
Is it still ok to have kids in face of climate change? - makerofspoons
https://www.newsweek.com/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-aoc-climate-change-have-kids-children-1342853
======
lqet
My ancestors thought it was okay to have kids during times in which many
scholars where certain the apocalypse was due in the next 25 years, during
periods in which the plague killed more than half of the population, during
the 30 years war and in a time when there was a realistic chance of nuclear
annihilation in the next 10 years.

I am glad they did.

~~~
Angostura
Did any of those groups they have a scientific basis for believing that
_having_ kids would _speed up_ the advent of the apocalypse or worsen its
effects?

Let's not draw false parallels.

~~~
f-
"The Population Bomb" was a pretty fashionable scientific prediction back in
the 1960s which had a significant following in the academic and policymaker
circles at the time.

It extrapolated from data about population growth, farmland capacity, etc, to
reach the irrefutable conclusion that there is going to be mass starvation and
famine in the 1970s. It led to calls for China-style population controls, to
articles about whether it's ethical to have children, etc.

What happened instead is that population growth has slowed down quite a bit
without government intervention, and that we've gotten a lot more efficient at
growing food.

This does not prove anything when it comes to climate change, but is an
interesting anecdote.

~~~
pinewurst
Thanks for bringing this up! An excellent book on this is: The Bet: Paul
Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble over Earths Future by Paul Sabin

------
crobertsbmw
I’ve always believed that if you’re a smart, educated, motivated person (if
your reading this than I’m assuming you are one) that probably the best thing
you can do for the world is to have kids. Those kids will likely contribute to
the world in all sorts of ways that we can’t imagine.

~~~
carno
Are you implying kids of "smart, educated, motivated person" will contribute
more than kids of people who don't fall into your arbitrary definition?

~~~
echelon
I think so. There isn't anything controversial being said here.

Children given education, good home lives, and goals are more likely to
succeed than those without access to those opportunities. It isn't fair, but
that doesn't mean we can't look for other ways to improve outcomes across the
board.

~~~
carno
So the key is giving more kids those opportunities. Not just some kids.

------
teekert
Yes, let's die out! Let's not even let any kid get born that may invent the
key to nuclear fusion. Sure, let's just choose some non-sentient animals and
plants over ourselves killing any chance of betterment right here and now.
Let's not even try to spread out over the stars, let's make sure that any life
on our current planet dies as soon as this planet dies instead of taking it
with us across the barren ocean that is the milky way.

If we take this seriously we don't even deserve to exist as a species.

You die out Alexandria, let your bloodline end. I for one want to my genome to
explore the galaxy, to have it help preserve earth in the future. To boldly go
where no (wo)man has gone before! And if you only point at my right to
procreate I will defend it with everything I have!

How cynical do you have to be to only see humans as sources of CO2? And to
completely neglect their potential. Honestly, if this piece is for real (and
I'm not lacking any context) then I think this woman is dangerous.

~~~
archagon
You have no ownership over your descendants. Nothing about you as an
individual will be exploring those galaxies.

In the end, it's all an arbitrary sort of stew.

~~~
teekert
It will be a stew with my optimistic DNA in it and none of those anti-
procreation basepairs!

------
rayiner
This is /r/im14andthisisdeep material. Life is inherently joyful, especially
for children, even under challenging circumstances. The net happiness rating
in Bangladesh is +74%-- _i.e._ 74% more people report themselves happy than
report themselves unhappy: [https://www.globalresearch.ca/global-polling-
which-nations-a...](https://www.globalresearch.ca/global-polling-which-
nations-are-happiest-unhappiest/5602001). Decreasing human population
decreases the aggregate net happiness experienced by the world.

Also, almost nobody believes it would be better to not exist than to exist in
challenging circumstances. That's why cancer patients fight through incredibly
painful chemotherapy to get a few extra years of life. If you were offered a
painless, consequence free death, would you take up that offer to avoid facing
the upcoming uncertainties of climate change? Almost nobody would. Why do you
think your potential kids would feel differently?

