4 ms·

Do you know what the #1, most significant thing any of us can do to reduce climate change? Have one fewer child. Nothing else even comes close. It’s a simple

by irq11 7y ago

Do you know what the #1, most significant thing any of us can do to reduce climate change? Have one fewer child. Nothing else even comes close. It’s a simple fact. It’s easy to do. But nobody wants to do that. It’s far less painful to pretend that we can keep the Titanic from sinking by making sure we sip our boat drinks from metal straws. The point of the post is that we’re trying to consume our way out of a consumption problem, but predictably, a group of technology people want desperately to believe that if we just make the stuff we’re consuming better — with technology! — we’re helping. To this end, it’s worth pointing out that the only item on that list that relates to family size is midway down, where it talks about family planning for the third world...something other people can do, so that you don’t have to change your life.

ZeroGravitas 7y ago
Someone should go through the comments and collect together all the "perfect" solutions. If we let the "ban cars" and the "ban children" folk fight it out then that frees up time for the "pragmatically improve things along many different dimensions, many of which would be beneficial even if we totally ignored climate change" folk to get on with things.
- irq11 7y ago
  You can deny it all you like, but it’s true [1] and you’re just illustrating the point: nobody wants to do the things that actually matter, because those things are painful (not incidentally, #2 is “sell your car”). It’s far easier to mock the people who tell you the truth than it is to make substantial changes. [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment...
  - ZeroGravitas 7y ago
    Or those things will just scare people into doing nothing because it's so overwhelming and hopeless to be so uncompromisingly perfectionist about it. Whereas making a car or a plane trip or a burger or a child x% more expensive will move us in the right direction and even that will be resisted to a crazy degree.
    - irq11 7y ago
      What is so “scary” here? It’s literally the easiest thing you can possibly do. It’s the default option. “You know how you were gonna have a second kid? Here’s a thought: consider using the time and money you’d spend on that to do something else. Like retire early.” If we can’t convince people not to do an expensive, time-consuming, painful thing in order to help stop global warming, we really do have problems.
  - theworld572 7y ago
    You know what would be EVEN more effective at fighting climate change than not having children? Committing suicide. But people don't want to listen to the harsh truths. They would rather consume their way out of the problem with electric cars, education for third world countries, reforestation, solar power and other false hopes.
    - mcny 7y ago
      > You know what would be EVEN more effective at fighting climate change than not having children? Committing suicide. I'm sorry but I think this crosses the line. I don't want to impose my morality on you but in my opinion me saying "most people should not have children" is not the same as basically telling people to kill themselves. I understand that I am in the minority when I say this I think not conceiving children is not the same as telling people to kill themselves. I think people do not have a fundamental right to reproduction at the same level as they have the right to be left alive (which I think comes higher). I'd much rather see most people not have children rather than they kill themselves.
      - irq11 7y ago
        Exactly. This harsh reaction to what should be an obvious statement of fact underscores the ridiculousness of the conversation, and the point of the original post. It’s not surprising at all (as I said, people don’t want to actually change their lives), but it does become a self-satire.
      - theworld572 7y ago
        I'm not equating killing yourself with not having children. Of course they are not the same. I'm simply reflecting irq11's logic back at him: if the only measure by which you judge a solution is how much CO2 emissions are reduced then killing yourself is the best solution. irq11 does not consider the costs of implementing a world-wide child reduction policy. A combination of solutions including education, birth control, electric cars, reducing flying, solar energy etc. is FAR more realistic than the "no kids, no cars" approach. He complains about harsh reactions but he is the one who started this off from a very antagonistic perspective that everybody is just a mindless consumer while he is the arbiter of harsh truths that people are too weak-minded to admit to.
  - antisthenes 7y ago
    In that case you can thank the educated women of the world who are forgoing having children in all the countries where the fertility rate is already below replacement. They've probably done more to combat global warming than most "ban cars/meat/flying" fanatics.
theworld572 7y ago
> To this end, it’s worth pointing out that the only item on that list that relates to family size is midway down, where it talks about family planning for the third world "Educating Girls" and "Family Planning" are ranked 6th and 7th on the list (out of 80). So I don't know why you are saying that its midway down the list?
magduf 7y ago
>Do you know what the #1, most significant thing any of us can do to reduce climate change? Have one fewer child. Nothing else even comes close. But nobody wants to do that. What the heck are you talking about? Every industrialized nation now has negative population growth if you ignore immigration. People are having fewer children, and frequently, none.
- beat 7y ago
  It's not just the industrialized nations. It takes about two generations for a country to drop from a high birth rate to a birth rate of less than two (replacement, more or less). All but a handful of impoverished, war-torn countries in Africa and the Middle East are deep into this cycle or through it already.
