Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t JoNova; According to the ABC, you should deal with the climate guilt of using disposable nappies and styrofoam coffee cups by remembering its really everyone’s job to fix climate change, and that you are not personally responsible for fixing our carbon intensive society.
Climate distress is real and it’s rational. Here’s how to manage it
You’ve got the reusable cups and bags, the beeswax wraps, the shampoo bar.
You collect your cans and soft plastics and you compost, recycle and reuse what you can.
You research brands so you can support sustainable, environmentally conscious businesses.
Why? Because you’re trying to do your bit for the environment and climate.
But if you find that when you can’t do these things it causes you to feel anxious, guilty or hopeless, you might have something called climate distress.
…
So how are you supposed to manage the threat to our very existence and your day-to-day life to somehow keep your mental health in check?
No-one is perfect
First up, recognise that you’re not always going to be able to make the environmental choice and be the perfect Instagrammable eco-warrior.
…
“That can be at an individual level, around the things that we do in our household, or around the choices that we make around whether we ride or drive,” Dr Burke says.
“It could involve writing to, or emailing, politicians or leaders of businesses that are doing environmentally destructive things.”
…
Jess Hamilton, one of the hosts of Greenpeace’s Heaps Better podcast, recommends finding out where your banks and super funds are investing your money and changing providers if you are not happy with the answer.
“It all comes back to money,” Jess says.
“The power of thousands of people doing that does change minds and does have impacts on AGMs (Annual General Meetings) and does have impacts on the way directors are investing our money.”
…
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/everyday/climate-distress-and-how-to-manage-it/100029078
If you are able bodied, I can assure you it is entirely possible to make a massive dent in your personal carbon footprint, through simple choices such as growing your own food. During the short sharp economic freeze which followed Sept 11th, I needed to trim a few bills, so I started cultivating vegetables in my back yard. I’m not saying I went completely independent from the grocery store, but for 3 months in Summer, my household vegetable purchases dropped almost to zero. If I had planted high yield starch crops like potato or sweet corn, I wouldn’t have needed any store purchased vegetables.
All over the world there are affordable rural or suburban properties with enough land that eco-nuts could genuinely live out their low carbon fantasies. Australian rural regions are crying out for people to relocate to their district – they are so desperate, sometimes they offer land for less than the cost of a cup of coffee. Britain is more expensive, but still has affordable rural properties: you can buy a house with land in Powys, Wales for £50,000 or less. The USA has entire abandoned towns, so I’m guessing there is cheap arable land available somewhere.
You don’t need a lot of land. Even growing veggies in a decent size back yard, like the garden at the top of this page, is enough to significantly reduce your personal carbon footprint. You probably need a few acres if you want to go totally independent, but even going partially independent would make a substantial difference to your personal carbon footprint.
So why don’t all eco-fanatics choose to do this? For the same reason the eco-guilty buy disposable nappies and coffee in single use cups. Because most of them are too lazy to get off their butts and make a genuine personal effort.
Feeling guilty, having a good cry, blaming others, writing a few letters and demanding everyone else fix their imaginary problems, before sitting down to a good takeout meal served in styrofoam containers. It might be hypocritical, but its a lot easier than getting a spade out and digging a little dirt, or spending a few hours on your knees in the muck pulling weeds.
“So how are you supposed to manage the threat to our very existence and your day-to-day life to somehow keep your mental health in check?”
You probably want to start by turning off your TV, you’ll be surprised just how much better you’ll feel about the world, and think of all the electricity you’ll be saving.
Why stop at food? Why don’t we raise our own sheep and cotton? Spin our own yarn?
I suppose if the greenunists get their way, we all will… at least, those of us who haven’t starved to death in the Great (Greta?) Reset.
Yes, that gets rid of CNN. No. 1 problem.
mmm.. talking of CNN.
https://www.projectveritas.com/news/part-1-cnn-director-admits-network-engaged-in-propaganda-to-remove-trump/
Climate distress is real and it’s rational.
Right, much to cold for gardening, that’s why
growing your own food.
is not so easy this year as proposed 😀
Yes, it does seem a little cold up north!
We’ve had more frost nights this winter than the last 6yrs put together.
( Anglesey, North Wales)
I see the PR boys and girls are at it again. Climate Change is now Climate distress.
Climate distress is real and it’s rational.
Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they. They have managed to contrive a whole new range of mental illnesses. Climate Grief, Climate Anxiety and now, apparently, Climate Distress’
Harry Palmer had it sussed:
Induction of Psycho-neuroses by Conditioned Reflex under strESS
Or Ipcress.
