# 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:** 9
**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:** [April 3, 2019, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/161 "2019-04-03T21:47:14Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I know Senator Lee well enough to say that I am confident this is false. He thinks “the welfare of the nation” is very important. For some definitions of “the welfare of the nation” and not others - as I’m sure you would readily agree. > [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > There’s probably an excluded middle somewhere in there between the Green New Deal and “virtually nothing”. I feel this should be hammered again and again - he’s _stated_ what he considers the ideal middle to be: Fucking around (literally) and doing literally nothing to directly address the problem. Because clearly, while he says himself “Climate change is no joke”, he believes that we should do exactly fuck-all about it. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2019, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/162 "2019-04-03T22:22:44Z")
He probably wants to address climate change the way Trump brings back coal jobs- say a few words and let tax cuts for the wealthy do the rest. He may even have a secret plan, only to be revealed after the 2020 elections! ---
**Author:** ![NiceGuyJack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/niceguyjack/32/3069_2.png) [@NiceGuyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NiceGuyJack)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/163 "2019-04-04T04:53:02Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Yeah, it’s not difficult. I want lower taxes and a generally-less-meddlesome federal government. So does Senator Lee. I can understand that. I kind of agree. Who wants to pay taxes? Or have the government meddle in your own private affairs. But I have to wonder, Mike Lee supports the massive spending on the military. Something wrong with the math there. And let’s face it, private industry is not going to pay for environmental clean up or disaster relief, but then he opposes spending anything on disaster relief, so that tallies. As for not meddling, you mean let the forests burn and the rivers dry up? In which case, check. Or does it mean keeping out of people’s personal affairs? I’ll give Sen. Lee props for supporting the legalization of cannabis, but why is it ok for the government to poke their nose in if you happen to be gay or transexual? Sounds meddlesome to me. Oh and he thinks [Roe vs. Wade is unconstitutional](https://www.bustle.com/p/mike-lees-stance-on-abortion-is-under-a-microscope-as-trump-considers-him-for-scotus-9669212). And he seems to want to meddle into women’s right on birth control as women apparently take [contraceptives for recreational use](https://thinkprogress.org/u-s-senator-agrees-with-supreme-court-decision-because-women-use-birth-control-largely-for-recreatio-9a189d034c7b/). God forbid women should be enjoying sex. So, why is it ok to meddle into people’s business if it’s about women? That sounds really meddlesome to me. Oh wait I get it. Having babies solves climate change! Hey I’ve connected the dots! It’s hypocritical, but I can see it now. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/164 "2019-04-04T12:35:51Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > There’s probably an excluded middle somewhere in there between the Green New Deal and “virtually nothing”. Well, the Senator clearly said “fall in love, get married, and have some kids” was the solution to climate change. Perhaps you can explain how having kids solves climate change? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/165 "2019-04-04T12:40:14Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > There’s probably an excluded middle somewhere in there between the Green New Deal and “virtually nothing”. I’m sure this has been pointed out before, but how many of the people deriding the Green New Deal have actually proposed a plausible solution that’s anywhere close to on the scale of the problem? (The answer is “fucking nobody”.) There’s certainly an excluded middle. It’s just that Mike Lee (and, indeed, the Republican party as a whole) has opted not just for “virtually nothing” but rather “less than nothing”, encouraging coal, oil, and gas, actively discouraging green energy, and doing everything they can to stop actual progress towards fixing the problem. Hell, most of them deny that there _is_ a problem (and/or have found some other excuse for why “do nothing” is the correct response to a civilization-shaking problem). ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2019, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/166 "2019-04-04T16:20:02Z")
Hey, I just thought of a great way to solve our national debt crisis. If we quadruple the size of government, we dramatically increase our chances that one of those people will have a solution to the debt crisis. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/167 "2019-04-05T00:01:03Z")
He was completely right except for the part where he was talking. The absolute best thing to combat climate change would be the immediate disappearance of the human race. If even that would work. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/168 "2019-04-05T23:37:31Z")
Stop breeding, everybody. “Our country is full.” [https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/our-country-is-full-trump-says-migrants-straining-system/ar-BBVEkVF](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/our-country-is-full-trump-says-migrants-straining-system/ar-BBVEkVF) ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2019, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/169 "2019-04-06T04:31:50Z")
Give the devil his due, giving that speech with a straight face is impressive. Either that, or he’s shit nuts. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2019, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/170 "2019-04-06T11:19:55Z")
It’s probably too late to use emissions controls to stop global warming. There’s no realistic scenario by which we reduce emissions enough in the next 25 years to slow global warming to anything under catastrophic levels. We’re already well into a massive decline of species, including plants and insects. Our only real chance to reverse global warming is geoengineering, and we have no real ability to assess what the hazards of that step are at this point. Unfortunately, it’s probably the only real option. Even so there are real reasons to cut emissions, if for no other reason than to clean up the air so that it’s safe to breathe in major metropolises like Beijing and Mexico City. I’ve felt that the real action on climate change and environmental protection will come organically from the local level. Once local communities find ways to run themselves not only ecologically but economically, other communities will want in on that action. Let’s say Minneapolis figures out a way to save resources and really clean up the environment with new technologies, and once people are employed in significant numbers in green industries, people in other cities like Columbus and Detroit will want to join them. As an example, wind farms seem like kooky California thinking at one point, but it employs a lot of people now. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2019, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/171 "2019-04-06T11:28:28Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > It feels tedious explaining this yet again, but I don’t subscribe to the view that “promote the general welfare” in the preamble means that the federal government has unlimited power to do whatever it wants, so long as it labels it with “this will promote the general welfare”. You probably don’t either, if you think about it a bit. The preamble states the objectives and aims of the constitution. One of those objectives is to promote the general welfare of all people who live in the United States, at least in the collective sense. I don’t think anyone suggests that government’s power should be unlimited, but let’s remember that the government is democratic, and that by virtue of that fact, it should represent the public’s interest. By definition, using legislative and regulatory power to protect our environment seems very much within the boundaries of what’s reasonable in terms of promoting the well-being of Senator Lee’s and every other Senator’s constituents. Preserving the quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the places in which we live, work, and play - all of these things are very much a part of promoting the general welfare. ---
