[Closed] Any equivalency between Covid restrictions and what's needed for climate change?

No. It would be far worse. I don't believe there has been significant drop in CO2 output. So if you want to sort global warming via change in activity it would have to be far more restrictive than what we have seen for covid. If you want to take other approaches maybe combined with restrictions that's a different matter.

I think a lot of sales and marketing travel budgets are probably getting reevaluated...

No. people are willing to throw away their freedom and rights because of a nasty bug. But there is no way they would do the same to avoid irreversible global destruction or extinction.

Only when it starts killing lots of people in first world countries.

Lots more folk dying of diseases in third world countries than Covid but very little happening about it

@iffoverload

'Rights' is an interesting concept as it can change. In future people could ask what made you think you had the right to fly, drive etc. when it caused so much pollution and environmental impact?

Air pollution kills and affects lots of people in first world countries, but very little will be done about it.

Not the kind of rights I was refering to really, agree with you, nobody has the right to live a life that leaves a mess for somebody else to live with

Start of the first lockdown had an appreciable impact, judging by vehicle use (based on real time figures I have access to, not gut feel) the second 2 lockdowns have not seen anywhere near the same impact. So as above a fundamental shift is required much in excess of Covid. Judging by the amount of people complaining their mental health has been impacted by relatively minor, sporadic and limited lock downs in response to a clear and present threat I don't we have a hope in the face of an undefined (from a personal point of view) sometime in the future threat however serious at a world level.

We held an online international climate change seminar on Tuesday evening where this Q was raised. The speaker rightly raised what it has shown the ability to move and make decisions quickly, if motivated. He felt like he was watching 20 years of climate comms happen in 12 months!

Judging by the amount of people complaining their mental health has been impacted by relatively minor, sporadic and limited lock downs in response to a clear and present threat I don’t we have a hope in the face of an undefined (from a personal point of view) sometime in the future threat however serious at a world level.

I think you'll find many of the mental health issues aired have been because of enforced social isolation - presumably not something that will happen with climate change mitigation (walking in the park with a mate isn't going to have an appreciable impact on CC).

because of enforced social isolation

Maybe but I think for a lot it's not being able to go to the shops / pub / favourite restaurant, live the consumer lifestyle. If we really want to impact climate change it's fundamental lifestyle change so whilst you may still be able to go for a walk with your mates that definitely doesn't include driving to said walk, or many of the above. Changing lifestyles enough to impact climate change will have a much bigger impact on our daily lives than the last 2 lockdowns have for most people.

Consumer culture makes an overwhelming number of people depressed, fundamentally isolated/lonely and permanently in search of the next ‘fix’. So does working from home make us isolated. Almost as if humans evolved to live, eat and strive together. How we strive (and towards what) is key to both crises. Surely we are increasingly addicted to the bread, the circuses and the clown cars of consumer culture, and are (culturally) forgetting how to more fundamentally and deeply relate, live and work together as cohesive communities? If anything I think I have seen an increase in community activity in our town since Covid. People running errands for the vulnerable and stranded etc. Small community businesses popping up here there and everywhere. As ever, my skepticism informs me that once the vaccines begin to take effect then local car-use and Mc Donalds sales are going to rocket beyond their wildest whilst Amazon sales will remain buoyant. Factory-farmed meat, gas-powered BBQs every weekend for the next decade and a new floating continent made entirely from plastic waste. “We did Covid! Now let’s get our ‘rewards’ and party like it’s 2099”

I hope not.

Humans are very short term thinkers.
Something needs done about covid or we'll all die tomorrow, let's do something.
Something needs done about climate change or life will be difficult in 30 years, might affect me if I'm still about, probably a massive issue for the grandchildren I don't have. Carry on, someone will have sorted it by then.
I'm not sure how we change that attitude?

Something needs done about climate change or life will be difficult in 30 years, might affect me if I’m still about, probably a massive issue for the grandchildren I don’t have. Carry on, someone will have sorted it by then.

Nailed it.

Have the restrictions due to Covid given us a taste of what’s needed to have an impact on slowing climate change?

Aside from the restrictions on social interaction, is what we have for seen for Covid what will need to do and on the same scale? Work from home if you can, holiday in the same country, only undertake necessary journeys in the car, etc?

I think it is a carrot vs stick arrangement here.
Don't travel, or consume (or do anything fun other than watch TV and go for a walk round the block) or you will die/be fined/have your neighbours glare at you - very much a stick.
Any "reward" is in the context of things being temporary - "behave until June 21st and then get your old life back"

Meaningful climate change needs to be in the carrot or rewarding train of thought.
"have this subsidised(/less taxed) electric car, now all your same journeys are x% less polluting, and will be y% less polluting once we pull our fingers out regarding the national grid"
"have this delicious plant based meal/lab grown artificial meat; it tastes better and is half the cost of a cut of beef, plus it saves huge amount of feed and water rescources"
"stop driving 3 miles to work, these e-scooters are now legal and cost less than your car's road tax"

Give people a benefit or incentive to do something and they will likely do it.
Guilt them into giving up what they previously enjoyed for the future greater good just leads to misery for most, as the last year has typified.

Give people a benefit or incentive to do something and they will likely do it.

