Would you have children in the next 5 years, thinking about climate change?

[Howbigaretherisks]

I have fertility issues so it would not be easy anyway but sometimes I get so broody and start dreaming of having a child - always thought I would have them one day. I love kids and always saw them in my future.

But I'm also concerned about what the world will be like over the next 100 years, with crop failures and access to clean water making things harder, even for high income countries. Populations in rich countries will likely be insulated from the worst of it for a good long time, many decades hopefully. But things are incredibly bad for a large percentage of the global population already. It is only going to get worse.

Would you have more children, or start having them if you haven't already, at this point?

🙈 really? We're such a tiny country. Just live your life and forget all that nonsense.

Yes

No I wouldn’t. absolutely not.

I wish I’d not TBH, being a mum is great but I dispar at my hormonal idiocy in bringing them into all this. Poor buggers. They’re 14 &16

Not sure what you mean tbh.

@OwlBasket I'm optimistic that kids already here will have a life basically like the ones we live now, your kids I'm sure will be fine and I'm sure are very happy to be here!

It's more going forward I think. Starting now seems more risky than 15 or 20 years ago.

Probably not climate change and the economic difficulties facing kids growing up today as they become adults in 10 + years are horrifying.

No. I have a 15 year old and worry so much for his future. I would have loved more the one and loved a daughter, but I will not have another child. Directly because of the state the world is in.

Yes, if you want children, can support them and care and love them..of course. If you looking for an excuse not to have a child....

Absolutely not. It's about to get very bad.

Yes, I hope to have kids in the next five years. Climate change is not putting me off in the slightest.
The future belongs to those who show up and make it. Are all you climate doomers were working hard on technical solutions to minimise or work around the effects of climate change? Or just miserably waiting for death

@Howbigaretherisks I’m not so worried about the as-yet-to-be-conceived TBH, they might be lucky enough not to be.

There is more awareness now but it was clear enough before I had DC, really. Now they’re here and will have to deal with it, whatever it turns into.

Which way is the vote? It's unclear what the position is to vote on.

My parents considered not having kids because of the threat of nuclear war…… still could happen but I have got 50 years in so far.

How? What is going to happen that's so bad lives would be better not lived?

You would consider not having children because of climate change?

that seems bonkers to me.

Ooh would love to know the timescale on it getting very bad

Yeah I totally get it would seem bonkers to some.

But I am concerned about the effects of climate change on food supply, water, air quality, habitable areas and so on.

In time, everyone on the planet will be affected by this. It's really just down to how much time there is. Hopefully a long old stretch though.

I think the best years are gone & I fear for the future of my child (economy, crime, society,climate change & many more) however, she’s here! I don’t think I would choose to have any now.

The billion dollar question innit?

Not really, I was being facetious

I had not really considered the economy and crime and society tbh.

But yes, if we get extreme wealth gaps and lots of crime as resources get more scarce, that affects the fabric of society too.

I'd rather be alive now than the middle ages, there's a lot of great things about life in the 21st century

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/02/hannah-ritchie-not-the-end-of-the-world-extract-climate-crisis

Read this.

My view, for me, by me: Having children is the greatest joy. Climate change is irrelevant.

This book states things are getting better for most people, including chances of being educated and having an economically better life, and less chance of dying in a natural disaster than in the past...the stats don't bear out the doom and gloom. The latest estimates are that man-made climate change is a) being addressed and b) still able to be changed. She doesn't say everything is fine, but she does say that it's easy to look at the news and not at the statistics and just panic when this isn't necessarily justified. I guess not everyone agrees with her, but she is a data scientist, and not a climate change denier.