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Carbon-Spewing Baby Monsters, Round 2
A debate that raged on this website back in March, when environmental correspondent Julia Whitty's posting about the climate change impact of childrearing led to nearly 150 comments—that's a lot—is being rekindled this week over at Livescience and Treehugger.
The issue at hand: Can we afford, environmentally speaking, to have so many children? (Whether our marriages can afford it is a separate debate.) As Whitty previously reported, scientists at Oregon State estimated that, under current conditions, each American child adds 9,441 metric tons of CO2 to the average mother's lifetime carbon legacy, nearly six times the carbon footprint of a childless American woman. By contast, each Bandladeshi child adds only 56 metric tons to his mom's lifetime footprint.
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The 13th Tipping Point: 12 Climate Disasters and 1 Powerful Antidote
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Few things rile people more than the suggestion that they are being selfish to have kids. Well, as a father of two, I can authoritatively say that it's simultaneously the most selfish and the most selfless thing you'll ever do. You give your all to another human being. Still, I cringe at the wasted resources, despite my family's conservation awareness. After kid number two, we moved to a bigger house. We do disproportionately more laundry that a couple would, use the dishwasher more, waste more food (it's unavoidable with children). There's diapers, the presents from relatives, and the plastic—oh, god, the plastic. Curmudgeonly as I may be, we still end up buying way more stuff than we need and driving more than we otherwise would. (Ever try walking a mile with a 2-year-old? Mighty slow going.)
(In case you haven't read it, I would highly recommend our 2008 energy package, which includes a depressingly stellar collection of stats related to the environmental impact of raising kids, titled "What's Your Baby's Carbon Footprint?")
So yes, childbearing wreaks green havoc, given our profligate standard of living. But what I also find interesting is that, while birth rates have dwindled significantly in much of the developed world—the US is an anomaly—this is viewed as a bad thing. In fact, governments have viewed it as a real crisis. And from an economic-growth standpoint, it is. In countries like Italy and Japan, not enough babies are being born to replace the dead—the birth rate doesn't match the "replacement fertility rate." And when a population gets too top heavy, it creates stagnation as the labor supply shrinks and the young struggle to support the old. To stave off mid-term catastrophes (in favor of long-term ones), some European countries have implemented incentives to induce women to have more children.
But why not go the other direction? I have yet to come across any efforts to forge a viable strategy that would allow a population to shrink sustainably, to lower that 2.1 kid-per-woman replacement rate for industrialized countries to, say, 1.2. (The replacement rate can be as high as 3.5 in some developing countries due to higher mortality, according to a study by Princeton University researchers.) Have any Mojo readers seen anything smart on this issue? Because no matter how many wind farms we build, roofs we paint white, and light bulbs we replace with CFLs, our endless thirst for growth—in population and in commerce—promises to take us nowhere fast.
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Great photo!
Your startled baby picture there is almost as good as Julia's "angry baby" pictures that, along with her articles, stirred up so much discussion.
Other than to show a big number, why attribute all of the carbon emissions to the mother?
I've seen some suggestions that could be used to relieve the financial burden of an old-skewed population, but those would generally be heartless libertarian-style "let them fend for themselves" efforts to abolish social safety nets such as medicare.
I think that a country could get through it with a combination of anti-natalist policies and a higher overall tax rate. The anti-natalist policies could include providing free birth control and other contraception, and progressive tax penalties for multiple children (although the effect would really be regressive, as birth rates decrease with income).
Of course, people will flip out over something like that. Looking forward to the debate that starts here; it got quite heated in March!
Take a lesson from 401(k)s and Nudge
tagged as:- solution
Make having babies opt-in, not opt-out.
Pick on someone your own size
I find the idea of punishing people who choose to have children rather repugnant. How about we tax all the people who have houses over 2000 square feet, drive giant SUVs, and fly more than once a year instead (not that I am necessarily condoning that, either). Why pick on the people with kids?
Living has an effect on the environment. And I'm not disputing that global warming is happening and that humans should take progressive measures to create clean energy. If it makes you feel better as an environmentalist to not just recycle and drive a hybrid car, go ahead choose not reproduce. But when you take on the crustier-than-thou attitude of "I"m not going to have kids and neither should you and I'll raise your taxes because I know better and am going to punish everyone who doesn't do exactly what I do," well then, you are going to offend people.
How about you pick on someone your own size?
And btw, I'll be canceling my subscription asap.
You've decided not to breed.
You've decided not to breed. You have made an excellent choice that is going to help the planet. You won't be bringing another greenhouse producing consumer into the world.
