, AndrewC said:

I'm usually the last person to defend Johnson, but for once I have a tiny iota of sympathy for him, though he could have chosen his words more carefully (as always).

 

He was saying that recycling alone will not do the job of solving plastic pollution issues, and he's right.

Why do you, or anyone else, think recycling is related to climate change?

 

Wind farms, solar power and electric cars, that is 'climate change'.

[PRESLEY 1,228]

1 hour ago, tinfoilhat said:

What if we do nothing?

Sounds like one of Boris's ideas,  

[Guest sibon]

11 minutes ago, El Cid said:

Why do you, or anyone else, think recycling is related to climate change?

 

Wind farms, solar power and electric cars, that is 'climate change'.

Recycling generally reduces carbon emissions in other areas. It is a vital part of any strategy to combat climate change.

47 minutes ago, top4718 said:

A lot of the "solutions" seem to involve a tax or a price increase of some sort, surely making things like public transport cheaper and more viable would depreciate car use, we also just seem to have spurned a golden opportunity to get more people working from home, its this side of it that naturally raises scepticism.

You are absolutely correct.

 

The only way to make meaningful change happen is if people see it as worthwhile.

 

That involves making things better, not worse.

[El Cid 218]

23 minutes ago, sibon said:

Recycling generally reduces carbon emissions in other areas. It is a vital part of any strategy to combat climate change.

 

Recycling means councils dont have to pay landfill tax, plastic is cheaper than paper, also means that we dont need to chop so many trees down and therefore uses less CO2 than the paper equivalent.

[Guest sibon]

23 minutes ago, El Cid said:

Recycling means councils dont have to pay landfill tax, plastic is cheaper than paper, also means that we dont need to chop so many trees down and therefore uses less CO2 than the paper equivalent.

It also means that you don’t have to refine more oil to make more plastic. It also means that you don’t have to mine and smelt more metal ores to make more metals.