- irq11 7y ago
  So? I’m not talking about “industrialized nations”. I’m talking about you, personally. If you elect to have one fewer child, you can drive a car everywhere and fly first class for vacation and eat a big steak every week of your life, and you’ll still be greener than your neighbor with the solar panels and the Tesla. Doesn’t matter what birth rates are in the industrialized world.
  - edmundsauto 7y ago
    Another way of saying it is that you believe by not having kids, you can ethically consume the energy that your offspring (and their offspring) would have consumed.
    - irq11 7y ago
      No, not at all. I don’t believe that; the point is that the magnitude of the impact is so dramatically greater that all of this other stuff is rounding error. Drive a Tesla and put solar panels on your house and eat vegan and shop local at the co-op. Knock yourself out. But the single guy next door with no kids who drives a muscle car and eats big red steaks every day is still doing more for global warming than you are. It’s not even a question.
beat 7y ago
Wrong. The primary cause of population growth now isn't the birth rate, but rather life expectancy. People are living 20+ years longer than before. If you take your argument to its logical conclusion, the #1 most significant thing you can do to reduce climate change is suicide. And the most significant thing a nation can do is genocide.
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
> Nothing else even comes close. According to this logic the real number one thing you could do is to kill yourself, but it fails for exactly the same reason. You're just measuring the impact and not the cost. Doing one thing with a large impact and an even larger cost is worse than doing three things whose total impact is more and total cost is less than that of the one thing. Especially since in this context they stack -- if you buy an electric car and switch to electric heat and install solar panels on your roof, but so too do your spouse and three kids, that's going to have more impact than having two kids while you're all driving ICE cars and getting heat from fuel oil and electricity from coal, since the impact of each measure is multiplied by each of the five people in your family. On top of that, you're not considering the economic and political implications. If there are fewer children then there will be fewer working people per retiree. That means a resource crunch, which is exactly the sort of thing that will prevent people from being able to afford sustainable alternatives that may cost a little bit more, and then you've doomed us all.
- irq11 7y ago
  Only if you equate “having fewer children” to “killing yourself”, which is transparently incorrect, not to mention tasteless. However, the responses to this simple fact continue to be enlightening: people would rather commit all sorts of tortured fallacies of reasoning than change their lifestyles in any meaningful way.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    > Only if you equate “having fewer children” to “killing yourself”, which is transparently incorrect, not to mention tasteless. It's the same result. You're just choosing it for yourself instead of your parents having chosen for you, which only seems fair -- I know I'd rather be the one to choose for myself. But the point is that the choice, in either case, is not worth the cost when there are better alternatives. If we were at the point that population reduction was the only possible solution then we would be soliciting volunteers, but it's not. > However, the responses to this simple fact continue to be enlightening: people would rather commit all sorts of tortured fallacies of reasoning than change their lifestyles in any meaningful way. Why would anybody want to do that when it isn't necessary? You can't just buy an electric car and call it done, but it's one among a collection of things you can do that sum together to an actual solution that doesn't require people to abandon their standard of living.
maxsilver 7y ago
> Have one fewer child. (is the best way to reduce climate change) But nobody wants to do that. I mean, a small-but-growing number of young adults are already doing exactly that. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/some-millennials-climate-change-clock-ticks-louder-biological-one-n993331 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/some-millennials-climat... https://qz.com/1590642/these-millennials-are-going-on-birth-strike-due-to-climate-change/ https://qz.com/1590642/these-millennials-are-going-on-birth-... https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-americans-worry-about-kids-children-climate-change-poll-2019-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-americans-worry-... > The point of the post is that we’re trying to consume our way out of a consumption problem, I don't think that's true. People are trying to find better ways to solve the minimum amount of consumption they need to continue to exist. That's not the same thing as what you've described, that's not "consuming our way out". People aren't buying EVs because they want to vacation all the time and/or take fun extra road trips 24/7. It's mainly about "I have to be able to get to Work/School/Home in a quick and safe manner, because capitalism demands it for my survival. How can I emit as little CO2 into the air as possible, while still meeting the requirements a capitalist nation demands of me. Which of these solutions can I afford?" > it talks about family planning for the third world...something other people can do, so that you don’t have to change your life. Because many "first world" nation birthrates are already abstaining pretty significantly. In the US specifically, birthrates have fallen to all-time record lows - https://money.cnn.com/2013/09/06/news/economy/birth-rate-low/ https://money.cnn.com/2013/09/06/news/economy/birth-rate-low...

