"To have or not have children is a personal choice, but, IMO, intelligent, economically stable individuals choosing not to have children may be as big a problem for the future, as the choices of many people globally who are less embued with these characteristics to have large families."
In the late 1990's many articles about global warming warned that by 2100 things would be a mess. As of about seven years ago a lot of the predictions started mentioning dire predictions by the year 2050 and now the last IPCC report looks to be too conservative. So lets just guess that there will likely be a lot of challenges by 2040. What will the quality of life be like for a child born today when they are fifty years old in the year 2060? I'm too pessimistic to think that they would be enjoying a nice stable lifestyle with a rosy outlook for the future. It's already clear to many of us what lies ahead so imagine what people will know in 30 years and be dealing with in 50 years?
The way I look at it, the next generation is going to have an even greater need for intelligent, well rounded individuals to face and help deal with the problems we are incapable of resolving for them. Unfortunately, if all the intelligent, well rounded individuals of this generation forego having children both out of a sense of responsibility for reducing population burdens and to spare their children life in a harsh world, the next generation won't have these leaders and problem solvers that the future of our species will be so dependent upon.
I believe that plants and animals will adjust to a warmer world once the temperature swings are not so abrupt but this massive spike in heat will likely cause mass extinctions. 90% of the oceans are depleted and the population is expected to increase to 9 billion people. The Arctic is melting rapidly, Russia and Austrailia are losing their crops to historic heatwaves and droughts and this is just the beggining. I'm a hypocrite as I don't do all that I can.
The main problem isn't that we will lose so much life, but rather that we are and will likely, increasingly lose so many types of life. It is the loss of diversity and wholesale niche destruction that bodes ill for the future. In general, I would term this current time more the closing notes of the prelude than the actual beginning, but yes, nowhere near as dramatic as what lies ahead.
As for personal responsibility, don't be too hard on yourself, no one does all that they can, and personally, I'd consider it a major step forward if everyone simply did a little of what they could. Perhaps we need a more general discussion thread in a different section laying out the various steps that individuals can and should take to help transition into a more involved role in positively shaping the future.
Intelligent people have been having children since the 70's when we watched Jaques Cousteau programs warning us all to protect the oceans and not enough has been done. The US should be one of the more intelligent countries given our quality of life but look at the results of public opinion polls at
http://www.skepticalscience.com/ under the heading Global Warming The Debate. Socially and intellectually less fortunate people will probably continue to have larger families than more intelligent people in the future as this seems to be very much the norm now.
Well, intelligent parents don't guarantee intelligent children, and intelligence without strong measures of compassion and empathy can actually be counter-productive, but the concept is still valid. It isn't so much the American "quality of life" which has led to the current situation, but rather the cultural values we have allowed to usurp and dominate our existence,...but these are my personal perceptions and not ones that are appropriate discussion fodder for a Science and Technology board.
So once again what do people think that the quality of life be like for a child born today when they are fifty years old in the year 2060? Fun and enjoyable or challenging and stressful?
I was born into an era that had just survived two devastating global wars, and every day that broke and night that swept upon us carried the portents of a global thermonuclear war. We were taught to "duck and cover" from the flashes of nearby nuclear detonations in grade school. Pollution in the air and water were killing wildlife and wreaking illness and death on our own populations,...and yet, we found ways to rise to those challenges and still managed to have some fun along the way. So, yes, I think it is possible to raise children with an optomism for the future in the current situation. Challenges aren't something to run from or dispair over.
I accept that I may be too pessimistic but this is my present illusion of certainty :0
Once the 2010 temperature is plotted on the following graph the heat level will normally be above the spike in heat in 1998 that caused coral bleaching worldwide. We are going off the charts!
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
We're number 1! We're number 1! ...til next year.
