To be terrified about climate change?

[misspuggy]

Extinction rebellion has encouraged me to do a lot of reading around climate change. I admit, before this action I wasn't aware of quite how catastrophic climate change was. I'm now really quite scared, and worried for my son's future and the future of any children he may have.

The attitude of some world leaders towards climate change is also quite terrifying.

I can't join the extinction rebellion protests as I work in law enforcement, but am now quite proud of those there. My brother is one of those who was arrested.

Anyone else shitting themselves over it?

I know i could do more and in recent weeks thinking of/starting more changes that will hopefully make a tiny difference but on a different thread about climate change, some posters were literally saying every change people made wasnt enough, and that unless you were out protesting you were not making a difference. Attitudes like that might make people think whats the point of even trying?

I think it's essential to stop saying 'Why bother doing anything if we can't do enough?'

Persuading 1000, or 1 million, or one whole nation of people to make a 1% change each is going to have more effect than any one person denying themselves everything. And people are better at sticking to small changes than huge ones, on the whole.

I think the impact of climate change will not be equally spread out too,
there are some parts of the world where they are feeling the impact now and some places where it won't be for another 100 years or so.

My worry is less climate change itself but the political instability that it will cause, I think we are far more likely to die in a war than in a flood.
I was listening to a philosopher on a podcast the other day that was saying with technological advancements we are basically creating a situation where there will be a huge subset of humans that are obsolete within the economic structure we live under now.
That the rich will be able to pay for the best healthcare, feutus selection, body modification, and technology which will mean that we there will be a kind of split within the human race, one will have the ability to cyber evolve themselves and the other will not be needed.

I know it all sounds a bit sci-fi but unless we are able to change how world leaders measure human life beyond GDP, it worries me that the loss of human life (and even less habitat and animal life) is just not enough for them to take notice.

I have to agree with this sadly. I’ve made many changes but simply couldn’t bring myself to not fly off on holiday with the kids each year. It’s so important to me, I practically live for those times. I know it’s shit for the environment but it’s too much of a sacrifice to give it up.

We haven't flown abroad as a family since 2012, mostly down to finances. My 12 year old DD is desperate to go somewhere different on holiday, and if circumstances changed i cant say i wouldn't consider it. We only take 1 holiday a year. I'm willing to bet majority of the climate change protesters have had several holidays a year abroad.

There is not much point in the West phasing out plastic bags and trying to reduce pollution when countries like China don't give a shit and pollute like there's no tomorrow. Nobody will say anything though as the West needs Chinese money.

The following generations will have to give up on the idea of ever having their own car, home, familly of their own, or anything they actually want.
Because it will be bad for the environment. We need some inventors to think up big solutions...and quickly!

I'm not sure we can say that our children can have a reasonably comfortable life on this planet at this stage unless things change very quickly.

It all depends on the individual though doesn’t it? I did a lot of research into this a few years ago and thought from that, that my children have a decent chance of having a reasonable life till their old age. But there’s no guarantee of course.

That’s not why people have children though. If it was, then nobody would have got pregnant during either of the world wars or in London during the Spanish Inquisition. For all I know my children will have a terrible life, regardless of climate change. Hopefully not obviously.

And also, I hope my children will be two of ‘the good ones’, who do something to make the world a better place. If not for themselves or their offspring, then for other humans or for any species still remaining after we all die out.

I don’t mean “reasonably comfortable” because I want them to have a life spent stuffing steak down their throats and jetting off on beach holidays every year.

Even when the worst effects of climate change hit, there’s no reason to believe that humanity or life will be all dreadful at that point. To the point where life is not worth living.

I also think that when things start to get really bad, there will be 'Green Terrorists', who will kill people to save the planet.

That’s not why people have children though. If it was, then nobody would have got pregnant during either of the world wars or in London during the Spanish Inquisition.

I was thinking about this the other day and I think long term Freely available contraception has a lot to do with the fact that more people are looking at their potential children’s quality of life when making the decision to get pregnant.

I think women have far more body autonomy than in either of the world wars or Spanish Inquisition and it was probable that a lot of babies that were born in those times weren’t born because the women wanted a family.

That’s true @furrytoebean. We do have more choice over a lot of things now. So, it’s good that women can choose whether or not they want to have children. There is an argument for nobody having children at all, because even a reasonably comfortable life can actually be rather uncomfortable! There was that man recently in India who was trying to sue his parents for having him.

That’s sort of what I mean when I say it depends on the individual. Some people thought this guy was bang on. Some thought he was a douche and everything in between. I definitely see his point! Life isn’t all roses and I say that as someone who hasn’t been unfortunate enough to have been hit hard by climate change yet. But I also disagree with some of what he said.

I don’t regret having my children. And even if they died tomorrow, I wouldn’t wish that they were never born. I also think we, as a species, have work to do before we die out. There’s a lot of mess which needs to be cleaned up. If we all died out right this second, think of things like nuclear power stations. Left unattended they would REALLY fuck the planet. Worse than we already have.

If my children spent their lives doing this and died trying, I wouldn’t see that as a waste of a life at all. I’d be incredibly proud.

People doing a little is good of course and every effort should be supported - however most people can do a lot more, but refuse to, which is the point I was trying to make. Most people could afford (in fact eating vegan food can often be cheaper) to go vegan but refuse to because they like meat and it's what they're used to, for instance. Or could go on holiday somewhere nice but closer by train or ferry, but choose to go somewhere far away by plane instead.

The contraception point is also a good one populationmatters.org/ is doing a lot to help people especially those in countries where contraception is not easily or freely available

And I would reiterate that I think choosing not to have children, purely because of climate change, is an amazing thing to do. Sacrificing having much longed for children, just for the greater good is genuinely awesome to me.

