Why have climate change concerns suddenly increased?

[al78]

There is a lot of talk about nuclear power which may be carbon neutral but it certainly has its own problems. And I couldn’t imagine it going down well with the eco friendly groups.

Nobody is going to want to live near a nuclear power plant anymore than they would want to live near a asbestos mine or any other place that would pose a serious threat to health.

The problem with nuclear power is there is not enough time to deploy enough of it globally to meet demand, and you still have to deal with the waste, so the only real solution is renewables combined with simplification of lifestyles in the developed world.

 

[HSTEd]

The problem with nuclear power is there is not enough time to deploy enough of it globally to meet demand, and you still have to deal with the waste, so the only real solution is renewables combined with simplification of lifestyles in the developed world.

Well the solution for dealing with the waste is to dig a big hole in the ground and put it in.

Ofcourse the governments obsession with getting a community to volunteer to host it out of the goodness of their hearts is holding things up somewhat.

 

[najaB]

The problem with nuclear power is there is not enough time to deploy enough of it globally to meet demand

Citation needed. Rolls Royce (and others) have systems basically ready to roll off a production line which can replace a medium-sized coal/gas plant in under five years.

 

[southern442]

"Getting everyone talking about you" is such a depressing metric (wetting yourself at school gets everyone talking about you, but I wouldn't recommend it!)

There's a difference here. Compare someone's trousers falling down, to someone deliberately streaking at school to raise awareness for something (this did actually happen at my dad's school for a charity event apparently!), and you'll see that often deliberate attention-seeking action (and not necessarily the bad kind of attention seeking) is much more effective at getting a message across, even if on the face of it both of these hypothetical incidents have the same immediate response of 'that guy's trousers are off!'

But it's where we are in modern Britain - people exist in social media bubbles, all that matters is whether you are playing well with your "base", even if it alienates the mainstream

Look at Corbynism, which was wildly popular with the activists but pushed millions of people to vote Tory (however badly Theresa May did, she won over two million more votes than Cameron's majority-winning performance in 2015, because Corbyn scared a lot of people into voting Tory)

There is a difference between the social media bubbles of the Labour youth, or the 'people's vote' campaign, and those issues which have been getting consistent national coverage in different ways. There is hard evidence to suggest that climate change concerns, whilst previously somewhat politicised, now spread quite far across 'bases' and are not just confined to one group.

Is this due to the actions of XR, or public awareness due to Greta Thunberg? It is impossible to say for sure. The key thing is before these major things happened, people (and more crucially, governments) didn't seem to care too much, or at least they were not understanding of the urgency of the situation. Now we are having a serious-looking conference (of course we are not sure how much actual substance is there) and it has now become a top issue for many voters across the board. My bet would be that if we hadn't had the school strikes, or XR protests, the current attitude would not be what it is now. But of course there is no way to know for certain, that is just my speculation.

The question now of course is what do we do about it, as many people don't seem to know when it comes to that stage. That requires sensible policy-making, and I'll agree that generic protesting cannot get us to this stage.

People were certainly "talking" about Fathers For Justice twenty years ago, but is there any evidence that they helped their cause?

We see this with organisations like PETA, who nominally represent vegetarian/ vegan concerns but do the equivalent of wetting themselves online - not the only organisation who are more interested in being seen to make some noise and annoy opponents even if it means losing a lot of people who'd otherwise support your cause - but PETA seem poster boys for this kind of Stunts Over Substance activism

The suffragettes are a simple story that we tell people at school, but I think that women would have had the vote regardless thanks to the suffragists (who were much savvier political campaigners), the general mood at the end of the Great War (as @Gostav mentioned above) and also campaigns to extend the general franchise (bearing in mind that a lot of men didn't have the vote either)

Plenty of other people were "considered terrorists" without helping their cause (Extinction Rebellion glueing themselves to electric trains backfired in the mainstream, people probably class them as closer to Abu Hamza than David Attenborough)

One can again argue, would the suffragists have been as effective if not for the shock and immediate attention that suffragettes created? I am not as well-versed on that topic, so we can agree to disagree. PETA again is a similar story, although I will note that more and more people are turning vegetarian and vegan than ever before.

"I think it depends. XR and Greenpeace have a very clear message"

I'm not sure, I might know they are activists and eco-minded but to know what they are actually trying to do or what they are communicating (beyond the vague we have problems of the sustainability of how we're living kind) I'd have to google it I think to pinpoint, though I probably wouldn't have to google to know specific examples of inconveniences they have caused. Insulate Britain are 'the brightest star' when it comes to this because they've taken it to yet another level and are a bit topical at this moment in time not only for the inconvenience they cause but their inability to put a good argument together when given the chance but they are not without comparison.

