Why old people were always "Green".

parkman6551

If there is any doubt about whether old people were "Green" in their day then people should read this:

WOW! - HOW THE "GREY HAIRED" HAVE DESTROYED OUR PLANET
Checking out at the supermarket, the young cashier suggested to the much older woman that reusable grocery bags were a good idea as plastic bags weren't good for the environment.
The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this “green thing” back in my earlier days."
The young cashier responded, "That's our problem today - your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.”
She was right — our generation didn't have the “green thing” in its day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, lemonade bottles and beer bottles to the shop.
The shop sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So, they really were recycled.
But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.
Grocery shops bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we re-used for numerous things, most memorable besides household bags for rubbish, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks.
This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school), was not defaced by our scribbling. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.
We walked up stairs, because we didn't have a lift in every supermarket, shop and office building.
We walked to the local shop and didn't climb into a 300 horse power machine every time we had to go half a mile.
Back then, we washed the baby's Terry Toweling nappies because we didn't have the throw away kind.
We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 3 kilowatts — wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids had hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.
Back then, we had one radio or TV in the house - not a TV in every room and the TV had a small screen the size of a big handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of Arran In the kitchen.
We blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us.
When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded-up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.
Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn.
We pushed the mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.
But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.
We drank from a tap or fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.
We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
Back then, people took the bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their Mums into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's £40,000 People Carrier which cost the same as a whole house did before the "green thing."
We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances and we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pub!
But isn't it sad that some of the current generation lament how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?
Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart-arse young person...
We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off...especially when the “advice” is being offered by a tattooed, multiple pierced smartarse who can't work out the change without the cash register telling them how much it is!

Pierre3.

ted1

They Burnt coal for heating , smog was a huge problem in cities.
Dumped their rubbish in landfills, didn’t separate waste.
Acid rain.
Obtained most of the electricity from fossil fuels.

Del.Monte

ted1 wrote: »

They Burnt coal for heating , smog was a huge problem in cities.
Dumped their rubbish in landfills, didn’t separate waste.
Acid rain.
Obtained most of the electricity from fossil fuels.

I should give up while you're ahead if that's the best riposte that you can make.

magicbastarder

It's like an unfunny version of the four yorkshiremen sketch.

parkman6551

I still reckon that we were on the winning side. The Chinese and India still burn up millions of tons of coal for their power stations even though they know the result of that, and that idiot Bolsonnaro, in Brazil, still encourages the moneyed farmers to burn down thousands of acres of rain forest every day desite knowing the result of that.

No, the current "yoof" think they know better but, in reality, it is only ideas and not practice, except in the West where we have already made decent changes.

magicbastarder

the chinese and indians, in terms of per capita consumption, consume far less than westerners.
old people giving out about young people is just *dull*.

Graces7

magicbastarder wrote: »

the chinese and indians, in terms of per capita consumption, consume far less than westerners.
old people giving out about young people is just *dull*.

true; and vice versa. But I was challenged! Will now delete my post as instructed

Mullaghteelin

Growing up in Ireland, I was always disgusted at how adults would think nothing of dumping old appliances into streams and rivers. I even had a teacher in secondary who commented on this phenomenon. He would describe it as almost traditional in rural Ireland.
Similarly, there is all sorts of crap such as old machinery or building material literally buried under gardens or farmyards. People will be cursing those generations for years to come.

Graces7

Mullaghteelin wrote: »

Growing up in Ireland, I was always disgusted at how adults would think nothing of dumping old appliances into streams and rivers. I even had a teacher in secondary who commented on this phenomenon. He would describe it as almost traditional in rural Ireland.
Similarly, there is all sorts of crap such as old machinery or building material literally buried under gardens or farmyards. People will be cursing those generations for years to come.

One rental I moved into; we asked the landlord to sort the tangled garden while the digger was in clearing the drive.

He " found" two old cars . a washing machine and a few other goodies. in the undergrowth.

They proceeded to dig a huge " grave" in the landlord's adjoining field and bury them.. This was around ten years ago.

