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I’m just gonna be blunt here: opting out of having children for the sake of the environment is incredibly shortsighted. Fixing the environment is a collective a

I’m just gonna be blunt here: opting out of having children for the sake of the environment is incredibly shortsighted. Fixing the environment is a collective action problem. Emphasis on collective: it will take many people working on it directly, advocating for it, voting for it, etc. Opting to not have children just handicaps your cause by removing future people who would likely end up on your team. Don’t do it! Make some babies. Raise them to be good people. The world will be a slightly better place for it. And your life will be made immeasurably better by the purpose and meaning that children bestow upon it.

cmendel 6y ago
This is simply false. The greatest effect you as an individual can, realistically, have on climate change is to choose not to have children. Through the magic of exponential growth it outweighs basically every other choice e.g. veganism, biking rather than driving, buying local etc.
- haihaibye 6y ago
  Most western countries increase immigration (turning them into developed country level polluters) to make up for falling birthrates.
  - cmendel 6y ago
    Most western countries have substantially higher emissions per capita[1] than most of the developing world. Hence, the concern about the effects of Africa/India/others standards of living increasing since it is likely to correspond with an increase in emissions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
    - haihaibye 6y ago
      Yes that was inside my parenthesis.
- toasterlovin 6y ago
  Exponential growth works in the other direction as well: if you have no children, you are freeing up resources to provide for other people’s children. And other people will continue having children (see your own argument about exponential growth).
  - cmendel 6y ago
    I'm having a hard time here, what exactly are you arguing? Resources are finite and I can't control other people. Should I increase the strain on an already overburdened system because other peoples future descendants might use those resources otherwise? I presume that I am misreading your point because that seems... ill founded.
    - toasterlovin 6y ago
      The carrying capacity of the earth will be reached whether you have children or not. So the consideration is different: whose descendants will take up that carrying capacity. If you, as a person concerned about the environment, opt to have children, then, statistically speaking, you are biasing the future composition of the human population toward being more concerned about the environment (since your kids share you innate predispositions and will be raised in the familial and cultural milieu that you create for them). And if people who are concerned about the environment systematically choose to not have children because they have become infected by this meme, then you have a situation where the future composition of the human population is becoming more biased toward doing nothing about the environment. So not having kids is a losing strategy.
js8 6y ago
I think I already responded to all this elsewhere in this discussion. I can only accept that making children is useful to solve the problem, if I see any single example of somebody who has actually done it. Somebody, who decided to have kids with the sole purpose of raising future geniuses to solve this particular problem, and considered the trade-off (because inaction has a cost too). Where it wasn't just a convenient excuse for your own inaction in the matter. (Besides, I think imposing your desires, however good they might be, onto your children is morally wrong.) Looking at my own example, this is false. My grandfather (who died when I was 15) was a chemical engineer, and a big fan of renewable energy. Possibly he thought the same - my generation will be the one that solves these problems. But what did I do? I work at a SW company, because it pays well. I have a rather modest lifestyle, but I can't really say I would be working on an individual solution either. So here we are - 40 years of procrastination. I ultimately think that "they will solve the problem" is wishful thinking. There is no problem to be solved, the problem is that we (as humanity) need to stop expanding our energy needs. Whether we do it by limiting population or limiting consumption or both, doesn't really matter. But I don't think there is any problem that remains to be solved. The problem is pure and simple, procrastination. And it won't be solved by procreation.
- toasterlovin 6y ago
  I’m not arguing that you’ll have kids who will directly solve the problem. Instead, I am making a statistical argument. Here’s what I said in another reply: > The carrying capacity of the earth will be reached whether you have children or not. So the consideration is different: whose descendants will take up that carrying capacity. If you, as a person concerned about the environment, opt to have children, then, statistically speaking, you are biasing the future composition of the human population toward being more concerned about the environment (since your kids share you innate predispositions and will be raised in the familial and cultural milieu that you create for them). And if people who are concerned about the environment systematically choose to not have children because they have become infected by this meme, then you have a situation where the future composition of the human population is becoming more biased toward doing nothing about the environment. So not having kids is a losing strategy.

cmendel 6y ago

This is simply false. The greatest effect you as an individual can, realistically, have on climate change is to choose not to have children. Through the magic of exponential growth it outweighs basically every other choice e.g. veganism, biking rather than driving, buying local etc.

haihaibye 6y ago
Most western countries increase immigration (turning them into developed country level polluters) to make up for falling birthrates.
- cmendel 6y ago
  Most western countries have substantially higher emissions per capita[1] than most of the developing world. Hence, the concern about the effects of Africa/India/others standards of living increasing since it is likely to correspond with an increase in emissions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
  - haihaibye 6y ago
    Yes that was inside my parenthesis.
toasterlovin 6y ago
Exponential growth works in the other direction as well: if you have no children, you are freeing up resources to provide for other people’s children. And other people will continue having children (see your own argument about exponential growth).
- cmendel 6y ago
  I'm having a hard time here, what exactly are you arguing? Resources are finite and I can't control other people. Should I increase the strain on an already overburdened system because other peoples future descendants might use those resources otherwise? I presume that I am misreading your point because that seems... ill founded.
  - toasterlovin 6y ago
    The carrying capacity of the earth will be reached whether you have children or not. So the consideration is different: whose descendants will take up that carrying capacity. If you, as a person concerned about the environment, opt to have children, then, statistically speaking, you are biasing the future composition of the human population toward being more concerned about the environment (since your kids share you innate predispositions and will be raised in the familial and cultural milieu that you create for them). And if people who are concerned about the environment systematically choose to not have children because they have become infected by this meme, then you have a situation where the future composition of the human population is becoming more biased toward doing nothing about the environment. So not having kids is a losing strategy.

js8 6y ago

I think I already responded to all this elsewhere in this discussion. I can only accept that making children is useful to solve the problem, if I see any single example of somebody who has actually done it. Somebody, who decided to have kids with the sole purpose of raising future geniuses to solve this particular problem, and considered the trade-off (because inaction has a cost too). Where it wasn't just a convenient excuse for your own inaction in the matter. (Besides, I think imposing your desires, however good they might be, onto your children is morally wrong.) Looking at my own example, this is false. My grandfather (who died when I was 15) was a chemical engineer, and a big fan of renewable energy. Possibly he thought the same - my generation will be the one that solves these problems. But what did I do? I work at a SW company, because it pays well. I have a rather modest lifestyle, but I can't really say I would be working on an individual solution either. So here we are - 40 years of procrastination. I ultimately think that "they will solve the problem" is wishful thinking. There is no problem to be solved, the problem is that we (as humanity) need to stop expanding our energy needs. Whether we do it by limiting population or limiting consumption or both, doesn't really matter. But I don't think there is any problem that remains to be solved. The problem is pure and simple, procrastination. And it won't be solved by procreation.

toasterlovin 6y ago
I’m not arguing that you’ll have kids who will directly solve the problem. Instead, I am making a statistical argument. Here’s what I said in another reply: > The carrying capacity of the earth will be reached whether you have children or not. So the consideration is different: whose descendants will take up that carrying capacity. If you, as a person concerned about the environment, opt to have children, then, statistically speaking, you are biasing the future composition of the human population toward being more concerned about the environment (since your kids share you innate predispositions and will be raised in the familial and cultural milieu that you create for them). And if people who are concerned about the environment systematically choose to not have children because they have become infected by this meme, then you have a situation where the future composition of the human population is becoming more biased toward doing nothing about the environment. So not having kids is a losing strategy.