Climate change how important is it for you in this election

They may say so Gonegirl but I am pretty sure Trump has said he didn't and Boris is a man in Trump's image.

What if our government suddenly had some sort of epiphany on climate change and rapidly phased out gas and coal powered fuels, diesel and petrol driven cars, banned the building of new homes that were not carbon neutral, instigated investment in making existing homes more carbon neutral, banned the use of private aircraft and dramatically increased the use of public transport, planted billions of trees and declared that the meat industry will be phased out in the next 5- 10 years? How effective would that be?

We may cut our carbon emissions in the UK but we sit on the edge of a huge continent. Unless other European countries make similar sacrifices, we will have made very little difference. If we were really serious about slowing climate change, we would want to increase our influence in Europe and work from within the EU, not cut ourselves off.

I don't understand how anyone can think we can tackle global climate change on our own, so believe that any UK political party that wants to distance itself from our closest neighbours can't be taking climate change seriously.

I don’t think the topic will influence Jeremy Clarkson’s vote.
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What if our government suddenly had some sort of epiphany on climate change

We have a government in waiting that wants to do a lot of those things, NanaMacGeek, But..but.....but...Marxist, you know. Can''t have that, can we...?

Nicola James ??#HandsOffOurNHS Retweeted

Juliet Brown #JC4PM ?
@JulietB270880
This is huge! Labour is the Greenest party ??

Friends of the Earth saying that Labour has the strongest policies to protect nature & combat climate change.

Just another reason to #VoteLabourDecember12 ?

Labour 'beats other parties on climate change'

twitter.com/JulietB270880/status/1203230153108840448?s=20

I have vote for the Green Party today by postal vote. I studied their extensive manifesto this morning at about 5 am as I did not know who to vote for. It's called tactical voting. I may have posted too late as post isn't collected from box until Monday 9th 54/Dec. My choice was - Cons., Lab, LDs, Brexit, a Christian Party and Greens.

The first Country in the World to declare a Climate Change Crisis was ...........SCOTLAND.

It was announced by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, at conference in April 2019. I know because I was there. The cheering and applause went on for ages.

What worries me is that for every step forward there is a step back.

Electric cars will need batteries
Batteries need lithium
Lithium mining is bad for the environment
Batteries need cobalt
It is proposed to mine the ocean beds for cobalt
What does that mean for the oceans and the creatures that live there?

We just don't have a clue what we are doing

Brtain has reduced its territorial greenhouse emssions by 42% since 1990 assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/776083/2017_Final_emissions_statistics_one_page_summary.pdf .

8211 wind turbines are operational onland and 2,016, offshore. Offshore turbines are generally larger and more efficient than onshore turbines because they have been installed recently. www.renewableuk.com/page/UKWEDhome . We are the world leader in offshore wind generation and have more installed capacity than any other country.

So much for the naive belief that no-one was taking climate change seriously until little miss wondergirl came on the scene.

Climate change and its consequences has been headline news now for well over 20 years, and while government has often seemed to not be as active as it could be, that we are one of the countries leading the world in addressing climate change, makes it clear that in our country the government are leaders not laggards.

If people on GN were unaware of climate change and its significance until recently, then they should look to themselves and not blame other people or the government. I had seen and read enough by 2000 to have introduced my own domestic emission shedding campaign. I set out to reduce our household energy consumption by half. It took just over 10 years, but I achieved it, by insulation changing and adjusting the controls on the DH systemand how we used it, by just good energy housekeeping.

I am not suggesting by any means that progress is fast enough, much more can and should be done. But the current doom and disaster preached by the late comers to the problem, none of whom have any sensible researched and fully tested policy to offer or any understanding of the problems most of their panic station solutions will cause, is just virtue signalling that makes them feelwarm and cosy buit does nothing to solve the problems.

Little miss wondergirl as you so disparagingly call her has put the issue first and foremost on the world agenda. Pity it is all too late for her generation and our own grandchildren Monica.

Had our post-war generation produced someone of her calibre then something could have been done to prevent this catastrophe. As it is, and as David Attenborough pointed out in his interview last week, the effects of climate change cannot be reversed .

If it needed Grete Thunberg to inform you about global warming Yehbutnobutthen you should be asking yourself why you managed to remain so ignorant for so long.

For millions, no, billions of people world wide - and I include myself among them, we have known about the urgency and importance of climate change for over 20 years and have been doing what we can to reduce our own carbon footprints and contribute to other people's efforts.

Look back at a previous post of mine Where there is a link to what Britain has been doing since 1990 , no I will save you the effort. Here it is: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/776083/2017_Final_emissions_statistics_one_page_summary.pdf. These figures are only to the end of 2017. More has happened since.

ER and Miss Thunberg are the johny-come-latelys, and while she can be forgiven because of her extreme youth. there is excuse as to why ER did not start their campaigning 20 years ago at least. Phrases like jumping on rolling bandwagons and taking over the reins spring to mind.

I would argue that we began to be aware of things like environmental degradation in the 1950s and 1960s., and climate change, although documented in the 19th century was first seen as a danger to our planet in the 1970s.