------
CompelTechnic
Imagine you were somehow able to choose: 1\. Either never exist at all, or 2\.
Exist as a human in the world of 50 years from now

To me, the clear choice is #2. If the moral question is whether human life is
worth it to continue in the future, it's obviously worth it.

If the moral question is whether our own domination of the planet harms too
many wildlife animals, and is therefore immoral, that feels like a more
reasonable tradeoff. However it feels odd to me to that the same people
advocating stopping having children continue to eat meat.

I will advocate for continued human growth regardless. I feel like there are
few "long, slow" problems we cannot overcome.

~~~
Zizizizz
It's not about whether human life is still worth it, it's about whether we
should have fewer children to lighten the cost.

There are plenty of people who are vegetarian who feel this way too. It isn't
just meat eaters. Having a child is far more impactful than eating meat or
driving electric cars.

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-
to-...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-
climate-change-have-fewer-children?&ampcf=1)

~~~
deogeo
> it's about whether we should have fewer children to lighten the cost.

Most of the West has had sub-replacement-level fertility for several decades,
so we _already_ have fewer children.

------
krupan
It's pretty hard to predict exactly what's going to happen to society in the
face of climate change. We know 100% that society will collapse if we stop
having kids.

~~~
your-nanny
if we 100% stop having kids, sure. but how about slowly reducing to a total
world steady state population of 1 billion. Will that necessarily lead to
collapse? maybe with that many people a shift to fossil fuels would t matter
so much. maybe we could all have good sized homes and yachts.

------
patatino
I have a 4 month old daughter and looking a the history I‘m pretty glad she is
born today and not 50 or 100 years ago.

~~~
elamje
Yes, the question is in the context of climate change, not other variables.

~~~
LifeLiverTransp
At first I was afraid, i was petrified, kept thinking I could never live
without stable climate by my side But then I spent so many nights thinking how
my lifestyle did no wrong, and I grew strong, and I learned how to get along.
And so they're back, from outer space -I just walked in to find them here with
that nihilistic look upon their face. I should have avoided that foolish
thread, I should have made those defeatists leave their key, if I'd known for
just one second they'd be back from the eighties to bother me Go on now, go,
walk out the door Just turn around now 'Cause you're not welcome anymore
Weren't you the one who tried to hedonistically accept the long goodbye Do you
think I'd crumble Did you think I'd lay down and die? Oh no, not I, I will
survive Oh, as long as I know how to love, I know I'll stay alive I've got all
my life to live And I've got all my love to give and I'll survive I will
survive, hey, hey

------
umvi
Reminds me of the "Zero Population" scare of the 70s...

Zero Population was politically evangelized much like climate change for
nearly a decade before the fears were proven to be unfounded and mass
starvation just wasn't happening as predicted.

I'm not saying in any way climate change isn't real, but I _am_ saying let's
not jump to hasty conclusions. Raising kids is one of the greatest joys life
offers, so we better be DARN sure that we aren't making a "premature
optimization" here.

------
Casseres
The people that don't care about Climate Change will still be having kids.

Raising kids and teaching them well is one of the best hopes humanity has.

------
Someone1234
Numbers of kids may also be relevant.

If you're choosing to have kids, it still seems more ecologically responsible
to have two or fewer. If two adults have up to two children, that's an overall
reduction in population (because not all children reproduce or reach
reproductive age).

Fortunately this is already happening[0] which is why several Western
countries populations are shrinking[1] often being propped up by immigration.

[0] PDF Warning:
[https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizat...](https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/time-
series/demo/families-and-households/hh-6.pdf)

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2017/02/01/death-
spi...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2017/02/01/death-spiral-
demographics-the-countries-shrinking-the-fastest/#35118d27b83c)

------
jxramos
The thing I never understood that if entropy steadily marches on, and the
sun's energy is finite, isn't this all going to end bad anyways? What will it
matter to if we all voluntarily go extinct and add another millennia or two or
three to the Earth? It will either overheat in a global warming or face
eternal freezing when the sun burns out. Why not enjoy the ride while it lasts
and allow others to as well.

