This is really a very good infographic - The biggest way we can impact climate change as individuals is to have fewer children. Yet, in most discussions I've seen, we talk about hybrid cars and vegetarian diet!
back
5 comments
It's difficult to persuade people to have fewer children, since the people alive today generally inherit the trait of wanting children.
Further to that, I'm not sure it's a good idea anyway in many cases if you're worried about sustainability of the human race and our current lives - if we all stopped having children, society would pretty much collapse. Who's going to look after us when we're old? Clearly we don't all need to have 12 children, but 0 won't work either.
Your children's contribution to climate change is their contribution, not yours.
The goal of combating climate change is to make the planet more liveable. You don't achieve that by not living.
> Your children's contribution to climate change is their contribution, not yours.
It's not some moral game of attribution of blame, it's just maths. Fewer people produce less CO2.
Yes, your children don't get to live to benefit some other people's children.
That, or we end as species. Guess what? Worst case of global warming, mankind extermination. "Best" case, also mankind extermination.
What a bunch of tosh. You're worried about "extinction" from people having fewer kids? Meanwhile, we're on track to 10 billion people before 2050.
Talk about premature optimisation!
Then, truly, you live to benefit some other people's children. Basically you are a monk. Monks also known for not making the difference in all that removing sin business.
Heaven forbid you do something with your life except reproduce, or accidentally help anyone beyond your own progeny...
This is what you say, not me.
That's the cumulative effect of all your children's descendants. Good news - if you convince your child to make one fewer transatlantic flight, and to pass this knowledge on to all their children, then you are allowed to have kids without people making you feel bad.
Mandatory link to "Idiocracy" and holding back on having children (it seemed like a joke back then!):
I always roll my eyes when Idiocracy is brought up in this context. It has this old smell of eugenics, as people who take the premise seriously misunderstand the role of education and vastly overestimate genetics.
If you are unhappy with the level of education of the public, then try to work on that instead of feeling encouraged to spread your superior genes.
I recommend Carl Zimmer's latest book "She Has Her Mother's Laugh" for a look at the past and the present through the prism of heredity.
This sounds a lot like the stale argument that dying can reduce CO2 emissions.
But the opposite is the argument that population increase/decrease is completely out of our control, which is just false.