Why are certain people completely apathetic or opposed to the idea of tackling climate change?

[AndrewE]

My understanding of the incident, as reported in several papers, was that the woman suffered "...a medical episode..." which caused her to lose control of the car.

I don't think anyone is in a position to say that the accident would not have happened had she been driving a different vehicle.

Since the full facts have not been established, no-one should be jumping to conclusions about the real causes of this incident, particularly as there may be legal proceedings in the future.

But such niceities are wasted on the climate change loonies, and to my mind it is utterly disgusting that they are seeking to use this terrible tragedy for their own highly debatable purposes.

but there can be no doubt that the engine power and weight (momentum) of the vehicle means it will have been a far worse outcome than if it had been a Ford Fiesta...
It's fair to say that if nobody drove "Chelsea tractors" around towns then lots of accidents would result in less serious injuries (and fewer deaths) of the weaker parties in the collisions.

 

[dakta]

We don't know, if this person had a range rover because they lived on a farm, or frequently tow, or have to frequently visit sites (i.e construction) , or why they happened to be an owner of a vehicle of this size (let's not comment on engine size or power, many BMW X3's are a perfectly ordinary 2.0 as an example out of thin air and I'd argue underpowered as a result). Even if they are a chelsea tractor, which we don't know, there's actually absolutely nothing wrong with buying the car you like. Obviously you should drive a vehicle of a given size responsibility and with view to it's size, power, momentum - that's why we have driving standards, the highway code and the laws that come with.

what we do know, is this absence of facts has been used as a justication point to attack a totally legitimate business, completely unrelated to the matter at had, which has caused financial cost, inconvenience and damage as well as potential harm to reputation as people will now think they have some involvement.

Your post does, albeit indirectly, give all the information you'd require to understand why these apathetic attitudes exist and why such views don't get taken seriously - they just simply don't warrant it. We've gone from a woman who is suspect of driving in a careless manner resulting in the death of two children and has been arrested to that effect to visiting random dealerships and slashing stocks of tyres on the apparent grounds that 'if ti had been a ford fiesta it wouldnt have been so bad, plus bigger vehicles are bad for the environment so it's all good in the hood". It's daft and smacks of people just wanting to use any excuse they can to justify being pretty awful human beings in their own right. The fact they snuck the - up to that point - irrelevant environmental aspect of it in right at the end is the bit of a giveaway.

 

[duncanp]

We don't know, if this person had a range rover because they lived on a farm, or frequently tow, or have to frequently visit sites (i.e construction) , or why they happened to be an owner of a vehicle of this size (let's not comment on engine size or power, many BMW X3's are a perfectly ordinary 2.0 as an example out of thin air and I'd argue underpowered as a result). Even if they are a chelsea tractor, which we don't know, there's actually absolutely nothing wrong with buying the car you like. Obviously you should drive a vehicle of a given size responsibility and with view to it's size, power, momentum - that's why we have driving standards, the highway code and the laws that come with.

what we do know, is this absence of facts has been used as a justication point to attack a totally legitimate business, completely unrelated to the matter at had, which has caused financial cost, inconvenience and damage as well as potential harm to reputation as people will now think they have some involvement.

Your post does, albeit indirectly, give all the information you'd require to understand why these apathetic attitudes exist and why such views don't get taken seriously - they just simply don't warrant it. We've gone from a woman who is suspect of driving in a careless manner resulting in the death of two children and has been arrested to that effect to visiting random dealerships and slashing stocks of tyres on the apparent grounds that 'if ti had been a ford fiesta it wouldnt have been so bad, plus bigger vehicles are bad for the environment so it's all good in the hood". It's daft and smacks of people just wanting to use any excuse they can to justify being pretty awful human beings in their own right.

I doubt whether the eco loonies give a **** about the two little girls who were killed in Wimbledon.

How do you think their parents are going to feel when they see this on the news?

Will it make them feel better? I doubt it.

A smaller car, or even a bike/e-scooter, can be just as lethal in the wrong hands.

 

[AndrewE]

We don't know, if this person had a range rover because they lived on a farm, or frequently tow, or have to frequently visit sites (i.e construction)

yeah, there are loads of farms around Wimbledon aren't there? and the picture https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...into-primary-school-in-south-london-wimbledon seems to show a gold range-rover without a towbar. I somehow doubt that she was driving round construction sites either... (and when I did that I didn't need an off-road vehicle, as on site we walked or used a dirty robust vehicle driven by someone who knew the local rules)

or why they happened to be an owner of a vehicle of this size (let's not comment on engine size or power, many BMW X3's are a perfectly ordinary 2.0 as an example out of thin air and I'd argue underpowered as a result). Even if they are a chelsea tractor, which we don't know, there's actually absolutely nothing wrong with buying the car you like. Obviously you should drive a vehicle of a given size responsibility and with view to it's size, power, momentum - that's why we have driving standards, the highway code and the laws that come with.

