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Large percentage fear having children because of climate crisis

110 points by yboris 5y ago

Proven 5y ago
What crisis?
ryan93 5y ago
A lot of people will just use the popular issue of the day as an reason for their decision.
- dash2 5y ago
  Yeah, this is meaningless. Show me data where increased saliency of climate change actually reduces children born 9 months later. Otherwise the rule from economics applies here: "talk is cheap".
  - rc_mob 5y ago
    your test makes no sense. it does not account for many variables.
    - dash2 5y ago
      Sure, it's a sketch of a research design, not a complete one. The point is that this paper makes little sense, because people will say any old thing.
TuringNYC 5y ago
Climate change is a problem, but the title isnt quite how i'd put it. The original paper is here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3918955 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3918955 The survey is specifically about climate change. If I wanted to know why people are fearing having children, i'd do a survey where people rank fears for that so we could see where climate change ranks, say, as compared to economics. I have friends and family in a number of the countries surveyed in this paper and I rarely hear about climate change as the reason for fearing having children, usually it is economics. This is not to say climate change isn't a problem, but I dont think this title accurately represents the subject.
- newbamboo 5y ago
  I don’t think fear is specific but becomes a generalized fear of things to come. Financial decline, global warming and other concerns sort of meld together. In the 1960s there was a song “eve of destruction” that expressed that generations fear mostly about nuclear war. They also had free love and lacked atomizing technology like we have today so the birth rate didn’t take such a hit.
- jseliger 5y ago
  I'm reminded of a recent Yglesias essay: https://www.slowboring.com/p/is-quiet-climate-policy-enough https://www.slowboring.com/p/is-quiet-climate-policy-enough: Most people don’t care much about climate Huge sums of money have been spent in an effort to will into existence a mass social movement to tackle climate change, and it basically hasn’t worked. You can get people out to a march, but the people who come are all-purpose leftist activists, which is why you have incredible trouble imposing message discipline and preventing people from showing up with “Free Palestine” and “Defund Police” signs. And you see it in the polling. Reuters did a survey recently that showed 69% of Americans say the United States should take “aggressive” action to combat climate change, but only 34% would be willing to pay $100 more per year in taxes to achieve that goal. A hundred bucks is not a lot of money. People spend that on Halloween decorations. A nice dinner date could cost you more than that. If you’re buying a car, the dealer tries to upsell you on fancy floor mats that cost more than $100. Years ago, I used to be a real carbon-pricing head. It seemed (and still does) like an elegant, important solution to a major problem. Leftists would yell at me that this was too much of a neoliberal, market-oriented thing. And they’ve completely won the argument over a carbon tax — everyone agrees that imposing a really stiff carbon price is just not in the cards. There are companies like Project Vesta that accept donations for carbon capture and storage: https://www.projectvesta.org/ https://www.projectvesta.org/, but I don't see them overwhelmed with interest. The most popular vehicles sold to individuals in the United States today are pickup trucks. Nuclear energy is spectacular for the climate but politically radioactive. Vegetarianism, or even just meat-consumption reduction, is a very minority pursuit. It's hard to square many of these facts with true, widespread concern about climate change. (Note that I'm not arguing that many of the cited trends are good or desirable: but it is important to understand something before critique.)
dhosek 5y ago
Anecdata, but: I have kids, but I worry about their future every day and had the decision point about having them come five years later, I think we almost certainly would not have had kids.
- thehoff 5y ago
  Same here. I wouldn't say climate change would be the sole reason but it is up there.
  - neals 5y ago
    Care to share some other reasons? Just curious.
    - melenaboija 5y ago
      Disparity, non sustainable economic model, fierce professional competition, capitalist lifestyle, way different values than mine for new generations (maybe I don't understand them but in my opinion worst values).
    - dd36 5y ago
      Corruption, inability of Federal government to move the needle in the right direction anymore, disinformation, environmental destruction, everything is going in the wrong direction.
    - thehoff 5y ago
      Financial is definitely the top one. I often wonder if our child will ever be able to afford a home. Are we saving enough for college considering how fast tuition is going up. Between my wife and I we definitely have good incomes but as we look for homes even we struggle to find something in our range. This also leads me to wondering if we will have some sort of great unraveling at some point and how this would affect ours. Another big one and I'm not sure how to put it but the general state of media. We see other family with their kids on various platforms and it just seems so much to keep up with and we're dealing with just Youtube at this point. Every few days we're getting told about something what was watched which brings up the inevitable discussion of everything that is online is not true and the follow on of "what are you watching". I do constantly remind myself that my fears are most likely what many parents experience in some form or another and that this is just another generation. But many times I do wonder if we would have chosen to have kids today if we waited.
tlear 5y ago
People did not fear having kids in the middle of world wars, famines, genocides etc. My guess it is not fear of climate crisis but fear of responsibility + desire to spend money on themselves + ability to choose due to contraceptives. Is it not interesting that we are witnessing the biggest selection filter/pressure in human population since smallpox and black death? It is not purely genetic this time though, there is a huge cultural component, societies that do not breed do not survive.
- Invictus0 5y ago
  > People did not fear having kids in the middle of world wars, famines, genocides etc. Hmm, well that is completely and utterly wrong... Decrease in births during Irish famine: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3542599/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3542599/ Decrease in births during WW1: https://ww1.habsburger.net/en/chapters/dwindling-birth-rates-during-first-world-war https://ww1.habsburger.net/en/chapters/dwindling-birth-rates... Decrease in Uighur birth rate right now: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/extreme-drop-in-xinjiang-birth-rate-amid-claims-of-uighur-genocide-7smt8wclc https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/extreme-drop-in-xinjiang-...
  - throwaway6734 5y ago
    One of these things is not like the other.
  - tacocataco 5y ago
    I remember reading recently that Ireland finally reached pre famine population levels. Found the article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/31/ireland-population-surpasses-5m-for-first-time-since-1851 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/31/ireland-popula...
- blacktriangle 5y ago
  Yep, it's not fear of climate change, its fear of giving up on Tinder.
docdeek 5y ago
It’s interesting to look at the percentages. Across the countries surveyed three-quarters believe the future is frightening and more than half (56%) believe humanity is doomed, but less than 40% are hesitant to have children. Perhaps it is a pointer to our drive to reproduce that despite the vast majority finding the future frightening and most believing the species is doomed, most are not hesitant to bring kids into the world. :)
- LinuxBender 5y ago
  Could this be a sub-conscious part of human nature? The more dangerous the environment, the more children one is driven to produce thus increasing the probability that one may survive? I believe there were studies on this in some of the poorer nations with high rates of infant mortality but I don't have the links handy.
  - JohnFen 5y ago
    It's an interesting thought. I know that the birth rate is strongly inversely correlated with standard of living. The higher the standard of living a nation has, the lower the birthrate tends to be.
- roenxi 5y ago
