“Our parents teach us things” is apparently the joke here? LOL, I guess things must be pretty bad in Chudlandia, if this milquetoast offering is the best they can do.
See the difference between these kids and hard-core evangelists is these kids read and understand science. It’s the religious extremists that were taught by their parents.
Even if the burning of fossil fuels wasn’t causing climate change, it causes pollution which result in breathing problems. Factory farming poisons the environment; illnesses are rampant near the “pink ponds”. Development of renewable energy will CREATE jobs and reduce pollution. Improving the conditions for food animals will improve the health of people eating meat.
Where do kids learn things? First at home, it’s true; but not too long after that, they have access to the internet (which is not entirely bad), to their peers (which is mostly full o’ baloney, but not entirely) and to books, teachers, librarians, pastors, coaches (not quite so much baloney, usually)…
Lester, as often does, is distorting to make his point (not always a bad thing, but wrong-headed here): Thunberg, for instance, is a teenager, not the age of the kids depicted here. Then there’s Lester’s inversion of the facts: He is claiming that adults, who somehow know their arguments are lame, use kids to make the arguments more impressive. But the kids are in fact not the patsies of some dire conspiracy, but rather attempting to shame the adults into some form of positive action.
PS:
Are the seas rising? Yes (some Pacific islands have already gone under).
Is global temperature rising? Yes (the facts are easy to access, and hard to ignore, though Lester and his ilk do their best)
Are fires and hurricanes becoming worse? Yes (probably: Not enough data to be sure this is a trend, rather than a statistical anomaly), the science shows that with warmer seas, hurricanes become more powerful, and a recent study is also out showing that with the power, they also tend to slow down: Double bad. Fires are the result of many different things, not least, direct human action (the big California fires were accidentally set by power company workers), but also the fact that dead or dry fuel is becoming more available because of climate change.
Are there too many humans? Arguably yes. Particularly anti-science, anti-logic folks, but if you just count the total mass of humanity, versus the total “animal” carrying capacity of the earth, we’re certainly becoming a larger proportion than we were, and we are certainly harming thousands (millions, some would argue) of other species in the process. Plus of course adding a lot to the greenhouse gasses.
Mr. Lester, what I suspect was one of the messages you intended your cartoon to convey seems to have been missed so far by the other commenters, i.e., that it’s hypocritical for people to have children, when they claim that there are already too many people in the world.
But they are not claiming that no one should have any children. They are claiming that further population growth is endangering both our environment (“the Earth”) and human society… or more personally, “our way of life”.
If they have children — but never more than two per couple — they would not be contributing to population increase. Meanwhile, some couples limit themselves to one child or even none, thus contributing to a potential decrease in population, except for the fact of those others (whether “couples” or “individually”) who have many children… from three to a dozen or more.
It’s those individuals who have large families who are contributing to an increase in the world’s population, which increasingly stresses our environment and its ability to support us. And unfortunately, it’s those individuals’ traditions, religions, and even governments which teach that having lots of children is “the right thing” to do. (Long ago, when infant mortality was much higher and most production — both farming and industrial — was by hand, that made sense, but things are now very different.)
So if those who believe in limiting the human population were to die out through refusing to reproduce, they would be abandoning the Earth and humanity to be destroyed by those who believe the opposite. That’s not an effective way to achieve one’s goal.
martens over 4 years ago
…and just about the whole global scientific community, but what do they know? /s
All the dinosaurs feared the T-Rex over 4 years ago
Outta curiosity, what WILL it take for the deniers to finally see what’s happening?
Barry Onyx over 4 years ago
“Our parents teach us things” is apparently the joke here? LOL, I guess things must be pretty bad in Chudlandia, if this milquetoast offering is the best they can do.
mlester101 creator over 4 years ago
The strength of some adults arguments is proportional to how many children they need to use to make it for them.
brwydave Premium Member over 4 years ago
It pisses them off when a 16 year old foreign girl has a bigger platform and more listeners than they do – after all they are members of the GOP.
guyjen2004 Premium Member over 4 years ago
We need to eat babies!
charliekane over 4 years ago
Bizarre!
ed27 over 4 years ago
See the difference between these kids and hard-core evangelists is these kids read and understand science. It’s the religious extremists that were taught by their parents.
