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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU for worrying about my DC futures bc of climate change?

69 replies

ByAzureMoose · Yesterday 21:37

I have 3 DC, my oldest is 11 and youngest is 1. I've always known climate change to be a problem but in my mind it was some distant faraway issue that would affect people in the year 2500. Since the global floods and wildfires and the UK heatwaves last year, I've started doing more research and realising how close to home the issue really is. Things like agricultural collapse of the food system, water scarcity, even repeat heatwaves and war and tipping points of no return etc and now I feel sick with panic all the time.
It sounds awful but I honestly wish I'd never had my youngest because now I just envision her future as some awful Mad-Max reality where she has to pay for water and ration food and not go outside during the daytime. These current heatwaves have just made it all worse and I just want to cry thinking about the horrible state we've left the planet in for our children, and the fact that I won't be around to protect them when s* really hits the fan. I've done more research to calm my nerves from proper climate scientists but the bleak reality just makes me feel worse.
My DH thinks I'm being a nutjob and worrying for no reason and I do feel awful for worrying so much about it when I have 3 gorgeous healthy DC, a good job, a great husband and house and otherwise wonderful life. The idea of the future and having some lovely DGC used to fill me with joy but now I'm honestly praying my children don't reproduce because I think the future for their children will be worse as they will see long after 2100. When the future looks so horrible AIBU for worrying so much about my DC futures?

OP posts:
6ate9 · Today 11:07

Smolla · Today 10:58

So in the last 2 years since planning your third child you’ve just realised climate change is an issue? It wasn’t on your radar at all 2 years ago?

It’s amazing isn’t it!!! We’ve know about climate change for a very long time, and the damage caused by humans is unequivocally WORSE!!!

Fushia123 · Today 11:09

Yesterday I went to a local library to watch a screening of this film presented by Chris Packham.
In it, a collection of well regarded experts in health, economics, security, science and food production present their response to the climate crisis in the UK, and point to what can be done if we start now. A discussion was held after the film.
There are lots of small screenings of this film being arranged by ordinary members of the public. The hope is to initiate interest and discussion so that it can ultimately be seen on national TV.
It really is a ‘Must Watch’ as they say.
Here is the link Www.nebriefing.org

Sherararara · Today 11:28

6ate9 · Today 10:54

This!!! Overconsumption and the demand is high!!!!

And that over consumption and the demand is the result of….having kids. PP is absolutely correct, the driving force behind human induced climate change is the rapid population growth of the last couple hundred years, and population growth is, I’m pretty sure, linked to having children. You might not like it but the single biggest thing anyone person can do to limit climate change is not having children. And that vein of hypocrisy is the uncomfortable truth behind all these virtual signalling, “I’m so worried about the future” posts. I’m “so worried”, “what can we do?” (as long as it doesn’t materially impact me or my family’s lifestyle).

6ate9 · Today 11:49

Sherararara · Today 11:28

And that over consumption and the demand is the result of….having kids. PP is absolutely correct, the driving force behind human induced climate change is the rapid population growth of the last couple hundred years, and population growth is, I’m pretty sure, linked to having children. You might not like it but the single biggest thing anyone person can do to limit climate change is not having children. And that vein of hypocrisy is the uncomfortable truth behind all these virtual signalling, “I’m so worried about the future” posts. I’m “so worried”, “what can we do?” (as long as it doesn’t materially impact me or my family’s lifestyle).

Spot on!!! Nobody wants change enough if it impacts their standard of living. Flying is bad, cruise ships are worse, but people want to travel. Why shouldn’t they when billionaires have private jets!!! If private jets ceased to exist would anyone give up flying?

During Covid when the planes and cruise ships stopped, the environment temporarily improved. Since Covid, significantly more people travel abroad. Everyday there are over 1000,000 commercial flight!!!

6ate9 · Today 12:06

It’s MY right to have children
It’s MY right to buy “stuff” that ends in landfill or oceans.
It’s MY right to travel by air or sea
and it just goes on and on…

If you are concerned about climate change, whose RESPONSIBILITY is it?

BashfulClam · Today 12:18

Whatalunatic · Today 10:46

Surely the answer is capturing more of what comes down? It is inconceivable to me that we can talk hose pipe bans right now with the amount of rain we have had over the cooler months. It never stopped where I live!

A local retail park flooded on Friday in Scotland. Torrential downpours of hot water. We’ll be fine north of the border.

dizzydizzydizzy · Today 12:22

Sherararara · Today 11:28

And that over consumption and the demand is the result of….having kids. PP is absolutely correct, the driving force behind human induced climate change is the rapid population growth of the last couple hundred years, and population growth is, I’m pretty sure, linked to having children. You might not like it but the single biggest thing anyone person can do to limit climate change is not having children. And that vein of hypocrisy is the uncomfortable truth behind all these virtual signalling, “I’m so worried about the future” posts. I’m “so worried”, “what can we do?” (as long as it doesn’t materially impact me or my family’s lifestyle).