by irq11 7y ago

ZeroGravitas 7y ago

Someone should go through the comments and collect together all the "perfect" solutions. If we let the "ban cars" and the "ban children" folk fight it out then that frees up time for the "pragmatically improve things along many different dimensions, many of which would be beneficial even if we totally ignored climate change" folk to get on with things.

irq11 7y ago
You can deny it all you like, but it’s true [1] and you’re just illustrating the point: nobody wants to do the things that actually matter, because those things are painful (not incidentally, #2 is “sell your car”). It’s far easier to mock the people who tell you the truth than it is to make substantial changes. [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment...
- ZeroGravitas 7y ago
  Or those things will just scare people into doing nothing because it's so overwhelming and hopeless to be so uncompromisingly perfectionist about it. Whereas making a car or a plane trip or a burger or a child x% more expensive will move us in the right direction and even that will be resisted to a crazy degree.
  - irq11 7y ago
    What is so “scary” here? It’s literally the easiest thing you can possibly do. It’s the default option. “You know how you were gonna have a second kid? Here’s a thought: consider using the time and money you’d spend on that to do something else. Like retire early.” If we can’t convince people not to do an expensive, time-consuming, painful thing in order to help stop global warming, we really do have problems.
- theworld572 7y ago
  You know what would be EVEN more effective at fighting climate change than not having children? Committing suicide. But people don't want to listen to the harsh truths. They would rather consume their way out of the problem with electric cars, education for third world countries, reforestation, solar power and other false hopes.
  - mcny 7y ago
    > You know what would be EVEN more effective at fighting climate change than not having children? Committing suicide. I'm sorry but I think this crosses the line. I don't want to impose my morality on you but in my opinion me saying "most people should not have children" is not the same as basically telling people to kill themselves. I understand that I am in the minority when I say this I think not conceiving children is not the same as telling people to kill themselves. I think people do not have a fundamental right to reproduction at the same level as they have the right to be left alive (which I think comes higher). I'd much rather see most people not have children rather than they kill themselves.
    - irq11 7y ago
      Exactly. This harsh reaction to what should be an obvious statement of fact underscores the ridiculousness of the conversation, and the point of the original post. It’s not surprising at all (as I said, people don’t want to actually change their lives), but it does become a self-satire.
    - theworld572 7y ago
      I'm not equating killing yourself with not having children. Of course they are not the same. I'm simply reflecting irq11's logic back at him: if the only measure by which you judge a solution is how much CO2 emissions are reduced then killing yourself is the best solution. irq11 does not consider the costs of implementing a world-wide child reduction policy. A combination of solutions including education, birth control, electric cars, reducing flying, solar energy etc. is FAR more realistic than the "no kids, no cars" approach. He complains about harsh reactions but he is the one who started this off from a very antagonistic perspective that everybody is just a mindless consumer while he is the arbiter of harsh truths that people are too weak-minded to admit to.
- antisthenes 7y ago
  In that case you can thank the educated women of the world who are forgoing having children in all the countries where the fertility rate is already below replacement. They've probably done more to combat global warming than most "ban cars/meat/flying" fanatics.

theworld572 7y ago

> To this end, it’s worth pointing out that the only item on that list that relates to family size is midway down, where it talks about family planning for the third world "Educating Girls" and "Family Planning" are ranked 6th and 7th on the list (out of 80). So I don't know why you are saying that its midway down the list?

magduf 7y ago

>Do you know what the #1, most significant thing any of us can do to reduce climate change? Have one fewer child. Nothing else even comes close. But nobody wants to do that. What the heck are you talking about? Every industrialized nation now has negative population growth if you ignore immigration. People are having fewer children, and frequently, none.