  In 1920 the future was frightening and humanity was obviously doomed. That future came to pass too. The future being scary and people being doomed is not a new thing. The 1980s-2020s were unusually pleasant. Ignoring the cold war in the 80s and the ongoing background evil from 1990 to 2020.
  - wsc981 5y ago
    These end-of-time predictions are part of many religions and the new climate religion isn't much different in regard. Though Christianity was way ahead of the game [0]. --- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_ap...
- 5y ago
info781 5y ago
This is not what I hear. It is a golden age for women, they can have lots of kids or none, up to them, that is a great thing. Everywhere you go is far more crowded than 30 years ago, Europeans and people from South East Asia are very aware of that. People want to have fewer kids and educate those kids more. Climate change is important but not a direct factor.
- zz865 5y ago
  > Everywhere you go is far more crowded than 30 years ago, Its fascinating that I feel the same, but like many people I moved to a bigger city than my parents. But recently I've been spending a lot of time in old rural villages In NE USA and Eastern Europe (yeah weird combination) and they're all dying, empty houses no one wants to live any more, schools closing.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    Schools are closing because there are no kids because nobody spends the child raising years of their life there, they spend them chasing money. Houses are empty because they are owned by out of state couples who spend 3wk/year there and have grand plans to retire there.
    - zz865 5y ago
      Houses are empty because no one wants them. I mean like this https://oldhousesunder50k.com/ https://oldhousesunder50k.com/
mawise 5y ago
Scott Alexander of Astral Codex Ten (formerly Slate Star Codex) wrote a piece on this topic as well: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/please-dont-give-up-on-having-kids https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/please-dont-give-up-on...
- WithinReason 5y ago
  He also has a nice table about all kinds of personal carbon costs (like having children): https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/carbon-costs-quantified https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/carbon-costs-quantifie...
  - thatfrenchguy 5y ago
    First time I see a table about having children that is not assuming your kids and the next 20 generations will have the same CO2 emissions as you, interesting :)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- jnsaff2 5y ago
  I don't find his reasoning terribly convincing though. First part boils down to the classic catholic strategy of "outbreed the enemy" with handwavy reasoning along the lines "worst things are not going to be happen to first world peoples". Some cherry picked factoids sprinkled here and there like sea level rise in SF and NYC. Total red herring. In Europe we already saw the migration crisis from Syria and how it was a great polarizing tool. There is no border wall that can be built (let alone be moral in any shape or form) to keep out billions of starving and misplaced from the global south and keep us in the first world nice any cozy. Then the part about the carbon cost of raising children goes to the tehcno-utopian realm of carbon capture with some really optimistic dollar numbers. I'm 40 and probably going to have kids, but if I were young I'd totally hold older generations feet to the fire and tell governments: "fuck you, if you don't get your shit together and start doing something meaningful about the climate catastrophe, I'm not going to have kids".
asah 5y ago
Fewer people = less impact. Adverse climate change is largely driven by man-made effects, and those effects are largely scaled to the number of people.
- me_me_me 5y ago
  Wow I think you just solve the global warming! We will just have to kill ourselves, can you pick a date?
  - beardyw 5y ago
    I have to admit that it seems that a perfect world is probably a world without people in it. Though what does the word 'perfect' mean when there is no one to use it? [My existential thought for the day].
- WithinReason 5y ago
  The capacity to solve climate change is scaled by the number of people solving it.
  - 1_player 5y ago
    Having a child doesn't mean they'll eventually go on working to solve climate change. If they don't, they'll actually make it (infinitesimally) worse by increasing resource consumption and carbon in the atmosphere. For all I know, my spawn might decide to work for Exxon Mobil.
    - WithinReason 5y ago
      The number of people solving a problem scales with the number of people available to solve it. Besides, if it's feasible to earn enough money to offset your own carbon footprint (e.g. by paying for carbon capture), it's possible to scale the solution by having more children who then offset their own carbon cost and more.
      - 5y ago
adenozine 5y ago
Of the young people I've talked to, I think income inequality is more the barring factor. I'm biased, as most of the young people I've "sampled" so to speak are either researchers or students of some kind, and so are generally more risk-averse and financially savvy. If I was 18-20ish today, is be VERY concerned about my possible earnings potential in the next, say 15-20 years. So much work will be automated, further consolidating wealth unto those fortunate enough to have some already, and the mythical "entry-level" bar leaps higher and higher. I've seen some of the preferred requirements for entry level programming jobs and it's already completely psychotic, I'd be scared shitless getting started in a market that looks like this, and will almost certainly get worse in the near future.
- bojangleslover 5y ago
  Absolute poverty has never been lower. And I would rather have kids now than in a more equal, but poorer on average, society. For the important things (health and safety) it's never been a better time to have kids.
  - dd36 5y ago
    According to what average? In the US, it’s harder than ever to afford a family if you live in a big city. And the best jobs are in big cities. Edit: Growing up lots of kids had a stay at home parent. That doesn’t seem to exist anymore, which isn’t just bad for kids but for communities.
    - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
      > the best jobs are in big cities. Will that still be true in 5 years after work from home is even more commonplace?
      - dijit 5y ago
        That's an absurd gamble. If it's true in 5 years then you potentially maximise your misery. If it's not then you might be happier, but the dynamics of things will have shifted greatly. When betting it's usually best to bet on the status quo continuing, that's why the odds on incumbents keeping power is always higher.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
davmonk 5y ago
It would be great if there's a law by which we can plant trees in every kid that will be born. In that small little way, we can drastically help our climate.
- simiones 5y ago
  Do you literally mean planting trees inside the children? Or is that an unfortunate typo? Either way, planting one tree for every child born would have negligible effect on climate change. I think we need billions of trees planted every year to make a significant dent.
atlasunshrugged 5y ago
I really get nervous that this is such a widely held POV. Yes, things are bad, probably they're going to get worse (but there's also a good chance they get better!), but not having kids seems extreme and a lot of folks seem to be tilting towards a degrowth mindset. Maybe I'm a techno-optimist but I think we're way beyond just being able to pause where we are or go back to stone age living and we should push forward and try to make a better world with technology and science. Maybe finally get some of those fusion reactors!
- JohnFen 5y ago
  In my opinion, a really huge factor making everything worse and harder to resolve is that there are simply too many people. A degrowth mindset is an important part of pushing forward to make a better world.
- yodsanklai 5y ago
  > we should push forward and try to make a better world with technology and science I'd argue that technology and science is the problem, not the solution. For instance, fusion reactors would simply give us more energy to destroy ecosystems faster than what we can do now.
- lkrubner 5y ago
  The so-called Great Stagnation, the lack of big technology breakthroughs since 1970, the stagnation in physics, the stagnation of wages, the slower rate of growth of productivity, the lack of automation, the political paralysis that has lead to 50 years of under-funded infrastructure, all of these things combine to make a pretty good case against techno-optimism. Many people found it natural to be techno-optimists in 1930, for obvious reasons, given what they had just lived through. But nowadays techno-optimism is a matter of pure faith, like a religion. The best book on this subject is "The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War" by Robert J. Gordon. https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-American-Growth-Princeton/dp/0691175802/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1B18IXJ9WV19A&dchild=1&keywords=the+rise+and+fall+of+american+growth&qid=1633961741&sprefix=the+rise+and+fall+of+american+%2Caps%2C190&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-American-Growth-Princeton/d...
