UKH

Hello,

It says I'm a new poster but I'm not new to UKC, I just wanted to remain anonymous as easier talking to people anonymously sometimes and I know people on this forum.  I think I want children (or at least a child) but one major thing that is holding me back is climate change.  I'm so worried about the future, everyday there's a new article about how a different part of our climate/ecosystem is being adversely affected and I just wonder whether it is right (for me/my partner/any potential future child - nobody else, please don't think I am judging anyone here) to have a child as I worry what sort of world they will inherit.  I also feel guilty for how I (as a westerner) have contributed to climate change.  I'm just interested to hear people's views - I spoke to someone I don't know very well about having children and they made the point that perhaps the world needs more little eco warriors which was such a novel way of thinking about it for me and put it in a positive light for me.  I think I am a bit narrow minded about this and very doom and gloom.  (Re-reading this, it almost sounds like I'm a bit depressed - I'm not!) I'm not looking for a "yes you should" "no you shouldn't" answer, just some different viewpoints if you have them.  And please be nice, this hasn't been easy for me to write (even as an anonymous user!) and it may seem strange posting on a climbing forum but I am a climber and climbing people tend to be an open minded and friendly bunch.

Thanks

I admire you for thinking about [1] climate change, and [2] about the effects having children might have on the world. Perhaps loads of people don't think about it, or think but don't let anything change their life decisions. I think - good for you

I think it's wise and good to think about what kind of future any child we have now will inherit. Especially re climate and what has happened recently with it

It's true that any child we have could easily be of great benefit to the world. No way to know

IF I WERE YOU, and I'm not, and I want to stress this is only my thinking and obviously not advice to you, I would go ahead if I was 100% sure I wanted a child or children

Disclaimer, I am not that clever

I think the 'little eco warrior' is a terrible take, unless you're going to raise them without plastics, foreign holidays, gadgets etc. Otherwise you're just contributing further in the hope they grow up to be not as bad as you. It's all well and good reading them some environment based bed time stories but if they're sitting there in their 1643rd disposable nappy and bashing some plastic tat on the side of the bed then...? 

Two things jump out at me, that I think are slightly separate:

1) Avoiding having children to reduce the environmental impact of more humans

2) Avoiding having children as you think they will have a poor quality of life due to the state of the world

I don't dispute 1, I don't think that 2 necessarily follows. I think it's entirely possible to bring up children who are both happy and hopefully go on to make the world a better place.

If you really want a child without the guilt, you could consider adoption or fostering. Although this is something you'll need to consider very carefully, as it's likely to be, ahem, "challenging".

What would happen if everyone felt guilty about climate change and stopped having children?

I didn’t give it a second thought. I have two wonderful kids, who have improved my life immeasurably. Once you’re dead the planet won’t care. Do what makes you happy.

I think the idea that you might raise eco warriors is a nice idea. However, many kids rebel against whatever their parents try to convince them of. Not all, of course. 

I think the aim is laudable, but who knows whether it is achievable. Many kids want the things as adults which they couldn't have as a child. 

I am happily kid free, which leaves us not totally desperate for money so therefore able to choose greener options in life. 

I think, no matter how much you try to rationalize these sorts of decisions, it ends up being a decision of the heart and you will convince yourself that you are benefitting society best by doing whichever option you actually really want to do. 

The planet would breathe a big sigh of relief!

^This.

I'm currently going through the adoption process and it is indeed incredibly challenging and frustrating. Though ultimately it will be rewarding (as I keep reassuring myself) and I won't have the (justified or not) guilt of having brought yet another human in to the world.

I'm childless by choice (multiple reasons, cost, impact on lifestyle, pessimistic outlook on life, not really fond of children, wouldn't make a good Dad and, yes, impact on the world). 

I often despair at the damage we're doing to the planet and the slaughter and extinction of other species. If me not having children makes a tiny bit of difference, (it's not just minus one or two kids, there's subsequent generations that won't exist to factor in), then it's probably one of the best things I could have done.(Although it's not purely for altruistic reasons).

Ditch the harmful, narcissistic guilt.  Have children.

No it won’t. And I know from your posting history that your clever enough to understand the planet has no consciousness.

We did the same only one, and even then i pondered it for several years first.

The solution is fewer people, but how many developing countries will also consider this. 

Change is inevitable.

I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside.

Most of the posters seem to rather dismiss this idea but I'd not dismiss it so lightly. The changes we need to make are as much cultural and political as they are technical and economic and in my experience the young are much better educated and willing to make these changes than older people who are less likely to want to change the lifestyle they are accustomed too. I'm not necessarily saying you should breed eco warriors to get us out of this mess, but also not be too guilty about raising a child if you are conscientious about these issues whilst raising them.

If you're not a bit depressed about it all then you're not paying enough attention...

Schools are doing the eco-warrior-rearing thing themselves. Today my youngest's Year 4 class spent all morning planting trees in Longsleddale, with the message to go back and see how they're doing in 15 years. Beats lying on your stomach on a sand bag and peering at a distant target down the rifle range.

From my perspective, I'd rather someone like you (who seems thoughtful and caring) had children than many others. If the more liberal minded, environmentally responsible, forward thinking folk all stopped having children, the world might end up in a worse place overall!

PS you could always offset your offspring’s carbon footprint by giving up unnecessary activities like climbing? No more travelling to far flung places to indulge in fun. Just stay local and take up running or something?

Look at the world for the last hundred years or so abs there’s always been a very good reason to not have children.

Rising tensions before ww1, then ww1, then Spanish flu, then the Great Depression, then ww2, then rationing, then the Cold War… Now it’s climate change and a whole host of other reasons too. All valid, but part of life.

if you want children have them. Becoming a father is the greatest joy I’ve ever known.

This is the wrong place for your question but I'll answer it anyway. 

There is only one good reason to have a child(ren) and that is because you want them.

Once you get past the rest of the crap and decide if you want them or not you can apply some thought to how you will do it - personally I suggest you try being nice and see how they turn out. You never know they might help fix our collective failings.

I've got 4 of the little farkers. Want one?

Bear in mind that you have been brought up in world where hydrocarbons have made everything easy. But what have we become? An interesting study has just been published showing that people are opposed to air pollution from factories but accepting of air pollution from cars. This is but one of the necessary evils of holding onto our privilege. 

Looking at your worries from high up I think the world that you fear will be one where our privileges are curtailed. Perhaps we might have to ride bikes like they do I'm Holland, or heat our houses to only 17degrees , and maybe meat will be once per month. 

But for the move away from hydrocarbons the air will be cleaner, and we need never visit a stinking petrol station again. There will be economic opportunities for all in rolling out the green revolution. 

This is the future that I have been campaigning for. The privileges that your children might not have are ones we could all do without albeit after having to overcome our fear of change. 

The change will come faster if we are working at it to protect our children. How hard will you try and make things better if you decide against having children? 

We'll also need a generation of highly educated people to make the transition too. If we all decide to not have children we will give up trying. 

Not to mention that children are a lot of fun and make life worth living. 

You're obviously not a grandparent yet 😁

As the expressions goes "If I'd known grandchildren were this much fun, I'd have had them first".

Plant a tree in 73.  I planted trees in 73 at school but they were ripped out years later for a new sports centre.  I am quite annoyed by that

Well, i have 2 children, both now over 20. I still worry (sometomes at night, its more like panic) about the world they will inherit given the predictions for the next 50 years.  But i have loved being a Dad and still do, even with all the worry.

Yes I remember that, if only the rhyme. This is more in the way of rewilding/addressing flooding, I believe. Between twelve kids they planted ~500 trees, oak, rowan, pine, and they're not finished.

I'm similarly anxious/worried/guilty/angry about climate change, population increase and the ubiquity of politics/religion that drive and perpetuate it.

It's a bit of a gamble having kids because there's no telling how they will turn out, although that depends to big extent on their sphere of influence and what developing minds absorb when at an impressionable age.  

They can either grow up to be eco-aware, or be types who rebel against it. If eco-aware, they potentially could help to slow climate decline. Rebelliousness on the other hand tends to develop if education and parenting are too autocratic, rule-driven and insensitive to natural ability and interests. Peer groups consisting of other like-minded rebels then become far more influential than parents, which is probably the last thing the planet needs right now.

Thinking positively, it's obvious from what you have written that you are thoughtful, empathic and sensitive enough to be a good parent should you choose to have kids. So on balance, I'd say go for it - but given the population problems, no more than two!

I was adopted as a baby though I only discovered this about 5 years ago while going through paperwork about a year after my Mum died, (my Dad died 18 years ago). Despite not knowing my origins, I'd never wanted to procreate but always felt that in the right circumstances and with the right person I'd adopt for precisely the reasons you give. This philosophy did sink a major relationship with someone who absolutely wanted to have her own children.

It's too late to ask my parents how rewarding it was, but the gratitude I feel is impossible to put into words. I've always considered adopting a child to be one of the most noble things people can do, and I'm extremely glad I voiced this opinion to my parents while explaining the reasons for the ending of the aforementioned relationship.

