The 10:10 Climate Change Pledge. Will you be signing up?

Sapphire

Cardew wrote: »

Nobody is blaming China, or any of the developing nations. They have every right to strive for the same standard of living as the developed nations have enjoyed for years.

It all boils down to defining the scale of the problem, on which even the experts cannot agree, and proposing solutions to the perceived problem - to which nobody has even come close.

Yes, that is exactly it. This isn't a 'racist' attack on the Chinese – it's just a statement of the potential massive problem due to an ever-greater population and industrialization. We all should change our lives dramatically in order to avoid a catastrophe. Unfortunately, short-termism and our inherent selfishness – which, particularly in Britain, has been hugely exacerbated and encouraged over the last decade or so by an incompetent and corrupt government – make matters even worse.

I'm not exaggerating about the petroleum issue (and not even going to start on the way we are polluting the planet).

jamtart6

Money and effort should be aimed towards mitigating against the effects of climate change. Not trying to stop it; we are way beyond that now. Yes, invest in cleaner fuels but until everyone stops burning fossil fuels, there won't be any impact.

Don't get me started on carbon offsetting schemes. the biggest load of money grabbing nonsense I have EVER seen. Offsetting it won't do a thing, you need to stop it all together - a global effort or just give up and put mitigation procedures in place.

I read in the paper today (albeit daily mirror!) that Scotland could get vineyards with "only a 6 degree increase in temperature" :eek: 6 degrees is not to be sniffed at!!!! It would cause many many more implications than a bloomin vineyard in Scotland. Grr at the "media" :mad:

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

My suspicion is that this is merely a marketing ploy, to get people to buy products from signatories to this branding.

However, how would it feel if, once it was too late, we found that we could have stopped it relatively easily by such simple actions? It's all very well describing the tragedy of the commons (ie, that if I don't benefit from draining this resource to its absolute limit, some other beggar will get the goodies), but that just encourages a fatalistic approach to the situation.

Yes, there are uncertainties regarding the effects of anthropogenic (human induced) climate change in spatial and temporal terms (ie, where and when), unknowns in respect of the fact that we can't forsee everything that will happen (if we could, someone would be using it to make zillions) and there are issues regarding societal values, individual and group power and actions in response to the degradation and damage to the environment, but, with a population in billions, there are a lot of human lives (notwithstanding non human lives) to risk on the offchance that somebody else might not agree it was worth bothering about.

I'd rather take a precautionary approach than shrug my shoulders and continue on merrily overconsuming and polluting without a care in the world until someone invades the UK because we still have freshwater supplies when they don't.

(and now I'm going to run back to the beauty board where I belong and talk about nail polish and eyeliner!)

thescouselander

I wont be signing up - the whole climate change thing is a scam in my opinion. Ok, the IPCC suspect that CO2 contributes to global warming. The trouble is no-one really knows what will happen. All the warnings are based on flawed computer models that cannot be validated against measured temperature changes. That is why the IPCC produce scenarios and not predications.

No-one can say with any certainty that reducing CO2 will have any effect and thats assuming it is actually possible to bring about these reductions in the first place. There is still a chance (however large or small) that the warming that has occurred is natural - in which case while we have been wasting billions reducing CO2 we will still see warming.

jamtart6 is right - mitigation is the way forward.


In any case, my CO2 output is lower than average anyway (for someone in the UK) so I feel I have done my bit already.

Fire_Fox

PasturesNew wrote: »

No. I am not wasteful in the first instance, so I fail to see how I could reduce mine by 10%.

I'm kind of stuck on where to go next with being more green without making major changes. I don't have holidays, I travel by buses run on bio-diesel, we have low water and energy bills, I live in a city centre flat so can't grow my own, biodegradable cleaning stuff, use bags for life, recycle despite the lack of facilities, reduced food wastage .... the only thing left is to go vegetarian.

Freddie_Snowbits

Say no to Green Wash

jamtart6

thescouselander wrote: »

I wont be signing up - the whole climate change thing is a scam in my opinion. Ok, the IPCC suspect that CO2 contributes to global warming. The trouble is no-one really knows what will happen. All the warnings are based on flawed computer models that cannot be validated against measured temperature changes. That is why the IPCC produce scenarios and not predications.