ajay-b 5y ago
Really?? I believe in global warming and climate change, but it seems a bit extreme to forgo having children for that reason alone. Almost comically.
- joeberon 5y ago
  Well people are also moving past the notion that "forgoing have a children" is a comically extreme thing to do. Many young adults simply place little to no value on it now.
cletus 5y ago
The key part of this is that they surveyed 16 to 25 year olds. This is not the typical age demographic, particularly at the lower end, who are prioritizing having children anyway. If you've been on this Earth awhile you start to realize a few things. Here are two: 1. It's the nature of young people to think the world is going to Hell. Today it might be climate change. 50 years ago it was the Vietnam War. Make no mistake, these things matter but, in my experience, the younger of us almost always think things are far worse than they really are. Still, this is generally a positive as it's an agent for change; and 2. The older people also think the world is going to Hell but for different reasons: because it's changing. Older people get increasingly concerned with their legacy and fighting change, summarized nicely on Mad Men [1]. I have zero faith the world will come together and act altruistically on climate change or any other issue. You've seen ample evidence of this in the past 18 months where a significant portion of the population are willing to minorly inconvenience themselves (by wearing a mask and/or taking a vaccine with <1 in a million chance of a serious negative outcome) so they and other people won't die from what is now a preventable disease. And we expect these same people to pay the massive cost to fix climate change? There's literally no way. The only way climate change will be solved is if it becomes economic to do so. We'll replace fossil fuels with renewables when it's cheaper and not a moment before, as just one example. Circling back to the issue of worried young people: many people had children so someone would look after them when they're older. In the developed world, this is rapidly disappearing. Now what generally stops people is they simply can't afford it. Not big issues like climate change. I compare how cheaply I could live when I was in university and it's so much worse now. We're making living so expensive that at some point there'll be no one to hand all the accumulated wealth down to. [1]: https://twitter.com/madmenqts/status/739854907918946304?lang=en https://twitter.com/madmenqts/status/739854907918946304?lang...
- jb1991 5y ago
  Exactly -- most generations have had good reasons to think their generation was having it worse than all previous generations. Imagine growing up and doing duck and cover drills under your school desks as a child because of the threat of Cold War nukes. Imagine the Spanish Flu. Imagine what Americans experienced in the Civil War. And these are only relatively recent examples. Plenty more going back centuries. There are always reasons to be scared.
Jyaif 5y ago
Interestingly, this is a case of natural selection making things worse: The people not worried about an incoming disaster keep reproducing, while the people worried stop reproducing.
- robjan 5y ago
  Caring about the environment is more likely related to nurture than nature.
- lvass 5y ago
  Fearful people have much higher tendency to become bureaucrats. Maybe that's a good thing.
joeberon 5y ago
This was a major factor in my wife and I's decision not to have a child, second only to the stress it would put on our lives to have one, which we would rather do without (I'm not convinced I'm emotionally strong enough to deal with a child) I do know a lot of people who are not having children for similar reasons EDIT: There's also a lack of the idea that it's worth having children, i.e. many people don't believe there is any intrinsic value in having a child like they used to
- Supernaut 5y ago
  > many people don't believe there is any intrinsic value in having a child Okay, wow. So they're indifferent to the notion of homo sapiens becoming extinct?
  - joeberon 5y ago
    1. Many people now also don't really place any intrinsic value in human life compared to other animal life or the planet in general. I.e. a lot of people don't believe humans are superior or especially worth being preserved 2. Enough people are still having children that it seems unlikely extinction will occur due to their own decision to not have children
  - gorbachev 5y ago
    There are 8 billion people on this planet. I think the humankind will do just fine with a few people deciding not to have kids. In fact, it'd probably be for the better, if more people thought the same, given that we have 8 billion people on the planet.
    - Supernaut 5y ago
      I will certainly agree that it is for the better if people who see no intrinsic value in children do not become parents.
      - joeberon 5y ago
        Well I don't really see intrinsic value in anything (I'm a Buddhist), but that isn't what I said, I said intrinsic value _compared to other species_. I meant that many people don't see humans as superior to other animals or to plants.
GaylordTuring 5y ago
I don't understand how people can put climate change out of all things to be afraid of. It's definitely an issue, but for me, it doesn't even make it in the top-10. I would, for example, be much, much more concerned that at any point, humankind is capable of launching an intercontinental nuclear war that would disrupt the entire civilization and create a multi-decade nuclear winter that would kill off whoever made it through round 1. That seems more scary to me than an extremely slow change that would force us to grow banans instead of potatoes and move from the beaches.
- joeberon 5y ago
  Climate change is demonstrably happening and already having drastic effects right now. Nuclear war is a thing that may or may not happen, but there's no sign right now that it would, so it's a distant hypothetical, much like being hit by a random meteor. It's obvious that the thing happening right now, continuously being reported on, would produce more concern.
- DerArzt 5y ago
  For me it is that climate change could be the trigger of many future conflicts (climate migration, water wars).
- simiones 5y ago
  > That seems more scary to me than an extremely slow change that would force us to grow banans instead of potatoes and move from the beaches. Then you haven't been paying attention. It's not about growing bananas where today we grow potatoes, it's about what happens in the areas where today we grow bananas. Those areas will become literally uninhabitable for large parts of the year in the next 50-100 years at the current rates of carbon emission, and the billion+ people living in those areas will move elsewhere. Looking at how the minute amount of migrants from Libya and Syria were received in some of the wealthiest countries in the world (~1 million people reaching Europe and throwing it into a political crisis), the effect of 3 orders of magnitude more migration will be devastating, and are one of the main reasons for imagining that nuclear war you fear (especially given India, Pakistan, and China have nuclear weapons, and will be at the forefront of this massive migration from Bangladesh and their own coastal areas). All this will happen, most likely even if we reduce emissions to 0 today. Perhaps it will be limited to a few hundred million instead of more than a billion if we reach some goals of the Paris agreement, but even that is unlikely to actually happen.
rajin444 5y ago
Probably not a popular opinion, but if climate crisis is even on your radar you’re likely the type of person that society needs to reproduce. I’m not sure if there’s a term for this ironic situation but it feels like there should be.
- jliptzin 5y ago
  Yea I agree, I think we'll be even worse off if only the anti-science crowd decides to procreate...
  - joeberon 5y ago
    I think it has been pretty standard throughout history for less educated/skilled people to have more children, although now the problem is that since both parents of the family are skilled and working full time, they have much less time to raise a significant number of children.
    - fighterpilot 5y ago
      It's been standard in the last fifty years because of contraceptives and education about how to use contraceptives. But before contraceptives, I don't see why a skew would emerge. I read that in the Jewish community a long time ago it was the rabbis that had the most kids only because they could afford to raise them.
