I think there are 3 questions.
1) is climate change ACTUALLY happening?
2) is most of it man made?
3) can we actually do anything about it?
None of these can be actually proved even if there is strong evidence to suggest they are all possible.
1) Unless you can be 100% certain what's the risks of being wrong?
Let's say there's someone who believed that it is an issue and it turns out not to be, the biggest risk is that they live somewhere where cars are used much less, those cars which are used pollute a lot less and energy production is mostly done locally (i.e. no need to import coal, gas and oil)
Concealer let's say there's someone who believes that there's not an issue and it turns out that it is. Then there could be much bigger risks. Even if the UK benefits overall, the problem is that many other places won't and so guess where people from those locations would like to end up? Those places which haven't been impacted by the changes as much.
2) actually I'd argue that it's doesn't matter or not if most of it is man made. Rather how much beyond what the planet can deal with do we create.
For example if nature (including us breathing) produces 85 units of CO2 and the planet can deal with 100 no problem, then the fact that we create 40 from our activities is then going to stress the planet in that it's above what it can deal with - even though the man-made is less than 1/2 of what is natural.
In that scenario we'd need to reduce by 65% what we produce to allow the planet not to be stressed further. However as CO2 takes a long, long time to break down, we've got several years (if not several decades) worth of offer producing CO2 which needs to be removed to relieve the pressure on the planet to a point where we've average a total emission of 100.
3) yes there quite a lot that can be done, most of it is a long way short of moving back to living in the dark ages.
Take for example the amount of energy we use in our gadgets. The vast majority of which use tiny amounts of energy, to the point that even with multiple televisions, tablets and/phones in a house the energy consumption is quite small compared to if we had multiple televisions from the 1990's.
Whilst there's an element of eco hair shirting (i.e. look how much I'm doing) there's also an element of in bit going to try even though a lot can be done without it being that noticeable.
For example, whilst it's better to not fly, there's an element of a flight or two a year isn't really a significant issue. As actually most aviation emissions are created from a very small percentage of people. It's why some of the more pragmatic argue for an airline tax based on the number of flights you take.
For example standard APD for the first two or three fights, but then ramp it up rapidly as the number of flights increase. It would allow flights to happen, however there would be a significant cost of you took 5 a year but one overseas holiday wouldn't be too costly.
Only one slight problem with that post, most of it has been happening for years, some decades and even centuries. But thank you for demonstrating the kind of scare tactic that people will quickly tire of.
But not wanting to ignore the issue, here's an alternative way to encourage change, though be warned it requires actual effort rather than easy clichés. How about striving to make the greener energy sources cheaper? Then instead of blaming the public, you can ask them "would you like cheaper energy?". I'm pretty sure you'd onboard people far more actively than trying to shame them. Now let's have a debate as to how to make that happen maybe?
Wind and solar have dropped in cost significantly and are much cheaper* than gas powered electricity.
* older wind/solar are coupled to the cost of hydrocarbons and therefore don't impact the cost of electricity bills in the way that they otherwise could - something that the government could do but appear to be unwilling to do.
You're right, but so far climate change hasn't played any meaningful part in that.
Those pushing net zero seem to want us to accelerate that process *further* (!), by forcing us to give up eating meat, heating our homes properly, driving a car or going on foreign holidays.
A cynic may suggest that as the decline of western civilization is ongoing, a clever political class would try to persuade the people that the sacrifices they were voluntarily making, or being forced to make, were 'necessary' and for some greater good, rather than because they have mismanaged almost everything for decades now. Far better to get the people to agree to their own decline ('ah, things are getting worse because they have to because climate change') than face up to the fact that it didn't have to be this way ('why are things getting worse? Why are the politicians so useless?').
Arguably our lack of past action means that we've got to do more now.
Take for example that 100 units of CO2 that the planet could cope with, if we'd reduced the man-made from 125 to much closer to 100 earlier - even if we had only just got to 100, then what we would need to do now would be much easier.
Not because the next cuts would have been easier, but rather because the total in the atmosphere would be far far lower.
Let's say we manage to not increase our global emissions from 2010 (peaking at 115 rather than the current 125) and then had managed to reduce them back to 100 at a rate of 1 unit a year since then this would have meant about 225 units of CO2 less being emitted into the atmosphere than would otherwise be the case.
This would have made getting to a point where we averaged 100 units per year would be a significantly easier task, not least as any further reduction would be in the reducing the average side, rather than still increasing the average (and fairly significantly).
Just on the heating your home, do you wish guess at the European country which has a much more advanced market for heat pumps (i.e. has a far greater number being brought, even though the population isn't as large)?
Clearly it's got to be somewhere a bit warmer than us, right?
No, it's Norway. If Norway can use heat pumps whilst being further north than the vast majority of the population of the UK (the southern edge is about in line with Inverness), then maybe some of the concerns about them may be slightly over exaggerated - maybe those with a vested interest are trying to maintain the status quo.
Can you maybe clarify what you mean by this? UK emissions are considerably lower than the US and China's (1.1% vs 14% and 30% respectively) but I'm not sure if you're talking on a per capita basis which I don't know the figures of or if you meant something else entirely.
Sorry I wasn't clear by personal I meant per capita, where the USA is quite a bit higher than we are now but not that different to where we were a few decades ago.
Why am I apathetic?
- I think it's become a bit like a religion that demonises non-believers and tries to indoctrinate anyone who will listen, possibly with an agenda behind it.
- There have always been temperature fluctuations and these are natural.
- I believe that necessity is the mother of invention, and that whatever happens in terms of climate, humanity will adapt to deal with it.
- I think that as Britain led the world in industrialising to move beyond an agrarian economy, it is incredibly hypocritical to lecture developing countries on this topic or prevent them from industrialising to attain higher standards of living.
The first point could be said of either side - to illiterate this, there are some on the anti side who (appear) to believe that net zero means that there would be actually zero carbon dioxide being produced, in that they share memes of living forests with the caption carbon dioxide and dead forests with the caption without carbon dioxide. If someone were to try and highlight that net zero only relates to man made emission, and at least some would be by doing offset projects I suspect that anyone trying to do so would be treated in a similar way to has been highlighted above.
Of course that doesn't excuse that behaviour from either side.
Whilst it's true there's always be temperature fluctuations, these often took place over much longer timeframes. The concern isn't so much that they are changing but rather the rate of change.
Whilst I appreciate your optimism (not that I doubt that we're generally good at coming up with solutions) it does appear than a lot of viable options which have been come up with do appear to face more headwind when it comes to their development and take up than perhaps it's justified.
By all means highlight that if your house is from the 60's with no insulation and is single glazed than a great pump probably isn't the best solution for you. However a modern house with underfloor heating is likely to be fine.
By all means highlight that our public transport is never going to be suitable for those in remote rural locations. However for the circa 85% who live in urban areas (somewhere with a population of over 10,000) there's probably a lot more which could be done by public transport, especially if it were to see improvements.
By all means highlight the issues with HS2. However something similar to it is required to reduce the need to fly to the central belt of Scotland and ease congestion to the existing rail network.
I agree that it's hypocritical to say you can't develop, what's hot hypocritical is to question do they need to follow the exact roadmap we did. For example how many developing nations have insisted on developing a stream powered rail network before progressing to 1930's type cars?
The reality is that many would like to be where we were 20 years ago, why can't they be closer to where we are now - or even be able to get ahead of us in terms of market share for certain things as they don't have to overcome established products and lack of desire for change.