You don't think a Rangerover is unnecessarily heavy for town driving? If that isn't a Chelsea tractor, then what is? My problem is that our

driving standards, the highway code and the laws that come with [them]

are absolutely and proven to be totally inadequate to protect more vulnerable road users from incompetent drivers, who have no ongoing refresher training - most don't even know what the current Highway Code says.

what we do know, is this absence of facts has been used as a justication point to attack a totally legitimate business, completely unrelated to the matter at had, which has caused financial cost, inconvenience and damage as well as potential harm to reputation as people will now think they have some involvement.

Your post does, albeit indirectly, give all the information you'd require to understand why these apathetic attitudes exist and why such views don't get taken seriously - they just simply don't warrant it.

I would not try to justify serious criminal damage like this, but as the Suffragettes showed, polite debate doesn't get you very far when powerful vested interests are looking after their own privileged position.
And if you think I or these activists are apathetic, then just you wait until we get cross!

 

[GusB]

I doubt whether the eco loonies give a **** about the two little girls who were killed in Wimbledon.

Could you please drop the "eco loonies" rhetoric? Using terms like this makes you out to be every bit as extremist and it's adding nothing to the discussion.

While I agree that there are some people who go over the top - someone mentioned Monbiot earlier - not everyone who wants to do their bit to reduce their impact on the planet falls into this category. It's really not as black and white as you make out.

 

[dakta]

Not to be funny, but if you look at my X3 you won't see a towbar either. I bought it pretty much for towing, it sits in the boot and when I use it I just pop it in with a quick release latch. It also goes into the city on occasion, and to the shops, because I definitely need to tow but I also definitely need to go the shops and into the city too. This ain't anything difficult or groundbreaking.

I don't think these activists are apathetic either, it's me that's apathetic when I read what they're doing and how they justify it. What they are is vanilla pathetic. (ignoring the criminal aspect for a sec)

I don't really want to see them cross, I just don't want to see them full stop, hence, apathetic.

 

[The Ham]

Perhaps so, but it is very hard to look at this graph and say anything other than China is the main issue here

except perhaps to point out that the UK has *already* achieved quite a lot over the last 30 years or so in cutting emissions.

The reason (at least in part) is that there's a lot of people in India and China (both about 1.4bn), other reasonable reasons is that China produces a LOT of stuff for us. Therefore how much of those emissions are effectively outsourced emissions?

Yes, I know and clearly we couldn't cope with the ecosystem of Venus even though the planet itself would survive, that wasn't my point. But we've had far greater concentrations of CO2 in the past history of the planet, that may have resulted en somewhat of a different ecosystem but I'm not sure why we couldn't adapt if necessary.

Humans did originally evolve in rather warmer conditions than 90-odd% of us are now used to. While I personally am very uncomfortable with heat, we can certainly *cope* with it.

The issue isn't necessarily heat, rather extremes of weather, for some that will be great, for others that'll be unseasonal wet or dry or cool. Whilst for individuals that's fine, what about it food stuff, which typically needs reliable weather?

If we find that we have prolonged wet periods during the late summer/early autumn then we're going to struggle to harvest grain.

If we find that we have very heavy rainfall when crops are seedlings, they are likely to get damaged/washed away.

But from the graph about you can see the UK has already been doing that. It doesn't seem to have helped the situation in India or China very much.

A lot of what we've been doing in the first half of that 40 year period was swapping from coal to gas, given that gas isn't always that easy to transport (compared to coal, especially if there's not the pipe network) that's not always going to be an easy thing to encourage others to do.

Interestingly power generation would have been broadly flat since the first quarter of pay year if there hadn't been a drought meaning that hydro power was down by quite a bit.

Outside of our very obvious and successful move to nuclear and renewables I do wonder if much of that achievement is to do with our getting out of 'the general business of making stuff'.

Probably in part, although by doing the above is meant we're down at near zero ciao use for power generation.

Would you be a member by any chance of the infamous Club of Rome?