      - joeberon 5y ago
        "Before contraceptives" isn't really a thing, we have evidence of contraception methods being used from 1850BC... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_control#Early_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_control#Early_history
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    Check and check, now all we need is the “Idiocracy was a documentary“ comment to complete the “well, I can’t come right out and say that I think eugenics makes sense” veiled discussion. I’m sure all the people that agree with you are lockstep in thoughts an ideology with their parents, right?
mattlondon 5y ago
How much carbon does having a child emit? I've seen suggestions that it is about 60t a year that sounds absolutely absurd when the average per adult is 13t (in the UK). So a child that is physically much smaller than me (and so needs less food to eat, less material for clothing etc), and lives in the same house as me (so benefits from the same heating that I have on anyway, the same lighting that I have on anyway) and goes to the same places as me when I drive around anyway, somehow emits over 400% carbon in the process? How does that work out?
- NortySpock 5y ago
  "less material for clothing etc" Kids grow out of clothes and shoes, so you need new clothes that fit them. You tend to buy them toys and safety equipment and possibly electronics to entertain them. They break things at a much higher rate than regular adults. They want to go play with their friends, which if you live in the suburbs sometimes means driving.
  - OldHand2018 5y ago
    Having 1 child with no cousins is going to be expensive, but like much else, there are economies in scale. My siblings and cousins have always just passed around clothes as children grow out of them. By the time an article of clothing makes it out of the family, it has likely been worn by 3-4 kids. And then you sell it or give it away. Sure, some stuff wears out or is destroyed, but you'd be surprised how little. Just stay away from all that pop culture crap where most of the money goes to licensing fees ;)
- benhurmarcel 5y ago
  You need to account for all the carbon they will emit over their whole lifetime, as well as all their future descendants.
- jliptzin 5y ago
  Maybe because they don't stop emitting carbon when they move out at 18? And then go on to have kids and grandkids of their own, who in turn also emit more carbon?
float4 5y ago
This probably has to do with experiencing certain news during your formative years. People of my age (I'm ~25 years old) seem to prioritise job security over virtually anything else because in their early formative years the financial crisis took place.[0] I still remember watching the news / discussing the papers every evening with my dad (he's an economist), and it was always about people losing their jobs, homes, savings, pensions. I still vividly remember that pale image of a "For sale" sign that the Dutch news broadcaster regularly used when they talked about the housing market. I think that the young children of today experience the same thing. We talk about how the earth is heating up. How the permafrost is melting. How the sea level is rising (this one is especially fun in the Netherlands given that most of the country is below sea level). How people, animals, entire species will die. A person who's roughly my age or older is able to understand the severity of the situation, but at the same time is able to understand that there are things we can do, and that we are in fact doing things, which makes me hopeful. But I can't help but feel a little for the 10 year olds of today who watch the news every evening with their dads. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20210303125901/https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2019/05/08/generatie-z-gaat-door-door-door-a3959505 https://web.archive.org/web/20210303125901/https://www.nrc.n... (It's in Dutch, sorry)
- effie 5y ago
  I wouldn't let my 10 year old children watch/listen to "news". That's too young for such toxic influence.
BitwiseFool 5y ago
For me, there is a profound idea that results from a simple premise: Every single one of my ancestors reproduced before they died. From the dawn of life on Earth, each generation of my ancestry managed to survive every single thing the world threw at them. Wars, famines, plagues, asteroids, mass-extinctions, climate changes, and so on. When I think about the tenacity of life - particularly that of my ancestors - I feel guilty that I do not have children of my own. It feels downright selfish to say "I'd be more comfortable with my modern dopamine faucet than to raise a new generation", or, "Sorry family tree, this branch just doesn't feel like playing the game anymore".
- giantg2 5y ago
  I guess the deeper question is why you feel you owe that to them? Would the gift of life from your ancestors be selfish if it was given to you with the assumption that you would pass on their genes? If it's a true gift to you, then they should be happy for you to use it freely in whatever way you choose.
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    It's hard to say exactly where this sentiment of mine comes from. Culturally, I am influenced by the Eastern philosophical virtue of filial piety. It also doesn't help that my parents, grandparents, and extended family all ask about when I plan to finally have children. You could say that I feel the way I do out of cultural obligation, that certainly plays a role, but it also feels like something I genuinely want for myself by my own desire. Who knows, maybe the degree of desire to have children is itself something genetic and heritable?
- Trasmatta 5y ago
  You have also had countless family members in your family tree that didn't reproduce. (Not your direct ancestors of course, but their family members.) Choosing not to reproduce is also a perfectly valid and natural choice. Not arguing for whether you should or shouldn't, but the fact that your direct ancestors did shouldn't be the reason that you do.
kingdomcome50 5y ago
I wonder if there is any research into the phenomenon (if it even exists!) where people skew attribution of their decisions towards a factor[1] that could be an influence, but actually is not relevant in their decision-making process? I ask the above because, to me, this reads more like a "justification after the fact" kind of result. Certainly climate change could be a reasonable justification for not wanting children (it certainly sounds noble!), but I have a feeling that fears of responsibility, change, or economics are a FAR more likely list of reasons people don't want children. Not only have the above factors existed forever, I highly doubt the people claiming climate change is such a severe stress to them that they won't have kids (when they otherwise would!) are the same people actively living their lives in a way to maximally mitigate their impact to the climate. That is, putting as much time, energy, and money into fighting climate change as it would take to raise a child. If not... well... it kind of reads hollow to me. More like a convenient, plausible excuse that sounds nice. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope not. Not having kids isn't the solution. Having kids and teaching them about their responsibility to our climate will workout better in the long-run. Because while you, the environmentally conscious steward, are busy not raising the next generation, the people who don't give a shit are still procreating. [1] Like climate change
rosmax_1337 5y ago
Idiocracy Opening Scene (2006): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2tUW0HDHA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2tUW0HDHA
t0bia_s 5y ago
In China, they have communist regime for "birth control". In Western countries we just need ideology and propaganda in mass media, without any regime.
brg 5y ago
When large claims like this are made, I often compare them against my personal experience. When they disagree, I do bias towards my experience and use the skepticism to dig deeper in to the result in search for the nuance. However, for this discussion, my personal experience is surprisingly in line. I have worked with many colleagues whose primary decision to not have children is a result of worry over climate change. I have seen this response break up multiple marriages, motivate people to quit careers, and sprial in to depression.
kingdomcome50 5y ago
Wouldn't it be more accurate to ask how many people, who have had children, regret it because of the climate crisis? Most people are afraid to have kids (even those who ultimately decide to take the leap) - it's a big decision! And we know people are prone to rationalize their PoV using any plausible device necessary. So it's kind of hard to take this at face-value.