~~~
chris_mc
One outcome happens in the next hundred years, another in the next few dozen
billion years. I know which one I prefer...

------
rrggrr
Former political staffer here to remind HN that this is political attention
getting, period, and not intended to be a sincere proposal from AOC.

In politics donations (money) is e v e r y t h i n g and if your policies
divert from typical donor interests then you have say things like this to
expand and activate your donor base. This kind of signaling occurs across the
political spectrum.

~~~
bassman9000
_This kind of signaling occurs across the political spectrum._

Which doesn't justify her doing it, and thus should be shamed because of it.

------
rbosinger
Well imagine nobody had kids and then we managed to turn climate change
around. Now we've got a bunch of old folks being cared for by clean energy
powered robots, living a utopian dream but thinking, "wait a minute... Did we
just win or lose here?"

------
ksdale
The admittedly rather silly way I've framed this in my own mind is to ask if
it was ok for, say, people living in Rome during the fall of the Roman Empire
to have kids, living as they were through the total collapse of their
civilization.

In retrospect it seems more silly (to me, anyway) to suggest that they
shouldn't have had children because the children and their descendants would
have had a hard time living through the collapse and ensuing "Dark Ages."

Their very distant descendants would have gone on to live through the most
prosperous period in human history, which certainly wasn't foreseeable to the
people living through the bad times.

Before anyone says that it's not comparable because the Roman Empire was just
a small part of the world, and that we're destroying the whole world through
climate change, I would suggest that for people living in Rome back then, Rome
would have felt like the whole world and the vast majority of people were
unlikely to uproot and move more than a few tens of miles, nevertheless, the
population of Rome declined by, what, 99%?

In addition, most of the worst case scenarios for climate change seem to
indicate the displacement of a few billion people at most, which would be
terrible, to be sure. But the mere migration of a few billion people will
probably be insignificant on the timescale of a thousand years.

More permanent destructive changes to the environment could cause massive
human death, but I personally haven't seen predictions on the order of 99% of
people dying (or anything remotely near that) and it seems like there's a
pretty good chance that a new equilibrium would be reached at some point and
the population of the Earth would surge again. Even the worst predictions seem
like they could end up being inconsequential on long enough timescales.

And this doesn't even address the whole Idiocracy situation where arguably the
best way to combat a dire future could be to raise kind, compassionate,
conscientious children that will go on to steward the world onto a better
path.

Needless to say at this point, I'm not convinced that it's remotely unethical
to bring children into a difficult world. That's been the state of the world
for basically all of human history.

------
elamje
Scott Adams talked a bit about this on Periscope. Essentially, if you believe
the world is truly about to be brought to its knees with climate change, is it
immoral to have children?

~~~
__s
There's two perspectives:

1\. The world will become a place of suffering. The assumption here is either
that childhood is a terrible experience, or that suicide is immoral. Your
children can decide for themselves if they don't think it's worth being alive
in the future

2\. Overpopulation is the cause of this doomsday. In that case, we're
asserting that having children today means less children will be born in the
future. This implies we need to reduce birthrates to more efficiently invest
the planet. Unfortunately this line of thought can quickly devolve into
eugenics. There are better ways to stabilize population. Relevant: Does saving
kids’ lives lead to overpopulation? [https://www.gatesnotes.com/2018-Annual-
Letter?WT.mc_id=02_13...](https://www.gatesnotes.com/2018-Annual-
Letter?WT.mc_id=02_13_2018_02_AnnualLetter2018_Explainer_BG-
YT_&WT.tsrc=BGYT#ALChapter5)

