A fifth of female climate scientists who responded to Guardian survey said they had opted to have no or fewer children

Ihad the hormonal urges,” said Prof Camille Parmesan, a leading climate scientist based in France. “Oh my gosh, it was very strong. But it was: ‘Do I really want to bring a child into this world that we’re creating?’ Even 30 years ago, it was very clear the world was going to hell in a handbasket. I’m 62 now and I’m actually really glad I did not have children.”

Parmesan is not alone. An exclusive Guardian survey has found that almost a fifth of the female climate experts who responded have chosen to have no children, or fewer children, due to the environmental crises afflicting the world.

An Indian scientist who chose to be anonymous decided to adopt rather than have children of her own. “There are too many children in India who do not get a fair chance and we can offer that to someone who is already born,” she said. “We are not so special that our genes need to be transmitted: values matter more.

    • @NounsAndWords
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      207 months ago

      Hey I found this cool post from that guy you’re quoting.

      • troed
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        -227 months ago

        You might want to read the article. Doomism isn’t climate science.

        • @dot0
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          7 months ago

          you might wanna read the article.

          We can avoid catastrophic climate impacts if we take meaningful actions to address the climate crisis. Yes, that’s an important “if.”

          this asshole buried the actual crux of the issue way deep in the fluff. these two sentences contradict the headline.

          which part of what is currently happening in the world is making you pretend that the “if” qualification is being even remotely met?

          • troed
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            -17 months ago

            The whole point of the article (written by Mann) is that the policies already in place keeps us below 3 degrees.

            Regarding your “currently happening”, this quote seems fitting:

            “I often encounter, especially on social media, individuals who are convinced that the latest extreme weather event is confirmation that the climate crisis is far worse than we thought, and scientists and climate communicators are intentionally “hiding” the scary truth from the public. It is the sort of conspiratorial thinking that we used to find among climate change deniers, but increasingly today we see it with climate doomists.”

            Do you consider yourself better educated on climate science than Mann?

            • @dot0
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              7 months ago

              point of order, madam speaker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

              I do appear to have better reading comprehension than Mann expected from his audience. otherwise he wouldn’t have have tried something underhanded like that.

              tell me, do you place value in peer review and consensus when it comes to science? you know Mann is out of step with scientific consensus in his view, yeah? I am inclined to believe you’ve cherry picked the one opinion piece which affirms a pre-existing perspective on your part.

              also I adore that you completely failed to acknowledge a direct question I posed to you: which part of what is happening in the world right now is causing you to behave like Mann’s “if” condition is fulfilled in any way whatsoever? I want an answer from you in your own words. don’t quote an appeal to authority again.

    • Skua
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      7 months ago

      As the article correctly points out, 3 C warming is still really fucking bad. Just because it can technically be worse and we won’t all die does not mean it’ll be nice to live through. Bringing about the extinction of 29% of all species is madness. To quote the article:

      “The most comprehensive and authoritative assessment of risk across all sectors — health, food, water, conflict, poverty, and the natural ecosystem — by the IPCC in 2018 basically concluded that we don’t want to warm the planet beyond 1.5°C (2.7°F), and we really don’t want to warm it beyond 2°C (3.6°F). And if we do happen to overshoot those targets, we want to keep the duration of overshoot to a minimum.”

      • HubertManne
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        77 months ago

        yeah and this is through the narrow lens of just temperature. If there was no climate change we would still be pretty effed up due to habitat loss and pollution and such. Climate change is just sorta a knock on effect.

    • DarkThoughts
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      7 months ago

      “Current policies alone likely keep warming below 3°C (5.4°F), nowhere near the “worst-case” scenarios.”

      Dr Michael Mann, rather well-known climate scientist

      https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/202310/backpage.cfm

      3 degrees Celsius is already social collapse type of threateningly bad. Sure, we might not go extinct (aka the “worst case”, although tipping points could bring us the rest of the way there), but that doesn’t mean we’ll enjoy any sort of comfortable and stable life. We’d see major food and water shortages, we’d see terrible weather events such as prolonged droughts and massive flooding, we’d see vast areas of the equator becoming unlivable hellscapes, we’d see hundreds of thousands climate refugees, we’d see hundreds of thousands climate fatalities, we’d see exploding prices in every single sector, we’d see civil unrest dismantling the very fabric of our societies.

      So maybe inform yourself what those 3 degrees would actually mean for the world.

      You might want to read the article. Doomism isn’t climate science.

      Highly ironic considering of your cherry picking and hiding of the truth. The author very much points out that the hope there is if we finally take action, consequently limiting us to not even reach those 3 degrees Celsius, which so far is still not happening.

      We can avoid catastrophic climate impacts if we take meaningful actions to address the climate crisis.

      But frankly, what you’re doing is even worse, because you simply call everyone a “doomer” who literally just wants the world to take the proper action needed to tackle this crisis, to even properly ACKNOWLEDGE this crisis. None of this is happening. Just because I think we’re fucked, does not mean I am not doing my part. My footprint is ridiculously small even compared to your average one person household, and there’s a lot of people in the middle and upper class who live so much worse due to their lavish lifestyles.

    • troed
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      -157 months ago

      What’s with all the climate science deniers here downvoting a statement from an actual climate scientist … !?

      • @dot0
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        157 months ago

        you’re trying too hard. read the article again, this author is lying to you.

        • troed
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          -37 months ago

          “this author” being Dr Michael Mann, climate scientist.

          Why do you claim Mann is lying?

          • @dot0
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            7 months ago

            Mann being a human being who is not infallible, yes that Mann.

            I am the same person from the other thread where I quoted to you the the bit in the article where Mann does intellectual dishonesty.

            giving your opinion piece a clickbait and dishonest headline, and then burying two sentences deep in the body of the text which contradict your headline, is incompetent at best and corrupt at worst.

      • shuzuko
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        87 months ago

        It’s because we have brains and can read further than the headline 🤷🏻‍♀️