110 points by yboris 5y ago

Proven 5y ago

What crisis?

ryan93 5y ago

A lot of people will just use the popular issue of the day as an reason for their decision.

dash2 5y ago
Yeah, this is meaningless. Show me data where increased saliency of climate change actually reduces children born 9 months later. Otherwise the rule from economics applies here: "talk is cheap".
- rc_mob 5y ago
  your test makes no sense. it does not account for many variables.
  - dash2 5y ago
    Sure, it's a sketch of a research design, not a complete one. The point is that this paper makes little sense, because people will say any old thing.

TuringNYC 5y ago

Climate change is a problem, but the title isnt quite how i'd put it. The original paper is here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3918955 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3918955 The survey is specifically about climate change. If I wanted to know why people are fearing having children, i'd do a survey where people rank fears for that so we could see where climate change ranks, say, as compared to economics. I have friends and family in a number of the countries surveyed in this paper and I rarely hear about climate change as the reason for fearing having children, usually it is economics. This is not to say climate change isn't a problem, but I dont think this title accurately represents the subject.

newbamboo 5y ago
I don’t think fear is specific but becomes a generalized fear of things to come. Financial decline, global warming and other concerns sort of meld together. In the 1960s there was a song “eve of destruction” that expressed that generations fear mostly about nuclear war. They also had free love and lacked atomizing technology like we have today so the birth rate didn’t take such a hit.
jseliger 5y ago
I'm reminded of a recent Yglesias essay: https://www.slowboring.com/p/is-quiet-climate-policy-enough https://www.slowboring.com/p/is-quiet-climate-policy-enough: Most people don’t care much about climate Huge sums of money have been spent in an effort to will into existence a mass social movement to tackle climate change, and it basically hasn’t worked. You can get people out to a march, but the people who come are all-purpose leftist activists, which is why you have incredible trouble imposing message discipline and preventing people from showing up with “Free Palestine” and “Defund Police” signs. And you see it in the polling. Reuters did a survey recently that showed 69% of Americans say the United States should take “aggressive” action to combat climate change, but only 34% would be willing to pay $100 more per year in taxes to achieve that goal. A hundred bucks is not a lot of money. People spend that on Halloween decorations. A nice dinner date could cost you more than that. If you’re buying a car, the dealer tries to upsell you on fancy floor mats that cost more than $100. Years ago, I used to be a real carbon-pricing head. It seemed (and still does) like an elegant, important solution to a major problem. Leftists would yell at me that this was too much of a neoliberal, market-oriented thing. And they’ve completely won the argument over a carbon tax — everyone agrees that imposing a really stiff carbon price is just not in the cards. There are companies like Project Vesta that accept donations for carbon capture and storage: https://www.projectvesta.org/ https://www.projectvesta.org/, but I don't see them overwhelmed with interest. The most popular vehicles sold to individuals in the United States today are pickup trucks. Nuclear energy is spectacular for the climate but politically radioactive. Vegetarianism, or even just meat-consumption reduction, is a very minority pursuit. It's hard to square many of these facts with true, widespread concern about climate change. (Note that I'm not arguing that many of the cited trends are good or desirable: but it is important to understand something before critique.)

dhosek 5y ago

Anecdata, but: I have kids, but I worry about their future every day and had the decision point about having them come five years later, I think we almost certainly would not have had kids.

thehoff 5y ago
Same here. I wouldn't say climate change would be the sole reason but it is up there.
- neals 5y ago
  Care to share some other reasons? Just curious.
  - melenaboija 5y ago
    Disparity, non sustainable economic model, fierce professional competition, capitalist lifestyle, way different values than mine for new generations (maybe I don't understand them but in my opinion worst values).
  - dd36 5y ago
    Corruption, inability of Federal government to move the needle in the right direction anymore, disinformation, environmental destruction, everything is going in the wrong direction.
  - thehoff 5y ago
    Financial is definitely the top one. I often wonder if our child will ever be able to afford a home. Are we saving enough for college considering how fast tuition is going up. Between my wife and I we definitely have good incomes but as we look for homes even we struggle to find something in our range. This also leads me to wondering if we will have some sort of great unraveling at some point and how this would affect ours. Another big one and I'm not sure how to put it but the general state of media. We see other family with their kids on various platforms and it just seems so much to keep up with and we're dealing with just Youtube at this point. Every few days we're getting told about something what was watched which brings up the inevitable discussion of everything that is online is not true and the follow on of "what are you watching". I do constantly remind myself that my fears are most likely what many parents experience in some form or another and that this is just another generation. But many times I do wonder if we would have chosen to have kids today if we waited.

tlear 5y ago

People did not fear having kids in the middle of world wars, famines, genocides etc. My guess it is not fear of climate crisis but fear of responsibility + desire to spend money on themselves + ability to choose due to contraceptives. Is it not interesting that we are witnessing the biggest selection filter/pressure in human population since smallpox and black death? It is not purely genetic this time though, there is a huge cultural component, societies that do not breed do not survive.

Invictus0 5y ago
> People did not fear having kids in the middle of world wars, famines, genocides etc. Hmm, well that is completely and utterly wrong... Decrease in births during Irish famine: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3542599/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3542599/ Decrease in births during WW1: https://ww1.habsburger.net/en/chapters/dwindling-birth-rates-during-first-world-war https://ww1.habsburger.net/en/chapters/dwindling-birth-rates... Decrease in Uighur birth rate right now: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/extreme-drop-in-xinjiang-birth-rate-amid-claims-of-uighur-genocide-7smt8wclc https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/extreme-drop-in-xinjiang-...
- throwaway6734 5y ago
  One of these things is not like the other.
- tacocataco 5y ago
  I remember reading recently that Ireland finally reached pre famine population levels. Found the article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/31/ireland-population-surpasses-5m-for-first-time-since-1851 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/31/ireland-popula...
blacktriangle 5y ago
Yep, it's not fear of climate change, its fear of giving up on Tinder.

docdeek 5y ago

It’s interesting to look at the percentages. Across the countries surveyed three-quarters believe the future is frightening and more than half (56%) believe humanity is doomed, but less than 40% are hesitant to have children. Perhaps it is a pointer to our drive to reproduce that despite the vast majority finding the future frightening and most believing the species is doomed, most are not hesitant to bring kids into the world. :)

