This Is What Climate Change Looks Like

... on the coalface. I said just a week ago that people who don't want to have children are okay to stay endlings. 

Now a bit more has come to my attention, and it says it right in the article that more than half of people who are active in climate change in any way (research, papers, activism, reporting, etc) believe that humanity is doomed by it. 

In my article I said "I couldn't imagine raising a small human . . . in the climate of uncertainty that was already evident when I was a parenting age . . ." and my choice of words was deliberate. Back in the 80s it wasn't yet a media phenomenon like it is today, but we had BBS systems and we were swapping the usual chat - weather reports: "yep, it stayed warmer, longer, before this winter. Beginning to believe that weird report hey?" - odd plant growth: "my tomatoes died off earlier this year, and my parsley shot away early too - must be something in the water?" 

In the 90s it was more obvious - my tomatoes cropped for longer, and they didn't even die off that year or the year after, and I had early crops off them. I had the Internet now and also ICQ. And I was chatting to people who were definitely reporting signs of weird weather. Not just one or two, either. It was a wake-up call. 

And by then it was getting a bit late to have young'uns, anyway. People stopped asking. I breathed a sigh of relief. But not about the climate, because by then it was starting to become A Topic Of Discussion everywhere. Not enough for people to actually do anything about it, but talking, at least. The rest is history. 

But look at it - the amount of distress that climate science - and the news it brings - has been creating. That last article BTW is from 2021. The Crikey reader comments roundup is from this year. The first two articles are also from this year. Here's another one.

I'm sure the climate is warming. I'm not sure the human species will survive the coming climate changes. I'm not sure most of plant and animal life on the planet will survive it. But I want to do everything I can to slow or avert it.