Graces7

magicbastarder wrote: »

the chinese and indians, in terms of per capita consumption, consume far less than westerners.
old people giving out about young people is just *dull*.

Actually I was about to explain to the poster about how wrong he was in his accusations; not giving out as such.

But that old lady in the quote was brilliant and not at all dull. And she is so right.. I am nearly 80 and still live much as I did when I was young. Green as green as green

The J Stands for Jay

It's nice to see that OP is into recycling old copypasta.

The current situation was out in place by older people. It wasn't the cashier in the shop, doing what they were told to keep getting work under their zero hours contract, who decided that there was more profit in not reusing bottles, etc.

parkman6551

I like the fact that people are at least having a sensible discussion [rather than just arguing] because it is how we get to an agreed conclusion.

One thing that I would say is that beware of criticism of the dumping of old household rubbish, electrical goods and building waste. A lot of it is done by unscrupulous "traders" offering to help clear gardens etc. and then dumping the waste in country lanes, Dunsink Lane and its' visitors comes to mind !!

hirondelle

I know some old people who have a religious devotion to recycling every bottle and jar- even washing them by hand before dropping them off at the bottle banks....but literally throw everything else in the "refuge" bin because the recycling one is too confusing.

I know some young people who have an abhorrence of takeaway food packaging in their car once they have consumed the contents, the bags of food, plastics and paper/cardboard go straight out the window.

Analysis- some people good at trying to minimise their impact, others not so good and it isn't a function of age.

parkman6551

As I dislike the way the flat-earth believers keep jabbering on about banning the use of petrol and diesel vehicles, and promoting the building and sales of extremely expensive and, in the long term, no greener electric vehicle, I am writing to the various political parties suggesting a good compromise for said flat-earthers.

I think that Government should ban the use of all, and that should be absolutely all, petrol and diesel vehicles from a Friday evening, about 8pm, until a Monday morning about 7am [purely arbitrary times of course], allowing only the use of electric vehicles to be used.

This would mean that electric powered public transport would be OK, such as the DART, but the trains that use so-called fossil fuels have to park up for the weekend, as do buses and coaches that are using fossil fuels. Private cars and taxis, except for electric ones would have to be parked, so that would give anyone who wants to travel the opportunity to get on a bicycle.

This should be done for two weekends every month, so on those weekends, if you want to travel from Dublin to Cork, for instance, you would need to either get an electric car [very expensive but I'm sure that you want to be "green"] or be very fit and use a bicycle. The weekly shopping would have to be done during the week, and if there are kids sports activities to be done then you could all use bicycles to get to the parks or sports clubs. Simples.

However, I have a suspicion that the flat-earthers would soon realise that they need vehicular transport to get from A to B to live their rather self-righteous lives, and that not having access to transport to more distant points is not at all welcome. I am at a stage in life where I don't care if I don't travel more than 5 miles from home and if I want to keep my petrol car, and use it, then I am happy to do so. I am not going to accept some Swedish child pontificating to me about how I should live my life.

I hope that my legacy will be to have left three perfectly functional classic cars which I currently use, all extremely efficient 5 litre engines which pass NCT emissions tests every year despite being built back in the seventies. Happiness all round.

Parkman.

Padre_Pio

parkman6551 wrote: »

If there is any doubt about whether old people were "Green" in their day then people should read this:

WOW! - HOW THE "GREY HAIRED" HAVE DESTROYED OUR PLANET

I started to address each of these points, but really, it just comes down to poverty and ignorance.
People were too poor to use resources. You can't claim they walked everywhere and reused items due to environmental consciousness when in reality, people were just poor.

That said, my grandparents burnt all their rubbish (too poor for the dump)
Waste oil from the car was burned.
Dozens of landfill sites can't be used due to toxins in the ground.
There was no EPA, farmers did whatever they liked.
Places like Cobh have high cancer rates due to dumping from the steel mill.
Loads of examples for Ireland's toxic past.

And that's before we get on to the rest of the world.
Huge swathes of France are off-limits due to buried war munitions.
That's before we get into the nuclear test sites from the 1940s-1960s.

