Having a baby is an environmental disaster. Discuss.

[Triathlete]

Well, it is, isn't it?

Six billion people on the planet, and growing. As humans increase in numbers, we're losing other species at unprecedented rate.

That's the big picture. It's worse at the family level.

It starts with fuel efficiency going out the window as you start driving all those short journeys because DW is as big as a whale and her feet are exploding.

Then all the renovations - bathroom and nursery at least. Even if you buy the most eco-friendly recycled ethically sound products, it's still more STUFF.

Then all the bottles, sterilisers, clothes, nappies, toys. All the new possessions...

Then the washing machine goes from two washes a week to two washes a day, if you are using real nappies. If you're using disposable, then you might as well personally set fire to the last bit of rainforest, you unfeeling brute.

Then that whole world of things to do for DW and DS to stop DW from losing her mind...children's centre, swimming, a fee here, a charge there, the safety equipment, the vast array of new medicines and lotions.

And it's going to be like that for the next twenty years.

Why would ANYONE have kids??!?

But we can't just stop having babies can we? That would be a disaster too. I think that you have a responsiblity to be as green as possible and to raise children with an environmental awareness..

I wonder this too. Though am eco-criminal with 3 children.

Trouble is, if you don't have children I think you can lose the urge to preserve the world for future generations. Having children does give you a reason to really care about the future for them.

as for the stuff, babies don't necessarily take all that much stuff. We didn't buy that much for ours. And we do an awful lot less travelling and exotic holidays so in some ways our carbon footprint is much lower now as a family of 5 than when we were a travel and holiday obsessed couple of 2.

i think that for me , having children has made me reassess things, and made me more aware of the planet and resources available, and the conditions others live in

i recycle, try to buy local, organic and fair trade where possible, i use reusable shopping bags, walk where i can, reuse and mend stuff

we pass clothes, toys etc between our group of friends, and equipment too...

not having children is not going to save the planet either

I agree wtih lulumama

Message withdrawn

Like others have said, lifestyle choices come into so much of what OP assumes.

I don't own any bottles, sterilisers. All the baby clothes/nappies/toys we have were acquired 2nd hand. Some of the nappy wraps were bought new -- if you want to be technical about it. With 6 people in house, including 2 in cloth nappies, we still only run washing machine less than once a day (and no, it's not a mega-capacity one, either). Just make sure it's full up b4 running, only wash stuff that truly needs it.

Have never decorated or created a nursery; how does having kids require bathroom renovations? The children's paintings & drawings are the wall decor in their rooms. Rode my bike to end of all 4 pregnancies when I wasn't walking, not all preggos turn into swollen ankle whales, actually, I reckon keeping fit is what prevents the swelling in many cases.

But I will admit to sometimes driving short journeys because the DC aren't reliable for cycling/walking, I can plead guilty on that one (annoying as all heck).

Seems to me the big cause of population explosion is many people having kids when they already have large families (kids 5+) AND WHEN they don't really have the means to provide for their DC or even want a big family really, they just don't have birth control or much faith that their already existing children will survive childhood.

Sort out the infant mortality rates and make birth control more acceptable & accessible, and global birth rates would plummet.

It would be just as much a disaster if people didn't have kids.

The birth rate amongst indignous europeans is actualy falling. That could be thought of as an enviironmental disaster where more people were needed to have babies to improve the situation. Go figure.

wot Lulumama said

But children will still grow up needing houses and cars. More roads and more houses mean even more of our countryside goes.

Too few children would be an economic disaster though, no? Pensions, tax...

triathelete, are you looking for some info for an article you're writing? odd post I have to say.

so lets all stop having kids and see what happens

...or gass the excess to save the countryside

Depends how they live, Bridie. Hopefully, that's partly down to values they were raised with.

I'm sure having another baby today does create more environmental burdens, but I think in the global picture, it's a red herring to focus on wanted babies or relatively small families (in global terms,

And who would care about 'the environment' if there were not people?
I think this is a bit of a silly argument. If nobody had children then the world would be a nightmare place. There is room for us all - plenty of room - it's war that causes most of the problems. We actually cultivate less land for food than we used to.

