Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to The Guardian, having children is a moral dilemma, if you are concerned about Climate Change. But does the author really believe that the future is going to be such a bleak and horribly place, or is he simply rationalising a personal decision not to have lots of kids, in terms of his “environmental conscience”?
Does climate change make it immoral to have kids?
Bringing children into a disintegrating environment used to be a theoretical fear. Now it’s a very real one.
…
The awfulness seems to be getting worse, especially now that climate change has sped up – sea level rise that was supposed to take centuries has recently been projected as taking just decades. This complicates the already difficult decision of whether to have a kid.
We’re living through what scientists call the “Sixth Extinction”, an era of precipitous decline in the number of species able to live on the planet. The last mass extinction, the fifth, happened 66 million years ago, when a giant asteroid crashed into Earth and 76% of all the species on the planet perished.
This time, we’re doing it to ourselves.
“Climate scientists agree that humanity is about to cause a sea level rise of 20 or 30ft, but they have tended to assume that such a large increase would take centuries, at least,” the New York Times’s Justin Gillis reported. But a recent study led by retired Nasa climate scientist James E Hansen, published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, indicates that the negative effects are happening a lot faster than we’d thought, perhaps feet of rise within the next 50 years.
“That would mean loss of all coastal cities, most of the world’s large cities and all their history,” Hansen told Gillis, adding, “We’re in danger of handing young people a situation that’s out of their control.”
…
Was I complicit in the damage? I remember every extra paper towel I’ve ever unspooled from the roll, and think about a tree falling in the Amazon, and then think about my son growing up in a gray, dying world – walking towards Kansas on potholed highways. Maybe while trying to protect his own son, like the father in The Road. Will he decide to have a kid? I have foisted upon him a decision even more difficult than my own. It’s all very depressing.
…
People who truly believe that most of their children won’t survive, tend to respond by having lots of children. The fact that this primal urge to procreate appears to be largely missing, in the face of what greens claim is an existential threat, makes me wonder just how much people who say such things truly believe in what they are saying.
There seems to be a growing disconnect, a rising tendency for people to give lip service to green causes, but not to practice what they preach. I know a kid who gets deeply upset about rubbish in the school garden – her teachers have taught her that dropping rubbish on the ground kills all the sweet little animals. But its not the rubbish on the ground which most upsets her – its the fact that the teachers aren’t out there every evening, ensuring all those little animals are safe, by meticulously picking up all the rubbish.
The messages are still flowing, but the sincerity seems to have gone.
Update (EW) – David Hoffer points out that the author ultimately comes down on the side of having kids. … perhaps someone who is not yet born, perhaps not yet conceived, is the one super-genius to figure out the invention that could save the planet? … There’s always maybe. And that’s enough to persevere for.
This is all so remarkable. NOTHING IS HAPPENING OUT OF THE ORDINARY and these people are having kittens over it, panicking at every turn, drumming it into the kids they DO have to be scared of every shadow, of every thought and every human act. Never mind the environment, how do they survive living like THAT? Sheesh!
I wonder whether doom and gloom could be a factor of failing school levels.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all. What’s to strive for if the teachers tell you “scientists” are certain you will fry in a hostile world before you reach adult years? It probably has a lot to do with the suicide rate too. Doom-mongering is criminal in my eyes. Proof should be mandatory. The moment a “scientist” refuses to show his work, he’s lying and should be held in that regard.
I don’t think we yet appreciate just what a “national treasure” we have in Dave Bry. Don’t believe me? Then please google the term: “Dave Bry column opinion Guardian”.
First off, you’ll observe a glamour-shot photo of Dave that is just too good to be true! I mean, like, this guy is the very picture–a once-in-a-lifetime big-score for central casting, I’m talkin’, here–of your basic, standard-issue, New York (City) nerd: a self-identified “hippie” (though judging my Dave’s picture, I doubt he was around within even a decade of the 60’s); a self-absorbed whiny-geekball; and a worry-wart doom-butt–of passing interest only because in some zany moment of crazed-inspiration (or more probably at the promptings of some sort of hack-work demonic-possession (be honest, doesn’t that picture of Dave absolutely convince you, dear reader, that he is fully capable of spinnin’ his head through 360 degrees?)), Dave decided to reduce the gibberings of his spastic-dork, blabbermouth inner-monologues to writing, which he then, in turn, made available for public consumption, in a column appearing in one of the planet’s leading, lefty-puke publications. (My theory being that “The Guardian” has taken Dave Bry’s column on as a laughing-at-you-not-with-you, big-joke, funny-foreigner entertainment-curio (“The Guardian” being a hive-bozo mouth-piece of the dry-writ, Brit persuasion). Which works, I gotta admit.)
But let’s not dwell further on Dave’s mutant-weirdo personal qualities, but rather let us turn to his most recent columns:
-“Valentine’s Days are a setup for heartbreak” is the title of Dave’s masterpiece, if, that is, you can suspend your disbelief sufficiently to imagine this guy actually scoring a date–a pretty challenging “if”, I know.
-Perhaps you are wondering, dear reader, just what it is that Dave is referring to, in the topside blog-post, when he imagines his son walking along a potholed Kansas road, like in “The Road” (huh? is this a movie? a novel? one of those many screenplays that Dave must surely have worked-up, over the years, and then squirreled away after multiple rejections began to grossly affect his emotional state? or what?). If so, then please be advised that Dave provides the answer in his column about the dooms-day clock:: “The Road is a post apocalyptic novel that tells the story of a father wandering the remains of the American east coast, trying to keep his son alive while most of society has descended into rape and cannibalism and human farming….People often say that The Road is super-depressing, but I find great joy in it.” GOOD STUFF!!!
-And in the column, “Thanks to climate change, the future looks awfully warm–and itchy”, Dave further explores climate-change. In particular, Dave’s column opens, sanely enough, with a personal account of an unpleasant itch, caused by a mosquito-bite to the bridge of his nose, but then gets progressively more whip-lash mad-house as Dave recounts the “10 or so nights” in which he was “pushed beyond sanity [Dave’s words, not mine] by the buzzing and biting [of some one or another pesky mosquito]”, so that Dave is left in a “bleary fugue-state” by “the panic, the itching, the maddening frustration of fruitless search [for the offending blood-sucker]…I was at the end of my rope…’This is worse than the Holocaust’, I said…” Only ol’ Dave doesn’t sound (to moi, at least) like he’s kiddin’ around with all this, but rather like he’s genuinely serious about the whole deal, and everything. Really! Check it out! See for yourself!
Lost more great fun, like the above, to be had in Dave’s columns–Enjoy!