Saying THE "GREY HAIRED" HAVE DESTROYED OUR PLANET is factually true.
The odd milk bottle is not going to offset decades of polluting manufacturing and large-scale dumping.
Climate change was established back in the early 1980's and was ignored. It's really only now we're seeing the effects that people and governmetns are making changes.

The "Grey Haired" had their chance to make changes and didn't.

El Tarangu

Having one more child is the biggest driver of climate change on the level of the individual, so in that respect younger people are a lot greener than older people.

Swindled

This ageism bullshyte is about divide an conquer by governments, politicians, mega corporations and the rich, and gets them all off the hook nicely while ordinary people are encouraged to divide and fight among themselves instead of questioning current policies / governance.
Oldest trick in the book.
The next generation will be told this one was useless as well, and the cause of all their problems.
What are we going to do when we become the older generation and are being scapegoated for something else instead ?

The J Stands for Jay

El Tarangu wrote: »

Having one more child is the biggest driver of climate change on the level of the individual, so in that respect younger people are a lot greener than older people.

I am not a fan of people having more than 2 kids. I secretly look down on them, but I keep it to myself.

whisky_galore

El Tarangu wrote: »

Having one more child is the biggest driver of climate change on the level of the individual, so in that respect younger people are a lot greener than older people.

Working Generation Rent can't afford them and have nowhere to house a family.

If you're on the welfare wagon you can squeeze out as many as you like, planet be damned.

tjhook

I know it's fashionable to point fingers at "other" generations these days, but it's worth remembering that older people were young once too. And they weren't any better or worse as people than the young of any other generation.

What has changed is society's understanding of the world around us and communications technology to share it (both provided by the "older generations"). If you said to a man/woman on the street 50 years ago that they need to control or reduce their carbon output, they'd look at you like you've two heads. Not because they're selfish or stupid, but because it wasn't common knowledge.

People now that have the knowledge.

I suspect we won't see a huge decrease in young people flying to sunspots after their leaving certs (Covid aside!), or a huge upswing in the numbers of teenagers cycling to school/college. And again, it's not because today's young are any worse than the young of any previous generation. It's human nature. Change and sacrifices are easy to call on others to make.

The "Baby Boomer" generation still largely controls society's disposable income. "Generation X" won't get much of a look in, but the "Millennial generation" will be in control from about 2029. That's not all that far away. It will be interesting to see then to what extent things change and what sacrifices will be made. Or if like every generation before, the radicalism will soften with age.

L1011

Most of the plastic in the pacific ocean garbage patch is from the 1970s, produced for people in their 60s and up. Trying to delude yourself that its younger generations fault is futile.

Entire copy/paste is basically a grumpy old git who doesn't like being told off for something they very much know they're now doing that isn't a good idea, as is obvious from the way its written.

Padre_Pio

El Tarangu wrote: »

Having one more child is the biggest driver of climate change on the level of the individual, so in that respect younger people are a lot greener than older people.

Living in a first-world country is the biggest driver.
Someone in sub-Saharan Africa will need 50 kids to match the consumption of one first-world child.
We can point fingers and ban plastic straws all we want, blame the older generations, whatever.

The simple fact is that by living in a first-world country, our day-to-day living has a far greater impact than maybe 70% of the world.
Ireland generates 100 times more Co2 than Liberia, despite having the same population.

Now, I want a higher standard of living than the average Liberian, but finger-pointing isn't going to get us there.

Swindled

Padre_Pio wrote: »

Living in a first-world country is the biggest driver.
Someone in sub-Saharan Africa will need 50 kids to match the consumption of one first-world child.

We can point fingers and ban plastic straws all we want, blame the older generations, whatever.

The simple fact is that by living in a first-world country, our day-to-day living has a far greater impact than maybe 70% of the world.

Ireland generates 100 times more Co2 than Liberia, despite having the same population.

And China produces more emissions than the rest of all the developed world combined, and has opened hundreds of new coal fired power plants, but hey older Irish people, and certain races having any children, is the real problem. As long as we pay other people's carbon taxes for them, it's all good.
Maybe we can bring more Liberians here to show us the way, and force more of the disgusting Irish young to emigrate / not have kids ?