No-one can say with any certainty that reducing CO2 will have any effect and thats assuming it is actually possible to bring about these reductions in the first place. There is still a chance (however large or small) that the warming that has occurred is natural - in which case while we have been wasting billions reducing CO2 we will still see warming.

jamtart6 is right - mitigation is the way forward.


In any case, my CO2 output is lower than average anyway (for someone in the UK) so I feel I have done my bit already.

Ah see I feel like this is the classic attitude of everyone in Britain outside of the scientific community "climate change is a scam" - no, but the way the media present it it really does seem like that, and ultimately with all these money making and dare I say it "green taxes":rolleyes: no wonder people think it is a "scam". I don't blame them. People have said to me many times in the past "it isn't getting warmer, I saw a programme about how the climate has always changed between warmer and cooler, so this is nothing new, plus based on that record we are about to descend into an ice age and its all to do with the suns radiation anyway" :rolleyes: but I can't blame them for thinking that because the media get it wrong so often. I wish they would listen to scientists; NOT the catastrophic scientists, but the ones in the middle - Yes climate has always changed, yes it is getting warmer, yes we think C02 has a large part to play, the current problem is climates are changing more rapidly and at higher magnitudes than ever seen before in the last 650'000 years. The C02 and temperature curves match each other perfectly over this time period.



...but we have all assumed that increasing C02 has increased the temperature - what if it is the other way around? what if the temperature is increasing naturally which is causing the C02 to rise?? Not one person I know can prove or disprove that.

Anyway I think the debate needs to move on from C02, because regardless of the cause, the temperatures ARE increasing, the last 10 years have been the warmest on record, and no amount of carbon emission reductions is going to change that - not on the scale we need, we need NO ONE to use fossil fuels and it isn't going to happen.

Anyone who denies that climate IS changing though regardless of cause is just nuts, you can see the effects already - everyone is complaining about the UK weather in JUly and August - its been like monsoon weather for the last few years - I hear people saying "so much for global wamring, it is always raining here" - well yes it might be, but it hasn't been cold, the increased temps have caused the fluctuations in the weather systems and increased rainfall. We see the implications of increased temperature all the time and that is what we should be focusing our efforts on, in this country improving flood defences and mitigating for what is inevitably going to happen, not sign up to cut emissions!

Fire_Fox

The sad thing to me is that it is not at all difficult to change a few habits many of which will benefit both the individual's pocket AND potentially the environment as well. Granted going vegetarian and not running a car will involve sacrifices, but opting not to take carrier bags or excess packaging, reducing food and energy wastage in the home, and recycling aren't actually any more difficult than NOT doing those things.

Regardless of whether you believe in climate change or not, the fact is that oil is a finite resource, so we should use it wisely and research alternatives where possible. It's also intuitive that we can't go on increasing the amount of rubbish sent to landfill indefinitely as eventually we will run out of places to bury it! Yes we could burn it, but we know that contributes to smog which will affect the current generation.

jamtart6

Fire_Fox wrote: »

The sad thing to me is that it is not at all difficult to change a few habits many of which will benefit both the individual's pocket AND potentially the environment as well. Granted going vegetarian and not running a car will involve sacrifices, but opting not to take carrier bags or excess packaging, reducing food and energy wastage in the home, and recycling aren't actually any more difficult than NOT doing those things.

Regardless of whether you believe in climate change or not, the fact is that oil is a finite resource, so we should use it wisely and research alternatives where possible. It's also intuitive that we can't go on increasing the amount of rubbish sent to landfill indefinitely as eventually we will run out of places to bury it! Yes we could burn it, but we know that contributes to smog which will affect the current generation.

Ooh absolutely! I cry at using plastic bags! They will still be here in hundreds of thousands of years. We have been digging in our garden and found a polystrene cup embedded into the earth, has to have been there about 30 years, and it still looks brand new

P__G

I will always try to do by bit but some people are just careless. I work in an office where at least 20 monitors are left on all night / all weekend! Well, until I go around and swtich them all off (every night!).

I think it is important to do your bit but perhaps as important to try to get others (particularly companies) to do their bit. Hence contacting a store that leaves monitors on all night will probably do more good than unplugging your own mobile charger, etc.

Still, we must do out bit.