And, oh by the way, just remember that Dave belongs to the gene-pool from which our Philosopher Kings and Queens are whelped. Scary stuff!
I’ll bet real money it’s a factor in young people’s depression and high suicide rate.
Re: “NOTHING IS HAPPENING OUT OF THE ORDINARY”
What? But up until about a decade ago, I hardly ever saw a mobile phone video of destructive extreme weather events. And yet now we get to see some startling catastrophe from somewhere in the world almost every other day.
So, explain that with your so-called “science” hat on, Mr Cleverclogs.
And “sheesh” back to you times 100… (sarc)
But up until about a decade ago, I hardly ever saw a mobile phone video of destructive extreme weather events. And yet now we get to see some startling catastrophe from somewhere in the world almost every other day.
…up to a decade ago there weren’t any mobile phones with video capability…
Entire communities were wiped out and no one heard about it.
Google Banqiaou dam….
Hi Leo – I think that’s indefatigablefrog’s point. Like I said, nothing’s happening out of the ordinary. Except mobile phones with video capability – of course. 🙂
“I hardly ever saw a mobile phone video of destructive extreme weather events.”
That was because there were hardly any Internet-connected mobile phones.
Sheesh!
Save the planet for the children by having no children. Logic!
STUPID PEOPLE SHOULDN’T BREED. Which about covers The Guardian’s intended audience.
John Silver
April 3, 2016 at 3:16 am
…………………Logic!
—————————-
As mad as it is bad…………literally…….
cheers
Silver – Yes, this is their message exactly. The Progressives always have, as their ultimate goal, total control over the populace. This is almost always in the form of getting to decide who has kids, and how many, and who does not have kids.
The argument made time and again, in the modern era largely beginning with the catastrophism of Nukelar Scientist Harrison Brown, is that we need to severely control our population through top-down means – some combo of a group of elitist intellectuals and the government, or else some catastrophe – plague, weather, drought, famine, etc., will kill off most of us.
Well, how about we just let nature carry out this hypothetical catastrophe instead of bringing it on ourselves, early and according to however these elitist intellectuals decide is most optimal?
[It is interesting that they have also long ago cooked up Plan B: when Earth has to be abandoned, we will colonize the Moon or Mars.]
One of my greatest joys in life, is listening to leftists proclaim how they aren’t going to have any kids.
NOTHING IS HAPPENING OUT OF THE ORDINARY
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
H. L. Mencken
“When the velocity of progress increases beyond a certain point, it becomes indistinguishable from crisis.”
― Owen Barfield, Night Operation
Well that kid above sure is out of the ordinary and if that’s what comes of climate change……..
Well climate change CCMMGWCAUCC does make it immoral to fly intercontinentally on aeroplanes.
g
Actually as the update points out it’s just another justification for boffing boffins, or perhaps one could say boffins boffing…
You know what I mean.
Exactly, Seems this poor fool actually reads, and then believes what he reads in his organ, the Guardian. Most sane people just laugh at it.
We’re living through what scientists call the “Sixth Extinction”, an era of precipitous decline in the number of species able to live on the planet.
Pretty remarkable really. Just how do you get yourself to this state?
The whole piece is just one green ‘factoid’ after another.
30 years ago we worried about nuclear holocaust. I’m not sure worrying about an expensive house on Venice beach being flooded in the next few decades is likely to cause many folks to decide to end it all. But then, I’m applying logic to a group of folks who decide by emoting, so what do I know?
“Does climate change make it immoral to have kids?”
Pose that question to the Muslim nations – wait for the laughter.
Yes. the Islamic State has declared World War III and they intend to win it with their birth rate.
I note that as prepare to click on the [Post Comment] button, yours is the only post out of 80 that touches on that.
Give me a break. Humans are natural. We did not will ourselves into existence. We grew from the very same protoplasm as the Archea. The conceit of alarmists is to believe we are a culmination. We are definitely not. We evolved an astonishing capacity to understand (so far) maybe 5% of how our weird planet works. It would be insane to even guess what proportion of our weird universe we understand.
That Archean protoplasm kicked and scratched and titrated the crust of our planet. So will we. So must we.
Having kids is not a moral choice, it is a natural duty. A duty to perpetuate the force that brought us here.
Duty to who?
Duty to nature.
So I guess homosexuality must be anti-nature, lol…
Don’t discourage them. If they don’t have children, their religion (the worship of Gaia) will die out. It is sort of like the Shakers. They were a Christian sect that believed sex was so immoral none of their members should ever have it. They made a lot of really nice furniture, but they made no Shakers. Nothing remains but antique furniture. Too bad the greenies don’t make nice furniture. There will be nothing left of them in a couple of generations.
There was a great article about this in the economist 5 years ago written by Phil Longman, a demographer, author of The Empty Cradle.
Liberals reproduce at about 1.3 children per couple. Conservatives at about 2.3 children per couple. (according to my memory of the article) It isn’t hard to see where this is going EXCEPT… the liberals run the schools and universities and are in the business of destroying your childrens’ minds.
Liberal don’t reproduce. They steal your kids and fill theirs minds with filth.
Paul Westhaver
April 2, 2016 at 9:12 pm wrote:
“Liberal don’t reproduce. They steal your kids and fill theirs minds with filth.”
And Liberals also import new Liberals from abroad. They don’t need to have children to carry on their Liberal legacy, they just get a bunch of needy/greedy immigrants and promise them the moon if they vote Democrat.
“If they don’t have children, their religion (the worship of Gaia) will die out”
Ever heard of horizontal gene transfer?
only as a retrovirus
“Ever heard of horizontal gene transfer?”
One of many possible positions! 😉
After my great grandfather committed suicide and killed his wife, my grandmother was adopted by her grand aunts who were Shaker women. So she grew up on a Shaker farm, riding bare back, having adventures and all the women there were her ‘mother’ and she told me years later, it was pure heaven.
“committed suicide and killed his wife,”
Time machine???
I don’t understand why the Guardian article’s author is even questioning having children. This was settled by climate change experts 7 years ago.
“Under current conditions in the United States, for example, each child adds about 9441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average female, which is 5.7 times her lifetime emissions.”
Oregon State’s Murtaugh and Schlax, “Reproduction and the carbon legacies of individuals,” Global Environmental Change 19 (2009) 14-20.
What is most amazing is, liberals saying all this also say we must let in Muslim and Catholic illegal aliens who have many children!
Well without THOSE votes they would rarely win anything. Just shows how crippled they are.
