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IPCC report: Why is no one on Mumsnet talking about climate change?

180 replies

WillPenn · 28/09/2013 22:21

Was very surprised to see hardly any talk about climate change on here, following on from the latest IPCC report. Are none of you worried about your kids' future or is everyone just sticking their heads in the sand?

It makes me panic to think what lies ahead for my DC if no one acts. Come on Mumsnet, how about a ground up campaign to try and get the govt. and the nation to tackle this elephant in the room head on?

As a family, we are doing what we can to cut back on energy usage - but we are just four people and I'm feeling pretty hopeless about the whole situation at the moment when nobody else seems to care about the future.

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BoulevardOfBrokenSleep · 28/09/2013 22:34

I've been keeping an eye out to see if anyone was going to start a thread about the IPCC report.

But IME climate change threads are just hugely depressing, it rapidly becomes clear that people have very little clue about the scale or seriousness of the problem, and hence our children are actually completely fucked, yup.
So I'm favouring the head-in-the-sand approach, and hoping that politicians will sort it out. What could possibly go wrong with that plan? Hmm

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NiceTabard · 28/09/2013 22:37

Maybe no-one is talking about it, as like me, the "news" that climate change is due to human activity isn't news at all?

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CogitoErgoSometimes · 29/09/2013 09:16

I think we are well past the stage of any single government 'tackling' the causes of the problem and that we should be entering a phase of preparation for the inevitable. Damage-limitation. If there's a drive to save energy, for example, it should be with the objective of reducing our dependence on other countries rather than expecting to cool the climate. Low-lying areas are going to need better flood defences. Agriculture is going to have to adapt. There are all kinds of practical things our government can do unilaterally but I don't think holding back the tide Canute-like is one of them.

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WillPenn · 29/09/2013 12:16

Nicetabard, climate change isn't news but it is "in the news" again.

Glad to see some people here are concerned. I've no doubt the politicians will do nothing, as they believe that it is not a vote winner. Climate change, renewable energies, preparing for the inevitable etc are not sexy topics and they are all too worried about halting economic growth and their own popularity to impliment anything.

If there was an actual Mumsnet campaign that exhorted politicans to DO SOMETHING and highlighted that "the people" (or at least some people - parents with children whose future we are ruining) would actually support them in their action, do you think they'd listen? Mumsnet HQ are you listening?

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CogitoErgoSometimes · 29/09/2013 16:30

If we're talking economic growth there are lots of opportunities ... jobs, investments, profits, new product development etc... in the 'Noah's Ark' project we're all going to need. All we need politicians to do is put the tax-breaks in the right places and provide a few incentives.

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WillPenn · 29/09/2013 20:21

Indeed Cogito - unfortunately they seem to lack the imagination. Also, they don't seem to be very good at selling the green economy to the general public. Excepting the Greens of course.

But I'm guessing this is because most of the major politicians are in the pockets of companies like BP and other fossil fuel energy suppliers and they are just too pathetic to stand up to them. Sod the planet we don't want the chief exec of BP to stop donating to the Tory party!!

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Thisisaeuphemism · 29/09/2013 20:23

Head in the sand here too - awful I know :(
I think we feel powerless.

But then you get some twat denier come along and it gets even more depressing.

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claig · 29/09/2013 20:29

I think not many people are speaking about it because most people no longer believe in it.

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WillPenn · 29/09/2013 21:36

Claig, do you mean people don't believe climate change is happening and is man made??!!!

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claig · 29/09/2013 22:36

That it is manmade.

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NiceTabard · 29/09/2013 22:44

Claig your opinions are unusual generally, to say the least.

willpenn don't take her posts as a genuine barometer of public opinion Smile

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BoulevardOfBrokenSleep · 29/09/2013 22:57

Love the x-post between euphemism and claig Grin Serendipity or what?

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claig · 29/09/2013 22:58

"Claig your opinions are unusual generally, to say the least."

Then you obviously do not read Middle England's most popular paper - the Daily Mail.

I think that if people really believed that we had passed the "tipping point" and that we were headed towards catastrophic climate change, then they would be very frightened and would want something done about it. However, the public has grown increasingly sceptical about the issue and even the political classes enthusiasm about it has waned.

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NiceTabard · 29/09/2013 23:06

Alternatively

The changes that need to be wrought to combat climate change are rather scary
And many people think in the short term
And the politicians are in the pocket of big business

I was watching the news when this report came out
And I said to DH. There's nothing to lose by exploring green options, and everything to gain. Even if you don't agree with the idea of man-made global warming, surely you understand that pollution is bad, that it kills enormous numbers of people every year even in the UK, that areas like the Niger Delta are fucked and the people in it due to oil operations, that wars that grow from civil to international do so usually because of a desire to benefit from fossil fuel reserves etc etc etc there are so many examples I don't know where to put them.

And meanwhile people in the UK whinge on about alternative power sources.

Imagine if we had "clean" electricity and "clean" electric vehicles. Would mean some few thousand londoners wouldn't die in the summer, and would assist hugely for many people with asthma and other respiratory probs. i think it sounds great. Most UK people don't. I imagine for a fair few of them it's because they read the DM Smile

Vote GREEN is all I can say. And hope for the best (but I genuinely expect the worst).

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southeastastra · 29/09/2013 23:08

i though the report said that nothing had changed in the last 10 years or so

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claig · 29/09/2013 23:19

'There's nothing to lose by exploring green options, and everything to gain.'

