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> Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth No it isn’t. The single biggest way to reduce your impact on Earth is so unpal

> Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth No it isn’t. The single biggest way to reduce your impact on Earth is so unpalatable as to be literally unthinkable: don’t eat meat and dairy, avoid having children that have children that have children that all want to eat meat and dairy. Avoid having children that take airplanes and eat almonds. Avoid having children and your impact on the Earth rapidly zooms out to nothing. That’s not the only reason or the main reason to avoid having children. But it’s as good a reason as any. Nobody will mention it at the top of articles though. Children are a joy and a treasure and not having them would be a slight against human nature.

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nathan_compton 3y ago
By this same logic it would be even better for you to commit suicide. People don't mention not having children because it is a fundamental biological drive and for most people, the problem isn't how do we eliminate carbon emissions _full stop_, but how do we eliminate carbon emissions while still allowing some form of palatable human existence? I'm for all sorts of radical action to stop climate degradation. But "just don't have kids" really is tantamount to saying "just don't exist or be human." It isn't just a tough sell, it isn't even what is being discussed.
- unsupp0rted 3y ago
  I exist and am human and don’t have any need to commit suicide. It’s incredibly simple for me to use birth control methods, barely an inconvenience. I have lots of reasons to avoid having kids, but it doesn’t hurt that a side effect is I automatically become a top-1% environmentalist in any crowd I’m standing in, without even really trying.
  - BasedAnon 3y ago
    > I exist and am human and don’t have any need to commit suicide. But it would reduce your carbon output, even though as with all things someone else would just consume more to make up for it.
    - predictabl3 3y ago
      Might as well lock and close the thread, with that reductive made-up assertion. It's not like there's a fixed budget of carbon credits distributed amongst the world's population. And no, "don't have kids" and "kill yourself" are really not actually the same.
      - nathan_compton 3y ago
        They aren't the same but they are both extreme solutions to the problem of climate change that are unlikely to win a significant number of adherents.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - unsupp0rted 3y ago
        Well put. “I’m gay” Hn: so what, everybody’s something “I’m an atheist” Hn: yes and? “I embed sensors under my skin” Hn: cool! “I’m childfree” Hn: why don’t you just kill yourself then? Tongue in cheek: obviously not all of HN. But this is one of the few alt views / lifestyles that HN doesn’t easily rally behind.
        nathan_compton 3y ago
        I'd like to make it perfectly clear that I'm 100% fine with people not wanting to have kids. I also think people who aren't fine with it suck. Let people do whatever if it doesn't hurt anyone, obviously. What I object to is the suggestion "just don't have kids" is a viable political path forward on the question of the environment. It isn't a viable path of any kind, political or otherwise.
- predictabl3 3y ago
  But "live in a big city and use public transit" is tantamount to saying "just don't exist or be human" Or put "eat meat" in there. "Biological imperative" at the peril of the planet. Idk. It's probably ironic for me to have any opinions of the biological imperative of heterosexual sex but it just strikes me as odd. I'll go do my own research but now I'm quite curious about this. I guess for some reason I expect people to be better than their urges, but maybe that's foolish of me.
  - C4stor 3y ago
    The planet has never been, is not and probably won't be in any near future in peril. Humanity is. Humans disappearing is the concern of ecology. The planet will adapt just fine with or without us, and species disappearing will be replaced in time by new ones. Not having children is not effective at perpetuating the human race, and thus not usually considered as an ecological solution. That being said, you don't have to have children to be an ecologist either, but you certainly should realise that your efforts are directed towards future humans, not towards the planet which does just fine anyway.
  - nathan_compton 3y ago
    The point here is that it isn't black and white and furthermore, whether you like it or not, taking care of earth is a political problem in the most basic literal sense that you have to get people to do it. Unless you are cooking up ideas on how to wipe the human race out like some kind of mad scientist, and presumably kill yourself afterward, the fact is, people need to be convinced to modify their lifestyle/culture somehow. Telling them to simply die without children ain't gonna do it.
  - wyager 3y ago
    > "Biological imperative" at the peril of the planet. I essentially don't care about the state of the planet if there are no humans around to enjoy it. The larger long-term risk to sentient life is that anti-energy people get their way, humanity never reaches the productive output required to become spacefaring, and we get wiped out by an engineered virus or something.