I have faith in God we'll make largely good choices, even if we stumble along the way. Having just one child as the Club of Rome advocated, for instance, is doomsaying writ large. Even Marxist China has reversed that ill-advised policy.

Mankind has shown a wonderful ability to pull people out of poverty over the years. This continues.

I am proud in Australia to own thermal coal shares as it powers the world, and contributes to the raising of material living standards in nations as varied as mainland China, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and many others too numerous to mention.

The mainland Chinese and India may have disparate political systems (and no, I don't support Marxism) but each continues to rely heavily on thermal coal. They are building many new efficient HELE power stations. Good on them!

An Indian villager may correctly regard electrification as a huge advance for his or her community as it facilitates entrepreneurship.

Are you saying these people (many of whom I briefly observed during rail travel in India in 2019) ought be denied the creature comforts that you and I take for granted?

The climate has always changed naturally and will continue to do so.

Why should the West hobble itself with higher energy prices via so-called 'renewables' that are useless on still hot nights in my nation? Only small-scale nuclear, thermal coal and natural gas-fired power stations work in such conditions. The West has a vital role to play in assisting those less fortunate to progress, just as we've done since the Industrial Revolution.

The amount of still hot nights is fairly limited (and currently tend to be when we're not using the highest amounts energy), however there are other options.

For example tidal, battery storage, pumped storage, and the like.

Also the cost of wind and solar is quite a lot cheaper than other methods of generation (according to here https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysi...offshore-wind-is-four-times-cheaper-than-gas/ half the cost of nuclear), which means that it's viable to store energy when it's cheap (high production, low demand) and sell it back when it's more expensive (high demand, low production).

Gas is currently quite expensive, with the above link citing costs of 9 times that of the renewables.

Even if we had to have gas for those hot still nights, there's nothing stopping us running renewables for all our energy use for (say) the other 85% of power generation that we need and only turning the gas power stations on as we need them.

Even if that costs us more money for each unit of gas used. Based on the above link:
Renewables £50
Nuclear £110
Gas £445

If the mix was 20% nuclear, 10% gas (but being switched on and off as we need it, so double the above rate) and 70% renewables the average cost would be £146.

Now whilst that's more than if it was 100% nuclear (£110), if we could manage to use those other options, at a cost of 4 times that of the renewables for that 10% the c/average cost would be £77, even at 8 times the cost it would still average out at £97.

I think you and I may possibly have different ideas of what I might be referring to as scaremongering. I'm mostly referring to the "we need to stop eating meat NOW"/"we need to close EVERY coal mine NOW"/"introduce a one/two child policy NOW"-type comments that are written in black and white. (By which I'm not denying that those policies would help, but that the benefits from introducing them gradually outweigh the combined benefits and harm from rushing them through in three seconds flat without thinking through the logistical consequences.)

Indeed, however many should have been implemented over the last 40 years, the longer we leave it the greater the need to do more extreme things more quickly.

Interestingly one way to reduce the number of children isn't necessary to bring in rules about what people can or can't do, but rather bring about better education for girls and women (mostly for those areas were education levels are poor). It's unlikely that there would be much in the way of unintended consequence in bringing in better education, so we could rush that in.

 

[VauxhallandI]

Could you please drop the "eco loonies" rhetoric? Using terms like this makes you out to be every bit as extremist and it's adding nothing to the discussion.

While I agree that there are some people who go over the top - someone mentioned Monbiot earlier - not everyone who wants to do their bit to reduce their impact on the planet falls into this category. It's really not as black and white as you make out.

Eco terrorists?
Eco criminals?
Eco vigilante?
Eco hypocrites?

 

[AndrewE]

Eco terrorists?
Eco criminals?
Eco vigilante?
Eco hypocrites?

so you think we have no climatic problems, and the government are leading us towards a safer future?

 

[GusB]

Eco terrorists?
Eco criminals?
Eco vigilante?
Eco hypocrites?

I rest my case. Another example of someone who fails to recognise that somewhere in between there is common ground and that the best way forward is compromise.

 

[341o2]

Fret not everybody, the planet will be saved.
I am going to stop driving my car

 

[VauxhallandI]

I rest my case. Another example of someone who fails to recognise that somewhere in between there is common ground and that the best way forward is compromise.

Oh really. Thanks for that.

I call disrupting roads, sporting events, breaking into retail property causing criminal damage and climbing on peoples building all of the things I stated.

Your rested case is frankly irrelevant

 

[duncanp]

I rest my case. Another example of someone who fails to recognise that somewhere in between there is common ground and that the best way forward is compromise.