It works.
Climate distress is real (yes, they would know as they created it) and rational (nope, it is the definition of irrational).
Major Dalby: You’re leaving? I think they’re playing Mozart next.
Palmer: Tell me who wins.
Eric so good!
Thanks Warren 🙂
“Climate distress is real and it’s rational. Here’s how to manage it” :
Stop listening to the climate crooks, instead, send them packing.
Bingo! Stop buying into the bullshit.
We bulldozed the garden a few years back. I miss the tomatoes, I don’t miss the work.
We live in a wonderful civilized world with grocery stores overflowing with with nature’s bounty and other stores full of those items that make for a very comfortable life. Not every country in the world enjoys such luxury but their numbers have been and should continue to decrease.
Unfortunately there is a growing political force that seems to want their poverty to continue by denying them the benefits of the same sources of energy that the rest of the world has enjoyed via the industrial revolution now about to enter its third century.
The political climate is getting uglier by the day.
Put solar panels on your roof and support that local wind tower monstrosity project since, although they actually harm the environment and use power to construct that could be more efficiently and productively used to build net positive community beneficial projects, you will feel so good that you have sacrificed logic to be a virtue signaller for Mother Earth and your conscience.
Not only should anyone never take advice from Greenpeace but they should never micro-manage their investment account.
I was a bit surprised and concerned that the wasteland I call a back yard managed to grow cherry tomatoes with no cultivation on my behalf. Admittedly they grew up in the weeds between transfer cases, axles and a spare engine or two, but grow they did. I feel if I cut them they would taste like a mix of brake fluid and 10W040 motor oil…
theyll taste fine the soil biotas broken down the oils etc
Plus substances have to diffuse into the root hairs atom by atom and molecule by molecule.
There is no chance oil from the ground could end up inside of a tomato via the growth process.
sometimes they offer land for less than the cost of a cup of coffee. Britain is more expensive
Well, in the South East of England you’d be looking at around 400,000 cups of coffee at between £1 to £2 per cup.
So yes, Britain is slightly more expensive.
only place in wales of size was 30k pounds and one room might? have been habitable the rest was a serious mess.
they sell Hotel rooms there?
who knew!
Wales is such a depressing place.
Only Portmeirion – The Village – enticed me go there
“Wales is such a depressing place.”
You keep thinking that & tell all your friends,
that’ll allow us to keep rural tranquility for our-self’s !
Portmeirion is great, but spoiled by all the mucky trippers .
I’m sure the TV show “Hinterland” was made by people like you who want to keep the rest of us away. My Welsh relative was dismayed at the dismal portrayal of Wales.
Have you ever been to Aberystwyth and it’s bleak hinterland?
Yes, but why did you resign?
Well sure, a vegetable garden is a fine idea, given you have halfway decent soil (you probably don’t), and have the time and energy. It is a fine activity, gets you outside in the fresh (hopefully) air, doing physical labor, which is good for both body and mind, not to mention the fresh vegetables. Even if you don’t pay yourself anything for your time though, you’ll be lucky to break even financially. And gardens tend to produce a lot over a relatively short timespan, so much of that will go to waste unless you have a way to either freeze, can, or some other method of keeping them. More labor and time spent, not to mention initial outlay.
Veggie gardens don’t cost much in time or money. All they need is a bit of fertiliser, a few seeds, your choice of bug killer, sticking a few stakes in the ground and a bit of string if you want something which needs support, like peas, beans or some varieties of tomatoes. A day or two to set it up, a few hours per week to maintain it.
A lot of pensioners maintain veggie gardens because they are a very cost effective way to keep the grocery bills down.
“Veggie gardens don’t cost much in time or money. All they need is a bit of fertiliser, a few seeds…”
Sounds familiar:
You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, you add water, up comes corn. Michael Bloomburg
Sorry, but no they are not “cost-effective”. Backyard gardeners merely kid themselves that such is the case, in addition to downplaying the amount of work required.
If you spend your time making a good income you are obviously better off money wise buying your veggies from someone else. But if you have time, as I did in 2002, or if your priority is say reducing your carbon footprint, it only takes a few hours per week, half a day per week at most, to maintain a decent size veggie patch. I’ve done it – its not difficult.
“… if your priority is say reducing your carbon footprint…”
????????
I want an electric car because the things are fantastic for zipping around town not because I want to appease Al Gore or “President” Biden.