------
seanmcdirmid
Natural selection means that primarily those who think having kids is ok will
propagate their genetic material. So in the long run, the answer is
necessarily yes.

~~~
your-nanny
what if there is no longer run, because survival in the short term requires
otherwise?

island mamnal populations can take wild periodic swings of explosion and
collapse. not necessarily the ideal way of going about it.

in any case we shouldn't confusebindividual fitness with group level fitness

~~~
seanmcdirmid
In the end, the only people remaining would still be those who thought it was
ok to reproduce. Unless a world-wide authoritarian government implemented
strict population control and decided who would reproduce or not. Scary
thought.

~~~
your-nanny
I suspect that reproductive decisions are far less genetically deterministic
than your account suggests.

------
gwbas1c
> Is it still ok to have kids in face of climate change?

Yes

You might want to think hard about how many kids you want to have, though. We
know that we need slightly more than 2 kids per couple to keep current
population levels.

I think the best approach to answering this question has to do with how many
children your siblings and friends have. If everyone you know is childless;
have a large family, guilt-free. If everyone has large families, consider
having only child. If everyone you know has 2.5 kids, then consider limiting
yourself to 1-3 kids.

By the way, having children is awesome. If you really feel guilty about
overpopulation, but want kids, please consider limiting yourself to one, or
adoption. Raising children is such a wonderful experience that you shouldn't
let something like climate change get in the way. Put the extra money towards
building a net neutral home and driving an electric car.

------
strict9
It is an important speculative question, but also misses the fact right now
that worldwide fertility is crashing[1].

[1]
[https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46118103](https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46118103)

~~~
elektor
The global fertility rate is 2.4, well above the 2.1 needed to stabilize the
population, which is already over the carrying capacity of the planet.

------
GlenTheMachine
I think this misses what the question should be. It's not whether to have
children. It's HOW MANY children.

FWIW I have two. My wife and I wanted kids. We also did not want to contribute
to the population explosion. YMMV.

~~~
carno
Thank you, it seems like everyone is interpreting it like humanity should stop
existing.

The point is to slow down the population growth, by not having kids, and
improve a bit the predicted future for those who do end up having kids.

------
lordnacho
Many countries, especially in the West, are not reproducing at replacement
rate.

Also, there may be a scientific consensus about climate change, but that does
not carry into economic predictions of collapse. Economic predictions are not
the same thing as physical ones.

It's always been the case that the kids are responsible for what they do when
it's their turn. Regardless of how hopeless it looked.

------
dwighttk
Yes.

------
mindslight
Shameless yellow journalism!

The text of the article says the actual quote is "And it does lead young
people to have a legitimate question: Is it OK to still have children?". Which
is sympathizing with an audience rather than contemplating decrees. But then
it's written up as a strongly polarizing narrative, entirely tangential to the
context of the original quote!

I'm not trying to defend Ocasio-Cortez here - in fact, I actually _dislike_
her... but I'm willing to admit that my current opinion has been "informed"
_entirely_ by these baseless bullshit headlines! I am obviously not wed to
this opinion, and I will have to do my own research some time - the point is
that many _won 't_.

It might be interesting if HN completely changed its policy on titles. What if
rather than trying to be true to the "original" title (ie optimized to
enrage), the goal was to make a passive description of the subject under
discussion. Perhaps even one longer-lasting thread per topic. We sit here
talking about the sorry state of online discourse, yet even here the
clickbaiters get the substance of their bait directly embedded on the front
page - and every time it's clicked-through, it validates the strategy.

------
max76
The question was raised by a politician. Her motivation is to generate fear in
the public in order for people to support her recently purposed legislation.
Regardless of the validity of the question I have serious concerns about the
context in which this discussion was created.

------
cortesoft
Yes. I don’t think ending the species is a good response to climate change.

------
legohead
Define "ok"

Our planet is just one of many... Technology is advancing at an incredible
rate. Who knows where we will be in 50 years.

~~~
nightski
The most hostile conditions climate change can throw at us are still a walk in
the park compared to those at another planet.