If only these eco <use whatever word you like> could see the need for compromise.

But never mind, I am sure that slashing tyres on Land Rovers will make a large contribution to a reduction in global warming.

 

[GusB]

Oh really. Thanks for that.

I call disrupting roads, sporting events, breaking into retail property causing criminal damage and climbing on peoples building all of the things I stated.

Your rested case is frankly irrelevant

An extreme view.

If only these eco <use whatever word you like> could see the need for compromise.

But never mind, I am sure that slashing tyres on Land Rovers will make a large contribution to a reduction in global warming.

Another extreme view..

You're no better than the people that you're criticising.

 

[VauxhallandI]

An extreme view.

Another extreme view..

You're no better than the people that you're criticising.

How can observed reality be an extreme view? You are quite puzzling

 

[duncanp]

How can observed reality be an extreme view? You are quite puzzling

This is the point I was trying to make.

I cannot see the point in slashing the tyres of several Land Rovers, and how that is going make people in general more sympathetic to need to combat global warming.

Nor can I see how criticising these people is an "extreme" view.

Perhaps someone could explain the point of this action to me.

 

[dakta]

Well hold on a moment, that's a bit of an accusation. VauxhallAndI, I've never met you before, but I do have to ask - you haven't gone on, or planning any tyre slashing rampages are you?

I say that because, if you're as bad as they, and holding an opposing opinion is enough to justify action, you might want to consider it? You're already judged - you just need to earn the label.

I think eco loonies, warriors, whatever is actually a very relevant part of explaining for the reason of apathy towards the environmental concerns, because given the last few months it's probably the reason for apathy towards environmental concerns

 

[GusB]

This is the point I was trying to make.

I cannot see the point in slashing the tyres of several Land Rovers, and how that is going make people in general more sympathetic to need to combat global warming.

Nor can I see how criticising these people is an "extreme" view.

Perhaps someone could explain the point of this action to me.

That's entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Some idiots went to a car dealership and slashed the tyres of various cars. It's unfortunate, but so what?

I don't condone that behaviour in the slightest, but it's utterly stupid to blame climate campaigners for the idiotic actions of the few.

How can observed reality be an extreme view? You are quite puzzling

I'm quite puzzling? You're the one with the silly signature.

 

[dakta]

"That's entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Some idiots went to a car dealership and slashed the tyres of various cars. It's unfortunate, but so what?"

well they used climate change as part of the justification, and we're trying to discuss apathetic attitude towards climate change, for which weariness at activism seems to be a big factor. That's precisely the 'what'.

 

[Huntergreed]

To try to answer the question posed in the thread title, I think there are many reasons why individuals may either 'minimise' the impact they believe climate change will have or show an indifferent attitude towards actively preventing it. Each individual will have their own views on the topic (caused by a huge variety of factors including level of/type of exposure, the extent to which the individual is affected by climate change and the views of those who they spend most time with). Some factors which are definitely major contributors to leading views are:

The Capitalist Society

Living in a western, capitalist society means that the first priority of many people (particularly those who are wealthy and/or active in business and, dare I say, politics) is to ensure their financial and economic welfare. This will be prioritised above all else, including ecological welfare and the impact of their actions on others (beyond ensuring the legality of those actions). When these issues are downplayed (or 'glanced over') by those in high-up positions, this can cause others to develop similar attitudes towards the issue. The activities undertaken by those in these types of positions are some of the most environmentally damaging (such as taking private flights to conferences, choosing cheaper and less ecological production methods and choosing convenient and cheap waste disposal methods which can be highly unecological). This is a by-product of a capitalist society where personal success and finances are traditionally far higher up the list of personal priorities than carbon footprint and environmental awareness.

Whilst the activities and choices made by these individuals often do not make any significant economic/financial/social difference to their personal success, they generally make a much more significant difference to emission levels when compared to the average person. A 2017 paper by Dean Curran from the University of Calgary describes the 'treadmill of production' where the constant pursuit of corporate success across society can lead to very little economic/financial progress at an individual/corporate level. Environmentally damaging choices are made by those at the top of the corporate ladder, and these feed down into the general workforce (due to a prioritisation of personal success over ecological sustainability). Curran writes:

The theory of the treadmill of production highlights how the constant search for economic growth leads to advanced economies being stuck on a “treadmill,” where their well-being is not improved by economic growth, yet the impacts of this pursuit of growth causes massive, unsustainable environmental damages. In interrogating the specific driving force that keeps the irrational system of the treadmill so powerfully in place, the theory of the treadmill of production focuses on how those who control the production process, corporations, are the primary agents driving the treadmill, while also highlighting how the state and workers generally continue to provide support for the treadmill’s continued reproduction. In thinking about ways to begin to unwind the treadmill, there is a clear need to explore why workers, who are also consumers and citizens, continue to support (reluctantly or not) the treadmill of production.

