‘I am starting to panic about my child’s future’: climate scientists wary of starting families ( www.theguardian.com )

A fifth of female climate scientists who responded to Guardian survey said they had opted to have no or fewer children

Ihad the hormonal urges,” said Prof Camille Parmesan, a leading climate scientist based in France. “Oh my gosh, it was very strong. But it was: ‘Do I really want to bring a child into this world that we’re creating?’ Even 30 years ago, it was very clear the world was going to hell in a handbasket. I’m 62 now and I’m actually really glad I did not have children.”

Parmesan is not alone. An exclusive Guardian survey has found that almost a fifth of the female climate experts who responded have chosen to have no children, or fewer children, due to the environmental crises afflicting the world.

…

An Indian scientist who chose to be anonymous decided to adopt rather than have children of her own. “There are too many children in India who do not get a fair chance and we can offer that to someone who is already born,” she said. “We are not so special that our genes need to be transmitted: values matter more.”

troed ,
@troed@fedia.io avatar

"Current policies alone likely keep warming below 3°C (5.4°F), nowhere near the “worst-case” scenarios."

  • Dr Michael Mann, rather well-known climate scientist

https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/202310/backpage.cfm

walter_wiggles ,

So only most of us die instead of all of us?

troed ,
@troed@fedia.io avatar

You might want to read the article. Doomism isn't climate science.

uberdroog ,
@uberdroog@lemmy.world avatar

Nobel prize-winning climate scientist

dot0 , (edited )

you might wanna read the article.

We can avoid catastrophic climate impacts if we take meaningful actions to address the climate crisis. Yes, that’s an important “if.”

this asshole buried the actual crux of the issue way deep in the fluff. these two sentences contradict the headline.

which part of what is currently happening in the world is making you pretend that the "if" qualification is being even remotely met?

troed ,
@troed@fedia.io avatar

The whole point of the article (written by Mann) is that the policies already in place keeps us below 3 degrees.

Regarding your "currently happening", this quote seems fitting:

"I often encounter, especially on social media, individuals who are convinced that the latest extreme weather event is confirmation that the climate crisis is far worse than we thought, and scientists and climate communicators are intentionally “hiding” the scary truth from the public. It is the sort of conspiratorial thinking that we used to find among climate change deniers, but increasingly today we see it with climate doomists."

Do you consider yourself better educated on climate science than Mann?

dot0 , (edited )

point of order, madam speaker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

I do appear to have better reading comprehension than Mann expected from his audience. otherwise he wouldn't have have tried something underhanded like that.

tell me, do you place value in peer review and consensus when it comes to science? you know Mann is out of step with scientific consensus in his view, yeah? I am inclined to believe you've cherry picked the one opinion piece which affirms a pre-existing perspective on your part.

also I adore that you completely failed to acknowledge a direct question I posed to you: which part of what is happening in the world right now is causing you to behave like Mann's "if" condition is fulfilled in any way whatsoever? I want an answer from you in your own words. don't quote an appeal to authority again.

troed ,
@troed@fedia.io avatar

What's with all the climate science deniers here downvoting a statement from an actual climate scientist ... !?

dot0 ,

you're trying too hard. read the article again, this author is lying to you.

troed ,
@troed@fedia.io avatar

"this author" being Dr Michael Mann, climate scientist.

Why do you claim Mann is lying?

dot0 ,

Mann being a human being who is not infallible, yes that Mann.

I am the same person from the other thread where I quoted to you the the bit in the article where Mann does intellectual dishonesty.

giving your opinion piece a clickbait and dishonest headline, and then burying two sentences deep in the body of the text which contradict your headline, is incompetent at best and corrupt at worst.

shuzuko ,

It's because we have brains and can read further than the headline 🤷🏻‍♀️

NounsAndWords ,

Hey I found this cool post from that guy you're quoting.
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/2820818f-c370-47a0-87dc-d534bdb50447.png

Skua ,

As the article correctly points out, 3 C warming is still really fucking bad. Just because it can technically be worse and we won't all die does not mean it'll be nice to live through. Bringing about the extinction of 29% of all species is madness. To quote the article:

"The most comprehensive and authoritative assessment of risk across all sectors — health, food, water, conflict, poverty, and the natural ecosystem — by the IPCC in 2018 basically concluded that we don’t want to warm the planet beyond 1.5°C (2.7°F), and we really don’t want to warm it beyond 2°C (3.6°F). And if we do happen to overshoot those targets, we want to keep the duration of overshoot to a minimum."

HubertManne ,

yeah and this is through the narrow lens of just temperature. If there was no climate change we would still be pretty effed up due to habitat loss and pollution and such. Climate change is just sorta a knock on effect.

DarkThoughts ,

"Current policies alone likely keep warming below 3°C (5.4°F), nowhere near the “worst-case” scenarios."

Dr Michael Mann, rather well-known climate scientist

https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/202310/backpage.cfm

3 degrees Celsius is already social collapse type of threateningly bad.
Sure, we might not go extinct (aka the "worst case", although tipping points could bring us the rest of the way there), but that doesn't mean we'll enjoy any sort of comfortable and stable life.
We'd see major food and water shortages, we'd see terrible weather events such as prolonged droughts and massive flooding, we'd see vast areas of the equator becoming unlivable hellscapes, we'd see hundreds of thousands climate refugees, we'd see hundreds of thousands climate fatalities, we'd see exploding prices in every single sector, we'd see civil unrest dismantling the very fabric of our societies.