Maybe I’ll grow tomatoes in a five gallon bucket this year, and that would be for the tomatoes, not to lower my f*****g CO2 foot print.
You Gotta Get Your Mind Right
Thanks, Cool Hand . . ! 🙂
( . .you need to know the movie . .) 🙂
. . crap, didn’t pay attention that the phrase was also a hyperlink . . . . 🙁
I agree with all of you, spring and fall are when the back breaking portion comes but maintaining the garden is easy. I enjoy trying new stuff, i learned to garden from my dad.
I don’t have a root cellar, and canning is a bugger, and i live in a big city, so i grow enough to eat late summer and fall without it going bad.
But i don’t do it for the environment, i do it for me.
I grow perennial veg, artichokes, asparagus, and rhubarb. Almost zero work once planted and lots of return of pricey veg. I also grow blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, table grapes, citrus, kiwis, macadamia nuts, hazel nuts, apples, nectarines, avocados, quince, and cherries. Just about everything grows great in Portugal!
I have found that just about everything grows great everyplace I have lived.
And everything is growing easier, better, and faster than back when I made a living doing it.
If I buy an electric or a more economical car it will not be to lower my carbon footprint. I was ahead of the game in insulation the house over 40 years ago mainly to save heating costs.
With cooling just as or more likely than warming soon, that last thing I am worried about is a carbon footprint. Nobody has shown CO2 has a significant temperature input after the first 20 ppm.
I went from a kid that grew up in Center City Philadelphia to a professional grower making a nice living, raising the wrong kinds of plants in the wrong place using the wrong techniques, and starting out knowing nothing about it.
I have grown all the bell peppers and tomatoes a family of 11 can eat on a norths facing roof deck overlooking 22nd street, and had fresh produce into December some years.
Things like string beans, cucumbers, radishes, pineapples, bell peppers, tomatoes, lima beans…and lots of others, can be easily grown in 3 gallon growers pots that cost 20 cents, or one can use old paint buckets or large containers and get them for free.
All one really needs is about 4-6 hours of sunlight, and knowledge.
The cost is nearly nothing unless you just waste money.
People do not typically figure in the time and the cost of driving to a store when assessing the cost of foods and such, but balk at spending a few bucks for some urea, potassium nitrate, ammonium phosphate, or whatever.
Even miracle grow type stuff costs only about $2 a pound, but one can do better by buying the nutrient individually.
Amazon.com : Jacks Prof 77010 General Purpose Fertilizer, 20-20-20 Fertilizer, 25-Pound : Garden Fertilizers : Garden & Outdoor
One can grow a awful lot of vegetables with 25 pounds of water soluble fertilizer.
The vast bulk of all types of vegetables and fruit is water, and most of the rest is synthesized by the plant from water and CO2.
The actual mineral component is a tiny fraction of the dry weight.
And of course, if one has the space, everyone throws away more nutrients into the garbage than it would take to grow a vegetable garden.
People spend money to go to gyms, or to sit in front of an idiot box, when they could be outside getting natural Sun and doing actual exercise by shoveling dirt, raking, weeding, etc.
As a hobby gardening is a great thing to do even if one only grows flowers and trees.
There can be some initial outlay for tools/equipment depending on your scale (I spent a bit going up from 5 4×8 garden beds to 1/4 acre) but that’s a one-time expense. I now spend less total on seeds & fertilizer for the same amount of produce purchased at a store, and have excess to donate or sell.
I teased my wife that the tomatoes grown in our backyard greenhouse work out to cost $10 each…..She suggested I should eat my guitar…
Bit more global warming and you won’t need a greenhouse ;-).
Maybe, but have you not seen this winter that global warming causes those snowstorms and cold into southern USA? (Sar)
Well we have been gardening for over 40 years. We seldom buy potatoes. However, the production is less than 50 % now as the “green” CO2 sucking trees have grown bigger and suck the moisture and create too much shade. Some may have to go for firewood as “biofuel”.
I would spend more money trying to keep the deer away than I would save on the vegetables. And no, I am not allowed to put up a fence that would keep the deer out.
Trying to starve Bambi, are you?
I have never had the problem with Deer, but I know people that have.
Deer love most ornamentals, let alone vegetables.
But most places I know of that do not allow fences, even with a permit, do not allow vegetable gardens either.
There are ways to keep them away, like twirling thingamadealios, interplanting with stuff they hate, etc.
But in some places, the deer are overpopulated, culling is not permitted, and they basically starve to death every Winter.