**Author:** ![pmwgreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@pmwgreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pmwgreen)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2019, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/172 "2019-04-06T18:26:59Z")
I just keep seeing this thread and adding " cause them to urinate on their parents graves" at the end. Strange how the mind works. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2019, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/173 "2019-04-06T19:05:02Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > It’s probably too late to use emissions controls to stop global warming. There’s no realistic scenario by which we reduce emissions enough in the next 25 years to slow global warming to anything under catastrophic levels. We’re already well into a massive decline of species, including plants and insects. Our only real chance to reverse global warming is geoengineering, and we have no real ability to assess what the hazards of that step are at this point. Unfortunately, it’s probably the only real option. Uh, no, that is actually the last argument from deniers, do not fall for it. The main reason is that there are even worse scenarios that become possible if we do not control emissions and eventually when desperation sets and geoengineering is seen as an option, the use of such a solution will be still less expensive (and easier and more effective also) if we do control emissions soon. ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bruce\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2019, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/174 "2019-04-06T22:27:22Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Well, tell that to **HurricaneDitka** , who seems to mistakenly believe that Senator Lee’s cray-cray ideas about ignorantly mocking discussion of climate change mitigation policies with silly dinosaur graphics constitute some kind of meaningful “argument”. What climate change “mitigation policies” was he mocking exactly? Be specific please because I’ve heard some strange ones. > [@Ulfreida](#): > > The absolute best thing to combat climate change would be the immediate disappearance of the human race. If even that would work. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2019, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/175 "2019-04-06T22:31:05Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > There’s probably an excluded middle somewhere in there between the Green New Deal and “virtually nothing”. Which is probably a smaller gap than between AOC and Aquaman. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2019, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/176 "2019-04-06T22:50:52Z")
> [@Bruce\_Wayne](#): > > What climate change “mitigation policies” was he mocking exactly? Be specific please because I’ve heard some strange ones. > **[The Green New Deal, explained](https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/12/21/18144138/green-new-deal-alexandria-ocasio-cortez)** > > An insurgent movement is pushing Democrats to back an ambitious climate change solution. > [@](#): > > As we will see, the exact details of the GND remain to be worked out, but the broad thrust is fairly simple. It refers, in the loosest sense, to a massive program of investments in clean-energy jobs and infrastructure, meant to transform not just the energy sector, but the entire economy. It is meant both to decarbonize the economy and to make it fairer and more just. > > But the policy is only part of the picture. Just as striking are the politics, which seem to have tapped into an enormous, untapped demand for climate ambition. > **[Republican senator cites Star Wars and ‘Sharknado’ during bizarre speech on...](https://thinkprogress.org/republican-senator-mike-lee-speech-green-new-deal-dr-evil-star-wars-sharknado-6cc84aae7e7d/)** > > Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) said Utahns felt the effects of climate change when they were struck "by a tornado with sharks in it." > [@](#): > > At one point, Lee appeared to turn serious, saying, “Critics will no doubt chastise me for not taking climate change seriously, but, please, Mr. President, nothing could be further from the truth. No Utahn needs to hear lectures about the gravity of climate change from politicians from other states….” > > But instead of talking about the very real threat posed to Utah by warming-worsened droughts, heatwaves, and wildfires, Lee then joked, “… For it was only in 2016, as viewers of the Syfy network will remember, when climate change hit Utah, when our own state was struck not simply by a tornado, but by a tornado with sharks in it.” > > Lee then described at length a scene from the movie Sharknado, for no apparent reason. > > Lee closed his remarks by arguing that the solution to climate change won’t be found in the kind of rapid transition to clean energy the Green New Deal resolution calls for, but would rather be found in “maternity wards across the country.” As for the ones talking about strange proposals, I can only say that you are a stranger to [Jonathan Swift.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal) ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2019, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/177 "2019-04-07T18:57:43Z")
I’m going to be generous and assume that Senator Lee is awaiting the birth of the Kwisatz Haderach. Until then, we need to be accumulating the Water of Life. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2019, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/178 "2019-04-07T22:02:06Z")
Anyone remember the 60’s and 70’s? I do. Nixon did one good thing for sure > [@](#): > > The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government for environmental protection.[3] President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970[4] and it began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The current crop of republicans want to tear that all down. Apparently, along with every thing this country stands for. I long for the days of a bastard like Nixon, or a simpleton like GWB. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2019, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/179 "2019-04-07T22:33:54Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > … I long for the days of a bastard like Nixon, or a simpleton like GWB. I’d encourage you to keep this in mind the next time the Republicans nominate someone you think is a bastard or a simpleton. ---
**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:** [April 7, 2019, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598/180 "2019-04-07T23:15:55Z")
And they will, bet on it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-having-children-solve-climate-change/831598.md?page=10)