A small population using lots of fossil fuels could potentially create more emissions than a large population using no fossil fuels. It’s more complicated than just one simple measure.

Also, there are many social/economic implications for an ever falling birthrate eg who is going to do the work, pay for pensions and healthcare?

6ate9 · Today 12:23

BashfulClam · Today 12:18

A local retail park flooded on Friday in Scotland. Torrential downpours of hot water. We’ll be fine north of the border.

Good to know!!!

Orangemintcream · Today 12:41

There will be huge impacts within the UK but also outside of it.

Hotter drier summers but also rain and flooding in all the wrong places - this will impact crops and food production on a global scale driving up food prices and seriously impacting the standard of living for all but the richest.

The same for water shortages.

There will be more wildfires in Europe which again will have an economic impact.

The higher temperatures will impact countries like India first with these and droughts causing many deaths. But they will also impact the UK to an extent - we will have to get air con and that will cost millions in tax for public buildings. Again mostly economic for us but the poorest will suffer the most.

Sherararara · Today 12:56

dizzydizzydizzy · Today 12:22

A small population using lots of fossil fuels could potentially create more emissions than a large population using no fossil fuels. It’s more complicated than just one simple measure.

Also, there are many social/economic implications for an ever falling birthrate eg who is going to do the work, pay for pensions and healthcare?

A small population… in abstract theory perhaps but proven reality is the largest contributors to climate change are China, Russia, the USA and India. Huge counties with huge populations with huge reliance on fossils fuels. The reality is the UK could drop off the map tomorrow and there would be no impact on climate change trajectory.

Social/economic..none of those problems are immutable and all are within the gift of policy makers to fix. The idea we should have more babies in the UK for example to fix the widening age gap is quite frankly ridiculous.

Anyway, all population models indicate that the global population is due to plateau by around 2100. Coupled with technological advancement in clean energy, battery tech etc means I for one am not too worried about the end of the world.

Jerrybalanitis · Today 13:00

I am living through the war and it hasn't caused me a great deal of anxiety except for the financial impact. The fact that it must not be very good for the environment, all that oil in the sea for a start, really winds me up when people moan about my elderly parents having air conditioning in the UK at the moment. There is nothing we can do, it is or is not what it is. Better to actually enjoy life and live it now because I very much doubt its going to be hot weather that ends things ultimately the way things are going. And not in the distant future probably and then all those people who denied themselves a plastic bag for life once 20 years ago in the UK and never had holidays or any joy in their lives wasted years worrying for nothing.

mugglewump · Today 13:04

It worries me too. Some of my friends, who have DC in their 30s, are saying The adult children are choosing not to have kids because of the terrible world they would be bringing them into.

Toveylove · Today 13:13

There are far too many people in the UK now for things to be fine here.its a very bleak prospect ahead and I think people churning out kids here are crazy.

BashfulClam · Today 13:13

I actually feel glad I wasn’t t able to have children. When we shuffle off it will all be starting to kick off.

LizzieSiddal · Today 13:19

BashfulClam · Today 12:18

A local retail park flooded on Friday in Scotland. Torrential downpours of hot water. We’ll be fine north of the border.

A retail park floods in June and you think Scotland will be ok? 🤔

Some of the comments in response to the OP show there are a lot of people in for a massive shock very soon. Take your fingers out of your ears and start educating yourselves!

overunderover · Today 13:25

Sherararara · Today 11:28

And that over consumption and the demand is the result of….having kids. PP is absolutely correct, the driving force behind human induced climate change is the rapid population growth of the last couple hundred years, and population growth is, I’m pretty sure, linked to having children. You might not like it but the single biggest thing anyone person can do to limit climate change is not having children. And that vein of hypocrisy is the uncomfortable truth behind all these virtual signalling, “I’m so worried about the future” posts. I’m “so worried”, “what can we do?” (as long as it doesn’t materially impact me or my family’s lifestyle).

That's a nice simple narrative for a complex issue, hence its appeal. Unfortunately it's bollocks. You can tell that by the fact I raised above: Many of the countries where population growth is still strongest are only contributing a tiny proportion per capita to global climate change; while wealthy western countries with much slower population growth (in some cases zero or negative growth, only outweighed by immigration) contribute the lion's share of emissions and those emissions continue to rise.