All those things Bob but you missed THE most important bit.
The dirt under your fingernails – dirt that finds its way into you
Dirt that makes Vitamin B12 = stuff that keeps you sane. Literally
Also the magnesium in that dirt
Mgand B Vitamins helps unimaginably well with your protein metabolism too – not least – protein being THE ‘working fluid’ for your Immune System.
Also, very important to Cardio Vasculare health, esp the Magnesium
There’s one for the Data Miners.
What was/is the Covid casualty rate amongst (esp. elderly) gardeners?
Covid being, as I understand, a Cardio vascular problem, once it gets past your immune system.
In combination with the Vitamin D and the constant trickle of Vitamin C they’d be dosing themselves with, nibbling on the raw veggies, I’d guess they were damn-near bomb-proof as far as Covid goes.
Maybe we do still have some Natural Survival Instinct left inside us – that’s certainly what’s going on there.
Apart from the Nicotine mimic in tomatoes. and peppers and potatoes.
But, there again = Dopamine from a source that’s a stack healthier than from booze, sugar and Kool-Aid
The growing of spuds has to be a perfect Covid protection method/tactic
One can grow nearly anything on bare sand or gravel or soilless potting medium.
The stuff the seeds are planted in can be nearly anything.
One simply has to look up the proper technique to use, in order to successfully to grow a particular thing in a particular type of soil or soilless media.
It’s a well researched phenomenon called moral self licensing. People who have installed solar energy systems, upgraded insulation, and more energy efficient lighting and appliances have been shown to use as much or more energy afterwards than they did before. Another study showed that people who vote conservative are more conscientious about separating and recycling their waste than people who vote progressive; the progressives seem to think that because they think the “right” way, and vote the “right” way that they are therefore less required to do the “right” things.
Yes, it is a well known thing. People buy a vehicle with much better gas mileage, in response they drive further and burn the same amount of gas.
Typical
Never wearing any clothing that is more than a year old is another common attribute of such people.
The most outspoken lefties I know are profligate energy wastrels.
House freezing cold all Summer, hot as Hades all Winter, water heater set to scald your skin right off, never think about things like changing the filter to keep it running efficiently, etc.
Do not pay attention to electric bill so never bother to buy a new energy efficient anything, and when stuff breaks they do not even consider energy usage when making a purchase.
I am the opposite.
Virtue signaling is almost always a replacement mechanism for actually being conscientious.
I used to be conscientious about it; the family would have a full “blue bin” every week.
Problem with that is, the city decided to start picking up that bin every other week. Didn’t reduce the waste collection part of my bill at all, either, much less the 25% it should have gone down by.
So now, I have one full blue bin every other week – and a regular garbage bin that is half recycling every week.
(No, I am not about to do their “suggested alternative” of collecting my recycling up and driving to their facility.)
Oil saved the whales. Plastic is so versatile and has so many uses it has saved the rape of the planet. Look around you how much stuff is there made of plastic, try to imagine replacing all that stuff with other natural materials then imagine 8 billion people all doing the same. I feel no guilt.
When i had Patrick Moore in as keynote speaker at an IEEE conference in Calgary in 2017, he did his usual thing, but as this is a group of electrical engineers in oil, gas and petrochem, i asked him to simply state at the end of his address that the people in the room are not criminals, what they do improves human welfare.
Standing ovation.
Have you read the things Greenpeace say about him now, disgraceful.
I am not really stressed about climate change but I do have concern for the science professionals. The whole profession is being devalued by the climate fantasy.
I expect when it becomes transparently clear that the “emperor has no clothes” the lack of integrity that pervades the profession will be a blight hard to shake for a generation or more.
At present, only the retired are calling out the silliness but hopefully there will be a few brave younger souls who are looking for ways to make their mark with the conviction to press the scientific case by exposing the political agenda always aimed at more funding from governments.
Interestingly enough tonight I was watching a very interesting program about proabition in the USA and I see a very great likeness to the whole green movement. I wonder how many years it will take to get over it.
Thanks for reminding me about that parallel.
Probably it will end one funeral at a time.
Most people never change their minds about anything substantive.
And don’t complain when you lose your job when the policy distortions get worse, much worse.
Great article, I’m always trying to encourage people to grow their own food, it doesn’t take much! Personally I’ve extended my garden this year to include a few Hugelkultres. Really looking forward to seeing what grows and how much longer into the fall I can go than usual.
And I have extended my vocabulary by looking that word up.