They shouldn’t have kids. They should stop living off the grid. They should become nomads and form villages/communes in the wilderness or desert and live under the stone age principles that would save the world.
…But a recent study led by retired Nasa climate scientist James E Hansen, published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, indicates that the negative effects are happening a lot faster than we’d thought, perhaps feet of rise within the next 50 years…”That would mean loss of all coastal cities, most of the world’s large cities and all their history,” Hansen told Gillis…
“Feet of rise” over the next 50 years would “mean loss of all coastal cities, most of the world’s large cities” ??????????????
How can Hansen actually say stuff like that, and how can people keep believing it? Even an overnight “feet of rise” would not “mean loss of all coastal cities, most of the world’s large cities,” etc. 50 years is plenty of time to plan/adapt.
This exists only in the realm of pure fantasy. Hansen has been making these claims for the best part of three decades. Whilst the most reliable long-term measure of sea level – coastal tidal gauges, show absolutely no significant change from the long term trend observable from the 1930’s.
Fear inducing SLR acceleration can only be conjured from a magic hat by manipulating satellite data using unproven models intended to reproduce the Glacial Isostatic Rebound.
GIA model adjustments are popular precisely because they allow modern measures to be uprated.
But, meanwhile the coastal gauges fail to show the claimed acceleration leading any reasonable observer to conclude that the GIA adjustments are flawed and that SLR acceleration is pure myth and hype.
In the place called reality – where most of us live – it does not exist.
“Hansen has been making these claims for the best part of three decades.”
Ah! Maybe that explains it. Three decades and nothing has come of it yet. That’s enough to make anyone depressed, but only if you found catastrophe exciting and wanted it to happen. That’s the other thing about these guys and gals – they get depressed when told it’s not happening and cheer for joy when they concoct computer code that supports their program that the end of the world is nigh.
(May I say “Sheesh” again?). 🙂
Climate Change Catastrophe Theatre is very profitable for everyone involved (except taxpayers).
50 feet, huh? Woo-hoo! I’m about to have waterfront property . . . value just went WAY up!
“Time” yes. Money, no. Not if you are spending large amounts of it to change the weather.
“and all of that history” like the age of enlightenment and the industrial revolution! The triumph of reason kneecapped by utilitarians, sophists, and Jeremy Bentham.
The climate change alarmists should be held responsible for all the mental health problems they’ve created.
Yeah, CAGW+SLR+GIA+ARGO+TOPEX+NOAA+NASA+HADCRU+RSS+SST = ADHD+PTSD
(I’m sure that another minute of recollection of acronyms could double the length of that list!!!)
You left out APP. Anthropoieophobia, the fear of anything Man does.
And BANANA.
Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone.
Start the ‘rock, paper, scissors’ games now amongst the shrinks. The worst loser gets Lewserandowsky and Cook for patients.
Quote
The awfulness seems to be getting worse, especially now that climate change has sped up – sea level rise that was supposed to take centuries has recently been projected as taking just decades. This complicates the already difficult decision of whether to have a kid.
Unquote
Is this person alive and living on this beautiful planet. They need help
No, they are living on a completely different planet. They still need help, though.
Unfortunately the watermelon memes replicate better than watermelon genes.
Bringing children into a disintegrating environment used to be a theoretical fear. Now it’s a very real one for green belivers.
johann wundersamer,
Unfortunately, it’s not theoretical, it is real and they’re taking themselves and their kids out.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1254619/Baby-girl-survives-shot-chest-parents-global-warming-suicide-pact.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/argentina/7344329/Baby-survives-parents-global-warming-suicide-pact.html
This is disgusting and should be prosecutable. Being green means never having to accept responsibility.
Well to be fair, crazy people will be crazy. Most of them aren’t that nuts.
Yeah, it is quite perplexing to witness how the same leftists who, here in Europe, are advocating responsible family planning, low growth and low consumption – are precisely the same people who are advocating importing the population of several countries where women typically have upwards of five or six children.
Syria, surprisingly, had, until recently, the seventh highest population growth rate in the world.
The problem of Syria’s burgeoning population was widely discussed in MSM, up until the point where instabilty and youth unemployment and discontent lead to revolution and war.
The problem faced by countries with rapidly growing young populations can not be discussed. Nor can family planning. For fears, I suppose of comparisons to the extremely foolish eugenics policies of former dictators.
So we have areas of the world in which the population is rapidly expanding, leading to social unrest and poverty, leading to migration. And consequently these people will bring their culture and preference for unbridled baby production with them to the west.
This, in the eyes of leftists is beyond reproach.
Just as they criticize intolerance and then import intolerant cultures, they also criticize irresponsible breeding and then import irresponsible breeders.
Sadly, for the quiet and responsible europeans, we are now on the losing side of a breeding war.
The most rapidly expanding population will win by numerical expansion and dominate the minority natives.
The liberal loons will have finally created the total destruction of the tolerant liberal society that they purportedly craved.
Equally mysterious, is the observable fact that the same progressives who rail against growth were consistently opposed to the Chinese one child policy, and expressed delight at its recent suspension.
They are not too brilliant at consistently applying principles or logic!!!
And in the next few decades they and all bystanders are going to be victims of the disaster that they have overseen.
It’s too late to save Europe now. Short of a civil war and deportation – we are headed towards majority islam and all the joys which that will bring.
That’s the most politically incorrect thing I’ve seen all day. And I get up early.
Problem: South and Central America
Solution: Import hordes of horny Catholic Spanish Missionary-Men
Result: Hispanic Race
Language: Spanish and Portuguese
Religion: Catholicism
Problem: Europe
…
Yeah, the Pope is pro-growth.
Sadly for the Vatican, many of the people of South America have now discovered the merits of contraception.
Which is why so much of the churches energies are directed toward Africa and the Philippines – where 14 year olds can still start a career in pushing out new slum dwellers.
Of course, now these populations need us to give them lots of money to cope with “climate change”.
And the Pope thinks that’s a brilliant idea. Obviously.
It is so much warmed-over Paul Ehrlich and the Population Bomb. One must remember that the green blob is a mass movement, a term used first to describe the rise of fascism and communism. They do tend to have their own orthodoxy, however strange.
Spot on. Ehrlich grossly underestimated modern agriculture’s ability to produce and feed. And Hans Rosling has completely defused the population bomb by demonstrating very nicely that empowered women free of excess child mortality with modern infrastructure naturally choose to have a number of children close to the replacement rate.
1. Bring the entire 7 billion population access to electric grids and nuclear power (LFTR ASAP).
2. Ensure that women have the right to choose.
3. On to the next problem.
+10,000 “On to next problem”…like the colonization and economic exploitation of space…we’ll need lots of highly skilled workers and engineers operating from sound science to do that!
