Will fewer babies save the planet?
August 7, 2009 by Jennifer
Over at another place I blog, blogger Desmond wrote this today: GREEN RANT: Having a Baby is NOT Bad for the Environment. It’s a good post, but this issue always gets me thinking on overtime. I’ve run into A LOT of people who are for population control in a major way and they sort of piss me off.
For example, the post above was linked at the Inhabitat Facebook site and while some comments are smart and balanced, others were more extreme, i.e. akin to, “Having kids is selfish…” or “The crazy thing is that many of the humans that are breeding out of control are well educated environmentalists that know that we have already exceeded the earths carrying capacity…” and so on. It’s not just here either. Lots of people offline and on have said stuff like this to me.
Is it selfish to have kids? OR are you only selfish if you have more than one? How about if you have one kid, a gas guzzling hummer and like to buy plastics and own four televisions? Are you more selfish than a recycling family with four kids, a solar powered home, and an organic garden? Who is the biggest eco-loser?
It’s not only a totally gray area but it’s almost impossible to argue for population control. Why, because if you’re arguing for population control, you were already born which makes you yelling about no more babies seem sort of silly, no?
If we’re going to argue that people who have kids are selfish maybe we should also argue that people who let granddad live so long are selfish too. Extreme? Maybe; but then so is the idea that childbearing is selfish. To me, consumer choice is a larger issue than the baby having choice. I think it’s selfish to own a McMansion or four cars, but then, that’s just my opinion.
There are some balanced arguments going on though (thankfully). For example, one of the fellas over at the Facebook argument posted this link – Population and Sustainability: Can We Avoid Limiting the Number of People?. It’s a balanced piece plus they point out what my major argument is – that the actions of one can matter just as much as the actions of many. The piece notes…
“Nature, of course, couldn’t care less how many of us there are. What matters to the environment are the sums of human pulls and pushes, the extractions of resources and the injections of wastes. When these exceed key tipping points, nature and its systems can change quickly and dramatically. But the magnitudes of environmental impacts stem not just from our numbers but also from behaviors we learn from our parents and cultures. Broadly speaking, if population is the number of us, then consumption is the way each of us behaves. In this unequal world, the behavior of a dozen people in one place sometimes has more environmental impact than does that of a few hundred somewhere else.”
I have one child, but honestly, I’d have another and not assume that it’s a negative eco issue. What would be negative is if I raised my child/children to behave in irresponsible ways. However, I do teach conservation at home and my son is already way greener than I am (at age eight) so hopefully he’ll grow up and be part of a larger solution.
It’s a tricky issue, and I’m for thinking it through before you have a baby, plus making sure you pass on eco-traits to your kids, but I’m never going to think that limiting kids is the real answer to all of our eco-issues. The babies haven’t created these issues, past generations have.
What do you think?
[image via stock.xchng]
Having my son is what got me into eco issues.
That is an excellent point. I don’t think I got into eco-issue in total until after Cedar arrived either. I wonder how many people get into eco-living based on their kids alone. I bet tons.
This is something that always kills me. I was raised in a family with 12 children. We lived on a farm and grew most of our own fruits and vegetables. We canned for the winter months and never ate meat. My mother home schooled us so we very rarely left the house, and it didn’t matter anyway because my father took the only car we had to do any outside work that was needed. We used many many MANY reusable cloth products for everything and we were not allowed to waste in anyway. We had a t.v that was virtually never used (if even plugged in at times) and our toys and clothing were passed down through the line.
I look around at these families with two children who walk around with Starbucks and buying new clothes and disposable plates and eating out every weekend. If my siblings and I teach our children the same things my parents taught us how are they being greener?
I just want to add this. I live in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. I now work and used to live in the city. When I was younger, I was very poor. I lived among the poor and what goes on is this- the more children you have, the more money you get from welfare. So you need to get yourself pregnant somehow on average every 1-2 years to keep your check increasing. The older kids are left to their own devices and raise themselves basically. I did not follow the plan and went to school & left (with my 1 child). The place & way I live now is like a different planet, comparatively speaking.
My point is this, population control will never work until the government (at least here in the USA) starts educating and removing the incentive for these people to stop procreating. I don’t think you should be able to tell responsible, contributing members of society to limit the number of children they have while the ‘government milking’ is still going on.