A few friends have adopted children. Most are happy, one is extremely troubled. But I don't believe me being an olympic level arsehole when younger (and some may say I still am) had anything to do with me being adopted. 

I wish you well with it. Good luck and round of applause.

.......just don't have more than 2.

I thought you needed 2.2 to maintain a stable population? Science can work wonders these days.

What if your little eco warriors are the ones to invent a new green technology or they become engineers and implement next gen nuclear, nuclear fusion or a hither to unknown solution? It's a mistake to see human life as a zero sum game. Many of the greatest problems that have plagued civilisation have been solved by technology, there's no reason to think that climate will buck this trend.

As humans, we're terrible at predicting the future. 1, 2, 10 years ahead, our accuracy is often very low. When you take it to 100s of years and try to model something as complex as the climate, the level of certainty over what will happen and how your potential children will effect it is low. The world has always been ending for one reason or another, when we look back it turns out that it didn't. Maybe this time it will, maybe this time it wont - no one can tell you that with certainty, whatever the papers say.

I'm not directing this at anyone in this thread, but I think many of the "don't have kids for climate change" advocates are deeply anti-human and nihlistic in their ideology and that influences their views more than a desire to save the planet. Humans have their flaws for sure, but it's also remarkable that we're here at all. We may be one amongst many, or we may be a single fleeting example of intelligent life. Whatever happens to our species, the planet will survive either way. It's really a choice between love and hate. We may only be around for a blink of an eye, you can choose to bring more love and life into the world if you want or you can choose to hate humanity and join those longing for it's end. Don't base your decision on whether to have kids on the climate. As a human, you don't have accurate enough modelling tools to understand how your child will affect the world.

If you want to save the planet, then turn off your heating, stop going on holiday, sell your car, sell your phone, stop buying anything that contains plastics, stop buying food that was grown with petrolium based fertiliser, never travel by any means that uses fossil fuels for energy or production etc. etc. Most people you see at climate change protests or encouraging you not to have kids won't be making those choices, so tune out from the noise and make your decision on children based on your own values.

The population of China is falling, for the first time - being blamed on the generation of "only one baby" now being adults (the policy was changed to only two babies a few years ago).

Adoption would be a great way to go, taking on the responsibility for guiding a child through the perils of life without adding an additional child.

Fostering is another option, thereby having an influence on multiple children/youths etc.

If going down your "need to be my own child" route then it will all be about how you raise them - mine have been brought up to think that cycling to places is normal, very little "short" car journeys, to actually go into shops to buy things as opposed to ordering a delivery (paniers on bikes are great for this) although the demise of the high street is making this harder - what you do will impact on the child you are raising (be them your "own" or adopted - although, if adopting, I would consider the child to be "mine")

There are many good reason for raising children there are also many good reasons for being childless - its up to you.

Good luck with whatever path you take.

It is a very lonely and souless existence without children. Have 4 or 5 of them and enjoy your future life.

Consider this, if you only have one child, then yes you'll be creating additional CO2 due to its existence but overall you're still contributing to a net reduction in population as you're reproducing below replacement level, so overall it's still a positive impact all be it not as much as if you had none. 

In terms of their likely quality of life, I think by and large they'll be fine. Climate wise things might be getting pretty sticky by 2100 but at that point, they'll be nudging 80 themselves. Every generation has its challenges and every generation has never known life anything different. They'll benefit from technology we presently can only dream of and will probably consider the idea of growing up in our time backward and primitive, as does every generation when looking at the past.

There is unfortunately a balance to be had between climate change and quality of life. 

The ageing population and low birth rates in Europe are going to create a host of their own issues - similar to climate change; economic, quality of life, and ultimately deaths.

Also it's worth bearing in mind that consumption growth over the next 30 years is likely to be larger impact on overall emissions than population growth (Ie The whole world reaching U.S / UK levels of emission per capita)

It will be a great thing for them to revisit in the years to come - perhaps they should have an annual reunion there to see how the trees come along

Having a child is the biggest CO2 impact you can possibly have.

To put it in the most brutally honest way possible.. People born into developed first world nations really don't have much to worry about in regards to climate change. It is primarily something that will impact the third world, and those without the means to mitigate. 

If you have a child in the next 10 years, their life might be different to yours marginally throughout their entire life. But it won't be drastic. They'll afford heating/aircon as necessary, the government will build sea barriers as necessary, if crops fail in fields then they will be eating food farmed inside under LED lighting and aircon, etc etc.

If people can live in Arizona and Alaska, then the UK in 50 years with a few more or less degrees isn't going to be much of an issue. 

We in the West have more than enough means to mitigate the impact of climate change even if we can't or won't commit to stopping it. 

Just look at COVID.

3 months, and money absolutely chucked at the problem by the developed rich nations, and we had a working vaccine to mitigate most of the illness. 

People couldn't go to work? Have the government pay everyone who can't work a per month wage similar to what some developing countries average yearly wage is.. 

So direct harm to your kids life, from climate change, is unlikely imo. 

If you're primarily worried about creating another polluter, then you could always adopt a kid from a developed nation. Even ignoring the environmental reasoning, I have always said that if I have kids (big if) I will want to adopt rather than have my own. It's never made sense to me to bring another kid into the world, when there's kids without parents out there that need parents. 

That is a spectacularly ignorant and offensive post. You don't have the faintest idea what anyone else's existence is like, and have no right to declare it to be lonely and soulless.

There is a good argument that the collapse of modern society will be driven by the lack of young people coming in to support the glut of retirees. This seems especially pertinent in places like China and Russia but also across the Western world in the next 20 years.

Climate change may well be less of an issue than WW3...

As someone said above climate change is very likely to be solved by technology, it's just a question of when.

I wondered if it might be tongue in cheek, it seems too far off the scale.

This is called a ponzi scheme.

Or too many coming through, when the collapse of traditional workplace roles taken by AI and robotics means some kind of radical shift to UBI will be in order (ideally with a quantum leap in renewable energy).

Let's not assume the next 30 years will be like the last 30 or that we can predict how things will turn out. 30 years ago I was taking my driving test - my current job didn't exist yet and mobile phones let alone smart phones were not really a thing. 30 years before that, 'we' had only just put the first person in space (and not yet landed on the moon).

Ah, do you think I fell for a troll? Damn. I came straight from reading Chris's excellent article on autism, and it touched a nerve.

I completely agree that in the west we'll be somewhat insulated from the affects of climate change although I don't think you should just ignore the the moral question of what happens to the rest of the world when making your decisions.

Also, despite what we can do with technology I don't share your confidence that it'll be fine and we can carry on more or less as normal just mitigating things. In the medium term, even ignoring the human costs, there are going to be enormous and growing costs to mitigate these issues, you might think the country is struggling now, wait until climate related costs are such that we're running just to stand still, try finding the money for a functioning NHS then. A child born in a western nation now might not be likely to starve or drown due to the consequences of climate change but their lives are likely to be profoundly affected.

And in the longer term are a whole bunch of climate tipping points which can put us on a trajectory to where however much we mitigate we are going to be in a very bad place. Don't underestimate the psychological affects of living in a world and society where you can see everything is going to shit. I've got a 9 year old and I wonder how she's going to feel when she's deciding on whether or not she wants a child because at the point she's deciding the world is likely to be in a much worse state and on a trajectory to be even worse.

(I know I was just advocating previously that children could be good for the world and I still hold to that but I think it's also worth thinking honestly about what the future is likely to hold).

If it were tongue in cheek, it is grotesquely ill-conceived and deeply insensitive. 

I know. Since my baby left me I've got a new place to dwell. It's down at the end of Lonely Street at Heartbreak Hotel. I feel so lonely I could die.

Well its about time somebody stood up for the joy of having a family!

My sincere advice: go and listen/watch Lex Fridman podcast episode #339 with Bjørn Lomborg (author of "False Alarm") and Andrew Revkin (a climate journalist (21 years at NY Times)), the idea of which was to have a debate with a representative from both sides of the climate change argument. It gives a very balanced view of climate change without the sensationalism and focusses on how it can/will affect humans over the next 50-100 years and how best to tackle/prepare for it, with a particular focus on return per dollar spent.

I believe Lomborg is sometimes called a climate change denier or similar, but he unequivocally says in this that he believes in human caused climate change, so make of that what you will.

If you really care about my opinion (which you shouldn't), if you want children: have children.

As a thought experiment: was it immoral for people to have children during the second world war, knowing that they would be in the blitz and a potential apocalypse (also applies to period during cold war)? Was it immoral for people to have children in the 1500's, knowing that they would live a life of abject poverty and suffering and also have a reasonable chance of dying in infancy? Is it immoral for couples in the Central African Republic (which currently has the lowest quality of life score) to have children?

How about the joy of a private jet ?

But yes, people should have what they want.  Just aware of the impact.

Well you should have done that then! You didn't "stand up for the joy of having a family", you called anyone who didn't have children lonely and soulless. 

There's a world of difference between being positive about one choice and being negative about the opposite. 

I have a very rich and fulfilled life and I am child free by choice. 

I think I would have a very lonely life as a mother, as I don't like young children and I couldn't afford to pay someone else to look after them for me. They are fine when they get older, but just the thought of having to be at home with a baby is genuinely depressing for me.