The country with the largest Co2 emissions is of course China, yet it's the only country in the world that until recently actually had a clear, enforced policy to REDUCE population. That completely contradicts your simplistic explanation, so how can it be so? Because China's been rapidly industrialising to bring millions of people out of poverty, moving people from subsistence agricultural lifestyles to consumerist middle class ones, and producing a huge amount of the unnecessary luxury goods consumed by those same lifestyles in the west.

The country with the largest Co2 emissions per capita is the USA, yet population growth there has been around 0.5% for the past few years. So similarly, can we work out why?

Overpopulation has always been massively skewed towards developing countries. If you want to argue against it, then the argument is about African and Asian families having 8 or 10 children for cultural and economic reasons, not whether someone in the UK has the replacement level, slightly below or lightly above. But if you're talking about climate change it's largely irrelevant anyway, because industrial and lifestyle factors are so vastly different across the world that responsibility for emissions just doesn't map with any accuracy to population growth.

The world is burning because we emit too much Co2. The amount of that emission cause by each individual in western middle classes has grown SO much over recent decades due to economic and lifestyle changes that even if the entire industrialised west had had no population increase at all in that time it would still have grown.

The problem is our overconsumption, and our addiction to economic growth and material wealth. As a group, we need to get a lot poorer (although there are political arguments to be had about how that reduction in material wealth should be distributed).

JoyousOpalLemur · Today 13:33

smalpond · Today 10:49

Climate change is a global issue. You basically won't make any difference at all by not having children, because the rest of humanity will continue to have theirs.

That's absolutely true - but then it also means there is nothing any person can do to stop climate change, as the babies will keep being born, and each baby will contribute far more to climate change than you can ever stop

Pickledonion1999 · Today 13:36

Yes I have a close friend who has had three kids in the past few years and I struggle to understand why when the issues are already so apparent and the future looks bleak.

JoyousOpalLemur · Today 13:37

overunderover · Today 10:52

Having kids is not the thing that contributes most towards climate change. Over-consumption is.

Which is why most of the African countries where population growth is still strong produce a tiny fraction of the emissions of wealthy western countries with flatlining or falling native birth rates.

Good luck telling all the mums on Mumsnet to save the planet by giving their kids less

6ate9 · Today 13:37

JoyousOpalLemur · Today 13:33

That's absolutely true - but then it also means there is nothing any person can do to stop climate change, as the babies will keep being born, and each baby will contribute far more to climate change than you can ever stop

Famine, war and plague might ensue.

Keroppi · Today 13:39

You can't control it so do what you can, buy meat from farms/butchers/online shops that buy direct from farms, recycle, grow some veg, enjoy nature, raise money and donate to local environmental causes.
Save money for aircon or a heat pump system.

Other than that change is life, humans will adapt and change their environment as we have done for eons so leave that to the future. Focus on your here and now rather than crying about it!

The footprint of children born in a country that creates so much less emissions than otherd and produces lots of solar/wind energy is minimal.

JoyousOpalLemur · Today 13:45

Keroppi · Today 13:39

You can't control it so do what you can, buy meat from farms/butchers/online shops that buy direct from farms, recycle, grow some veg, enjoy nature, raise money and donate to local environmental causes.
Save money for aircon or a heat pump system.

Other than that change is life, humans will adapt and change their environment as we have done for eons so leave that to the future. Focus on your here and now rather than crying about it!

The footprint of children born in a country that creates so much less emissions than otherd and produces lots of solar/wind energy is minimal.

Almost every word of this is nonsense!

Aircon, meat and humans are not good for the environment!

BashfulClam · Today 13:49

LizzieSiddal · Today 13:19

A retail park floods in June and you think Scotland will be ok? 🤔

Some of the comments in response to the OP show there are a lot of people in for a massive shock very soon. Take your fingers out of your ears and start educating yourselves!

well we’ve now had three days of rain so I think we might still have water as that’s what I was responding to. If you need help with reading comprehension there are classes you can attend.

frozendaisy · Today 13:52

This will pass @ByAzureMoose, in 5 months time you will be overconsuming at Christmas again like everyone else.

There was a moment in the 90s when consumerism was being questioned harshly, but most people got over that and went the other way.

Every false nail will end up somewhere and now people vacuum their fake grass.

6ate9 · Today 13:55

frozendaisy · Today 13:52

This will pass @ByAzureMoose, in 5 months time you will be overconsuming at Christmas again like everyone else.

There was a moment in the 90s when consumerism was being questioned harshly, but most people got over that and went the other way.

Every false nail will end up somewhere and now people vacuum their fake grass.

Sadly, very true!!!

"It's madness, madness, I tell you!"

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