As I said before, protesting of this kind is only good at getting people talking about this. When I said that they have a very clear message, I meant that their message is 'climate change is happening and we have to do something about it soon'. I was not referring to any kind of 'we need to do x y z' type message. Again, this has to be done through policy-making.

Regarding 'doing more harm than good' - this is admittedly somewhat tongue in cheek but largely because whenever (in my experience) they seem to get discussion locally (as in over the dinner table or at work) - interest seems less in the cause and more so about the inconveniences caused and why they shouldn't be allowed to take these acts, again you could argue insulate britain as the worst offender, but Greenpeace and even more so extinction rebellion are not invalid examples. This is prompting the discussion of 'should these things be allowed or better regulated?' because obviously whilst things need to change, the world also needs to spin. When many campaigns are making their points through inconveniencing ordinary people going about their lives, it builds a bit of a reputation and negative connotations which does get the message lost (in some cases at least).

I agree with this, although Insulate Britain are the perfect example, because their aims are not simple and clear in the eyes of the public. That's the key difference for me. The only time XR well and truly screwed up was when those idiots got on top of the DLR, and I won't need to explain why that was such a dumb move!

i'm struggling to find much in terms of examples where through discussing these types of events I've witnessed positive engagement

As previously said, it's more about public awareness and engagement in general. If humans get into some kind of discussion or disagreement, no human will tell you outright that they've changed their mind, we are too flawed/proud as individuals. (I am being general of course). Generic protesting of this kind gives the public time to mull the issue over in their heads, so that they can change their view in a 'dignified' sort of way.

 

[341o2]

I see our PM once more will be flying away from the conference, claiming it is necessary and the flight is carbon neutral, but can't give the details why.

all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others

 

[YorkshireBear]

I see our PM once more will be flying away from the conference, claiming it is necessary and the flight is carbon neutral, but can't give the details why.

all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others

Felt like an easy PR to take the train there and back to me... I believe several European countries have arrived by rail via Eurostar with much social media attention around doing so.

 

[Gostav]

One can again argue, would the suffragists have been as effective if not for the shock and immediate attention that suffragettes created?

This question must take into account history, political current situation and social atmosphere at those years. Such suffragists cannot work in Afghanistan when most people are poor and very limited on education and even in Eastern Europe, the progress made by suffragists were also extremely limited until WW2 because a poor economy always the worst enemy.

Back to the question of environment protect groups, the biggest feature l see is that they think the problem is too simple, they often cite the deeds of feminists, seems to become "They had succeeded and we will be able to succeed in doing so."

As I said before, protesting of this kind is only good at getting people talking about this. When I said that they have a very clear message, I meant that their message is 'climate change is happening and we have to do something about it soon'. I was not referring to any kind of 'we need to do x y z' type message. Again, this has to be done through policy-making.

This is one of two ways to solve the problem, the process is more important or the result is more important, clearly XR belongs to the former, "The police arrested me, ha, my goal reached." Did you watched the video about XR on Glasgow? Such parade like this can easily become a carnival for some people, which deviated from the original intention.

 

[nw1]

3. Social media. "I might be a selfish person but I don't want my friends to know that I am a selfish person, so I'll happily amplify worthy sounding things, I'll be seen to retweet green things". This is amplified by the way that you tend to retain the same group of online friends that you had when you signed up to social media at fifteen. You might have changed your views a bit but you don't want to let your friends down, or you want to be seen to be that "social justice warrior" that you once were. Okay, I exaggerate a bit but I think that there's an element of both "people being more stuck as being their fifteen year old selves" and "people wanting to be seen to amplify the right things"

Of course, for the vast majority of us, social media did not exist when we were fifteen.

there's an expectation that you must support all of these things otherwise you're a traitor to the cause.

'Package politics' does sadly seem to be common, where to be a 'true' member of a given political group, you have to accept all the views of that 'package'. For example, there are some who think that you can't be left wing unless you support future lockdowns, even though there are very good left-wing arguments against them.

 

[southern442]

This question must take into account history, political current situation and social atmosphere at those years. Such suffragists cannot work in Afghanistan when most people are poor and very limited on education and even in Eastern Europe, the progress made by suffragists were also extremely limited until WW2 because a poor economy always the worst enemy.

Back to the question of environment protect groups, the biggest feature l see is that they think the problem is too simple, they often cite the deeds of feminists, seems to become "They had succeeded and we will be able to succeed in doing so."

This is one of two ways to solve the problem, the process is more important or the result is more important, clearly XR belongs to the former, "The police arrested me, ha, my goal reached." Did you watched the video about XR on Glasgow? Such parade like this can easily become a carnival for some people, which deviated from the original intention.

To me, it's not one or the other. Both are important. Ultimately the crisis is solved through plans and policy. But a government cannot make extensive climate-change-based reforms if there is no public support for them, and so the public support comes from raising awareness. As I said before, protests that have this kind of effect are not everything, but they are a near-essential part of the process.