Climate Change is the Single Most Important Issue

[yTib]

I am glad I had Mumps as a kid, as having that as an adult definitely is no laughing matter....

me too. measles, mumps, german measles, whooping cough and chicken pox.

my doctor was a busy man.

[icu81b4]

I've been hearing a lot about cattle being the biggest problem with the amount of methane they produce, and if everyone cut down their meat intake (for eg: to twice a week) then it would help a great deal.

[Im_not_Robbie_Blake]

Climate Change is the Single Most Important Issue

YES IT IS!!!!

[Spiral]

Not sure if this has already been mentioned, don't vote green if they can't win in your constituency. Better to use your vote on a least-$hit basis rather than on someone who'll pull less than 5% of the vote. A lot of you on here will be from Pendle where the incumbent Tory MP would have a 3-digit majority had green votes in 2017 gone to Labour. (Lib Dems can't win). Not that Labour or the Lib Dems have any natural right to tactical green votes, obviously, but it illustrates just how tight it is. To compound this, there are 718 BNP votes (not standing this year) that need to go somewhere.

(edit-removed a bit that might come across as inflammatory)

[Erasmus]

Thanks for posting the article, Spiral, which was interesting but not entirely convincing. It seemed a little light on hard evidence for adult life expectancy in earlier times. I would think the best indicator of life expectancy without child mortality would be from analysis of skeletons or from historical records, but neither of these was referred to. So I am still very dubious about this claim.

But here's an interesting fact. In times of war, the ratio of male births to female births increases to a statistically significant degree. How can that be?

[Hipper]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... un-reports" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;?

[Hipper]

I've been hearing a lot about cattle being the biggest problem with the amount of methane they produce, and if everyone cut down their meat intake (for eg: to twice a week) then it would help a great deal.

https://ideas.ted.com/methane-isnt-just ... house-gas/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Hipper]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50547073" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[tiger76]

Shame Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage don't consider this issue important enough to spare their time.

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/ ... ate/26/11/

[dsr]

https://www.livescience.com/10569-human ... years.html

I'm not sure using the average lifespan of monarchs is a reliable guide for the average expectancy at birth lifespan of people living in Britain at any time in the last thousand years or so, notably due to all the executions and assassinations and whatnot happening to them for the longest time. They didn't live ordinary lives like everyone else. A sufficiently nourished peasant living at the time (and many weren't sufficiently nourished, to be fair, much like poorer folks in Britain today), had a diet which was surprisingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, healthier than a typical modern western diet. We eat too much crap that people didn't have centuries ago, and rates of heart disease (still the biggest UK killer if I'm not mistaken) were lower. A medieval monarch or nobleman ate a lot of fatty meat and food preserved in salt and cooked in sugar and honey. It's a curious contrast, though, between high status individuals and peasants, and one that goes back thousands of years to the ancient Egyptians. There's some evidence of a clinical awareness of heart disease going back to the times of the Pharos of Egypt.

The more medical science advances, the more people will die of heart disease. I saw a chart (I think from America, but the principle is sound) showing that only 20% of people in 1900 were dying of heart disease, stroke, and cancer. (Cancer may have been underdiagnosed.) Now, it's vastly more. Why? Not because heart diesease and cancer are more common, but because people are not dying (in the rich world) of TB, infection, diarrhoea, pneumonia, diphtheria, measles, scarlet fever, etc etc etc.

You're right, I think, that people who were well fed could live pretty much as long as we do. Even in the 1600's, there were records of people living to 100. (The oldest head of state was Richard Cromwell, nearly 86 when he died.) There were two difficulties - one, they caught something untreatable. and two, even if they had plenty of good food, they were still cold - remember the 1600's were a very cold period, significantly colder than later centuries, and lived in houses which by definition were either badly ventilated or cold.

If everyone on here were to work out at what age they would have died without modern medicine - we'd get a pretty low number. I had my gall bladder out at 48. Would I have survived if they hadn't known what a gall bladder was? Who knows. And I've been healthy all my life. I bet there would be a lot of posters on here, who wouldn't have lived to their current age if medicine was 100 years in arrears.

[Hipper]

Moscow brings in artificial snow for New Year in mild winter:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50945383

[Lowbankclaret]

I've been hearing a lot about cattle being the biggest problem with the amount of methane they produce, and if everyone cut down their meat intake (for eg: to twice a week) then it would help a great deal.

Watched a program the other day where an alternative view or more considered view was given.

Intensive farmed cattle like the ones in America where grain is grown in large quantities and turned into cattle feed. These intensive systems using none natural foods are a contributing factor as the cattle produce more methane eating this type of feed. The land obviously could be employed growing vegetables and hence more environmentally friendly.

Cattle raised in the UK are mainly grown on land unsuitable for crops, you can see those cattle on the higher fields around Burnley. They produce much less methane apparently due the natural food source and the land can be used for little else. This is also considered environmental friendly.

So it’s not just about stopping eating meat completely, not eating intensive farmed meats, yes. But people have the choice now, they just chose to carry on buying it.
Round here we neither have the soils or climate to grow good crops.

[Stayingup]

Much as I agree with the ideals of the Green Party, I would never want them in power.

You really would find out what loss of freedom is all about.

And the loss of industry and associtaed jobs. They are in cloud cuckoo land sometines.

[jackmiggins]

Tread very carefully in any belief regarding diet on the contribution to ‘warming’, unless you want to be forced into veganism in ten years!!