(https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cars.12137 - Page 1)

How do we break this treadmill? It's an important question, and one that I suppose will become increasingly important (increasingly quickly) in the years ahead.

Exposure

I don't think anyone would say that there is a lack of exposure to climate change related information in the media (especially with the recent protests). There are multiple studies which demonstrate that there seems to be a solid awareness of the risks/harms of climate change in various demographics. Many of these studies highlight that those in the youngest generations in particular seem to have strong negative emotive responses related to the concept of climate change (the term to describe which used by academics seems to be 'Climate Anxiety').

Take this study which analyses the views of young people from a range of countries all around the world (aged 16-25):

According to our study, children and young people in countries around the world report climate anxiety and other distressing emotions and thoughts about climate change that impact their daily lives. This distress was associated with beliefs about inadequate governmental response and feelings of betrayal. A large proportion of children and young people around the world report emotional distress and a wide range of painful, complex emotions (sad, afraid, angry, powerless, helpless, guilty, ashamed, despair, hurt, grief, and depressed). Similarly, large numbers report experiencing some functional impact and have pessimistic beliefs about the future (people have failed to care for the planet; the future is frightening; humanity is doomed; they won’t have access to the same opportunities their parents had; things they value will be destroyed; security is threatened; and they are hesitant to have children).

(https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2542-5196(21)00278-3 Page e870).

This is understandable as this is the generation which will be most affected by climate change. These findings are backed up by the book 'Climate Psychology: On Indifference to Disaster' edited by Paul Hoggett, which states:

UK Data suggests that age is also an important factor - those least aware of and least concerned about climate change were older and less educated

(https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl...onepage&q=climate change indifference&f=false - Chapter 1 Page 3)

Another British study (Fisher, S., Fitzgerald, R. & Poortinga, W. (2018)) reaches exactly the same conclusion. Upon analysing the data from this, the researchers produced the following graph showing age group vs views on climate change:



from (https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/21046/1/bsa35_climate_change.pdf - page 1)

Spoiler

The graph measures three metrics:

- Proportion saying climate change is definitely/probably happening
- Proportion saying climate change is entirely/mainly caused by human activity
- Proportion extremely/very worried about climate change

These are measured across three age groups (18-34, 35-64 and 65+). The pattern is consistent across all three metrics, with those in the youngest age group scoring highest in all three metrics, and those in the oldest scoring lowest in all three).

The paper also states:

Older and less educated people are less worried about climate change and think that the
consequences will not be so bad.
• 31% of 18-34 year olds are “very” or “extremely” worried about climate change compared with
just 19% of over-65s.
• 35% of graduates are “very” or “extremely” worried about climate change compared with just
20% among those without any educational qualifications above GCSE level.
• These findings reflect similar age and education patterns as found when analysing views on the
extent to which climate change is happening and is caused by human activity

(Page 2)

Exposure and Relationship to Behaviour

I would argue that exposure is only part of the issue here. Several studies have shown that there is little relationship between exposure to/awareness of climate change issues and individuals making behavioural changes to reduce their own carbon footprint. Take this article which analyses the correlation between air travel behaviour and individual awareness of climate change/environmental damage:

The analysis shows that there is no association between general environmental awareness and air travel behaviour. The Spearman’s rank order correlation between the distance travelled by air and the NEP-scale in the sample as a whole equals 0.057 (n.s.), a result consistent with Holden and Linnerud (2011) who also found no significant relationship between the two variables.

(https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/09669582.2012.692686?needAccess=true&role=button - Page 285).

The article goes on to provide some speculative justifications for this lack of correlation, focusing particularly on the role of social psychology:

In the 1970s, much research focused on explaining inconsistencies between people’s attitudes and their behaviours (Gross & Niman, 1975; Schuman & Johnson, 1976; Wicker,1971). A range of factors have been identified which either attenuate the attitude-behaviour relationship or, in addition to attitudes, influence behavior. The present study adds to this research by revealing how subjects from their own standpoint resolve inconsistency between, in this case, their air travel behaviour and their concern for the climate change. Guilt and indulgence, for example, effectively reconcile the two. Due to these “counterintuitive” factors (i.e. high environmental awareness and high consumption of air trips) there is no relation between environmental attitude and air travel behaviour in the sample as a whole.