------
paulryanrogers
> "I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I know what I’m doing."

Results in the last thirty years don't really back that up.

------
adamrezich
We live in incredibly interesting times.

------
izzydata
Assuming it was ok to have kids before it is still ok now. There may be some
world where the chance your offspring will be subjected to suffering is high
that it may not be the best idea.

Considering the primary purpose of life is to reproduce and continue existing
I'd suggest that even in a world of guaranteed suffering that it is our
obligation to continue our existence.

------
tilolebo
Do as you please. Thank you, next.

------
faissaloo
Of course it is, where else are we going to get the brains that will solve
climate change?

------
squish78
The alternative being what?

~~~
jxramos
The three questions: "At what cost? With what hard evidence? And _compared to
what?_"

------
carno
No

------
disantlor
Consider watching First Reformed. Great movie, and relevant.

------
fallingmeat
if it's the reason you are citing for not having kids, you are probably not
ready to have kids

------
cronix
I really hope she is the one who practices this and doesn't have kids, and the
others who think this way.

------
ve55
Yes.

------
meepl
No.

------
Bhilai
If you and your partner want to have kids then please do so and educate them
and for God's sake please vaccinate them. Most importantly, when the time
comes move out of their way (unlike the current set of politicians who only
want to live in climate change denial.)

------
noonespecial
The environment is in crisis. We have to save the Earth!

Save it for what?

Our kids.

------
gwbas1c
> Is it still ok to have kids in face of climate change?

Yes.

------
cevn
No.

------
thisisweirdok
I thought this was an interesting point from the Gates' annual letter, the
specific context is Africa but it's true globally.

> As more children survive to adulthood, women are having fewer kids than ever
> before. The result is a global population that’s creeping slowly toward
> middle age.

So people are _already_ having fewer children. Assuming we want to maintain
the human species, _someone_ needs to be having children. For diversity
everyone should be having _some_ amount of children.

Then of course, it depends on your climate change mindset.

If you think humanity is doomed and there's no way out of this: Don't have
children because you think they'll die suffer through the apocalypse.

If you think humanity needs to continue and we will solve this problem: have
children because we can avoid the apocalypse.

If you're unsure? Have children. Someone's bound to survive the apocalypse.
Maybe it'll be your genetic material.

Personally I think we'll make it through. Life will be different, but we've
got a better chance of surviving than humanity has ever had in the past. I
think it's more likely that we'll get wiped out by a cosmic event that we
don't even see coming.

~~~
astura
>If you're unsure? Have children. Someone's bound to survive the apocalypse.
Maybe it'll be your genetic material.

Huh? What?

... I don't really understand why I would care if my "genetic material"
survives a future apocalypse vs some other rando's "genetic material?" or
anyone's "genetic material" for that matter.

This is an especially bizarre reason for having children.

~~~
thisisweirdok
>This is an especially bizarre reason for having children.

This is basically why every species on the planet (with sexual reproduction)
has children, whether you're aware of it or not. It's the instinctual drive to
propagate. It's why sex feels good (for at least one party involved, for most
species).

~~~
your-nanny
is vs ought is the distinction that needs to be made. the perogatives of
natural selection needn't concord with moral behavior.

~~~
thisisweirdok
Right, but in this case if the deciding factor is climate change and you're
ambivalent about the outcome of climate change and humanity... you might as
well just roll the dice.

------
lowken10
Anyone walking around with the idea that having kids is bad is a moron.

~~~
lowken10
And anyone who down voted this comment is clicking the "I am a moron" button.

------
LifeLiverTransp
No, because nuclear exchange is going to kill them first.

------
mc32
So what does she propose as ideal, everyone in the world just stop
reproducing?

Only some countries should stop reproducing?

Who should stop reproducing?

Do we follow the Kyoto protocol and set a date back in time as the target
goal? What can we afford, the year 2000, 1980, 1887?

This sound like it would be the perfect type of issue that could be addressed
via a 5 year plan.

