I am not sure, I wonder if having kids mean you will care more about the future?

This. I had an argument with a friend because I said having more than 3 kids is selfish, and conversely, having fewer kids (or adopting) is selfless and should be praised. They retorted saying it should be part of an individual's freedom to have as many as they wish. I think after a few more generations we may be looking at a world wide child policy (similar to China).

Oh come off it hardly anyone has kids anymore. US population growth is very slow and due purely to immigration. Populations in many countries are in free fall. China's one child policy has created a demographic disaster with insufficient girls born.

This Paul Erlich stuff is so 1970s.

Why? Global population is already forecast to peak pretty soon.

The sooner the better. According to the most realistic climate models, the point of no return for ~2 degree global average warming is already over. We don't have a good idea at what point truly catastrophic damage is going to occur (by which I mainly mean something like a Siberian clathrate gun that could hypothetically drastically warm the climate within a human lifetime). Continuing the current path of CO2 increase, every 10 years increases the risk for a runaway warming process. What's worse is that our models aren't good enough to say with certainty how high this risk is (or that it doesn't exist). So really, the time we live in now is what counts and every little bit we do, helps.

If you want some scary reading material, start here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrupt_climate_change

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian–Triassic_extinction_ev...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis (Please note: This article seems to change its message regularly. it's best to go for the source material instead).

Holy shit! The methane clathrate gun is scary stuff..so basically there's a temperature that we dont exactly know that could eradicate our species in some kind if irreversible chain reaction. And almost no one talks about it.. Ive never heard of MCG before, thanks for your post.

Exactly. The most infuriating thing about it is that people keep debating about how serious we should take this. Even that wiki article seems to be poisoned by deniers. I quote from a previous comment of mine:

> "Research carried out in 2008 in the Siberian Arctic has shown millions of tons of methane being released, apparently through perforations in the seabed permafrost,[20] with concentrations in some regions reaching up to 100 times normal levels.[22][23] The excess methane has been detected in localized hotspots in the outfall of the Lena River and the border between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea. Some melting may be the result of geological heating, but more thawing is believed to be due to the greatly increased volumes of meltwater being discharged from the Siberian rivers flowing north.[24] Current methane release has previously been estimated at 0.5 Mt per year.[25] Shakhova et al. (2008) estimate that not less than 1,400 Gt of carbon is presently locked up as methane and methane hydrates under the Arctic submarine permafrost, and 5–10% of that area is subject to puncturing by open taliks. They conclude that "release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage [is] highly possible for abrupt release at any time". That would increase the methane content of the planet's atmosphere by a factor of twelve,[26][27] equivalent in greenhouse effect to a doubling in the current level of CO2."

Yet in the same section, you know what the introduction text reads currently?

> "Most deposits of methane clathrate are in sediments too deep to respond rapidly, and modelling by Archer (2007) suggests the methane forcing should remain a minor component of the overall greenhouse effect.[17] Clathrate deposits destabilize from the deepest part of their stability zone, which is typically hundreds of metres below the seabed. A sustained increase in sea temperature will warm its way through the sediment eventually, and cause the shallowest, most marginal clathrate to start to break down; but it will typically take on the order of a thousand years or more for the temperature signal to get through.[17]"

So let me get this straight: Because someone found a model from 2007 that makes things look mostly fine, we ignore empirical data from 2008 that shows that a Clathrate Gun of 50 Gt could go off at any time? Please someone tell me how I'm wrong just so I don't have to go crazy here.

Since I can't edit this comment anymore: I left a comment on the Talk page of this article [1]. Are there any climate scientists on HN?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Clathrate_gun_hypothesis

The forecast may or may not happen. Everyone having at most 1-2 kids would help.

Lots of Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, etc opting for zero already.

The problem lies in developing nations.

They release drastically less CO2 than the richer people do.

Their growth rate, not their emissions. US is double per capita, but China is double for actual emissions. Sheer scale.

I don't think it's that clear cut. Other than the personal freedom aspect, which I agree with, you can also argue that more people == more scientists/engineers/minds working on advancing our technological capabilities. This is arguably the number one thing that will lead to a solution.

Your whole reason for being, the thing that gets you out of bed and searching for food, is your in-built desire to recreate and nurture life. Intentionally rejecting that is a massive commitment to make, given the very long term consequences of it.

In short, go have some kids, bring them up well and enjoy the benefits. Our biology is tribe-based and ingrained, so it's smart to work with that and be part of a tribe.

We all die alone, but those that die surrounded by love feel less lonely in all the decades up to that final point. That's your Dna rewarding you for a job well done.

That seems a bit of a stretch... There's no inbuilt point to life, but people try desperately to find one because evolution gave us some kind of drive for meaning, whatever that is. Don't mistake reproduction for some kind of divine purpose, it just is.

Don't mistake anything for purpose. Purpose is a concept central to goal directed planning, but it is a construct of the mind. Since humans give purpose to things, humans cannot be assigned a purpose except as a way to use them for some other means.

You are right though -- finding cuties gets me out of bed, but believe me I'm using birth control.