Climate cowardice

[Jamiet99uk]

What if I wanted far fewer people to have children, in order to improve the chances of the human race overall?

[Octavious]

Then pushing the line that having children is immoral would be a deeply flawed way of going about it, as if you were successful you would create a future in which humanity was populated solely from families without morality and humanity will go to hell in a handcart in short order.

Besides which the human population is about to fall off a cliff soon anyway. It's a problem at least as big as climate change

[orathaic]

Then pushing the line that having children is immoral would be a deeply flawed way of going about it, as if you were successful you would create a future in which humanity was populated solely from families without morality and humanity will go to hell in a handcart in short order.

Besides which the human population is about to fall off a cliff soon anyway. It's a problem at least as big as climate change

You are making the rsther erroneous assumption that birth families are the only thing which influences a child's moral sense. Culture is deeper than just that.

Also, you are making the massive assumption about success, if we can assume some unrealistic level of success, then we can also assume that society would remove children from those who choose to have them and foster them out to those who have proven thry are more responcible (although we already have a school system which cares for children a significant portion of the day, maybe just banning teachers from having families of their own would be enough).

[orathaic]

<Snip>
But to not have children and to wish for the rest of society to do the same is fundamentally different. It is as far away from natural evolution as you can get. Comparable to suicidal thoughts and similar mental illness.

This is a fair and bakid point. But not as encouraging as you may think.

It sucks but taking your own life is often the best option left to a person. It sucks because that means they can only see suffering in their life and their brain can't see any other releaae from that suffering.

Now if you want to minimise suffering, then not having children is a sure way to do that. And it may be equivalent on a species wide scale to taking your own life, but people do that all the time.

So I don't see in principle why a 90 or 99% reduction in population wouldn't be managable (so that the next generation never exists to suffer). In fact there are ways in which it is more appealing rstionally to avoid that suffering than having millions of people lose hope and taking their own lives or a slow decay as economies grind to a halt. So i can see Jamies point, even if i have chosen to have children of my own.

[Jamiet99uk]

Back to the main issue:
BBC News - World breaches key 1.5C warming mark for record number of days
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-66857354

[Jamiet99uk]

Human citization is fucked.

[orathaic]

Interesting video discussing the issues, and in particular whether the general public are over or under reacting.

https://youtu.be/Gs-ed1CEokc?si=BqkD8wG62F-cK6nf

[worcej]

What if I wanted far fewer people to have children, in order to improve the chances of the human race overall?

There is nothing wrong with thinking this - acting on it is problematic.

[worcej]

This whole conversation was an interesting read of opinions. I am more aligned personally with what flash has been saying, but do respect the high levels of concern that Jamie has expressed.

To me, the key is actual economic and energy policies to promote infrastructure. Take California as an example - they have the 2030 targets for electric cars without the electric infrastructure to support it. California already has to purchase power from other states, so where is this extra power going to come from? Fossil fuels.

[orathaic]

What if I wanted far fewer people to have children, in order to improve the chances of the human race overall?

There is nothing wrong with thinking this - acting on it is problematic.

Not sure why you think this us problematic.

People choose to not have children all the time. The current economic system almost guarentees it (selfish consumption driven life-styles where advertising Creates unhealthy aspirations and work culture demands soo much time that raising a family is prohibitive - or done by a paid employee)

[worcej]

What if I wanted far fewer people to have children, in order to improve the chances of the human race overall?

There is nothing wrong with thinking this - acting on it is problematic.

Not sure why you think this us problematic.

People choose to not have children all the time. The current economic system almost guarentees it (selfish consumption driven life-styles where advertising Creates unhealthy aspirations and work culture demands soo much time that raising a family is prohibitive - or done by a paid employee)

When I say “acting on it” I should have been more clear about establishing governmental policy to enforce population controls.

If you don’t want to have kids, you do you. There are plenty of fundamentalist crazies that will make up for your lack of birthing…

[worcej]

My biggest annoyance is the “energy credit” philosophy that truly doesn’t actually improve the GHG emissions on the planet - it just allows one place (California as an example) to boast about being green while simultaneously utilizing additional energy from another state, say mine (Idaho) that has increased their energy throughput by firing back up more fossil fuel power plants.

In my neck of the woods, there are a bunch of dumbasses pushing to remove dams because of the impacts on local salmon populations. And maybe this is just a mean opinion of my own, but fuck the salmon. I would much rather have clean, non fossil fuel energy over the fucking fish.

[orathaic]

My biggest annoyance is the “energy credit” philosophy that truly doesn’t actually improve the GHG emissions on the planet - it just allows one place (California as an example) to boast about being green while simultaneously utilizing additional energy from another state, say mine (Idaho) that has increased their energy throughput by firing back up more fossil fuel power plants.

In my neck of the woods, there are a bunch of dumbasses pushing to remove dams because of the impacts on local salmon populations. And maybe this is just a mean opinion of my own, but fuck the salmon. I would much rather have clean, non fossil fuel energy over the fucking fish.

It is not a "energy credit philosophy" it is a free markets philosophy.

Make everything into a market... Because vital things which humans rely on for survival are just fine to leave go through bubble and burst mechanisms...

But as fot the Salmon. Biodiversity is important.

Ecology (which sadly is seen as not including humans and economic study) teachs how everything is interconnected. Reintroduce wolves to national parks and the shapes of the rivers change (due to knock on effects, deer behaviour, trampling of long grasses, changes in other predators, and eventually beaver populations moving). And once you break them, they may be irrepairable (or more relevantly, it may take half a million years to the same level of complexity to re-emerge).

And sadly for us, humans are part of the ecosystem.

[Jamiet99uk]

My biggest annoyance is the “energy credit” philosophy that truly doesn’t actually improve the GHG emissions on the planet - it just allows one place (California as an example) to boast about being green while simultaneously utilizing additional energy from another state, say mine (Idaho) that has increased their energy throughput by firing back up more fossil fuel power plants.

Strongly agree. Carbon credits are a sham, and not a real solution to anything.

[worcej]

My biggest annoyance is the “energy credit” philosophy that truly doesn’t actually improve the GHG emissions on the planet - it just allows one place (California as an example) to boast about being green while simultaneously utilizing additional energy from another state, say mine (Idaho) that has increased their energy throughput by firing back up more fossil fuel power plants.

In my neck of the woods, there are a bunch of dumbasses pushing to remove dams because of the impacts on local salmon populations. And maybe this is just a mean opinion of my own, but fuck the salmon. I would much rather have clean, non fossil fuel energy over the fucking fish.

It is not a "energy credit philosophy" it is a free markets philosophy.

Make everything into a market... Because vital things which humans rely on for survival are just fine to leave go through bubble and burst mechanisms...

But as fot the Salmon. Biodiversity is important.

Ecology (which sadly is seen as not including humans and economic study) teachs how everything is interconnected. Reintroduce wolves to national parks and the shapes of the rivers change (due to knock on effects, deer behaviour, trampling of long grasses, changes in other predators, and eventually beaver populations moving). And once you break them, they may be irrepairable (or more relevantly, it may take half a million years to the same level of complexity to re-emerge).

And sadly for us, humans are part of the ecosystem.

I look at it as prioritizing - what’s more important, GHG emission control, or loss of natural salmon spawns?