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>will the world still be habitable in 20 years' time

I dont know anyone that is seriously worried about this in such a way

And dont get me wrong - we arent climate change deniers, just... pick your battles

Why waste your life worrying about something you have tiny impact on?

Before having a child, it was something I thought about and my wife and I would occasionally discuss. Now my son asks, "How can you do this to me? You've screwed up our planet and there is nothing I can do for at least ten years," (direct quote after coming home from school yesterday -- he's 9).

Our kids are worried about it, more so than our generation, that's for sure.

That's clearly ideological brainwashing and you should take it up with the head teacher. It's not only factual nonsense to believe what your son is saying, but also dangerous. You definitely don't want him to be added to the ranks of the "i killed myself to save the planet" brigade.

> you should take it up with the head teacher.

I don't want to teach my son that him misunderstanding something is someone else's fault. Obviously, this wasn't taught in class. He was taught lots of things and was a conclusion he came to on his own. Like nobody ever told me that a McDonald's hamburger will cost around $50 when I retire, I simply did some math based on the average inflation. Will it actually? no idea. But I know that I should probably have that much more in my retirement account.

And what were these "lots of things" that led to him concluding the world is now ruined by you, his parent? Cuz I definitely don't recall anything like that being on the curriculum when I was a kid.

No, pretty sure he concluded exactly what his teachers wanted him to conclude. Nine year olds are not famous for their critical thinking and deep research skills.

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35975422

> Nine year olds are not famous for their critical thinking and deep research skills.

> No, pretty sure he concluded exactly what his teachers wanted him to conclude.

Do you know us IRL or something?

david38 1123 days ago

If your son is talking like that, it’s a strong signal you haven’t properly put things in perspective for him. The world has always been horrible in one way or another. Go ahead. Pick a time.

This is a 100% attitude and filtering issue.

ChatGTP 1123 days ago

Man this must be hard on everyone. You and your son included.

anjc 1123 days ago

Are you going to raise this with the school? It seems highly inappropriate on their part

Why would I bring my son’s opinions up with the school? Because they learned about global warming? Nah, we had a sit down talk about it and how it isn’t “any one specific person’s” fault.

AnimalMuppet 1123 days ago

Because from the description, one of two things probably happened: Either the school taught a secular version of a "put the fear of God into them" lesson, and your kid came home in feeling like he literally should not have been born, or another kid talked to him with the same result. That's a really unfair message to hand a 9-year-old.

It seems like a natural conclusion:

1. Teach: humanity has done X to the environment

2. Teach: if we don’t do something Y will happen

3. Conclude: I was not alive to do X

4. Ergo: the adults in my life did X

5. Ergo: the adults in my life will continue to do X which will cause Y because I can’t affect meaningful change

I don’t automatically assume they start at step 5 at school. I’ve seen his math homework. Is that a normal way of thinking though?

To automatically assume that with my son would teach him (likely, inadvertently) that what he learns at school may not be right (which isn’t true, for the most part). Rather I want to teach him that he takes ownership of the words that come out of his mouth. That his opinions are his own and he has to defend them, and further learn what is an opinion and what is a fact.

anjc 1123 days ago

Maybe I misunderstood but it seemed that he learned it was your fault, rather than this being an opinion he formed.

I mean it slightly is. I leave lights on, take long showers, drive a car, and lots of other things.

Aeolos 1123 days ago

A lot of people in the 18-35 demographic I am talking to are keenly aware of the environmental issues, and have taken steps to change their lifestyle to match. No cars, becoming vegetarian, buying second-hand, reducing travel, reducing consumption.

Yes, I may be seeing a bubble - but that is across three different countries, and clearly reflected in car-ownership statistics (down dramatically in younger generations) and in voting preferences.

We werent talking about consumption reduction and similar. Decision to not have kids because earth may be not livable is infinitly more drastic

crooked-v 1123 days ago

It's anecdotal, of course, but I've definitely seen a number of posts online that amount to 'my spouse and I have decided not to have children, because we don't want to inflict them with the terrible state of the planet in 30 or 40 or 50 years'.

Ive seen crazy stuff on the internet too!

But until I or you manage to meet at least one person with such approach, then I do recommend to do not take it seriously

generic92034 1123 days ago

I have met several people with that idea in "real life". And now?

bitlax 1123 days ago

You're just someone on the internet.

generic92034 1123 days ago

Same as the poster I was replying to. ;)

r00fus 1123 days ago

> I dont know anyone that is seriously worried about this in such a way

Do you happen to remember the global wildfires/rivers drying up/massive heat waves in 2020? About a few billion people worldwide / 100m Americans sure do. A larger and larger portion of them are starting to understanding what the cause to that is and are acting accordingly.

