Apparently, Getting Old Causes Climate Change

Charles Rotter There was a time when the climate conversation had villains you could point to without needing a spreadsheet. Smokestacks. Jet engines. Maybe a coal plant belching away like it had a personal grudge against the atmosphere. Simple. Tangible. Satisfying. Then things got…creative. First it was your car. Then your diet. Then your vacation. Then your thermostat. Then your dog. Then your coffee habit. At some point, the message quietly shifted from “some activities produce emissions” to...

This post is currently for VIP and Premium Subscribers Only.

After 30 days it will be available to all users.

You can bookmark it and read in 30 days or

To read it it now, you can sign up by clicking here.

31 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
May 4, 2026 2:09 pm

Aged 75, living alone! OMG, don’t send the carbon police after me! 🙂

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
May 4, 2026 2:19 pm

Listen for the drums.
Since the internet is no longer available, we are using proven technology to communicate.
Listen for the drums.

atticman
Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
May 5, 2026 4:32 am

What’s wrong with string and cocoa tins?

JonasM
Reply to  atticman
May 5, 2026 10:14 am

Eventually, the curvature of the Earth makes that impossible.

jvcstone
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
May 4, 2026 3:15 pm

I’ll be 80 on my next BD, and also living alone—well with a bunch of goats, plus some chickens and longhorns, and I’m well prepared for any visit by those carbon cops. Use propane for cooking, hot water, and drying the laundry, and minisplits to adjust the interior environment of my three room living space.

Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
May 4, 2026 4:24 pm

I’m over 70, but I’m a good boy.. I have solar panels . 😉

Phillip Chalmers
Reply to  bnice2000
May 5, 2026 1:34 am

Red Queen: “Off with his head”

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  bnice2000
May 5, 2026 1:46 pm

“A foole and his money be soone at debate.”
— Thomas Tusser

There is treasure to be desired and oil in the dwelling of the wise; but a foolish man spendeth it up”.
— King James, Proverbs 21:20

🙂

Edward Katz
May 4, 2026 2:21 pm

No problem since all the climate alarmists in government positions have to do is attempt to enact legislation for mandatory termination of lives at a certain age. Since global life expectancy is currently at 73 years, once a person has reached that point the authorities would have decided he/she had used up his right to utilize any more of his share of the planet’s air, water, and natural resources and and therefore must be willing to allow the upcoming generations to get their fill. So the seniors would have to voluntarily appear at a government-run center and be terminated. Yet there’s one little sticking point: if climate change is such an existential threat, won’t the global population start dropping by itself? And wouldn’t the government officials behind the overall proposal be exempt from termination because they’ve got so many important things to do to make certain their plans go smoothly?

Scissor
Reply to  Edward Katz
May 4, 2026 3:06 pm

Your on time departure MAID in Canada.

cgh
Reply to  Edward Katz
May 4, 2026 5:12 pm

So perhaps this is what they want to create.
Logan’s Run 1976

old cocky
Reply to  cgh
May 4, 2026 11:48 pm

You beat me to it.

Reply to  cgh
May 5, 2026 8:23 am
Phillip Chalmers
Reply to  Edward Katz
May 5, 2026 1:38 am

The Lord High Chief Global Executioner of useless eaters is not long dead, Paul Ehrlich. He lived to 93. Mr. Do as I say and not do as I do.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Edward Katz
May 5, 2026 1:47 pm

Soylent Green comes to mind as does retirement at 65.

DonK31
May 4, 2026 3:07 pm

I’m 73 and I live alone in a single family house in Southern FL. I hate cold. I love the heat. I don’t turn the AC on unless it gets up to 87 in the house. Except for the dead of winter, I use fewer than 8 Kwh per day. I walk a lot. I’m coming up on my 1 year or 10K miles maintenance on my car. I’m 6K short on mileage. That 4K miles in the past year includes a 2500 mile trip to KY to help my sister through the death of her daughter.

How much more energy do you want me to save?

Reply to  DonK31
May 4, 2026 3:11 pm

You haven’t begged for mercy from Gaia yet. But you’re doing well.

May 4, 2026 4:28 pm

Just turn us into soylent green. Job done

John Hultquist
May 4, 2026 5:08 pm

Can I sue the big bad oil companies? With a large settlement I could transition to a top notch senior-living community, reduce my space, have someone else cook and clean, drive me to shopping and appointments in a mini-bus, and keep the fireplace in the TV room going while I nap.
Corollary: A young couple living in her mother’s basement can now move to my vacated house, have several kids and generate a per capita carbon footprint less than mine was. Summing all this would be difficult but the result likely would be that total emissions would go up. 

Scarecrow Repair
May 4, 2026 5:35 pm

Hey, WUWT … This premium post from April 26 is still invisible.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2026/03/26/no-more-great-reset-its-now-the-great-retreat/

Scarecrow Repair
Reply to  Charles Rotter
May 4, 2026 7:02 pm

Thanks. I thought of trying the Story Submission link. Is there a better way of letting you guys know?

hdhoese
Reply to  Scarecrow Repair
May 5, 2026 8:51 am

Yep, Climate-driven depopulation and adaptation realities in America’s coastal ground zero. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-026-01820-z
“We highlight the positive aspects of the recently commenced out-migration in this region [New Orleans] and argue that the fate of communities landwards of this coastal zone will be decided in the next few decades.”

claysanborn
May 4, 2026 6:37 pm

Soylent Green all over again. We’ll be made into wafers which will be fed to robots.

Phillip Chalmers
Reply to  claysanborn
May 5, 2026 2:28 am

My life included dealing with infectious disease. All Soylent colour variants will not work to perpetuate humankind, it will reduce it to a remnant.
In PNG Australian doctors discovered that a local brain disease kuru was caused because the brains of enemies were cooked and eaten by the winners and their families.
That led to realizing that a virus like thing which is now called a prion infected the people who ate the brain and in turn, rotted their brain and that it was not unique to PNG.

May 4, 2026 10:08 pm

The soylent green idea spun further. The 19th century fuelled its lights and industry with whale oil, the 21th century might be fuelled by “eco friendly” geezer oil. Two birds one stone, and the whales are safe as well.

Too sarcastic in midst of an aging population?

Bill Toland
May 5, 2026 12:07 am

The older I get, the colder the climate feels to me. I know that there has been gigantic planet destroying warming of one degree in the last century; at least that is what I have been told. But it feels a lot colder to me. Of course, It might be that you feel the cold more when you get older, when your metabolism slows down.

EmilyDaniels
Reply to  Bill Toland
May 6, 2026 6:18 am

Metabolism is part of it, but your subcutaneous fat also breaks down as you age, causing wrinkles and reducing your natural insulation

May 5, 2026 8:15 am

Well, to be fair. The older I get, the more methane I produce. And sometimes release it involuntarily.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Mumbles McGuirck
May 5, 2026 1:51 pm

Sometimes, to my wife’s horror, I release it intentionally. 😉