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Scientists warn of 'societal collapse' on Earth with worsening climate situation
(www.irishstar.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2024
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I sympathize with the children that had nothing to do with it.
It’s why I’m not having kids.
So you won't feel guilty for not fighting for a better world?
That is such a needlessly abusive thing to say to a person.
Choosing not to have a child because you don't believe the problems you'd be subjecting them to are likely to be solved is a heavy choice to make, and says nothing about whether they're fighting climate change to whatever extent they're able
Please don't go around being a complete asshole for no reason. The space we have here in the fediverse is only as nice as we make it, and assuming the worst of people we've literally never met accomplishes less than nothing.
This was not an abusive statement, and I'm sorry if you feel that it was. I don't believe that choosing not to have children because of climate change was made with a lot of deliberation, but because it's the laziest choice. Children are tough. Fighting for change is tough. Convincing other to give a fuck about the environment is tough. It's easier just to keep on keeping on and when the world breaks at least I didn't create another soul who is going to go through pain.
This attitude doesn't help fix the current situation and I believe that the apathy such a decision makes encourages people to be inactive on climate change.
Not having children is one of the easiest ways to contribute to solving climate change, which is exactly why we should encourage it regardless of whether the person is also taking other steps to solve it (which we don’t know). Not having a child also saves 58 tons of CO2 emissions per year, so it’s one of the most effective things you can do to fight climate change too, so that simple action does a lot to fight for a better world.
Source: https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children
You don't know this person. And you don't know anything about what they're doing to combat climate change, or are capable of doing to contribute to combating climate change.
You don't even know whether this was the only consideration in choosing not to have kids.
You know nothing about them, but the way your comment reads suggests that you're essentially insinuating that their choice to not have kids is illegitimate by nature of the motives you presume they have (which isn't a kind thing to do) and also that they've made that choice out of laziness. All based on assumptions you've made from the single sentence comment they left on a Lemmy thread.
It's possible that was intended as a sincere question, but it reads as SUCH a heavily loaded question that it will be understood to be an accusation by pretty much anyone who reads it, which is why I call it abusive. And you can tell that that's what it's communicating by the fact that my comment saying as much has been upvoted repeatedly in the short period it's been up. The question mark reads as rhetorical, and even if you meant to ask in order to get them to reflect, it's unlikely you know them well enough or expressed that intention well enough for it to not just read as someone being a jerk on the internet
I can absolutely empathize with the idea that it is easier to check out and want to live small than to fight. And I can certainly understand wanting to fight back when you perceive that others are doing that, because our future is all on the line. I just left a long comment about it on another thread where I shared some quotes I found validating or poinant with respect to my struggle to keep fighting for things bigger than myself when I can barely function.
I get that it's important for people to fight, but what you said to them kinda sucks, and isn't a good way to engage with someone you don't know at all.
Edit: adjusted to reflect the fact I also made assumptions in the initial version of this comment. Apologies if parts feel out of sync, I'm editing this while fairly sleep deprived.
You're a good person who seems able to see both points of an argument. Thank you. You're right, I don't know the person who said they wouldn't have children. They had a quick quip and I had a quick quip too and didn't really want to get into my argument.
Comments like "That's why I'm not having children" get positive upvote and attention, but it could have been "And that's why I'm ready to fight for climate change so that there's a future for humanity". To me it is a statement of surrender and being proud of essentially waiting for the end of the world, which tells me a bit more about the person making the statement.
Anyway, I didn't realize my initial comment would come off that negatively and I'll try to be more respectful.
Thank you for being willing to consider my perspective, I appreciate it :)
And I can understand the frustration. I try really hard to make choices, even when small, that support the issues I care about. I have a lot of friends that think those issues matter, but won't make changes to support the changes they wanna see in the world, and it definitely frustrates me sometimes, though I choose not to be overly judgey about it because I think it's counterproductive.
I have a friend who is extremely politically minded and further left than I am on many issues, but she still insists on using twitter, a platform who's value is derived from everyone using it, and who's owner is bankrolling the election of a fascist to the highest elected office in the US. Even if she doesn't wanna use Mastodon, like bluesky is RIGHT there 😅. I can't say I really understand, but then again, she's a different person from me with a different perspective, and the cost benefit analysis for her must be different.
Its frustrating to feel like people won't make choices to support the things we wish were better about the world.
Regardless, I hope you have a good day today, take care :)
Not having children is obviously not a societal change that everybody can do, otherwise humanity would fail. I'm not saying everybody should be having 10 children, but there's nothing wrong with having a couple.
