to think you can't understand climate science and want kids

its anazing how many posters refer to something like “we really wanted another child”. There’s a fascinating psychological question around people wanting more children and, fundamentally, what their children would actually have chosen.

Hey, you never know, maybe one these ill-considered kids might grown up and solve this shit show. I doubt it, but you never know.

We’re fucked. There is no solution. There’s no desire, willingness, or intention to solve it. We’re witnessing the end of our civilisation. The ostriches will scoff and fair enough, ignorance is bliss.

I have a kid. It wasn’t a logical decision, and I do fear for her future. Human civilisation has long since jumped the shark.

Im not coming at it from the 'my one special child' angle. The research shows that 20% of jobs in future will be direct green jobs and a further 20% will be indirect green jobs.

The devil is in the detail. The methodology of the study you reference looks at territorial rather than consumption based emissions ( the latter being the true per capita footprint). On the standard analysis accounting for consumption based emissions the PCE are higher today than in 1860.

I agree 100% with you except for I think now is safer than the end of Cold War to 2008. Especially since I lost friends during the Troubles, here in the UK. We don’t have car bombs going off, or people being executed in their homes. We don’t have immediate credible threats of nuclear attacks by rogue agents who have stolen USSR nukes.

Definitely too much catastrophising going on about climate change.

In the context of human history, for the UK at least, it was far, far safer than most other times in our history. Every era has wars and tragedies though…and tk say we’re in the cusp of a calamity that will eclipse all the wars, disease and famines in history is catastrophising bullshit, and i suggest anyone who believes this should actually read some history!

I like it that I've had the chance to be alive. The alternative would be to never come into existence. That's why I don't think it's bad to bring a couple of people to the world.
(Some people would rather they were never born. For these people, having kids will probably feel the opposite)

Post Cold War to 2008 was not very safe.

The Troubles, the rise of Islamic terrorism, the Serbian genocide, and the collapse of the USSR led to many conflicts in Eastern Europe that involved nuclear weapons changing hands into those of literal mad men that threatened to use them on us, we did two wars in the ME Persian Gulf and the Iraq war, plus a 3rd ME war in Afghanistan started towards the end of that year range. And we got involved in the Somali civil war.

Yes, climate change is concerning, but why are you catastrophising? We’ll have to adapt, of course, but humans have adapted throughout history, and without the benefiting technology that we have today.

We live in the safest and most comfortable time to be alive (apart from perhaps the post-cold war to 2008 financial crash era)… that may well erode over time and there’ll be extra cost and upheaval due to climate change I’m sure, but for the UK at least, hotter summers and wetter winters are hardly Armageddon!

@BermudaRhombus
was indeed surprised to read that the average British person in 1860 had a higher carbon footprint than today’s average British person. That’s because it isn’t true!

It is 100% true. See additional drill down. The average British person in 1860 emitted 5.81t of CO2 compared to 4.53t of CO2 in 2024, this is 1.28t lower of CO2 emissions per British person.

Perhaps we should all just kill ourselves in some mass global suicide? Or we could each try and make the world a better place, and recognise that we need descendants to carry on the work…

There will of course be challenges in the years and decades ahead, but your children’s future would still likely be far better than at any time in our history, or than in most places in the world today. For most of history, a significant proportion of children wouldn’t have reached five-years old.

It is 100% true. The current per capita CO2 emissions in the UK is at the same level as 1860. See https://ourworldindata.org/profile/co2/united-kingdom and the attached line chart.

I was indeed surprised to read that the average British person in 1860 had a higher carbon footprint than today’s average British person. That’s because it isn’t true! As for humans being a planet destroying disease, that’s up for debate. We have successfully destroyed vast amounts of our natural world and continue to do so at an alarming rate.

No, that is an opinion, not a fact. It is an opinion based on a cost benefit analysis that the life of 1 human child unlike the rest of the Earth’s many species has no a right to live on the planet but is somehow too much of a burden.

Humans are part of the ecosystem.

We aren’t some sort of planet destroying disease.

We can reproduce just like every other living creature.

The goal to fight climate change is to attain balance, not wipe out humans.

Balance means someone has to have children. You are all going to depend on today’s children to keep moving towards correcting climate change and saving every living thing also on the planet. To keep reducing carbon emissions per capita. Do you know that the average British person in 1860 had a higher carbon footprint than today’s average British person? This is pre electricity, pre indoor plumbing, pre cars, pre planes…

What has got us there? Bright children who were raised to care about the planet going into green industries.

Who will get us over the finish line? The children of today.

So frankly, the carbon foot print cost of raising a generation of children to adulthood is more than offset by the reductions in carbon emissions they invent as adults.

Certainly more useful than a dog.

That's not true, this is based on successful propaganda by the fossil fuel industry.

100 fossil fuel companies and industries create 70% of greenhouse gas emissions.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oil-coined-carbon-footprints-to-blame-us-for-their-greed-keep-them-on-the-hook

Er how? Having children is one of the worst things you can do for climate change, that's just a fact and no amount of "my kids have their own carbon footprint so it's nothing to do with me" changes the fact that you decided to have them!

My point is that many posters on here misrepresent population and climate control as established scienctific facts as do presure groups because it suits their world view and ageneda.

I'm not sure if it deliberate mis-reprentation or just lack of understanding.

I won't bother argueing futher - any links are never looked at no alterative view is ever considered seems to be an artical of faith which is ironic but it's unshakeable by actaul facts.

I fundamentally disagree with that view point.

I wasn’t referring to general climate change. I was referring to the specific issue of human reproduction and its effects on climate change. There is a vast literature on this. You seem to want to suggest that it’s one piece of research that has then been leapt on by certain pressure groups.

Baffling 🤷🏼‍♂️

So what on earth are you saying then?? your first post said "Africans and asians", then you said you weren't talking about Africa or Asia, then you said you weren't talking about the UK 😭

Why the fuck are you attributing words to me that I did not write? I did not say in the UK!!!!

I'm not saying climate change isn't real - as that has been peer reviewed.

I'm saying the orgin paper of idea reproduction and the carbon legacies of individuals by Paul A. Murtaugh and Michael G. Schlax, published in Global Environmental Change (2009) has been critisied by other scientsis - assumes no reduction of carbon uses american carbon outputs whole premiss concept of adding next genertaion of carbon emssions has been questioned.

It's not settled science than so many on here claim it to be.

But it's aslo been jumped on and promoted by groups who agenda is already about decreasing population because it fits their agenda.

I've thought about this for a long time and the only answer I have as a childfree person (who mainly made the decision from selfishness and trauma, not climate inevitability) is that people decide the joy of being alive and that kids bringing joy to their lives will just emotionally outweigh it. I don't believe that, and I am someone with severe depression who is mainly alive because it would upset people if I wasn't. I think they genuinely do believe that even if their kids are dealing with 50x worse conditions when they're 40 and perhaps struggling to have clean water they'll still be happy to have been born.

It's a gamble and some people quite enjoy gambling, and some of them win.