So maybe inform yourself what those 3 degrees would actually mean for the world.

You might want to read the article. Doomism isn't climate science.

Highly ironic considering of your cherry picking and hiding of the truth. The author very much points out that the hope there is if we finally take action, consequently limiting us to not even reach those 3 degrees Celsius, which so far is still not happening.

We can avoid catastrophic climate impacts if we take meaningful actions to address the climate crisis.

But frankly, what you're doing is even worse, because you simply call everyone a "doomer" who literally just wants the world to take the proper action needed to tackle this crisis, to even properly ACKNOWLEDGE this crisis. None of this is happening. Just because I think we're fucked, does not mean I am not doing my part. My footprint is ridiculously small even compared to your average one person household, and there's a lot of people in the middle and upper class who live so much worse due to their lavish lifestyles.

PP_BOY_ ,
@PP_BOY_@lemmy.world avatar

Something something literally Idiocracy (2006)

zcd , (edited )

+ Don't look up

blackbelt352 ,

At least the president in Idocracy had the humility and self awareness let the smartest guy in the room advise him on policy.

No_Eponym ,
@No_Eponym@lemmy.ca avatar

I donno, you really think that guy was that smart? He wanted to give plants water. Like, you know, what is in the toilet.

Daft_ish ,

Seriously. Plants crave Brawndo.

feedum_sneedson ,

Yeah, you quote that meme! Don't go having any original thoughts there champ!

SreudianFlip ,

Hmmm, what would Krishnamurti do?

WhatAmLemmy ,

1/5th is low, and doesn't appear very different to the general female population.

This really just highlights the underlying problem and why our "efforts" are destined to amount to little more than shuffling deck chairs on the titanic — humans are selfish, and most of us are not willing to make major sacrifices to avert disaster; hell, most struggle to accept minor inconveniences.

maegul ,
@maegul@lemmy.ml avatar

most struggle to accept minor inconveniences.

This is the really jaw dropping thing whenever I see it. I just have no idea what to say and don’t get how people don’t have an instinct for when there might be a bigger picture.

Some are really cruising through life just trying to maximise convenience and comfort.

PopOfAfrica , (edited )

COVID lockdowns demonstrated that we could kick climate change with enough will power. Id start by mandating work from home where possible.

homesweethomeMrL ,

Exactly so.

areyouevenreal ,

COVID lockdowns weren't sustainable and while they reduced pollution to some extent they didn't come close to eliminating it. Like in my country we turned off coal, but only because we don't have much coal to begin with. We were still using plenty of gas power, as that's our second largest energy source. Here in the UK our largest energy source is Wind, and we aren't even doing that well compared to France or Spain on the energy front.

Things also still got manufactured and sold, and that's where a lot of pollution comes from. Food and goods production. Eliminating transport pollution would help for sure, but it's like 14% of the problem. Electricity generation, heating, and agriculture are the things we need to fix the most. Fixing electricity generation would also help with transport emissions as we could use more electric vehicles and trains.

catloaf ,

Is that really surprising to you?

DarkThoughts ,

due to the environmental crises afflicting the world

You're removing the context behind the reasoning. Unless you're claiming 1/5th of the general female population does not want to have kids due to climate change as well.

WhatAmLemmy ,

I was referring to the general female population not having kids for any reason.

A quick search resulted in articles indicating that the average for the 21st century is somewhere between 1/6 - 1/9 around the developed world. One would expect the people most aware of how fucked the future will be would be dramatically less likely to expose their own children to that — not 20-80% less likely.

grue ,

humans are selfish, and most of us are not willing to make major sacrifices to avert disaster

I am sick and tired of this cynical bullshit argument. It's wrong in two ways (and neither are the way you think):

  1. It assumes that we have to reduce our standard of living in order to reduce our fossil fuels consumption, instead of innovating
  2. It presumes that the lifestyle changes that we do have to make (e.g. higher density zoning and walkablity) represent some kind of deprivation, rather than the improvement they would actually be.
bleistift2 ,

no or fewer children

So… they killed other people’s children?

Kalothar ,

Gotta fight climate change somehow

lechatron ,
@lechatron@lemmy.today avatar

Climate scientists out here doing 40+ week abortions.

prayer ,

Adopting counts as -1?

explodicle ,

Fewer than they otherwise would have had.

autotldr Bot ,

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Ninety-seven female scientists responded, with 17, including women from Brazil, Chile, Germany, India and Kenya, saying they had chosen to have fewer children.

Most of the female scientists interviewed had made their decisions about children in past decades, when they were younger and the grave danger of global heating was less apparent.

They said they had not wanted to add to the global human population that is exacting a heavy environmental toll on the planet, and some also expressed fears about the climate chaos through which a child might now have to live.

Compulsory population control is not part of today’s population-environment debate, with better educational opportunities for girls and access to contraception for women who want it seen as effective and humane policies.

Prof Regina Rodrigues, an oceanographer at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil, who also chose not to have children, was influenced by the environmental destruction she saw in the fast-expanding coastal town near São Paulo where she grew up.

A study of Americans aged 27 to 45 – younger than the IPCC scientists surveyed – found concern about the wellbeing of children in a climate-changed world was a much bigger factor than worries over the carbon footprint of their offspring.

The original article contains 1,186 words, the summary contains 206 words. Saved 83%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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