To feel so anxious about the future: Climate crisis: 11,000 scientists warn of ‘untold suffering’

[Faceache25]

From an article in the Guardian yesterday. I have made many significant personal changes already, will be voting green, have been involved in campaign groups. But it feels like so little in the face of such a huge catastrophe, I find it difficult to stay positive and not just despair for the future, and for what my child may face in their lifetime.

How do you stay positive?

marriage You are correct, it's just something that people often point out. And yes, in the N Hemisphere rates are declining. People say we need more people to look after us as we age - so, in other words, keep procreating or we're in trouble. Um, we're already in trouble.

Great input there, Trewser. Thanks for sharing 👍🏼

There are two big issues are at odds - demographic time bomb and climate. Proportion of old people will increase a lot it’s true but the fix can’t be expansive population growth anymore.

We do have to stop having so many children. We need a lot more people to have 2, and 1, and none.

The dog pawprint thing makes no sense, because most of the meat used in dogfood is not graded for human consumption and would otherwise be sunk. Better still is insect-based dog food.

Artisanal dog food that is graded for human consumption is madness.

It's true the population has gone up - but the birth rate is declining across the world. In the developed countries, it's halved and most of Europe is now below the replacement rate. Even the "high-fertility" countries such as Niger are gradually falling: the article cites 7.1 children, but it used to be higher.

BBC article with Lancet links

Basically, if you want a smaller, healthier population, educate the girls. The longer they stay in school, the fewer children they have. I know Attenborough champions this, too.

The reason why our population is still growing is due to life expectancy. People are living longer and this is giving us a demographic bulge that's slowly working its way through each life stage, especially with the post-war baby boomers.

In many ways, the statistics point to a success story. I doubt we will go beyond 11 billion people - in fact, on current trends, it will flatten out.

My suspicion is that as Africa and Asia enjoy the same rise in living standards as the rest of us, you will see their birthrates go the same way. Some of the Indian states have already proved this: Delhi's birth-rate is lower than the UK's!

Well a good start would be to cancel the proposed Oxford-Cambridge Expressway road and associated housing. A 6 lane motorway and up to 1 million homes along the route.
Don't worry though as apparently building across all that land will be good for the environment. I live next to fields and if they have their way, I will be living in a city the size of Oxford... not to mention with all the fumes from the millions of freight journeys planned for the new road.

I do my bit, without making my life miserable. I recycle, only fly short haul (because I hate flying), only got my first car at 34 years old, don’t have kids (because I don’t want one, not because of the environment), live a relatively minimalistic lifestyle (although I’d sooner kill myself than give up my dog thanks!)

But...I think we’re doomed. It’s hopeless. The whole of western society is structured in a way that is environmentally catastrophic. Think of how many people live an hour from work and drive every day, or how many people drop kids at schools on the opposite side of town. Think of supermarkets importing foods from all around the world by air freight. People expect regular foreign holidays and fly without thought. Think how many devices we each use, all of which need charging and precious minerals to create in the first place. Stay in any hotel and be appalled by the plastic waste and laundry created by one overnight stay etc etc etc.

And the developing world is following our lead.

I honestly think the future will be bleak. The planet will always keep going. But humanity will struggle.

Going back to immediate issues, I think we need to rethink how we live and play, especially as we get older. We need more accessible accommodation and communal living spaces that groups people of the same interests and outlook together. My 90-year-old DGF lives in the centre of town, in a sheltered block of flats. He is much happier than living in a house by himself and he no longer needs a car to get about: everything is on his doorstep, including his friends.

To do that on a big scale is going to require a lot of thought, imagination and money. We also need an answer to the dementia crisis: it's the other elephant in the herd, up along the climate crisis.

@Shatnerswig
That population growth is actually demonstrating a reduction in birth rate given the population growth. So there is an indication of a system tending towards equilibrium. Of course cataclysm may come first but it is generally speaking unlikely.

Tell you what....when China, India and the US, along with big businesses have done their bit - then come to me and we'll discuss my dogs.

Well a good start would be to cancel the proposed Oxford-Cambridge Expressway road and associated housing

It certainly would be a good idea to cancel this!

