Europeans want climate action but show little appetite for radical lifestyle change: new polling – University of Cambridge

26 comments

  1. In other words, people are supporting something they know nothing about and as soon as it will personally affect them, will back out.

    *suprised pikachu face*

  2. Concerns over petrol prices I can understand — the issue is no less important since the gilet jaunes raised the issue; the cost of climate collapse should not be pushed on to the poorest. I wonder if what looks like opposition to “radical lifestyle change” is a grudging feeling that, whatever reforms are implemented to tackle climate collapse, the people who have always gotten shafted will continue to be shafted. There isn’t precedent for our society handling climate collapse in a just way. Objecting to a frequent flier tax seems wrong-headed though!

    The other problem is that many North Atlantic citizens have been conditioned to feel nothing for the larger, darker population they depend on. Their misery is a given. The misery of billions has been accepted in exchange for cheaper commodities. This is a fait accompli.

    But the blindness of the imperial mode of living creates dangers — it hides many signs of collapse and we may only become truly cognizant of them when it is too late.

    More environmental scientists need to say out loud what the research indicates: industrial society must be scaled back immediately and its logic thrown out of the window. Remember that even before the effects of climate collapse were so pronounced we were already in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, caused by human expansion across the planet.

    **What right have we to do this? All to maintain a relatively recent fillip in standards of living for a relatively small number of people, which there is no prospect of extending to everybody.**

    We’ve presumed entitlement to a lot, but the material conditions are pushing back strongly against that entitlement.

    “Fix your hearts or die,” as David Lynch said on a slightly different issue

    Additionally, now that reporting confirms fossil fuel use will expand over the next decade, can we acknowledge that crucial levers of society have been lifted out of democratic hands?

  3. Climate change is an institutional and regulatory issue that needs institutional and regulatory change. The vast, vast majority of CO2 emissions are industrial. We need to fine, tax and regulate industrial polluters while providing livable alternatives to the working class. Otherwise, that same working class, fucked over for the umpteenth time in history, will elect populists who will reverse all climate-change measures. We’ve seen it with Trump, we’ve seen it with Bolsonaro, we’re seeing it right now with Le Pen’s pre-election statements.

  4. You can still do a lot of positive change without it actually affecting peoples lifestyle in a major way. Electricity is still just electricity be it produced sustainably or not. A car is still a car regardless how its powered, although with those people should also look for alternatives in public transport when possible. A paper bag does more or less the same job as a plastic one. Just give people a good and competitively priced alternative and they will take it with open arms. The stricter changes should be aimed towards big companies first and foremost as they have the money to move to newer better technology.

  5. I bet people want the responsibility shared in proportion among the average Joe and the big corporations. But it is likely that the changes will affect way more the average Joe.

    It could be that the reason why

  8. Right, because climate action has an effect when it’s applied to society. Breaking your back over optimizing your own lifestyle won’t affect the climate whatsoever. Forcing regulations and societal changes however is what works.

  9. No surprise there. However the change has to come from the top. Forcing individuals will have little to no effect. Plastic recycling is a good example how your individual action is meaningless most of the time.

  10. I would gladly do something differently if I had an opportunity to do something without becoming unable to pay my rent.

    Financial side of these changes in various complex aspects and sides is pushing dangerously close to financial unsustainability of many individuals, such as myself (Living in Germany, pretty much no savings, and that with university degree). I’m always on the brink, if life gets more expensive, I guess I’ll have to learn to photosynthesize.

    I want more climate action and I think we as a society are completely technologically, socially and politically unprepared for climate crisis (which in my humble opinion for these very reasons will not be contained, see you in 2040 with floods and droughts around the globe), but I don’t know how to fix things. So I’m doing the only thing I can: I simply live today. Try not to buy plastic if there is a reasonable alternative. Can’t do much more myself. Can’t afford to do more myself.

  13. EU/governmants want normal people to change their lifelstyle. However according to their opinion change should not apply to politics and rich people.

    Europeans should be very sensitive about that matter: if any politic wants to take something from us they are obligated to participate.

    Typical example: i remember reading article according to which Ferrari wants to be excluded from future ban on gasoline vehicles. My first thought: yeah, sounds right, they are legendary brand. My second thought: why the hell toys for ultrarich should be excluded from this ban? If we have to end gasoline vehicles to save the planet then all should pay the price. We are living on the same planet, we should all suffer same burdens.

  14. *”Someone should eat grass, ride bicycle, not use electronics and live in a mud hut all their lives so we could save the climate!”*

    *”Someone other than me of course, I love the good stuff”*

    Shocking revelation :)))

  15. It’s quite human really, I want things to change but I don’t want to change.

    People point out that large corporations make the most of the emissions but is anyone happy to actually stop buying from those companies or shut them down? The top 5 emissions producers are all oil companies I believe, but would anyone be happy to shut them down? Imagine petrol/diesel prices then.

    You cannot separate the individual from the collective or the corporations. In order to actually reduce emissions it will take pain.

    It will involve petrol/gas/diesel being more expensive in order to make electric cars more competitive.

    It will involve imported cheap clothes and food being made more expensive, so locally produced clothes/food becomes more competitive/ reduces shipping emissions.

    It will involve eating meat less frequently, you cannot simultaneously blame agricultural emissions from meat production and say they need to be reduced without acknowledging that means less meat to go around.

    Governments should be however putting long term plans in place to move to sustainable options, if most transport/heating etc is going electric, then states need to put in place plans now that the electricity produced in 10/15 years time emits significantly less carbon, so work needs to start immediately on building more solar/wind farms as well as nuclear plants to provide a sustainable carbon-free base load of electricity for those dark, calm weeks.

    That is the sort of action governments need to take, but the pain will still come back on us, it’s a fallacy to think we can solve climate change with only minor little lifestyle changes and blame corporations when we refuse to reduce consumption from those corporations.

  16. How many milk cartons do I need to recycle to make up for a Jeff Bezos’ 20 minute space promenade?

  17. People identify an issue but want other people to solve it. Not specific to climate change.

    Also see:

    Raise taxes, just not *my* taxes.

  19. No shit. If I am required to drive less or electric, avoid meat or fish, buy less plastic etc while Mr. Fuckyouall flies his private jet every week to go to eat his golden steak from Salt Bae, are you surprised?

  20. The very vast majority of pollution comes from industries, transportation, and the upper 1%. No wonder the average person doesn’t feel the obligation – it’s genuinely not them who’s at fault, by far.

  22. That’s why I roll my eyes at movement’s as Greta’s, a bunch of naive kids who have no idea what they’re actually asking for. I, for one, don’t want to live like a hermit or like Winston from 1984, with the whole purpose in life being not consuming a lot. We need green energy, greener transportation and industrial processes and to throw less trash into the environment. I don’t want radical lifestyle changes, which would probably mean that things we consider completely normal would only be accessible to the hyper rich.

    I feel like with the whole covid situation and the lockdowns governments and experts suddenly remembered you can ask people to do a lot of sacrifices, as long as it is “for the greater good”, whatever that means. For decades western democracies stood for individual rights and freedoms and now we’re slowly becoming collectivist societies.

  24. That’s entirely reasonable: with the level of taxes in places like Germany the climate action can and should be funded by the already existing taxes, without any lifestyle changes whatsoever. A perfect example of this is nuclear power — it costs quite a bit to construct a nuclear power station, but it’s completely invisible to the end user. This is the kind of climate action people want.

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