Obviously, for some, they dream and long for kids. Each to their own, and I think where the climate arguement is concerned, people can raise kids in a green way, or choose to use their excess money from being child free to liver greener. At the end of the day, the decision of having children or not will be lead by the heart, and then you will find the argument about why that was the moral decision to suit!

It troubles me that adoption is being advanced as a solution to ones guilt and worry about the climate crisis. Parenting a child is a bond that should be supported on something much more concrete that ones worries. Bearing a child is a evolutionary need, and when it cannot happen for whatever reason the grief and need don't go away. Adoptees need to know that their bond is real. Think on how they might feel if the reason for their relationships are built on the premise that children are a problem (which is what people appear to be saying in relation to avoidable emissions).

I think broadly speaking the Earth is not overpopulated - there is plenty of 'room' if the energy issue can be solved. Agriculture is probably the biggest challenge then...

Yes, but the perceived wisdom of UKC is we want the population to steadily fall....at least for a bit.

There is a world of difference between 'standing up for the joy of having a family' and 'It is a very lonely and souless [sic] existence without children.'

You would do well to consider how your post might appear to those who want children but for whatever reason are unable to do so. 

I don't think you have anything to worry about here. Having been through the adoption process and met many adoptive parents I can't think of anyone who was primarily motivated by the guilt of bringing another child into the world. Yes, we raise this as a positive feature of adoption, but it's never the driving force. To be honest, by far the most common reason for adopting a child is because people are unable to have any of their own, this is followed by a desire to do something for the many children that need parents. So, adoptive families are built on very solid and positive foundations.

You should watch Idiocracy! A dumb comedy but it kind of holds water in that you don't end up with a great gene pool if all the smart people think too much and stop having kids; the thick ones certainly wont. 

I disagree but each to their own.

And not. Living the dream

What are you basing you're thinking on? : )

Agreed. It's sometimes difficult to get the intent on some posts on here. Sarcasm/sardonic humour isn;t always translate, (having fallen foul myself more than once...)

Sure that is all well and good but in this case presumably the isn't that infertility reason. It's just a preference for taking the adoption route. And the reasons for that choice are arguably changeable or perhaps even anti child. That is very different and why I don't think the suggestion of using an adoptive child to assuage guilt is going to end well 

I suspect this was the reason my parents adopted me. They'd been married for 9 years and I've discovered that the men on my dad's side seem to be loaded with blanks; all my cousins are from paternal Aunts.

For myself, I reached an age where thoughts of having children coincided with the Yugoslav wars, and I was very struck by Michael Nicholson's adoption of a Bosnian child. This crystallised the worth of giving an extant child a better chance as opposed to creating another.

It's not a moral choice they were making, in the poorest countries now and also in the middle ages parents had lots of children because there is no functioning health system or vaccination so infant child mortality rates were/are such you could onle expect half of your children to become adults. Added to that subsistance farming means that having children is necessary to work the land. 

This is why poverty reduction is by far the most useful way to halt population expansion. And halting population expansion stops emissions. 

Most people don't recognize the link between poverty and the climate crisis.

Peter Zeihan has some interesting analysis and is quite popular on the podcast circuit. After the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, he predicted the subsequent full-scale invasion of Ukraine to the year.

https://zeihan.com/birthrates-and-the-end-of-the-world/

He reckons China is leading the demographic timebomb due to have both the most rapidly ageing population and biggest drop in fertility rates (along with other compunding economic factore e.g. rising labour costs). What happens in China in the next 20 years should be of great interest to all Western countries.

Overall, I think the blanket statement that 'children = bad' because 'climate change' is a blinkered and over-simplistic view. The current economic model in the Western world and the expectation of a funded social welfare model will be put under extreme pressure in the coming decades.

I should say this is not the reason I have 4 kids - that was mainly down to poor planning and irresponsible behaviour...!

China's population peaking and falling has to be a good thing. Coping with an aging population will certainly be challenging.

I don't think 'children = bad' is a commonly held view. 'Just stick to 2' could be the message.

Anyone who already has four shouldn't be condemned. All solutions start from now.

Thank you, that’s the first time a post has genuinely brought a tear to my eye! ❤️ 

It sounds like your parents did wonderfully, if I have half as much success I’ll consider it a job well done.

Plant a tree in 73.

"Plant some more in 74"  we planted a wild orchard at the end of a cycle path, never got to eat any of the apples though as they were ripped out for a shopping development.........

Despite all the doom and gloom in the news there are less folk dying in wars, through disease and accidents than in years gone by, so plenty for the children of today to look forward to.

the OP questioned whether it was "right" to have children, given the world they may inherit, I was simply speaking to that statement.

I agree with your point re: poverty reduction.

The western world's economy (and large chunks of Asia also) is heading down the pan because we don't have enough children. 

The idea of not having children to "save the planet" is a very anti human philosophy.

It's wealthy countries that are probably going to figure out how to manage our climate and they needs brains to achieve this.

We need more people to have more children, not less.

More children means more wealth.

More wealth means we take better care of our environment.

'More wealth means we take better care of our environment'

What evidence is there for this? 

I don't think the climate scientists would agree with you : )

I somewhat disagree slightly with a lot of what you said. I say slightly because I very much felt the same way as you until I had children and then realised that a lot of my views were misconceptions. I won't go into detail as it's a moot point since maybe your views wouldn't change. Who knows? 

But, the following is bang on!

I quote this:

"Tigers are doing better than lions but not as well as wolves. Why? Because wolves live in rich countries, tigers in middle-income countries, and lions in poor countries."

Or put it another way, if you live in a country where people typically can't afford a meal, do you really think you and your government are going to spend time on resources focusing on the climate?

Or maybe consider where the development of technology to live in harmony with our environment is going to come from. Advancement in solar and wind, storage etc. Is it more likely to be Sub Saharan Africa or Europe for example?

Quite right too, considering it's the wealthy countries that have caused (and are continuing to cause) the damage. I'm not sure why you would think otherwise.

The jury on this is distinctly split. It's the wealthy countries which have historically been the worst polluters. The very wealthy fossil fuel industries have for decades denounced actions to address climate change, despite their own scientists forecasting the damage that their activities would cause. 

It is true that wealthy countries are starting to place some importance on environmental protection, but when we have supposedly advanced wealth countries such as Germany planning to open new coal mines, I think there is still some way to go. 

We may be the 5th or 6th wealthiest country in the world, but we still seem to consider it appropriate to dump raw sewage into our rivers and seas. 

I don't think many countries, rich or poor, can be particularly proud of the ways in which they treat the environment. 

I think this speaks for itself - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-emissions-vs-gdp

Mmmm. No I wouldn't agree with that. 'Advanced' countries are causing the destruction. Sub Saharan Africa is being exploited by the 'advanced' countries.

Big topic to discuss on here.

Do you think humans are essentially good or essentially bad?

If you think humans are bad then don't add to the number. 

Ofcourse, if you take that that to it's fullest conclusion then removing humans from the system is therefore the correct moral choice. 

I disagree.

Humans are great. Kids are great. 

You're great.

I'm great.

Everyone on this thread is fantastic in their own, weird, unique and perplexing way.

Plus, making them's fun. 

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply, I really appreciate it.

@mrphilipoldham I have massive respect and admiration for people who adopt/foster.  I wish you all the best with it.

My take.

How you raise your children can potentially make more difference than your decision to have or not have children.  Your contribution to the next generation could be a positive or a negative force in the future world; taking the neutral option takes the responsibility and risk away from you, so is perhaps the "safe" option.  Do you back yourself and the society around you to produce children who help heal the world?

Some of today's young children are going to be the educators, politicians, scientists and aid workers who are going to have to deal with the consequences.  Others are going to keep making things worse whilst continuing to give increasingly delusional grief to those who try and fix things.

The idea that we can solve the problem by not having children is clearly stupid.  It creates another slew of problems that are going to rebound in to other catastrophic ecosystem damage.  Significant population decline would need to be carefully managed.  

There's lots to be doom-and-gloom about, but there always has been and, for the foreseeable future, there always will be. 

I'm sure I'm not the only poster here who was until they sprogged.... 

There is never a "good time" to have kids and they are not convenient in any shape or form* so forget the reasoning if now or not, or what's a good idea. If you and your significant other want to try for kids... go for it! Best wishes on your "adventure".

(*assuming you're not super rich with a big house and can employ a nanny etc)

p.s stop at 2, having a 3rd dramatically ups the ante (my experience anyway)

I am confused here.

On the one hand we are heading for 9 billion people on is seen as a bad thing. How do we feed them? How do we employ them all? What happens to the waste they generate? Where do they all live? That is aside from any other environmental concerns. On the other hand if we don't have more children everything will be terrible and we'll all go extinct.

There are many evolutionary needs and urges that a civilised society quite rightly discourages or outlaws. You know, rape and pillage, that kind of stuff.

So maybe we just need the right sort of parents and children and not, as a society, just let anyone have them 🙂

More relevant to look at at their investment in renewables I think.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-top-10-countries-by-energy-tran...

