Climate ‘apocalypse’ fears stopping people having children – study | Hacker News Reader

Climate ‘apocalypse’ fears stopping people having children – study

theguardian.com

25 pointsmakerofspoons16 comments

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Edit: it appears other possible disasters cause INCREASED fertility.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

Original question: Does anyone know if people reacted similarly to the threat of nuclear war back in the 60s?

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/82d0/8367f3861abbd1fe27f640...

Perhaps that could be a positive feedback loop.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/population-growth...

“Population, global warming and consumption patterns are inextricably linked in their collective global environmental impact,” reports the Global Population and Environment Program at the non-profit Sierra Club. “As developing countries’ contribution to global emissions grows, population size and growth rates will become significant factors in magnifying the impacts of global warming.”

This study is amusing. The respondent group is 88% white people, 91% of the total group self-identifying with the literal string "liberal". Less than 1% latinx, less than 1% blacks, less than 1% identifying by the literal string "conservative". On top of that respondents were only targeted by Facebook and Twitter posts.

I guess it should be no surprise white liberals that respond to Facebook and Twitter posts are removing themselves from the gene pool. But maybe it's not only them as other demographics are highly underrepresented in this study.

Agree that this study isn't rigorous, but the fertility rate decline has been stark for some time [1] [2] [3] [4].

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/fertility-rates/

[2] https://ifstudies.org/blog/number-2-in-2018-baby-bust-fertil... (Number 2 in 2018: Baby Bust—Fertility is Declining the Most Among Minority Women)

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521 (Fertility rate: 'Jaw-dropping' global crash in children being born)

[4] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/22/u-s-fertili... (Pew Research: Is U.S. fertility at an all-time low? Two of three measures point to yes)

Side note: CNN article on the term 'latinx'. This is a controversial term and very unpopular in the Latino community according to Pew [1]

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/12/us/latinx-term-usage-hisp...

It's used in the research paper. Take that for what it's worth. Personally I've never heard of the term.

I think it is important to keep the temperature increase down so that we don't drive as many species to extinction (ex. Coral reefs are already severely damaged). But the climate "apocalypse" fears seem overblown. Florida was supposed to be underwater by now, and yet it's doing fine.

Im sure there will be some increase in natural disasters due to climate change, but I don't believe in the idea that climate change will be some extinction level event.

It doesn't have to cause extinction to cause huge amounts of suffering for human beings or even collapse civilization as we know it.

Climate change could certainly cause large scale suffering, but how could any of the likely scenarios possibly cause civilizational collapse?

I would assume that civilization doesnt collapse like a building, it collapses like an ecosystem, slowly components of that civ don't have the resources to exists, services go unrendered,people stop living in that area, pressure builds on less affected areas. Costs rise, gentrification pushes low income people into bad parts of town, that compound and get worse.

By now? Where did you see that?

Florida is already assuring King tide events and sink holes due to climate change

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/21/florida-...

Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, one heard of couples not wishing to bring children into such a world. Given the "echo boom" that followed in the early 1980s, I wonder if this wasn't the boomers just not being quite ready to settle down, and using global terms to explain a local situation.

(Boomer myself.)

I can barely afford my 1 bedroom studio, no way I will ever afford to have kids. I have not really considered climate in that equation.

Where do you live?

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