The birth rate is already falling w/o CAGW hysteria.
Maybe it’s CAGW believers who shouldn’t have kids. That would help solve the real problem.
If they don’t breed it would be great for humanity by thinning the stupid from the gene pool .
I get the feeling this isn’t about THEM not having kids, it’ll be about the REST OF US not having kids. They’re holier-than-thou, sacred, born to rule and all that. They get all the good stuff, we get to to what we’re told. If they can build enough guilt they can bring in a law making it illegal to procreate. They’d love that! “Out, evil humans! Out I say!”
How horrible it must be to be alive and not appreciate it. How sad to hate your own species. Imagine seeing only nightmares and never the world’s beauty. How sobbingly awful it must be to wait each day for catastrophe to hit.
Every day must be infinitely painful to the true believer of CAGW.
I get the same feeling. I think it comes from the fact that these climate alarmists refuse to turn off their own air conditioning, refuse to stop flying on private jets to climate conferences, and refuse to do anything at all to lower their OWN carbon footprint. They just want the REST OF US to lower ours.
These people consider themselves to be elites who will inherit the earth after most of us are gone. (They won’t kill off all of us because they’ll still need some serfs to boss around and do the hard labor they need to continue the lifestyle they’re accustomed to.)
Yes. It’s all about controlling the masses.
my teen years were messed up bigtime BY the schools allowing the Hansens and ehrlichs ideology to be presented as fact
running out of food water fuel etc
dont have kids its overpopulated and theyll have a miserable life
so i dont have kids…
ive missed out on a lot, as i see those around me with their now grown kids and grandkids
I have hounds instead, and have had 40+yrs of love of -and from- them, but the heartbreak of losing them over and over again..unlike the lifetime you get with kids..if youre lucky.
nothing to strive for, no one to leave what you have to in the hope they take it and improve upon it.
id cheerfully strangle hansen ehrlich and the rest of the lying mongrel bast**ds for their part in mindgaming kids like I was.
and theyre still doing it which enrages me more!
I’d recommend that you should stop blaming others for your decisions. It will be the first step to your redemption…
JMHO
Janus100 wake up! The greens and their ilk are doing real damage and have been influencing kids down a false path for years through guilt and manipulation. The greens and their ilk blame healthy societies for all the world’s ills – most of them imaginary – and the moment anyone points out their damage, the greens turn their backs and refuse responsibility. I suppose you’ve got kids so have no idea what Ozspeaksup is talking about. What a cruel response you gave! Think about that.
This an answer to A.D.E.
I wa brought up in communist is Czechoslovakia and as such exposed to much more intense propaganda than genes can dream of. Neither me nor any of my childhood and youthhood buddies believed a single word we heard from the media or teachers.
Mid you we were tha second generation under communism. Our parent,s generation believed the BS more than us.
At any rate, ozspekup,s decision is his own. Blaming it on propandists is a bit cheap escape though self-victimization process.
JMHO
“Will he decide to have a kid? I have foisted upon him a decision even more difficult than my own. It’s all very depressing.”
Well, I vote for ending the line as soon as possible.
Imagine if his son is still young enough to be malleable, jeeze, think of the damage this is guy is doing to the kid that is already hamstrung by his poor genetic bearing.
What? I’d be really happy, if my dad had been the creator of the Muppets.
Oh no wait…I was thinking of Jim Henson. My bad.
Yeah, you meant Jim Hansen. The one who actually is a muppet!!!
Eric, Eric… (shakes head). Questions about “morality” are for the rest of us great unwashed masses. Climate alarmists are exempt from all such concerns. They sail an entire ship to Brazil for a 20-person party, or they own and fly a jetliner around the world, or use enough electricity to power a complete African country. It’s only the likes of us who are supposed to have no kids, starve, and go without light at night. It’s all so obvious, if you look at the world through the CAGW reality distortion prism…
Of course greens should reproduce. When disaster strikes, who else are we going to use to make organic soylent green without having to add unhealthy artificial dyes to make it green?
I’m sure children can adjust to high tides being a little higher better than their idiotic parents who can’t handle a few mm more.
/sarc.
You know how every generation thinks they are smarter than their parents? Well with this one I can understand it.
They have the Internet, so they ‘know’ everything.
Have computer, don’t have to think.
The immorality trip once more?
Only if they’re raised to eat whale as dat’s sinful and unrighteous,
So no ‘Like’ button for you!
“… There seems to be a growing disconnect, a rising tendency for people to give lip service to green causes, but not to practice what they preach. …”
It’s just political correctness, this is what I said in the recent whale ‘immorality’ post:
“… All this talk of morality about killing and eating an abundance of whales is just so much political correctness and hypocrisy, masquerading as a faux-morality. …”
Talk of immorality surrounding human reproduction is just as warped and hypocritical, just as tawdry.
It’s OK for them to live … but it’s ‘immoral’ for another human generation to be borne?
How can I take such hypocritical self-centered greenie intellectual drool, ‘seriously’?
Eric – I think you unfairly represented the article, which I read in full. Yes the guy is an idiot, but the last paragraphs in his article completely change the over all message. The last sentences in fact read:
There’s always maybe. And that’s enough to persevere for.
And, from earlier in the article:
Still, I come down on the side of advocating reproduction.
davidmhoffer,
That’s because he’s a horndog and doesn’t have the confidence of his convictions (and he’s trying to stack the deck in his favor).
/sarc, just in case.
Hi David, fair point, I snipped the original article a bit too much… :-).
Hi Eric. I think it still boils down to – “We shouldn’t have kids. No wait. Maybe some of us should.” Somewhere on a deeper level (where guilt is built in individual hearts) this is setting up an argument for mandatory birth control. That’s my take on it all anyway.
The message I hear is: “Things are so bad now, if we can’t or won’t slash CO2, we have to slash our number. It’s the responsible thing to do.”
These bleeding hearts will then decide who gets to breed and who doesn’t. Hint: They want to take away people’s cars and limit their airplane use, but look who continue to have big cars and fly all over the world, not to mention mansions by the sea and massive carbon footprints. The few to have kids will be carefully chosen from the elite.
It’s a wet dream maybe, but still a dream of control and they’re generating as much guilt as they can in an attempt to get there.
If you believe there are far to many humans on earth and the planet has a fever then by all means stop having kids . It hasn’t stopped Susuki or many scary global warming preachers but they never said they were role models did they .
I think its immoral for AGW believers to reproduce.