People who have children are foolish, selfish human beings. Think of the line of humans you came from--your mother, and her mother, and her mother (or father, whatever you prefer), going back to the beginning of life. That line can end with you. You have evolved into the highly-intelligent person who does not feel an urge to reproduce, and deplores those who do.
Unfortunately, your choice to not reproduce isn't going far enough. The government should immediately implement the following to limit the impact of humans on the earth:
We have all seen them around. The smiling mothers (oh, what evil grins) with their brood of slobbering children waiting at the bus stop, loading their consumers onto the CO2 chugging bus and sending them to a school that takes money out of the wallets of innocent, childless, earth-loving folk like you. Public schools will immediately be closed. Parents who want their little earth-killers to get educated should pay for it themselves.
Children in foster homes, the disabled, and elderly should be sent to Bangladesh or Africa to mitigate their impact on the earth.
People should be encouraged to not only not have children, but to have abortions. Tax credits should be given to those having abortions. People who choose not to have children should be economically rewarded. The more they choose not to have the more they will be rewarded.
Tax credits should also be given to anyone generous enough to commit suicide for the sake of the earth. Community euthanasia centers will be constructed (perhaps housed temporarily in the unused schools) so people can do their part and wipe themselves off the face of the earth.
The borders will be closed. Immigration and out-of-country adoptions will be banned. We don't need any more people coming to the U.S. to partake in our already bloated lifestyle.
Mass emigration will begin. The worst carbon-producers will be sent to remote areas to plant trees to offset their carbon use.
If a person foolishly does give birth to a child, the infant will be breast-fed until the age of one. At that time, the child will either be sent to live in a third-world community, or, if the child is of a healthy weight and has been organically fed, it will be boiled, roasted, baked or steamed, then mixed with locally grown, organic soybeans. Don't have a baby--eat one.
Murderers will no longer be punished. Pollution laws will be ignored. Medical care will not be given. Eliminating as many carbon-dioxide producing lifeforms as possible should not only be encouraged, but rewarded by the distribution of the above-mentioned baby-food.
packaging
China India and Russia are aggressively non-environment friendly.
They have too many economic problems to deal with to spend
the effort on environmental concerns.
moving supplies
I've been searching for this all day and all I've been able to find are countries that are environmental friendly.
Hey everyone, check out my
Hey everyone, check out my new blog. I read the news, then get mad at it.
www.joshfulton.blogspot.com
Tax the suckers
tagged as:- solution
A large tax should be placed on every child, increasing with each additional child you have. Say $10,000 for the first, and then 15, 20, 25... Right now you save on taxes by having kids and that just doesn't make any sense. Taxing parents for having children will help to improve the educational, environmental, social system for everyone. It will deter people from having kids -- a good thing. Only those that can afford to have kids will have them. It's not perfect, but a step in the right direction.
A child tax, that is an
A child tax, that is an excellent idea. Clearly only those with $10-30,000 to spare a year should be having children, and certainly the poor should NOT be having children. In fact, the taxes gathered from the "child tax" could be used to fund sterilization clinics where the poor or those with children they can't afford can be sterilized for free so they don't bring any more resource-sucking, environment-killing people into the world. If the poor have children, they should be punished and made to sink deeper into poverty for inflicting the rest of us with their burden!
I hope you were being facetious in your posting. Just like this posting is facetious.
Remember eugenics
the comments on this article leave a bad taste in my mouth.
As an african american woman I know there is a long history in this country of population control being enforced in communities of color.
From medical experiments on enslaved women that that doctors used to develop techniques such as the c-section to the forced sterilization of african americans and native americans. remember that heroes such as margauret sanger believed in eugenics.
the rights of women must include the right to have a child not just birth control and the right of abortion. i feel that were are living in a world in which many women can't afford to have children. it seems that pregnancy is becoming a fashionable and expensive choice. The right of a woman to choose must be upheld. I'd also like to point out the carbon foot print of a family will vary depending on their economic background. Owning a car vs public transportation, eating out vs eating in.
Day Care vs live in nanny.
for more information on this topic and the history of birth control as eugenics
Sterilization Abuse in Puerto Rico
http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book/companion.asp?id=18&compID=55
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
You people who actually
You people who actually believe this stuff are sick. You have no concept of truth, life or whatever. Why don't you stop breeding and go abort yourself, then our carbon issues will be decreased and the world can actually have clarity and peace.
Good stinkin' grief, God help you if you really think killing the unborn is the right thing to do. Maybe you should be the one killed, after all, a baby doesn't drive an SUV or any vehicle for that matter but you do. YOU shop, YOU drive, YOU own the big houses, etc etc etc.
Shame on you sick people
quote
It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.
Mother Teresa
That image is
That image is funny...
kenali dan kunjungi objek wisata di pandeglang