Should We Stop Having Children to Save the Earth?
One of my friends has a bumper sticker on her car that reads, “Thank you for not breeding.” Every time I read it, I feel a pang of guilt that I have two children. I know that children in developed countries, especially Americans, use up for more resources than children around the world. The statistics are staggering when comparing children’s footprints across the globe, which causes many environmentalists to suggest that not having children may be the single most important thing you do for the environment. As a mother of two, this is a hard pill to swallow, and I try to convince myself that my children will be part of the solution since they are raised with green family values.
According to Mother Jones, a developed world baby’s carbon footprint is quite large:
Between 2000 and 2050, the U.S. will add 114 million kids to its population. Africa will add 1.2 billion—but their respective CO2 emissions will be the same.
One American child generates as much CO2 as 106 Haitian kids.
Zahara Jolie-Pitt will produce 45,000 lbs of CO2 yearly, compared with 221 lbs if she still lived in Ethiopia.
A typical baby goes through 3,800 disposable diapers in her first 2.5 years.
96% of American babies wear disposable diapers. In China, only 6% do. In India, 2%.
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China claims its one-child policy has prevented 400 million births—saving 1.5 billion tons of CO2 in 2004 alone.
China is often criticized for its one-child-policy as a restriction on personal freedom. I am not a proponent of laws that dictate the demographics of a family, but I do think that through education, we can have a significant impact on helping families decide the right number of children for themselves and the environment. I believe in educated choice.
I do have a few friends who have three or more children. One friend was accosted by another mother as being environmentally irresponsible for having three children. For many environmentalists, having children feels like a hypocritical action. Angharad Penrhyn Jones said in the Guardian:
Eco activists spend their lives agonising over the planet’s future - but that doesn’t stop them having children. We mustn’t give up hope.
It is a personal decision whether or not to have children. I believe it is possible to live by environmental ethics and have a child, obviously since I am a mother. The amount of carbon left behind as individuals and families is the most important factor, whether we have children or not. It is all about carbon emissions. If you leave a very small family’s carbon footprint, you are being eco-responsible and can still have children. It is one reason why I live-off-the-grid and grow my food. Just remember:
American children make up 4% of the world’s population, but they consume more than 40% of the world’s toys.
We must evolve past the selfish desire to reproduce-at-will if we have any hope of winning the war against ourselves.
Why have kids and put money into a college fund when you can go out and buy a big screen plasma tv? its retarded i dont even know why everyone wants to have a kid
Do not allow yourself to feel guilty about having children. Here’s why.
Follow that train of thought to utmost logical end: if by having fewer kids less damage is done to the earth, how much less damage if we have no kids at all? Imagine: in 100 years of having 0 children, we could reduce the population of the United States to a handful of old people still left alive. Everyone else dead and passed away with no descendants.
Pretty ludicrous.
One, because what you’re implicitly saying is that eventually if we want to save the Earth we should all just commit mass suicide right now, Jonestown style. That guy with the bumper sticker can go first. By that logic, Hitler was good for the environment, as was Stalin and the Khmer Rouge.
Two, because it will never happen. If we all agreed to have fewer or no children, people would have kids on the sly. They would hide them from discovery. They would give their 2nd child to infertile/childless relatives or friends to raise as their own to circumvent accounting by the law. If the law says “only 1 kid” then give your 2nd kid to your sister. Or your cousin. Or those nice lesbians next door. Done. Or people will just outright break the law. Look at China.
Third, no one knows how many people the Earth can hold, nor what the future will bring. Technology has changed MASSIVELY since just the 1900s. What about 2100? Consider the light bulb. People used to burn lanterns and candles, and now we have LED bulbs that last 10 years on a watch battery! And there are more efficient lights after that. If we apply our technology to the basics of life: air, water, land, food… no statistics can predict what changes the future will bring.
It works the other way too: AIDS, war, corn blights, hurricanes, volcanoes, record-breaking winters… We not helpless against these problems, but there’s a limit to how much we can realistically prevent them. You can’t control nature. You can’t control the actions of other human beings. You can’t control God. Life will be life, and no amount of simplistic environmental math and shocking statistics can predict or prevent that. An asteroid could strike the Earth at any time, and what then?
I liked your article, and I’m not arguing with it or you. It’s this “guilt is good” mentality, as if guilt is somehow an antidote to greed, as if it solves anything. It’s the snark mentality: making a cutting put-down makes you somehow right.