A breakdown per capita would be more useful but this is what I found.

The only place were the population is increasing is sub Saharan Africa.

Once a country is wealthy birth rates generally drop.

If you want birth rates to drop worldwide then sub Saharan Africa needs to become wealthy.

Best way to achieve that is to buy their stuff so they can grow wealth and transition. Free trade is your friend here.

Everywhere else our birth rates are generally not sustaining our populations and we're are going to see a decline in numbers.

What we need is a birth rate of just over 2 so our population stays stable.

Employment is relative to the population so not an issue. Wealth is more important here.

We can feed a heck of a lot more than 9 billion.

Waste can be recycled. Something we are getting better at.

Trying to invoke Godwin's law by any chance? 🙂

Since having children makes your decision responsible for the sum of their carbon footprints,  and that of all their descendants,  it is considerably more than your own lifetime contribution,  and how you raise them can,  by comparison,  have no significance at all.

There is obviously no other acceptable way to solve over population.

Disagree entirely.  You are assuming all people have a positive carbon footprint.  What about those who make a breakthrough in clean energy?  Or in atmospheric carbon extraction?  What about those who educate and inspire them to do so?  What about those who may build the machines to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere based on their breakthroughs?  What about those who work as activists and politicians to get the existing population to accelerate a move away from fossil fuels?

It’s perfectly possible for some people to have a beneficial effect.

Vanishingly unlikely.

12.7 million people estimated to work in renewable energy world wide.

How many hundreds of millions more directly and indirectly support them in bringing cleaner power to the planet?

https://www.irena.org/News/pressreleases/2022/Sep/Renewable-Energy-Jobs-Hit...

Then there’s people working on fusion power, better fission power, atmospheric carbon removal, wider geo-engineering, petrochemical free plastics, electrically powered steel making, the list goes on.

I won’t be encouraging Jr to look for work with a fossil fuel producer as they grow up…

Whatever any of your chidren does,  they are unlikely in the extreme to counter all the carbon footprints of your descendants.  Despite your considered superiority to an illiterate person making the  decision to start a family in a Nigerian backstreet.  How big a carbon footprint does ITER have so far ?

Having one child makes your carbon footprint insignificant.

Your lack of foresight is staggering. Climate change is a challenge, not a death sentence for the human race.

Actually only half of it for your children, a quarter for your grandchildren etc, so in a stable population where everyone has two children, you are only responsible for one person's footprint per generation - think of it as your carbon footprint going on for ever rather than ending with your death.

This topic has come up on Radio 4 Four Thought…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001h40f

You missed my point. I am contrasting the motivation for adopting. Evolutionary needs on one hand and a unease about the future on the other. 

It seems to be widely accepted that wealthy countries produce far more CO2 per capita. Thus we might expect CO2 output to rise as the less wealthy (majority of the world population I imagine) become wealthier and the increase could be massive.

Why is being stable the magic optimum number? IMHO a population decrease would be best with overall less carbon/environmental footprint. This is never going to happen rapidly enough to prevent the drastic environmental changes coming but it is probably best in the long term future for the of humanity and the world as we know it. An inability to act in advance is why we are facing such huge changes now. Admittedly here are plenty of problems with a stable or decreasing population, eg supporting the old, but IMHO at some point we need to accept these or find a way to diminish their effect and not just continue as we are. When other countries become wealthier they too are likely to experience the same problems.

Although they're closely linked, I believe it's increasing education (rather than wealth) that leads to lower birth rates.

The developed world needs to be developing the technologies that will allow the developing world to develop to similar levels of wealth without going down the climate changing route that we've already travelled.

The world is not overpopulated and it therefore does not need solving.

A stable population would be nice. It would take pressure off infrastructure and pensions etc.

We know how to decrease a countries birth rate when it's very high. Become a wealthy country.

What we haven't cracked is how to stop the birth rate going a tad too low. I suspect when the masses wake up and realise that a population drop in developed countries is going to hurt us it will become popular amongst politicians to invest more in childcare, offer better parental terms etc.

Unsustainable population growth, the single biggest driver of human induced climate change.  

That would be good but will it happen and how long will it take? At least In the short term the easiest way for countries to become more wealthy may be to use old, possibly cheaper, fossil fuel technology as India and China are doing now. I'm pretty pessimistic about agreed  carbon targets being met generally.

Quite.

See: Japan!

Because any decrease in population is going to really hurt pensioners for one. Someone needs to pay your pension otherwise the pension pyramid scheme collapses. Ok it's not really a pyramid scheme, but it almost is.

Equally a population that increases indefinitely clearly isn't sustainable.

So stable population is the magic optimum.

I also don't buy the arguments to want a smaller population. I strongly believe all problems will be solved and we need the brains to solve these problems, which means we need more wealthy countries to provide those brains. 

Whats maths got to do with polemic?

David’s argument remind me of Hugo Rune’s argument we were in a terminal population decline, because each person has two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents etc…

Yet when you dig in to the details, the highest growth rates tend to correlate with the lowest carbon intensifies.

Climate change will inevitably be 'solved' by our strategic weapon stockpiles which we overwhelmingly support keeping. Cheery thought with a 3wk old squeaking and farting in the crook of my typing elbow.

OP: do think it through but don't overthink it, if you and partner want a kid you can care for and love, go for it.

Jk 

You had a second kid?  Awesome, that makes everything so much easier. Fact.

100% agree.

Look, Entropy increases. That means EVERYTHING you do is pointless whether you painted the Mona Lisa, starred in the lead role in Ben Hur, formulated that E=MC^2, or solved the Reimann Hypothesis.

EVERYYHING will be erased in the Dark Era in about  10^106 years from now. EVERYTHING.

Between now and then, don't be greedy, try to be nice, and "as it hurt none, do as thou wilt".

So I hear, they raise each other, right?

Jk

The world isn’t over populated?

That’s clearly not responsible for more and more species worldwide getting closer to extinction. Urban sprawl making what were once small green villages into mere areas in cities. More and more land required for farming. Every single additional human reduces the amount of planet available for all the other poor bastard animals that have to share it with us. But sod ‘em, Monty’s pension needs paying. 

The optimum for supporting pensioners (like me) is probably to carry on increasing but as you say that's ultimately unsustainable. Supporting pensioners is only one of many problems facing us  and climate change is probably far more important. so the optimum isn't just to support pensioners. 

I also hope that technology etc  will be the solution. But its a hope not a belief. To say that the population is best at whatever today's level is is surely pretty arbitrary. Obviously more people are likely to mean more environmental impact and by the same argument less people less impact.

OP: my personal view is that it is commendable that you are considering the ways you can avoid contributing to climate change and IMHO avoiding having a large family size is one. I cynically think that wanting children is somewhat selfish because in our society we're usually having them not primarily for higher motives but because We want them (perhaps influenced by our parents or religion). That's certainly why I had a family! I'm glad I did but I can't say I was helping the planet.

 I agree all problems can be solved.

Either the problems of over population or equally the problems of a smaller population. Either option is going to require change and innovation.

I agree that a stable population is optimum but question how long an 8 billion plus population can sustain the western lifestyle that we all aspire to? In short if we are to do that then I believe compromises need to be made. Not only in regard to the planet but in regard to our daily lives. There are certainly more cars on our roads than ever before and this has already necessitated widening motorways, building more roads, if the population is to grow then transport policies will need a re-think. As will re-cycling as we run short on raw materials. If the population shrinks then we just need to find solutions for that, perhaps more automation, better health solutions, a re-think on the accumulation of wealth.

The other thing I notice is that falling birthrates seem to tally with education, particularly of women. If the population is to grow by reason of policy then we need to be cautious that we don't head back into another dark age.

Finally we don't know what the future will hold. For all our arguments and talk the future will be different to what we imagine it and many things will happen that are beyond our control. If a large population is a solvable problem then so is a small one. Indeed we were lucky COVID wasn't some more virulant disease, who knows what the next one will be like? Who knows how the war in Ukraine will pan out? Who knows how the collapse of insect populations will affect crop production? Hopefully we will find solutions to all these problems but nothing is guarenteed

This is due to how we manage our environment, not how many of us there are.

This is a really local thing. Look at a satellite map of the England, a quite densely populated place. There is no much green. You make it sound like we're building over the entire countryside but we're not.

Assuming you eat meat you could stop eating meat. If everyone followed suite we would have surplus farmland worldwide. 

What do you think will happen if our population reduces and pensions aren't being paid? The rest of the British population would have to prop up the elderly in one way or another. With this sort of financial strain, our investment into clean infrastructure would almost certainly reduce massively.

It's not about my pension, it's about being sustainable. Have a read of the UN SDGs. The no. 1 sustainability goal is "no poverty" for a bloody good reason. 

Your single issue approach isn't going to work. Sustainability needs a holistic approach. The SDGs have been really well thought out. Have a read.

This is what I was told. I was lied to.

I found this quite a heartening link. We don't know what the future holds but we are pretty good at solving problems

https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions-in-5-chart...

On average there really hasn't been a better time to live. Whether you measure by wealth, life expectancy, education, child mortality, hunger. It's the best it's ever been. May it continue.

