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Really, the only significantly impactful things we can do at individual levels are: fly less, drive less, buy less stuff, eat less meat.
Everything else is window dressing or something that governments need to do at the international level.
Most of the really effective ones (using manpads to hunt private jets, wiping out billionaires etc) are illegal.
A typical persons impact is transport, energy (mostly heating/cooling), and food, then goods. (Having children has an enormous long term impact but that's a different story).
Insulation, solar, heatpumps dent the energy one. Transport you've mentioned. Growing food, eating less meat etc make a difference. Repairing and reusing likewise. Big business is big on "recycle" because to them recycle is "buy more!!" whereas repair/reuse are "oh my god the share price !"
One fun way to learn things and contribute is to join some of the repair groups (see community repair network for pointers). Even if you don't have any of the skills it's a chance to learn a lot of repair skills whilst contributing.
Thanks for the reply.
Thought about the repair groups, but trying to find ideas that are a bit bigger, perhaps suggestions by people working in the sector.
There’s people pointing out on socials how high certain rich people’s emissions are from private jets, yachts etc, which seems impactful to me, but the influencer game is not for me.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I will say that thinking like this is unhelpful.
Who makes electric vehicles affordable? How? With what money? There are already grants available for buying EVs in certain scenarios. The preferred option is to use public transport rather than drive, where possible.
How do you make "the manufacturers" stop? Which ones? How? We are already banning more and more single use plastics every year. It's happening.
There are 67 million people in the UK. Cutting Janet from Slough's electricity usage by 8% may not seem meaningful to Janet, but if we can get *all of the UK* to cut their usage by 5~10%, that's *billions* of kWh saved. I know it's hard to think about the big picture when you have your own life to deal with on a daily basis, but climate change is very much a big picture problem.
One person making some small reductions to their energy use is, indeed, not meaningful. Millions of people making those changes are extremely meaningful and valuable.
Join a union and organise with your coworkers to pressure your employer to reduce its environmental impact. Make sure your pension isn’t being invested in fossil fuels. Save up and get some solar panels, and/or team up with neighbours to organise a [community solar farm](https://southillcommunityenergy.coop/southill-solar). Buy less and help others to do so too - get involved in your local sharing library/“library of things” or set one up
Hi, I work for a net zero/climate change nonprofit. (Specifically, this one, though our website is kind of useless to the general public: https://es.catapult.org.uk/).
On an individual level, the best thing you can do is advocate for good energy practise. The biggest barriers to net zero in the UK are attitudes and conspiracy theories. Be an energy nerd. Dispel conspiracy thinking where you find it. Educate yourself and pass that education on to others.
Outside of that, the second best thing you can do is raise money towards decarbonising. Nesta does good work, as does Cool Earth.
Finally, decarbonise your home and engage with your smart meters. It doesn't seem like a lot when you only see a single household's worth of change, but remember that you are one household of billions, and we need to rework every brick individually to reshape this wall.
This is partly due to reducing our demand for coal-fired power, and partly because we outsourced our manufacturing.
[https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-emissions-in-2023-fell-to-lowest-level-since-1879/](https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-emissions-in-2023-fell-to-lowest-level-since-1879/)
You just casually dismiss that the UK no longer uses coal as a power source (or very rarely), and that in the whole of England it is actually against the law for domestic users to burn coal in a fireplace.
"oh yeah theyve only done it by doing what they need to do" is so utterly dismissive.
The argument that we've massively reduced our emissions compared with the past is frequently put forward by those who compare us to our peers.
What is frequently overlooked by those people is that our peers were operating off cleaner power to begin with. France, for example, has plenty of zero-carbon nuclear power generation.
So let's not dismiss our own achievement but it should not mean that we should not try to do more now.
There is literally nothing the UK or anyone who lives here could do to make a dent in climate change.
Look to China, India, Russia and the US for change. Nobody else can do anything about it.
Also bear in mind that when taking about China, India and Russia, you are asking them to increase costs and prolong processes in the attempt to reduce their omissions, which will literally never happen.
The only thing the west can do is stop buying products from India and China, which again, will never happen.
To be fair we could start manufacturing a lot more instead of outsourcing it to places like China and India, that’s a win for the economy and a win (albeit very very minor) for the climate.
>There is literally nothing the UK or anyone who lives here could do to make a dent in climate change
This is a popular sentiment. But it does ignore that a not insignificant part of emissions in China and other countries in the developing world comes from manufacturing and transporting products for us and from the extraction and processing of the raw materials to make said products.
In effect, much of the climate impact of our lifestyles is created in other countries.
