To think people are nuts for not having kids for environmental reasons?

[LewishamMum]

I guess in a community of Mums, I may get support, but I just don't understand the increasing number of people in the media who won't have kids because of the environment.
I can't help thinking a lot of them just don't want kids (which is fine), and are trying to come up with a good/virtue signalling reason for this. I mean, if you wanted kids, wouldn't you just do it? (Oh, I do get why they are bad for the environment though!)

If decarbonization can't be achieved by 2050 there is no future for our children, this is why some people decide do not have any.

I know right! I know it's not great for the environment but if we stop having kids for the sake of he environment, by the time the environment is saved, there won't be anyone left to enjoy it! Animals would also take over as everyone will stop eating them...but then vegans and vegetarians would die out because they and animals eat the world's supply of plants...I've just got lost down a rabbit hole!

Bottom line, I agree with you OP!

I agree OP. It’s virtue signalling because they’re not actually changing their preferred lifestyle to help the environment. It’s like bragging you wont buy a car “for environmental reasons” when you live in central London or other major city and the real reason is because driving is nigh impossible and you have loads of public transport options to get you from point A to B fastest.

It’s also fairly morbid to mention to parents because it’s also implying to parents that the planet would be better off if their children had never been born or were dead. When no one knows that.

Everyone is going to stop having kids and turn vegan and the animals will take over That's the best rabbit hole ever!

PlanDeRaccordement, we need to change course for the children's future not the planet.

If ethical, intelligent and socially responsible people decide not to have children then the next generation will be dominated by the offspring on uncaring, thick and irresponsible people. That won't be good for the planet either!

I agree a bit. I think environmental reasons are usually the cherry on the top reason.

I'm stopping at 2 and reason number 5 on my list as to why is environmental concerns. I'm not going to pretend that it's more of reason than not wanting to be pregnant again or have another newborn.

I find it hard to believe anyone would avoid having children purely for environmental reasons, it might be a contributory factor, but I very much doubt anyone who yearns to be a parent would actually stop themselves for climate reasons.

I think it’s more likely to be a genuine factor in how many children people have, rather than whether to have them at all.

Even people working in climate sciences are having children...

I think it can be part of the reason but people also probably like the childfree lifestyle but saying they don’t want kids for environmental reasons I think draws less judgement.

We are likely to only have one. Part of that reasoning is environmental reasons but there are other factors too including finances and how time we can give a child. I think there are benefits to environmentally conscious people having children because otherwise we are going to backwards in terms of environmental awareness and education. If children grow up in a household that is energy and water efficient, that recycles and reduces their dependency on finite resources, those are lessons that the child is likely to carry into their own adult lives.

In most cases it’s not that they’re having fewer kids because of the environmental impact those kids would have. It’s because the outlook for even the UK is really really bad if we stay on current paths - people don’t want to bring children into a world with unliveable climates, food and water shortages, untreatable diseases etc. It’s scary to think about - but this is the reality we face within the next few decades. The scientific consensus is that will be a lot more suffering (unless we do more now to make changes), and people don’t want to have children who will have to live through that suffering.

@SantiagoSky

From my perspective, we have been changing course for at least sixty or seventy years. I’ve read on history of environmental activism. Then there is my own memories. Growing up, the environment was in a lot worse shape than it is now. We had rivers so polluted, they caught on fire and burned for days. Massive lakes so polluted nothing lived in them- they were dead lakes and you couldn’t swim in them because it would be an acid bath, nevermind drink from them! We had acid rain, which smelt terrible and you could see it literally strip the leaves off trees and eat holes into your raincoat and umbrella. It would also cause fish to die off and it was not uncommon to see lakes dying, with beaches just covered in dead fish. Small mammals like squirrels and water fowl like ducks...they’d have bare raw patches on them that bled and ducks would have deformed feet from the pollution in the water. The air quality was horrendous with leaded petrol fumes...every car gave off worse exhaust than today’s diesels. Green technology did not exist. Solar power was just a pipe dream and no one took it seriously. We had hydro electric but that wouldn’t be enough to meet demand. Wind turbines did not yet exist. Power was generated by coal plants...making the air even worse. Mines and other factories simply dumped toxic waste into rivers, lakes, the oceans. The same with raw sewage. I remember being a girl in China when we got our first sewage treatment plant in the 1980s. Rubbish was just landfills or incinerators...recycling did not exist.

