37° heat is depressing.
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37° heat is depressing. So is the way we’re dealing with climate collapse. The language we’re using, the excuses we’re making. Making heat records a game, excitedly watching to see if Number Goes Up. The news said the latest temperature had ‘ruined the chance of another new record’. And we all seem to agree that, conveniently, there’s no use in inconveniencing ourselves personally by consuming less or not flying until the day after every billionaire has given up their private jet.
@CiaraNi I would like that every report about the heat wave end with: " but sure, continue to buy and drive SUV, these Stupid Unnecessary Vehicles! "
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37° heat is depressing. So is the way we’re dealing with climate collapse. The language we’re using, the excuses we’re making. Making heat records a game, excitedly watching to see if Number Goes Up. The news said the latest temperature had ‘ruined the chance of another new record’. And we all seem to agree that, conveniently, there’s no use in inconveniencing ourselves personally by consuming less or not flying until the day after every billionaire has given up their private jet.
@CiaraNi It's frustrating how little attention seems to be directed at a reliable railway system across Europe. I really wish I could just take trains from Denmark to visit my family in Greece, but so many things get in the way (including Hellenic Train being considered pretty much a death trap right now).
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I dunno. Some of it is conscious, by the most lost people. But I think it’s mostly the aggregated property of what most of us do at the individual scale.
A billion “yeah I could do the low carbon thing but there are ‘reasons’ why this journey, this meeting, this purchase can’t do that”.
What we most critically lack are contexts in which to talk about why our ‘reasons’ are dust and what to do about it
I don't think there's anything more overwhelming to think about than Climate Change and I think it's one of those things that feels so overwhelming to most people that it just causes them to short circuit their brains to the extent of, "there's nothing I can do bc I'm only one person so screw it I'm just going to carry on even though I'm terrified."
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I don't think there's anything more overwhelming to think about than Climate Change and I think it's one of those things that feels so overwhelming to most people that it just causes them to short circuit their brains to the extent of, "there's nothing I can do bc I'm only one person so screw it I'm just going to carry on even though I'm terrified."
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@CiaraNi It's frustrating how little attention seems to be directed at a reliable railway system across Europe. I really wish I could just take trains from Denmark to visit my family in Greece, but so many things get in the way (including Hellenic Train being considered pretty much a death trap right now).
@CiaraNi Also you're really on point on the language we've been using. It's been shocking to me how many people here in Denmark seem to downplay the situation, not saying much beyond "wow it's pretty hot today isn't it". And when I say how abnormal this all is, my emotional reaction gets attributed to my cultural background
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But not in the sense that they don't care. In the sense that it feels like such a large problem they feel helpless to contribute.
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We tone-policed flight shame away so quickly. We made smoking socially unacceptable. Smokers still smoke and are free to smoke, but give you a slightly apologetic embarrassed grin as they sneak out to the smoking area. When someone says they've bought a holiday home in Spain and someone else says they're bringing the whole family to Thailand to celebrate their birthday, there are no apologetic grins and the social expectation is still that everyone else exclaims "Oh how lovely! Lucky you!"
@CiaraNi As if smoking is even the least bit contained.
slightly apologetic embarrassed grin as they sneak out to the smoking area = dump tobacco, weed and whatever else on neighbors and passersby and threaten anyone who complains
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@CiaraNi Yes. I've been thinking it really is time to stop that.
Sometimes, when people are discussing holiday plans, I'll mutter "I don't fly anymore, except for family visits, because my conscience won't let me. But you do you". But I'll be the only one at the lunch table.
During this June heatwave (11-12 days here, with a maximum of 37 degrees), I've been thinking I should really start speaking up more. Someone should start changing the social expectation, right?
Young people flying to holiday destinations multiple times a year. I don't get it. It's not like they haven't been aware of climate change since middle school. And they'll be suffering the consequences for their whole - hopefully long - lives.
@marjon I’ve tried being passive, not performing the Oh Lovely! reaction when someone says they’ve booked a flight to their newest city break. Lately, like yourself, seeing how badly it's going, I’ve tried working into the conversation that I only fly when it's to family on islands, and then only on whatever leg of the trip requires a plane. I mention that I’d love to do #NoFly, but for family reasons, I can only do #NoFrivolousFly until I have time for long, multi-leg train trips across seas.
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@CiaraNi Yes. I've been thinking it really is time to stop that.
Sometimes, when people are discussing holiday plans, I'll mutter "I don't fly anymore, except for family visits, because my conscience won't let me. But you do you". But I'll be the only one at the lunch table.
During this June heatwave (11-12 days here, with a maximum of 37 degrees), I've been thinking I should really start speaking up more. Someone should start changing the social expectation, right?
Young people flying to holiday destinations multiple times a year. I don't get it. It's not like they haven't been aware of climate change since middle school. And they'll be suffering the consequences for their whole - hopefully long - lives.
“I've been thinking I should really start speaking up more. Someone should start changing the social expectation, right?”