In fact, choosing not to have children for other reasons is also something I fully support. I think the days when everyone was expected to breed, just because they should, are thankfully behind us in this country. So many people don’t suit parenthood. I’m glad that there is hopefully less societal pressure for everyone to have babies.

Contraception and education of women.

What is really scary is that the us now seems to be going backwards with trying to reduce availability of abortions .

I think there always has to be room to make changes and to compensate - for example I am taking a flight to the channel islands this summer, but we're offsetting that footprint with reduced consumption/emissions elsewhere, like contributing to tree planting projects, reducing car miles, reducing energy consumption and so on.
And once we've started making those changes hopefully we can continue them.
I think we need a carbon rationing approach, and higher taxes.
And yes China might have historically been one of the largest polluters, but they're also taking really significant action in tackling the problems
qz.com/391797/china-is-building-a-great-wall-of-trees-to-fight-climate-change-and-the-encroaching-gobi-desert/

I don’t for a second think that people shouldn’t be having children if they want them, I think that you’re right it depends on lots of things.
I think lots of people have them just because that’s what we’re ‘supposed to do’ that it’s just the next step in life without thinking too much about it and we need to have a discussion about what impact this has on women in general.

I work with women pre and postnataly and I think if I didn’t I wouldn’t have thought about it as much.

I love children! I want other people to have them so I can hang out with them.
I think it would be great if we could move away from the nuclear family so we didn’t all need to have our own individual families or be lonely, I just don’t think we’re built to live like that. A more tribe/villagey thing so we can share the work/transport/washing/plastic/heating

Shenzhen has a 100% electric bus fleet now. As I said on the other thread, I think China will turn it around ( makes sense for them as they’re resource poor and shanghai is super low lying). India’s much more o a concern for a whole host of reasons.

@furrytoebean

I AM FUCKING IN! Send me the coordinates of your amazing tribal village ASAP ! You sound fab .

Yay! Let’s do it. It would be pretty wonderful if the world was saved by women re organising society from the ground up on parenting sites. Would bring a tear to my eye indeed.

You would do better to protest outside the embassies who are responsible for most of the emissions.

We should all make positive changes just because our consumerist lifestyles are not sustainable or even enjoyable anymore but ultimately unless governments across the globe get their act together what we do as individuals is just the tip of a (melting) iceberg, I won't be worried about it.

I also thing that Mr & Mrs Joe Blogs will be giving up their once a year family holiday abroad but Mr & Mrs Jet-Setters (or Emma Thompson) will carry on as per normal and the "little people" will be doing save the planet.

I don't have kids, so thinking ahead of the earth's demise or otherwise, does not worry me. I do think that at some point the world is due to end and this is the long demise.

The problem fundamentally is that we would have to go back to how we lived 100 years ago and very few people are willing to do that.

Even those that are trying probably aren't having the impact they imagine...for example vegans will usually eat a lot of vegetables and fruit out of season that are sourced from halfway around the world.

Spikes in production of these are also having unsustainable environmental impact (see avocados, quinoa, etc).

I don’t have kids but I find it really strange when people say not having kids means the worlds demise doesn’t bother them.

Do you not have Nieces? Nephews? Neighbours?
Do people you care about not have kids?

YABU my grandfather was terrified of being blown up between 39 and 45....it did not happen.
My parents shat themselves for the bomb and nuclear war.
I was raised to fear a red under every bed.
In the late 80s we were told that vast numbers would die of aids...well many did but it wasn't as bad as they spelled out.

There may be difficulties ahead but I don't take scaremongering seriously.

Now pile my plate with meat and fire up the Airbus, I'm off on holiday,

I haven't had kids and now I'm glad I didn't bring them into a dying planet. Doing small things as an average person sadly is not enough to reverse or affect climate change in the ways needed. It needs massive huge shifts in so many different areas and I really think people don't care enough until its too late.

World leaders/politicians/people of influence don't seem to be that interested enough either. All very well rebuilding a cathedral after a fire but thats no good if there's no planet...more money should be being used to combat this before it really is too late.

It is terrifying, especially when you realise we're more than likely already past the tipping point.

We're currently heading for a 4+ degree rise in global mean surface temperature by 2100 and even if every nation reduced their emissions by 100% per year from 2020 we'd only just meet the Paris Agreement targets. That's how far off we are croadsworldclimate.climateinteractive.org/

It gets even worse when you consider the speed at which we're pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. Between 800,000 years BCE and 1900 AD atmospheric CO2 fluctuated between approx 170ppm and 300ppm in a fairly consistent cycle. From 1900-2019 it's just risen and risen and currently sits at around 410ppm with an annual increase of 2-3ppm p/y. At current rates we're going to have atmospheric co2 levels not seen since the dinosaurs roamed the Earth in only 300-600 years. The speed is the real issue, it's like me downing a bottle of vodka in one compared to drinking it over the course of a year.

The only saving grace for me is that I should be dead before the real impacts are felt but unless we change everything now we're the last generation who will escape unscathed.

but it wasn't as bad as they spelled out

It was pretty bad for the people who died and the loved ones that watched.

Also the only reason the aids crisis was contained is because many wonderful scientists worked together to develop a way to contain it. People literally gave their lives to understand how it spread, what it was, to comfort the victims.

Your granddad may not have been blown up but many many were.

We didn’t avoid the end of the world we just have had many mini apocalypses over and over.
It’s easy to stand on the other side and say ‘well we survived’ but many didn’t and for those that didn’t it doesn’t matter whether you did.

I don’t think that humanity will be wiped out completely but a mass extinction is extremely likely.