I don’t necessarily disagree with you per se, but I do think these “EV-lite” type analyses are too broad: environmentally conscious people may be more likely to have children who are environmentally conscious, work on climate engineering, &c.

That’s not to say that we should encourage them specifically to have children either; just that children represent potential in a way that the number of bunker-fuel cargo ships does not.

Even the most environmentally conscious person in an industrialized nation will emit massive amounts of CO2 in their lifetime, provided of course that nobody invents a "quick fix" for CO2 emissions in their lifetime. Of course in theory the child could be that person to invent that quick fix, but the expected value is still that the child will contribute to a lot of CO2 emissions.

The point is that "will emit massive amounts of CO2" isn't a complex enough metric: if that's how we're calculating EV (which I disagree with in the first place), then it would be perfectly appropriate for me to go around killing truck drivers and suburbanites.

It doesn't matter. Climate change is happening. It doesn't matter what we do as individuals, the system can't be changed from individual action and it can't be changed via collective action as that would require full cooperation.

There is no practical way we can achieve the goal of survival through reduction of CO2 emissions. It's a farce because we'll never get all parties to agree.

The only path forward is to hope we have some very clever science and engineering that can help us survive this disaster.

> There is no practical way we can achieve the goal of survival through reduction of CO2 emissions. It's a farce

It's a farce because it's already too late for emissions reductions to cut it. We need to pull carbon out of the atmosphere or, as you say, engineer other solutions.

But a robust solution is not going to be limited to the physical/material domain. Societies are malleable and so are people. We need to design ourselves and our activities into a vibrant planetary ecology, not throw up our hands and try to patch around historically contingent circumstances

As Octavia Butler put it, God is change, and change is not to be reacted to, but to be shaped

The earth is on a trajectory for <2.5C just based on current technology and policies. The technology and policy path we're on (including developed but not yet implemented tech and policy) is likely to limit warming to <2C, but 1.5C is nigh-on unachievable. Assuming we don't hit any runaway conditions (which is an unknown unknown that we probably won't realize until we're already there)...the vast majority of the world will be just fine. And if governments can get their heads out of their behinds and pass marginally sensible immigration reform, the people who are displaced can move to locations where there are massive demographic bombs going off (most of the west) to stabilize their workforces.

I’ve thought about this. I think it really depends on whether we need more climate-minded voters in the future. If we do then those susceptible to this message are exactly the wrong ones to hear it.

We need climate-minded voters now, not years in the future. In fact, even now is too late really: we needed them 40 or 50 years ago!

I’m here!

yes, take away the single greatest potential joy people can have in their lives. Great plan for humanity, chief.

You can always adopt?

I’m gay, and I don’t feel like the single greatest potential joy has been taken from me.

There are ways to have children without creating your own.

Children are a potential source of great joy. Saying they are the single greatest source is hyperbolic and frankly offensive in some ways.

It's also not great advice for humanity. Better to have a CO2 high future than no future at all.

They might be the same future though.

Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think any (serious) high CO2 predictions involve the extinction of our species, but rather extensive displacement as a changing climate changes zones of habitability on our planet.

We're currently running a simulation to refute or confirm your assumption. Check back in some 150-200 years to see if your assumption was true.

Will do

If the human population reduced to 100m - still substantial - it's not technically extinction. But it's still essentially the end of our world and society. The people who died won't take solace in humanity not dying out.

Could we come back from it? Hard to say.

Murder is even more effective.

In you had to murder someone, could you please target a billionaire? One who loves to take their private jet out on many 50 minute flights, if possible...

I would hope and assume that the community rules of HN don’t look kindly upon advocating the murder of any specific individuals.

That aside, I think it’s naive to assume that your proposed action would have a relevant outcome. Any successor is going to need to travel between facilities just as much — if not moreso — as they are brought up to speed and need to have ongoing meetings with executives and managers across a dozen locations.

Not to mention the travel involved in post-death matters of funerals, media coverage, high profile criminal investigations, and so on. And of course the wealth of one person then gets inherited by perhaps a dozen people, any of whom might live a more lavish (i.e. carbon intensive) lifestyle when they inherit even a small fraction of such enormous wealth.

Quite frankly I don’t see how your proposal has any chance of being remotely carbon positive.

vote for Genghis Khan of the Green Party!

That's true. It's also an entirely different tragedy of the commons. If nobody has children, we are going to be screwed when our generation is too old to work.

Overheated flooding Greenhouse with a bunch of geriatric seniors bitching at each other and pointing fingers and with no one able to actually get up and do anything sounds about right.

If nobody has children, then it won't matter if there is more or less CO2 in the air. Environmental quality doesn't have inherent moral worth. The moral worth is in the impact it has on people in the world. Nothing at all matters any more if there are no people.

To optimize, you should aim to kill as many people as possible. Bonus points for killing children of wealthy individuals, since they have the highest potential for future CO2 usage.

The real lifeprotip is always in the comments

A less deadly alternative is destroying society and industry. Cavemen have a pretty good climate footprint.

there is nothing controversial about pointing out the connection between having kids and CO2 output, the controversy begins when telling people which way they should decide.

Well, following that logic, one should also commit suicide. I hope no one is logical enough to do that.

The planet will be fine, co2 is plant food, they are literaly starving for it.

If anything, we will not have enought humans around with our birth rate.

Technology is getting cleaner and cleaner each year: ev, solar panels, etc.

Look into Tony Seba for the energy revolution And joan Lomberg about what are our most important problems and solutions

I think we should put far less energy on climate change and more on our human problems: war, famine, poverty, corruption, etc.