Two generations have made a lot of progress. The torch does need to keep being passed to future generations as I do agree we(humanity) are not there yet in being able to live lightly on the Earth and keep it clean for future generations.

I don’t agree 2050 as a doomsday. I have seen several of these doomsday predictions come and go in my life. I know environmental activists like to pick a date in the future and then use it to create a sense of urgency and make current generation feel special and like they are first to take environment seriously and “make a difference”. It also fools them into thinking they’ll be around when it is all finished.

But truth is that this is a multi-generational task that will take centuries to accomplish and it is also true we are going in a positive direction and I see us continuing to do so and so have nothing but hope for the future.

My children grew up in a cleaner world than I did, they will do the same for their children and so on.

Look at the global greenhouse gas emissions since 1980 and you will see the problem:

ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions

This chart needs to go to zero by 2050 for the global temperature increase to be limited to 1,5 degrees. We are at 1,1 degrees at the moment.

I'm cynical and think they probably didn't want to have children but are dressing it up as environmental concerns rather than owning that they just don't want to.

Like a PP said, it's a bit like people who say they don't have a car for environmental reasons when in reality they're in a busy city with good public transport and a car would be a financial drain.

I also find the children and environment card a bit of an odd one as when environmental issues are discussed with reference to everyone needing to adjust elements of their lives, there's always some who say "yeah well I have no children so I've done my bit and will fly 127 times a year if I want to because nobody can tell me what to do". Forgive me for viewing their apparent concern for the environment as greenwashing nonsense.

I actually wouldn't care much either if I didn't have children. We need to change course for the next generation not us.

There are always going to be children - they don't have to be yours (they will be all over the world)

So we need to save the environment for them

We are lucky enough to have the luxury of choosing not to have children (healthcare/contraception/less social stigma/less need for having them to look after us) - more of us should

I doubt that there will be many people absolutely desperate to have children who don't purely for environmental reasons.

There will, I imagine, be a lot more umming and ahhing over it, or who are fairly ambivalent about it but would proceed with a pregnancy if it happened, who eventually decide against for environmental reasons.

I'd think it a lot more hypothetical for a couple with several children to be going on about saving the environment because they don't drive or only eat locally sourced food.
Unless you've got some sort of Captain Fantastic set up completely off grid (and can somehow ascertain that you and your children will spend your entire lives there), your lifestyle changes aren't going to offset the impact of you having children.

(Should be noted that it will vary massively depending on where you are. A standard family with seven children living in Niger does not come close to the environmental impact of a family with two children in the UK living a standard (or slightly reduced) Western lifestyle).

I don't want kids. The fact that this is good for the environment on some level is just a bonus.

Anyone who says they're sacrificing parenthood in order to save the environment is a liar and an arse

• hypocritical, not hypothetical

@KihoBebiluPute

If ethical, intelligent and socially responsible people decide not to have children then the next generation will be dominated by the offspring on uncaring, thick and irresponsible people. That won't be good for the planet either!

I always think this too! I'd have thought 100 children brought up to be socially responsible and respect the environment, would be better for the planet then 50 wasteful and irresponsible people.

Yes and No.
I dont think an individual having or not having kids will make much difference to climate change so its a pointless sacrifice. The trends for number of births is mainly down but there is a lag.

I do think things are about to get very hard due to climate change and maybe children born nkw face a difficult time in 40-50 years and i can see the logic in not wanting children or grand children to face that.

Yes, MildredPuppy, I agree.

It sounds better than saying we don't think we can afford them? Or we don't want any/more.

I supect it's an acceptable reason that shuts down any futher more perosnal discussion - while it's probably a more murky mix of things.

@SantiagoSky

Look at the global greenhouse gas emissions since 1980 and you will see the problem:

ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions

This chart needs to go to zero by 2050 for the global temperature increase to be limited to 1,5 degrees. We are at 1,1 degrees at the moment.

Sorry, but we don’t need to keep global warming at 1.5C or less. We really don’t. It was 3-4C warmer during the Bronze Age and that is what helped civilisation develop. Humans, animals and plants have all lived on an earth with no polar ice caps before, we can do so again. The “2050” and “1.5C” are just lines in the sand to create a sense of urgency....but they can and will be crossed.