beat 7y ago
It's not just the industrialized nations. It takes about two generations for a country to drop from a high birth rate to a birth rate of less than two (replacement, more or less). All but a handful of impoverished, war-torn countries in Africa and the Middle East are deep into this cycle or through it already.
irq11 7y ago
So? I’m not talking about “industrialized nations”. I’m talking about you, personally. If you elect to have one fewer child, you can drive a car everywhere and fly first class for vacation and eat a big steak every week of your life, and you’ll still be greener than your neighbor with the solar panels and the Tesla. Doesn’t matter what birth rates are in the industrialized world.
- edmundsauto 7y ago
  Another way of saying it is that you believe by not having kids, you can ethically consume the energy that your offspring (and their offspring) would have consumed.
  - irq11 7y ago
    No, not at all. I don’t believe that; the point is that the magnitude of the impact is so dramatically greater that all of this other stuff is rounding error. Drive a Tesla and put solar panels on your house and eat vegan and shop local at the co-op. Knock yourself out. But the single guy next door with no kids who drives a muscle car and eats big red steaks every day is still doing more for global warming than you are. It’s not even a question.

beat 7y ago

Wrong. The primary cause of population growth now isn't the birth rate, but rather life expectancy. People are living 20+ years longer than before. If you take your argument to its logical conclusion, the #1 most significant thing you can do to reduce climate change is suicide. And the most significant thing a nation can do is genocide.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

> Nothing else even comes close. According to this logic the real number one thing you could do is to kill yourself, but it fails for exactly the same reason. You're just measuring the impact and not the cost. Doing one thing with a large impact and an even larger cost is worse than doing three things whose total impact is more and total cost is less than that of the one thing. Especially since in this context they stack -- if you buy an electric car and switch to electric heat and install solar panels on your roof, but so too do your spouse and three kids, that's going to have more impact than having two kids while you're all driving ICE cars and getting heat from fuel oil and electricity from coal, since the impact of each measure is multiplied by each of the five people in your family. On top of that, you're not considering the economic and political implications. If there are fewer children then there will be fewer working people per retiree. That means a resource crunch, which is exactly the sort of thing that will prevent people from being able to afford sustainable alternatives that may cost a little bit more, and then you've doomed us all.

irq11 7y ago
Only if you equate “having fewer children” to “killing yourself”, which is transparently incorrect, not to mention tasteless. However, the responses to this simple fact continue to be enlightening: people would rather commit all sorts of tortured fallacies of reasoning than change their lifestyles in any meaningful way.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > Only if you equate “having fewer children” to “killing yourself”, which is transparently incorrect, not to mention tasteless. It's the same result. You're just choosing it for yourself instead of your parents having chosen for you, which only seems fair -- I know I'd rather be the one to choose for myself. But the point is that the choice, in either case, is not worth the cost when there are better alternatives. If we were at the point that population reduction was the only possible solution then we would be soliciting volunteers, but it's not. > However, the responses to this simple fact continue to be enlightening: people would rather commit all sorts of tortured fallacies of reasoning than change their lifestyles in any meaningful way. Why would anybody want to do that when it isn't necessary? You can't just buy an electric car and call it done, but it's one among a collection of things you can do that sum together to an actual solution that doesn't require people to abandon their standard of living.

maxsilver 7y ago

> Have one fewer child. (is the best way to reduce climate change) But nobody wants to do that. I mean, a small-but-growing number of young adults are already doing exactly that. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/some-millennials-climate-change-clock-ticks-louder-biological-one-n993331 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/some-millennials-climat... https://qz.com/1590642/these-millennials-are-going-on-birth-strike-due-to-climate-change/ https://qz.com/1590642/these-millennials-are-going-on-birth-... https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-americans-worry-about-kids-children-climate-change-poll-2019-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-americans-worry-... > The point of the post is that we’re trying to consume our way out of a consumption problem, I don't think that's true. People are trying to find better ways to solve the minimum amount of consumption they need to continue to exist. That's not the same thing as what you've described, that's not "consuming our way out". People aren't buying EVs because they want to vacation all the time and/or take fun extra road trips 24/7. It's mainly about "I have to be able to get to Work/School/Home in a quick and safe manner, because capitalism demands it for my survival. How can I emit as little CO2 into the air as possible, while still meeting the requirements a capitalist nation demands of me. Which of these solutions can I afford?" > it talks about family planning for the third world...something other people can do, so that you don’t have to change your life. Because many "first world" nation birthrates are already abstaining pretty significantly. In the US specifically, birthrates have fallen to all-time record lows - https://money.cnn.com/2013/09/06/news/economy/birth-rate-low/ https://money.cnn.com/2013/09/06/news/economy/birth-rate-low...