I wouldn't worry to much about climate change, humanity overcame bigger problems. And if your in-laws want children so much, just tell them your concerns, they might be willing to chip in financially.
> Did your parents know the answer to that? Did your grandparents?
No. But it's not really relevant to me.
My grandparents' generation was largely motivated by religious faith (and lack of birth control) to have a bunch of kids.
My parents' generation mostly lost the religious motivation, but inherited the inertia without questioning it. It's not to say they didn't want their kids, but having kids was just "what you did".
Do you think any parents have ever known that answer? Before climate change was the Cold War and threat of nuclear annihilation, before that was two major world wars, before that was a string of wars and plagues going back to the beginning of humanity.
If you think climate change is a good reason to not have children you need to stop and reexamine how the media/doomscrolling have affected your thought process.
I see this reason given time and time again and I just don't understand it. We're currently living in what's probably the best time ever to be a human. We get to live in air conditioned houses, many medical issues have been all but eradicated, we have (for the first time ever) too much food, etc.
Otherwise if it's just an excuse - you don't need one to not have children. If you just want to maintain your current lifestyle that's up to you.
> reexamine how the media/doomscrolling have affected your thought process.
No need. Except for Hacker News and local news, I don't read the news. I don't use other social networks except for a few small non-news subreddits and Github.
But my local environment is changing year over year, and it's concerning.
> We get to live in air conditioned houses
It's funny that you mention that. Air conditioners were almost unheard of where I live. But now we're regularly hitting 40C+ in the summer for long stretches and people locally are installing them. It wasn't like that 15 years ago.
To flip your advice on its head, maybe turn off the air conditioning and experience the change firsthand.
I guarantee my 2 year old daughter will be just fine in regards to global warming. Some areas of the world might have issues, but if you're in a rich country like America you don't really need to worry about it on a personally-affecting-me-level.
You're underestimating how connected the world economies and supply chains are. You seem to be huffing some serious copium if you're sure your daughter will be fine.
Bubonic plague, supereruptions, ice ages, malaria, smallpox, ozone deterioration - lots of these seem small now but that’s only because we’ve already overcome them
That’s the whole point that is being made… we’re talking about humanity - Yeah lots of individuals will die due to climate change, particularly in 3rd world countries but humanity will be just fine overall, just as it was with all those disasters.
I think you are seriously underestimating the impacts that worldwide crop failures in the next 20 years are going to have as far as global human catastrophes go.
Significant crop failures will cause prices to rise, which will enable the wider use of refrigerated storage, fertilizer, new crop varietals, desalinated water, greenhouses, etc. This will bring supply and demand back into balance at a higher price.
The higher price for food will cause millions of deaths, an impact comparable to COVID or to the Ukraine and Ethiopian wars combined. It will pale in comparison to the impact of WW2, the black plague or the Chinese cultural revolution.
it's difficult to articulate the (IMO correct) position that climate change is horrible but still totally solvable. somehow people hear "we can solve this" as " there's no reason to be concerned"
I agree with the gist of your argument, but I wouldn't phrase it as "totally solvable". Limiting it to 2 degrees is possible, limiting it to 3 is likely. Both are bad, both are locally catastrophic but neither are globally catastrophic.
I like my phrasing "millions will die". That works on numerate people, but most people can't really conceptualize the difference between a million and a billion. Any other suggestions?
There's a certain group of people that take the absolute worst predictions of climate science and just runs with it. Granted, there's a far larger group of people that think we'll be ok with business as usual. Neither is true.
I'm using BAU loosely here. I'm not referring to RCP 8.5. I have my own issues with the IPCC's estimates relying to much on direct air capture, but I don't think 5-6c is likely unless there's an unforseen feedback loop we haven't factored in.
I'd almost bet money on the eventual use of stratospheric sulfide injection to cool the planet. It's cheap enough that even a third world country could conceivably pay for it. We have no idea what the side effects will be, but it may well be worth the risk to avoid 3-4c of warming.
I work with climatologists in the development of AI models that improve over the climatology.
The amount of arable land that will be lost in the tropics is going to dramatically impact all countries around the Equator. Some areas simply will not support human life without air conditioning with a 2 degree increase in wet bulb temperature and +3C increase in extreme weather events.
Crop failures are linked to many historically extreme events. A 15%-30% in staple foods has _massive_ impacts in the poorest 20% of the population. In poor democracies it leads to people voting for demagogues and autocrats; in other places it's much worse.
The cascade of these events with ever increasing temperature is exponential.
The soil quality there is very low. Also, large parts of canada are covered by the 'canadian shield' which is basically where glaciers have scraped down to bare granite bedrock. If we had thousands of years to adjust, I'm sure we could manage but you're not planting huge fields of wheat, corn or soybean in that soil.
Those area are limited by the number of hours of sunlight and the number of growing seasons. Reductions in 20-30% are expected, but this doesn't really capture the increase in extreme weather events that can lead to total crop loss.
Instead it's "What are the chances my kid – the individual – will lead a relatively peaceful, fulfilling life for the next 70-90 years?"
I don't know the answer.