Climate Change

    • Climate Change

      My brother and I asked our dad to plant a tree to help combat climate change. We have a nice open spot in front of the house and will plant a white birch.

      If more of us did this it would help take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. One tree doesn't sound like much, but if we all did this, obviously you'd have to have somewhere to plant one, or encouraged our family and friends to plant one I think it would have a positive effect.

      What do you think?

    • I've got my little lemon trees I'm growing in my room :D

      Not sure they've grown enough to call them trees, but there cute little shoots so far

      Good Friend :play: Kinda Romantic :love: Ready to Rock :zomg:

      "If you try to follow fashion you'll always be chasing, and probably never catch it. If you be yourself and make your own style, fashion might just bump into you one day."

    • I guess it is more about reminding you of the crisis of climate chaos rather than one tree which might have already gone there making much of a difference. What will make more of a difference is if the world leaders get a good agreement in Glasgow this November. I don't really know what a good agreement would mean but I do think that it's a very important conference happening in only a few weeks.

    • joannainthemiddle wrote:

      I don't really know what a good agreement would mean but I do think that it's a very important conference happening in only a few weeks.
      good agreement would be China (as they're the highest) and India (because they're one that I think is increasing alot) to get the help (or punishment) to reduce the CO2 and other emissions


      if the wealth countries can help the world as a whole to use real greener energy then things can be improved. But currently even with increased green power, emissions are still staying at a similar level, so way above what is expected now. And 0 chance of reaching targets. With poorer countries having to rely on coal and other greenhouse emissions and pollution, even if USA and Europe met and surpassed any target, there'd still be problems

      Good Friend :play: Kinda Romantic :love: Ready to Rock :zomg:

      "If you try to follow fashion you'll always be chasing, and probably never catch it. If you be yourself and make your own style, fashion might just bump into you one day."

    • BJade wrote:

      joannainthemiddle wrote:

      I don't really know what a good agreement would mean but I do think that it's a very important conference happening in only a few weeks.
      good agreement would be China (as they're the highest) and India (because they're one that I think is increasing alot) to get the help (or punishment) to reduce the CO2 and other emissions

      if the wealth countries can help the world as a whole to use real greener energy then things can be improved. But currently even with increased green power, emissions are still staying at a similar level, so way above what is expected now. And 0 chance of reaching targets. With poorer countries having to rely on coal and other greenhouse emissions and pollution, even if USA and Europe met and surpassed any target, there'd still be problems
      Thanks for letting me know some more about this, I know there is some conference and it's in Scotland and it's super important, but I don't know how to know if it is going to go well or not, and what I can do to change it.

    • joannainthemiddle wrote:

      Thanks for letting me know some more about this, I know there is some conference and it's in Scotland and it's super important, but I don't know how to know if it is going to go well or not, and what I can do to change it.
      I think the honest answer would be the same as each of us as individuals. Individually we could make a massive change to what we do, but overall it probably wouldn't make much difference. But everyone making a little change could make a massive difference

      It's that the UK, US, EU... could say they're going to change (and hopefully actually mean it) but equally Asia, Africa and South America would also have to make sure they weren't adding to the effect with what they're doing

      It's kinda a hard thing to say. It's not a quick thing to fix (and should have been sorted out decades ago :( ) but hopefully plans can be made so that the world as a whole can move over the next few years to stop the global warming. And everybody on the planet can do they're thing to help and make sure governments keep the promises

      Good Friend :play: Kinda Romantic :love: Ready to Rock :zomg:

      "If you try to follow fashion you'll always be chasing, and probably never catch it. If you be yourself and make your own style, fashion might just bump into you one day."

    • BJade wrote:

      joannainthemiddle wrote:

      Thanks for letting me know some more about this, I know there is some conference and it's in Scotland and it's super important, but I don't know how to know if it is going to go well or not, and what I can do to change it.
      I think the honest answer would be the same as each of us as individuals. Individually we could make a massive change to what we do, but overall it probably wouldn't make much difference. But everyone making a little change could make a massive difference
      everybody on the planet can do they're thing to help and make sure governments keep the promises
      yea I guess it means I have to keep asking politicians to keep to what they said they will do. But I just think they might say 'this is a great agreement' when really it's rubbish, only I don't know enough to know that it's rubbish.

