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Bringing a child into the world to increase my own personal happiness, when nothing else I could do has such a direct and massive climate impact, is not somethi

Bringing a child into the world to increase my own personal happiness, when nothing else I could do has such a direct and massive climate impact, is not something I can justify personally. Not to mention, my child would have to live to see the impacts of climate change. There is coming a point (it has already passed, in my opinion), where we can no longer justify our purpose for existence as "creating more humans."

malvosenior 7y ago
Aside from eradicating the human race, any changes to climate will have to be driven by humans. Someone’s child will help solve the problem. It could be your’s.
- jniedrauer 7y ago
  There is no shortage of humans who want to have children. Not all 7 billion of us can have a family.
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    Indeed not everyone will reproduce but the future will be exclusively filled by people who’s parents did.
    - jjdjr0odo7 7y ago
      Ya can keep cutting this up; it’ll be exclusively filled by kids that survive. Infant mortality rates and suicide among adults are up. Parents have to consider raising successful adults is not guaranteed. Maybe the measure for loneliness is just wrong? Lonely relative to traditional values family model? Which had problems with depression, infidelity, parental anxiety 24/7... in other words, rife with emotional dysfunctions of its own. Are we concerned with decline in family because it’s the best model for organizing communal life or because we’re used to it? It feels different and weird, which can feel sad, but allows other models for socializing to explore.
residentfoam 7y ago
The way I see it is that you don't bring child into the world to "increase" your own personal happiness. They are (at least in my personal case) the result of my own happiness. And yes they require a lot of work, but all the hard work is totally worth it every time your children look at smile at you.
- jniedrauer 7y ago
  My point is not that they require a lot of work. My point is that they have a massive impact on climate change. You could spend your entire life flying to conferences, living on a cruise ship, dumping trash in the ocean, and none of it would even hold a candle to the environmental impact of having a child.
  - residentfoam 7y ago
    So you are saying that children "have a massive impact on climate change" ? I don't have any statistics that can either confirm or dispute that assertion. But I will gladly ban SUV and Cruise s in favor of whatever climate impact children can have.
    - ecoled_ame 7y ago
      Are you crazy? Increasing the number of humans on the planet is the number one thing you can do to worsen climate change. You forget that we are nothing but an organism, we all produce waste and contribute hardly nothing beneficial to the environment.
      - Robotbeat 7y ago
        If that is true of organisms, then life of all types is a net negative. What a sad perspective. I know many people who contribute massively to the environment. Maybe you need to choose a different, pro-environment lifestyle? Plant some trees. It's possible to live carbon negative and pass on those values to your children.
ecoled_ame 7y ago
Seriously. The only reason I could justify having kids would be if I looked around, thought to myself "gee, there seems to be a shortage of people", and then I would replicate. Justifying replication for the sake of one's happiness is such a logical folly that it makes me die inside.
- RankingMember 7y ago
  On that note, how funny is it to hear people discuss "invasive species" and how they need to be culled while our numbers are such that we're able to significantly (negatively) impact our planet in the span of 100 years.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  Having children bestows the incomparable gift of life on other people (your children). Bestowing that gift is the part of having children that makes someone happy. It's not a self centered happiness; the day-to-day of raising children is frequently miserable.
  - _khau 7y ago
    Come on now. Don't try to make out like your choice to have a child is because you want to 'spread happiness'. It's a biological imperative to perpetuate your genetic code and is the single most selfish and egotistical thing you can do with your life. Don't delude yourself that it is anything different than any other species procreating.
    - malvosenior 7y ago
      Well most of those species don’t have egos so I wouldn’t say it’s egotistical. Society is entirely composed of people who were given birth to. I don’t see how the very foundation of humanity (and all life on earth) could be viewed as “selfish”. You’re literally sustaining the human race.
      - ionised 7y ago
Robotbeat 7y ago
That's an extremely negative-sum way of viewing the world. Some individual humans (and even communities) can and have had a net-positive impact on the environment. For instance, did the parents of Greta Thunberg have a net-negative impact on the world by choosing to bring her into it? When people implicitly say that bringing children in the world is necessarily a net-negative on climate, they're implying that their lifestyle is necessarily net-carbon-positive and that they just refuse to do enough to make their own lifestyle net-carbon-negative. Yet it IS possible to do so. I'm reminded of this Indian fellow who planted an entire forest pretty much by himself (although surely his wife/family also helped enable him to accomplish that goal): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7i3QlMvsZs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7i3QlMvsZs ...there are so many decisions one can make to cut one's carbon emissions to