But it took the flat earthers until very recently to accept the scientific findings and of course many still do not, possible because of the profit motive.

monica I am surprised at you pejorative comments on a young lady whose passion over climate change and environmental degradation shines through.

Do give her a break as you speak from your lofty experience. She has so much to learn, but given her specific strength and of course weakness in her autistic cognitive ability I would have expected greater kindness and understanding.

I said her naivety can be explained by her extreme youth. What else is there to say? My pejorative comments are aimed at ER, not her, I deplore the way they and others around her have exploited her youth and naivety.

I have carefully avoided saying anything about her autism because it has been made plain in the past that this is an elephant in the room we mustn't mention. However I do think this makes her particularly vulnerable to exploitation and I am shocked more than anything that her parents seem to have been complicit in her exploitation.

Were she being touted as a new Messiah for a new religion, everyone would be concerned about her exploitation and looking to social services to protect her from her exploiters, but just because her real and justifiable concerns have been picked up by a cause, that no one who has any pretensions to be woke dare challenge, nobody is doing anything to protect her.

I am not speaking from lofty experience, I am just one of the billions of ordinary people who have known about climate change for decades. It has been front page news in every news media you can mention for at least that long.

Billions of people, who have been working systematically to make lots of little changes in their lives, to support causes that support the environment and find it very galling to have a lot of professional protesters suddenly pop up from nowhere, claim that the government has done nothing and making preposterous demands that they have no idea how they can be implemented or what effect ot would have on the country. That they think in forwarding their cause that it is acceptable to exploit a vulnerable child puts them beneath contempt.

M0nica is right.
Many of us have been aware and concerned about 'global warming' and the dreadful plastic pollution for years before Greta was born.

It is astonishjng that it has taken a 16 year old to make others, including many older people, aware of this.

I don’t find it galling. I am of the opinion the more it is publicised the better.

The fact that I have been an environmentalist for most of my life and tried as far as possible to respect the environment, I have absolutely no problem with a young 16 year old telling grandmothers how to suck eggs. It is ever thus of the young. Like sex! They invented it you know!

The future is theirs, it is in their hands. They should be encouraged and applauded.

Action on climate change is happening and that will continue whoever is in power, that will gather pace I’m sure. We already have big policies on renewable, energy saving and transport, that is costing big bucks now, do we really want to take more away from services and the NHS.

Brexit is not happening that is going to dominate now and for the next 5 yrs at least

But global warming is already front page news. It didn't need further publicising. I doubt that ER and their figure head have had any effect on those who already had their heads in the sand

What is needed is for someone, anyone, political party or environemental group to come out with a carefully researched and verified plan to show how we can systematically reach an energy policy that means we can meet the energy demands that go with an emission free economy by 2050. What should the balance between wind and other energy sources. How would we meet energy demand when the wind wasn't blowing. Currently this is the main use of gas powered generation. More search needs to be done into alternative fuels for transport. Political parties are always waffling on about improving insulation. None have actually come up with a clear plan of how this can be done.

David I regret I do not share your complacency.

monica I think that very few climate change scientists or environmentalists would agree with you.

Not complacent, our power generation is set to be mostly nuclear plus renewable and some gas in a short time scale, new cars have to be electric by 2040. The one thing that would help is for us all to consume less as individuals we buy far too many disposable products just because they are more convenient or fashionable.

There are a great many countries that polute more than the UK, we are a tiny part of the planet and anything we do is diluted greatly.

Whitewave which paragraph of my post are you referring, to and which section

Are you suggesting that scientists and environmentalists do not want a thoroughly thought through and planned route to zero emissions . Or do they still think that shouting a lot will convince the unconvinced?

Climate warming has gone way past the jumping up and down and shouting stage. That was 20 years ago. Nothing is going to convince those that remain unconvinced and if anyone anywhere doesn't know about it, then nothing will succeed in getting through to them.

What we need are practical carefully thought out implementation plans and it is those that are sadly lacking.

Richard Murphy has posted the assessments of all the parties' 'green' manifesto policies by Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. Handy to have them collected in one place.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2019/12/08/voting-anything-but-conservative-is-a-vote-for-the-green-new-deal/

David what colour is the sun on your planet?

Very interesting. These last two paragraphs make sense to me.

Who do I think overall has the best policies? I am astonished Friends of the Earth think it is Labour. I am afraid nothing they say comes close to the Greens overall on this issue, and Greenpeace call that correctly.

But there is a comfort: however you vote ABC (Anything But Conservative) the commitment to green issues is high whilst voting Conservative would be to ignore the issue. It is that blunt.

The issue is as usual that we have a "fake" reason given to us, by the Conservatives, for this election. It should have been a "Green" election. We really can't waste time shilly-shallying about when our lives and those of our children and grandchildren are at stake.

Global warning has indeed been news for years, even on the odd day when nothing better, front page. But nothing has made an impact and as DA says, it’s too late to do anything to reverse if.

Why such patronising comment from some on her about Greta? Many of us admire her stance, many of us do what we can in our own small way, so why is she not allowed to do what she can in her own way.

Oh! And ‘I won’t mention her autism’ but you just have. ?