If you don’t have kids, do you care about climate change?

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I’m genuinely interested

YABU - I still care about climate change even though I don’t / can’t have children

YANBU - It doesn’t affect me - I don’t really care

I know the vote will polarise but also interested in comments. I can’t have children (long struggle, finally come to terms). I do try and act in the interests of the planet but frankly I am sick of the “think of your children and grandchildren” prevailing rationale - what does that mean for those of us who can’t have that?

I'm not Greek. I've never been to Greece. I've no plans to go to Greece. I don't even know any Greeks.

Yet I'm still concerned about the wildfires there. Which incidentally are a lesson that the climate is a present issue, not merely for when we're all long-dead.

What a weird thread. Surely concern for the planet is a good reason not to have children?

I can’t afford to have children. I care about climate change because it’s going to affect me, not just future generations. We’re already experiencing the starting effects.

I have kids and I still don't really care. Well, its not that I don't care its just that there are other things that occupy my attention. There are so many terrible things in the world not all of them can capture your mental and emotional energy.

I suppose I am quite accepting of death. It doesn't bother me. The planet has been fucked so many times before humans. It will survive this one too. And I just don't think Western civilisation where my kids live with collapse in their lifetime.

I dont worry about my children so much as we live in a rich country with a mild climate so they will be relatively ok

I worry for wildlife and people in poorer countries in places that are already being affected, as they havent contributed and will be horribly affected in our lifetime. It's just not fair to destroy peoples lives because we cant be arsed to walk, or want fresh towels every day, or want to buy a new outfit every night

Can't vote - since I have kids. But is it not the case that many people who care the most about climate change are not having kids - because they think it's not responsible, or they can't bring them into the world the they see it going?

As others have said, having children is the number one cause of climate change, so someone who choses not to have them (or is unable to) inherently cares more about the environment than someone who does have children. Literally nothing a parent does will offset the extra resources used and emissions created by one child, that's before you think about the people who have more.

That's the main reason I don't care about climate change - the people who say we need to protect the planet for future generations ignore the fact that without those future generations being born climate change wouldn't be a problem.

Worrying about what may or may not happen in the future is futile. Humans are incredibly arrogant, we assume that we have the power and responsibility to change the world. Other species just do what their nature tells them to do, sometimes they go extinct because their natural inclination does not fit in with the world around them. It's ludicrous, offensive even, to have the arrogant belief that humans are somehow "special" so can override their natural behaviours, even more so that we have an duty to look after other species or the members of our own species who might not even be born yet.

If we accept the argument that humans need to change their impact on the world (which I don't) then we need to focus on the things we can change, not worry about the ones we can't. For example, rather than change our behaviour (be it eating less meat or not flying or recycling) we need to fund science so that it can create ways to mitigate our actions. Suck carbon out of the atmosphere and neutralise it, refreeze polar regions, that kind of thing.

One last thing, humans need to get their heads round the fact that we need to understand the climate is always changing. 25000 years ago we came out of an ice age. The 1600s were unusually cold. A thousand years ago the climate was very similar to that of today, maybe a little warmer. Just because we are changing the climate through our behaviours doesn't mean that we should try to preserve the current climate indefinitely. A global rise or fall of 5C over a century is nothing to fret about.

But to protect the planet: do not have children.

@jonhammsmistress

Personal choices that effect your contribution to climate change

That's an interesting graphic. We are regularly told that "the single biggest impact you can make is to go vegan" but I've never actually seen any figure to support it. All figures I've seen (including your graphic) place a plant-based diet way behind not-driving and not-flying.

I’m childfree by choice and while I hate waste and I do recycle and I buy a lot less pointless throwaway crap / fast fashion than most people I am not prepared to make massive personal sacrifices in terms of travel, and flying in particular, for the sake of the climate.