near zero. And some decisions can even make one's carbon emissions negative (some startups at Y Combinator, even... although there are more proven methods as well). The most powerful thing as a parent is that you can help pass on your values to your children. Teach them (through example) how to live a low or negative carbon lifestyle and teach them the value of the environment and why the Earth must be protected. Plant trees. Make intentional decisions with lifestyle (mode of travel, living arrangements, diet) that lower carbon emissions, and explain these things to your children starting at a young age. Because the world will NEED people with those values in the future if climate change will ever be addressed and eventually reversed without a collapse of human civilization. Because if everyone with a positive view of the environment and the need to fight climate change does not pass on that worldview to their children, BUT those who deny climate change and do not value the environment pass on their worldview to their children, then that is clearly not going to work out for those who value the environment.
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  Just to follow up, there are things one can do immediately to drive their carbon emissions negative. For instance, pay people to plant (native) trees and restore ecosystems (or do it yourself). About $15/month could offset your entire carbon footprint and bring it negative: https://mossy.earth/ https://mossy.earth/ If you don't buy that argument for forest restoration counting ($15/ton of CO2), then you could also try some of the more expensive methods like sustainable biochar sequestration ($300/ton CO2). Even the super expensive options for offsetting CO2 are no more than a car lease payment at the individual level (and cheaper, of course, if you reduce your direct emissions as well).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lordnacho 7y ago
You're going to die someday though, and so will whoever you make the kid with. So that will reduce the impact. Plus there's an assumption we won't figure out climate change. Why assume that kid will be as bad for the environment as you?
kaftoy 7y ago
Maybe your child will be a part of a generation who can have a realm impact over the climate, in a positive way, or maybe just a path to it. And creating more humans is not only a purpose, it is also the means of existence.
BeetleB 7y ago
>Bringing a child into the world to increase my own personal happiness, when nothing else I could do has such a direct and massive climate impact, is not something I can justify personally. Not to mention, my child would have to live to see the impacts of climate change. I find your comment, and your subsequent replies, exemplifies the headline of the submission quite well: >The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness
tracker1 7y ago
That is the single most negative comment I've seen in a while... I'm glad you aren't spreading your view to a new generation.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  It is funny that the people who feel like this are actively working to ensure their ideas don’t survive into the future. I also wonder if we’re no longer properly teaching evolution in school. There are a lot of key concepts people are missing.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
> There is coming a point (it has already passed, in my opinion), where we can no longer justify our purpose for existence as "creating more humans." Two comments. First, within evolution (true, a brutal and inhumane theory), the point of life is exactly to survive and reproduce. It is literally unnatural to deliberately choose to not have children (unless you don't believe in evolution). Second, I presume that you don't mean for this to be taken to the point of nobody having children, that is, to the extinction of the human race. I get the impression that some eco-types think that would be a good thing; I deeply disagree.
- bscphil 7y ago
  >It is literally unnatural to deliberately choose to not have children Something's being natural or unnatural has no bearing on whether it is right or wrong. I assume that when the OP says "we can no longer justify" they are making a moral claim, which means that saying it's "unnatural" to not reproduce is failing to be relevant.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    Fair point. Also note that my argument was trying to argue within someone else's viewpoint, and it's not a viewpoint that I agree with.
trizzak 7y ago
People who care deeply about the planet are exactly the people who should pass their sensibilities to the next generation.
mac01021 7y ago
I'm not sure all that logic is sound. First, having a child does not require you to travel more, get a bigger house, keep it warmer or cooler, buy non-second-hand clothes or do anything else with a significant carbon footprint beyond grocery shopping (which admittedly has a nontrivial footprint). It's not until adulthood that they'll really start to have a full fledged carbon footprint of their own. Second, social animals that we are, a person's net total impact on the carbon footprints of others can be much larger than that person's individual, "direct" footprint. Raise your kid the right way and their footprint could, in a very real sense, be negative. Third, there are some indications that the point in the future where we either solve climate change or fail catastrophically is near enough that it may have past before your kid reaches that damaging, adult phase. Your kid would live to see the impacts of climate change, though. If we as a society would just put a price on carbon emissions and reimburse the externalized costs through a fee & dividend system, even that would not be a problem (in theory) because your kid would be compensated financially for any climate-change-induced hardship.