Graces7

Graces7 wrote: »

Actually I was about to explain to the poster about how wrong he was in his accusations; not giving out as such.

But that old lady in the quote was brilliant and not at all dull. And she is so right.. I am nearly 80 and still live much as I did when I was young. Green as green as green

Individual vs Society.

It was the society between 1950 and 1990 which drove the consumer use/dispose economies.



Yes she returned bottles and such but it was the 40 year olds, in 70s 80s, which removed this option.



Just because the younger generation has to live with the decisions of 2+ generations past, does not mean tgat they caused it today

Padre_Pio

Swindled wrote: »

And China produces more emissions than the rest of all the developed world combined, and has opened hundreds of new coal fired power plants, but hey older Irish people, and certain races having any children, is the real problem. As long as we pay other people's carbon taxes for them, it's all good.

Well, that's not true. Speaking of Co2 pollution
Europe and the US combined have greater Co2 emission than China.
The population of Europe and the US combined are less than China.

Again, it makes no sense to point fingers. Per capita, Ireland pollutes almost as much as China.
Except pollution in China doesn't come from the people, as you say it's mostly power plants and manufacturing.

So there should be more onus on the general public in Ireland to reduce consumption, than the general public in China.

Swindled

Padre_Pio wrote: »

Well, that's not true. Speaking of Co2 pollution
Europe and the US combined have greater Co2 emission than China.
The population of Europe and the US combined are less than China.

Again, it makes no sense to point fingers. Per capita, Ireland pollutes almost as much as China.
Except pollution in China doesn't come from the people, as you say it's mostly power plants and manufacturing.

So there should be more onus on the general public in Ireland to reduce consumption, than the general public in China.

Well it is, and yet it's ok to point fingers at older Irish people and tell young Irish people not to have children, and that Liberians and Libera are the future ambition, lol.

I can't post links but here it is, and anyone can read it with a google :

BBC - 7th May 2021
Report: China emissions exceed ALL developed nations combined
China emits more greenhouse gas than the entire developed world combined, a new report has claimed. The research by Rhodium Group says China emitted 27% of the world's greenhouse gases in 2019.

Padre_Pio

Swindled wrote: »

Well it is, and yet it's ok to point fingers at older Irish people and tell young Irish people not to have children, and that Liberians and Libera are the future ambition, lol.

I can't post links but here it is, and anyone can read it with a google :

BBC - 7th May 2021
Report: China emissions exceed ALL developed nations combined
China emits more greenhouse gas than the entire developed world combined, a new report has claimed. The research by Rhodium Group says China emitted 27% of the world's greenhouse gases in 2019.

Here's the link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-57018837
The image is from the same link, but the countries listed below (which excludes many developed countries) add up to more than China.
The headline is actually incorrect. It should say "China emissions exceed the average of ALL OECD developed nations combined. Less dramatic I suppose, but it paints a completely different picture.

Your point is disingenous. Also from the same study:

The Rhodium Group also calculated per capita emissions and found that China now registers just below average levels across the bloc of countries that make up the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. China’s per capita emissions still remain well below those of the United States, which has the world’s highest rate, at 17.6 tons per person.

Pointing to China and saying "oh sure why should be bother when the Chinese are polluting far more than us" is nonsense. Sure the Chinese could just as easily say "oh sure why bother when American's consume far more than the average Chinese person?"

You're just passing the blame on.

EDIT: Also, China's cumulative emissions are far lower than many western countries which had a 100 year head start on large scale manufacturing.

Swindled

Cleary any young Irish people who are not forced to emigrate and have any children, and their Granny, is the real problem though, and we need aspire to be . . . Liberia and Liberians . . . lol. As long as the richest in Ireland pay no taxes as usual, and the ordinary joes pay it for them, it'll al be grand.

JimmyVik

Swindled wrote: »

This ageism bullshyte is about divide an conquer by governments, politicians, mega corporations and the rich, and gets them all off the hook nicely while ordinary people are encouraged to divide and fight among themselves instead of questioning current policies / governance.
Oldest trick in the book.
The next generation will be told this one was useless as well, and the cause of all their problems.
What are we going to do when we become the older generation and are being scapegoated for something else instead ?