This result can be placed in the context of Billig’s (1987) rhetorical approach to social psychology, which posits that attitudes are not merely reflections of a person’s inner psyche, but represent positions taken in public debate. The social viability of these positions depend on their degree of consistency (an inconsistent viewpoint is easily attacked by others), but is not a necessary condition for its “survival”. The guilt factor illustrates this. Within this factor subjects actually acknowledge their inconsistency (statement 21: “My philosophy is in conflict with my flying behavior”). This acknowledgement does not lead, as many cognitive consistency theories (implicitly) assume, to an insurmountable psychological tension, but actually forms a powerful argument in relation to the other viewpoints, e.g. to those who ignore or deny the discrepancy. It is as if to say “I am inconsistent, but you are even more inconsistent given that you do not even acknowledge your inconsistency”. In sum, there is plenty of scope for people, as argumentative beings, to resolve inconsistency between attitude and behaviour to the point that a defensible viewpoint can be formed and communicated. Within this process acknowledging inconsistency can even be a successful strategy in developing a defensible viewpoint.

(Page 286)

Other interesting issues are highlighted in Paul Hoggett's book including an uneven distribution of awareness, where those living in the least affected countries tend to be the most informed, with those living in the most affected countries significantly less informed:

Drawing on data from over 100 countries a research time at Yale found that whilst 90% of those polled in North America, Europe and Japan were aware of climate change, compared to only 40% worldwide, they were much less likely to see it as a serious risk than those in developing countries

(https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl...onepage&q=climate change indifference&f=false - Chapter 1 Page 3)

This could arguably be contributing to a global case of reactive altruism (a tendency to only take action when one is personally affected by a situation). If this is the case, it may be that we only see serious action taken once the most influential countries are seriously affected by climate change. We can only hope this won't be the case.

Going back to the paper from which the graph was sourced, the paper states

This chapter has shown that most people in Britain have given at least some thought to the issue of climate change, and also that most think it is definitely happening. Total scepticism about the existence of climate change is rare, as is the belief that climate change is entirely due to natural causes. But most do not think that climate change is mainly caused by humans, and do not think the consequences will be very bad. The majority of people are only somewhat worried about it. In fact, people are rather less worried about climate change than they are about energy becoming too expensive.

Accordingly, people are ambivalent about taxing energy from fossil fuels, which could clearly impose a cost on them. They are notionally supportive of subsidies for renewables and bans on energy inefficient appliances, although our survey questions did not point out that those policies would come at a cost.

Overall, it appears that Britain is relatively relaxed about climate change, and not strongly divided over it. There are more worried than there are sceptical individuals, but the majority in Britain appears to have fairly middling attitudes towards climate change. They know about it, and acknowledge a human component, but are overall relatively indifferent and apathetic about climate change (Barasi, 2017).

Differences by age and education are reasonably strong and consistent when it comes to beliefs and concerns about climate change and what the government should do about it, but they do not extend to feelings of personal ability to make a difference or their own efforts to save energy. What divisions there are on other socio-demographic variables, such as sex, ethnicity, and income, are typically fairly weak and sporadic.

(pages 22-23).

I'm aware this covers just a tiny number of factors that may go towards answering the question posed in the thread title, but it hopefully provides some interesting reading (if nothing more!) and goes some of the way towards highlighting/explaining current British views.

 

[JamesT]

The reason (at least in part) is that there's a lot of people in India and China (both about 1.4bn), other reasonable reasons is that China produces a LOT of stuff for us. Therefore how much of those emissions are effectively outsourced emissions?

The climate doesn’t really care about per capita, it’s the absolute volumes of emissions going into the atmosphere that make the difference.
https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/china/exports/ claims about 20% of China’s economy is exports. So if they stopped making our stuff tomorrow, there’s still 80% to deal with.

The issue isn't necessarily heat, rather extremes of weather, for some that will be great, for others that'll be unseasonal wet or dry or cool. Whilst for individuals that's fine, what about it food stuff, which typically needs reliable weather?

If we find that we have prolonged wet periods during the late summer/early autumn then we're going to struggle to harvest grain.

If we find that we have very heavy rainfall when crops are seedlings, they are likely to get damaged/washed away.