malvosenior 7y ago

Aside from eradicating the human race, any changes to climate will have to be driven by humans. Someone’s child will help solve the problem. It could be your’s.

jniedrauer 7y ago
There is no shortage of humans who want to have children. Not all 7 billion of us can have a family.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  Indeed not everyone will reproduce but the future will be exclusively filled by people who’s parents did.
  - jjdjr0odo7 7y ago
    Ya can keep cutting this up; it’ll be exclusively filled by kids that survive. Infant mortality rates and suicide among adults are up. Parents have to consider raising successful adults is not guaranteed. Maybe the measure for loneliness is just wrong? Lonely relative to traditional values family model? Which had problems with depression, infidelity, parental anxiety 24/7... in other words, rife with emotional dysfunctions of its own. Are we concerned with decline in family because it’s the best model for organizing communal life or because we’re used to it? It feels different and weird, which can feel sad, but allows other models for socializing to explore.

residentfoam 7y ago

The way I see it is that you don't bring child into the world to "increase" your own personal happiness. They are (at least in my personal case) the result of my own happiness. And yes they require a lot of work, but all the hard work is totally worth it every time your children look at smile at you.

jniedrauer 7y ago
My point is not that they require a lot of work. My point is that they have a massive impact on climate change. You could spend your entire life flying to conferences, living on a cruise ship, dumping trash in the ocean, and none of it would even hold a candle to the environmental impact of having a child.
- residentfoam 7y ago
  So you are saying that children "have a massive impact on climate change" ? I don't have any statistics that can either confirm or dispute that assertion. But I will gladly ban SUV and Cruise s in favor of whatever climate impact children can have.
  - ecoled_ame 7y ago
    Are you crazy? Increasing the number of humans on the planet is the number one thing you can do to worsen climate change. You forget that we are nothing but an organism, we all produce waste and contribute hardly nothing beneficial to the environment.
    - Robotbeat 7y ago
      If that is true of organisms, then life of all types is a net negative. What a sad perspective. I know many people who contribute massively to the environment. Maybe you need to choose a different, pro-environment lifestyle? Plant some trees. It's possible to live carbon negative and pass on those values to your children.

ecoled_ame 7y ago

Seriously. The only reason I could justify having kids would be if I looked around, thought to myself "gee, there seems to be a shortage of people", and then I would replicate. Justifying replication for the sake of one's happiness is such a logical folly that it makes me die inside.

RankingMember 7y ago
On that note, how funny is it to hear people discuss "invasive species" and how they need to be culled while our numbers are such that we're able to significantly (negatively) impact our planet in the span of 100 years.
toasterlovin 7y ago
Having children bestows the incomparable gift of life on other people (your children). Bestowing that gift is the part of having children that makes someone happy. It's not a self centered happiness; the day-to-day of raising children is frequently miserable.
- _khau 7y ago
  Come on now. Don't try to make out like your choice to have a child is because you want to 'spread happiness'. It's a biological imperative to perpetuate your genetic code and is the single most selfish and egotistical thing you can do with your life. Don't delude yourself that it is anything different than any other species procreating.
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    Well most of those species don’t have egos so I wouldn’t say it’s egotistical. Society is entirely composed of people who were given birth to. I don’t see how the very foundation of humanity (and all life on earth) could be viewed as “selfish”. You’re literally sustaining the human race.
    - ionised 7y ago