Every year, we keep hearing how even the most aggressive estimates for climate change were underestimated. That's terrifying and existential to a lot of people including me.

chx 1123 days ago

> I dont know anyone that is seriously worried about this in such a way

there's an entire Voluntary Human Extinction Movement...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/17/weather-...

mschuster91 1123 days ago

> I dont know anyone that is seriously worried about this in such a way

In 20 years not, but it's reasonable to believe for anyone outside America and Central Europe that wide swaths of the planet - particularly the entirety of Africa and lots of Asia - will be unable to support human life.

Hell, we're already seeing issues with water supply even in Central Europe, with France restricting water consumptions because of drought [2], and Germany's water reserves are dwindling as well. India is suffering from a massive heat wave [1], and last year's devastation in Australia should still be in living memory.

Anyone who is not worried about the future of the planet is either ridiculously ignorant to reality or completely incompetent. And the worst thing is, politicians in power play down climate change, act like future technology (anything from nuclear fusion to desalination plants) will save us, or deny it entirely - and wide swaths to outright majorities of people believe that.

[2] https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/05/10/southern-france-re...

>Anyone who is not worried about the future of the planet is either ridiculously ignorant to reality or completely incompetent.

Worrying here was reflected by drastic actions. Not worrying didnt mean not worrying at all.

mihaic 1123 days ago

That feels actually anti-rational, since if the people that care about the environment stop having children that means the people that are passing on their life outlook are mostly ignorant of the environment.

It must be a US thing more though, as I haven't personally heard people say fear of environmental damage to keep them from having kids.

lapcat 1123 days ago

> That feels actually anti-rational, since if the people that care about the environment stop having children that means the people that are passing on their life outlook are mostly ignorant of the environment.

This assumes that parents successfully pass on their life outlook to their children, but if that were true then society would have never changed.

I don't share the life outlook of my parents.

tivert 1123 days ago

> This assumes that parents successfully pass on their life outlook to their children, but if that were true then society would have never changed.

> I don't share the life outlook of my parents.

So the climate "birth strike" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35973163) strategy would necessarily have to have two parts to be successful: 1) refuse to have kids, 2) indoctrinate many of the ones that remain to reject their parent's outlook and adopt the strikers' outlook (e.g. through control of the school curriculum). I would expect the second point to result in scenes like this, where a kid comes home from school mad at his a parents for having him in a world with climate change: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35973070.

somenameforme 1123 days ago

It's all about averages. People, on average, will share the same broad traits and characteristics as their family. Also, depending on your age, give it a couple of decades. Time and experience have a way of shaping our character in ways we may never have expected, let alone ever desired.

lapcat 1123 days ago

To avoid repeating my comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35973362

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/mar/12/birthst...

hansworst 1123 days ago

There’s a movement called birthstrike with people who are refusing to have kids because of concerns around climate change:

tonyedgecombe 1123 days ago

>if the people that care about the environment stop having children that means the people that are passing on their life outlook are mostly ignorant of the environment.

That argument seems rather doubtful to me.

mihaic 1123 days ago

It's not a perfect correlation, but I'd find it hard to believe that children don't share on average more of their outlook on life with their parents than with a random member of society.

lapcat 1123 days ago

It's a pretty bad, very risky "investment" in the environmental cause, though, because by the time your kids are old enough to vote, it'll be almost 20 years later already, the kids will be using up resources while they're growing up regardless of the ultimate outcome, and you can only pray in the end that they'll agree with you on values when they're adults. You can't just pump a new environmentalist out of the womb.

CogitoCogito 1123 days ago

If your goal is to pass your life outlook to more people in the next generation, I believe you're probably likely to be successful without kids than with them. Without kids you have much more time to reach more people.

Or the ones having kids are actually more rational. Consider:

1. There is no scientific reason to believe the world is doomed. Go read some serious climatology papers and see for yourself. They're unreliable and exaggerated but even so, no doom.

2. State pensions and benefits might actually be doomed though given demographics. If the state can't take care of you in old age, you'd better hope you have kids who will.

recursivedoubts 1123 days ago

it's irrational at the aggregate level, but rational at the individual level

many such cases

(the reverse happens a lot too)

CalRobert 1123 days ago

It's not about whether your kids will cause climate change. It's about creating children just in time for them to suffer through the collapse of civilisation.

fileeditview 1123 days ago

The collapse of civilization is happening since the dawn of civilization.

Jokes aside, I have heard both points made. Yours and the one from the parent poster.

CalRobert 1123 days ago

We had pretty stable temperatures from the dawn of civilization (the end of the last ice age) until about 30 years ago.

themaninthedark 1123 days ago

From 1300 ~ about 1700 there was a "little" ice age that cuased widespread famine and cultural disruption.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

Yes, the current temperature shift now is greater but it has been ongoing for a much shorter period of time.

crooked-v 1123 days ago

> but it has been ongoing for a much shorter period of time

That's worse, not better! https://xkcd.com/1732/

We did not, that's the famously debunked hockey-stick graph claim.