As you know no one can make that decision for you.

Me and Mrs Tringa are in our 70s and have two children. We've talked about this and said if were in our 20s now we would not have children. Partly due to what sort of world would they live in, though people adapt and generally cope with the situation they have, but it has to be recognised there are areas in the world now which no longer look as environmentally stable as fifty years ago.

However, more so because the world cannot support an ever increasing population. I don't know at what level things will become unsustainable, and this probably won't happen everywhere, but more people means more demand on resources and more pollution.

Dave

things already are unsustainable..

https://www.overshootday.org/how-many-earths-or-countries-do-we-need/

No, we're reducing the amount of environment left to be 'environment' because humans require space. Even derelict brownfield sites that have become small urban overgrown wildlife oasis' get redeveloped.

It's not a matter of whether it's concrete or not. It's also a matter of carrots, wheat, barley, oil seed, sheep, cows. All these look 'green' on a satellite image but support very little in the way of natural flora and fauna. In my home town I can think of at least five 'old growth' woodlands/pasture that's been bulldozed over for houses in the last decade. It matters not that it's a 'local' issue. The outcome is all that matters.

Or we could continue to eat meat (preferably more expensive and locally sourced on good well managed farmland) and have fewer humans to reduce demand. Tough choice, but I fail to see how it can be considered fair that I need to adjust my diet to accommodate the overactive loins of others.

A short term pain for a few who've lived good lives. There'd be much fewer pensioners in the next generation once the ratio corrects itself. An awkward conversation to have, granted.

I have three kids, and love them all.

I don't think I'd have kids considering what I think the future is going to be like. I don't think it would be fair o them, and I worry greatly about what's in store for mine as they grow older.

So you're you're suggesting we should have kids, to pay the pensions of older people?

Can you not see that this isn't sustainable, it means more and more people being required, a ponzi scheme if you like.

Capitalism itself is unsustainable after a certain level, buy more stuff to boost the economy, and keep people in jobs, only depletes the earth of resources and creates more rubbish, pollution and warming gasses.

Looking at climate related disasters, the UN says these are increasing x5 but what they don't make clear is that is from a basis of all time low since 1900.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-from-natural-disasters?...

The doom-mongering is incessant and unnecessary. Humans are ingenious, there is great hope for the future. The rate of population increase is slowing may even start declining toward the end of the century: https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/TOT/900

Not having any kids and driving around in your EV may bring you joy, but to make those decisions based on climate change alone is absolute bollock-level group-think.

Personally I like to see a shift away from pure capitalism-based economic models where growth and GDP are the only measures of success. The performance of societies should be based on a much wider variety of metrics (including those that evaluate the quality of the local environment).

By the end of the century, very considerable damage will have been done to the environment. The world will have seen major population shifts as increasing areas become uninhabitable, with potentially highly significant consequences for conflicts.

You're right to say that humans are ingenious, but we have also managed to bury our heads in the sand about the nature and scale of the problems. The effects of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have been known for decades, and yet we have done virtually nothing meaningful to address the issue. 

It doesn't need more and more people. It's a stable population that we need. Any change in population either cause pain now or later. Stability in pullulation is what is required for a sustainable economy.

Yep

Wealthy countries have done plenty to tackle this.

Zero-carbon power in Britain's electricity mix has grown from less than 20% in 2010 to nearly 50% in 2021.

Wind power alone is due to increase five fold form 2021 to 2031.

Be proud of what we have achieved.

What we actually need is to plan and prepare for coming population and demographic changes long in advance of the issues they cause. A locally stable human population means we can get away with doing a bit less planning ahead, it's not inherently right or wrong, nor without its own economic issues.

jk

This kind of complacent thinking is not helpful. The improvements you cite are obviously welcome, but are the low hanging fruit. Installing low-carbon generation is easy, but to make real progress, we need to be doing much more with regard to transport emissions and space heating emissions. The pace is woefully slow. The Keeling Curve shows quite clearly that the direction of travel is still in the wrong direction and shows no signs of changing. 

yeah, trusting that us clever humans will solve climate change sometime in the future is bordering on delusional..

For humans maybe, but extinctions due to humans are rising, maybe we should stop using money as an indicator of wealth

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-weve-lost-the-species-decla...

Not sure why more people are needed, the world was a lot more balanced only a few hundred years ago with billions less of us. 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1006502/global-population-ten-thousand-...

As for Wintertree's suggestion that the next wind turbine, fusion reactor builder might be born. How about having less people, so the reactor/ wind turbine is not required in the first place. I've not seen any environment improved by human interference, only botched repair jobs for previous human damage

That's because of your perspective and underlying presumptions about the value of human impact on the environment, it requires us to be set part from all other life in a way we just aren't. As such you can't see an environment improved by us because we're inherently bad, at worst we degrade our environment, at best we tinker with it for our amusement to create what we consider beautiful and valuable but which is not what would exist in our absence.

Would the Yorkshire Dales for example really be 'better' covered in old growth forest? To answer it requires you to define better and that requires you to choose a particular perspective.

jk

Swampy has 3 kids and i'd wager that their family carbon footprint is less than the average american by some margin..

But that's not what's being asked, and I'm pretty certain the planets already overpopulated now!

But to be honest, it's not going to be population issues, the climate is already fooked and no one seems to be taking measures to sort that out, so there's going to be more problems, more immigrants, more unrest and less and less wilderness.

I'm of the mind we've already passed the point of no return, the Russian tundra is melting, leading to the release of massive amounts of methane, which is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2.  I really don't see how we pull it back.

Hence I can't see how I could bring other people into what I think is going to be hell.

Generally, I'm an optimist, too!!

I 'd like to see that too, but what are the chances?  It's so ingrained that this is what we measure our worth by.

Everybody can be a millionaire, so everybody's got to try.

We're encouraged to buy more shit we don't need to create jobs for people that make the shit we don't need. how do you change this attitude?

think i am too, but Hardonicus is in a different league..

Russia are giving money to couples to have children. https://www.outlookindia.com/international/vladimir-putin-offers-money-to-w...

Sounds like a great solution!

Why don't we just train up immigrants? Tell all the rightwing xenophobes the immigrants have come to rescue us from pensioner genocide, problem solved.

I've not got kids because I'm very selfish and they would all end up in therapy - on the plus side I've got loads of spare time and dosh and I feel that the carbon offset means I can do a lot of guilt free flying ...on the minus there will be no one to coordinate my @rse wiping when the time comes.

I think you're average Russian is a bit too racist for that approach...

We are not set apart from the environment, we are part of it. I see the planet as a system, a complicated one that we have yet to understand. We are a part of that system, but the system is out of tune, unbalanced, directly as a result of our actions.

The dales would absolutely be better off forested, for all, but too many humans resulted in the need for farmland, excluding the natural diversity already there. We are left with an industrial landscape (that happens to be "green" in colour only).

I'm using up most of my 2023 annual  leave allowance to book off random afternoons to pick the oldest grandaughter from school and spend some serious time playing with her and the Barbie dreamhouse.  It's a great use of my holidays.  Loving it

I've started to unplug all the sockets in my Bermuda villa - every little helps as they say.

Don't worry, all us oldies will be recycled into pies or something

First we need to change centuries of indoctrination.  The Catholic church wanting more followers,  France wanting more French,  tribe wanting fighters to kill the other tribe,  farmers,  children to plant more fields and expand the estate.

My Mother thought it was selfish to not have children,  the church taught this,  probably still does.

People have children because it's expected,  or to keep their relationship together, sometimes going on to neglect them.  Having children is alright if you must.   But it's really, really not a good thing.

The whole world needs to see having children as causing a problem.   Attitudes in poor countries are driven by those in rich countries.

Ah,  you say,  we are not overpopulated.

What happens when temperatures in India become too hot.   How many million refugees are we going to house ?   If we have to pay reparations ( a silly idea ) to India for climate change,  then how can we afford to develop and distibute the technology for proper solutions.

It's a good question for sure and I think about it often, I'm grateful that you articulated it...

I have 2 kids in their mid 20's, hopefully they have sufficient resilience and strength to manage what life brings to them but I do worry and more so if they have children.

I often think about if I was young now and whether I'd want kids, but absolutely..... bringing them up has been the outstanding joy of my life and spending time with them now still is. ....

Poor countries have way more children than rich countries. Rich countries generally have unsustaining birth rates, so what's the issue you're getting at?

This is rather anti-human. A bit depressing I might add. I can't imagine feeling such distain towards humans and actually living a happy life. 

The late James Lovelock understood this in his Gaia theory, but the idea never gained enough traction in science. I think there's some plausibility to the notion that the planet exists as a singular, finely balanced, complex organism in which the disruption of one ecosystem affects others. Humans have disrupted several, if not all. The capacity for some ecosystems to adapt to the changes brought about by us have reached their tipping points, from which they will never again be self-sustaining. 

Agreed, as would other upland areas in the UK. It is beyond belief that vast areas of the Scottish Highlands exist in their current eco-poor, treeless state primarily for the benefit of very few wealthy people with shotguns.

So everyone should stop having children? Explain to me how that's going to work out in say 100 years?