LinuxBender 5y ago
Could this be a sub-conscious part of human nature? The more dangerous the environment, the more children one is driven to produce thus increasing the probability that one may survive? I believe there were studies on this in some of the poorer nations with high rates of infant mortality but I don't have the links handy.
- JohnFen 5y ago
  It's an interesting thought. I know that the birth rate is strongly inversely correlated with standard of living. The higher the standard of living a nation has, the lower the birthrate tends to be.
roenxi 5y ago
In 1920 the future was frightening and humanity was obviously doomed. That future came to pass too. The future being scary and people being doomed is not a new thing. The 1980s-2020s were unusually pleasant. Ignoring the cold war in the 80s and the ongoing background evil from 1990 to 2020.
- wsc981 5y ago
  These end-of-time predictions are part of many religions and the new climate religion isn't much different in regard. Though Christianity was way ahead of the game [0]. --- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_ap...
5y ago

info781 5y ago

This is not what I hear. It is a golden age for women, they can have lots of kids or none, up to them, that is a great thing. Everywhere you go is far more crowded than 30 years ago, Europeans and people from South East Asia are very aware of that. People want to have fewer kids and educate those kids more. Climate change is important but not a direct factor.

zz865 5y ago
> Everywhere you go is far more crowded than 30 years ago, Its fascinating that I feel the same, but like many people I moved to a bigger city than my parents. But recently I've been spending a lot of time in old rural villages In NE USA and Eastern Europe (yeah weird combination) and they're all dying, empty houses no one wants to live any more, schools closing.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Schools are closing because there are no kids because nobody spends the child raising years of their life there, they spend them chasing money. Houses are empty because they are owned by out of state couples who spend 3wk/year there and have grand plans to retire there.
  - zz865 5y ago
    Houses are empty because no one wants them. I mean like this https://oldhousesunder50k.com/ https://oldhousesunder50k.com/

mawise 5y ago

Scott Alexander of Astral Codex Ten (formerly Slate Star Codex) wrote a piece on this topic as well: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/please-dont-give-up-on-having-kids https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/please-dont-give-up-on...

WithinReason 5y ago
He also has a nice table about all kinds of personal carbon costs (like having children): https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/carbon-costs-quantified https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/carbon-costs-quantifie...
- thatfrenchguy 5y ago
  First time I see a table about having children that is not assuming your kids and the next 20 generations will have the same CO2 emissions as you, interesting :)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
jnsaff2 5y ago
I don't find his reasoning terribly convincing though. First part boils down to the classic catholic strategy of "outbreed the enemy" with handwavy reasoning along the lines "worst things are not going to be happen to first world peoples". Some cherry picked factoids sprinkled here and there like sea level rise in SF and NYC. Total red herring. In Europe we already saw the migration crisis from Syria and how it was a great polarizing tool. There is no border wall that can be built (let alone be moral in any shape or form) to keep out billions of starving and misplaced from the global south and keep us in the first world nice any cozy. Then the part about the carbon cost of raising children goes to the tehcno-utopian realm of carbon capture with some really optimistic dollar numbers. I'm 40 and probably going to have kids, but if I were young I'd totally hold older generations feet to the fire and tell governments: "fuck you, if you don't get your shit together and start doing something meaningful about the climate catastrophe, I'm not going to have kids".

asah 5y ago

Fewer people = less impact. Adverse climate change is largely driven by man-made effects, and those effects are largely scaled to the number of people.

me_me_me 5y ago
Wow I think you just solve the global warming! We will just have to kill ourselves, can you pick a date?
- beardyw 5y ago
  I have to admit that it seems that a perfect world is probably a world without people in it. Though what does the word 'perfect' mean when there is no one to use it? [My existential thought for the day].
WithinReason 5y ago
The capacity to solve climate change is scaled by the number of people solving it.
- 1_player 5y ago
  Having a child doesn't mean they'll eventually go on working to solve climate change. If they don't, they'll actually make it (infinitesimally) worse by increasing resource consumption and carbon in the atmosphere. For all I know, my spawn might decide to work for Exxon Mobil.
  - WithinReason 5y ago
    The number of people solving a problem scales with the number of people available to solve it. Besides, if it's feasible to earn enough money to offset your own carbon footprint (e.g. by paying for carbon capture), it's possible to scale the solution by having more children who then offset their own carbon cost and more.
    - 5y ago

adenozine 5y ago

Of the young people I've talked to, I think income inequality is more the barring factor. I'm biased, as most of the young people I've "sampled" so to speak are either researchers or students of some kind, and so are generally more risk-averse and financially savvy. If I was 18-20ish today, is be VERY concerned about my possible earnings potential in the next, say 15-20 years. So much work will be automated, further consolidating wealth unto those fortunate enough to have some already, and the mythical "entry-level" bar leaps higher and higher. I've seen some of the preferred requirements for entry level programming jobs and it's already completely psychotic, I'd be scared shitless getting started in a market that looks like this, and will almost certainly get worse in the near future.

bojangleslover 5y ago
Absolute poverty has never been lower. And I would rather have kids now than in a more equal, but poorer on average, society. For the important things (health and safety) it's never been a better time to have kids.
- dd36 5y ago
  According to what average? In the US, it’s harder than ever to afford a family if you live in a big city. And the best jobs are in big cities. Edit: Growing up lots of kids had a stay at home parent. That doesn’t seem to exist anymore, which isn’t just bad for kids but for communities.
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    > the best jobs are in big cities. Will that still be true in 5 years after work from home is even more commonplace?
    - dijit 5y ago
      That's an absurd gamble. If it's true in 5 years then you potentially maximise your misery. If it's not then you might be happier, but the dynamics of things will have shifted greatly. When betting it's usually best to bet on the status quo continuing, that's why the odds on incumbents keeping power is always higher.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

davmonk 5y ago

It would be great if there's a law by which we can plant trees in every kid that will be born. In that small little way, we can drastically help our climate.

simiones 5y ago
Do you literally mean planting trees inside the children? Or is that an unfortunate typo? Either way, planting one tree for every child born would have negligible effect on climate change. I think we need billions of trees planted every year to make a significant dent.

atlasunshrugged 5y ago

I really get nervous that this is such a widely held POV. Yes, things are bad, probably they're going to get worse (but there's also a good chance they get better!), but not having kids seems extreme and a lot of folks seem to be tilting towards a degrowth mindset. Maybe I'm a techno-optimist but I think we're way beyond just being able to pause where we are or go back to stone age living and we should push forward and try to make a better world with technology and science. Maybe finally get some of those fusion reactors!