Not that they would be capable, with their manic depression syndrome.
Very wrong to bring someone else into the world when we are all going to either fry or drown !!
“…the negative effects are happening a lot faster than we’d thought, perhaps feet of rise within the next 50 years.”
Most of the well-known alarmists, like Hansen, who are making these predictions won’t be alive in 50 years to explain why they were so wrong. But those who are still around will most likely pull a Harold Camping and claim their predictions of doom were correct; they just got the date wrong. Like Camping, they will always believe the end of the world is nigh. The difference is, they believe it is man, not God, who will end it.
Anthropogenic Climate Change Alarmism makes it utterly immoral to read the Guardian, IMHO.
This is the same (boring) tape loop I’ve been hearing for almost 20 years (for some of you it’s been a lot longer) – massive sea level rise, mass extinctions, pandemics, droughts, floods, all of biblical proportions. They are always just around the corner, ..st around the corner, around the corner, the corner, over and over. I guess if you say something enough times, even though your predictions never come true, some (many?) people will buy it. P.T. Barnum knew the type! Why does anyone continue to pay any attention to the prognostications of James Hansen? He is like the proverbial man in the cartoon (usually depicted with a long beard) standing on the sidewalk with a placard that says: “REPENT, THE END IS NEAR!”. I don’t understand why some people continue to swallow this pap, and if they do I don’t understand why they just don’t go out into their backyards and shoot themselves – what’s the point of carrying on?. Sorry for the rant, but I’m Canadian and I still haven’t got over the election of Trudeau Jr. as our (Liberal) prime minister. His father caused massive damage to Canada financially (740% increase in the federal debt – 1968-1984) and by changing the country from a constitutional democracy into a constitutionally mandated welfare state far too often directed by unelected judges. His son promises to be just as bad, or worse, especially with the Global Warming bug up his a–. Trudeau Jr. has already established a cosy relationship with the U.N. and with president Obama. Our previous (Conservative) PM wasn’t liked very much by the U.N. (or Obama) and payed lip-service to Global Warming.
“Update (EW) – David Hoffer points out that the author ultimately comes down on the side of having kids. … perhaps someone who is not yet born, perhaps not yet conceived, is the one super-genius to figure out the invention that could save the planet? … There’s always maybe. And that’s enough to persevere for. ”
So you shouldn’t have kids, there are already too many people in the world. But I should have kids, because a child with MY genes would probably be a super-genius who saves the world. I can relate to that. 😉
“Was I complicit in the damage? I remember every extra paper towel I’ve ever unspooled from the roll, and think about a tree falling in the Amazon …”.
=====================================
I suggest he uses BOTH sides of the toilet paper (if he doesn’t already do so).
I don’t know why these miserablists don’t make the ultimate sacrifice for the planet, Lawrence Oates-style, it’s the only decent thing to do.
I think it’s a very good thing that these people are considering not having children!
@ Charles. April 2 , 11:29 pm. Sorry, but they will have their babies but their children will be “better” educated ( indoctrinated) and therefore be the inheritants of a “better” planet. ( as sick as this is).
As far as Canada is concerned It is amazing how our country has changed in just 6 months. From a balanced budget to 100 billion dollar budgets deficits projected over the next 4 years (There are only 37 million people) it is sure as heck starting to look like California.
While Ontario’s population is about one third of California’s, its debt load is more than double that of the biggest U.S. state.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-20/ontario-more-indebted-than-california-ignores-s-p-in-borrowing
I wonder if they feel (privately) whether only certain populations shouldn’t have children?
The answer to your question could be no, as in that case only irresponsible people would have children and the world’s fate would then be in their descendants’ hands only.
Holthaus was going to get his organ chopped. Sadly he never did. Still tweets his climate cr@p
How very “Terminator”! Save Sarah Connor’s as yet unborn child! Just about the level of analysis one would expect from The Guardian and how very convenient for all the Greenies to have your cake and eat it!
…David Hoffer points out that the author ultimately comes down on the side of having kids….
The author is married. His wife has just had a kid. He can pontificate all he likes, but SHE will tell him what his final decision will be… 🙂
It is probably a good idea for people who believe in Climate Change / Global Warming / CAGW not to have children as the problem could be inherited. It might be useful for science to investigate any evidence of transmission of Climate Change / Global Warming / CAGW derangement between generations.
No problem, like with Germany in the 1930s, they will use schools to ideologically brainwash children.
[snip]
??????
!!!!
…LOL
For those who failed to notice so far, global population explosion was over two decades ago. Since then population under the age of 15 is stable, somewhat below two billion. War zones and countries under insane, extremely corrupt or dysfunctional governments, especially some regions of the Middle East and Africa may be exceptions to this rule.
Unfortunately some of those wars were initiated by the U.S. of A., so reconsideration of policies is advised, otherwise a migrant crisis, much worse than what’s seen so far, is inevitable. But insanity in some regions is inbred, so a form of intervention is surely needed. The big question, wide open to public debate, is exactly how it should be implemented and by whom.
The basic reason population control works so well in general is twofold, and both related to females not being such fools as men. For to this end only two factors are needed, independent of cultural background according to experience, nothing more.
1. Decrease infant and child mortality as much as possible.
2. Educate girls and empower women.
In all places where these policies were implemented, population explosion ended in a single generation. Increasing educational level of males alone has no such effect whatsoever and denying equal rights to women is also a show stopper.
Anyway, the lesson learned is that no harsh policies are needed, only two worthy goals has to be attained.
However, none of these are achievable under bad or missing governments and starting wars is one of the worst options in this respect.
We need a relentless push for reasonable governmental structures wherever they are missing instead and funds spent on military intervention have to be redirected to promoting healthcare, education and women’s rights. Restricting migration may contribute a lot in the long run to improve situation in hot spots if it is accompanied by proper incentives directed to local institutions.
Even if these policies are implemented everywhere, global population may still increase for a while, but for an entirely different reason and not in an explosive manner. Under the right (worst) conditions an average woman can have many more than one daughter surviving until the age of reproduction, which implies an exponential growth, but no one can produce more than one old fart by failing to die young, but surviving until an advanced age. Therefore increasing life expectancy is an inherently benevolent process.
Needless to say, none of these options are related to climate in any way, so let’s talk about actual issues instead of red herrings in public.
Good points here!
‘We need a relentless push for reasonable governmental structures wherever they are missing’
WE, Kemo Sabe?
In saying all that you might have mentioned the Empires when talking of the state of the Middle East or Africa. Mobutu and Museveni have been to the white house, Mobutu called “friend” by Bush snr. Musiveni used kidnapped children in his campaign to become dictator for life, and partied with the Obamas at the white house.
