To think having kids is NOT necessarily the worst thing you could do for the environment?

[Thewindblows]

dons hard hat

Now hear me out!

Every time I hear this argument I think;

1. It seems to assume that a human being's impact on the environment is equal to the sum total of their carbon footprint. Isn't life a lot more complex than that? Don't we all influence each other?

To take an obvious example - David Attenburgh has probably taken a SHITLOAD of international flights in his life, his carbon footprint must be massive. But would anyone say the world would have been better off without him, when through his work he has brought environmental awareness to millions? Of course the vast majority of us are not David Attenburgh. But let's say Jean Smith from down the road also cares lots about the environment, and tries her best to reduce her consumption and do her bit. Now, OF COURSE she is personally using more of the world's resources than if she didn't exist at all. But what if she has, through her lifestyle and activism, encouraged 5 of her friends to use cloth nappies and second hand clothes? Encouraged a few more to reduce their daily plastic use? Made one friend rethink his yearly long haul holiday? Through her activism, she has helped to push through plastic bag and bottle bans, and preserve a local woodland? How do we calculate this against her personal carbon footprint?

1. People are, on average, fairly likely to have beliefs/follow lifestyles broadly similar to their parents (isn't this why some organised religions encourage people to have many children?)

The only people who are likely to be persuaded not to have kids for environmental reasons, are people who already care about the environment.

So let's say in both country A and B, 50% of couples care about the environment deeply, 50% of them are climate change deniers.
In country A, all the environmentalist couples decide it is best not to have children. All the deniers go ahead and have 2 kids per couple.
When the next generation grows up and is making the decisions ALL of them are the children of parents who don't care for the environment.
In country B, all the couples have 2 children. The next generation has 50% offspring of environmentalists, and 50% of deniers.
Yes, country B does now have a bigger population - but is it not clear that it also stands a vastly greater chance of implementing policies and making the real societal changes necessary to preserve the environment?

Considering the above, is it not better for someone who cares about the environment to actually have children if they want to, and raise them as responsibly as possible?
(Note by responsibly I don't just mean they try to remember their reusable bags at the supermarket sometimes - I'm talking the parents making real effort in every area of their lives personally, and also being involved in activism/campaigning/politics to try and effect real change. Modeling this to their children and raising responsible caring people.)

I'm willing to hear counter arguments to this!! Genuinely interested in what people think.

The more people that cycle the safer it becomes

SalrycLuxx

I am however in favour of severely restricting usage in population centres.

and I agree that the way to do this is park and ride/cycle/walk.
But if the infrastructure isn't there to support better facilities or the local government only raise the prices on cars, then the buses etc. raise their prices cars are going to remain a viable proposition.

As an example/anecdote

Its is still not only faster, cheaper but more efficient for me to take the car in the morning than take the bus and then walk in to work.

I think the UK is an excellent example for the results of overpopulation. You could easily do a very extensive study and apply the findings to the future of the World.
Housing shortage? Food imports v home grown? Diminishing of green belt land? Brown sites with toxic soil? Sounds familiar in one way or another.... and I haven't even mentioned carbon footprints or diminishing resources!

(Apologies for excluding any brown and black readers from the UK there - please be assured that I think you are part of the UK problem too - I'm just pretty sure that this is the issue some posters are bothered about).

You got it spot on Mirri.
Still waiting for the explanation why fewer white British born kids and more brown kids from migrant families are bad for the human race as a whole.

Exactly, boneyback. My car costs me approx £40 per month all in. For that, I can get door to door for my five mile drive to work in 20 minutes, without waiting half an hour in the rain for a bus that supposedly runs every ten minutes but never does and paying almost twice as much a month to do so, for a journey that takes almost three times as long, without being knocked onto the road by a motorist or having to stop and patch a puncture caused by no one maintaining the few cycle lanes there are, without spending half an hour walking each way to take my daughter to her music lesson because after 6pm the buses only run every half hour, are not reliable and it's a two bus journey anyway. It's all very well saying people should do it but, like beating women over the head about breastfeeding, unless you provide them with the means, they can't. Plus it's a fuck of a lot of effort to go to for negligible effect compared to, for instance, just coal fueled power station in China shutting down.

Just one coal fueled etc that is

overpopulation is a big problem, in order to live in balance with the earths ressources, we should be no more than 1 billion people on the planet - currently we are around 8 billion.

