be honest, and remmebr this is anonymous

but who actually genuinely gives a flying fook about the environment? 

Me.  All this weird weather is buggering up sailing and means that racing events now seem to be either abandoned due to lack of wind or are held in howling gale and lashing rain.  The weather at Cowes Week this year was atrocious.

There's no way on earth I'd have imagined Sailerz response would be sailing orientated rather than famine, forest fires, ice caps melting or plastic beads in your fried cod based.

me. I definitely care about the environment - both in the macro sense and in the sense of wanting clean air and pleasant public spaces where I live

but  the heat around environmental discussions means bad decisions are likely to be made. 

for eg, I suspect that actually it would be a good idea for us to encourage fracking in the UK (and have fracking as part of a good mix of energy sources) and import a bit less gas. But the hysteria around fracking means politicians aren't likely to bother with close analysis...

 

*exits thread*

 

what diceman said except to add that I don't believe climate change is preventable nor should it be the primary focus of environmental policy - it's the ultimate King Cnut

I know loads of people will hate on me for saying this, but fook 'em: I used to subscribe to environmental concerns intellectually but emotionally I was totally indifferent. This has changed entirely since I helped give life to little people who will be on the planet maybe 40 yrs after I am. If my elder daughter lives to the age my gran did - and actuarially, she's likely to live much longer - she'll be alive well into the 2100s.

If you are one of the childless who desires to condemn this mode of intellectusl sctivation as fatuous, go ahead, I'll be elsewhere not giving a f*ck.

I think there is a good chance the human race will be extinct in your kids' lifetimes, laz, so I can see why it bothers you.

that said, they are just one of 7bn bald apes so it won't be objectively sad for the planet

The problem for me is (a) it won't affect me personally very much more than other stuff (b) I like doing loads of things which aren't very good and (c) (perhaps most important) I see the world around us doing loads of stuff which is so detrimental as to make any random tiny action on my part almost laughable.  

Add to this I am slapped in the face by friends who quote plastic straws up turtles noses and how AMAZING they are for not using them any more, but they drive Rangies and fly to ski in the Alps and I am all out of fooks to give.

I am sure the next generation will solve the biggest challenge they face.  They like to tell us how clever they are, so they can crack on.

I don't think there is any chance whatsoever that the human race will become extinct within the next 1,000 yrs. However, I do think the environmental choices we make will have significant impact on how pleasant (or otherwise) life is for future generations.

tbh, burning a bit of fossil fuel driving your range rover around is probably considerably less directly environmentally hostile than using plastic straws

Do you mean it the other way round Laz?

Thing is the plastic in the sea is 46% fishing tackle and less than 0.1% straws.  So straw Nazis can really go fook themselves, especially for anyone who still eats fish and isn't bothered by the tackle shizzle.

Buzz not a fan of fried fish in general but do worry about micro beads also getting into my battered sausage from farm animals drinking from water courses.

Being serious there is definitely something going with world weather patterns so if switching my light bulbs and using more insulation and more efficient heating, etc. can do something about that then I'm happy to do it.  Also genuinely trying to reduce my plastic usage as even 15 years ago it was scary how you could tell you were getting close to land sailing as you'd start seeing more and more floating plastic.

Me, obv.

Planning to sell the boat and the disco.  

Gone (mostly) vegan.

Have solar panels.

Next time a property is empty going to update the insulation.  Will check on efficiency of boiler/any white goods.

Buy loads of fresh stuff locally and making a concerted effort to cut down my food miles.

Cant drive now anyway, so use public transport for the few journeys I do take.

Unless absolutely necessary (zombie apocalypse) I will not be flying in the foreseeable future.

No need to buy new clothes and if I do then they will be fair trade and sustainably sourced.

Not sure what to do about the dog, don’t think it’s good for him to go vegan as he is so used to meat, so that’s a definite work in progress.

Don't have any kids.

I am basically Eco-Man.  Mostly.

 

Don't have any kids is bollocks.

Factfullness by Hans Rosling is available free on PDF and shows how the world is not overpopulated, and will become underpopulated after we're dead.

Wang is that collapsible so you can store it in your mangina?

 

We're ridic right on about enviro stuff in that annoying contradictory way that Alan references above. Hypocritical aunts me and my missus 

That's a given Tecco.

Man hands on misery to man.

    It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

    And don’t have any kids yourself.

Larkin basically wrote that for you

The world is not overpopulated. Don't feel obliged to have children, but don't feel guilty if you want to. The world can support more people - it's ignorant environmental vandals it can't support.

I do but I grew up in the countryside in Cornwall going surfing and I remember how awful the state of the sea was. Surfers Against Sewage cleaned things up massively so you didn’t get tampons etc stuck to your wetsuit or brown whitewater near sewage pipes. 

Quite a lot of my hobbies involve the environment so it’s something I notice a lot but if I had grown up in a city and worked in a big city still I doubt I’d think about it a lot

Quite a lot of my hobbies involve the environment so it’s something I notice a lot but if I had grown up in a city and worked in a big city still I doubt I’d think about it a lot

Air pollution is a massive quality of life issue in big cities.

If my elder daughter lives to the age my gran did - and actuarially, she's likely to live much longer - she'll be alive well into the 2100s.

As a complete aside, why the elder daughter? Does the younger one like base jumping or something?

A single red blood cell doesn’t do a lot really.

But when combined and all working correctly, look what happens.  

That has to be the attitude to take, rather than “zomg it’s too much for me to take in” just concentrate on what you yourself can do.  When enough people do that, we will start to see results.

More worried about Jihadageddon, really.

Reckon it's not far off.

So, on the basis that we're all going to be killed by nutters, I hope the environment does them in afterwards.

Teclis - yeah I meant on the emotional level.  So yes do what you can individually but because it's hard (impossible) to see what your impact is then that detracts emotionally.  It does for me anyway.

does anyone ever just think like for example a meteor killing millions of people would be pretty cool, not out of a dislike for people, but just because it would be big news and like the world would change forever, sort of exciting like

Industry, particularly in emerging economies needs to sort their shit out. Anything a middle class lawyer can do to help is meaningless by comparison even in aggregate. Fact is the genie is out of the bottle and we aren't turning the clock back.

Me, because I live on a low-lying island and like diving.  OTOH I have seen sea level projections of 1-3 ft rise by 2100 which is not great but not disasterous.  I don't subscribe to the alarmism spouted by the likes of Greta and that Occasional Cortex woman.  

I am aware that the real solutions to global warming depend on China at least as much as on the West.  Maybe Greta should go to Beijing?     

Possibly surprising no one, I kind of pray that certain landmasses get hit by a meteor.

I think it would be good for the planet: get rid of particularly populous areas that don't actually contibute much/ anything to the advancement of personkind.

Greta et al really need to hit China.  But they won't because it's too difficult.

Far easier to trot around the word on carbon fibre racing yachts preaching a scripted message in fashionable places such as New York.