AIBU to feel sorry for the children of today?

[RainNowPlease]

I read a Met Office report today which stated that temperature highs in the UK have increased by 4.5 degrees C over the past decade. If this trend continues, in 2036 we might have highs of 45 degrees and in 2046 (only 20 years away) highs of 50 degrees. Animals will be dying, more humans will be dying. I am so thankful to have had the foresight to not bring children into this situation as I can't even imagine how inhospitable the Earth might become in their lifetime. AIBU to feel sorry for children who will probably live to witness and experience unimaginable suffering?

And, despite the flying and the cars, they will still have less of an effect on the environment than your children will over their lifetimes.

Getting bored of these posts now

Why mention red meat? Vegetables have far more impact on the enviroment considering they travel thousands of miles. All my meat comes from 2 miles down the road. Your avocados are coming from thousands of miles away and using copious amounts of water to grow them. Stop demonising meat

You really must stop presenting such bullshit as fact. Comments like this are outright bloody dangerous.

We know, with absolute certainty, that the world cannot sustain the meat-rich diet rich nations currently enjoy, never mind what developing nations aspire to. Beef in particular is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and also uses about 15 tonnes of water per kilo of beef. Any perfunctory search of the serious evidence will tell you this.

The United Nations is evidence-led, with no commercial axe to grind: https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/science/climate-issues/food

More absolute bullshit masquerading as fact. No wonder we're fucked if people throw up nonsense like this with any kind of conviction.

If I had the time I'd rebuff this entire post sentence by deluded sentence, but I'll go straight to the obvious one: I have a wind turbine on my suburban house, and no fewer than three heat pumps. All fall under permitted development in my English local authority, although the freeholder of the land my house sits on required me to site the turbine out of view from the front of the house, which was a little suboptimal. I couldn't find a suitable supplier in the UK, so imported it from Germany.

As for things like 'you "must" buy an EV' - you know that's just not true, don't you? Everyone else does.

How can any normal human being prevent this when the people in charge are the cause of dark atrocities, building data centres everywhere on public land, charging forward with AI. Idiots using AI like it’s their brain for the simplest questions.
Kill off wildlife in the land, murdering humans at an alarming rate for the earth’s minerals, bombing the shit out of countries, but it’s the average persons selfish actions causing this? Nope. As long as money and power continue to savage the earth it is hopeless.
I will keep recycling, travel by plane once a year, not pave my entire garden killing off insects and worms that help support the environment but otherwise I have no control whatsoever over the environment.

Eh?

We are making sure our old age care can be self funded. And finding £150k net to put two young adults through uni - one wants to go into nuclear fusion research which would considerably help balance the climate the other wants to hold politicians/world leaders accountable via maths/law /politics he will probably get shot in the processes but that’s a way off

so yeah totally selfish!

Obviously if you have no children you need to fund your own old age care unless you outlive your capable partner, but as it costs what £200k (net) to just raise a child nowadays with compound interest those childfree will be sitting flush in the 5-star luxury care homes of the future, staffed by (er…. ) children of today. Dilemma there surely?

Just try to put the OP’s mind at rest that there isn’t no need to worry so much about the future of our children. They are, and will be fine.

Perhaps a conga round our workplaces/homes is something we all need from time to time, you can learn a lot from the youth if you let them.

What is your 2 mile down the road meat fed?

Not all LA allow it. And from 2030 you wont be able to by a petrol or diesel car.

According to the last four podcasts I’ve listened to on Stephen Bartlett’s DOACEO covering AI, we are all heading for the apocalypse well before climate change gets us. There is literally zero good news to be had. The poor guy I listened to yesterday who had resigned from the company behind ChatGPT was pretty much a gibbering wreck for an hour talking about what was coming over the hill. He was so worried he’d tried to stick to only one child because of what he could foresee.

My instinct is to very much try and enjoy the present as there’s literally nothing good coming.

I was just responding to the idea the OP was somehow anti-children which made no sense. Anti having children maybe, anti parents-probably! But how can anything OP said be described as "anti children"?

How do you know that my children will cause
more environmental damage than these two? I’m raising them to be extremely environmentally aware and critical thinkers.

You’ve just made your “fact” up, haven’t you?

Do you have children?

Anti parents, yes. Why post it on a parenting forum?

I think you need to do a little research!

its-

a carcinogen

not necessary

cruel

bad for the planet

but you keep munching on your beef ‘cos…. Well I can’t think of a reason but you must have a pretend one. :)

Presumably because they are the ones having children...

So just to attack / make people - who have already had children - feel bad / shamed / distressed, then?

Or is there some other helpful reason?

Im not sure your own research is on point really with the reasons you’ve given.

It’s a probable carcinogen- many many foods are, not just meat and if you’ve ever drank alcohol or eaten a slight burnt edge of pizza, toast etc etc you’ll have had carcinogenic food.

Cruel… depends how you define this.. also depends which type of farm produces your meat and in particularly which country.

Unnecessary - well you could say that about absolutely all foods really. I think growing mushrooms is unnecessary because I don’t eat them 🤷🏼‍♀️

Bad for the environment- being a vegan or vegetarian can also be bad for the environment unless you’re always purchasing local produce

Sorry, didn’t want to high jack the thread.

yet hotter countries still survive ?

You haven’t successfully refuted a single point I’ve made.

”you could say that all food is unnecessary” - erm, no. You couldn’t say this.

Mushrooms - oh yes, I had forgotten they were sentient methane-producing beings.

I mean there's plenty of parents making threads about how guilty they feel for having children, no point virtue signalling how bad you feel after the damage is done either.

I was asking why the op felt it was necessary or useful post this thread (to attack / make people feel bad) on a forum designed for people who already have children.

And your response is - it is necessary / reasoned because….there are already (according to you) posts on this parenting forum from parents who seem to feel bad for having children?

So a sort of “kick them while they are down thing”? Or some other reason ?

And “damage”. What exactly do you mean by “damage”? The births of the children of the parents on this parenting forum?

What “virtue signalling” are you referring to exactly? I’ve not seen any on this thread

all very wooly

Im sure I did ….

Back to the mushrooms - fair point but just because they don’t produce methane doesn’t make them totally agriculturally sound. Do your research and come back to me when you sound more like someone who knows what they are talking about rather than a disgruntled vegan/veggie person.

There is still an opportunity to minimise the future risk if people are prepared to act. Now.

and yes , individual actions do count

that’s why things are not worse already - some of us have actually made a measurable difference since the 1980s. Things could have been worse today , we have bought some time !

But OP is right, unless more people get on board then the situation for our children is unpleasant

I’ve not eaten meat or fish for 30 years and am extremely well researched and not at all “disgruntled” about it ☺️ Thank you so much.

insulting me is a classic and fairly obvious ad hominem attack move.

would you like a full list of research references supporting my statements? Facts are easy to research online yourself but if it’s too difficult I can pm a plentiful list of evidence based, independent research.

What sort of things are you referring to? Genuinely interested and not being snidy. My family already live as environmentally lightly and ethically as we can but I am always open to other things we can try.