‘I am starting to panic about my child’s future’: climate scientists wary of starting families
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.
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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.”
i think another factor is that we are reaching or have maybe surpassed the earth's carrying capacity for humans, which is only going to get worse with climate change. in the past, more kids also meant more labor and there was still lots of land to colonize and spread into with those extra people. but we already have more than enough people and no realistic places left to expand.
...in the current economic model. Currently we have enough built housing and grow enough food globally and produce enough consumer goods that ever single person can be fed, clothed and shelter. But the wealthiest few would rather crops rot in fields, hoard houses to extract rent and burn unsold clothing instead of slightly lowering ther profit margins.
i totally agree, i didn't quite state it but was basing my comment in the status quo. without being able to personally change the world's economic model, one has to make decisions in the context of the current one.
The earths carrying capacity thing is old eugenic nonsense.
I mean, yes eugenicits have used carrying capacity in bad faith arguments. But why do the same and discount carrying capacity entirely?
TLDR: carrying capacity has been used by eugenicists in bad-faith arguments, but the finite nature of Earthly resources is a fact; ignoring it entirely makes any counter-argument against eugenics inherently flawed and weaker. When paired with the uncertainty created by human invention and potential extra-planitary resources, carrying capacity can be acknowledged as fact but effectively caveated, and instead debate can be shifted away from absolute limits on resources we are unlikely to hit, and to the much more important matter of the distribution of resources.
There is a finite amount of stuff in/on this little space-ball we call home. Some of that stuff is more rare, and some of it we need more of. There are physical limits to resources on Earth and I think it is fair to acknowledge that as well as helpful to avoid being wasteful with those resources or blind to the disparity of how they are distributed. Not acknowledging such a clear fact instantly gives the people using carrying capacity in an argument ammo to support their other non-factual claims and discount any other claims you make because you made this clearly unfactual claim about carrying capacity being just a made-up thing.
However, no other earthly species is as adept as humans at modifying their environment and the way they use resources. We find new ways to use resources, or replace resources entirely. See anyone using whale oil for lamps anymore? Nope, we changed what resources we need by advancing our lighting and power technology. We can't determine carrying capacity for humans on Earth because we don't know the limits of our ability to invent and adapt.
Also, at some point people have the potential to get off our home rock and start exploiting resources on other space-balls. The actual carrying capacity for Earth suddenly becomes meaningless. Will we make it that far as a species? I donno, but the possibility needs to be considered when discussing carrying capacity.
Much more important than carrying capacity is the distribution of resources. Currently, our resource distribution systems are incredibly inequitable and wasteful. As other have pointed out in this thread, at current capacity the resources we extract could address the basic needs of all humans many times over. It's a human issue that we don't do that, and that we polute/waste/etc, not an environmental/system capacity issue. We have improved these systems in the past, and we could improve them going forward.