Having a child is the most emphatic statement of hope a person can make. I have three young kids, and yet I have trouble remaining optimistic about the world they and their children will inhabit in 2100 and beyond.
The world 77 years from now is likely to be far hotter and more unstable, warmed in a way that depopulates entire metropolises and renders farmland nonarable. It's a world the latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns will become reality unless we make dramatic, immediate reductions in our fossil fuel use.
We're not on track to make those changes in time to prevent a world in which animal and plant species will die off at an alarming rate. And yet, kids deserve to have hope.