Never a truer word said.
Its never the fault of the now generation. Its always someone elses fault. And because there is no generation before them its the older generations fault.

growleaves

Large corporate polluters in the West, and coal-fired power stations in India and China are where most of the harmful damage to the planet comes from.

Trying to micro-regulate every aspect of people' lives, talking people out of having children, banishing cars from cities, rationing (if it comes to that) are a con and a distraction.

Padre_Pio

Swindled wrote: »

Cleary any young Irish people who are not forced to emigrate and have any children, and their Granny, is the real problem though, and we need aspire to be . . . Liberia and Liberians . . . lol. As long as the richest in Ireland pay no taxes as usual, and the ordinary joes pay it for them, it'll al be grand.

What's more important? Sustained economic growth based on production and consumption, or reducing our climate impact.

Unless the world economy fundamentally changes, we can't have both.

growleaves wrote: »

Large corporate polluters in the West, and coal-fired power stations in India and China are where most of the harmful damage to the planet comes from.

Trying to micro-regulate every aspect of people' lives, talking people out of having children, banishing cars from cities, rationing (if it comes to that) are a con and a distraction.

Who consumes the products, who consumes the power?

growleaves

Padre_Pio wrote: »

Who consumes the products, who consumes the power?

Creating a dictatorship around what people can do or where they can is coming at the problem backwards, and the bad motives of people who call for this can be seen from miles away.

I don't think you're fooling anyone. In a few years you will be calling for a "green transition" to a credit-based rationing system. The large corporations and the coal-fired power stations will still be there, undisturbed.

Swindled

Padre_Pio wrote: »

What's more important? Sustained economic growth based on production and consumption, or reducing our climate impact.

Unless the world economy fundamentally changes, we can't have both.

Who consumes the products, who consumes the power?

Yep, that's a "really true" dilemma, and clearly the best way to stop economic growth and reduce climate impact is to attack, blame and tax ordinary Irish people, older Irish people, and young Irish people that think they should stay in Ireland and have any children . . . you're right Irish people are the real problem, nuke us, and bring in the Liberians, they know how to run a country, produce, consume and how to have children correctly.

parkman6551

Padre Pio, you do make some very good points there. I can't deny that the rubbish collections in towns ended up a huge toxic dumps, and that a lot of farmers spread plenty of cow-poo on the fields, and by keeping barns of silage they managed to damage a lot of natural waterways.

I would make a couple of brief points, however.

If arable farming was to provide the necessary amount of vegetables and cereals the farmers had to use something, and cow-poo did the job. There was no way small market gardeners could supply everything.

There is a very good reason for the following:
Huge swathes of France are off-limits due to buried war munitions.
That's before we get into the nuclear test sites from the 1940s-1960s.

If the UK, France, and the US hadn't gone to war against firstly, Germany, and secondly, faced up to Russia we would all be speaking either German or Russian by now. All the second world war bombing was completely necessary to prevent a rabid anti-Semitic lunatic from enforcing his political will across Europe and Russia. Provided you vote as a National Front member then this would be alright, but if you are Jewish, black, Russian, or a traveller then your outlook is grim.

The nuclear tests had to be done, and Kennedy was brave enough to face off the Russians with a threat of "We have more, and bigger, nuclear weapons then you". If he hadn't done so Russia would have marched into whatever country it wished, and there would have been little worthwhile opposition. Personally, I prefer my version of Democracy to Putins. I happened to have been in East Germany several times before the wall came down, and I can tell you from personal experience that I appreciate the nuclear bomb makers in the US , the UK, and France for doing what they did.

Another small point is that during the second world war, and for a number of years afterwards, families in Europe were very good at recycling products. They had to be because there was nothing to be bought. If you wanted a new dress, or trousers, your wife almost certainly made them. I have only recently got rid of all the dress patterns that my mother used all through the war and into the fifties. Glass bottles reused, or returned for a couple of pence each, so that kids would wander about looking for empty bottles to return to the grocer for a shilling.