Interesting. It does worry me this rate of population growth.

A big family is not for me. With 2 dcs, it is the replacement rate and quite enough.

Any sudden drop in population growth has to be carefully managed and could cause social problems eg China's one-child policy.

Funny how people assume I'm a journo when I post something provocative.

It's true that having kids makes you reassess your priorities, but the fact is that a) there are too many people on the planet, and b) western lifestyles are incredibly resource intensive.

Like many posters, we have freecycled a lot of our baby stuff, and grateful to do so. I grow food on our allotment, only fill the car up 12 times a year, and cycle to work.

But that's all pissing in the wind in terms of what needs to be done to save humanity (NB we don't need to "save the planet" - it will continue orbiting around the sun and supporting life in one form or another). We need to get population down, stop using fossil fuels, grow, transport and process food sustainably, distribute water more sustainably, and a whole raft of other measures in order to stave off the worst of climate change and its human costs.

It's true that birth rates drop when education and income increase. But that's not happening in most of the world. I work in the development sector. Population is the elephant in the room - no-one wants to come out and say that there are too many people in too many marginal areas of the world.

And the desire of China and India for our western way of life is going to wipe out any benefits to the environment from my cycling to work. Now that Tata has launched their affordable car in india, expect to see carbon levels take off like never before.

I just wonder what world i've brought my darling happy smiling little boy into, and whether he might one day curse me for it.

People have always thought the world was overcrowded and couldn't support more people though. I think there is a lot of panic around which probably isn't justified.

Think London in 1942, Triathelete, did that seem like a good time and place to bring a baby into the world? And yet people did and mostly those babies grew up to have good lives I reckon humans have always had spells when the future looked really bleaked. It usually turns out okay, eventually.

Indiginous europeans not having more kids are actually causing a huge problem for european economies which then have to rely on immigrant labour and all the frictions that brinsg with it.

Yes, but by that logic, our population would have to go on increasing and increasing and increasing all the time. There simply isn't room for any more people in England. Any kind of people, that is. Eastern European, British, African, Asian--we are FULL UP. I accept that redistributing the population so that more people live in the north and Scotland would help a bit.

But I really think that, at some stage, we are going to have to just grit out teeth and accept that there will be one or two generations (ours) who will struggle with the demographic inverted pyramid. it will be time-limited because eventually that large (relatively speaking) elderly population will die (sorry). Then the pyramid will flip back.

No, there are optimum reuptake targets.

I have no idea what you mean when you say, there is no more room in England. We are not full up, resprces are only beginning to be stretched. If you want to know what full up is, go to a country that borders a warzone.

WE are going to have to grit our teeth abut many things, buat asking (some wnating to demand) that people stop having children is never going to be an answer.

Interesting discussion and of course there isn't a simple answer...however it's a bit too easy to blame developing countries for the population crisis. Many women don't have any choice about when to have sex let alone birth control.

Also it's too easy for us to complain about industrial/technological growth in China and India. We already have the benefits that those have brought. Just because we've now realised that activities such as driving aren't good for the environment why does that give us the right to suddenly stop everyone else from doing it. when we've been doing them for ages.

Saying all that dh and i did have several conversations about what kind of world we would be bringing a baby into before deciding to try for a baby. I hope that we will bring up our child in a loving environment and provide a good education so that they are equipped to try and solve problems in the future.

I don't see how anyone could 'blame' abnyone else. This is just the predicament we are in. There is no need for catastrophsing. We in the west are still much better off than others arohdn the world. Count your chickens, I'd say

Or even your blessings.

Re: population, well thats true, but what is the alternative? An aging population with no young people to look after them? Should we all stop having children in the UK and import people from other countries to look after us?

Re: your DW, I didn't personally drive any more because of being pregnant, but if your wife has SPD or something similar I think you should be a little more sympathetic.

Why are you renovating your bathroom? Re: nursery, not sure that even the most stylish nursery needs that much done to it - a coat of white paint and a teddy bear?

Yes children need stuff, but they don't need quite as much stuff as we are led to believe.