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?

Climate no as there's a lot of quiet work going on and being where we area and still richer than many countries we'll have more ability to adapt. Economics possibly - luckily I've already had mine.

Western demographics don't look good and I think there may well be a drop in standards of living.

Yeah I know. But your future DC will probably get to have a more decent life than more animals on earth just by virtue of being human. If you're in a developed country, they probably won't be hugely affected by climate change in their lifetime.

If you're talking in terms of "they will destroy the earth because of causing climate change" well... Um the earth will be destroyed anyway. The sun is going to implode in a few billion years. We know the earth will perish. And in the shorter term, your kids could be the ones who save the earth. There's no guarantee at all they'll contribute to destroying the earth.

I don't really understand people who say they won't have kids because of climate change tbh... There's always something that will wipe out the earth - it's inevitable anyway. If you want kids, just have them.

This ^^

But your future DC will probably get to have a more decent life than more animals on earth just by virtue of being human. If you're in a developed country, they probably won't be hugely affected by climate change in their lifetime.

I find it reassuring that people feel so confident that this will be ok, but I feel uncertain about it myself.

I think that quality of life could seriously diminish - food supply, and knock on effects on healthcare accessibility.

I can see the modern medical care we are used to becoming very expensive as the resources needed to keep all wheels in motion rise in price.

Its fine to direct it and challenge and decide against it. But most scientists would say the meaning of life is to pass on dna in a biology sence. I don't really belive their is a meaning of life as science also says its all a happy accident.

However chemistry tells me that hormones are powerful things. Like someone else has said testosterone is a big driver for lots of things for example. We aren't so evolved that we can compartmentalise that primitive urges are just meaningly chemical signals.

If you ever feel sexual urges that's just hormones ( that want you to have sex to make a baby) wed don't have like it but that's science. Urges to have sex are to pass on DNA. There aren't many species who have sex just for fun in reality. And we are just mamals, we're nothing special. Just my thoughts anyway

I’m more worried about the shift in demographics

What does this mean?

@FPNFL too many old people and not e enough young people to pay taxes or look after them. We are already seeing this in healthcare

It means that if 2 people have 1 baby, or even worse, no babies, you either work until you die or the 1 person you produced, works 3x harder to keep you when you stop.

£300,000 will last approx 4.8 years in a good care home and 9 years in a standard one. If life expectancy is 20 years past retirement, who bridges that 11 - 16yr gap?

How much do you have saved or are you willing to work until you drop?
That's dependent on you being in the best of health, never needing to use public services of course.

It was better when people were able to be more resourceful, because they were healthier, less dependent on money and less stressed. However, they didn't make it much past 85......

I’d be more worried about cost of living tbh. I worry about my kids financial future and if they’ll even be able to afford life!

This is because we've turned our society into a massive pyramid scheme in which we constantly need more people in order to just keep afloat. But the end of pyramid schemes come when they become unsustainable and everyone can see they're just a con, because the only ones making any profit/benefitting from what the scheme promises are a couple of lucky ones at the top. That time has come and passed.

I mean people had kids during the black death which almost wiped out humanity.. people have kids in war zones..
I know we have a bit more choice about it at this period of time in the west but honestly life has its joy and pain whenever you have children. And it's a natural human instinct to reproduce.
I always think people are laughable when they say the planet would be better off without humans... like animals are all these innocent lovelies living in peace. Watch any nature documentary.. it's cutthroat out there even if you took humans out of the equation
And as for global warming... we absolutely should be trying to address it.. but even if we didn't exist it would still happen.. just much more slowly.. at some point albeit billions of years away.. the sun will consume the earth anyway... so if you really think about it human beings with our technology are the only chance any life on this planet has any chance of survival beyond that point.. as we are potentially capable of space travel and terraforming etc
Basically you cannot predict what the future will hold for your children. Every generation has a bunch of doommongers saying that's it everything's going to the dogs now.. and I'm not some sort of mad climate change denier. I know its a problem. But I think the answer lies more in working together to do the best we can rather than giving up and hoping we all die out (which would only slow it down not stop it anyway)
I mean maybe the generation 500 years in the future will look back at our time now and think how awful it must have been for us with the pandemic and the poverty and the struggle... yet actually being alive during this time I wouldn't take any of it back.. the joy I've felt, the love, the experience of being alive.
I wouldn't presume to think I know what my children will go thru. You just raise them the best you can and you hope the best for them. Maybe the world will be harder for them in some ways and easier in others.. maybe they'll be very unlucky and experience some great disaster.. maybe they'll live thru an age better than ours.. you honestly can't really know for sure.