It is the newer generations that have demanded their insatiable requirements for soft drinks in plastic bottles, fast food in plastic packaging because they are too lazy to cook, everything to be wrapped in layers of plastic so that it looks perfect on purchase, all their mobile communication products, their plastic car components, everything that has to sate their desire to have instant satisfaction, that is causing the current global warming. Look at the historical figures for world temperatures.

Unfortunately, these disagreements are like solving the cold war, almost impossible for old and young to agree on. What I would say though, is that I am prepared to do my bit, but not if I am subsidising China or Russia or Brasil, whose governments have little or no intention of forcing climate control rules on their industries. People like Bolsonaro who encourages his chums, the big farmers, to just go out and burn down a thousand square acres a day of the rain forest, while he pockets the brown envelopes and says that he can't stop the fires. He is a complete fraud and something very nasty should happen to him.

Parkman.

Padre_Pio

Swindled wrote: »

Yep, that's a "really true" dilemma, and clearly the best way to stop economic growth and reduce climate impact is to attack, blame and tax ordinary Irish people, older Irish people, and young Irish people that think they should stay in Ireland and have any children . . . you're right Irish people are the real problem, nuke us, and bring in the Liberians, they know how to run a country, produce, consume and how to have children correctly.

growleaves wrote: »

Creating a dictatorship around what people can do or where they can is coming at the problem backwards, and the bad motives of people who call for this can be seen from miles away.

I don't think you're fooling anyone. In a few years you will be calling for a "green transition" to a credit-based rationing system. The large corporations and the coal-fired power stations will still be there, undisturbed.

LOL, I don't have an agenda, it just bugs me that people continue to play the blame game, especially the "China bad, Europe good" trope that's categorically untrue.
China is bad, but Europe, the US etc are worse, only in different ways.
The World Bank says that in 2016, per capita, Ireland was a worse polluter than China. So was Norway, and half the other EU countries.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?most_recent_value_desc=true
You can find all sorts of studies to back this up.

So why are we blaming China? They have hundreds of coal plants? Sure, but they have over a billion people and they're the manufacturing centre of the world. How much sh*t do people buy that comes from China?! If China was split into ten small countries, then the headlines would move onto Russia or the US.

Ireland had ten peat power plants over the years, the WORST kind of pollution, not to mention the devastation of our peat bogs.
The "large corporations" are all fossil fuel based, providing power to people and industry the world over.
The problem is ourselves, it's everyone. You can point fingers all you want, but unless people in developed countries change our behaviours, climate change is going to get worse.

hirondelle

Swindled wrote: »

And China produces more emissions than the rest of all the developed world combined, and has opened hundreds of new coal fired power plants, but hey older Irish people, and certain races having any children, is the real problem. As long as we pay other people's carbon taxes for them, it's all good.
Maybe we can bring more Liberians here to show us the way, and force more of the disgusting Irish young to emigrate / not have kids ?

It is changing recently as it develops a middle class, but the vast majority of the carbon emissions generated by China were to produce the goods that the rest of the world consumes- we outsourced our carbon emissions to them. It is a shared responsibility.

JimmyVik

parkman6551 wrote: »

Padre Pio, you do make some very good points there. I can't deny that the rubbish collections in towns ended up a huge toxic dumps, and that a lot of farmers spread plenty of cow-poo on the fields, and by keeping barns of silage they managed to damage a lot of natural waterways.

I would make a couple of brief points, however.

If arable farming was to provide the necessary amount of vegetables and cereals the farmers had to use something, and cow-poo did the job. There was no way small market gardeners could supply everything.

There is a very good reason for the following:
Huge swathes of France are off-limits due to buried war munitions.
That's before we get into the nuclear test sites from the 1940s-1960s.

If the UK, France, and the US hadn't gone to war against firstly, Germany, and secondly, faced up to Russia we would all be speaking either German or Russian by now. All the second world war bombing was completely necessary to prevent a rabid anti-Semitic lunatic from enforcing his political will across Europe and Russia. Provided you vote as a National Front member then this would be alright, but if you are Jewish, black, Russian, or a traveller then your outlook is grim.

