Third kid vs the planet

[BendydickCuminsnatch]

I have loads of couples around me planning/pregnant with their third or fourth child. I’d absolutely love a third but I worry so much about the planet, and watching the news today it’s all just so bloody bleak. Not many other people seem to worry about the planet though when having babies so why should I?

Don’t want to get my deathbed and wish I’d just done what everyone else did and have however many kids I want.

I won’t be able to sit back and say ‘I did my best not to contribute to global warming’ anyway - I have 2 kids, I drive etc - so what is one more?

But I can’t put the global warming aspect out of my mind, everywhere I look I see that the best thing you can do for the planet is have fewer kids.

So WWYD - do what’s best for the greater good (me having a third is just a drop in the ocean, but if everyone felt that way...?) or stop being a self righteous martyr and just have the third kid? 🤯

(Then there’s all the other elements of course eg financial, do I actually want the hustle and bustle and stress of 3, etc 😄)

Also, not to let Science get in the way too much, but trying to influence carbon dioxide emissions is the wrong way to go about thinking about your environmental impact. Plant and protect a few trees, by all means. But you should rather consider non-biodegradable waste, toxic emissions into water streams and light/ noise pollution, which have a massive impact on your immediate environment - these are all directly caused by you as an individual and have a local impact on your surroundings.

A PP mentioned land. Well, in Britain, we may have this thing about owning land and houses, but if you look at more densely populated areas, spacious flats with greenery growing outside is the more sustainable way to go. We can go up rather than out - space issue solved.

Teach your children to repair items and to re-use what they can - then to pass that knowledge on. That will go further than anything else IMO.

Why do you think the fires in the Arctic are happening? Because of carbon emissions caused by human activity. You cannot used the fires as an excuse to keep overpopulating.

If you actually look at carbon dioxide emissions and global average temperature side-by-side you will see that while the former has gone up steadily, the latter has fluctuated greatly (while showing a slight increase, since records began. Records didn't begin that long ago...). One more child in the UK really won't make a difference, especially that - even in the worst UN predictions on population growth - population levels will peak between 10-12 billion and then decline.

I really dont think anyone lays on their deathbed and thinks I wish I had one more child... 2 really is plenty! To me I think all a 3rd child would do for me is create guilt (as much as I'd love the child). Guilt for the planet, guilt for my existing children not having as much money and attention.

It’s not just one more child in the UK though, I don’t think everyone should be thinking that way - because if everyone thinks theirs is ‘just one more child’ everyone would have loads of kids.

If today’s events looking after my 2 are anything to go by then I can’t take the stress of a third anyway 😄

So you don't think there is a global warming due to human activity, Atropa?

Also the ‘I owe it to my existing kids not to have a third’ is a very powerful way to look at it I think, that has really made me think.

“Do what makes you happy. Thats what we did in my day...and guess what? ...” .

..... The planet is now fucked because so many of us do what we like as long as it makes us happy!

One more child in the UK really won't make a difference

It's responses like this that make me feel even more helpless. This attitude is prevalent.

We are screwed.

One more child in the UK really won't make a difference

If only 10% of people in the UK had that attitude it would mean millions more children born!

I’ve got 4. Lots of people don’t have any though so...

When are we gonna stop pretending global warming and the environmental crisis isn't being mostly caused by big corporations?

OK, lets say these are some of the biggest polluting companies.

I found it after a quick google.

China Coal 14.3 % Saudi Aramco 4.5 % Gazprom OAO 3.9 % National Iranian Oil Co 2.3 % ExxonMobil Corp 2.0 % Coal India 1.9 % Petróleos Mexicanos 1.9 % Russia Coal 1.9 % Royal Dutch Shell PLC 1.7 % China National Petroleum Corp 1.6 %

www.activesustainability.com/climate-change/100-companies-responsible-71-ghg-emissions/

Fossil coal in China - fuelled by consumer demand, both Chinese and international.

Saudi Aramco and Gazprom - oil, goes straight in the cars we drive or in have things delivered or manufactured .

and so on.

Corporations don't exist in a vacuum, They exist because they deliver a service or a product to us, the consumers.

We can only wipe out ourselves the planet will survive

I don't have kids but I think it's weird when people with kids come to these threads and sort of brag about having lots of children. On the last climate change thread, a poster with young kids proudly listed all the ways in which she and her family contribute towards fucking up the planet and was quite angrily attacking people who dared 'tell her what to do'. Do these people not realise that in a few decades it'll be their children living through the consequences of our inaction? Unless you're an ultra high net-worth individual and can afford to buy them a decent quality of life when shit does eventually hit the fan, your children certainly won't be thanking you for remaining obstinate.

I had 3 by accident ( number 2 was twins) but that meant we can't afford holidays so I'm hoping that's cancelled out our carbon footprint excess 😁

We can only wipe out ourselves the planet will survive

We've already caused the extinction of several animal and plant species and we will continue to do so.

As a couple of PPs have said... In 50 odd years time, do you want to watch two loved ones suffer, or three? Do you want to break the news to two children about the future they face, or three?

The issues facing our climate are very significant, Harry would do better to reducing his flying hours (as we all should) rather than a grandstanding & meaningless gesture.

In July the Greenland ice sheet melt added 0.5mm to global sea levels... in one month, environmental modeling predicted this would happen in 100 years time.

A climate scientist i knew in Sweden in the 90s decided not to have any children (in his 20s) his assessment was that we are heading for a climate flip, in which we go from a benign climate to a hostile one in a decade or so, it's not a widespread view but what if he is correct?

@BelindasGleeTeam. Yes it’s my lotto dream to buy up swathes of land and put them in a trust so they can never be developed and plant forests on them

🌳 🌲

Yes, I wonder why the poster with the 4 children above felt it appropriate to use the emoji.

Who knows could be for any number of reasons couldn’t it.

What might those reasons be then? Care to share?

Surely the person I know with one child who flies business class with child, husband, mother and MIL to their holiday home in Florida 4x a year is worse for the planet than someone with 3 children that never flies?

Probably not, actually. Four transatlantic flights a year merely for holidays is clearly excessive, especially if travelling business class, but that alone wouldn't be enough to offset the impact of two additional children.

That isn't to say that the frequent flyers shouldn't cut back in any case. They should. We all should. But that doesn't change the fact that each additional child has an even bigger impact.

Harry and Meghan's gesture is pretty empty in my view. If they really care about the planet that much and want to make a statement, why not stop at one.

I haven't denied that human activity may be contributing to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, but:

• carbon dioxide is not the only (or even biggest) greenhouse gas and at less than 1% of our atmosphere shouldn't necessarily be our focus
• the assumption is made that technology is not moving forward in any way to combat reabsorption of greenhouse gases
• a declining birth rate in the developed world is currently merely leading to the need for migration and statistically migrants from less developed countries have more children
• I firmly believe that the current hype and media bombardement has little to do with an actual concern for the environment by politicians (who are notorious for thinking short-term) and far more to do with playing on fear as a (very traditional) way to make more money
• if there really was a concern about our environmental impact we would be investing far more in scientific advancements, not cutting funding
• birth rates in the developed world are declining; a lot of the rise in the world population is due to people living far longer than we ever have, NOT because of higher birth rates and if current predictions are to be believed, my generation or my children's are the first to actually face living shorter lives than our parents due to lifestyle choices
• natural disasters, such as any volcano eruption, cancel out any effort made to curb greenhouse gas emissions by a greater factor than the media would admit
• our records are not old enough - we can only speculate what may happen using models based on data from - what - 150-200 years? How much is that, realistically, in the grand scale of the planet's (or even human) lifetime?