Fundamental misunderstanding of addiction. Including the thrill of 1. oppositional defiance and 2. ‘From my cold dead hands’ adherence to comfort/familiarity

Plus, I have tried cheap dairy-free pizza.

A benefit or incentive is for me to have a nice healthy body and to not contribute minimise my contribution to global warming and animal cruelty. But I don’t always go for the carrot. The ‘stick’ is the fat man in the mirror. I can do without mirrors.

So, faced with an OK tasting, expensive £3.50 slice (not a pizza, just a slice) of M&S Vegan pizza, versus a frozen fully-loaded family-sized pepperoni meat feast tiger bread stuffed crust WHOLE FROZEN PIZZA...for £1.50!!! With colesalaw and cola bought with the remaining £2.

What is my ‘incentive and benefit’ of choosing an organic salad or a home cooked lentil stew? Beforehand fetching ingredients from my local no-packaging co-op produce store, by bicycle? Or hopping in my car and driving to local megamart for the MEATFEAST???

You know it makes sense. The carrot is boring. The pizza is not. The pizza is familiar. The lentil is not. Hippies. Etc.

Plus, in fast-approaching highly-competitive post-Brexit gig economy where 70hrs PW = an ‘easy’ week, then who has time or incentive to cook a stew, or ride a bicycle to fetch groceries? Let alone grow a ****ing boring carrot? As for the millions of unemployed...the £1.50 pizza always wins. Unless you’re a hippie. Or a weird old tribal person.

Devil’s advocate...

You know it makes sense. The carrot is boring. The pizza is not. The pizza is familiar.

It takes time. Before meeting my current girlfriend, I was in the "its not a meal if there's no meat in it" camp. Living together has cut my meat consumption by half or more. My/our ability to properly cook has increased massively, and there are a whole load of vegetarian/vegan dishes that I now really like and look forward to. 6 years ago I would have laughed at that statement.

(going full vegan, hell no. give me cheese or give me death)

It takes time. Before meeting my current girlfriend

But as of now some 7.9 billion people will neither have met nor have lived with your girlfriend and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are at last look growing, not receding?

From where is your reckoning that time will turn the tide? I ride a bike to fetch my lentils. 30 years ago I wouldn’t have laughed at that because I knew veggies and I rode my bike to the shops. Also ate roadkill, foraged veg and gutted rabbits. Now I realise what a weirdo I was/am. None of my neighbour’s or friend’s food and transport behaviours are influenced by even my behaviours. That’s not how it works.

Unlike yours and my veggie/vegan other halves who have forced us into cuckolded feminine bondage on account of their aversion to fluffydeath (satire, and anyway I got my own back by making Mrs P use Ecover)

I’ve even wowed some of them at a BBQ with some tasty vegan burgers on vegan brioche. Enough that they greedily hoovered second helpings and still talk about it 18 months later. But they still shop for supermarket beef 100% of the time. And they drive 1/4 mile to work. (A 1/4 mile in the car, that is, considerably less if they’d walked) and drive the whole (gasp) 2 miles to the supermarket, as do 99.7% (ish) of people here, regardless of their age. In fact the younger friends we have are the laziest/convenience-addicted of all, but that may be coincidence.

The answer will only come with impact.
When my neighbour fires up her huge old diesel 4 x 4 on a very cold winter's morning to drive her children the 1 mile to school, she is not thinking of the particles in the air, or the fact her children will probably benefit from some exercise. No, she is only interested in meeting all her like minded friends and have several coffees with them.
They have about 8 black bags of rubbish to take to the tip every week. She must see that several of our neighbours in our small cul de sac walk their children to the same school, very rarely use their cars and walk to the local independent shops. If someone knocked on the door and fined them huge amounts for not being in the slightest bit green or caring about our environment, then she might think.
Our only hope is the children getting an education and telling their parents, 'actually mum and dad (or other) this is not the way to do things.

Surely though there will be cleaner air and more thought from the lockdowns as to a greener future, or am I being too optimistic.

drive the whole (gasp) 2 miles to the supermarket, as do 99.7% (ish) of people here, regardless of their age.

Holds up hand. Yes I drive to the supermarket. I just looked on google. its 0.8miles by road.

I go once a week, and fill my small car's boot. Thats for two people. Aside from offcuts of fresh fruit and veg we have 0 food waste, so thats all eaten and drunk. Apart from foraging/roadkill, or home deliveries, I'm not sure how people do it.
I'd need a bakfiets* to even attempt to shop without a car, no way would even a full set of touring panniers work.

*to do 500 miles a year, plus I would need to buy a bigger house to be able to store it. Hardly anti-consumerism.

On the plus side, I go on the way home from work - so actually almost no extra distance, and the ability to buy in bulk hopefully reduces my packaging waste.

In fact the younger friends we have are the laziest/convenience-addicted of all, but that may be coincidence.

I'm younger than the average on here. I suppose I could walk there and back every day. That would certainly be less convenient.

They have about 8 black bags of rubbish to take to the tip every week.

unless they are digging a secret basement they must have about similar coming in every week too? what on earth are they buying and what are they using it for?

They're buying tat from China, tons of the stuff which gets discarded.
Where I live we have a thrift group. I wish more people would use it and not just buy, use and put in refuse.