Badly

Most of the people (and other animals) ever created have been born into some version or other of what we'd consider 'hell'! The spirit to survive, thrive, live and love in whatever conditions we find ourselves seems pretty strong and universal. I figure they'll probably give life a pretty good shot and be ok.

The idea we should just give up and stop reproducing (surviving) as a species because we've made bad mistakes doesn't really appeal. I'm a pessimist but people are incredible and our problems can be faced.

jk

I'm sure you're not really that silly.   I said now we are a hugely over populated planet,  we should change the historic viewpoint of the more children the better.  Not stop having children altogether.  But you knew that.

It's a charming idea but if it's correct then it is also continually 'evolving', we and our activities are but another natural driver of that change. I don't see any particular reason why there should be a stable end-state version which is more desirable than any other. If* we do wipe ourselves and most of our fellow species out like plate tectonics and space rocks have before us then something else will fill our boots eventually

*when

So, The Dales and Scotland should be trees but where do you stop with your pristine natural forest, where should and where shouldn't humans live, work and play? And why exactly? It often seems to boil down to because I don't approve of this or that activity or I don't like the look of it. I'm not defending grouse moor, on balance I think it's a wasted resource (quite clear cut IMO) but I am aware I can't really decide or articulate precisely why and where I'd draw the line between land legitimately and illegitimately 'degraded' from its notionally 'natural' state for human use.

jk

As I see it the current drop in birthrate is a direct consequence of our improved lifestyles. In the past with infant mortality, low education and lack of contraception people had large families and managed on very little. Now with better healthcare and education etc. people in rich countries (mostly) are having fewer children in order to enjoy a better lifestyle. Part of this is that while paradoxically we are far richer than our predecessors we spend far more. With the rising cost of living more people tend to put off having children in order to further careers and to reduce strain on their finances. So a drop in birthrate is natural. How we deal with that in the future will depend on incentives. However given that birthrate is unlikely to rise any time soon the problems which that brings are bound to be subject to further innovation. I don't see it as a doom and gloom scenario that's just being negative

^This.

Anyone who looks at pretty much any countryside landscape in the UK and thinks that it looks like a healthy natural environment is quite frankly kidding themselves. The only species that benefit from it as it is, is us. Everything else is clinging on for dear life in the thin ribbons we either leave as wild as it's too steep, or too remote for us to be useful, or because we're too lazy to 'tidy' it up. 

Do you have any evidence for this statement? We can grow enough food for everyone, we can use renewables to power all our industries once we've invested enough. We can recycle almost everything.

Why can't the planet sustain 8 billion people for as long as the sun burns?

Who is saying this? The UK birth rate is currently 1.56 births per woman. You don't need to be a maths wizard to know that will result is a fast declining population. Nobody here is advocating for more people the better, but I am advocating for stability in population numbers (or slow changes in either direction).

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-projections...

But has been said elsewhere 3rd world countries are going to use ever more resources / head.

This will be a bigger effect than increasing population.  We are doomed if we don't watch it.

They will.

These countries will sooner or later be transitioning into developed countries, and the populations of those countries are going to want what we have.

Until they transition, they will continue to have high birth rates.

If we prevent them from transitioning, those birth rates will continue forever.

But they've got time. Sub Saharan Africa, is fairly low in population density. England is say 450 people per square kilometer. With the exception of Nigeria for example, most of Africa is 10 to 50 people per square kilometer.

Fortunately we transitioned a long time ago so hopefully with our help it can be fast tracked, but we need to stop telling them that they can't use fossil fuels, or that can't run sweatshops etc. The transition process isn't pretty, but it is temporary and they'll come out the other side all the better for it.

Because its at the expense of every other living thing, you only have to look at the extinction rate of other species that is happening right now. 

Why should humans dominate/decimate the planet, what makes us so special/stupid. So what if the population declines, ok it'll be painful financially for us but us only.

Realistically were a blip in time, but were doing our best to prevent any other species to have a chance as well

No such thing as a stable end state. Never has been never will be.

Of course we can live without destroying the landscape but it'll be a lot different lifestyle to one we're used to, most don't want it either. Who's going to give up their gas central heating for more expensive but environmentally better options, or knock down their old inefficient house to build a smaller more efficient house, or give up the coffee that's been shipped half way around the world.

I refer you to your earlier statement.

I specifically picked the Dales because it is an industrial landscape but one that does also have a lot of those neglected niches and has until recently been farmed in a manner that did support a lot of wildlife, not because I think green equals 'natural'. It is also widely held to be beautiful and is much loved by residents and visitors alike as is. It's not at all clear to me it would be better under woodland unless you pick very specific perspectives.

Jk

Maybe. Maybe we use engineering to preserve what we actually value in our current lifestyles while ditching or cutting back some of the harmful crap we really wouldn't miss.

Most of us and sooner than you think I'd bet and it'll not be the hair shirt choice, it'll just be normal. 

Few unless there are significant incentives or pressures. Retrofit improvement is more likely for most. Difficult but possible. 

Why on earth give up coffee? Produce and trade it better by all means but hair shirts don't fix our problems yet they will need solutions. Tea and coffee were traded under sail within living memory, cleaner old options exist, new will emerge too as the priorities of society change.

Jk

I know, and that’s not my point. 

I deliberately chose coffee because my last delivery was by sail. New dawn trader's if you're interested. 

P's I'm not some militant environmental campaigner, I just see the stupidity in continued population growth and the even more stupid excuses being made to justify damaging the ecosystem further

This sounds an interesting read.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/545397/empty-planet-by-darrell-bri...

In Empty Planet, John Ibbitson and Darrell Bricker find that a smaller global population will bring with it many benefits: fewer workers will command higher wages; the environment will improve; the risk of famine will wane; and falling birthrates in the developing world will bring greater affluence and autonomy for women.
 
But enormous disruption lies ahead, too. We can already see the effects in Europe and parts of Asia, as aging populations and worker shortages weaken the economy and impose crippling demands on healthcare and social security. The United States and Canada are well-positioned to successfully navigate these coming demographic shifts–that is, unless growing isolationism leads us to close ourselves off just as openness becomes more critical to our survival than ever.
 

The mention of pensions, above is a very good point.

While we(and I assume some/many other countries too) continue with a state pension system relying on the working population funding the pensions of the retired and an increasing older population we will need more children(or a big increase in NI contributions)

IMO we MUST move away from this system so contributions paid due your working life fund your own pension, so we can work towards having a lower population, or at least one which doesn't continue to grow and grow. However, this could take many years.

Dave

Agree with you there.

In some ways we already have this.

I'm proceeding on the assumption I won't get a state pension.

By default, all permanent workers should get a private pension which they would need to opt out of.

What I suspect will happen one day is the state pension will switch to becoming means tested, so those like me who have funded their own private pensions won't get a state pension despite having paid into it.

I don't like the above, but I can't see there being an alternative.

What might soften the above is if they bring in a rule where you can't receive more in state pension than you pay in (ignoring inflation) provided you have a reasonable private pension. That could be phase 1.

I think elections will be lost and won over this debate one day.

So far in modern times asset growth has always outstripped inflation so any half reasonably managed pension is always going to make money. That applies both if there is a real pension pot or if it goes into the exchequer and saves on government borrowing.

Uniquely in modern UK history, longevity increases have stalled (albeit only for the poorer half of the population who in many regions are dying younger)... right now is one of the worst times ever to be poor and old.

I'd argue too many richer pensioners are paying too much currently because Social Care is in such chaos. Costs are highest where there is no family or friend group prepared to help maintain (much cheaper) care at home. Some form of insurance and improvement in community care systems is the way around the current care lottery.

Spider-sense win

Most on here arguing for starting a family if you/one wants one aren't arguing for exponential growth (3+ kids), UK birth rates are already below self sustaining levels already, in line with other developed economies, if we want a stable or growing population for social and economic reasons we will need to welcome people not born here. Fine by me.

FWIW I don't see 'stupidity' in continued population growth (I do see a problems in a huge population and obviously in long term sustained growth leading to the aforementioned), in many ways it's a good thing it represents an ability to actually predictably feed and care for a growing population, for once we have some measure of control over what happens to us. Most people may not have much control from our comfortable perspective but still, better than at any time prior. Exploding human population is a blip and a success story that will pass. Maybe from a comfortable 1st world perspective there's no rational/utilitarian argument for having lots of kids but for many elsewhere it isn't 'stupidity', it's no choice at all, many lack the education, body autonomy and access to reproductive health services to make a meaningful choices about family planning, new people come along from time to time as part of a normal (for them) life, some survive. For many others it is a perfectly rational choice to have more than two kids, if you live with childhood disease and poor healthcare you can expect some not to make it, if more do than you expected that's a success story, if you need help to work a farm to feed yourselves and family, if a bigger family can have a more diverse ability to support itself, if you have no wider social provision for later life care then having a big close family is absolutely rational and not at all 'stupid'.

