I can imagine. For me it's the reason also to not want kids. I want to enjoy my life.
But it's good for environmental reasons to not have kids anyway.
But it's good for environmental reasons to not have kids anyway.
But I'm glad we don't have this kind of social pressure to have kids anymore. Like there was in the 50s and some countries still do.
Nevertheless, I'm sure if I had PG's wealth, I could have kids and have a lot better work life balance with them. But I do not.
Humans are the only hope for other species including animals and plants, since we can bring them into outer space and use energy storage or from other parts of the solar system / galaxy to preserve life further.
That said, here's a fine poem in support of your angle: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-ver...
It's just something that was previously seen as a virtue (or for example for Catholics almost a holy priority) is now becoming a hobby. And if not everyone takes up that hobby we can be sustainable for a lot longer. Even a population decline wouldn't be bad after we've been growing so hard as a species.
Of course we can't keep growing forever. And hoping the future comes up with a magical answer is exactly how we got into the climate mess we're in right now.
We've seen the same here in Europe. My parents' generation usually had large families, my generation had mostly 1-2 kids, and these days many families have no kids.
Of course poorer countries and countries that are still very religious are a bit behind but they will catch up too. Humanity won't go extinct, there will always be people happy to have children.
And if we can't, is that fair to future generations? Aren't we condemning them to a more miserable life? (On the other hand, if 8 billion people leads to destroying the environment, that also leaves them more miserable...)
Food will be a bigger problem but less people also means less food needed.
That's what they told us in the 60s/70s/80s and we're still working as much while our standards are lowering but ok, we'll automagically fix things, we're just waiting for the right time
The only reason we could have so many people on the planet at once is because almost half of them live in poverty, close to animal standard with some human technology sprinkled in some place...
It's just shortsighted to believe that having so many people was sustainable in the first place.
I guess if you don't care about your country or continent legacy that could work yes
And that position can still be reassessed in the next 30 years.
I am still not convinced that a globally aging population is a big issue in the long term.
Such a phase sucks but it's temporary. Eventually the wave of old people is gone and things are back to normal. It's not something we can't overcome.
What do you mean by back to normal ? The African demographic boom, even if we didn't have our own fertility problem, will ensure there will be no back to "normal". History is never about going back to normal
If you care about quality of life, employment, pensions, shortages, smooth transitions, immigration, it's a whole other story
Am I wrong to interpret it like that?
The ones who insist on having children as an ultimate virtue, I find them to be just as wrong.
Either choice is fine, and the moral objections to either one are unreasonable.
Edit: edited to expand the last sentence.
In fact I really hate moral judgments of people's personal lives, like is being done to the LGBT community in the US at the moment.
In contrast, kids are necessary to stop overaging and the collapse of our society.
But anyway, if you need active workforce, the solutions is simple: immigration.
The best thing you can do for the environment is to find someone as passionate as yourself and create a large family of conscientious, thoughtful, active environmentalists.
The absence of people with bad ideas won't help as much as a surplus of people with good ideas. Since even if we had half the people they could still pollute like crazy.
If humanity has to go extinct in 40 years might as well tear up all current climate agreements.