I'd think a bit of inconvenience would be worth it for a better future for your children as well as all the world's children, but I've been around long enough to come to the understanding that that's just wishful thinking on my part; truly you are just one incredibly minuscule drop in the ocean of carbon emissions that will doom us. I don't envy young children the future world they're going to inherit.
Don't worry, at some point those children will grow up. They'll cease to be innocent victims, and will be forced into the same moral compromises that all adults are forced into. My only hope is that some of them will realize how silly their youthful generational blame had been.
I assume all of us heard something to the effect of "you'll understand it when you grow up". Fair enough, but I guess I never really grew up because the older I get, the less I understand any of this really. As far as I can tell, everyone is just trying to "get their kicks in before the whole shithouse goes up in flames" to quote Jim Morrison. I wish I could do that, but it seems to be beyond me not to worry about the future.
Contrary to stereotype, I don't think most adults are _intentionally_ passing the buck to the next generation so much as they are _incidentally_ passing the buck to the next generation. They don't know how to live without producing carbon & other waste, and there are practical expenses they need to answer for. (bills, family members, putting food on the table) Most adults don't have many skills beyond using the infrastructure which is laid out for them. (roads, cars, supermarkets, public schools, available careers, etc.)
And crucially, my point is that today's kids will simply not be in a better situation. They'll have the tools of society at their hands, and in general, not much more. I don't love child labor, but I genuinely have no practical way to know if my clothing was produced via child labor. (I buy 99% of my clothing used, so hopefully that's helping) I don't have any practical way to know if my plastic recycling isn't getting dumped in the ocean in Turkey. I'd like to use less carbon, but my wife isn't willing to live with the heat set any lower than 62 F. Etc. The impacts which I can make are pretty small. Populations are rising, and technology is not the panacea some people think. Technology can improve carbon output, but everyone needs to eat and live. This will always be deleterious to the environment, and the "victim" generation will eventually grow up to be the victimizers as they have to run governments and companies.
They'll be faced with compromises they can't avoid, no matter their politics.
I fully understand all this which is why I've become very sad for the future of humanity; I try to look for reasons for hope, but watching trees die in my hometown while wells failed was very hard. All I can say is that I'm increasingly happy I opted out of the idea of children long ago, because while I used to be jealous of the young for the future they would live to see, I feel exactly the opposite these days.
