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.

They don’t “consume” as much as we all do

That is the point made several times upthread. Tanks for reconfirming it.

Various hard-of-thinking people don't quite understand ...

Eventually, Africa is going to catch up, just like China and India

For a country with over 1.3 billion people it does not produce much Co2 emissions. Not nearly as many as Europe (750 mil) and USA (350 mil) so that’s not a great comparison.

It’s easy to look at Africa overpopulation as the problem when a family of 8 in Africa use less resources than a family of 4 in the West.

India I’m talking about

@MirriVan but for every migrant that moves to the west uses those resources. The powers that be say we need immigration because are birth rate is going down so if we stop having children here does that mean immigration goes up? And what would it go up to a million a year, 5 million a year, we have no control over immigration so no control of our population.

India I’m talking about

It's the trajectory.

So, if the UK start having fewer babies but invite already existing migrants in as tax payers, it will buy our older population more time (possibly at the expense of their home county's ageing population if they have a similar system). But to buy us ALL more time, those migrants will also need to have far fewer children.

This is broadly my view on it.

I don't think it's OK that indigenous British people would die out in favour of new populations, but this isn't going to happen. People are still fundamentally driven to have children and we're scores of generations away from extinction!

I think our best hope is that the areas where population growth has dipped below replacement would accept some immigration offset, influence their demographic trends, AI etc would eventually accommodate dipping populations across the board, and the population would gently or dramatically contract.

But so many jobs are about to be replaced by technology? So what would all these migrant extra workers do?

But so many jobs are about to be replaced by technology? So what would all these migrant extra workers do?

Yes, I agree with you but for whatever reason most people haven't really worked this into their views about reproduction/overpopulation so we have to keep on talking about jobs and pensions and the tax base for now.

It’s funny on mumsnet it’s ok to tell people to stop having children but if you mention immigration your thick and racist. Our population in 1950 was 60 million, now it’s nearly 69 million, our birth rate was going down, population growth in the uk is mainly down to immigration.

You can’t control global birth rate unless you give every woman access to free birth control, which is never going to happen, so we can’t control our population here or the rest of the world, small numbers here as we have access to free birth control our a drop in the ocean to overall growth population.

Keep the insults coming it just proves my point 😊

Yes importing people from the third world to here would also be a disaster for the environment because their global footprint is far less in somewhere like Africa than here.

hithere the reason for that reduced footprint is poverty though. I'm not sure advocating keeping 2/3 of the world population in grinding poverty is an ethical solution to the environmental issues either.

I mean you are basically saying you want to keep your own jetsetting resource draining lifestyle going by making it harder for anyone else to do the same.....

We should be aiming for something in between. Haves should be seriously reigning in their consumerism and have nots should be lifted out of poverty.

the reason for that reduced footprint is poverty though. I'm not sure advocating keeping 2/3 of the world population in grinding poverty is an ethical solution to the environmental issues either

No it isn’t it’s because of Morden technology. Humans lived on this planet for hundreds of thousands of years without effecting the climate. It’s only in the last 60 years that the damage has been done.

And global warming is going to be an absolute disaster for third world countries, Africa cannot afford for their temperatures to rise, so no I don’t think those countries becoming guzzling consumers like us and owning two cars per household would be a good thing. There’s a difference between not living in poverty and living how people do in the West.

It’s funny on mumsnet it’s ok to tell people to stop having children but if you mention immigration your thick and racist.

Mentioning immigration doesn't make you thick and racist. What does make you thick is that you can't grasp simple concepts like global vs national populations, and what makes you racist is saying we need to keep making white children because it would be dangerous if there were only brown children being born.

Humans lived on this planet for hundreds of thousands of years without effecting the climate

Well we used to think so. There was some research that shows our Bronze Age ancestors did a pretty good job of deforesting most of Europe - which may have affected climate.

There's also the fact that there was a climate disaster in the dark ages which knocked back global populations for a couple of centuries. Possibly a volcanic event. Which is no more or less likely today. In fact as I type, a volcano could not only cancel out, but outweigh all the environmental changes we've made in the last century. Which would tip us into a catastrophe.

Also worth noting it's not just human pandemics that could do for us. Any number of animal pandemics could wipe out a major source of food and environmental agents. No sheep or cows, for example.

Humanity has wiped out 60% of animal populations since 1970, so yes it is a recent epidemic.

hithere about 1/4 of the world population doesn't have access to education or medicine. 1/5 don't have access to shelter or electricity.

Its not ALL about poverty, but a lot of it is.

I agree the western lifestyle is the problem, but we can't keep 1/4 of the population in dire poverty so we can have as many kids as we like, or take holidays to visit distant relative in far flung countries.