If a person wants to be the Mother Teresa of Earth stewardship, kudos to them, im a fan of self-agency.
My point is that harboring weltschmerz over impending catastrophization of humankind is a very regressive belief system. In part because it is blind to the spectacular advancement humans have made so far, and will continue to make to support life.
When my granddad grew up, the atomic structure was barely understood. Houses were lit with candles and oil lamps. The “airplane” glided the length of a football field. And he had never seen an automobile. When my dad grew up, there was nuclear energy, television was beamed down from satellites, and a human walked on the fucking moon. Now I can put a solar panel on my roof, harness electricity for free, and have it power a family sedan that goes 200 miles per hour. (Mine goes 160 from hydroelectric power but itll do).
Human ingenuity did all that.
If two spouses are of reasonable intelligence, make some kids. Chances are theyre going to be smart, capable, and their cohort together will produce some shit we cant even imagine to solve problems we havent even encountered.
My comments on being self-centered is not an endorsement of doing wanton wasteful shit, purely for the sake of it. Thats being a bad human. Modding an diesel truck to roll coal for jollies is bad juju. Owning one to occasionally tow a recreation boat is a prerogative that you should enjoy and not feel guilt over.
So I will not flag hypocrisy against someone like @trophfor parking a F350 in his garage next to his Tesla. Hes probably a good human being making sensible choices, and a F350 with a Tesla is still better than 2xF350s.
I will pick a bone with someone like John Kerry flying around in private jets to sit in climate change conferences. NOT because I think his (“family’s”) jet contributes directly to the future calving of 1m3 of glacier that rises sea level and kills 4 bengali kids. But I think that level of hypocrisy is an insult to human integrity.