Climate change - what can we do?

Scotty T

Walks the walk
If the Western world wasn't so entitled, maybe we'd select governments who would do something about it. Forget the developing countries, they didn't actually do most of this, and are still so far behind the likes of Aussies per capita. It's still the western world driving demand from the developing.

Why would you stop taking $1800 return flights to the US if they're there? Someone will just take them if you don't, or worse still the plane will have empty seats. If return flights were double that, it might mean half as many were taken.

Without forcing people's hand nothing ever happens, and hitting people in the hip pocket is a good start. Instead we reduce taxes so people can buy more shit.

All the shit we buy needs the price to the planet built in, we'd buy less shit, and it would be accounted for in terms of its impact.

A big reset of capitalism is the only way I can see us even making a start.

Changing your job to be less impactful can't really happen without that reset I think. I work for CSIRO in IM&T, the org straddles both sides of the fence because capitalism provides the I in our name. I love to think about how I'm helping spread the science of climate change, and am loathe to think we also help make coal mining and CSG more profitable. I guess it's better than working for the actual mining company.
 

pink poodle

気が狂っている男
Who says they have to go on your land?
I used to have a large bonsai collection (both shaped up and saplings). When I decided I didn't want it anymore I gave away a fair bit, some died, and I was left with a fair collection of native saplings that I had sprouted from seed. I decided to do some late night gardening around town, on what was at the time disused industrial waste land. Well they were all going so well for a while, then the laws mowing contractor ran over a whole bunch, the summer cooked a few, and I reclaimed others and put them elsewhere. Out of about 50 trees I planted I know of 1 that lives on in a windswept open grassy park by the sea. At the time it was just grass and dirt and a few years ago the council landscaped the area. But they left the bushy casuarina.
 

hifiandmtb

Sphincter beanie
From here:


Yet many are those saying to themselves "So far, so good, so far, so good"...

If we look in the short term at how global imbalance changes the game, it seems that for a number of years to come, the top 5% to 10% of the world, living mainly in OECD countries [which includes the 36 most developed countries in the world, ed] as well as China and Russia, do not yet fully realize the seriousness of the situation: they are less fragile, live in relatively stable states erecting barriers against migrants, have access to a standard of living that requires an unequal ecological exchange with the rest of the planet, where most of the production workshops and sites of extraction are located. For them, "everything is fine" as long as they continue to benefit from a political and economic system externalising violence towards other territories, populations and species of the world.
So hard to fix this.
 

MARKL

Eats Squid
Going to Derby in November for mate's birthday. Booked to two return tickets today, two adults, 2 bikes etc $455 return to Sydney + $3.88 for carbon offset. Seems a very small price to pay
 

hifiandmtb

Sphincter beanie
Exactly, don’t forget - the Straya taxpayer subsidises the airline industry something like a billion a year in excise concessions.

An offset is not a thing any more - maybe 20 years ago when we could gently turn the curve it might have worked, but you were just swindled $3.88.

We're going to Derby in October - first holiday in years for me, likely as far as I can tempt myself to travel from now on!
 
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Freediver

I can go full Karen
Going to Derby in November for mate's birthday. Booked to two return tickets today, two adults, 2 bikes etc $455 return to Sydney + $3.88 for carbon offset. Seems a very small price to pay
That's because $3.88 isn't going to cover anything.
 

Haakon

Keeps on digging
Exactly, don’t forget - the Straya taxpayer subsidises the airline industry something like a billion a year in excise concessions.
Bloody renewables... If those stupid noisy windmills and sun panels were so amazing they'd be able to survive on their own instead of my tax dollars propping up unreliable power. Give me cheap fossil fuels.
 

MARKL

Eats Squid
Not travelling for recreational purposes.
Not living would be more beneficial from a carbon footprint point of view...

People will continue to travel, that decision rests with them. My question remains that if people are pouring cold water on the airlines carbon offsets, What can an individual do that is better than the carbon offsets that the airlines offer?
 
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hifiandmtb

Sphincter beanie
Nothing can be done. We have no "offset" room left.

If you don't want to cause net increase in CO2 from flying, don't fly.
 
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