China is being very proactive at trying to sort out its contribution. Not all smooth sailing, but clear political will turned into actions

USA is probably the country with the biggest impact and the least effort to fix it

I think the problem with focussing on population size is that some of the biggest populations have the lowest environmental impact. It only start to grow as they start to have the money to ape the western lifestyle

I was in America recently and was really surprised by the over use of plastics in shops and the lack of recycling. The difference to the UK was actually noticeable.

I’m sorry to say but immigration is not helping the environment, our population has gone up not by birth rate but immigration, 10 million in the last 50 years.

Well that's not sharing nicely is it?

I think we’re doomed. It’s hopeless

Thinking that humanity is doomed and it’s all hopeless and that our future is bleak and won’t anyone think of the children etc etc has been going on as long as humanity has existed. Actually as a global population we are doing far, far better now in terms of standard of living than at any time in the past, and that’s directly due to the industrial revolution. For centuries most people lived lives that were almost entirely a frantic struggle to survive. If you could get any kind of historical perspective you’d realise that you’ve won the gold medal being born in this period of time, now, particularly in the West, and that walking around in a state of gloom and doom about it is pretty damned ungrateful to say the least.

Unfortunately it seems that many people can’t appreciate how incredibly lucky they are. Having achieved this amazing level of comfort through human innovation And ingenuity we’re now being told that we’re nothing more than miserable little walking carbon footprints who must feel guilty all the time about every single aspect of our lives. Apart of course from when we’re slightly assuaging our guilt by recycling or offsetting our flights or using search engines to plant trees, or some such nonsense. It’s really very weird.

Just to add to the concerns (happy Friday!), the ageing population in the West is a terrifying ticking time bomb. Caring for them, providing healthcare (with cancer and Alzheimer’s rates being what they are), funding pensions and so on, is a frightening prospect. By 2030 the average age of a Japanese citizen will be 55, versus 22 in Nigeria. Can you imagine what that will do to the economy in the west, as companies outsource everything they can to that part of the world - stripping us of jobs. Add in the impact of automation (predicted to replace up to 40% of jobs globally within 15 years) and what will people do for work?
Also of grave concern is the idea of unbridled mass immigration in the future due to climate change and water and resource scarcity. It’s going to be a big problem.
I know there are ‘scare’ stories for every generation, but it really does feel like we’re on the crux of a perfect storm of life changing factors coming together at the moment.

It is a great time to be alive right now. Not miserable but why not think about the future for the next generations.

Of course no one can single handedly fix it but something is better than nothing. Some might be able to ignore it all of course.

Chile the big picture stuff is interesting.

I think it’ll be hard and then hopefully get better as the older population starts to reduce in proportion.

• I think we’re doomed. It’s hopeless

Thinking that humanity is doomed and it’s all hopeless and that our future is bleak and won’t anyone think of the children etc etc has been going on as long as humanity has existed. Actually as a global population we are doing far, far better now in terms of standard of living than at any time in the past, and that’s directly due to the industrial revolution.*
And I would agree, if it weren’t for our massive global population. There simply are far too many of us for that standard of living to be sustainable.

I would love to see some analysis of say Europe, and how many people it will be able to feed /maintain in a healthy happy lifestyle for various climate change predictions. And how that compares to our current population.

The uk was overcrowded at around 35 million, the Second World War we had to rely on Canada and some lucky weather.

Also the we are all doomed mindset is sometimes needed to get people working out the solutions. Sometimes bad disasters have not happened becuase people panicked for a few years and sorted it out. Eg peak oil , Y2K.

I wouldn't be anxious about it too much, people were told the hole in ozone layer would kill us, nuclear war in the cold war ect, and we are all still here, and we will still be in 2030.

That said we do need to change, reduce uses plastic, fossil fuels ect. And the cheif thing of it is people, there is simply too many people on the earth, people use more and more resources.

You can say that we need more people to provide for the old but what happens when then get old it never ends.

Part of the problem is we have become too good at fighting the old diseases like smallpox malaria ect and they were nature's way of controling population.

@Gin96
The discussion is about global population is immigration isn't relevant in the least... unless we are talking about E.T. or A.L.F ...comming to our galaxy with his lighting up finger stealing our benefits!!!