[Bosscat]

Tread very carefully in any belief regarding diet on the contribution to ‘warming’, unless you want to be forced into veganism in ten years!!

But surely eating Vegetables contributes to methane production (certainly does in our house after Cabbage, Sprouts and Onions etc etc ) So Veganism surely means more greenhouse gases from the human population







Before the Climate change activists start screaming ... this is meant to be humorous not to be taken seriously

[Lowbankclaret]

The vegan future!!

https://www.lbcnews.co.uk/uk-news/ethic ... ism-faith/

[Stayingup]

When I lived in Canada I knew environmentalists who saw the planet as a living thing, perhaps in the best traditions of North American animism, but we shouldn’t forget that it’s more than possible for the earth to reach a point at which it’s no longer possible to support life as we know it at all. Venus once had surface water, and now the surface temperature is over 400C.

And its nowhere near China

[AndrewJB]

And the loss of industry and associtaed jobs. They are in cloud cuckoo land sometines.

A Green government would more likely create jobs with a green industrial revolution (the one you’ll never see from this government because they’re too in hock to fossil fuel companies). Certainly we’d see a cleaner country and healthier people. I know a lot of people who don’t cycle because they think it’s too dangerous. Add a small barrier between cycle and car lanes and that reason is overcome. The Green council in Brighton made recycling easy by putting recycling bins everywhere. It’s one of the tidiest places I’ve seen in Britain.its not hard and it’s not expensive, and it makes a huge positive impact on people’s lives.

[KateR]

I still don't understand this eat less meat philosophy, how does that alone lead to better environment, or is it to be coupled with a culling of meat producers on a massive scale? I see eating less meat to be healthier for humans, but it seems we have to reduce the meat producing population to achieve an environment change, am I wrong?

I was informed (by someone I trust) that making concrete produces bad gases in far greater volumes than air travel and that the less meat argument is not a game changer. The use of concrete is a world wide issue, if unwanted gases that is produced as a by product, is the result

[Lowbankclaret]

I still don't understand this eat less meat philosophy, how does that alone lead to better environment, or is it to be coupled with a culling of meat producers on a massive scale? I see eating less meat to be healthier for humans, but it seems we have to reduce the meat producing population to achieve an environment change, am I wrong?

I was informed (by someone I trust) that making concrete produces bad gases in far greater volumes than air travel and that the less meat argument is not a game changer. The use of concrete is a world wide issue, if unwanted gases that is produced as a by product, is the result

It’s about having less methane and CO2 being produced into the atmosphere
Kate, I have read a lot about this recently and it appears the biggest issue is going to be the population increase of 3 billion . If that’s not dealt with none of the changes being put forward will not have any impact on stopping climate change.

[KateR]

population rising is always going to be an issue and not something one can stop or even halt, living longer, better health and diet, means more people living across generations which only make the population thing worse but again it is something I can not see being halted unless the world agrees. That is a long way off, something like a couple of futuristic movies I have seen.

It is more about what can we change, then you have different countries saying/doing different things, US at present at odds on this and many other things such as NATO but stating clearly others need to shoulder more of the responsibility, China has gone through a tremendous growth spell over many years. This growth has contributed widely to the issue as has India who are continuing to grow and pollute, but as others have said they are growing through what Britain did in the early 1900's, how can you stop this, it's similar with nuclear technology, a few have it, more want it but there is huge pressure to stop it.

I don't see culling the worldwide cow population as a major savior of the environment, but it can be a contributor along with many other changes but it's going to need a fundamental shift world wide for it to have any meaningful effect.

[Hipper]

It's not reducing meat consumption alone but as part of a whole range of changes in human activities. It seems to me there are much more important areas to look at, notably energy sources and transport - and of course population growth which seems to be untouchable.

As Lowbankclaret has pointed out in his post at 12:46, there are different growing regimes that have different impacts.

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistic ... _emissions

It seems in Europe in 2015 gas emissions from cattle (Enteric fermentation) are around 4.3% of the total of all (CO2 equivalent) manmade emissions, just a bit more then from 'agricultural soils' which was 3.7%. The latter seems to be mostly N2O emissions, from fertiliser applications I assume. Notice rice growing is also a source of greenhouse gases, of NH4 and N2O.

In other words it is not as simple as just going vegetarian.

[Lowbankclaret]

I read lots of posts from people talking about climate change, but they appear not to want to make small changes themselves.
Like I have said before, I buy my meat local from Long causeway in Burnley, non intensive farmed.
Trying hard to reduce plastics use, gone back to glass milk bottles, which are recycled.
Got our reusable vegetable bags.
I collect acorns each year and grow some seedlings and then go plant them.


If we all do nothing, climate change is just going to happen .

I am sure renewables could be made more efficient making more electric from the wind farms already In existence.

[KateR]

the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy is going to be a long slow change, however there are degrees in the fossil fuels, LNG & LPG for example much better than diesel/petrol, but they are better than coal. Still a lot of coal around the world being used and growing, particularly where they don't have access to there own gas fuel and need to import which makes it costly when compared to coal.

Agree everyone should do there bit, my son thinks I'm nuts, turning down the central heating when he is in shorts and T shirt, plus always turning lights off that he leaves on. Of course he doesn't pay the bills but he is definitely not one of climate change children, except when he can get a day off school!

[bfcjg]

I think governments around the world are starting to wake up and with money to be made developing technologies to draw carbon from the atmosphere multinationals are investing. Hope its enough.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47638586