Europe’s dealings in Africa in the past (and current European British Chinese Russian and US corps are doing the same now. Glencore using militias and police in Sudan to “neutralise” pesky uppity locals, Drummond in South America ditto. The world bank is also doing it’s damage. All while living under a network of remote death from the sky.
Iran elected a true hope for peace in the middle east in the 50s, and well, Mermit Roosevelt had him deposed and replaced with a Nazi arab dictator the Americans freed from prison. That continued until the 70s then Saddam was sold all manner of weapons (including chemical) and Saddam was welcomed to punish those uppity Iranians who dared to depose the American installed killer.
Pinochet? Supported by Britain.
I guess some might not know how much European banks royal families US corps and such invested in Hitler’s Germany and actually made profit from German slave camps.
Middle East, Britain drew new borders, violence ensures, Britain drew new border lines in Africa, more death and destruction, in Ireland, another mess, in Palestine, another mess.
Maybe if European and US governments and corporations stop fn up the middle east and africa, they might just be able to move forward.
cause effect, you missed half the story Lad
Those are questions to be discussed in public, in minute detail instead of diversions like “climate change”. However, some societies are more resilient than others and can come out on top in spite of baleful treatment, others are not so much. The difference should be analyzed thoroughly.
And no, I do not believe it’s all the West’s fault, there are plenty of dead ends locally.
First there was the politics thread last week, then this morality thread and here I am with very little time to respond to either one. Two of my main interests! Oh well, I’ll have to make do with a small comment here at the bottom of this thread.
There is a number (don’t know what it is) of humans that it would be great if we did not exceed on this planet. My guess is that we could easily have double the present population on this planet with little problem if we were a moral people. The two do go together you see.
First we need to recognize that there was no technological progress worldwide for almost 4,000 years and then BOOM, something happened.
https://markstoval.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/economic-history/
We see 3,600 years of no growth and then suddenly the economy was growing at 2% per year. That is a stunning change in the state of affairs. What happened? The “industrial revolution” happened. Every economic historian would recognize this and would point out that the industrial revolution happened around 1800 in the northern part of north Europe. Why there? Why then?
The answer is that classical liberalism happened. Slowly and in out-of-the-way places at first, but the idea that a man could do as he pleased as long as he did not commit aggression towards another who had done him no wrong became more widespread and then became a dominate philosophy.
Wikipedia:
Because socialists started calling themselves “liberals” the real liberals coined the word “libertarian” to distinguish themselves from the fake-liberals. (at least here in the US)
A more thorough explanation of classical liberalism can be seen here: https://mises.org/library/what-classical-liberalism
Those who have studied political history and political philosophy will know that Classical Liberalism was the philosophy of the founders of the US and was seen to be the best way to live. We can be assured that Laissez-faire and non-intervention by government; along with peace is the way to accelerate progress, prosperity, and innovation. We can move toward individual freedom and non-intervention by the STATE, or we can head towards a vision of the future that was foretold by Orwell. CO2 has nothing to do with it.
By the way, an analysis of how we got from 1776 to today in this country does not favor Republicans or Democrats. It does not favor so-called liberals (or progressives), nor so-called neo-conservatives. Both sides have given rise to the all-powerful Surveillance/Police/Warfare/Welfare State that is the US Empire.
Sadly, I don’t see any resolution to the war between “conservatives” and “liberals” in the US in my lifetime. Both demand the state control people’s lives. Both seek power over others. Both sides have had a chance to reduce the size and scope of government but neither has tried to do so in the 1/2 century that I have been old enough to watch with understanding. (both sides have claimed they wanted to do so)
Peace and freedom are the goals of moral men and women. Powerful nation-states will never lead to the goal.
~ Mark
…That’s one heck of a “small” comment !
And we can thank the PROTESTANT REVOLT for this sudden change which didn’t happen in 1800 but earlier: the invention of the printing press which the Catholic Church condemned and all modern processes came out of this one major invention which meant information could be cheaply and widely disseminated and people who had to become church clerks via church schools suddenly were able to go to Protestant schools designed to teach people to be…hold on to your hats here…inventors and scientists!
OT
If you live in high latitudes and experienced electric power failure, power surges or similar, it is sun to blame. Kp6 geomagnetic storm was recorded last night
http://flux.phys.uit.no/Last24/Last24_tro2a.gif
Obviously we agree that it is immoral for anybody stupid enough they believe in global warming to pollute the planet with their children.
China attempted to get carbon credits for their One Child Policy of forced abortions.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426458/chinas-children-and-climate-change-left-against-them-both-jeremy-carl
Dave Bry uses bizarre and convoluted “reasoning” to come to his conclusion that yes, it’s OK morally to have kids. But hang on, he’s being disingenuous as well. The true Warmist position vis-a-vis the morality of having kids is far more sinister than simply the concern for those kids’ welfare. That is just a front. No, the true moral position for them is that having children, especially in richer countries adds to the “burden” of CO2 we place on the planet, in addition to all the other environmental (real or imagined) things we evil, nasty humans do to “the planet”. He is both a liar and a hypocrite.
I lived through this in the 1970’s. Soooo familiar.
My bottom line…Yes, it is immoral for climate alarmists to have kids.
This is the wonderful Orwellian Life Environmentalists see for us all. Personally I think we should round up all Environmentalists, put them on an island, and only after they have proven their system works, apply it to the rest of society. If you haven’t already seen Green Inferno or read State of Fear, do so. Here is the Utopia Environmentalists see for all of us.
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1103579,00.html
I tolerate a lot of different view points. My in laws are pretty much deep green, although they made considerable money from manufacturing in areas related to automobiles. They also don’t have a problem owning two cars,a boat and living hours away from their children (who had to move from work) even though they’ve had the chance to move.
We just stay off the topic of environmentalism. Largely because my family has a science background (not myself) and is little to unconcerned and in part because of some awkwardness in which a group they were funding made a concentrated effort to have a scientist on my side of the family fired. I think they had the decency to stop contributing to that group.
However, I almost inevitably find that when you get deep green enough that you start moralizing about kids you’ve adopted an evangelical style of environmentalism that goes beyond cute or hypocritical to straight up dangerous. If you don’t try and correct them they may not have kids and the less indoctrinated evangelical environmentalists we have running around the better.
Much of the green posturing and posing from “normal” people is just to deflect potential negative attention and attacks from the more rabid environmentalists. It inculcates a tendency towards hypocrisy in people and is a great tool for manipulating them.
