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How much carbon does having a child emit? I've seen suggestions that it is about 60t a year that sounds absolutely absurd when the average per adult is 13t (in

How much carbon does having a child emit? I've seen suggestions that it is about 60t a year that sounds absolutely absurd when the average per adult is 13t (in the UK). So a child that is physically much smaller than me (and so needs less food to eat, less material for clothing etc), and lives in the same house as me (so benefits from the same heating that I have on anyway, the same lighting that I have on anyway) and goes to the same places as me when I drive around anyway, somehow emits over 400% carbon in the process? How does that work out?

NortySpock 5y ago
"less material for clothing etc" Kids grow out of clothes and shoes, so you need new clothes that fit them. You tend to buy them toys and safety equipment and possibly electronics to entertain them. They break things at a much higher rate than regular adults. They want to go play with their friends, which if you live in the suburbs sometimes means driving.
- OldHand2018 5y ago
  Having 1 child with no cousins is going to be expensive, but like much else, there are economies in scale. My siblings and cousins have always just passed around clothes as children grow out of them. By the time an article of clothing makes it out of the family, it has likely been worn by 3-4 kids. And then you sell it or give it away. Sure, some stuff wears out or is destroyed, but you'd be surprised how little. Just stay away from all that pop culture crap where most of the money goes to licensing fees ;)
benhurmarcel 5y ago
You need to account for all the carbon they will emit over their whole lifetime, as well as all their future descendants.
jliptzin 5y ago
Maybe because they don't stop emitting carbon when they move out at 18? And then go on to have kids and grandkids of their own, who in turn also emit more carbon?
- mirker 5y ago
  There are also a lot of indirect carbon costs. Doing the calculation accurately is a recursive time-series analysis where you have to trace how every object was used to create other objects through the whole earth’s supply chain. So having a kid may build a hospital that requires a truck that requires human to be trained… that requires humans to create paper training materials.
simiones 5y ago
One major difference is that children need new clothes every month, they need new toys, new diapers, etc. There are reasons why caring for a child is more expensive than caring for an adult. Of course, you can argue that all of these are unnecessary, but it is likely that they are taken into account when discussing average emissions.
mytailorisrich 5y ago
What is causing emissions and destruction of the environment? It's likely proportional to number of people x individual consumption. The global population is a key aspect of climate change and environmental damage.
- mirker 5y ago
  You’re ignoring the economies of scale of the human civilization. A car comes from a factory which services millions of humans, so there isn’t any reason to believe that it’s as simple as scaling individual usage. There are a ton of pollution factors which are not at an individual-level. For example, US military is a huge emission producer and is not an individual emission. The only reason it exists is because there is a large group of people (a country) who allocated resources for warfare. It is unlikely for the military to scale linearly with respect to population (at small scale, you’d have a militia).
  - mytailorisrich 5y ago
    Look at all the graphs, population, emissions, economic output, wealth, since 1900... Look at China and the result of becoming richer. I am not trying to put forward an exact formula here, but population and individual consumption (that is, wealth) are key factors and I suspect a fit would contain those two quantities as factors. Regarding economies of scale, ultimately what counts is the number of cars, not the factory that produces them... again that boils down to population x individual consumption. The US military can do what they do because of the strength of the US economy, which is again correlated, if not proportional, to population x individual consumption.
    - mirker 5y ago
      The carbon cost of producing a car is the same as the cost of driving it [1]. Sure, for the sake of argument, you can say that each person has 1 new car per lifetime, but it’s really hard to say definitively how all the carbon is being moved through the economy. I think actually tracking this is more productive than just focusing on human population. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...

NortySpock 5y ago

"less material for clothing etc" Kids grow out of clothes and shoes, so you need new clothes that fit them. You tend to buy them toys and safety equipment and possibly electronics to entertain them. They break things at a much higher rate than regular adults. They want to go play with their friends, which if you live in the suburbs sometimes means driving.

OldHand2018 5y ago
Having 1 child with no cousins is going to be expensive, but like much else, there are economies in scale. My siblings and cousins have always just passed around clothes as children grow out of them. By the time an article of clothing makes it out of the family, it has likely been worn by 3-4 kids. And then you sell it or give it away. Sure, some stuff wears out or is destroyed, but you'd be surprised how little. Just stay away from all that pop culture crap where most of the money goes to licensing fees ;)

benhurmarcel 5y ago

You need to account for all the carbon they will emit over their whole lifetime, as well as all their future descendants.

jliptzin 5y ago

Maybe because they don't stop emitting carbon when they move out at 18? And then go on to have kids and grandkids of their own, who in turn also emit more carbon?

mirker 5y ago
There are also a lot of indirect carbon costs. Doing the calculation accurately is a recursive time-series analysis where you have to trace how every object was used to create other objects through the whole earth’s supply chain. So having a kid may build a hospital that requires a truck that requires human to be trained… that requires humans to create paper training materials.

simiones 5y ago

One major difference is that children need new clothes every month, they need new toys, new diapers, etc. There are reasons why caring for a child is more expensive than caring for an adult. Of course, you can argue that all of these are unnecessary, but it is likely that they are taken into account when discussing average emissions.

mytailorisrich 5y ago

What is causing emissions and destruction of the environment? It's likely proportional to number of people x individual consumption. The global population is a key aspect of climate change and environmental damage.

mirker 5y ago
You’re ignoring the economies of scale of the human civilization. A car comes from a factory which services millions of humans, so there isn’t any reason to believe that it’s as simple as scaling individual usage. There are a ton of pollution factors which are not at an individual-level. For example, US military is a huge emission producer and is not an individual emission. The only reason it exists is because there is a large group of people (a country) who allocated resources for warfare. It is unlikely for the military to scale linearly with respect to population (at small scale, you’d have a militia).
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  Look at all the graphs, population, emissions, economic output, wealth, since 1900... Look at China and the result of becoming richer. I am not trying to put forward an exact formula here, but population and individual consumption (that is, wealth) are key factors and I suspect a fit would contain those two quantities as factors. Regarding economies of scale, ultimately what counts is the number of cars, not the factory that produces them... again that boils down to population x individual consumption. The US military can do what they do because of the strength of the US economy, which is again correlated, if not proportional, to population x individual consumption.
  - mirker 5y ago
    The carbon cost of producing a car is the same as the cost of driving it [1]. Sure, for the sake of argument, you can say that each person has 1 new car per lifetime, but it’s really hard to say definitively how all the carbon is being moved through the economy. I think actually tracking this is more productive than just focusing on human population. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...