I’m glad I had my son who is now a young adult. I always wanted children, he has brought so much joy to my life, and it’s been a privilege to be his mother and guide him as he matures into the sort of person we are going to need in the next generation. Presumably people would like to see humanity as a whole survive and overcome this if at all possible? Some people need to have children if that’s going to work out.
Yes, we knew about global warming and climate change when I got pregnant. In fact we learned about it at secondary school. But also the world was a very different place, we had solved the hole in the ozone layer and achieved peace in stubbornly divided places like N Ireland where I grew up and thought I would never see happen. There was a lot of global cooperation and the pace of technology development was amazing to see. And an increasing consensus that green issues were politically becoming more important to people. It didn’t HAVE to turn out this way where we have basically lost (another) 2 decades due to inaction. And I honestly didn’t think it would.
I am a pessimist generally, but honestly thought on the basis of what was happening at the time, that we’d have made serious progress in the right direction with climate change by now, and would have almost entirely stopped burning fossil fuels worldwide in favour of renewable energy to keep the atmosphere from heating further.
Like I kind of thought we might actually stick to the Kyoto and Paris agreements, although I guess at least we haven’t ended up on track for a 3.5 degrees or more increase. But especially with the world the way it is right now I don’t foresee us making the huge changes now necessary to keep it to 2-2.5 degrees let alone 1.5. And the AMOC currents potentially being more unstable and closer to a tipping point (or indeed past one) is terrifying.
I absolutely back then did not foresee us being in a place in 2026 where several dictators or near-dictators hold many of the reigns of power worldwide, the US president was threatening to “annihilate a generation”, antisemitism would be a mainstream thing like the Holocaust never happened, the far right were rising, we’d all lived through a pandemic, some people would STILL be denying the reality of global warming like it’s some sort of conspiracy theory, and the US president would be ENCOURAGING the use of fossil fuels saying “drill baby drill!”. Like even as a pessimist forgive me for not predicting the absolutely ludicrous scenario we are all in. But I really don’t want us to be talking on here in another ten years lamenting another lost decade. The huge majority of the public in the U.K. are overwhelmingly positive about making climate change a priority so I don’t understand how the fossil fuel lobbyists have so much power that almost nothing is being done. AND if nothing is being done to transition to greener energy, why are they at least not putting some energy into policies aimed at adjusting to this new normal of inferno heat?!
Really we need both things to be addressed at one obviously, and we so need an old fashioned statesman encouraging the world to pull together, aim for peace and put all of our heads together to try to solve the major major issues we are now facing with climate change. But we absolutely don’t have one in charge of any particularly powerful or influential country. The billionaires and the psychopaths really are in charge. I know they’re all building their bunkers but do they honestly WANT to live in bunkers?! The idea of a colony on Mars with current science is ludicrous we are nowhere near that let alone getting to anywhere else, and again do we really want to live out our lives shut up inside on Mars?!