# Will having children solve climate change? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 27, 2019, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598 "2019-03-27T10:33:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/81 "2019-03-28T22:33:26Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Don’t engage with him. He’s just looking for exactly the kind of outrage and attention you are feeding him. > > Stranger Acknowledged. Up until that comment he was pretty much on point, but when he responded to the bait about changing his political behavior he, and the comment he responded to, ceased to be on-topic. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/82 "2019-03-28T22:40:15Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > I will assume your delightful feelings are based on the belief he shares with you on matters of conservation because no one capable of using a computer could possibly see his current silly garbage as anything other than the ravings of a lunatic. I agree with Senator Lee on a great many political issues. I recognize that the speech that inspired this thread was light-hearted mocking of the GND. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/83 "2019-03-28T22:42:40Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I agree with Senator Lee on a great many political issues. I recognize that the speech that inspired this thread was light-hearted mocking of the GND. That’s nice. How inspired do you consider his “let’s let our kids deal with it” argument, and how appropriate do you consider that “light-hearted mocking”? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/84 "2019-03-28T22:57:49Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > That’s nice. How inspired do you consider his “let’s let our kids deal with it” argument… I think there have been a good number of imagined crises throughout our history that have been resolved through improving technology. For example, in 1968 Paul Ehrlich published _The Population Bomb_ which started with this terrifying prediction: > [@](#): > > The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate … If you can’t see echoes of that in the current global warming frenzy, and thus some merits to Senator Lee’s argument, I don’t know what else to tell you. > [@begbert2](#): > > … and how appropriate do you consider that “light-hearted mocking”? For the GND? Very. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/85 "2019-03-28T23:05:15Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > If you can’t see echoes of that in the current global warming frenzy, and thus some merits to Senator Lee’s argument, I don’t know what else to tell you. Even if all of modern environmental science is wrong (and that’s what it would take), that doesn’t make stupid less stupid. And his argument would have been stupid _even if he was right about global warming_. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/86 "2019-03-28T23:13:21Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I agree with Senator Lee on a great many political issues. I recognize that the speech that inspired this thread was light-hearted mocking of the GND. “I didn’t meeeeeeean iiiiiiitttt” is the argument of a child. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/87 "2019-03-28T23:15:05Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > … And his argument would have been stupid _even if he was right about global warming_. Would you care to elaborate on this point at all? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/88 "2019-03-28T23:15:57Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > If you can’t see echoes of that in the current global warming frenzy, and thus some merits to Senator Lee’s argument, I don’t know what else to tell you. If you can’t tell the difference between one guy who wrote a pop-science book fifty years ago, and the overwhelming consensus of virtually every scientist who as studied the issue, across multiple disciplines, then I don’t know what to tell you. At least, I don’t know what to tell you that would be appropriate for this forum. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/89 "2019-03-28T23:34:08Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > If you can’t tell the difference between one guy who wrote a pop-science book fifty years ago, and the overwhelming consensus of virtually every scientist who as studied the issue, across multiple disciplines, then I don’t know what to tell you. > > At least, I don’t know what to tell you that would be appropriate for this forum. What’s your understanding of the scientific community’s “consensus” on global food production in the late '60’s? Was he just “one guy who wrote a pop-science book fifty years ago” or did significant portions of the scientific community agree with the basic thrust of his argument? Was Paul Ehrlich widely-discredited as a nut-job back then? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/90 "2019-03-28T23:36:04Z")
Maybe, maybe not. Pick whichever answer you believe lends the most credence to your Senator’s mad ravings. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/91 "2019-03-28T23:37:25Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > What’s your understanding of the scientific community’s “consensus” on global food production in the late '60’s? Was he just “one guy who wrote a pop-science book fifty years ago” or did significant portions of the scientific community agree with the basic thrust of his argument? Was Paul Ehrlich widely-discredited as a nut-job back then? Just checking here, are you putting forth the idea that science in general is unreliable, and can be shown to be so by looking back through time? This argument that you’re typing, presumably, on a computer. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/92 "2019-03-28T23:41:44Z")