My time on this planet is limited and I intended to see as much of it as I can while I am fit & able to do so. The pandemic which completely wasted a year of my life has made me even more determined to do so. Would I feel differently if I was a parent? No idea 🤷🏻‍♀️

@brieislife

I can’t afford to have children. I care about climate change because it’s going to affect me, not just future generations. We’re already experiencing the starting effects.

Off the topic somewhat, I'm sorry you can afford to have children - if you could, would you?

Lol yep it's one of the reasons I don't have them.

It's hilarious to me the people who have chosen to breed and bring more resource using p9into the world seem to think they are the ones who get to claim they care the most.

*people

I have children and I do care about the environment, I recycle, I haven’t flown since I was 18, I don’t have the heating above 18 and only use it when it clicks on itself. Unfortunately I live rurally working in community nursing covering a wide rural area so will always need a personal car, I currently have a 1.2 engine car so not a gas guzzler and may look into electric for my next car but it depends on costs as they are still too expensive for us at the moment

@VodselForDinner

Climate change is one of my reasons for remaining childfree.

Same here.

(Don't get me wrong, it's not the only one - but it's a factor)

@grapewine

YABU. I'm childfree not sociopathic.

This

@FOJN

I don't have children, I don't eat meat, I don't fly, I drive less than 5k miles a year and I am very rarely wasteful. I grew up in a household without central heating, a car or the money for international holidays.

I try to look for ways to reduce my carbon footprint. I don't think my individual actions are making a difference to climate change but I am sending a clear message that I understand humans need to make significant changes to the way we live and I'm prepared for the inconvenience those changes may bring.

I'm pretty fed up of being told to think of the children by people who have four of them, tumble dry everything, go on a couple of foreign holidays a year, buy fast fashion and have a half a dozen tech devices in every room of their overheated homes. Live your life the way you want but don't bend my ear about how useless the government are on climate change and what that means for your children when you are still driving your teenagers less than half a mile to the bus stop everyday. FFS

This with bells on. Vegetarian, no kids, don’t drive, don’t travel abroad often - I have a colleague with 5 children she carts around in a diesel SUV, who constantly lectures the office about how our choices will affect her children. Drives me bonkers.

Here's the link to the full image (can see they've had to truncate the emissions from having a child, it's so much bigger):

phys.org/news/2017-07-effective-individual-tackle-climate-discussed.amp

@CounsellorTroi

Space rockets are powered by liquid oxygen and hydrogen, still a waste of those though for something essentially a joyride.

This is really interesting and I had a look due to this post- but not really aimed at Councillor Troi in particular!

I was hmm about it so googled.

For the recent bezos one.
Google has this fuel on more detailed sites-

• The Blue Engine 4 or BE-4 is an oxygen-rich liquefied-natural-gas-fueled staged-combustion rocket engine.

And in press generally this

-Blue Origin’s rockets are powered by a mix of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The propellants are much cleaner than conventional rocket fuel.

I think- but please say if you know better!

That it seems there is some sleight of hand here?

In that
The actual chemical reaction that provides the energy is hydrogen oxyge.
BUT the hydrogen is from natural gas IE fossil fuel, extraction, pollution related to extraction etc etc.

The emissions are on the things I looked at. Lower than traditional means of propulsion. But that's not the same as... Clean and totally harmless.

I also disagree with the. Great for exploration etc.

This to me is a handful of blokes indulging in the billionaires version of mine's bigger/ faster/ better than yours.

Exploration has not stopped. Hubble is still out there. Recent missions from a variety of countries over the years have launched variety of tech. Some to go far through solar system send back info about planets further out. Some launching probes/ mobile exploration units into surfaces with capability to take samples. The vast radio telescopes have been working all through.

Bopping up into edge of earth Atmos, ooh weightless, back again. Yes I'd love to do it. But I can't see the exploration element.

When it comes to advances the fact that more mainstream tech is sometimes good enough to use, reducing costs etc. Is amazing. Eg a case camera linked to a raspberry pi! Iirc.

(More info on impact of the products of the propulsion method here-
www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/19/billionaires-space-tourism-environment-emissions)