I'm thinking about choosing a new place to live right now. Climate change is a big factor for that.

And they had broad, deep-pocketed support.

Government subsidized them, and protected them after their oil spills.

Media ran Exxon and Chevron's greenwashing ads,

Police beat up protesters, going so far as to infiltrate their groups, seduce their leaders, and have entire fake marriages with them all to keep tabs on them.

Judges sent those protesters to jail - Steven Donziger ought to be a household name, for a recent example.

The military invaded countries illegally for them.

And not a single comment here so far as I can tell is putting any of them on the hook for this ongoing atrocity.

200 zettajoules => 2.0e23 J * 4.184 J/cal => 8.36e+23 calories

They say this is the energy absorbed by top 2000 meters of the oceans. There are 84.8 million sq km of ocean.

2000m * 84.8e6 => 1.69e20 liters of water.

1000 calorie to warm 1L of water by 1 deg C.

1.69e20 L / 8.36e23 cal => warmed by 0.2 deg C since 1995.

So I'm not sure what there is to be done, it's like a catch 22. Tell people nothing and they leave it out of their minds, tell them about it and they get desensitized, maybe mobilizing the people is doomed to fail from the start and this thing is irreversible.

[1] https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/202111

Why does the graph have 2 colors? Why is 1995 'zero'?

Why is there more interest in controlling the temperature vs the pollution itself?

consumerism needs to change for temperature to change

It should be kept in mind, these new temperatures measured now are not breaking records compared to the temperatures measure 50 years ago, but rather to the modified and corrected temperatures of 50 years ago.

Here is a great little collection showing how the temperature records change over time.

https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/alterations-to-climate-d...

I'm a bit older and have kids. They've positively impacted my life in ways I could not have imagined when I was younger. Having said that, the speed of climate change and what feels like a global political class that is incapable of taking meaningful action, I am very concerned for my kids' near future. I cannot imagine a life without them, but I do wonder whether they will suffer, or whether my grand kids will suffer due to climate change. And so I wonder whether the joy and fulfillment they bring me will be worth any suffering they will be forced to endure. I cannot successfully do this computation. I am left with a persistent concern that will not lift.

But then I think about people who had children during times of war and during famines. The urge to procreate is so amazingly strong.

By definition the adults who will tackle climate change have to be conceived by the adults who will suffer from it.

I can't speak for the women you know, but the women I know in their 20s-30s tell me they aren't thinking about children at all probably thanks to the empowerment of women of the last 100 years.

Over my life, I've heard all kinds of excuses for all people to not consider children until they are in their late 30s or 40s, then it's a rush. I did the same.

I'm not sure it's climate change.

As a person who just had a child, I strongly recommend it so far. It is more challenging than most things I have done in my life, but also more rewarding. I am forced to be selfless in a way that I never have been before. And I know it’s annoying to hear people say these things, but they are true.

For those who don’t want children, of course that’s your choice. I just hope we don’t let fear ruin such a beautiful opportunity for those who would be parents and children.

I only agreed to have kids because I have a spouse who earns above average and I feel secure that we will be able procure resources and equip the kids well, but I think would have been just as happy if I had not had kids.

I feel like my default is no children, and that will only change if and only if I reach a level of wealth that I can feel very comfortable committing to the ~18 years of directly raising a new human, the 4+ years thereafter for continuing education, and all the costs associated with raising a well experienced and skilled human so they can have a chance at generating their own wealth.

However, I also think inheritance is mostly a curse on people who receive it, so if I had children, I would raise them with the explicit expectation that I will pay for their education, but will likely have a hard cutoff of financial help after a certain milestone or age. And they can expect 0 inheritance.

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The idea that it could be morally or ethically better to not have children feels like further in-depth thought out examining the specifics in attempt for a rational and non-emotional answer would yield a pretty strong "no". It is a vastly personal decision and I would encourage you to answer this for yourself personally and to try to look for the arguments of those who are saying the opposite of your close social friends (if they are saying "no", then look for people saying "yes", if they are saying "yes", look for people who are saying "no").

The arguments that come to my mind:

1. The world has always been filled with an amount of danger to offspring, this is not more existential than it has been in the past (though it's often hyperbolized to be).

2. There are vast amounts of anecdotal stories about children who were "almost not born" (failed abortion, doctors or parents said it would be too hard, etc.) because of a parents decision who ended up having a hugely beneficial and/or great life.

3. There is a stronger effort now than ever before on correcting climate change. There are more opportunities than there ever have to make a difference. Your child could be one of these people.

4. I have seen no science that an additional child or children is going to inherently negatively increase climate change, which means having a motivated parent to better the world has a huge potential upside for the climate and low downside.

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An additional side, I would use any of amount of logic of "should have a child" either. If you don't want a child, I do not think you should have a child. A child needs love and compassion from its parents.

People seem to think that "night is dark and full of terror" is a joke. Get used to it.

I personally want to have child, and probably would do when I met those two requirement, and probably the most problematic of them are one you also have: Finding a woman who wants that.

Having a child in a modern European country isn't the same as our parents or grandparents had. We have paid parental leave, decent health, nursery, and education services, a society where both parts of the couple can go to work, share home tasks, and care of their childs (independently of being a man or a woman) without having to give up on other things, and so on.

I find it very sad having 40 or more, wanting to have kids, but having conception problems due to your age. I don't if there are statistics about this, and I don't want to influence anyone with this, but from personal experiences, most of the people who decided to not have kids regret that decision, and not too much of those who had them does.

Yes. One of the reasons. A major one.

This might be an unpopular opinion, yet i dare anyone to show me a point in history when having less kids was a good idea and showed better results than letting people do as they fit (because forcing people to have kids is not something i endorse, yet it sadly happened, and also is a bad idea: Look at China: more kids through a boom, then they forced people to 1-2 kids, which created a massive vacuum and nowadays China is facing not-so-bright future due to this fact , their middle class also increased massively, and we know that this results in less natality).

Sadly the socio-economic structure we have today(i'm not talking capitalism vs communism, they're both the same in this aspect) kind of forces us to have more kids but for the wrong reasons.We decay as a society when we view human life as a resource for work force for corporations or getting X/Y done, when in the past the booms of increasing populations(think post 89', or 18th century, 2500BC, roman era,etc) were mostly done because the prospects of the future were bright, thus leading adults to having more kids.

Don’t try and weasel out of it.