And who is justifying damaging our ecosystem further? If you think I am, I'm not. I'm saying from one perspective (the earth as an organism) what we do doesn't much matter, we're a flash in the pan, something else will make use of what we leave behind. Also we are part of our ecosystem, we shouldn't automatically view all changes we make to it as damage, no other species would. From our perspective, which frankly is the one of most interest to us and one that is really hard to completely set aside ecocide still makes little sense even if it's immediately profitable in some way. We're adapted to life in this ecosystem, albeit a version of 'natural'* significantly shaped by us. We or some of us can probably eke an ongoing living out of the bones of our ecosystem but it would be much better all round not to! Better to rejuvenate protect and stabilise what we have, what works for us, to thrive.

*What is natural anyway, since we stood up and struck fire we've left an indelible mark on our world and it's other lifeforms.

jk

Would you say that to someone who cannot have their own children but would have loved to/tried to? 

Well said.

Another point, which may be way beyond the scope of this thread, but still somewhat relevant, is one day we are going to face a natural extinction event.

Super volcano, asteroid strike etc.

Whilst it's limited what we can do about such an event now.

Give it 100 years or so and I suspect humans will be the reason that 99% of the world species don't go extinct in the distant future.

If one day we stop an asteroid wiping everything out, that surely ore than makes up for all the harm we have done to date.

I can't guarantee it won't make up for all the harm we do in the future. Who know, we might wipe everything out before a natural extinction event occurs, but I don't think we are this stupid (hopefully).

Again, stupid isn't quite the word, we can make blinkered rational arguments for where we are but the end product is stupid! Now we have the capability it is just a matter of time before we use it or lose control of it.

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1626:_Judgment_Day

jk

Surely interfering in a natural extinction event would be the ultimate sign that our species is too big for it's boots?

From a global point of view, a mass extinction event is not necessarily a bad thing. It's possible that humans only got the chance to evolve because the dinosaurs were wiped out. 

True, but life now must take priority over life that might evolve in the future after we're gone. 

Not sure how you come to that conclusion.

It would be a sign that all the damage was ultimately worth it.

I don't get the view of arguing to save nature but then let it be destroyed by a natural extinction event.

Do we want to save nature or not?

If we're happy for a natural excition event to just occur (which I am not) and just sit by and let it happen, then why would you care about global warming? If it killed us all off the planet would recover just fine. All that carbon will eventually be locked up as it did before.

Not necessarily. If we could go back in time and prevent the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs, would that be a good thing?

Life now takes priority because it's us were talking about. In the bigger scheme of things we are no more important than any other species, past, present or future. So I don't think we can say that preserving the human race is good for anyone but us.

There are plenty of stupid ways we could wipe ourselves out.

Nuclear war being one of them. This is what I was thinking when I used the word stupid. There is no rational argument for mutual assured destruction and if we went down this route I would say it was stupid.

No

Disagree. Life now is all that matters. And I don't mean just us, all life that is alive today. I don't care about future life if all life today is wiped out.

I would say that's a very narrow and self-centred view, but I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on that point.

It's called self preservation. To refuse to sacrifice yourself for a species that doesn't exist is hardly self-centered.

Push come to shove, every human being that isn't suicidal will make the same call to continue living at the expense of future species that don't exist yet.

It's our duty to extend our time and as custodians of this planet all other life forms for as long as we can.

I would argue this is quite literally the meaning of life.

I agree some people probably will get through it, but what sort of world will it be, denuded of wild places and animals, the rate of extinction is the highest in recent history and doesn't seem like slowing down.

People NOT being born is of no consequence to them, because they don't exist. So no one is loosing out, apart, from actually bringing children into the world, for some might say selfish reasons.

As a recycler and environmentalist, the best thing we can do is not have kids. Too late for me, and I'm not advocating wholesale slaughter, but not bringing other into an already crowded world, is simple, hurts no one and, is achievable.

I attended my friend’s mum’s funeral yesterday. He told told the story of the best day of his life, being collected from a children’s home aged 10 and being made part of a family.

Yes but if you'd never had any, there wouldn't be anything to miss. You'd be posting about the great trips you went on with you missus instead, and how you'd never missed not having kids.

Once you've had them the whole world changes, and that's when my view is centred on. I think the world is dying, I think we've gone too far and we can't bring it back. Even solving energy issues, if we had fusion reactors working now, there's still all the other resources a person need throughout their lives. I don't think it achievable.

All of which means my daughter whose 16 is going to have a really hard life, possibly one of great misery. We're witnessing the start of the fall of civilisation and democracy in major countries now, wait till food shortages really kick in.

The only way I can see it working, is if by some stroke of luck,  we haven't pushed global warming too far, and we reduce the worlds population dramatically.

One way or another, that's going to happen, it simply a matter of if it's by not having babies, or by war and pestilence. I know which one is less painful.

That's the nature of where we are. The environmental problem and its causes are only just now gaining widespread recognition (here at least). It's not time to throw our hands up and give up, it's time to work to reverse as much of the damage as we can, to make a better world future versions of us can inhabit on a sustainable basis. We'll fail in that. Our kids will probably fail but if we or more likely they can turn things around and keep going the right way there is hope and our situation is not hopeless. I don't pretend our situation isn't bad but nor do I see any compelling reason to just give up as an individual or species (if such a thing was even remotely possible!).

If we stop reproducing we stop existing and quite promptly.

Taken seriously you're advocating the suicide of a species, I don't get it. We have problems but we also have the capability to solve them. You wouldn't I presume say wolves shouldn't breed because it's good for deer numbers yet we're as much and as valid a part of the ecosystem as wolves.

jk

I share your worries....more so in darker moments but it's always there in some respects....I've been lucky to have had 2 good careers but both have led me in to some grim experiences and I now have far less fortitude than when I was younger....but.... young people do have a lot more drive, ambition and energy so maybe there can be more cooperative times ahead.....

Of course self preservation is self-centred. 

I'm all for self-preservation and our continued survival. But let's not pretend that human survival is of benefit to anything other than humans. 

Life now is all that matters at an individual level but who are we to claim that we know better than nature and thay a mass extinction event should be averted for the sake of either the planet or any other species?

I would argue that most people care about global warming for purely selfish reasons.

It is not our job to save nature from natural disasters and it is.just plain cocky to think it is.

All we can do or have the right to do is to look after ourselves and minimise our own impact on the planet.

The roads, at least in the western world, would not be full of SUVs churning out global warming gases and health damaging particulates, as they transported kids about who seemly do not have legs.

Well, if we are the only species ever to have evolved with our levels of self awareness and with the intelligence to have our level of understanding of physics and of the universe, then I think we are easily the most important in many senses.

Nature doesn't "know" anything. It just happens. I'd be all for averting a mass extinction event in my lifetime and I'm sure almost everyone will be in the future.

I'm happy for a mass extinction to be avoided while I am alive, but I am certainly not willing to be part of the solution to stopping it through reproduction!

I was thinking about it, and my husband and I have 3 siblings between us, and none of us have children. One of his brothers may still decide to (but I would be surprised), but the rest of the women in this equation are either already too old or close to being too old so it would be very risky. 

So looks like our generation finishes both of our family lines! 

Even or perhaps particularly as a pessimist I'm finding the fatalism on this thread really weird.

jk

Don't be daft!  In Western countries the "indigenous" population is falling dramatically, with only immigrants keeping us bouyant in numbers and filled jobs.  Even then the birth rate overall is a falling:
https://theconversation.com/its-a-national-crisis-uks-birth-rate-is-falling...

Many countries such as Norway and Sweden are seriously quite worried.  The pattern is being repeated across developing countries as they become Westernised, poverty recedes and (crucially) women educated.  I suspect the Global population will fix itself faster than you might think provided there are no wars to unsettle people (has nobody shot Putin yet?)

I don't buy the "Its all the fault of the West" argument, especially as many developing countries are big polluters, and have been for some time.  Also, don't forget these climate crises thingy has only been an issue fairly recently (maybe you're not old enough to realise this; back in the 70s they were seriously concerned about an oncoming ice age and talked about sinking nuclear power plants deep in the oceans to bring water to the surface for solar warming!) We weren't really that aware of the issues, and now we are things are moving pretty fast.

I am a great believer in technology.  My cousin was the chief engineer at one of the UKs first wind farms - now wind power produces circa 27% of UK electricity.  Your child may be the Genius that solves the Nuclear Fusion problem or invents a gismo to power the UK grid from Bovine digestive gasses.  There's lots of money and effort going into alternative power generation, fuel sources, power storage.

So if you're female get preggers.  If you're male its time to spread that wanton seed; your country needs you (or, more accurately, your todger :-D ).

Me too. I expect we can use technology to get us out of a small decline in population.

The biggest emitters of greenhouse gases have been the developed West since the Industrial Revolution. It is only recently that developing countries such as China and India have become significant sources of greenhouse gases. 

https://ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2

Yes, we were aware of the oncoming problems of climate change in the 1970s. No less than Exxon scientists were making very accurate predictions of the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. 

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk0063 

This thread makes me think of the film Idiocracy. If you've not seen it it's a brilliant film. The premise of the film is stupid people have more kids than intelligent people, so the world population becomes more stupid over time.

In the thread, we've got those that think we need a lot less people who then choose to not have kids. Then there's those like you and me who think we need to have more kids to prevent population decline.

