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Don’t take CO2 behavior instruction from people who have children. I can fly international 365 days a year for decades. But my children, grandchildren and grea

Don’t take CO2 behavior instruction from people who have children. I can fly international 365 days a year for decades. But my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will have 0 carbon footprint because they’ll never exist. Conversely, eat bugs and recycle coke cans if you want, but that’s a fraction of a fraction of a drop in the bucket if you’ve had even one kid.

eloisant 4y ago
Not having children isn't going to solve the climate crisis because the effect are at a very long term. Children have a very small carbon footprint, they only have a significant footprint when they're adults so we're talking 20 years from now. We have to reduce emissions right now, not at your inexisting great-grandchildren generation.
- paulcole 4y ago
  > Children have a very small carbon footprint, they only have a significant footprint when they're adults so we're talking 20 years from now. This is the same reason I don’t save any money for retirement. Somebody will surely have figured things out by the time for me to stop working! I can do what I want with no consequences.
throwawaylinux 4y ago
Then your genetic and cultural lines will be replaced in society by those that are more disposed to reproducing.
gpvos 4y ago
So who's going to solve tomorrow's climate problems? A well-raised kid is one of the better ways to improve the future. Also, the way the human brain's reward system works, lots of people will say: I have no kids, now I can take an extra far-away holiday.
- unsupp0rted 4y ago
  > So who's going to solve tomorrow's climate problems? All the kids that are being born anyway. But it's hypocritical to both have a kid and then malign me for using 1 millionth of the CO2 the decision to have a kid results in.
  - prepend 4y ago
    Innovation isn’t entirely random. It’s like like all children have an equal probability of doing something great and productive. Taking responsibility for climate change solution and raising smart and productive kids is probably the single most positive thing one can do.
  - david-gpu 4y ago
    We as a society need people who will provide us with goods and services to as we grow too old to work. Those people are children today. I will feel bad about the CO2 contributions of my children the day you feel bad about needing goods and services from them.
  - worldsayshi 4y ago
    "Having kids is bad" makes sense as a rule of we assume it kids will have the same footprint as us. But that sounds like another way to admit defeat. I don't have kids. I'm in my thirties. I really struggle with this idea. I fear that this notion is part of why I will run out the clock on my window to get kids. All I see is finger pointing when everyone needs to rise to the occasion. I'm falling in that trap myself.
  - gpvos 4y ago
    Yes, but those kids are now more likely to be raised by people who are not aware of the problems, or deny them. "Well-raised" is a key word in my previous comment. While I think we need to find a way to limit the number of humans and think it's a perfectly fine decision for people to not have children, I will continue to criticize anyone who uses CO2 excessively whether they have children or not.
throwaway6734 4y ago
I don't understand this argument. Children are individuals as well that would have their own carbon budget. Not to mention the threat of demographic collapse is serious among almost every developed country
- worldsayshi 4y ago
  Yeah the argument may or may not make sense depending on how you count and it's really dependent on which assumptions you pick.
pwgentleman 4y ago
How long term do you think this strategy is for the human kind? Does it span more than one generation?
- unsupp0rted 4y ago
  Long term the population is flatlining and dropping and the price of renewable energy with it. But even if it doesn't and even if we're forced to make hard choices, the hard choice won't be "should I skip my vacation flight?", it'll be "should I skip raising a CO2 machine?".
- PeterisP 4y ago
  IMHO a voluntary reduction in human population by a few billion through reduced birth is a perfectly viable, sustainable long-term strategy; all the drawbacks and criticisms appear when someone wants to encourage that with various means (i.e. not fully voluntarily) or when it's posed as some solution to things which need a faster reduction than possible this way, e.g. climate change won't be prevented even if we went totally zero-birth for a decade but the current population kept the current emission rates.
  - unsupp0rted 4y ago