The canonical Chinese menu of specious arguments:[Global Warming & Climate Change Myths](https://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php) Stranger ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/93 "2019-03-28T23:42:49Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Would you care to elaborate on this point at all? Sure. “Have more babies and wait for one of the babies to do something about it” is a goddamn stupid argument. Even if you put the moron making it next to another moron crowing that aliens are eating his underwear, it doesn’t become less of a stupid argument. There is not a law of conservation of stupidity; stupid things remain stupid even if everything else around them is stupid. So even if global warming _was_ a giant worldwide conspiracy of people telling lies and fabricating data on a truly massive scale for _literally no reason_, as you and he apparently believe, he’d still be a goddamn idiot for saying that nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/94 "2019-03-28T23:52:21Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Just checking here, are you putting forth the idea that science in general is unreliable, and can be shown to be so by looking back through time? … I think that looking back through time shows us that there have been times where scientists / the scientific community / “science” (if you feel so inclined to wrap it in a mantle of appeal-to-authority) have gotten things wrong, sometimes pretty big things. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/95 "2019-03-28T23:59:18Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I think that looking back through time shows us that there have been times where scientists / the scientific community / “science” (if you feel so inclined to wrap it in a mantle of appeal-to-authority) have gotten things wrong, sometimes pretty big things. Like what? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/96 "2019-03-29T00:00:20Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I think that looking back through time shows us that there have been times where scientists / the scientific community / “science” (if you feel so inclined to wrap it in a mantle of appeal-to-authority) have gotten things wrong, sometimes pretty big things. And thus we can cherry-pick which scientific conclusions to believe based on personal/political convenience, without regard of the relative level of consensus or evidence for the conclusion in question. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/97 "2019-03-29T00:00:22Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > Like what? Post #84 contains a good example. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/98 "2019-03-29T00:07:57Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Post #84 contains a good example. OK. Not enough food to go around. Can you name a few more? You said “big things”. I am not trying to be difficult, but want to see what you consider big sciency gaffs that were big and impactful. There is more than the population thing, right? ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/99 "2019-03-29T00:21:03Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > There are plenty of people “talking” about geoengineering the atmosphere (“climate engineering”), and there are numerous concepts for abating the effects of climate warming or carbon dioxide removal. The problem with them is that is all they are; concepts without any evidence or reason to believe that they can … > > Stranger Agree with you Stranger with reservations. These are absolutely not off the shelf technologies but not totally conceptual either. China did some weather engineering for the Olympic Games and volcanoes have naturally dimmed earth from time to time. If I compare the feasibility of the technology to the feasibility of many millions of dollars of research on CO2 removal from the atmosphere, I think the climate engineering technologies come out ahead. Many other whacko non feasible projects have been funded as well. Anyways about 10 years back, most Climate Scientists would look down at you if you asked them about climate engineering and even the IPCC had just a small paragraph on it in its report. But things are changing for the better. This month this report came out from Harvard (Baby steps I know) [https://keith.seas.harvard.edu/files/tkg/files/irvine\_etal\_ncc\_solar\_geoengineering.pdf](https://keith.seas.harvard.edu/files/tkg/files/irvine_etal_ncc_solar_geoengineering.pdf) The conclusion is interesting :”Our results do not, however, support the common claims that SG would inevitably lead to significant harms to some regions, nor the claims that SG’s benefits and harms always have a strongly unequal distribution” ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/100 "2019-03-29T00:37:30Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > OK. Not enough food to go around. Can you name a few more? You said “big things”. I am not trying to be difficult, but want to see what you consider big sciency gaffs that were big and impactful. There is more than the population thing, right? Sure. [This article](https://www.insidescience.org/news/scientific-consensus-almost-never-wrong-%E2%80%94-almost) describes a radical shift in understanding in the field of geology, an overturning of the “consensus”. I don’t know how old you were or where or when you went to school, but it’s probable that you were taught about the “Big Bang Theory” as a child. I don’t even claim to understand all the details of how it works, but I can see there is [some](https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/889405/black-hole-big-bang-theory-wrong-big-bounce-universe-space) [doubt](https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/09/21/the-big-bang-wasnt-the-beginning-after-all/#54286dcf55df) about the matter now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598.md?page=6)