Temperature has varied drastically throughout time. There were Vikings growing barley in Greenland, something completely impossible today. The reason you believe otherwise is because climate doomers lie a lot.

marvin 1123 days ago

For most people who say this, it’s just a rationalization.

Acknowledging that kids are infeasible for economic reasons, like GP laid out, is just too painful and embarrassing. So the ‘environment’ fig leaf saves their dignity.

wink 1123 days ago

It's kinda down on the list of prios but "I can not in good conscience have children grow up in this world where I see only problems and no solutions." is definitely on it, and you can call me overly pessimistic, but not sure how this has anything with dignity.

X0Refraction 1123 days ago

This is one the factors as to why my partner and I have decided against having children. Not because we think it'll make the situation worse, but because we believe they shouldn't have to deal with the significant fallout from resource contention, climate migration etc. that is more than likely on the horizon when they had no hand in creating the problem

berberous 1123 days ago

This is a weird take to me. Even if climate change turns out to be significantly bad, I have a hard time imagining it would be worse than most times in human history. Only a few generations ago people lived through two world wars. We could have a third world war at some point, or the AI doomers could be right, but would that stop you from having children? This feels to me like someone who doesn’t leave their house because they are worried a car might hit them…it’s an unhealthy anxiety about one of many potential risks, that shouldn’t prevent you from living life.

X0Refraction 1123 days ago

Keep in mind that I've said it's one of the factors, not the only factor.

But why should my standards be just better than most times in human history? That seems a low bar to me, most times in human history were miserable for the majority of people compared to the living standards I've become accustomed to.

To be clear, I don't feel there is any moral duty to continue my particular genes and the world population will continue to increase for the foreseeable regardless. If I were to have children I personally would feel guilty if they had it significantly harder than I have and I think the likelihood is that will be the case - it's really as simple as that.

orionsbelt 1123 days ago

If you grew up with $50M+ and lived a luxurious life, but lost it all, would you not have children over worries they may not have the same standard of living that you did?

If you could be born in America in 1925 and live until 2015, would you? Or would you decline because the standard of living dropped right away with a Great Depression followed by a world war?

I agree with you that if I knew, with certainty, that my children’s lives would be filled with nothing but suffering, I would make the same choice. But a fear of a theoretical drop in a standard of living, and which may not even impact an American over the next 100 years all that much, does not seem to me like it should reach that threshold, and I suspect it is starting to for others because of the media playing into their anxieties. There are people living that lived through the holocaust and are still happy to have lived and, over their lifetime, have had fulfilled and happy lives. I suspect your children could likewise carve out a happy life, even if their standard of living is somewhat reduced.

I agree you have no moral duty to have kids, and if you don’t want them, don’t have them. But if you want them, but are not having them because you find that to be cruel to your unborn kids, I question whether that is really a rational choice.

X0Refraction 1123 days ago

> If you grew up with $50M+ and lived a luxurious life, but lost it all, would you not have children over worries they may not have the same standard of living that you did?

I'd agree there's nuance to this. For your cherry picked scenario, no, that wouldn't affect my decision. I can accept a single person having a reduction in living standards. However, when most of Western society (I'm British, not American) is struggling to attain housing at a rate similar to the generation before, when the middle classes as a whole aren't able to become as financially secure as the generation before then it is enough to give me pause.

So ignoring any climate worries I already think things will be much harder. When you add on that it's estimated that billions will be without sufficient water in a few decades it's not hard to imagine that there will be significant problems of which I have very little confidence that we will be able to handle well as a species.

Perhaps I'm overly pessimistic. But as I say, this isn't the only factor we've taken into account, it's more a tertiary concern.

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/land-of-lessees_swiss-continue-...

You realize the house price obsession is rather uniquely British, right? It's a bit of a national stereotype to people outside the UK. In many countries it's considered normal to rent, including rich countries.

Weirdly, the dominance of renting in Switzerland doesn't stop the Swiss having children. So this is really very much a media induced anxiety disorder of some sort. It's not rational to decide whether or not to have children based on whether you can get a mortgage.

krona 1123 days ago

If we're talking about mortality salience, then there's quite a lot of evidence that mortality salience predicts a greater desire to have children, which is the opposite to what you're suggesting.

From an evolutionary point of view, this seems plausible. Obviously not having children because 'life is hard' is almost certainly dysgenic.

tivert 1123 days ago

> I'm not saying this is true or rational (there are actually blog posts in the rationalist community along the lines of "no, having kids does not cause climate change")

I would not use the "rationalist" community as a measure of what is rational.