    It doesn't even have to be voluntarily in the sense of "making a decision to". More like voluntary in the sense of "have no specific need to". In the most developed countries, children are now more of a burden than a gain, which is why women are having fewer of them every generation. Not only because they're expensive, but because they are often born unhealthy (physically, mentally, or both) and are a large, often unrecoverable blow to most careers. Since we don't need children to work on the farm or to let us move in with them when we're old (er, less than previous generations, anyway), it becomes purely a "nice-to-have" decision. And then if somebody does voluntarily have children, they don't have much of a leg to stand on when lecturing others about their impact on climate change.
    - gpvos 4y ago
      You were doing so fine until the last sentence.
klntsky 4y ago
For every child you don't have I'm going to have two.
- worldsayshi 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - unsupp0rted 4y ago
    I agree with you it was needlessly rude and combative to say. Although I don't feel like I'm making a sacrifice by not having kids and I'm certainly not doing it to benefit that person's kids. I just don't need or want any. I only pull the "no kids" card when somebody who does have kids starts complaining about my greenhouse gas unit count.
  - throwaway6734 4y ago
    Not having children is not a sacrifice
    - worldsayshi 4y ago
      It isn't if you don't want them. But the person I responded to seem to want it.
    - HelloMcFly 4y ago
      It may be for some people that make that choice. This whole thread reeks of people that cannot empathize with a perspective not their own.
      - throwaway6734 4y ago
        How is intentionally choosing to not have children a sacrifice if you live in a western country? We're at a point where these countries need more people, not less, to have children. Having and raising a child is a difficult thing to do
abliefern 4y ago
Grandchildren and great-grandchildren don't factor in, we'll be close to carbon neutral by then anyway.
- yardstick 4y ago
  Then it’s time to move onto other pressing environmental issues, like recycling all the electric car batteries, and the ethics of lithium and rare Earth mineral mining. There will always be something less than ideal.
public_defender 4y ago
In addition to being toxic and irrelevant to the parent comments (who mentioned kids?), This argument is a red herring. Of course if everyone dies, we mitigate anthropogenic climate change, but that doesn't really further our analysis of the issue. There is nothing inherent in children that uses carbon, it is human behavior in the context of petro-capitalism that uses carbon. If I have thirteen kids and they live on a farm cooperative, I'll be responsible for less carbon than the parent commenter.
- unsupp0rted 4y ago
  Labeling a comment “Toxic” is a good way to shut down interesting discussion. The parent said: > [international flights taken often] completely dwarfs any [CO2] savings I could reasonably expect to make. What dwarfs CO2 savings isn’t so much an individual’s international flights, it’s an individual creating more individuals that create more individuals. Your thirteen kids on a farm cooperative are likely to have and eat cows, which is plenty of tonnes of methane. Not to mention the number of children that 13 couples will produce afterward. My 0 kids will require 0 cows and 0 methane. Having children is important for the propagation of the human race and I want our race to be propagated. But it makes no sense to lecture somebody about their greenhouse gas emissions while taking action that results in a thousand or a million more greenhouse gas. If you believe having children is a net positive, go for it. I’m not lecturing you to avoid it.
  - public_defender 4y ago
    > Labeling a comment “Toxic” is a good way to shut down interesting discussion. That's certainly your opinion. My opinion is that this thread of analysis (a) is not interesting; (b) tends to propagate harm. I think the discussion is not interesting because it lacks intellectual rigor. I mentioned that the subject of having kids is an irrelevant red herring. I think we can call your thesis a form of "whataboutism." You actually double down on this in your response. Kids on a farm? Whatabout cows? (It's a vegetable farm. Try again, I guess.) Let me also add that there is no logical limit to your analysis. Who is responsible for your carbon use? You or your parents? Is this toxic comment on the internet something I should address with you or your grandmother? The harm-causing part is more important. You are saying--here and in siblings--that "other people" can/should have children and that society will be sustained by babies who are "born anyway," but that people who procreate have lost the moral agency to participate as your equals in the climate discussion. This is toxic (harm-propagating) because it treats biological procreation as a distasteful externality. Procreation is not an external process when we are considering anthropogenic climate change. Worse, you are drawing an artificial line to separate people who can have valid policy opinions on climate change from those (parents) who can't. Ironically, this is the same thing that you accused me of doing when you objected to my use of the word "toxic."