Depends if there’s ways of getting crops to adapt. Warm and wet are generally good for plant growth. (E.g. English wine is increasingly a thing now the climate is more suited)

A lot of what we've been doing in the first half of that 40 year period was swapping from coal to gas, given that gas isn't always that easy to transport (compared to coal, especially if there's not the pipe network) that's not always going to be an easy thing to encourage others to do.

Interestingly power generation would have been broadly flat since the first quarter of pay year if there hadn't been a drought meaning that hydro power was down by quite a bit.

If you’re substituting gas for coal, the obvious way to do that is through using them for electricity generation and then distributing the power that way.

Probably in part, although by doing the above is meant we're down at near zero ciao use for power generation.

It’s partially a myth that we don’t manufacture any more. In real terms manufacturing output is about as high as it has ever been. But it’s no longer labour intensive and the massive increase in other sectors makes it relatively smaller part of our economy.

The amount of still hot nights is fairly limited (and currently tend to be when we're not using the highest amounts energy), however there are other options.

For example tidal, battery storage, pumped storage, and the like.

Also the cost of wind and solar is quite a lot cheaper than other methods of generation (according to here https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysi...offshore-wind-is-four-times-cheaper-than-gas/ half the cost of nuclear), which means that it's viable to store energy when it's cheap (high production, low demand) and sell it back when it's more expensive (high demand, low production).

Gas is currently quite expensive, with the above link citing costs of 9 times that of the renewables.

Even if we had to have gas for those hot still nights, there's nothing stopping us running renewables for all our energy use for (say) the other 85% of power generation that we need and only turning the gas power stations on as we need them.

Even if that costs us more money for each unit of gas used. Based on the above link:
Renewables £50
Nuclear £110
Gas £445

If the mix was 20% nuclear, 10% gas (but being switched on and off as we need it, so double the above rate) and 70% renewables the average cost would be £146.

Now whilst that's more than if it was 100% nuclear (£110), if we could manage to use those other options, at a cost of 4 times that of the renewables for that 10% the c/average cost would be £77, even at 8 times the cost it would still average out at £97.

I’m always a little wary of claims that renewables are so many times cheaper than thermal generators, if it were the case they wouldn’t be demanding subsidies to build. I suspect the renewables prices may be forgetting some of the other costs like grid connections which they require.
Or if you’re relying on storage to make your renewables available round the clock, should those costs be added in for a fair comparison?

Storage should indeed be a no brainier financially, the problem is scaling it to a size that’s useful. I don’t know about the requirements of countries with still hot nights, but David McKay (withouthotair.com) estimated the UK would need of the order of 1200GWh of storage to cope with a cold still period that isn’t uncommon in our winters. (I.e. minimal wind generation but high heating demand).
Last year 800MWh of utility scale storage was added.

Indeed, however many should have been implemented over the last 40 years, the longer we leave it the greater the need to do more extreme things more quickly.

Interestingly one way to reduce the number of children isn't necessary to bring in rules about what people can or can't do, but rather bring about better education for girls and women (mostly for those areas were education levels are poor). It's unlikely that there would be much in the way of unintended consequence in bringing in better education, so we could rush that in.

Who do you include in ‘we’? From the POV of the UK, we’ve done quite a bit over that timescale.

Better education for women and girls does seem to have a beneficial effect in this area. Unfortunately many of these poorer areas of the world seem to have a rather backwards view of providing it. Shall we have another go at invading Afghanistan to oust the Taliban and let girls go to school again?

 

[railfan99]

I’m always a little wary of claims that renewables are so many times cheaper than thermal generators, if it were the case they wouldn’t be demanding subsidies to build. I suspect the renewables prices may be forgetting some of the other costs like grid connections which they require.
Or if you’re relying on storage to make your renewables available round the clock, should those costs be added in for a fair comparison?

Storage should indeed be a no brainier financially, the problem is scaling it to a size that’s useful. I don’t know about the requirements of countries with still hot nights, but David McKay (withouthotair.com) estimated the UK would need of the order of 1200GWh of storage to cope with a cold still period that isn’t uncommon in our winters. (I.e. minimal wind generation but high heating demand).
Last year 800MWh of utility scale storage was added.

My country can have still hot nights. The true costs of 'renewables' are extremely high, and as you suggest, huge subsidies are routinely given by governments too scared to admit how relying on thermal coal, natural gas and small-scale nuclear would be far more effective, and ultimately cheaper. If it wasn't for subsidies, many wind and solar farms wouldn't be built. They do not stack up economically, and there's the other question mark given wind farms kill raptors and other birds, and solar farms take up large amounts of what may be otherwise productive agricultural land. Not that you get enormous amounts of sun in the UK!

