There is a lot of focus on carbon but what is perhaps the most annoying part of the message whenever someone from ER is interviewed is that they dont exactly explain the full scale and practicalities of their demands or how to phase them in.
Logically, their demands require some form of rationing (clothes, food, energy, transport) during the transition from the current economy to the future state because it can't happen overnight.
Is there somewhere where they actually set out the steps involved in being carbon neutral by 2025 and the timeline required?
For example, let's suppose everyone was forced to move to a plant based diet by 2025. You would have to phase out meat production but you can't just kill all the animals currently alive for that purpose in one go - rightly or wrongly it would be crazy to contemplate the waste (and landfill) created from that policy - so it has to be phased - same with making the land available for the increase in arable crops needed.
The prime problem I have with some environmental campaigns is their focus on what they consider "quick wins", e.g. moving to a plant based diet. Notwithstanding the issues you raise, it is simply not possible just to switch off all meat production and switch to crop only agriculture in any short timescale. For example, all UK meat protein production could not be replaced by plant based purely in the UK, much of the land simply could not sustain a switch to plant protein without decades of careful cultivation. And then of course there is the small matter of the seasonality. So to make it happen within 5 years, we would have to massively increase our dependence on imported goods, which would require all sorts of infrastructural changes, as well as potentially driving even more deforestation.
The problem is that with a guilt based approach, as I believe this is & something that has long been popular with dietitians and now environmentalists, is that people naturally aim for the quickest route, regardless of the effectiveness of them. After faddy diets have been around for decades, yet people still need to go on these (ever changing) diets every year. Faddy environmental changes risk the same results, i.e. people will be onboard for a bit, then simply slip back.
Er, isn't the correct response not to go on holiday at all? Again, rationing of travel may have to be considered to phase out the demand for travel.
Could we close the option to commute to work to new entrants so that people are restricted to living within walking distance of their workplace.
I'd like to see more of the policies which get us to carbon neutral (and excess pollution free) by 2025 so that people can plan appropriately for the new world.
But travel is far from about going on holiday. People travel for work, business, family, friends, humanitarian reasons, medical reasons, to escape poverty & war and yes leisure. Yes changes need to be made, but frankly the focus on purely air travel is another one of these "quick wins" that tend to ignore the practicalities. The world has changed dramatically in the last few hundred years, we no longer all live as families in the same villages, we have begun the slow integration of all human cultures as more and more different peoples become more socially mobile. We now have family and friend circles over hundreds & even thousands of miles. To try and simply rationing travel is risking the same results as faddy dieting, people will eventually push back. Better to encourage people to plan their journeys to make the least impact, so if possible train instead of plane, train / bus instead of car, walk instead of train / bus on a sliding scale. And where one is not possible, consider trying to at least offset the carbon buying contributing to carbon fixation.
But then it isn't just about carbon, its about every facet of our lives. Humans probably haven't been carbon neutral for centuries, maybe even millennia. We've slashed and burned our way through our own countries in the industrialised world (then seem nonplussed when we shout at other nations that are doing the same), we've massively increased our population, the amount we eat, the land we use for our homes, the land we cover for our roads. We pump increasing amounts of chemicals into the air, the water and the land we've wiped out countless species of plants and animals, we've even tried to wipe each other out and still have the capability to end humanity in a stroke. Frankly I'm amazed we made it this far. And the solutions will not be simple, quick wins.