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nathan_compton 3y ago

By this same logic it would be even better for you to commit suicide. People don't mention not having children because it is a fundamental biological drive and for most people, the problem isn't how do we eliminate carbon emissions _full stop_, but how do we eliminate carbon emissions while still allowing some form of palatable human existence? I'm for all sorts of radical action to stop climate degradation. But "just don't have kids" really is tantamount to saying "just don't exist or be human." It isn't just a tough sell, it isn't even what is being discussed.

unsupp0rted 3y ago
I exist and am human and don’t have any need to commit suicide. It’s incredibly simple for me to use birth control methods, barely an inconvenience. I have lots of reasons to avoid having kids, but it doesn’t hurt that a side effect is I automatically become a top-1% environmentalist in any crowd I’m standing in, without even really trying.
- BasedAnon 3y ago
  > I exist and am human and don’t have any need to commit suicide. But it would reduce your carbon output, even though as with all things someone else would just consume more to make up for it.
  - predictabl3 3y ago
    Might as well lock and close the thread, with that reductive made-up assertion. It's not like there's a fixed budget of carbon credits distributed amongst the world's population. And no, "don't have kids" and "kill yourself" are really not actually the same.
    - nathan_compton 3y ago
      They aren't the same but they are both extreme solutions to the problem of climate change that are unlikely to win a significant number of adherents.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - unsupp0rted 3y ago
      Well put. “I’m gay” Hn: so what, everybody’s something “I’m an atheist” Hn: yes and? “I embed sensors under my skin” Hn: cool! “I’m childfree” Hn: why don’t you just kill yourself then? Tongue in cheek: obviously not all of HN. But this is one of the few alt views / lifestyles that HN doesn’t easily rally behind.
      - nathan_compton 3y ago
        I'd like to make it perfectly clear that I'm 100% fine with people not wanting to have kids. I also think people who aren't fine with it suck. Let people do whatever if it doesn't hurt anyone, obviously. What I object to is the suggestion "just don't have kids" is a viable political path forward on the question of the environment. It isn't a viable path of any kind, political or otherwise.
predictabl3 3y ago
But "live in a big city and use public transit" is tantamount to saying "just don't exist or be human" Or put "eat meat" in there. "Biological imperative" at the peril of the planet. Idk. It's probably ironic for me to have any opinions of the biological imperative of heterosexual sex but it just strikes me as odd. I'll go do my own research but now I'm quite curious about this. I guess for some reason I expect people to be better than their urges, but maybe that's foolish of me.
- C4stor 3y ago
  The planet has never been, is not and probably won't be in any near future in peril. Humanity is. Humans disappearing is the concern of ecology. The planet will adapt just fine with or without us, and species disappearing will be replaced in time by new ones. Not having children is not effective at perpetuating the human race, and thus not usually considered as an ecological solution. That being said, you don't have to have children to be an ecologist either, but you certainly should realise that your efforts are directed towards future humans, not towards the planet which does just fine anyway.
- nathan_compton 3y ago
  The point here is that it isn't black and white and furthermore, whether you like it or not, taking care of earth is a political problem in the most basic literal sense that you have to get people to do it. Unless you are cooking up ideas on how to wipe the human race out like some kind of mad scientist, and presumably kill yourself afterward, the fact is, people need to be convinced to modify their lifestyle/culture somehow. Telling them to simply die without children ain't gonna do it.
- wyager 3y ago
  > "Biological imperative" at the peril of the planet. I essentially don't care about the state of the planet if there are no humans around to enjoy it. The larger long-term risk to sentient life is that anti-energy people get their way, humanity never reaches the productive output required to become spacefaring, and we get wiped out by an engineered virus or something.