While I am a long way away and hence won't see all media articles, I gather PM Mr Sunak has toned down the rubbish about 'net zero' and is acknowledging - at long last - that fossil fuels have a (major) role to play in ensuring Britons can stay warm in winter and other cooler seasons/days and that jobs can be preserved and added to. Great!

 

[birchesgreen]

Guess what, fossil fuel production gets massive subsidies too.

 

[VauxhallandI]

That's entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Some idiots went to a car dealership and slashed the tyres of various cars. It's unfortunate, but so what?

I don't condone that behaviour in the slightest, but it's utterly stupid to blame climate campaigners for the idiotic actions of the few.


I'm quite puzzling? You're the one with the silly signature.

You really don’t like other opinions do you?

How you can deny the facts in front of you is a sign you have potential to join the eco-virtue club

 

[Box]

[QUOTE="VauxhallandI, post: 6353012, member: 18571"

How you can deny the facts in front of you is a sign you have potential to join the eco-virtue club
[/QUOTE]

What is this eco-virtue club, is membership available to all.

 

[birchesgreen]

Benefits are certainly available to all, whether you think you need them or not (you do).

 

[VauxhallandI]

[QUOTE="VauxhallandI, post: 6353012, member: 18571"

How you can deny the facts in front of you is a sign you have potential to join the eco-virtue club

What is this eco-virtue club, is membership available to all.
[/QUOTE]
All you have to do is to make sure what you are demanding matches exactly with your own lifestyle but not others. You can then go merrily about stoking your beak into others lives whilst getting likes from others who probably have a different definition of why they want but all you can see is their eco badge so you can all pretend you are in the same boat.

For examples, see Brexit and Covid

 

[341o2]

That's entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Some idiots went to a car dealership and slashed the tyres of various cars. It's unfortunate, but so what?

So you condone the actions of this group? They sound like nice considerate people who will gladly discuss their cause with objectors.
I don't own a SUV and dislike Chelsea Tractors, but this doesn't give one the right to commit criminal damage.
I note some of this group are cyclists, reminds me of Ashley Carpenter, who, after claiming he was close passed and splashed by another, went on a tyre slashing spree

Controversial climate activists who deflate tyres on SUVs say they will target thousands more drivers in the coming months - and they will not stop even if their actions result in road accidents.

The protesters, who call themselves the Tyre Extinguishers, told Sky News they want to "strike fear" into owners of the "gas guzzling" cars.


They claim they have already let down the tyres of about 3,000 vehicles across the UK since March.

So far, the activists say they have struck in London, Brighton, Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Sheffield and Cambridge - and their campaign is "escalating fast".

They have warned more cities are set to be targeted as they aim to deflate tyres on more than 10,000 vehicles by the end of the year.

The group's spokesperson, who gave their name as Marion Walker, told Sky News: "We want to strike fear into anyone who drives a huge polluting SUV in a UK city.

"There comes a point where asking politely and protesting has stopped working, and it's time for action, to sabotage the machines that are killing us.



"Some of our number are people who live near busy polluted roads, slowly choked by gas guzzlers.

"Others are cyclists who have been nearly killed by an SUV too many times.

"We are all united by the science that SUVs are a climate disaster."

https://news.sky.com/story/climate-...vists, who call,campaign is "escalating fast".

 

[birchesgreen]

They are terrorists though got to admit Tyre Extinguishers is a good name

 

[Bantamzen]

So you condone the actions of this group? They sound like nice considerate people who will gladly discuss their cause with objectors.
I don't own a SUV and dislike Chelsea Tractors, but this doesn't give one the right to commit criminal damage.
I note some of this group are cyclists, reminds me of Ashley Carpenter, who, after claiming he was close passed and splashed by another, went on a tyre slashing spree




https://news.sky.com/story/climate-activists-who-deflate-car-tyres-reveal-plan-to-target-thousands-more-suv-drivers-and-wont-stop-even-if-they-cause-accidents-12609403#:~:text=The controversial activists, who call,campaign is "escalating fast".

How to destroy the credibility of the eco-debate, by these idiots. Still it is probably only a matter of time before they either cause an accident, or the owner catches them doing it and causes them an accident.... (Edit and judging by many responses to their tweets on Twitter... erm... X, the latter is probably more likely)

And people wonder why people are becoming sick and tired of eco-campaigners. Methinks it is time for them to grow up!