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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 o
by 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 agoMost western countries increase immigration (turning them into developed country level polluters) to make up for falling birthrates.
- cmendel 6y agoMost 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 agoYes that was inside my parenthesis.
- toasterlovin 6y agoExponential 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 agoI'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 agoThe 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.