They are China's emissions in the sense that they happen in China. My point is simply that the idea evinced in OP's post, and it's one I see a lot on Reddit, that there is literally nothing the UK and the west can do in the face of Chinese emissions is a too simplistic analysis that doesn't account for how our lifestyles drive some of the emissions and environmental degradation in countries around the world.
Yes, but it's rather contradictory to lead off by saying there's literally nothing we can do. It's an unhelpful and misleading framing, imo. Not having a go at you, it's just it's a common misconception I see, and one often used to justify not bothering to do anything.
It’s not contradictory at all:
We’ve know about global warming for 40+ years, and have done fuck all to combat it. Do you think we’re going to do something now when there are more people on Earth, and to fix the problem will cost us more than ever?
That's a different matter. You're now talking about the lack of will to do something. That's different from whether we *could* do something.
Saying there is 'literally nothing' we could do and then stating something pretty big we could do seems a pretty clear contradiction to me.
Not sure a “just f it” attitude is the right approach though
If predictions come even close we are pretty much fked and the only hope is that science finds a solution.
I’m aware of geopolitics and that as an individual it’s difficult to archive much - still I’d like to give it a shot and would be happy to hear some options.
It could be something eventually becoming a full time thing, if that helps
China furthered Solar more than any other country, but sure their emissions are high.
It’s a hard sell to countries who didn’t benefit as much as others from the last 60 years or so, to follow the same rules as the US or wealth European Nations.
As an individual there is absolutely nothing you can do to tackle climate change. Recycling and not using a car doesn't make a blind bit of difference.
**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!** - Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc. - **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on. - This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit! Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Really, the only significantly impactful things we can do at individual levels are: fly less, drive less, buy less stuff, eat less meat. Everything else is window dressing or something that governments need to do at the international level.
Why wouldn’t what I mentioned as options above, not have a much bigger effect at least relative to all of the consumption stuff ?
Another easy one to achieve is to simply not have pets.
Most of the really effective ones (using manpads to hunt private jets, wiping out billionaires etc) are illegal. A typical persons impact is transport, energy (mostly heating/cooling), and food, then goods. (Having children has an enormous long term impact but that's a different story). Insulation, solar, heatpumps dent the energy one. Transport you've mentioned. Growing food, eating less meat etc make a difference. Repairing and reusing likewise. Big business is big on "recycle" because to them recycle is "buy more!!" whereas repair/reuse are "oh my god the share price !" One fun way to learn things and contribute is to join some of the repair groups (see community repair network for pointers). Even if you don't have any of the skills it's a chance to learn a lot of repair skills whilst contributing.
Thanks for the reply. Thought about the repair groups, but trying to find ideas that are a bit bigger, perhaps suggestions by people working in the sector. There’s people pointing out on socials how high certain rich people’s emissions are from private jets, yachts etc, which seems impactful to me, but the influencer game is not for me.
Step one is always eating the rich, we need to start giving the masses cookbooks
[удалено]
I'm not saying you're wrong, but I will say that thinking like this is unhelpful. Who makes electric vehicles affordable? How? With what money? There are already grants available for buying EVs in certain scenarios. The preferred option is to use public transport rather than drive, where possible. How do you make "the manufacturers" stop? Which ones? How? We are already banning more and more single use plastics every year. It's happening. There are 67 million people in the UK. Cutting Janet from Slough's electricity usage by 8% may not seem meaningful to Janet, but if we can get *all of the UK* to cut their usage by 5~10%, that's *billions* of kWh saved. I know it's hard to think about the big picture when you have your own life to deal with on a daily basis, but climate change is very much a big picture problem. One person making some small reductions to their energy use is, indeed, not meaningful. Millions of people making those changes are extremely meaningful and valuable.
Join a union and organise with your coworkers to pressure your employer to reduce its environmental impact. Make sure your pension isn’t being invested in fossil fuels. Save up and get some solar panels, and/or team up with neighbours to organise a [community solar farm](https://southillcommunityenergy.coop/southill-solar). Buy less and help others to do so too - get involved in your local sharing library/“library of things” or set one up
Hi, I work for a net zero/climate change nonprofit. (Specifically, this one, though our website is kind of useless to the general public: https://es.catapult.org.uk/). On an individual level, the best thing you can do is advocate for good energy practise. The biggest barriers to net zero in the UK are attitudes and conspiracy theories. Be an energy nerd. Dispel conspiracy thinking where you find it. Educate yourself and pass that education on to others. Outside of that, the second best thing you can do is raise money towards decarbonising. Nesta does good work, as does Cool Earth. Finally, decarbonise your home and engage with your smart meters. It doesn't seem like a lot when you only see a single household's worth of change, but remember that you are one household of billions, and we need to rework every brick individually to reshape this wall.