Yes! Me too. We need to collectively change the social expectation and the conversation. To encourage each other to use our collective superpowers, taking action like a mass boycott of holiday flights.
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My generation and the one before it have made prospects for young people relentlessly shit. They know it. And we’ve trained them to think that voting is the only real agency they have. Which is bullshit.
For the most part, I don’t begrudge them making their lives momentarily less shit
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@CiaraNi The gamification of our own demise.
I have spent the last years focusing on thinking clearly.
Would not have thought that this was in the cards.
@spdrnl "The gamification of our own demise." Yes. The word 'gamification' keeps popping into my mind the last few days since the temperatures where I am (Denmark) got as high as those already melting Germany, France etc. News reports and social conversations are mostly a breathless excited game of who can report the latest highest record temperature, like it's a prize we've won.
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@CiaraNi this last week has been quite shocking. The second heatwave of the year in the UK. I hope folks are beginning to take notice. Many are too self-centred to care, other than by making sure they buy the right brand of air con...
@caffetino My experience in the past few days, when the heat has hit properly where I am (Denmark), is that people are noticing and talking about it, but what they're talking about is all the 'reasons' why none of us have to modify our individual behaviour and consumption because it's no use, 'what can one person do?' The possibility of change through collective action and mass boycotts is never mentioned.
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@CiaraNi Just watched the news and an older woman was delighted because "you can take your coffee outside are 7 and it is so nice. That is something we can usually not do."
I just... can't.
@hemlockcookie
Yeah. Now try taking your tea outside late afternoon and see how nice that is. (I'm 71 and decidedly undelighted.)
@CiaraNi -
@CiaraNi Just watched the news and an older woman was delighted because "you can take your coffee outside are 7 and it is so nice. That is something we can usually not do."
I just... can't.
@hemlockcookie Oh that's so depressing. And she's not the only one. I wish the news would show more courage about reporting within a context. They don't need to share that kind of thinking, making a climate crisis seem nice. Demoralising is absolutely the right word.
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@CiaraNi Just watched the news and an older woman was delighted because "you can take your coffee outside are 7 and it is so nice. That is something we can usually not do."
I just... can't.
@hemlockcookie @CiaraNi God I want to punch people like that, or scream "we won't have coffee soon because the places where it grows will become deserts, and entitled imbeciles like you offloading responsibility to other people is a reason for that".
Grr.
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37° heat is depressing. So is the way we’re dealing with climate collapse. The language we’re using, the excuses we’re making. Making heat records a game, excitedly watching to see if Number Goes Up. The news said the latest temperature had ‘ruined the chance of another new record’. And we all seem to agree that, conveniently, there’s no use in inconveniencing ourselves personally by consuming less or not flying until the day after every billionaire has given up their private jet.
@CiaraNi I wonder how much pollution there is from all of the private jets.
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@CiaraNi I have students, and family members, who go abroad on holiday twice, three times a year, and I've stopped pretending to be interested and pleased for them.
I try not to be a total arse about it, but I just had to cancel a citybreak in bloody *Birmingham* because I rely on public transit and the trainlines in Wales were buckling in the heat.
@nic Snap! I've stopped responding Oh Lovely! too. And lately have upgraded to mentioning that I don't fly for holidays. I'm not telling others they shouldn't frivolously fly, but just trying to normalise the fact that holidays are possible without flights. (Many people I know equate the two. They hear 'no fly' as 'no holidays')
"I just had to cancel a citybreak in bloody *Birmingham* because I rely on public transit and the trainlines in Wales were buckling in the heat."
Perfect illustration.
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@CiaraNi Yes! Plus we have to stop subsidising air-transport fuel. I got the train from London to Malmö last year, and it was way more expensive than flying. But I haven’t flown for 12 years, and can’t see myself doing it again, certainly not short-haul.
@arratoon The subsidising of air-transport fuel is a scandal.
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What you are describing is " #PathDependency ".
And billionaires are just part of the path. As are people cheering for combustion engines or the newest electric car.
This is the way inequal human societies just function - Persistence & Tradition is valued over everything else.
And when the powerful AND a great part of the powerless want the same thing - #stability - then survival becomes an afterthought.
@berlinfokus Not taking an airplane to go on holidays seems like a very simple thing to do here. Instant action that requires no actual sacrifice or loss.
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37° heat is depressing. So is the way we’re dealing with climate collapse. The language we’re using, the excuses we’re making. Making heat records a game, excitedly watching to see if Number Goes Up. The news said the latest temperature had ‘ruined the chance of another new record’. And we all seem to agree that, conveniently, there’s no use in inconveniencing ourselves personally by consuming less or not flying until the day after every billionaire has given up their private jet.
There is a pervasive sense of "what difference does it make?" when it's the 100 corporations and the 1% who do the biggest amount of damage. And there is a lot of truth in that, but waiting for that to be solved will not help prepare us for what is coming either. There is a lot of room between obsessing over "individual footprint" and doing at all nothing to change. Capitalism encourages FOMO; choosing to miss out is part of the resistance.