eloisant 4y ago

Not having children isn't going to solve the climate crisis because the effect are at a very long term. Children have a very small carbon footprint, they only have a significant footprint when they're adults so we're talking 20 years from now. We have to reduce emissions right now, not at your inexisting great-grandchildren generation.

paulcole 4y ago
> Children have a very small carbon footprint, they only have a significant footprint when they're adults so we're talking 20 years from now. This is the same reason I don’t save any money for retirement. Somebody will surely have figured things out by the time for me to stop working! I can do what I want with no consequences.

throwawaylinux 4y ago

Then your genetic and cultural lines will be replaced in society by those that are more disposed to reproducing.

gpvos 4y ago

So who's going to solve tomorrow's climate problems? A well-raised kid is one of the better ways to improve the future. Also, the way the human brain's reward system works, lots of people will say: I have no kids, now I can take an extra far-away holiday.

unsupp0rted 4y ago
> So who's going to solve tomorrow's climate problems? All the kids that are being born anyway. But it's hypocritical to both have a kid and then malign me for using 1 millionth of the CO2 the decision to have a kid results in.
- prepend 4y ago
  Innovation isn’t entirely random. It’s like like all children have an equal probability of doing something great and productive. Taking responsibility for climate change solution and raising smart and productive kids is probably the single most positive thing one can do.
- david-gpu 4y ago
  We as a society need people who will provide us with goods and services to as we grow too old to work. Those people are children today. I will feel bad about the CO2 contributions of my children the day you feel bad about needing goods and services from them.
- worldsayshi 4y ago
  "Having kids is bad" makes sense as a rule of we assume it kids will have the same footprint as us. But that sounds like another way to admit defeat. I don't have kids. I'm in my thirties. I really struggle with this idea. I fear that this notion is part of why I will run out the clock on my window to get kids. All I see is finger pointing when everyone needs to rise to the occasion. I'm falling in that trap myself.
- gpvos 4y ago
  Yes, but those kids are now more likely to be raised by people who are not aware of the problems, or deny them. "Well-raised" is a key word in my previous comment. While I think we need to find a way to limit the number of humans and think it's a perfectly fine decision for people to not have children, I will continue to criticize anyone who uses CO2 excessively whether they have children or not.

throwaway6734 4y ago

I don't understand this argument. Children are individuals as well that would have their own carbon budget. Not to mention the threat of demographic collapse is serious among almost every developed country

worldsayshi 4y ago
Yeah the argument may or may not make sense depending on how you count and it's really dependent on which assumptions you pick.

pwgentleman 4y ago

How long term do you think this strategy is for the human kind? Does it span more than one generation?

unsupp0rted 4y ago
Long term the population is flatlining and dropping and the price of renewable energy with it. But even if it doesn't and even if we're forced to make hard choices, the hard choice won't be "should I skip my vacation flight?", it'll be "should I skip raising a CO2 machine?".
PeterisP 4y ago
IMHO a voluntary reduction in human population by a few billion through reduced birth is a perfectly viable, sustainable long-term strategy; all the drawbacks and criticisms appear when someone wants to encourage that with various means (i.e. not fully voluntarily) or when it's posed as some solution to things which need a faster reduction than possible this way, e.g. climate change won't be prevented even if we went totally zero-birth for a decade but the current population kept the current emission rates.
- unsupp0rted 4y ago
  It doesn't even have to be voluntarily in the sense of "making a decision to". More like voluntary in the sense of "have no specific need to". In the most developed countries, children are now more of a burden than a gain, which is why women are having fewer of them every generation. Not only because they're expensive, but because they are often born unhealthy (physically, mentally, or both) and are a large, often unrecoverable blow to most careers. Since we don't need children to work on the farm or to let us move in with them when we're old (er, less than previous generations, anyway), it becomes purely a "nice-to-have" decision. And then if somebody does voluntarily have children, they don't have much of a leg to stand on when lecturing others about their impact on climate change.
  - gpvos 4y ago
    You were doing so fine until the last sentence.