Robotbeat 7y ago

That's an extremely negative-sum way of viewing the world. Some individual humans (and even communities) can and have had a net-positive impact on the environment. For instance, did the parents of Greta Thunberg have a net-negative impact on the world by choosing to bring her into it? When people implicitly say that bringing children in the world is necessarily a net-negative on climate, they're implying that their lifestyle is necessarily net-carbon-positive and that they just refuse to do enough to make their own lifestyle net-carbon-negative. Yet it IS possible to do so. I'm reminded of this Indian fellow who planted an entire forest pretty much by himself (although surely his wife/family also helped enable him to accomplish that goal): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7i3QlMvsZs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7i3QlMvsZs ...there are so many decisions one can make to cut one's carbon emissions to near zero. And some decisions can even make one's carbon emissions negative (some startups at Y Combinator, even... although there are more proven methods as well). The most powerful thing as a parent is that you can help pass on your values to your children. Teach them (through example) how to live a low or negative carbon lifestyle and teach them the value of the environment and why the Earth must be protected. Plant trees. Make intentional decisions with lifestyle (mode of travel, living arrangements, diet) that lower carbon emissions, and explain these things to your children starting at a young age. Because the world will NEED people with those values in the future if climate change will ever be addressed and eventually reversed without a collapse of human civilization. Because if everyone with a positive view of the environment and the need to fight climate change does not pass on that worldview to their children, BUT those who deny climate change and do not value the environment pass on their worldview to their children, then that is clearly not going to work out for those who value the environment.

Robotbeat 7y ago
Just to follow up, there are things one can do immediately to drive their carbon emissions negative. For instance, pay people to plant (native) trees and restore ecosystems (or do it yourself). About $15/month could offset your entire carbon footprint and bring it negative: https://mossy.earth/ https://mossy.earth/ If you don't buy that argument for forest restoration counting ($15/ton of CO2), then you could also try some of the more expensive methods like sustainable biochar sequestration ($300/ton CO2). Even the super expensive options for offsetting CO2 are no more than a car lease payment at the individual level (and cheaper, of course, if you reduce your direct emissions as well).

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

lordnacho 7y ago

You're going to die someday though, and so will whoever you make the kid with. So that will reduce the impact. Plus there's an assumption we won't figure out climate change. Why assume that kid will be as bad for the environment as you?

kaftoy 7y ago

Maybe your child will be a part of a generation who can have a realm impact over the climate, in a positive way, or maybe just a path to it. And creating more humans is not only a purpose, it is also the means of existence.

BeetleB 7y ago

>Bringing a child into the world to increase my own personal happiness, when nothing else I could do has such a direct and massive climate impact, is not something I can justify personally. Not to mention, my child would have to live to see the impacts of climate change. I find your comment, and your subsequent replies, exemplifies the headline of the submission quite well: >The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness

tracker1 7y ago

That is the single most negative comment I've seen in a while... I'm glad you aren't spreading your view to a new generation.

malvosenior 7y ago
It is funny that the people who feel like this are actively working to ensure their ideas don’t survive into the future. I also wonder if we’re no longer properly teaching evolution in school. There are a lot of key concepts people are missing.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago

> There is coming a point (it has already passed, in my opinion), where we can no longer justify our purpose for existence as "creating more humans." Two comments. First, within evolution (true, a brutal and inhumane theory), the point of life is exactly to survive and reproduce. It is literally unnatural to deliberately choose to not have children (unless you don't believe in evolution). Second, I presume that you don't mean for this to be taken to the point of nobody having children, that is, to the extinction of the human race. I get the impression that some eco-types think that would be a good thing; I deeply disagree.

bscphil 7y ago
>It is literally unnatural to deliberately choose to not have children Something's being natural or unnatural has no bearing on whether it is right or wrong. I assume that when the OP says "we can no longer justify" they are making a moral claim, which means that saying it's "unnatural" to not reproduce is failing to be relevant.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Fair point. Also note that my argument was trying to argue within someone else's viewpoint, and it's not a viewpoint that I agree with.

trizzak 7y ago

People who care deeply about the planet are exactly the people who should pass their sensibilities to the next generation.

mac01021 7y ago

I'm not sure all that logic is sound. First, having a child does not require you to travel more, get a bigger house, keep it warmer or cooler, buy non-second-hand clothes or do anything else with a significant carbon footprint beyond grocery shopping (which admittedly has a nontrivial footprint). It's not until adulthood that they'll really start to have a full fledged carbon footprint of their own. Second, social animals that we are, a person's net total impact on the carbon footprints of others can be much larger than that person's individual, "direct" footprint. Raise your kid the right way and their footprint could, in a very real sense, be negative. Third, there are some indications that the point in the future where we either solve climate change or fail catastrophically is near enough that it may have past before your kid reaches that damaging, adult phase. Your kid would live to see the impacts of climate change, though. If we as a society would just put a price on carbon emissions and reimburse the externalized costs through a fee & dividend system, even that would not be a problem (in theory) because your kid would be compensated financially for any climate-change-induced hardship.