Before banning something because it may have a 0.0001% chance of being bad for the Earth's climate, you should be sure that it doesn't have a 0.0002% chance of being good for the Earth's climate.

That's why you need science and proof to try to know the truth, or at least do the best effort. If you don't care about the truth you can use Tarot cards or Ouija tables, that are cheaper and least wasteful than a bunch of Ph.D. that just want to put buoys and launch satellites to measure everything.

> a bunch of Ph.D. that just want to put buoys and launch satellites to measure everything.

I'm not really understanding here. "measuring everything" is how science is performed. Are you for or against "science?"

I'm for science. I thought that "use Tarot cards or Ouija tables" was enough to mark the rest of the sentence as ironic.

That's a very naive worldview. I'll skip the first part of what you said and focus on this though:

>The most important thing to remember with climate change is that there's no downside to being less wasteful.

It doesn't matter if you shower less or use the AC less or use an electric car, all that pales in comparison to you not existing in the first place. So the easiest way to solve the entire issue is not having more children. I feel like this is such a big choice with huge downsides for most people that it doesn't even get talked about that often.

Actually the average western/US CO2 footprint is so big, that it's very doable to fit yourself and a child in after you cut down on luxuries. Of course "use AC less" and "use electric cars" are not the kinds of changes that will get you there. More like no meat, no car, no flights, no grid powered AC etc.

Offsetting your baby's lifetime CO2 footprint is actually very affordable even with the average US figure. For a more hands on alternative you could strive to raise them to a line of work that would cause them to have a net negative climate footprint.

But yes, have a good hard think about these things when considering getting children.

One decent flight is more than pretty much everything else combined, people forget this far too much. Most of the people that try to offset their footprint are the same damn people that feel the need to fly around the world every couple of years.

For lack of a more credible source,

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/sep/09/carb...

For a slightly more provocative example for what is a "decent" flight, see http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-21/billionair...

“America’s lifestyle expectations are far too high and need to be adjusted so we have less things and a smaller, better existence,” Greene said in an interview today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We need to reinvent our whole system of life.”

This was said by "Greene, who flew his wife, children and two nannies on a private jet plane to Davos for the week".

OK, he not only made a speech but also had a dinner with Tony Blair so it wasn't just for that speech.

So the TSA is harassing those who are ruining the planet.

They're doing God's work! /s