The nuclear tests had to be done, and Kennedy was brave enough to face off the Russians with a threat of "We have more, and bigger, nuclear weapons then you". If he hadn't done so Russia would have marched into whatever country it wished, and there would have been little worthwhile opposition. Personally, I prefer my version of Democracy to Putins. I happened to have been in East Germany several times before the wall came down, and I can tell you from personal experience that I appreciate the nuclear bomb makers in the US , the UK, and France for doing what they did.

Another small point is that during the second world war, and for a number of years afterwards, families in Europe were very good at recycling products. They had to be because there was nothing to be bought. If you wanted a new dress, or trousers, your wife almost certainly made them. I have only recently got rid of all the dress patterns that my mother used all through the war and into the fifties. Glass bottles reused, or returned for a couple of pence each, so that kids would wander about looking for empty bottles to return to the grocer for a shilling.

It is the newer generations that have demanded their insatiable requirements for soft drinks in plastic bottles, fast food in plastic packaging because they are too lazy to cook, everything to be wrapped in layers of plastic so that it looks perfect on purchase, all their mobile communication products, their plastic car components, everything that has to sate their desire to have instant satisfaction, that is causing the current global warming. Look at the historical figures for world temperatures.

Unfortunately, these disagreements are like solving the cold war, almost impossible for old and young to agree on. What I would say though, is that I am prepared to do my bit, but not if I am subsidising China or Russia or Brasil, whose governments have little or no intention of forcing climate control rules on their industries. People like Bolsonaro who encourages his chums, the big farmers, to just go out and burn down a thousand square acres a day of the rain forest, while he pockets the brown envelopes and says that he can't stop the fires. He is a complete fraud and something very nasty should happen to him.

Parkman.

Even in the mid to late 80s my mum was making dresses and knitting our school jumpers. We used to collect the bottle to get the 10p back for them in the shop, or 3p for the diluted drink bottles.
And milk bottles clanging in the mornings.

Now you hardly see a young person walking around without a plastic bottle or a coffee.

El Tarangu

growleaves wrote: »

Large corporate polluters in the West, and coal-fired power stations in India and China are where most of the harmful damage to the planet comes from.

Trying to micro-regulate every aspect of people' lives, talking people out of having children, banishing cars from cities, rationing (if it comes to that) are a con and a distraction.

Well, it depends on how you define the 'most harmful damage'; coal-fired power stations in China and India don't contribute to the deaths of the 1,300 people who die each year in Ireland from pollution, whereas the particulate matter spewed out by motorised vehicles on the streets of our cities certainly does. So this is why councils are banning or restricting access to their cities, starting with the worst-polluting vehicles, along with the more over-arching global efforts to curb carbon emissions.

Padre_Pio

parkman6551 wrote: »

Padre Pio, you do make some very good points there.

Some excellent points made yourself.
My main point is that if people put the same effort into preventing climate change that they put into blaming other people, then the world would be a better place.

You may look out the window and see a lovely green Irish countryside, but your daily routine is many times more harmful to the environment than the average human, purely down to the high standard of living that the developed world provides

We as a society can't wait for everyone to get on the same page. The notion of "it's not worth trying until X country/organisation does something" is ridiculous in the extreme.

Ireland was the first country to charge for plastic bags I believe and there was uproar. Now it's common practice.

Swindled

hirondelle wrote: »

It is changing recently as it develops a middle class, but the vast majority of the carbon emissions generated by China were to produce the goods that the rest of the world consumes- we outsourced our carbon emissions to them. It is a shared responsibility.

I get it, we can only outsource our jobs and industry to China, but we can't expect them to do anything environmentally, or the poor Chinese billionaires to pay any carbon taxes. After the US, China is the second largest consumer of luxury goods in the world.

Padre_Pio

Swindled wrote: »

I get it, we can only outsource our jobs and industry to China, but we can't expect them to do anything environmentally, or the poor Chinese billionaires to pay any carbon taxes. After the US, China is the second largest consumer of luxury goods in the world.

