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

[ByAzureMoose]

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?

Our whole system is based on our consumption. We need a whole new system but who the hell can bring that in!

I tried but as bad as it sounds the honesty does just make me feel worse - I don't need to know how much worse the world is going to get etc. And I went vegan last year which makes me feel a bit better but when everyone around me eats meat what's the point?

Of course I knew it was an issue but I always thought it was burning fossil fuels = hotter weather, I never did enough research to know how life-threatening or early it was until I was already pregnant with her. If I'd had known it would affect the UK this side of the century I never would have had any of my DC

OK so off you pop to the suicide pods then since you're so bad for the environment. What a stupid comment!

I think two things can be true at once and for me I look at both the negative and the positive. The negative is the impending climate catastrophe, and I just have to be delusionally optimistic that more and more good people will start to wake up to work together to do something about it. And I do my bit wherever I can (red meat once a week only, recycling, not flying much etc). But the positive is that in many ways our kids have actually never had it so good. 150 short years ago life expectancy here was around 40 because tons of kids died before the age of 10. Nobody said “what’s the point in procreation and being alive” then - they did it because it’s the human urge to carry on. 100 years ago we were just out of a horrendous world war and about to go into another. History has meant human existence has always been relatively treacherous and often downright awful. Right now it’s unbelievably marvellous, believe it or not. It’s just a shame the 1% are pissing it all away for the rest of us.

Everyone always says that once they’ve had the amount of children they want. It’s quite a strange phenomenon. Climate change only becomes clear once they’ve reproduced to the level they want. There’s been threads started on mumsnet pretty much word for word the same as yours for years. Again they’ve all conveniently already had 2-3+ children and all say they didn’t realise it was this bad until their last one was born. Suddenly they all say they’d never have had their children if they’d have known.

Here's a link from a 2004 article in the Guardian predicting that Britain would be frozen over by now.

Climate hysteria has been going on, and getting it wrong, for many decades.

It's actually hilarious once you realise.

Please stop wasting your precious life worrying about this nonsense.

We could use our precious life to make things better for future generations, especially if you have children and grandchildren.

Well i dont know about you but where i am I need to pay for my water? And we get about 2 weeks of nice weather a year. I can see where your husband is coming from.

No. The planet, and the animals and plants, have survived much, much worse.

What are you talking about?

The planet will undoubtedly survive climate change, as the planet has endured and recovered from far more catastrophic events over its 4.5-billion year history.

Without humans, wild animals and biodiversity will flourish. WITH humans there is a danger, because we are the cause of the damage and we’re making it worse not better.

YABU. For all you know aliens could land on Earth tomorrow.

You never know!!!!

I’ve been worried for a long time. This recent heatwave has been the catalyst for me to take strong decisive action for my family.

We will no longer fly. At all. I’m in the process of changing the dc school to closer to home so that we can go car free. Dh car has already gone yesterday and mine will go at beginning of summer holidays. We have cancelled Dss driving lessons as don’t want to condone car use.

I’ve found a local shop where they sell things and you just take your own containers. I’m looking at other ways we can help the planet too. Considering banning the use of AI in our household completely but I need to really look into that as I suspect we use it often without realising?

I agree with this.
Your children have as much chance of a happy life as any children anywhere ever.
Global warming is a new threat, but my grandparents used to worry about another ice age. And there have always been wars, famines, plagues, earthquakes, slavery and despotic regimes.
The likeliest outcome to global warming is that there will be awful suffering in some places but overall humanity will adapt to it. That's what we do.

The awful suffering of running out of usable drinking water?

Balance out the hysteria by reading some Piers Corbyn or Bjorn Lomborg.

The likely outcome is that all the advances that you think you are raising a child in - like medicines and varied diets and free time - will vanish as land and people vanish , as fighting intensifies. It’s easy to assume the suffering will be elsewhere and that as the rich west we can ride it out but I am not so sure of that

My two cents about how catastrophe will happen.

People living in rich countries will become the (well deserved) scapegoats of the millions who have born the brunt of starvation, poverty, and loss of resources for decades while we gorged and got fat (and then spent more millions in drugs to get thin again) on rich food and sent our children to posh schools so they would continue to use most of the resources in this dying world.

In my opinion the worst suffering is not going to come from the heat, the cold or the lack of drinking water.

It's going to come from the reckoning of so many strong, angry, rightfully vengeful suffering people who will take over all we have been hoarding, all that electronic money, all that bitcoin will vanish into the thin air it was created from. And the younger generations, whom ironically did not cause this, will pay the ultimate price.

I laugh when I hear people complaining about "the boat people". It's not them taking over, or "Islam taking over Christianity" we should be worried about. It's about hoards, masses of the fed up people who will eventually come for us,when their world becomes a tiny bit more uninhabitable than it is now. Which will happen very soon.

Heads will roll, and they will be our children's. We are the Elon Musks for the starving world. And they won't forgive us our obscene lifestyle while their children starved.

The recent extreme, unbelievably fast changes in the world have terrified climate scientists. The only reason I'm not terrified myself is that I've accepted nothing we do will be enough now (not that we're doing anything significant, mind you), so I'm just going to enjoy life as I know it as long as it it lasts.

Oh, and that I chose not to have children. I'm immensely grateful for that.

Well, I've largely given up hope, so that rings true to me.

However, those who haven't given up hope should focus more on political action that has the potential to change the behaviour of large groups of people. Making large sacrifices to reduce your personal carbon emissions (whatever they are) is futile.

YABU - there is nothing wrong with the environment and nothing bad is going to happen.

I know exactly what you mean OP, and I feel for you. What could be more terrible. But we have to go on living and trust future generations to find a way somehow.

You really need to look up the work of Rob Hopkins, he has written books, done Ted Talks and is an environmental visionary genius. He just wrote a book called ‘How to Fall in Love with the Future’ he thinks humanity has lost the power of the imagination to vision a more sustainable future, where we create a more stable future, that is still within our grasp. You are right to worry about climate change, but visioning a future where humans don’t alter the path we are on is not helpful. Look the up National Emergency Briefing, find a film showing, invite friends and family. There are so many campaigns that can help us work out what to do. We have been failed by our media and politicians. However, it’s not too late to avoid a worst case scenario. If you listen to podcasts, look up an interview with Rob Hopkins, you’ll love will love it.

I can’t wait for future generations to sort this out, our generation has to do it and we can…. This was my response to this post… You really need to look up the work of Rob Hopkins, he has written books, done Ted Talks and is an environmental visionary genius. He just wrote a book called ‘How to Fall in Love with the Future’ he thinks humanity has lost the power of the imagination to vision a more sustainable future, where we create a more stable future, that is still within our grasp. You are right to worry about climate change, but visioning a future where humans don’t alter the path we are on is not helpful. Look the up National Emergency Briefing, find a film showing, invite friends and family. There are so many campaigns that can help us work out what to do. We have been failed by our media and politicians. However, it’s not too late to avoid a worst case scenario. If you listen to podcasts, look up an interview with Rob Hopkins, you’ll love will love it.