That is incorrect. Every one of us is paying approximately £112 per year extra on our yearly fuel bills due to climate change policies. Million of people across the world are dying of starvation due to increasing food prices caused by the use of crops for biofuel instead of food, and the riots that preceded the Arab Spring were in part caused by higher food prices which are being caused partly by the same policy.

Big business has the money to lobby certain 'cabs for hire' but the impact of any possible lobbying is minimal since the UN and the world's entire political class are nearly all united in pushing for climate change.

The United Nations Agenda 21, sustainable development and climate change policies are intended to have huge impacts on human development, resource use and population control.

The 'Limits to Growth' philosophy stems from elite thinktank groups backed by some of the richest men on the planet. That is why the policy has been so successful even though the majority of ordinary people do not believe in it.

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claig · 29/09/2013 23:43

And that is why "la class politique" of the world follow the same path to what they see as the "problematique" of humanity.

"la classe politique" create bogeymen to scare the people. First its communism, then its climate catastrophe, then its Saddam Hussein, then its Bin Laden. They create these bogeymen just as Orwell explained in 1984, in order to frighten the people and lead them up the path that they have planned for them.

Here is the famous quote from wikipedia about the 'Club of Rome' concerning global warming.

"In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill. In their totality and their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap, which we have already warned readers about, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention in natural processes, and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself"

and the quote of what precedes this famous quote is

"In 1991, the Club published The First Global Revolution.[7] It analyses the problems of humanity, calling these collectively or in essence the 'problematique'. It notes (laments) that, historically, social or political unity has commonly been motivated by enemies in common: "The need for enemies seems to be a common historical factor. Some states have striven to overcome domestic failure and internal contradictions by blaming external enemies. The ploy of finding a scapegoat is as old as mankind itself - when things become too difficult at home, divert attention to adventure abroad. Bring the divided nation together to face an outside enemy, either a real one, or else one invented for the purpose. With the disappearance of the traditional enemy, the temptation is to use religious or ethnic minorities as scapegoats, especially those whose differences from the majority are disturbing."[8] "Every state has been so used to classifying its neighbours as friend or foe, that the sudden absence of traditional adversaries has left governments and public opinion with a great void to fill. New enemies have to be identified, new strategies imagined, and new weapons devised."


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome

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peggyundercrackers · 29/09/2013 23:44

yes the climate is changing - its not really news though is it - its been doing that for 1000s of years, its just they want to tax us more because of it now. is man causing it? I don't believe that for one minute. is it fossil fuels causing it? I don't believe that for on minute either.

I don't know why the govt are pushing for people to buy electric cars - where is all this electricity going to come from? there is predicted power failures in a few years as it stands because of a lack of power stations/closure program of power stations but we have to power an extra 17 million electric cars as well now... hmmm... sounds like a well thought out plan.

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peggyundercrackers · 29/09/2013 23:54

@nicetabard - what do you mean when you say a few thousand Londoners wouldn't die in summer?

your right pollution is bad - however the air is now cleaner than its ever been - in fact NASA produced a report saying the air was so clean they thought it was adding to climate change - I can dig the link out to NASAs web site if you want it? 95% of cities don't have smog any more since all these factories disappeared and we became a country obsessed with the service industry instead of manufacturing.

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claig · 30/09/2013 00:13

This is the famous quote by Maurice Strong, Secretary General, UN Conference on Environment and Development, 1992 (also known as the Rio Earth Summit).

The UN's Agenda 21 came from this Summit and here is Maurice's quote

“...current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class - involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable.”

That is why the green policies envisaged by some of the elite's "classe politique" are intended to have a huge impact on people's lives.

Puppets and 'cabs for hire' try to convince the public to go along, but even the Heavens themselves have conspired to confound the planners by making the earth not warm for the past 15 or so years, which has only increased the scepticism of humanity towards the increasingly alarmist claims of the 'cabs for hire'.

They'll roll out new reports, they won't listen to the public's retorts, but their plans will fail and humanity will prevail.

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claig · 30/09/2013 00:31

Oh, and UKIP have stood up and said "NO, thus far and no further" and Farage has said that they will cause an earthquake in British politics.

Now it's the people versus the 'cabs for hire', the Daily Mail reports that the poster boys for global warming - the polar bears - are flourishing, the earth has not warmed for 15 or so years and the situation is not as the 'cabs for hire' claimed, so dire.

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ninjasquirrel · 30/09/2013 07:46

OP - I think the reason why people aren't talking about is that the majority don't want to think about it as if you take the science seriously it's so frightening. It can also be very frustrating when threads get derailed by a vocal minority, whose logic is "I don't like the political implications of this, therefore the overwhelming scientific consensus must be wrong." To be fair to them, their papers, the Mail and Express, lie shamelessly about it.

OP, I'd recommend looking out some groups campaigning on the issue so you don't feel so isolated in your concern (PM me if you want - hope it works, haven't done that before on MN). Given so many MNers' concern for social justice, it would be great if MN could follow other mainstream organisations such as the WI and lobby government on what is the greatest social injustice ever, towards future generations - but I don't see it happening any time soon, unfortunately!

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CogitoErgoSometimes · 30/09/2013 09:49

"UKIP have stood up and said "NO, thus far and no further" "

Didn't King Canute try the same thing on the ocean? Hmm

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Picturesinthefirelight · 30/09/2013 09:55

Because I've never heard if the ipcc or their report.

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NiceTabard · 30/09/2013 09:57
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