This idea is totally illogical. The whole purpose of Climate Change is to promote greater regulations and control over the people. What good is control if you have no people to control? Anyway, no one is stopping Liberals from not having children. I wish them all well, and hope they succeed.
Fertility rates are much lower in developed countries. Remember this the next time you read about AGW induced global redistribution of wealth…
This is what all this climate change nonsense is truly about…control. Wikileaks exposes how the elites use environmental cause to push for global governance. WUWT should do a series on how climate control is really designed to rob people of their freedoms.
It is shocking how far and to what extent these people will go to harm the public just to forward their cause. Truly pathetic.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-02/wikileaks-reveals-imf-plan-cause-credit-event-greece-and-destabilize-europe
The greenies have created their own mental asylum to live in. Suicidal ideation is the norm in that place of theirs. Mankind is killing itself etc. etc. etc. Where’s Nurse Ratched when you need her?
Eugene WR Gallun
Have kids, don’t have kids. The most important thing is not to have the Guardian. Self-loathing, self-absorption and neurosis are catching.
It is a truly dreadful situation that reading and writing for the Guardian is so damaging to people’s mental welfare.
I think this article is “micro-aggression” against children, parents and society as a whole. Maybe we need “speech codes” at the Guardian so that people aren’t “assaulted” by their “hurtful” publications. As a parent, and a person with an IQ above that of a garden slug, this article hurt my feelings, so I demand the Guardian take it down. Boo Hoo Hoo. Turn around is fair play.
The war on ‘microaggressions:’ Has it created a ‘victimhood culture’ on campuses?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/10/28/the-war-over-words-literally-on-some-american-campuses-where-asking-where-are-you-from-is-a-microaggression/
The Coddling of the American Mind
In the name of emotional well-being, college students are increasingly demanding protection from words and ideas they don’t like. Here’s why that’s disastrous for education—and mental health.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/
” David Hoffer points out that the author ultimately comes down on the side of having kids. … perhaps someone who is not yet born, perhaps not yet conceived, is the one super-genius to figure out the invention that could save the planet? … There’s always maybe. And that’s enough to persevere for. “
So, would the Precautionary Principle apply here and we should all be making babies like crazy, you know, to be sure?
Eric Worral, is it usual that you don’t read the articles you post bits of, completely? Do you also always make attributions like “according to the Guardian”, or do you usually do the correct attribution, something like – ‘an opion writer in the Guardian”?
The author does not only speak of climate change as part of his thinking even though it does sound like it’s close to a last straw. I don’t think he is right to think along the lines of having children, but I think the issues raised are important for our future.
“Issues”? Like what, pray tell?
Deforestation, garbage creation, rapid species extinction, even climate change, (true skeptics of the mainstream science would consider the possibility that they are wrong) Not an extensive list, but it is just a filler opinion piece.
Geoffrey Preece
Deforestation is EXTENDED and PROMOTED by the elite greenie-enviro’s who are selling and trading carbon schemes to corrupt third world dictators for money and “bio-fuels”. It is the Russian, (ex-Soviet block), Cuban, Chinese, North Korean communists who have promoted their five-year and ten-year economic and geological devestation plans in THEIR planned economies who have now 100 years of destruction. Don’t look at “capitalism” for damage: Today’s western companies and farmers and managers plant as many trees and acres of crops as they harvest: And EVERY green thing on earth is growing 12% to 27% faster, taller, more fruitful BECAUSE OF today’s higher carbon dioxide levels.
If we were allowed to use and generate energy, EVERY molecule and EVERY chemical ever found on earth can be recycled when economically profitable to do so. (Minus a few pounds of metal sent out with satellites towards other gravity fields.
It is only the New York and New Jersey “intellectual elites” who barged “their” trash out to sea and dumped it in the near-unrecoverable deep seas every year that condemned THEIR trash to more expensive places that make THEIR trash difficult to efficiently recycle.
Honestly, you enviro-cooks worry about the strangest, stupidest things, none of which have any bearing either on reality or on the author’s stated “moral dilemma” about whether or not to have kids.
Well……..if children must be the scapegoats ….. I suppose they should have goat eyes !
(re picture) Baaaaad kids ! /grin
For those who are morally against having kids, no worries, my immorally created kids will take care of you in your old age.
I remember being hammered over and over in grade school in the late 60s and 70s about the impacts of over-population and environmental degradation. Being a brainwashed, good little soldier I took it all to heart. How could I contribute to the destruction of the Earth by bringing more souls into the world, straining limited resources any further. I never had kids. And, I woke up from the delusions of my childhood too late. It was then that I noticed all the people who had been imploring me to save the world by not having kids had their own kids… and grandkids and great-grandkids. So, here I am at 57 facing the future alone and with no support system. Jokes on me.
It’s true of me also – I’m 58.
Idealist must understand that the conditions for stating a family will NEVER be ideal. All children are born into a world of immense problems. It is commonly referred to as REALITY. Get to know it better, for everybody’s sake. GK
If there was a problem with the climate the population would be decreasing. The world’s population is increasing 100,000+ a day, fed from agricultural land that has been decreasing since 1997 and large swathes are now used for bio- fuels. With an average world food index price at a 7 year low i would say the words climate is doing rather well.
Every western country has a fertility rate below replacement. Some are below zero, negative fertility. It’s the Middle Eastern countries with the highest fertility rates. Doesnt bode well for freedom and democracy.
https://www.facebook.com/OfficialBritainFirst/videos/856909564454306/
I hope these eco-fascist nut cases dont procreate. End their gene mutations.
No. Humans are simply animals that can reason and have complex language. Just like any other animal it would be immoral for us not to have children. Which probably means I’m immoral since I don’t have any. I’ll give 1.25 kid to someone who wants more than their family’s share of 2.5 kids. So there I stay nice and moral. 😉
For a modest fee to cover shipping and handling?
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Whoa, Lamont! Genius! You just came up with an equivalent of selling carbon credits! You buy the rights from anyone who has never had children and has had a tubal ligation or vasectomy and sell the rights (at a modest markup, of course) to those couples who want to have children. All that’s needed is a law requiring those who intend to have s*e*x without said sterilization to buy offspring offsets, thus creating an unfathomable revenue stream.
(I’m assuming here that our friendly neighborhood federal government is not monitoring this comment thread and will not steal the idea to raise government revenues.)
Good idea, everybody stop having kids. The Al Gores of this planet need young blood to tend the gardens and their pools. That will get them!
Ok, now for me to put in my two cents (and don’t start with some snide comment that that’s all it’s gonna’ be worth).
