Climate crisis

The point is, I'm making an effort to help to do my part while others aren't... if everyone did their part, then we might not be in this situation we are at the moment... that's the point.

If by 'climate change' you mean anthropogenic climate change then yes, very much so. It has already cost lives and livlihoods, typically in parts of the world least able to cope. And things will get worse before they get better - see IPCC 5th Assessment of impacts on human health

https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg2/WGIIAR5-Chap11_FINAL.pdf

You say you fly once a year.

Currently there are something like 3.5 billion international air passengers a year. If everyone lived as you do and flew just once a year there would be 7.5 billion.

Just saying.

I try to provide support within my means. I don't have the balls for frontline activism but I will donate resources, educate myself and communicate/debate/convince others to become aware/involved in a meaningful way (and, KEY POINT!, do so in an effective way).

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

I will have to deploy "KEY POINT!" more often.

I support Greenpeace

I don't. You saw how they came across in Cowspiracy. I was briefly a member a long time ago but quickly became very unconvinced.

Also, quite generally, on the 'personal responsibility' thing ... it's all very well to start there, but each individual person/household has so much less power than elected politicians or large corporations that it's simply unwise to start only there. Sure, once in a blue moon you might get everybody doing 'the right thing', but people have been told this for at least thirty or forty years, at least since the energy crises, and it hasn't had any great effect. Of course people should try to reduce and adapt their personal consumption. I'm vegan (although certainly not for environmental reasons (the Vegan Society has got it right: 'For people, animals, and the environment', in that order) and I don't fly, yada yada, and I can give myself a pat on the back for that, but do I think that it makes a great deal of difference? Not really. All of that shouldn't detract from the immense destruction caused by resource exploitation, for instance, that we could quite easily avoid if the right political decisions were made without taking a massive hit to the luxury of our lifestyle. And, well, I suppose I'm not talking about 'post-factual' politics, but rational and informed politics. Well, you can dream.

There are legitimate issues around animal agriculture, the environment and campaigning groups some of which are raised in Cowspiracy but as a source of information it's about as reliable as reports on climate change funded by the fossil fuel industry. That is to say it's very, very biased and also makes all kinds of baseless accusations against a number of organisations that are utterly unsupported by any evidence (either presented in the film or available elsewhere)

Also, here's GP's response to the film, their lack of involvement and the issue of vegan/vegetarianism more generally fwiw
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/food-for-life-cowspiracy/blog/54404/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsmux4RHuTo

New head of EPA, Scott Pruitt, states that "I would not agree that it’s [CO2] a primary contributor to the global warming”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/09/epa-scott-pruitt-carbon-dioxide-global-warming-climate-change

Due another ice age soon anyway then the earth will get hot again and repeat. Friday bacon sandwiches at work today so......

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/17/receding-glacier-causes-immense-canadian-river-to-vanish-in-four-days-climate-change

Due another, sure; but it ain't gonna happen. In fact, we're going in the opposite direction.

This is terrifying:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/02/climate-change-to-cause-humid-heatwaves-that-will-kill-even-healthy-people

Extreme weather deaths, European edition:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/aug/04/extreme-weather-deaths-in-europe-could-increase-50-fold-by-next-century

This comes hot on the heels of US officials being told not to use the term 'climate change' but to talk about 'extreme weather events'. Well, we wouldn't want anyone to talk about the cause of extreme weather events, would we? That might cause someone to want to do something about more than the symptoms.

I'm only partway through this but it's a good read. Found it elsewhere on the forum at some point, can't remember where or when.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html

I often think that there must have been events in the distant past in which humans contributed significantly to desertification, e.g. in what are now the Sahara or the Gobi Desert. Reading reports like this only reinforces that idea in me:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/12/third-of-earths-soil-acutely-degraded-due-to-agriculture-study

I think history is merely repeating, albeit on a larger scale.

This is a real problem not being widely reported:https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/28/alarm-as-study-reveals-worlds-tropical-forests-are-huge-carbon-emission-source

Some good graphics here, worrying for @hats:

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2017/nov/03/three-degree-world-cities-drowned-global-warming

Worrying for sure! Shanghai is built on a huge swamp and is the flattest place I've ever lived (and I'm from the Fens!). Climate change is talked about a lot here but, like many things in China, reality doesn't always match up with what's talked about. The giant drain mentioned in the article passes very close to my office.

Good old Mayer.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/26/were-doomed-mayer-hillman-on-the-climate-reality-no-one-else-will-dare-mention

The main problem with this article is that Mayer doesn't tend to be wrong.

Was going to post him in the stylish cycling gear thread...

Sadly, as the article says, he's not cycling at the moment.

He came to one of our Hackney Annual Meetings about fourteen or fifteen years ago and apologised for having come by bus on his free bus pass. Needless to say, we were distinctly unimpressed. :)

Sadly, as the article says, he's not cycling at the moment.

Indeed, maybe it's an old photo, but I liked the implication that he insisted on being photographed with his "classic Dawes racer", that he will yet cycle again, and that, judging by the picture, he does have one bike for life that he's absolutely ridden into the ground!