Overpopulation and global warming - Would you say 'No' to having children?
I have studied global warming for a while now, and I assume you all know what it is and what its consequences are, so I'm not going to dumb it down or explain it to you. You may have noticed how one of the key 'slogans' of concerns is what shape we are leaving the planet in, for our children and grandchildren.
But should we even be having children?
The planet now houses over 7.3 billion special human snowflakes, and we recently reached the doomy-gloomy 400ppm carbon dioxide threshold. The latter, probably permanently. And needless to say, this CO2 business is bad news. It's hard to say if the environmental policy goals dreamed up in political chambers all over the world will actually be able to mitigate a further rise of CO2 in the atmosphere, or the disastrous consequences we already have to get ready to face.
So what can we do? Surely, this must be in the hands of large corporations and governments? They're the ones who use everything, right?! Pointing your finger at all the bad men out there isn't going to help, first of all. And to be fair, neither is recycling really. It helps re-use materials and lessens environmental impact to an extent, but why aren't we buying more non-packaged items anyway? If we didn't -want- it, it wouldn't get produced.
So what does this have to do with kids? A human produces a gargantuan amount of waste in a lifetime, and their humans after that and after that... According to a scientific paper (1) having ONE less child saves 9,441 tonnes of CO2. And I know of voluntarily childless couples who have been called "selfish". Really? Not in the slightest.
How much can you save if you commit to the 'usual' lifestyle changes, like recycling, driving a fuel efficient car, making your home energy efficient...? A whole 486 tonnes of CO2 emissions. Around 20% of what having one less child could 'save'. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for doing what we can to contribute, but it doesn't seem enough.
Pair this with the frightening amounts of children out in the world that are orphans (140 million children according to (2)), and the conclusion to me personally is that we are rather looking at this in the wrong way. We don't actually have a need to reproduce individually, the world has plenty of us. But we want to. We claim it's our right to do this and that, and consume everything like it's going out of fashion, when it absolutely is not our right to drive this planet into destruction. If we keep going the way we have, we will have nothing to leave for future generations and thus not our descendants either.
I am not saying to anyone to not have kids, but it poses an interesting dilemma. Should we even care? Why should we sacrifice our own priorities? What obligation do we have to change our own lives when others won't?
To child or not to child? That's the question.
(1) http://t.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/pdfs/OSUCarbonStudy.pdf
(2) http://www.sos-usa.org/our-impact/childrens-statistics
With all due respect man-made global warming is a scam https://steemit.com/climate/@corbettreport/who-wants-to-be-a-carbon-trillionaire
I'm not questioning your motives or intent - investigate and search out truth!
the truth is called Climate Change
If you don't believe it - watch this: http://www.climatehustle.org/ AND research HAARP and Cern Climate Modification - if you STILL don't believe look at the PATENTS that have been issued for Climate Control and Climate Modification.
I can not believe this post made it to "Trending". I suppose you do not have a kid because, Im telling you, it is the more wonderful thing can happens to a human been.
Sad there is people promoting this idea and using it in all this "Climate Gate "thing... Very sad.
You may be surprised when I say I do want children and I believe you when you say it's a wonderful experience. However, the dilemma the argument above poses is an interesting one, and one I have encountered many times. Hence why I say this at the end "Should we even care? Why should we sacrifice our own priorities?". I'm really just asking if anyone would go to this extreme. I doubt it, and thus the solution is most likely not to go childless to 'Save the planet'. Hope this explains my point of view a bit better.
It did explains better :) indeed. It change everything. Hope you get very soon the happiness of a child near you.
So let's educated and intelligent people stop reproducing while uneducated and dumb people do. Great idea.
If we have challenges regarding those issues (if they are real), we need bright people to solve them.
What about the disaster in fukushima that no one appears to be talking about anymore? 30,000 tons of radiation per DAY are still being dumped in to the pacific. In 5 years that GE subsidiary, TEPCO, has destroyed the pacific.
Lolz, don't have children or manbearpig will kill all of us! AAAHHH Not global warming! You do realize man made global warming is complete utter nonsense correct? If you think otherwise go look in the sky during the day and you see that bright object people call the Sun? That is the source of your warming cycles, the end.
There is no reason to have biological children that is not rooted in ego.
In the chart seen here you can find every reason to have children and where the reasoning comes from as well as some solutions. I do not advocate for humans to opt for extinction by completely stopping reproduction, I am saying no one has biological children purposedly for reasons that benefit a child that doesn't even exist.
If you want to help a child adopt, there are plenty that could use your help.
I like this bit especially "having adults is what’s causing the problems.".
That link made me chuckle a few times, thank you! And it's funny because a lot of it is true. It absolutely has a lot to do with social pressure and expectation. Maybe one day it too will change!
kids cause more waste than adults
LOL children causing co2 what a fucken joke. Think of monoculture farms of livestock living in cages. All those pig, cow and chicken factories cause way more pollution! If your so worried about it don't take airplanes! Anyway we can cut down the human popluation in half in 50 years if every woman has only 1 child. That's it problem solved.
So no-one gonna say anything about fossil energy. The biggest polluter of them all.
That's where the CO2 comes from...
Just because "having a child is the most wonderful thing that can happen to a human being" doesn't mean that people should go and have more children than they can afford.
And by the way, not everyone thinks that having a child is a wonderful thing, and not everyone wants to have a kid. Personally, I would never had a kid. Never wanted one and never will.
The question that the author is asking is a valid one. The world is way overpopulated. Maybe instead of having kids, people should be adopting the millions of children who are already born and have no parents.
Many people have children because they are selfish, not because they want to bring a life into the world.
I cannot believe the ignorance of some of the people commenting here.