If you actually fear environmental apocalypse, logically you would want to have 10 kids and live communally on a farm with their husbands and wives. Then you would have a village of 11-20 or more people and have enough hands to raise all your own food and protect each other in case of bandits or corrupt law enforcement. Or just to have more loved ones to talk to when TV and the Internet finally blow out like candles.
Overpopulation and overconsumption are two different problems, it’s hard to take a moral high ground when addressing one, but not the other. I personally believe overpopulation is the root of many of the world’s problems, but we really need to work on BOTH reducing our population size and the amount of waste we produce. In each case, we need more education, resources, and a fundamental change in our way of thinking. And yes, that means changing the societal norm of having 2.5 children.
I wouldn’t worry about it. Look at history - we don’t react until we’re already screwed. When we have to buy expensive filtration devices for our air/water, the _zero_ children per family will probably be the norm for any middle class couple. It’ll be fine when we have enough opposing force.
That said, why aren’t we working on more effective forms of contraception?
EXHAUSTING THE FISHERY IS MY PERSONAL CHOICE, ISN’T IT?
I went into my local Sporting Goods store today to buy some fishing gear for this coming summer season. I engaged pleasantries with Tracy, the lady at the counter. It was about four months since I last spoke to her. In that conversation, I lamented the fate of Kate, a tragically unfortunate woman in her mid twenties with schizophrenia. The whole island knew of Kate. Like so many schizophrenics, she was always seen pacing with a cigarette in her mouth, often talking to herself and sometimes flying into rages.
Unfortunately Kate is an attractive young woman. It is unfortunate because she is prey to cads who pick her up while hitchiking and have their way with her. About four months after her first childbirth she took her baby in her arms and at midnight in the moonlight walked into the frigid waters of the harbour and attempted to swim to the next island. She was apprehended, the baby rescued, placed in temporary social services care and then adopted. Of course the father of this child was no where to be seen.
The father of Kate’s second child was more responsible. He took custody while she went into psychiatric care. But her stay was short. In Canada there is really nothing doctors can do with mental health patients who won’t voluntarily submit to treatment. They are typically detained for two days after a doctor issues an order to the police. Then they are released. Kate has been detained and released over and over again.
This past fall Kate let it be known that she wanted a baby. She enjoyed being pregnant and having a child that cloyed to her and needed her. So every day and every night, she put on her make-up, tarted up, and trolled the roads thumbing rides. By January it was evident that she had been successful in her quest. Her third issue should be due before the spring is out. Even in a tight community with high accountability, there is always a supply of male scum to meet the irresponsible demands of someone like Kate. I can’t find words to describe the impotent rage I feel, and my feeling is broadly felt in the same depth.
When I reviewed Kate’s latest woes with Tracy, I bitterly remarked that with 6.7 billion people on the planet, and our environment consequently on the ropes, government—the community—should have no qualms about seizing people like Kate and sterilizing them. And then hunting down the scoundrels who take advantage of them and summarily neutering them without anesthetic.
“Well, she said, having children is a personal choice.”
Remembering that conversation, I brought my lures to the counter and announced, “Tracy, I won’t be buying a fishing licence this year.”
“Why not?” she asked, “You have to stay in your limit or you might get a heavy fine. Besides, Tim, you’ve gotta leave some fish for the rest of us.”
“Whether I catch one salmon or twenty salmon, surely that is a personal choice,” I replied.
Tim Murray
Quadra Island, BC
May 4/08
No one can justify having a child to fulfill their own selfish desires. No one.
And my selfish needs? I take long, hot showers and use all the water I want. I drive big SUV’s. I fly airplanes. I use up more resources than most people, but I will NEVER in a million years hurt the earth as much as a mother and her brand new BABY. GIVE ME THE TAX BREAKS, NOT HER!
I’m not sure why people should feel guilty for breeding, if one studies demographics, the womb of the mother is the most powerful weapon. If you think too much about it, and feel guilty about breeding, the world will be left in 40 years to the children of Third World immigrants and Evangelical Christians that most of you probably despise.
[...] Paul Erhlich wrote The Population Bomb, it’s long been recognized that uncontrolled human population growth is the greatest threat to our planet. Coupled with an economic recession, many families, including the first family, recognize that [...]
[...] Paul Erhlich wrote The Population Bomb, it’s long been recognized that uncontrolled human population growth is the greatest threat to our planet. Coupled with an economic recession, many families, including the first family, recognize that [...]