Thereforre it doesn't really matter how eco-friendly you live, if you have more than one child you are contributing to the problem.

@AnAC12UCOinanOCG You do understand that immigrants already exist and aren't being bred to move to England, right?

How does this not make sense to you?

You do understand that migrants moving from poorer areas will become higher consumers when they move to "England", right? You do also understand that, as we already have too many people for the existing housing, that more home will need to be built (a proportion of which will be on green belt land), which uses huge amounts of energy and resources, right? Maybe stop being such a blinkered, patronising morally superior liberal and actually think about the wider effects of an action, rather than just spouting knee jerk political correctness when somebody raises a point you don't agree with. Makes sense to me.

Thank you @usernamealreadytaken.

Somebody gets what I’m trying to say. You can’t control our population here without controlling immigration. You can’t control world population unless every woman has access to free birth control. FACT

Without that, I wonder if some people are more likely to have a great time consuming resources, safe in the knowledge that they or their descendents will not be around to face climate catastrophe.

Not necessarily. I manage to never fly, use public transport for work, buy my clothes second hand etc despite being childfree because I'm not a completely selfish fucker blind to what's going on in the wider world.

I hear you on this and think its a good point. I also think 99.99999999% of people base their decision to have children on whether they want them and nothing to do with the environment

OP having one less child is 75x better for the environment than going vegan, and 200x better than recycling. It is the WORST thing you can do in terms of your environmental impact. Especially in a first world country. Stop deluding yourself and look at the facts.

And they'll do more positive than negative for this world. So whatever their carbon foot print is- so be it

How do you know that?

OP having one less child is 75x better for the environment than going vegan, and 200x better than recycling. It is the WORST thing you can do in terms of your environmental impact. Especially in a first world country. Stop deluding yourself and look at the facts.

I'm not sure these numbers (I presume them to be correct) can account for one's descendants - can they? So they're wildly skewed, dramatic though they may be.

And I never mentioned colour, they’re British people who are brown, yellow, dark brown who may want to carry on their family line and you are saying they shouldn’t.

I'm not sure these numbers (I presume them to be correct) can account for one's descendants - can they? So they're wildly skewed, dramatic though they may be

They aren’t “wildly skewed” they are done by environmental scientists although I’m sure you’d love to believe that. I will find the study.

And yes they probably do take into account descendants as 80% of us WILL have descendants. So to not include that would be wildly inaccurate.

I will search for the study and link it. It was done by Lund University in Sweden.

And I never mentioned colour, they’re British people who are brown, yellow, dark brown who may want to carry on their family line and you are saying they shouldn’t

No one is saying that. People are responding to the OPs inaccurate first post. It’s an inconvenient truth that having children is THE WORST thing you can do for the planet. Having just one child is over 200x worse than not recycling is. Deluding ourselves isn’t going to help anything.

You’re saying people shouldn’t be open about this because it oftends parents?

www.independent.co.uk/environment/children-carbon-footprint-climate-change-damage-having-kids-research-a7837961.html

Here are some details of the study but it was done in Lund University, Sweden if you want to look into it more.

“A US family who chooses to have one fewer child would provide the same level of emissions reductions as 684 teenagers who choose to adopt comprehensive recycling for the rest of their live“

The above quote alone shows how much of a joke “I have kids but I’m an eco warrior because I recycle” is.

You've misunderstood the point I've tried to make hithere which is that they're distorted in favour of childbearing as they presumably don't account for descendants.

You've misunderstood the point I've tried to make hithere which is that they're distorted in favour of childbearing as they presumably don't account for descendants

Oh I see sorry my bad 🤐

Overpopulation is a myth

It took 200,000 years to get to a billion people, it took 200 years to get to 7 billion. What do you think the world will look like in a further 200 years?

Here’s a map of which counties cause the most Co2 emissions. Yes Africans have more children but they cause no where near the environmental damage as having kids in the West/First world countries. They don’t “consume” as much as we all do.

Here’s a map of which counties cause the most Co2 emissions. Yes Africans have more children but they cause no where near the environmental damage as having kids in the West/First world countries. They don’t “consume” as much as we all do.

Eventually, Africa is going to catch up, just like China and India, and that's all going to change. I don't think we can rest easy with this reasoning.