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 😄)

So sort of yes but not really then?

And we shouldn’t bother our pretty little heads with it because there’s nothing we can do until someone clever invents something and it’s all a conspiracy by the politicians anyway and if we don’t have babies the immigrants will have them anyway?

OK.

So the conclusion is ...what? Business as usual? Not sure that will work out.

This thread has been really interesting. We've been thinking about it as I am pregnant with number two and pretty sure we are stopping after this. We are trying our best to be eco friendly with cloth nappies/growing own veg/no air travel etc but then I see accounts on Instagram like mamalinauk whose sole aim is to save the planet, and yet is pregnant with number three. Sometimes I don't know what to think.

I find it highly hypocritical of Prince William to lecture us about the environment when he: owns multiple homes; travels on private transport including helicopters and has 3 children so far.

Live that life if you must but don't you dare make any virtuous comments about the environment urging others to change their lifestyles (such as his speech at Davos)

and drives around in massive guzzling Range Robers, which extra ones tagging behind for security and nannies. Massive hypocrite. Harry will be the same. Not to mention his wife's hen do in NY!!

I've got 4. Obviously I am solely responsible for all the plastic in the sea.

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's 4 x 4, 4 trips for all 4 of them, plus other holidays in the year. I know what you're saying about the impact of 2x more children but my point is, I know lots of people who live like this. Plus people who fly back and forth between the US and here on a monthly basis for work and have done for years. Planes only take off chocka now and there are hundreds of flights from hundreds of airports every day. Plus tonnes and tonnes of freight. Military planes. A few people in the UK, or even all of them, not having a third child is surely a drop in the oceaan compared to the sum total of air travel? Shouldn't we be concentrating efforts on technology for less damaging planes?

I have 5 but we don't go abroad so that's gotta help.

Animal agriculture creates more C02 than all transport worldwide combined, so eating a plant based diet can make a big difference. It's also surprisingly enjoyable I found!! (And I feel great on it.)

But they will, when they grow up.

With children, it’s the projected life long consumption that’s worrying.

Ok in that case lets persuade everyone to stop eating Beef (I am vegetarian as is my third child so he's a freebie yay!). No more cows (except in zoos) then is surely going to be more effective than persuading people to only have 2 kids?

Am waiting now for Harry and William to confirm their kids will all be vegetarian. And the people driving the Range Rovers.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/01/use-your-waste-water-to-save-street-trees-experts-urge

According to this the Government is 71% short of their target for tree planting.

This is a disgrace.

I just don't see the doom mongering. There is a need to reconsider overall consumption, but not having children in the UK for the sake of the environment is not the answer.

At least people are now considering the impact of having children. It could affect future decisions.

I don't think the argument that the birth rate is declining is a good one for having more children (from an environmental viewpoint).

In 2017 the world population was 7.5bn
2000: 6.1bn
1990: 5.3bn
1980: 4.5bn
1970: 3.7bn
1960: 3bn

And in 2050 it's forecast to be 9.8bn. That's more than tripled in 110 years. And we all consume a lot more natural resources than back in 1960.

It's a good thing for the planet to have a reducing human population. It's more sustainable.

Sorry, tripled in less than 100 years

I think everyone should limit their family size to two children AND think about what they consume.

I’m child free and worry about how I impact the environment every day. No doubt I’m contributing to damage despite my best efforts but it seems it doesn’t even enter some people’s thinking when they decide to have children.

The western world is certainly experiencing a rare blip in the history of human where more of us than ever can have a good quality of life but it’s not sustainable, especially when the population continues to grow.

Our economies will need to be re-designed somehow so they no longer need constant growth of population and consumption to operate but can thrive with a stable or even declining population living a simpler but still fulfilling life.

Consumption has to be the biggest problem. On individual/family levels think about an average Christmas, average classroom, average birthday party, average Amazon delivery day, average wedding, average food waste and so on. Hospitals and doctors - every visit gets plastic gloves thrown in the bin and so on. Across every sector our disposable culture and consumer culture is INSANE. I am 50 and really notice a difference in a few decades.
Also agree completely with a PP regarding big corporations. We are a drop in the ocean compared to how they drive it. As our economic systems are built on consumption they and government will not have the will to step in - yet.

Selfishly, I care less about the impact of having children on climate change than the impact of climate change on my children. I can't bear to think of the hardships my current two might face when I'm dead and gone. So for that reason I shan't be having a third.

Not many other people seem to worry about the planet though when having babies so why should I?

A small number of women have pledged not to have children have pledged not to have children because of their fears about ‘climate breakdown and civilisation collapse.

www.drawdown.org/solutions

Top ten recommendations for reducing carbon emissions, in order of volume of reduction

Family planning is 7th out of 10, and that is premised not on the developed world reducing their already very low birth rate but on women across the world having the access to the contraception and choices and alternatives to large families that they say they would like.

I think it's good that there's growing awareness about personal impact and sure, take climate change as one of the factors to take into account if you're on the fence about children, but I find it distasteful that once again women are being berated (not here, it's a constructive thread, but in the media) for reproductive choices when the impact of someone in this country having a third of fourth child is so, so small.

There would be a far larger impact if everyone in the UK gave up their fridges but that would, I imagine, be seen as far too large a suggested infringement on people's lives.

The solutions lie in government and industry action, not whether anyone on this thread decides to have another baby.

It really hit me with a thread on here about parking. A poster said that she had three children, so would at some point in the future be needing to park five cars on her fairly modest-sounding road. So each of those kids grows up and they buy a car, their spouse buys a car, they have kids...

No wonder the M25 is like a vision of hell. We can’t carry on like this.