to think you can't understand climate science and want kids

[sensiblefootwear]

Hoping that people will (gently, with good evidence) tell me I'm BU.

I love children and have always wanted them. But for the past few years and especially this year I'm finding the science on climate change and the tangible effects of it (houses on fire in nearby towns, schools so hot people's children have been sent home after fainting, looming food and water shortages, etc etc) increasingly difficult to ignore and I can't help but thinking it's an incredibly unwise decision to choose to bring another life into this world.

To be clear, I'm not talking about choosing not to have children because I think it will somehow have any impact on the climate, because of course it won't. I'm talking about choosing not to have them to spare them the horror of what's to come in the next few decades.

Am I being unreasonable to feel this way? I'd really love to hear from people who genuinely understand climate science and know where things are heading, but are still staying firm in their decision to have children in the future.

Well they might decide to get involved, learn green skills, be part of finding solutions so you are unreasonable to assume its all fucked.

I think there are probably two groups here: (i) those who actively wish they hadn’t been born (or, given the choice, would choose not to have been born); and (ii) those who just recognise that if they hadn’t been born they wouldn’t exist and wouldn’t be missing anything, even if they happen to enjoy their life. I’m more in the second category, but that’s because I am blessed to have a very comfortable life. If things become very tough (be that climate change/ AI / whatever), I imagine there will be many more people falling in the first category.

It's ok it all evens up in the end when we get to choose what care home they go in!

You're obviously a reflective person who is very responsible and take existentital problems seriously. Have you considered that if people like you don't reproduce, but people who don't think as deeply about big problems do, we'll probably be even more screwed?

I'd say you need to reproduce lots.

The instinct to reproduce is the strongest drive in every living thing on earth. It is embedded permanently and deeply into the physiology and psychology of every human.

Reproduction will never stop.

The world isn't going to end.

Humans will survive.

I love my parents. My children love me. And at some point you become functioning independent adults.

This is probably one of the most common points put forward on these threads, that “my child might be the one who fixes climate change”. The odds of that are significantly less than vanishingly small.

The power to give someone life and to bring them into existence is controlling. Sometimes I do wonder how silly MN can be at times.

True. A lot of other people can't understand the concept of not being born clearly-I wonder what they think they were doing for millions of years before their birth! I worry how they'll deal with their own mortality. They must all believe in reincarnation.

My DC works in renewable energy. There's a whole industry out there

Explain how it isn't then. You literally called it a "power"!

Definitely not every human! I don’t think anyone is suggesting that humankind or the world will end any time soon. But people are concerned about what sort of world we will face in the near term future . We are for the first time in decades seeing declining living standards in the west. It was always a given that each generation would be more prosperous, happy and successful than the preceding one. That’s doesn’t now appear to be the case.

So it just comes down to a difference of opinion, despite having access to the same information about the climate emergency. You believe that parents can make a wonderful life for their child. Others feel the life might not be as wonderful as hoped thanks to the climate emergency (increase in floods, heatwaves, storms- this is not in any doubt, it’s already been happening for a considerable time); dwindling resources; food shortages; increased disparity around the world leading to more conflicts and more movement of migrants; increasing costs of living, AI…

If you’re not very worried about any of those, then you’ll obviously see things differently with regards to having your own children. You can see why some people who are worried about those things aren’t having children, surely?

Of course not having children will have a positive effect on the climate. Reduce the people and you reduce the pollution.

There is some truth in this. The wealthy can shelter their children to an extent from the effects of climate change, AI, COL and all the rest. But clearly that’s only a minority.

Yeah my parents had the golden age - born as WW2 was ending, will die before the climate change, mass migration and resource grab wars begin.

They can't shelter them from the emotional aspects really. A more stressed society isn't easy for anyone but the hardhearted, and being hardhearted isn't much joy.

Explain how it is? I use a word. What's so bad about creating new life?

Yes of course I can. And I agree its all about different opinions and life priorities.

This doesn't make sense! Its creating another person! Its power and control (in a negative way) if you then go on to abuse that child. Wholeheartedly bring the human up the best you can you are doing nothing wrong, you are a functional human.

I’m sorry but whenever someone says something along the lines of “I wish I’d never been born” I’m put in mind of Kevin the teenager. It’s the sort of thing he would say.

😂😂I hate you!!

I agree that climate change is a huge risk. But if you go back 40 years, people had reasonable, not unfounded, worries that the cold war could lead to a nuclear conflict. 45 years earlier, people had a not unreasonable belief that the world might be over-run by Nazis. Nonetheless they started families, and I think we can say now that we're glad that they did, despite those risks being real. I don't think your bar should be "is climate change scary" but "is climate change scarier than nuclear war."

Some things that I think might make you less stressed about climate risk:

• In terms of total agricultural land, it isn't clear to me that climate change will reduce this. I agree that there will be a big reallocation of agricultural land, and this will be painful. But a lot of Canada, Russia and to a lesser extent Argentina, is going to experience an increase in agricultural land.
• Humanity is very good at making harsh climates survivable. People live a nice life in a lot of equatorial countries. At any point we can just decide to allow this in the UK (it may involve allowing Nuclear energy, but the good news is that Nuclear energy is incredibly safe). I hope it's clear that I'm not saying "I don't care about climate change, as we can build air conditioned homes" - but rather "even in the worst case scenario, where mitigations fail, life will be okay"
• I think AI is about to accelerate technology a lot. It is already making huge contributions to mathematics, and I don't think engineering can be far away. This helps in both coping with climate changes (e.g., vertical farming) and reducing climate change (e.g., clean tech) (side note: Please don't mistake this for AI enthusiasm. I think this has it's own awful set of risks. But I do think it will accelerate scientific progress a lot)

Are animals playing god when they reproduce too?
What about plants?

Yes you created another person who had precisely no say in the matter-it's like the epitome of having control over someone else. You just unilaterally decided they'd have to go through life for 80 years and you think there's nothing remotely controlling in this? What say did the child have?