If we assume that your kids to a point take on similar views to their parents (highly debatable) then the type of people who believe we need rapid population decline will soon die out leaving a population behind that wants to have more kids.

Evolution at work in real time and a natural correction to the idiocracy I've been reading above.

Except that all of us who have chosen not to have kids don't have parents who chose not to have kids! So it would appear it is not a learnt behaviour!!

This article just popped up on my news feed about why Chinese population is falling sooner than expected. 

Seems we need to treat people better if we want a higher birth rate! There's an idea that I can get behind! (Wouldn't make me want kids though, I still don't like babies!)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/20/the-last-generation-young-chi...

yes, let's hope technology will come to the rescue and solve the exponential increase in data usage, for a start..

https://www.statista.com/statistics/871513/worldwide-data-created/

Honestly, it's absolutely fecking insane. I say that as an ardent pessimist.

I wonder if some people on this thread would run into a burning building to save a dog but leave a human in the same position to perish...

Agree it’s a ‘must see’ film. But I don’t recall it being about reproduction. More about the declining influence of education matched with an increase in people being satisfied with crap TV. 

I may be wrong though, it’s a while since I’ve seen it. Nonetheless I rarely agree with much that you say. But I’ll give that one. A modern classic IMO.

A history teacher once told me he was showing a video of Dresden, or some such. Bodies strewn everywhere. Kids silent. A soon as the camera pans over a dog, a chorus of ‘awwwww’.

Go figure.

Despite everything I've said above, if I lived in North Korea, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to have kids. So you make a valid point.

Babies are fine. You can leave them anywhere and when you get back they are still there. Easy. It's toddlers that are a fecking nightmare. 

I'm pretty sure there are laws about just leaving babies anywhere 🤨😂 

Toddlers are very slightly better than babies and they can start to have (usually very boring!) conversations. My tolerance is still pretty low, but basically I think kids improve as they get further away from the alien stage and closer to the actual person stage!

I can only assume you don't have much experience of teenagers! 😂

A friend at school , when we were aged 11 in 1977, choose to do their English presentation on “The Greenhouse Effect”.

The issue was known about by us 11 year old kids back then.  What crazy talk is this, that no one was aware?

So what, why should we be any different from the Dodo, we're mere specks of fly shit in the scheme of things.

Not suicide at all not breeding isn't suicide, it's simply not reproducing, besides, there'll always be someone with hope, or someone who doesn't care what happens, so there'll always be humans. There being less of them will cause less suffering as far as I can see, for animals and humans alike.

You suggesting our kids will probably fail, seems given the chance (if you had no kids now) you be introducing people to a world of failure!

I work with teenagers a lot, I really like working with them! Granted, my child free choices mean I don't need to live with any! I do understand that they don't behave the same with adults to whom they are not related.

I'm not sure "All that carbon will eventually be locked up as it did before." a run-away climate heating could do things we don't even know about.

That's true, they tend to behave when they are with anyone other than their parents.

An interesting film but I don't think it pans out. Generally speaking there have always been more stupid people than intelligent, its a natural hierachy. However it evens out as stupid people tend to make bad life choices and die early.

It will be interesting to see if the current down turn continues. My guess would be that at some point when conditions become favourable there will be an up turn. Current estimates are there are 1.2 billion young people in the world (approximately the total world population in 1850) and only Europe has more old than young.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/265759/world-population-by-age-and-regi...

Unless we have serious fertility issues there is no reason why we couldn't pull back

Can't you just tie them up? Works with dogs.

Speak for yourself!

Not quite sure where this idea of population decline is coming from we've gone from 2.5 to 8 billion since 1950

I sometimes wonder whether we really know much more than nature in the grand scheme of things

We would all like to avoid a mass extinction event In our own lifetimes but it is pure BS to claim that we have the knowledge to make such a big decision for the good of a planet that will still be here for millions of years after we are gone.

I would be more comfortable about such lofty aims if I thought that we would get it right.

Sarah Williams in Four Thought on Radio 4 on Wednesday 18th Jan at 21.45 put forth her argument for her not having children, which was logical, measured and cogent. This despite her having an urge to have children.

Yes giving the world another child is the largest change to the ecology of the world that you can give.

Keeping ourselves alive for much longer than in the past is also a negative thing. At some point we will as a population possibly have to debate having our life length restricted in this increasingly overpopulated world (Yes I know about shrinking countries such as Japan, and Korea).

The OP should listen to the radio program.

The whole of Europe is shrinking.

Coastal erosion is a big worry in Holland

Nah, their engineers have it in hand.

I was thinking about the general relationship between birthrates and technology. In that as we become more technologically advanced birthrates drop but how long has it been going on? It seems for a very long time.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1033074/fertility-rate-uk-1800-2020/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1037156/crude-birth-rate-us-1800-2020/

The above are obviously in western countries. Figures for places such as Africa are harder to come by but still show a drop

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/AFR/africa/birth-rate

However populations have been going up. The big factor being the drop in infant mortality.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041714/united-kingdom-all-time-child-m...

and life expectancy

https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy

Currently we are below replacement rate in the west and for the most part we can ride that for a while. After all we are nearly double the number of people in the world since 1980. However at some point we will need to have more children and hopefully do it without resorting to Handmaids tale erosion of women's rights and re-criminalising gays.

However I have a partiular interest in a shrinking population as I am writing a new novel based on a declining human population. In it a weaponised disease called Blight has rendered humanity infertile. The total human population is down to 61million and confined to Europe. There is a twist that brings hope but I am considering the ways in which such a society would adapt. Retirement wouldn't be a thing but there would be greater emphasis on health in old age and tackling the diseases of old age. Trade would dwindle but there would be a lot of tech lying around for the taking, salvage would be a big thing and innovation in sustainable living less dependant upon large infrastructures.

topical, but extremely unlikely? reminds me of the genetic bottleneck event ~70000BP when human population dropped to <10000 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory). how about a supereruption to drive your declining population?

Blight is the endgame after a century of war and predation by a second race of intelligent beings. In the book the remnants of humanity are "preserved in West Europe" by the ancestors of the predatory species (in much the same way as we have wildlife reserves). I am exploring the notions of control and protection (with humans as the target species) and the effects of a declining population. The genetic bottleneck is referenced. The end is a choice between extinction or hybridization with the second species and a life lasting centuries. Faced with that what does it mean to be human?

interesting- you could cycle it in with new ideas about early human societies

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/23/the-dawn-of-everything-by-dav...

that was the point of the stern report into the economics if climate change in 2006. 

https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/the-economics-of-climat...

Stating that the engineers have it in hand is justified to an extent. We don't need to give up in the face of sea level rise and increased storm frequency and force. But he found that the cost if protecting the assets of the nation would be devastating. We struggle to pay for a decent health care system as it is without having to install new civil engineering on every river, bridge, coast line and town. 

We knew, and government new that prevention is expensive but no where near the cost of mitigation  so no engineers won't save you. Only reducing carbon emissions will save us.

Interesting stuff. I often wonder how we got where we are and what fell between the cracks of history. My way of thinking is that every good idea also has a bad side and even bad ideas can have unforseen good outcomes. The thing is how we navigate between the two.

Unfortunately they are no longer dying before they have bred. Thus natural selection isn’t happening.

There have always been plenty of stupid people though, so it can't really be an evolutionary disadvantage.

Although humans, as a species, have obviously been selected for the size of their brains, it always struck me as a maths teacher just how huge the range in ability was*. I presume that an advanced level of abstract reasoning isn't an evolutionary trait that is favoured above a base human level, but rather just something that a modern technological society massively values. Whether that will eventually feed in to breeding selection (or perhaps the opposite!) is another matter.

*No doubt someone will be along to argue that it is all nurture rather than nature though.....

So in the scheme of the universe and in all that's happened since big bag, humans are something special?

Quite possibly. Certainly a strong enough possibility not to throw us away lightly.

No!!

You wouldn't want your kids to glue their noses to the M25!

Now that is a fascinating wiki page!

jk

Which requires engineering or some Malthusian catastrophe. I vote for the engineering.

jk

installing solar panels and wind turbines on land doesn't reach my definition of engineering but yes I conceed that I was really talking about endless civil engineering works to make sea defenses and move houses and factories off of low lying or flooded land.

Wind turbines need at a minimum: access roads, foundations, power take-off, towers, blades, bearing, control systems, generators.  I'd say that is engineering!!

Don't forget the load analysis (simulations etc) on the grid and upgrades to it where required.

Even solar panels can have an impact on rainfall runoff from a greenfield. May require drainage infrastructure to manage this.

Try moving port Talbot steelworks away from the sea. Now that is proper engineering 

Do you know how many Roman bridges survive in Britain?

Zero.

Do you know why?

Because they rarely had easy access to bedrock to build on and because they weren’t very good at engineering foundations.

With regards to wind, your post speaks entirely to your lack of understanding including as to what kind of foundational support a wind turbine needs, let alone of achieving that without a massive embedded CO2 cost from the dumb approach of a giant lump of subterranean concrete…

<Googles Roman bridge foundations>