klntsky 4y ago

For every child you don't have I'm going to have two.

worldsayshi 4y ago
[flagged]
- unsupp0rted 4y ago
  I agree with you it was needlessly rude and combative to say. Although I don't feel like I'm making a sacrifice by not having kids and I'm certainly not doing it to benefit that person's kids. I just don't need or want any. I only pull the "no kids" card when somebody who does have kids starts complaining about my greenhouse gas unit count.
- throwaway6734 4y ago
  Not having children is not a sacrifice
  - worldsayshi 4y ago
    It isn't if you don't want them. But the person I responded to seem to want it.
  - HelloMcFly 4y ago
    It may be for some people that make that choice. This whole thread reeks of people that cannot empathize with a perspective not their own.
    - throwaway6734 4y ago
      How is intentionally choosing to not have children a sacrifice if you live in a western country? We're at a point where these countries need more people, not less, to have children. Having and raising a child is a difficult thing to do

abliefern 4y ago

Grandchildren and great-grandchildren don't factor in, we'll be close to carbon neutral by then anyway.

yardstick 4y ago
Then it’s time to move onto other pressing environmental issues, like recycling all the electric car batteries, and the ethics of lithium and rare Earth mineral mining. There will always be something less than ideal.

public_defender 4y ago

In addition to being toxic and irrelevant to the parent comments (who mentioned kids?), This argument is a red herring. Of course if everyone dies, we mitigate anthropogenic climate change, but that doesn't really further our analysis of the issue. There is nothing inherent in children that uses carbon, it is human behavior in the context of petro-capitalism that uses carbon. If I have thirteen kids and they live on a farm cooperative, I'll be responsible for less carbon than the parent commenter.

unsupp0rted 4y ago
Labeling a comment “Toxic” is a good way to shut down interesting discussion. The parent said: > [international flights taken often] completely dwarfs any [CO2] savings I could reasonably expect to make. What dwarfs CO2 savings isn’t so much an individual’s international flights, it’s an individual creating more individuals that create more individuals. Your thirteen kids on a farm cooperative are likely to have and eat cows, which is plenty of tonnes of methane. Not to mention the number of children that 13 couples will produce afterward. My 0 kids will require 0 cows and 0 methane. Having children is important for the propagation of the human race and I want our race to be propagated. But it makes no sense to lecture somebody about their greenhouse gas emissions while taking action that results in a thousand or a million more greenhouse gas. If you believe having children is a net positive, go for it. I’m not lecturing you to avoid it.
- public_defender 4y ago
  > Labeling a comment “Toxic” is a good way to shut down interesting discussion. That's certainly your opinion. My opinion is that this thread of analysis (a) is not interesting; (b) tends to propagate harm. I think the discussion is not interesting because it lacks intellectual rigor. I mentioned that the subject of having kids is an irrelevant red herring. I think we can call your thesis a form of "whataboutism." You actually double down on this in your response. Kids on a farm? Whatabout cows? (It's a vegetable farm. Try again, I guess.) Let me also add that there is no logical limit to your analysis. Who is responsible for your carbon use? You or your parents? Is this toxic comment on the internet something I should address with you or your grandmother? The harm-causing part is more important. You are saying--here and in siblings--that "other people" can/should have children and that society will be sustained by babies who are "born anyway," but that people who procreate have lost the moral agency to participate as your equals in the climate discussion. This is toxic (harm-propagating) because it treats biological procreation as a distasteful externality. Procreation is not an external process when we are considering anthropogenic climate change. Worse, you are drawing an artificial line to separate people who can have valid policy opinions on climate change from those (parents) who can't. Ironically, this is the same thing that you accused me of doing when you objected to my use of the word "toxic."