13 ms·

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 h

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.)
- fulafel 5y ago
  Carbon pricing works and is an everyday thing over here in Europe & UK: https://ember-climate.org/data/carbon-price-viewer/ https://ember-climate.org/data/carbon-price-viewer/
  - giantg2 5y ago
    One thing I question, is the equity of this solution. Don't the pricing solutions essentially price out lower income people while allowing the wealthy to be largely unaffected? It seems that would lead to a more stratified society. If it's really about reducing emissions, why not force the wealthy to use the alternatives that the lower class are economically forced to use?
    - fulafel 5y ago
      We also have fairly big income transfers in many countries, making this a somewhat orthogonal question.
    - MrPatan 5y ago
      You showed up with the wrong sign.
    - jsmith45 5y ago
      The fundamental idea of carbon pricing is that businesses right now have basically no disincentive to spewing out as much CO2 as they want, except possibly for angering a relatively small amount of people who care strongly about the environment. Why on earth would they voluntary spend the money to needed to reduce their carbon footprint? (unless they determine it is cheap enough to buy offsets or whatever to be able to call themselves carbon neutral for marketing purposes.) This also means that development of sustainable alternatives is often slowed, as they will cost more at first, even if they happen to end up being less expensive in the long run (which is unlikely to be true in all cases, but which could potentially be true in a few specific scenarios). But what are the alternatives? Simply outlawing burning of gasoline effective on some future date will be no more equitable. Putting a strict quota system on companies would also cause prices to rise and be unequitable to. I don't see any realistically implementable system that does not potentially cause prices to rise, and obviously rising prices on most goods disproportionately affects lower income people.
klyrs 5y ago
The title isn't quite how I put it, but I did make a deliberate choice to not reproduce specifically because I didn't want to bring a child into an environment that's on the brink of collapse... I don't "fear having children," I fear what they'll be forced to endure. I ended up with a kid anyway, because I fell in love with him and his mom, and he's better off with the added stability (and my granola upbringing comes with wilderness survival skills that his bio parents don't bring to the table... which... I hope will help)
- kingdomcome50 5y ago
  > an environment that's on the brink of collapse This is such a skewed PoV of the world today. In so many ways the world is the best it's ever been: Poverty, violent crime, etc. (the list really does go on and on). This is especially true if you live in a developed nation. So I'm not really sure what you think a child will have to "endure" aside from all of the great joys life can bring! We can even just focus on climate change. The "worst case scenario" most scientist project isn't really even that bad. Sure there will be worst weather events etc., but society isn't going to "collapse". And what about you? If society "collapsed' in your lifetime, would you really rather have not lived at all? I'm not suggesting your anxiety about the current state affairs isn't the motivation for your decision (although it is a convenient scapegoat), rather, that your anxiety may not be all that rational and you may want to revisit your decision from time to time!
  - klyrs 5y ago
    You paint a rosy picture of today, but I'm concerned about the future. Among other things, I expect my kid to see the gulf stream to collapse, and a blue ocean event. Just this year, my area saw an unprecedented heat wave that killed hundreds of people; this is expected to get worse in the years to come. I never had to stay inside during the summer, my kid might need to spend weeks indoors before high school (four days this year). I'm not ready to predict that entire summers will be that dangerous in the pacific northwest, but maybe so in hotter climes. Politically, the US seems to be gearing up for civil war. Global warming might rapidly flip to an ice age. International conflicts are warming up, and the saber-rattling between the US, Russia, China, and various parties in the middle east is reaching a tenor that's unprecedented in my lifetime. If we have a chance at reversing the climate disaster, it will take an unprecedented level of international cooperation, and I just don't believe that citizens or politicians are ready to get their collective shit together. > ... your anxiety may not be all that rational and you may want to revisit your decision from time to time! The die has been cast. I can no longer procreate. I did revisit my decision, and I'm glad to be a (step) parent. If I want more kids, fostering is an option. You might want to reconsider your optimism from time to time, shit's getting real and we don't have a brake pedal.