I do garden here in Calgary, getting the most out of our wonderful 6 week growing season. I have a garden patch, plus big deck pots on a watering system, plus i hang my laundry to dry inside year round (clothes now last forever, more savings, as it is that hot dryer that takes so much out of the clothes).
Even though i’m a “denier” i suppose, i do more day to day stuff than many greens.
“… i hang my laundry to dry inside year round (clothes now last forever,…”
Yes, the lint in the lint collector is telling you something (-:
Towels that feel like sandpaper because they were not dried in a dryer tells me something.
It tells me you gotta draw the line at comfort.
Chlorine bleach and washing in hot degrades clothing the fastest.
One can simply set the dryer to permanent press to reduce the heat.
Clothes, sheets, towels, dried by hanging them up, are nowhere close to as comfortable.
BTW speaking of blame. Looks like little Scoldilocks TV series should get the hook. Delingpole: Doom Goblin Greta’s TV Show Is a Massive Ratings Flop (breitbart.com)
This is a great article. I makes me laugh. I’m absolutely certain mankind has never had an issue attended with such a level of hypocrisy as we see in global warming.
It is amazing how this advice reinforces the pre-existing inborn (?) progressive mental script:
Bleeding Heart Tightwads
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html
Jonathan Haidt says exactly the same thing here:
Jonathan Haidt lecture on morality at Stanford
https://youtu.be/1u-ahvx3pkc?t=3957
And then there is this:
Climate skeptics more eco-friendly than global-warming alarmists: study
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/may/7/climate-skeptics-more-eco-friendly-global-warming-/
In really might be more efficient and healthy for humanity (and I am not jesting here) to offer “free psychotherapy” to progressives, verses altering the social and physical world to placate their neuroses. (sigh)
In my opinion there is no real hypocrisy. It’s a simple matter of well-off lefties in favor of big government. If the government spend the tax money on the needy there’s no needy people, so individual charity isn’t required.
(/sarc on)
And to increase the tax income raise corporate taxes and regulate so the corps don’t do stuff that costs money to clean. That will work, honest!!! (/sarc on)
That’s the one consistent thing about Progressivism: It’s always up to someone else to do the real work and/or pay for it. Actively virtue signalling is the only actual requirement.
I found a solution which is effective perfect and resolves all issues The ABC brings up. Stop watching them. By that I mean all political/social comment. Relayed entertainment is okay. They are an activist organisation with a political agenda which is out of control. Much of the content is treasonous and cherry picks in order to denigrate those it sees as its enemies particularly our Federal ruling party.
Aunty BBC CNN they’re all the same propaganda machines-
‘This is clearly more evidence you cannot trust the mainstream media’ (msn.com)
I checked out the “climate distressed” hippy, Zara Monteith, who was the subject of the article. She claimed she was doing her best for the environment.
So, it transpires that she’s a graphic designer who worked on a campaign to promote a, wait for it…..
…… road widening project
https://www.latstudios.com.au/projects/rockhampton-northern-access-upgrade
What a daft hypocrite..
https://www.latstudios.com.au/people/zara-monteith
If you want instagram-able photos that show your eco-bona fides, I suggest you ask Gov. Pete Buttigieg (however you spell it). He carries his bike in a big old SUV with his security team, but then sanctimoneously gets it out of the big double bike rack on the hitch mounted on the back bumper, and then rides the last few blocks with his helmet on, along with one of his security men. Miraculously, Gov. ‘Pete’ never gets helmet hair.
Essentially these loons recommended doing the opposite of red skul… I mean Jordan Peterson. It is everyone elses responsibility to clean your room, not yours. We are back to the pre-greek belief of the sun rotating around heaven and earth.
Animals generally need to feature in a self-sustaining lifestyle, chickens provide one of the true super-foods in eggs, quails are excellent providers for a small yard for both meat and eggs. Large blocks can have ruminants on them. You don’t even need any vegetables in this case as historically we ate meat and seasonally if available what pre-dated what we now call berries. We already have the research to show if you really believe you have to sequester carbon into the soil then raising ruminants regeneratively is one of the simplest solutions to this issue.
Where I live, I have several acres, but because the area is not zoned for agriculture, I am not allowed to have so much as a single chicken.
I suspect many people have the same situation…no farm animals in city limits, even if the “city” is almost all open spaces, homes with large lots, and trees.
How many native animals died in the making of this climate play?
If someone has to try and convince other people something is real and rational, it almost surely is fake and psychotic.