JohnFen 5y ago
In my opinion, a really huge factor making everything worse and harder to resolve is that there are simply too many people. A degrowth mindset is an important part of pushing forward to make a better world.
yodsanklai 5y ago
> we should push forward and try to make a better world with technology and science I'd argue that technology and science is the problem, not the solution. For instance, fusion reactors would simply give us more energy to destroy ecosystems faster than what we can do now.
lkrubner 5y ago
The so-called Great Stagnation, the lack of big technology breakthroughs since 1970, the stagnation in physics, the stagnation of wages, the slower rate of growth of productivity, the lack of automation, the political paralysis that has lead to 50 years of under-funded infrastructure, all of these things combine to make a pretty good case against techno-optimism. Many people found it natural to be techno-optimists in 1930, for obvious reasons, given what they had just lived through. But nowadays techno-optimism is a matter of pure faith, like a religion. The best book on this subject is "The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War" by Robert J. Gordon. https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-American-Growth-Princeton/dp/0691175802/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1B18IXJ9WV19A&dchild=1&keywords=the+rise+and+fall+of+american+growth&qid=1633961741&sprefix=the+rise+and+fall+of+american+%2Caps%2C190&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-American-Growth-Princeton/d...

ajay-b 5y ago

Really?? I believe in global warming and climate change, but it seems a bit extreme to forgo having children for that reason alone. Almost comically.

joeberon 5y ago
Well people are also moving past the notion that "forgoing have a children" is a comically extreme thing to do. Many young adults simply place little to no value on it now.

cletus 5y ago

The key part of this is that they surveyed 16 to 25 year olds. This is not the typical age demographic, particularly at the lower end, who are prioritizing having children anyway. If you've been on this Earth awhile you start to realize a few things. Here are two: 1. It's the nature of young people to think the world is going to Hell. Today it might be climate change. 50 years ago it was the Vietnam War. Make no mistake, these things matter but, in my experience, the younger of us almost always think things are far worse than they really are. Still, this is generally a positive as it's an agent for change; and 2. The older people also think the world is going to Hell but for different reasons: because it's changing. Older people get increasingly concerned with their legacy and fighting change, summarized nicely on Mad Men [1]. I have zero faith the world will come together and act altruistically on climate change or any other issue. You've seen ample evidence of this in the past 18 months where a significant portion of the population are willing to minorly inconvenience themselves (by wearing a mask and/or taking a vaccine with <1 in a million chance of a serious negative outcome) so they and other people won't die from what is now a preventable disease. And we expect these same people to pay the massive cost to fix climate change? There's literally no way. The only way climate change will be solved is if it becomes economic to do so. We'll replace fossil fuels with renewables when it's cheaper and not a moment before, as just one example. Circling back to the issue of worried young people: many people had children so someone would look after them when they're older. In the developed world, this is rapidly disappearing. Now what generally stops people is they simply can't afford it. Not big issues like climate change. I compare how cheaply I could live when I was in university and it's so much worse now. We're making living so expensive that at some point there'll be no one to hand all the accumulated wealth down to. [1]: https://twitter.com/madmenqts/status/739854907918946304?lang=en https://twitter.com/madmenqts/status/739854907918946304?lang...

jb1991 5y ago
Exactly -- most generations have had good reasons to think their generation was having it worse than all previous generations. Imagine growing up and doing duck and cover drills under your school desks as a child because of the threat of Cold War nukes. Imagine the Spanish Flu. Imagine what Americans experienced in the Civil War. And these are only relatively recent examples. Plenty more going back centuries. There are always reasons to be scared.

Jyaif 5y ago

Interestingly, this is a case of natural selection making things worse: The people not worried about an incoming disaster keep reproducing, while the people worried stop reproducing.

robjan 5y ago
Caring about the environment is more likely related to nurture than nature.
lvass 5y ago
Fearful people have much higher tendency to become bureaucrats. Maybe that's a good thing.

joeberon 5y ago

This was a major factor in my wife and I's decision not to have a child, second only to the stress it would put on our lives to have one, which we would rather do without (I'm not convinced I'm emotionally strong enough to deal with a child) I do know a lot of people who are not having children for similar reasons EDIT: There's also a lack of the idea that it's worth having children, i.e. many people don't believe there is any intrinsic value in having a child like they used to

Supernaut 5y ago
> many people don't believe there is any intrinsic value in having a child Okay, wow. So they're indifferent to the notion of homo sapiens becoming extinct?
- joeberon 5y ago
  1. Many people now also don't really place any intrinsic value in human life compared to other animal life or the planet in general. I.e. a lot of people don't believe humans are superior or especially worth being preserved 2. Enough people are still having children that it seems unlikely extinction will occur due to their own decision to not have children
- gorbachev 5y ago
  There are 8 billion people on this planet. I think the humankind will do just fine with a few people deciding not to have kids. In fact, it'd probably be for the better, if more people thought the same, given that we have 8 billion people on the planet.
  - Supernaut 5y ago
    I will certainly agree that it is for the better if people who see no intrinsic value in children do not become parents.
    - joeberon 5y ago
      Well I don't really see intrinsic value in anything (I'm a Buddhist), but that isn't what I said, I said intrinsic value _compared to other species_. I meant that many people don't see humans as superior to other animals or to plants.

GaylordTuring 5y ago

I don't understand how people can put climate change out of all things to be afraid of. It's definitely an issue, but for me, it doesn't even make it in the top-10. I would, for example, be much, much more concerned that at any point, humankind is capable of launching an intercontinental nuclear war that would disrupt the entire civilization and create a multi-decade nuclear winter that would kill off whoever made it through round 1. That seems more scary to me than an extremely slow change that would force us to grow banans instead of potatoes and move from the beaches.

joeberon 5y ago
Climate change is demonstrably happening and already having drastic effects right now. Nuclear war is a thing that may or may not happen, but there's no sign right now that it would, so it's a distant hypothetical, much like being hit by a random meteor. It's obvious that the thing happening right now, continuously being reported on, would produce more concern.
DerArzt 5y ago
For me it is that climate change could be the trigger of many future conflicts (climate migration, water wars).
simiones 5y ago
> That seems more scary to me than an extremely slow change that would force us to grow banans instead of potatoes and move from the beaches. Then you haven't been paying attention. It's not about growing bananas where today we grow potatoes, it's about what happens in the areas where today we grow bananas. Those areas will become literally uninhabitable for large parts of the year in the next 50-100 years at the current rates of carbon emission, and the billion+ people living in those areas will move elsewhere. Looking at how the minute amount of migrants from Libya and Syria were received in some of the wealthiest countries in the world (~1 million people reaching Europe and throwing it into a political crisis), the effect of 3 orders of magnitude more migration will be devastating, and are one of the main reasons for imagining that nuclear war you fear (especially given India, Pakistan, and China have nuclear weapons, and will be at the forefront of this massive migration from Bangladesh and their own coastal areas). All this will happen, most likely even if we reduce emissions to 0 today. Perhaps it will be limited to a few hundred million instead of more than a billion if we reach some goals of the Paris agreement, but even that is unlikely to actually happen.

rajin444 5y ago

Probably not a popular opinion, but if climate crisis is even on your radar you’re likely the type of person that society needs to reproduce. I’m not sure if there’s a term for this ironic situation but it feels like there should be.

