That is such a needlessly abusive thing to say to a person.
Choosing not to have a child because you don’t believe the problems you’d be subjecting them to are likely to be solved is a heavy choice to make, and says nothing about whether they’re fighting climate change to whatever extent they’re able
Please don’t go around being a complete asshole for no reason. The space we have here in the fediverse is only as nice as we make it, and assuming the worst of people we’ve literally never met accomplishes less than nothing.
This was not an abusive statement, and I’m sorry if you feel that it was. I don’t believe that choosing not to have children because of climate change was made with a lot of deliberation, but because it’s the laziest choice. Children are tough. Fighting for change is tough. Convincing other to give a fuck about the environment is tough. It’s easier just to keep on keeping on and when the world breaks at least I didn’t create another soul who is going to go through pain.
This attitude doesn’t help fix the current situation and I believe that the apathy such a decision makes encourages people to be inactive on climate change.
You don’t know this person. And you don’t know anything about what they’re doing to combat climate change, or are capable of doing to contribute to combating climate change.
You don’t even know whether this was the only consideration in choosing not to have kids.
You know nothing about them, but the way your comment reads suggests that you’re essentially insinuating that their choice to not have kids is illegitimate by nature of the motives you presume they have (which isn’t a kind thing to do) and also that they’ve made that choice out of laziness. All based on assumptions you’ve made from the single sentence comment they left on a Lemmy thread.
It’s possible that was intended as a sincere question, but it reads as SUCH a heavily loaded question that it will be understood to be an accusation by pretty much anyone who reads it, which is why I call it abusive. And you can tell that that’s what it’s communicating by the fact that my comment saying as much has been upvoted repeatedly in the short period it’s been up. The question mark reads as rhetorical, and even if you meant to ask in order to get them to reflect, it’s unlikely you know them well enough or expressed that intention well enough for it to not just read as someone being a jerk on the internet
I can absolutely empathize with the idea that it is easier to check out and want to live small than to fight. And I can certainly understand wanting to fight back when you perceive that others are doing that, because our future is all on the line. I just left a long comment about it on another thread where I shared some quotes I found validating or poinant with respect to my struggle to keep fighting for things bigger than myself when I can barely function.
I get that it’s important for people to fight, but what you said to them kinda sucks, and isn’t a good way to engage with someone you don’t know at all.
Edit: adjusted to reflect the fact I also made assumptions in the initial version of this comment. Apologies if parts feel out of sync, I’m editing this while fairly sleep deprived.
Not having children is one of the easiest ways to contribute to solving climate change, which is exactly why we should encourage it regardless of whether the person is also taking other steps to solve it (which we don’t know). Not having a child also saves 58 tons of CO2 emissions per year, so it’s one of the most effective things you can do to fight climate change too, so that simple action does a lot to fight for a better world.
Source: https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children