NeoconMan over 4 years ago
Lester is right; children should never ever listen to their parents.
Stephen Runnels Premium Member over 4 years ago
Yes, the parents who know the science. Park bench perverts get their information from bibles.
NeoconMan over 4 years ago
Bible? Oh, yes, the Goatherder’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Nantucket Premium Member over 4 years ago
Even if the burning of fossil fuels wasn’t causing climate change, it causes pollution which result in breathing problems. Factory farming poisons the environment; illnesses are rampant near the “pink ponds”. Development of renewable energy will CREATE jobs and reduce pollution. Improving the conditions for food animals will improve the health of people eating meat.
celeconecca over 4 years ago
Actually, until I read the comments here, I thought the perfect answer to “too may people” would have been “don’t have more kids”
Concretionist over 4 years ago
Where do kids learn things? First at home, it’s true; but not too long after that, they have access to the internet (which is not entirely bad), to their peers (which is mostly full o’ baloney, but not entirely) and to books, teachers, librarians, pastors, coaches (not quite so much baloney, usually)…
Lester, as often does, is distorting to make his point (not always a bad thing, but wrong-headed here): Thunberg, for instance, is a teenager, not the age of the kids depicted here. Then there’s Lester’s inversion of the facts: He is claiming that adults, who somehow know their arguments are lame, use kids to make the arguments more impressive. But the kids are in fact not the patsies of some dire conspiracy, but rather attempting to shame the adults into some form of positive action.
PS:
Are the seas rising? Yes (some Pacific islands have already gone under).
Is global temperature rising? Yes (the facts are easy to access, and hard to ignore, though Lester and his ilk do their best)
Are fires and hurricanes becoming worse? Yes (probably: Not enough data to be sure this is a trend, rather than a statistical anomaly), the science shows that with warmer seas, hurricanes become more powerful, and a recent study is also out showing that with the power, they also tend to slow down: Double bad. Fires are the result of many different things, not least, direct human action (the big California fires were accidentally set by power company workers), but also the fact that dead or dry fuel is becoming more available because of climate change.
Are there too many humans? Arguably yes. Particularly anti-science, anti-logic folks, but if you just count the total mass of humanity, versus the total “animal” carrying capacity of the earth, we’re certainly becoming a larger proportion than we were, and we are certainly harming thousands (millions, some would argue) of other species in the process. Plus of course adding a lot to the greenhouse gasses.
gammaguy over 4 years ago
Mr. Lester, what I suspect was one of the messages you intended your cartoon to convey seems to have been missed so far by the other commenters, i.e., that it’s hypocritical for people to have children, when they claim that there are already too many people in the world.
But they are not claiming that no one should have any children. They are claiming that further population growth is endangering both our environment (“the Earth”) and human society… or more personally, “our way of life”.
If they have children — but never more than two per couple — they would not be contributing to population increase. Meanwhile, some couples limit themselves to one child or even none, thus contributing to a potential decrease in population, except for the fact of those others (whether “couples” or “individually”) who have many children… from three to a dozen or more.
It’s those individuals who have large families who are contributing to an increase in the world’s population, which increasingly stresses our environment and its ability to support us. And unfortunately, it’s those individuals’ traditions, religions, and even governments which teach that having lots of children is “the right thing” to do. (Long ago, when infant mortality was much higher and most production — both farming and industrial — was by hand, that made sense, but things are now very different.)
So if those who believe in limiting the human population were to die out through refusing to reproduce, they would be abandoning the Earth and humanity to be destroyed by those who believe the opposite. That’s not an effective way to achieve one’s goal.