We've halved our emissions since 1990. We're doing our bit.
This is partly due to reducing our demand for coal-fired power, and partly because we outsourced our manufacturing. [https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-emissions-in-2023-fell-to-lowest-level-since-1879/](https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-emissions-in-2023-fell-to-lowest-level-since-1879/)
You just casually dismiss that the UK no longer uses coal as a power source (or very rarely), and that in the whole of England it is actually against the law for domestic users to burn coal in a fireplace. "oh yeah theyve only done it by doing what they need to do" is so utterly dismissive.
The argument that we've massively reduced our emissions compared with the past is frequently put forward by those who compare us to our peers. What is frequently overlooked by those people is that our peers were operating off cleaner power to begin with. France, for example, has plenty of zero-carbon nuclear power generation. So let's not dismiss our own achievement but it should not mean that we should not try to do more now.
"France for example" The only example. But it is good to see environmentalists backing nuclear again.
Germany had nuclear power until very recently. Japan has plenty. Finland too. I have always been pro-nuclear.
Manufacturing was already outsourced long before 1990.
China's share of global manufacturing exports really took off once they acceded to the World Trade Organisation. This was in 2001.
Last thing Sunak did was fk the climate goals wasn’t it ?
There is literally nothing the UK or anyone who lives here could do to make a dent in climate change. Look to China, India, Russia and the US for change. Nobody else can do anything about it. Also bear in mind that when taking about China, India and Russia, you are asking them to increase costs and prolong processes in the attempt to reduce their omissions, which will literally never happen. The only thing the west can do is stop buying products from India and China, which again, will never happen.
To be fair we could start manufacturing a lot more instead of outsourcing it to places like China and India, that’s a win for the economy and a win (albeit very very minor) for the climate.
Agreed, we use to thrive on primary/secondary industries. Now it seems to be all office based jobs in most cities.
Good luck getting people to buy your £4,500 smart phone.
>There is literally nothing the UK or anyone who lives here could do to make a dent in climate change This is a popular sentiment. But it does ignore that a not insignificant part of emissions in China and other countries in the developing world comes from manufacturing and transporting products for us and from the extraction and processing of the raw materials to make said products. In effect, much of the climate impact of our lifestyles is created in other countries.
We have no control over what technologies China uses. Those are still China's emissions.
They are China's emissions in the sense that they happen in China. My point is simply that the idea evinced in OP's post, and it's one I see a lot on Reddit, that there is literally nothing the UK and the west can do in the face of Chinese emissions is a too simplistic analysis that doesn't account for how our lifestyles drive some of the emissions and environmental degradation in countries around the world.
I don’t ignore it. I literally addressed it in my post.
Yes, but it's rather contradictory to lead off by saying there's literally nothing we can do. It's an unhelpful and misleading framing, imo. Not having a go at you, it's just it's a common misconception I see, and one often used to justify not bothering to do anything.
It’s not contradictory at all: We’ve know about global warming for 40+ years, and have done fuck all to combat it. Do you think we’re going to do something now when there are more people on Earth, and to fix the problem will cost us more than ever?
That's a different matter. You're now talking about the lack of will to do something. That's different from whether we *could* do something. Saying there is 'literally nothing' we could do and then stating something pretty big we could do seems a pretty clear contradiction to me.
Ok man - enjoy splitting hairs over fuck all 👍
It's not splitting hairs, it's responding to what you literally wrote. Have a good day!
Not sure a “just f it” attitude is the right approach though If predictions come even close we are pretty much fked and the only hope is that science finds a solution. I’m aware of geopolitics and that as an individual it’s difficult to archive much - still I’d like to give it a shot and would be happy to hear some options. It could be something eventually becoming a full time thing, if that helps
China furthered Solar more than any other country, but sure their emissions are high. It’s a hard sell to countries who didn’t benefit as much as others from the last 60 years or so, to follow the same rules as the US or wealth European Nations.
They are also using more coal than ever https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-may-upend-global-coal-emissions-trends-2024-2024-02-14/
Please don't dedicate your spare time to worshipping the climate. Just be yourself and try to have a good time, and recycle.
Perhaps engaging in something meaningful would give me a good time ?
As an individual there is absolutely nothing you can do to tackle climate change. Recycling and not using a car doesn't make a blind bit of difference.