They have no clean drinking water and it’s your fault!

[Neapolitanicecream]

Watched Stacy Dooley “Fashion dirty secret” on BBC last night. Lost sleep over it. Michael Gove is clueless on the poisonings of water for millions of people. It’s a disaster and it’s our fault with buying cheap cotton. We need to do something! Kids are being poisoned 🤢 it made me cry

Overpopulation is definitely a huge problem, but it isn’t the only problem and it certainly isn’t easily fixed. A handful of people saying “I don’t have children, there. I’ve saved the planet” achieves very little.

I'm not sure people appreciate the magnitude of the impact of not having children, or having 3 instead of 2. People are always trotting out the pension argument.

What’s the pension argument sorry?

@stonebake Hopefully fewer clever dicks being really unpleasant to Greenpeace activists because they have 3 children though

OK perhaps it was a bit clever dickish, but he'd gone on about the amount of waste and pollution that people produce and surely it's therefore somewhat hypocritical to add more to the earth's waste and pollution than necessary if you are a campaigner for that?

@stonebake We're all living longer so need more pensions to look after ourselves and pay for our care. Except it's the next generation that pay for this generation, so if there are fewer people in the next generation we can't afford to look after the previous generation. Is sort of how it goes. And it's not invalid.

What’s the pension argument sorry?

That people who have a lot of kids are doing the UK a great favour because of declining birth rates and an ageing population.

It's enormously hypocritical to chide people for their ecological choices if you're having more than 2 kids.

I'd completely re-work the tax credit system to reward childlessness.

And it's not invalid.

It's about as valid as pyramid scheme.

Someone has mentioned that if enough people requested it they would have debate in parliament regarding manufacturing supply chain environmental and social responsibility. Anyone know how to raise it for parliamentary debates

If you're interested in alternatives to China's widespread forced abortion, look up what Bangladesh and Iran did. The Iranians are now rolling a lot of that back, but they managed to halve the number of births per woman in a decade.

The pensions argument is not that great an argument, because children born today may well become future workers, but they will also become future pensioners who will then need people to pay their pensions etc etc. OTOH, the dinosaurs lived for 150 million years. We'll be gone well before that, and the Earth will just carry on with a new species until the sun burns out

manufacturing supply chain environmental and social responsibility
SO everyone is in favour of more taxes? Why not cut out the middleman and just pay more taxes instead of doing it through the purchase of environmentally undesirable manufactured products? Or go one step further and just make donations in the thousands each year to the government and state you want it used for "environmentally beneficial" things like sterilization clinics?

It is a little hypocritical of him, but if you agreed with him you could have made your point a little better. And it’s not as if you were going to stop him having children was it? That ship had sailed.

I know a very noisy, very serious green campaigner who used to say he’d never have children because of the impact on the environment. He’s currently undergoing IVF with his girlfriend.

So many people I know are vegan for environmental reasons but eat a fuck tonne of palm oil products and buy loads of clothes

There are loads of hypocritical environmentalists. Because opinions on the greenest thing to do is a complicated web of science and ethics. Nobody completely agrees with each other, but everyone is so sure they’re in the right. When actually it’s really quite complicated. So I think the judgey pants about people doing x, y or z making them hypocrites is a bit silly. I mean, the world’s in bits isn’t it? What does winning an argument with some activist achieve? Oh work for Greenpeace do you? Think you’re doing well? No! You’re a bad environmentalist. Naughty Greenpeace man. Meanwhile the world’s still going to shit and you’ve ruined someone’s day too. Not to say let people away with everything but there’s a way to start a debate without being a clever dick.

I enjoyed what I saw of the Stacey Dooley documentary though.

Most chuggers are employed by agencies rather than doing it because they particularly care about the charity, aren't they? I'm sure there are people on here who've posted that they have 'chugged' for more than one.

OTOH, the dinosaurs lived for 150 million years. We'll be gone well before that, and the Earth will just carry on with a new species until the sun burns out

Was saying similar the other day to DH.

I find it a comforting thought The idea that we are supposed to go on for infinity (where other species haven't) is breathtakingly arrogant.

*So many people I know are vegan for environmental reasons but eat a fuck tonne of palm oil products and buy loads of clothes

There are loads of hypocritical environmentalists.*

None of us are perfect and we're all going to have some moments of failure with respect to climate change. That shouldn't put us off trying to do our best anyway. Just because the vegans buy loads of clothes doesn't undermine the environmental impact of them not eating animal products. We should all do our part insofar as we can.

I read an article about the French encouraging people to have more children, probably in the Times, this is intended to stop White French people being outnumbered by immigrants who have large families.

In places like Russian the population is reducing rapidly because poor people have problems accessing things like healthcare there is also a massive drink problem, life expectancy is very low.

Read in the Economist recently that 200 BILLION dollars was laundered through a Danish bank out of Russian in one year - that amount could solve a great many problems. The money has probably been spent on expensive property, multi million yachts, etc ...

So that makes them fair game does it?

Here’s me tuppence worth; you aren’t going to stop people having children by coming on mumsnet and saying “stop having children” or by berating Greenpeace dad over his three existing children. Even that really extreme group who are pro human extinction “so Gaia can thrive” don’t do that. They just say don’t have any more. Thank you for not breeding etc.

Pointless exercise in “I’m right and win at being green so nerr”. It just isn’t helpful.

I'm wondering if people didn't spot the OP returning!

OP, write to your local MP, use social media to campaign etc. but what do you actually want? You need to state specifics.

also, remember, as long as people can squeeze profit out of people, they are going to. I'm guessing you would not be so shocked unless you are a big consumer - so stop.

Isn’t it about capitalism?? Cotton, mining, really most industries could be done in most countries and done to a higher H&S standard but to improve profitability it’s done more cheaply elsewhere at a huge environmental cost.

None of us are perfect and we're all going to have some moments of failure with respect to climate change. That shouldn't put us off trying to do our best anyway. Just because the vegans buy loads of clothes doesn't undermine the environmental impact of them not eating animal products. We should all do our part insofar as we can.

I agree with this with bells on! That was my exact point. Leave Greenpeace dad be. Yes, he’s had three dcs, but he’s maybe trying in other ways. And that’s even if we assume that it’s as straightforward as fewer babies born = better.

Stonebake, the point I"m trying to make here, perhaps not well, is that the decision to not have children, or have more than 2, dwarfs any other actions you could reasonably undertake in your lifetime.

I agree inert, but there are good reasons to have children on a personal level and at a societal level. Whether you think these outweigh the reasons not to, is quite subjective I think.

I do think though, that there will be one child policies, (not to mention the euthanasia), in the future and I actually think fewer people than you’d think would object when we get to that point.

Maybe we all need to 'downsize' like in the Matt Damon film, which I've only just seen last night.
Lead to a discussion about overpopulation and climate change, etc.
It is something that worries me, and I try to do what I can, but I don't think enough people care enough to really do anything about it. It also needs government input, collaborations and initiatives, etc.

is that the decision to not have children, or have more than 2, dwarfs any other actions you could reasonably undertake in your lifetime.
But how do we know that the third or fourth child might not have been Michelangelo, Albert Einstein, or Alexander Fleming? I think humans are meant to go on forever and the future is in leaving this planet. I think humans have the capacity to solve anything they put their minds to - including global warming, over population, etc.

Agreed science. I think governments need to do more; that’s not passing the buck, just being realistic about human nature imo.

I certainly won’t be encouraging my children to have children btw. I think this is something that needs to change; the assumption by society that we should all have children.