That's per dollar spent. Not per capita. It's only second because there's 1.3 billion people living there.

Swindled

Padre_Pio wrote: »

LOL, I don't have an agenda, it just bugs me that people continue to play the blame game, especially the "China bad, Europe good" trope that's categorically untrue.
China is bad, but Europe, the US etc are worse, only in different ways.
The World Bank says that in 2016, per capita, Ireland was a worse polluter than China. So was Norway, and half the other EU countries.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?most_recent_value_desc=true
You can find all sorts of studies to back this up.

So why are we blaming China? They have hundreds of coal plants? Sure, but they have over a billion people and they're the manufacturing centre of the world. How much sh*t do people buy that comes from China?! If China was split into ten small countries, then the headlines would move onto Russia or the US.

Ireland had ten peat power plants over the years, the WORST kind of pollution, not to mention the devastation of our peat bogs.
The "large corporations" are all fossil fuel based, providing power to people and industry the world over.
The problem is ourselves, it's everyone. You can point fingers all you want, but unless people in developed countries change our behaviours, climate change is going to get worse.

Thank God the Chinese are not as bad as the scumbag Irish. China, great bunch of lads. If only we could get a Chairman Mao.

shtpEdthePlum

Hi OP,


In all srsnss though, I think the whole green push needs to be made towards corporations instead of consumers.

Padre_Pio

Swindled wrote: »

Thank God the Chinese are not as bad as the scumbag Irish. China, great bunch of lads. If only we could get a Chairman Mao.

Nice nonsense answer. Didn't think we were in AH, but if that's the standard you've sunk to then I must be onto something.

El Tarangu

Swindled wrote: »

After the US, China is the second largest consumer of luxury goods in the world.

1,400,000,000 live in China
0,328,000,000 live in America

You either don't understand the difference between per capita and total consumption, or are being willfully obtuse.

Swindled

Padre_Pio wrote: »

That's per dollar spent. Not per capita. It's only second because there's 1.3 billion people living there.

We need a larger population(as long as they are not Irish), but keep them poor, while our party comrades become billionaires, then we can get rid of our environmental regulations and blame the nasty small western capitalist countries comrade. These Chinese lads have it sussed.

Swindled

Padre_Pio wrote: »

Nice nonsense answer. Didn't think we were in AH, but if that's the standard you've sunk to then I must be onto something.

Yep it's a giant Irish conspiracy theory against the poor Chinese / Liberians, but you're on it.

Swindled

El Tarangu wrote: »

1,400,000,000 live in China
0,328,000,000 live in America

You either don't understand the difference between per capita and total consumption, or are being willfully obtuse.

I get what you're saying, we should be more like the Chinese lads and less like the naughty Americans.

The J Stands for Jay

hirondelle wrote: »

It is changing recently as it develops a middle class, but the vast majority of the carbon emissions generated by China were to produce the goods that the rest of the world consumes- we outsourced our carbon emissions to them. It is a shared responsibility.

A high proportion of China's emissions should in reality be applied to Western countries, as they're propping up our vast consumption.

Padre_Pio

Padre_Pio wrote: »

What's more important? Sustained economic growth based on production and consumption, or reducing our climate impact.

Unless the world economy fundamentally changes, we can't have both.



Who consumes the products, who consumes the power?

The producers are Chinese and the consumers are Chinese and other countries. I notice that since the EU, in particular, has managed to stall or reverse carbon production we are blamed for Chinese manufacturing. That makes no sense unless you deduct manufacturing in Western countries who export. All of them do.

McGaggs wrote: »

A high proportion of China's emissions should in reality be applied to Western countries, as they're propping up our vast consumption.

Ok, do that for Ireland. We export a lot, can we reduce our carbon costs by taking away the carbon cost of exports?

I do think it is fair to give China sometime to catch up with the west on reducing per capita carbon costs, and I believe that they should do it.

Arbitrarily blaming consumer countries, rather than producer countries, is something new though. And of course it means that the West can't do much to control carbon emissions, if the Chinese emissions are to be blamed on us. Except ban all Chinese exports. Is that it?