    • joannainthemiddle wrote:

      yea I guess it means I have to keep asking politicians to keep to what they said they will do. But I just think they might say 'this is a great agreement' when really it's rubbish, only I don't know enough to know that it's rubbish.
      honestly they have no idea what's good, bad or anything. You'd probably know more than them :lol: . It usually a "we'll reduce x by 2030".

      If it involved something sensible like "we'll get a load of experts to tell us how we can change all out energy to green, renewable means. And work with all business world wide to have a universal way of recycling plastic and reducing unnecessary production" then that's probably a good idea

      Good Friend :play: Kinda Romantic :love: Ready to Rock :zomg:

      "If you try to follow fashion you'll always be chasing, and probably never catch it. If you be yourself and make your own style, fashion might just bump into you one day."

    • joannainthemiddle wrote:

      Maybe they'll tell us all to go vegan. I'm not, by the way!
      Even that won’t help like people think
      If everyone went vegan they’d have to clear so much land and use so much water and fertilizer and machinery to grow and harvest the vegetables

      it’s energy and transport that needs to change mostly

      it’s scary when you’re in a small country that can’t make much of a difference but get effected by because you’re and island or coastal and sea levels rising and increasing scary storms keep coming

    • Obviously governments need to be the one's making the main push for climate action - a high level of carbon pricing would be ideal, eventually with international carbon markets or at least a border carbon tax. That would be most efficient but it might be more politically realistic for governments to pass large investments and subsidies in research and carbon-neutral industry. One thing that I've been reading about recently that I hadn't thought about before is how over-regulation of housing and business development through things like zoning and planning laws can make cities more sprawling and less dense - and that means longer commuting time and single family detached homes are less energy efficient than something like apartments. Individuals can still have an effect too, probably the most impactful is to reduce your intake of carbon-intensive meat like beef (even switching to chicken and pork will be more sustainable), and trying to take public transport as much as possible or having an electric or even smaller car.
      What's up, my dudes?

    • For years I came to the conclusion that climate change can't longer be stopped and instead the discussion should rather be about how we will deal with the effects of this climate change in its each current predicted stages during the following decades and even centuries.I guess, yet, at best, we can just limit the damage.

      And of course the first step would be to drastically change our lifestyle to way more lower levels. This is especially true for the far too high energy consumption in many areas of our daily life.

      Goes to for our habits of moving. Mainly that would also has to change as a urgent first step. Means, we've have totally to get rid of private transport as we yet know it. It has to be completely abolished and replaced by far more efficient public transport concepts.

      Also, I'm rather critical of the concept of EVs, as postulated by e-power prophets like Elon Musk. Because if EVs are mass-produced, bought and used in the same way as it is currently the case with cars with combustion engines, this only makes a very minimal contribution to reducing the world wide carbon consumption as the cause of the current accelerated climate change.

      And of course, planting a tree is only a symbolic act if you don't reduce your own energy consumption at home to at least to 50%. 60-80% would be better values, but pressing this probably would cause more harm than good these times.

      But doing nothing and waiting forSuperman isn't an option either. So setting highest standards is somehow a sustainable tool, I guess.

    • Of course, nobody will give up a certain comforty standard of living. But if no one don't force them into it, in a few decades drastically changed circumstances will do it anyway. We could already see how unwilling people react in this regard in the course of the corona-pandemic.

      But in the long term, the effects of climate change will demand a lot more from us. And that's the real problem, I guess.

      Climate change takes place over very long periods of time. Even if we already perceive changes, that changes aren't taken seriously to such an extent that it would change current living poeople's minds radically. In short, if a disaster comes overnight, we'll adapt more quickly because we have no other options.

      Our way of thinking isn't really conditioned on sustainability. But it can be trained to such a level. Ideally from an early age, but at the latest it should be teached consistently from the first day in kindergarten through to studies. At least it would increase the chance of crisis awarness from each generation to the next.