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We're dealing with a trade-off between quantity of life and quality of life. The absolute best thing anybody can do for the environment is to not have kids. Th
by bluescrn 4y ago
We're dealing with a trade-off between quantity of life and quality of life.
The absolute best thing anybody can do for the environment is to not have kids. That'd save vastly more emissions and resource consumption than buying green-tech-for-the-rich such as EVs and heat pumps.
- iamerroragent 4y agoEVs and heat pumps are good though from an efficiency and air quality perspective. I really doubt we'll be able to stop 8 billion people from having babies. You personally may be better off being an engineer and getting paid to help develop mitigation technology.
- michaelgburton 4y agoRight, but not having kids is also a far bigger cost to many people than any amount of money. Hence we prefer other approaches to the problem.
- cultureswitch 4y agoInterestingly, the portion of people who value fighting climate change so high that they'd be beneficial to that end is so vanishingly small on the scale of the entire planet that if they decide to have fewer children then they're probably making things worse by letting themselves get outbred by people who care more about other things (first and foremost, improving living standards). And no, young people in general do not care that much about the environment compared to much more immediate issues such as poverty. Young affluent people in rich countries do, but then it might also be that we've spent the last decades literally telling them they'll die burning at 40 and they might not have understood that was hyperbole.