The point I've been trying to make is that I'm worried that people who see that not having children is the easiest thing you can do to lower your carbon footprint will not care about doing anything else to help save the planet. You've done your part, so why not drive that gas guzzler for a little longer. Probably not gonna hurt you too much. I think more people will think this way than people who responsibly have children and have a physical reminder of why they're trying to care about the future.
And thanks for labelling me in an out group. Be careful, you're probably very suseptible to extremism.
You're accusing others of extremism in the same breath as you make one of the silliest slippery slope arguments I've come across. You think those who choose not to have children due to climate concerns are sitting back, over consuming resources, and thinking they've done enough? That's not an extreme assumption?
Be careful, you're treading awfully close to hypocrisy.
The very slippery slope of content people will remain content? Have you never heard of Panem et Circenses? The Roman proverb of Breads and Circuses that entertainment and material comforts will keep the population content?
Having children is tough. You will live an easier life if you don't have children. That's not an extreme assumption. And if you've got yours, and you've got nobody to fight for since you'll be dead in a few years anyway (as everybody seems to believe since society will collapse with climate change as indicated in the linked article) why are you going to give a fuck and give up your comfort to save the future? So yes, I think that people who choose not to have children will sit back thinking they've done their part, and the really dangerous part of that is that change needs momentum and being stationary is going to sap the momentum needed for change.
I sincerely feel sad for you that the concepts of a broad sense of empathy and deep connections with others who don't share half your DNA seem like such difficult mental exercises, and that you assume those who choose not to act against their values are somehow less moral or caring about society. I don't know who failed you, but it was certainly someone important.
Ok, this shows that you have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about my family or descendents at all. I'm talking about people's motivations in general. I like the phrase "Individual behaviours are impossible to predict. Groups behaviours are easier to predict".
I general, I believe that people with children will as a group fight harder for the future, and that the childfree movement while good intentioned may be harmful to generating societal will to enact the change necessary to combat climate change in time.
I'm glad you think most people care about society because when I look around and see that climate change hasn't even been a top issue in the US election, and that a candidate who obviously has no clue about anything is a coin flip away from winning...well I don't see the world with your toxic positivity.
You're a moron if you think bringing more people into the world is fighting for a better world
That's all of us unless you're an executive in a multinational corp, or work for the oil and gas industry.
We've all been ramrodded into this reality by a handful of giant Corporations, over the last 100 years.
Yeah I agree. But I could have chosen more fuel efficient cars when I was younger. Bought less shit I didn't need. I could've done more. Yeah it's not entirely my fault, we've been thrown into the gauntlet, what can you do if you wanna live? But the children born now, or God forbid even later are going to find themselves in a hellscape of an economy and ecosystem. And my heart goes out to them because they'll get less than I had, less freedom, less upward mobility, less drinkable water, less food, less breathable air, and be more fucked by everything. The longer we push it, the worse it gets for the people who had less to do with it.
If it helps to assuage your guilt at all, we have been living, inundated with corporate propaganda, for all our lives.
"Carbon footprint" is a great example; it's a Corporate guilt trip.
https://interestingengineering.com/culture/carbon-footprint-coined-by-big-oil-to-blame-you-for-climate-change
Oh absolutely. The carbon footprint was bullshit from the oil companies to put the onus on individuals to fix it while not giving people any options. It was all bullshit. That being said, I do have some guilt. Or at least feel it. Less because I was making bad decisions and more of a "survivors guilt" kind of thing. That's not the right term, cause I'm going to die before the younger generations. But I feel guilt just because my child and millions of others will get a worse and worse end of the stick than I got just because of when they were born. This is why I argue with boomers about the difference between generations.
Like, you had the American dream fucking handed to you. Do you not feel some kind of guilt for getting a degree for $8k, a house for $35k, and a top of the line vette costing $4.5k? Even at the lower rates of pay, that's a fraction of the budget compared to today. If I had it that easy, I would absolutely feel bad for people coming up behind me. And yet, VERY few boomers acknowledge this, and that is why I'm so hostile to them.
"Generation Me" will never cop to their culpability. They're narcissists, ie to admit being wrong now would absolutely crumple their sense of identity. And we all know Boomers #1 rule is looking out for numero uno.
I'm not saying all Boomers are Captain Planet villains...but all Captain Planet villains were definitely Boomers.
Respectfully, carbon footprint as a measure is just a measurement and is really useful in the right context. It's important to remember that it's the misapplication to individuals that is a con game.
When Rees and Wackernagel came up with ecological footprint as a measure, it introduced a systems analysis to human activity that we really needed. Carbon footprint is just a subset of that and ignoring it is futile. Just apply the analysis where it matters: militaries, mining, transport, energy, civil engineering, etc etc.