jliptzin 5y ago
Yea I agree, I think we'll be even worse off if only the anti-science crowd decides to procreate...
- joeberon 5y ago
  I think it has been pretty standard throughout history for less educated/skilled people to have more children, although now the problem is that since both parents of the family are skilled and working full time, they have much less time to raise a significant number of children.
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    It's been standard in the last fifty years because of contraceptives and education about how to use contraceptives. But before contraceptives, I don't see why a skew would emerge. I read that in the Jewish community a long time ago it was the rabbis that had the most kids only because they could afford to raise them.
    - joeberon 5y ago
      "Before contraceptives" isn't really a thing, we have evidence of contraception methods being used from 1850BC... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_control#Early_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_control#Early_history
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  Check and check, now all we need is the “Idiocracy was a documentary“ comment to complete the “well, I can’t come right out and say that I think eugenics makes sense” veiled discussion. I’m sure all the people that agree with you are lockstep in thoughts an ideology with their parents, right?

mattlondon 5y ago

How much carbon does having a child emit? I've seen suggestions that it is about 60t a year that sounds absolutely absurd when the average per adult is 13t (in the UK). So a child that is physically much smaller than me (and so needs less food to eat, less material for clothing etc), and lives in the same house as me (so benefits from the same heating that I have on anyway, the same lighting that I have on anyway) and goes to the same places as me when I drive around anyway, somehow emits over 400% carbon in the process? How does that work out?

NortySpock 5y ago
"less material for clothing etc" Kids grow out of clothes and shoes, so you need new clothes that fit them. You tend to buy them toys and safety equipment and possibly electronics to entertain them. They break things at a much higher rate than regular adults. They want to go play with their friends, which if you live in the suburbs sometimes means driving.
- OldHand2018 5y ago
  Having 1 child with no cousins is going to be expensive, but like much else, there are economies in scale. My siblings and cousins have always just passed around clothes as children grow out of them. By the time an article of clothing makes it out of the family, it has likely been worn by 3-4 kids. And then you sell it or give it away. Sure, some stuff wears out or is destroyed, but you'd be surprised how little. Just stay away from all that pop culture crap where most of the money goes to licensing fees ;)
benhurmarcel 5y ago
You need to account for all the carbon they will emit over their whole lifetime, as well as all their future descendants.
jliptzin 5y ago
Maybe because they don't stop emitting carbon when they move out at 18? And then go on to have kids and grandkids of their own, who in turn also emit more carbon?

float4 5y ago

This probably has to do with experiencing certain news during your formative years. People of my age (I'm ~25 years old) seem to prioritise job security over virtually anything else because in their early formative years the financial crisis took place.[0] I still remember watching the news / discussing the papers every evening with my dad (he's an economist), and it was always about people losing their jobs, homes, savings, pensions. I still vividly remember that pale image of a "For sale" sign that the Dutch news broadcaster regularly used when they talked about the housing market. I think that the young children of today experience the same thing. We talk about how the earth is heating up. How the permafrost is melting. How the sea level is rising (this one is especially fun in the Netherlands given that most of the country is below sea level). How people, animals, entire species will die. A person who's roughly my age or older is able to understand the severity of the situation, but at the same time is able to understand that there are things we can do, and that we are in fact doing things, which makes me hopeful. But I can't help but feel a little for the 10 year olds of today who watch the news every evening with their dads. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20210303125901/https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2019/05/08/generatie-z-gaat-door-door-door-a3959505 https://web.archive.org/web/20210303125901/https://www.nrc.n... (It's in Dutch, sorry)

effie 5y ago
I wouldn't let my 10 year old children watch/listen to "news". That's too young for such toxic influence.

BitwiseFool 5y ago

For me, there is a profound idea that results from a simple premise: Every single one of my ancestors reproduced before they died. From the dawn of life on Earth, each generation of my ancestry managed to survive every single thing the world threw at them. Wars, famines, plagues, asteroids, mass-extinctions, climate changes, and so on. When I think about the tenacity of life - particularly that of my ancestors - I feel guilty that I do not have children of my own. It feels downright selfish to say "I'd be more comfortable with my modern dopamine faucet than to raise a new generation", or, "Sorry family tree, this branch just doesn't feel like playing the game anymore".

giantg2 5y ago
I guess the deeper question is why you feel you owe that to them? Would the gift of life from your ancestors be selfish if it was given to you with the assumption that you would pass on their genes? If it's a true gift to you, then they should be happy for you to use it freely in whatever way you choose.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  It's hard to say exactly where this sentiment of mine comes from. Culturally, I am influenced by the Eastern philosophical virtue of filial piety. It also doesn't help that my parents, grandparents, and extended family all ask about when I plan to finally have children. You could say that I feel the way I do out of cultural obligation, that certainly plays a role, but it also feels like something I genuinely want for myself by my own desire. Who knows, maybe the degree of desire to have children is itself something genetic and heritable?
Trasmatta 5y ago
You have also had countless family members in your family tree that didn't reproduce. (Not your direct ancestors of course, but their family members.) Choosing not to reproduce is also a perfectly valid and natural choice. Not arguing for whether you should or shouldn't, but the fact that your direct ancestors did shouldn't be the reason that you do.

kingdomcome50 5y ago

I wonder if there is any research into the phenomenon (if it even exists!) where people skew attribution of their decisions towards a factor[1] that could be an influence, but actually is not relevant in their decision-making process? I ask the above because, to me, this reads more like a "justification after the fact" kind of result. Certainly climate change could be a reasonable justification for not wanting children (it certainly sounds noble!), but I have a feeling that fears of responsibility, change, or economics are a FAR more likely list of reasons people don't want children. Not only have the above factors existed forever, I highly doubt the people claiming climate change is such a severe stress to them that they won't have kids (when they otherwise would!) are the same people actively living their lives in a way to maximally mitigate their impact to the climate. That is, putting as much time, energy, and money into fighting climate change as it would take to raise a child. If not... well... it kind of reads hollow to me. More like a convenient, plausible excuse that sounds nice. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope not. Not having kids isn't the solution. Having kids and teaching them about their responsibility to our climate will workout better in the long-run. Because while you, the environmentally conscious steward, are busy not raising the next generation, the people who don't give a shit are still procreating. [1] Like climate change

rosmax_1337 5y ago

Idiocracy Opening Scene (2006): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2tUW0HDHA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2tUW0HDHA

t0bia_s 5y ago

In China, they have communist regime for "birth control". In Western countries we just need ideology and propaganda in mass media, without any regime.

brg 5y ago

When large claims like this are made, I often compare them against my personal experience. When they disagree, I do bias towards my experience and use the skepticism to dig deeper in to the result in search for the nuance. However, for this discussion, my personal experience is surprisingly in line. I have worked with many colleagues whose primary decision to not have children is a result of worry over climate change. I have seen this response break up multiple marriages, motivate people to quit careers, and sprial in to depression.

kingdomcome50 5y ago

Wouldn't it be more accurate to ask how many people, who have had children, regret it because of the climate crisis? Most people are afraid to have kids (even those who ultimately decide to take the leap) - it's a big decision! And we know people are prone to rationalize their PoV using any plausible device necessary. So it's kind of hard to take this at face-value.