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.)

fulafel 5y ago
Carbon pricing works and is an everyday thing over here in Europe & UK: https://ember-climate.org/data/carbon-price-viewer/ https://ember-climate.org/data/carbon-price-viewer/
- giantg2 5y ago
  One thing I question, is the equity of this solution. Don't the pricing solutions essentially price out lower income people while allowing the wealthy to be largely unaffected? It seems that would lead to a more stratified society. If it's really about reducing emissions, why not force the wealthy to use the alternatives that the lower class are economically forced to use?
  - fulafel 5y ago
    We also have fairly big income transfers in many countries, making this a somewhat orthogonal question.
  - MrPatan 5y ago
    You showed up with the wrong sign.
  - jsmith45 5y ago
    The fundamental idea of carbon pricing is that businesses right now have basically no disincentive to spewing out as much CO2 as they want, except possibly for angering a relatively small amount of people who care strongly about the environment. Why on earth would they voluntary spend the money to needed to reduce their carbon footprint? (unless they determine it is cheap enough to buy offsets or whatever to be able to call themselves carbon neutral for marketing purposes.) This also means that development of sustainable alternatives is often slowed, as they will cost more at first, even if they happen to end up being less expensive in the long run (which is unlikely to be true in all cases, but which could potentially be true in a few specific scenarios). But what are the alternatives? Simply outlawing burning of gasoline effective on some future date will be no more equitable. Putting a strict quota system on companies would also cause prices to rise and be unequitable to. I don't see any realistically implementable system that does not potentially cause prices to rise, and obviously rising prices on most goods disproportionately affects lower income people.

klyrs 5y ago

The title isn't quite how I put it, but I did make a deliberate choice to not reproduce specifically because I didn't want to bring a child into an environment that's on the brink of collapse... I don't "fear having children," I fear what they'll be forced to endure. I ended up with a kid anyway, because I fell in love with him and his mom, and he's better off with the added stability (and my granola upbringing comes with wilderness survival skills that his bio parents don't bring to the table... which... I hope will help)

kingdomcome50 5y ago
> an environment that's on the brink of collapse This is such a skewed PoV of the world today. In so many ways the world is the best it's ever been: Poverty, violent crime, etc. (the list really does go on and on). This is especially true if you live in a developed nation. So I'm not really sure what you think a child will have to "endure" aside from all of the great joys life can bring! We can even just focus on climate change. The "worst case scenario" most scientist project isn't really even that bad. Sure there will be worst weather events etc., but society isn't going to "collapse". And what about you? If society "collapsed' in your lifetime, would you really rather have not lived at all? I'm not suggesting your anxiety about the current state affairs isn't the motivation for your decision (although it is a convenient scapegoat), rather, that your anxiety may not be all that rational and you may want to revisit your decision from time to time!
- klyrs 5y ago
  You paint a rosy picture of today, but I'm concerned about the future. Among other things, I expect my kid to see the gulf stream to collapse, and a blue ocean event. Just this year, my area saw an unprecedented heat wave that killed hundreds of people; this is expected to get worse in the years to come. I never had to stay inside during the summer, my kid might need to spend weeks indoors before high school (four days this year). I'm not ready to predict that entire summers will be that dangerous in the pacific northwest, but maybe so in hotter climes. Politically, the US seems to be gearing up for civil war. Global warming might rapidly flip to an ice age. International conflicts are warming up, and the saber-rattling between the US, Russia, China, and various parties in the middle east is reaching a tenor that's unprecedented in my lifetime. If we have a chance at reversing the climate disaster, it will take an unprecedented level of international cooperation, and I just don't believe that citizens or politicians are ready to get their collective shit together. > ... your anxiety may not be all that rational and you may want to revisit your decision from time to time! The die has been cast. I can no longer procreate. I did revisit my decision, and I'm glad to be a (step) parent. If I want more kids, fostering is an option. You might want to reconsider your optimism from time to time, shit's getting real and we don't have a brake pedal.