The solution to all these problems has nothing to do with either too many children being conceived or too few. The problem is solely isolated to those children who were conceived in the atmosphere of a six pack of beer.
So, what I propose is very simple: a pre-s•e•x alcohol detection device somewhat akin to a breathalyzer. For males this device could consist of a thin electric wire implanted just under the skin of the male appendage. We all know that electrical resistance in a wire goes down when it’s straight as a board, and goes up when it’s curved. Thusly, when the male appendage is droopy and flaccid the increased resistance of the wire will signal that there’s no danger even if the implantee’s BAC level is high enough for spontaneous human combustion. However, when the male appendage is sticking straight out and longing for the ‘go’ signal the decreased resistance of this wire will send a signal that will send a debilitating electrical shock to that organ if the BAC levels are above a certain threshold.
Now, I don’t possess the female counterpart to this organ (otherwise I’d actually be able to do what a lot of people tell me to do when they get mad at me). And, unfortunately I’ve had far less experience with the female counterpart to my male organ than I like to imagine I’ve had (especially when I was in my teens). So, if there’s any females out there who’d like to assist me in devising a design for a pre-s•e•x alcohol detection device for women I’m ready and waiting. Just don’t all come breaking my door down at once.
Ok, ok, I know if what I’ve just written seems completely frivolous in the presence of just a supposedly serious idea as telling a living organism not to reproduce itself let it be known that stupid ideas are best revealed by stupid responses.
Tom,
The obvious answer is to ban beer. Wait… the US tried that before. It didn’t work out as I recall. Your idea may have some merit, then.
Lucky kids… this time they get off with only a warning… but next time, the Grauniad will find a more willing author… Be afraid kiddies, be very afraid…
I posted a comment on the article at the Guardian website pointing out that previous generations only had little problems like the First and Second World Wars and the possibility of a nuclear holocaust during the Cold War. I also suggested that Dave Bry and the Guardian could be nominated for the Darwin awards.
http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/
Strangely my comment no longer exists. There is a note saying that it has been removed by the Guardian moderators because it violates their “community standards.”
Perhaps the problem would be solved within a generation if climate scientists refrained from having kids.
I’m happy if greens and leftists to the right thing and not have kids.
It will make my World a better place.
“…not yet born, perhaps not yet conceived, is the one super-genius to figure out the invention that could save the planet? … There’s always maybe….”
Highly unlikely from such as the “Gang Greene” writer who would brainwash his kids unmercifully. I have on a number of occasions on threads on education pointed out that parents have to be ‘all-in’ in contributing to and vetting their children’s education to ensure they are equipped with antidotes to the unbelievable political propaganda that they are soaked with. I also taught my children and now grandchildren a higher level of math and science subjects as well as the importance of thinking for themselves. Don’t leave your child with a baby sitter for 12 years. I guess the downside is the Guardian writer also does the same thing by supporting the status quo.
the author of the Guardian article was probably just exploiting this clever framework to heighten the emotional – as opposed to rational – impact of his real agenda – agw alarmism
there are other existential threats that should be confronted by parents-to-be – including that child’s own inevitable death – the potential for a lifelong struggle – birth defects and illness – as well as war – pestilence – and bernie schwatz – the author would just need to change a few words in his article
Right, so the hope that you may spawn the Climate Messiah is the very reason you should have as many sprogs as possible. Or, put otherwise, due vain hope of a better solution you should personally be the greatest culprit of the problem itself.
We had this sort of lunatic response during the cold war and then after the first years of nuclear weapon proliferation, we had even had it in WW2 when the Nazis were gaining ground and there have even been examples of it at many other stressful times too. I suspect that the human race might even benefit by the idea of not bringing children into the world – effectively preventing proliferation of those humans who are apparently predisposed to worry too much about such things. But is this genetic engineering and are we right to let it run its course or should we intervene in that?
How could this be considered genetic engineering using the scientific definition?
I doubt it will be any surprise but the Guardian censured my comment on the piece.
It was perfectly factual, giving some links that showed the IPCC projections had been falsified.
Also, that the growth n global population had slowed and the best solution to slow it further was to eliminate poverty. See http://www.gapminder.org/videos/dont-panic-the-facts-about-population/ (worth seeing)
Apparently it is against their rules to express doubt about AGW.
Many commenting here are gullible dopes to me . . so gullible they actually believe this whole CAGW dealeo is just a happenstance accumulation/result of people way less intelligent than themselves making blunders and being irrational . .
. . One born every minute, as the old saying goes ; )
Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies. (H. L. Mencken)
I think you could change Communism to Climate Alarmism and the quote would summarize the Alarmist movement of today…Green is the new Red anyway…
The Malthusians are ever with us. These days they just seem to have a really microphone. And tenure.
I seem to remember Walker Percy (either in Love in the Ruins or Lost in the Cosmos) saying something like, ‘Man’s greatest fear isn’t that the apocalypse will happen, but that it won’t.”
… a really big microphone, sorry.
Excellent quote! So true. Watch the glee when the greens think they’ve found something in their favor and announce, yet again, that we’re all going to die. They’ve cheered and applauded that. It’s sick!
My fav is that they (lefties) like to call themselves “progressive”, while pining for world-wide policies which would be totally regressive for humankind (both rich and poor sides of it) if allowed to be implemented. As someone quoted here before “left wing ideology really is just arrogant ignorance pretending to be sophisticated enlightenment”…
If you are an alarmist then yes it is immoral to have kids and inflict more little alarmists on the rest of us. For the sane part of the population kids are awesome.
The first two Alarmists commandments should be 1) thou shalt not have kids and 2) thou shalt not borrow money (which is creating money out of thin air) to pull consumption from the future from the present. Now explain to me why Al Gore had a kid who married the great grandchild of Jacob Schiff, one of the seven original infamous participants at Jeckyl Island in 1913 where our debt based monetary system was created.
There is no way anyone can take the Groaniad seriously on any subject.
If they do, they need help.
I really do like this article. Yea, encourage all th morons who believe in the scam to not have children. Please, I want to see more of this!
Damien!
“I … think about my son growing up in a gray, dying world – walking towards Kansas on potholed highways. … It’s all very depressing.”
More support for the theory that climate alarmism leads to, or is symptomatic of mental illness.
Interesting sociological process going on in the eco-warmist group psychology. Dispense with morality in favor of scientific ethic, poke fun at outdated moral values. Then when theory becomes dogma, retranslated into religion, reinstate morality, based on restructured values.
Yesterday’s scientists become today’s high priests.
If so many species are going extinct, why do they have so much trouble actually listing them?