Why isn't this ever listed as one of the suggestions for how people can reduce their carbon footprint?

Question

"DON'T HAVE CHILDREN"

Seriously...I could add surge protectors to all my electrical equipment in the house to reduce enery consumption while I am out...or I could just not have children and reduce an entire carbon footprint!!! Right?!!

Why isn't "Don't have children" ever one of the suggestions?

Answer 1

think it might be that the reason for all this reduce, recyle, and reuse nonsense is to leave a better world for our CHILDREN?

Answer 2

Because everyone can reduce, reuse and recycle - but if everyone didn't have children then the human race would come to an end.

I do agree that if you don't want children, you shouldn't have them just because most people do - but its part of our natural instincts to want to procreate, and the majority of people really want children.

I also think people should limit the number of children they have - its just rediculous to have 8 or 10 or more kids when the world is already overpopulated. Voluntary population control, such as a couple only having 2 children (or 1) would, eventually, reduce the population of the planet.

ps - we have 2 kids, and have taken permanant measures to not have any more.

Answer 3

i've got replaced my carbon footprint albeit in methods i wouldn't in any respect have envisioned. 3 years in the past i grow to be green concious yet nevertheless left a reasonably super print with my SUV and wasteful capability practice. I washed and dried outfits after purely one positioned on, left the A/C on as quickly as I wasn't living house and that i drove my SUV everywhere, even to the nook industry. This all replaced whilst my frustration with US politics and predatory comercialism reached a factor the place I fled the country. Now I stay in, of all places, China. Now I dontpersistent a motor vehicle, I journey an electric powered motorbike. I dont wash my outfits until they want them and that i line dry them (no dryers in so China), My new spouse has pushed living house the want for water/capability conservation, no longer out of any green schedule, yet extremely from an entire life of being too undesirable to discover the money for such luxuries. the actuality that we are able to discover the money for it relatively is beside the point, that is in simple terms no longer mandatory. i've got discovered the lesson that intense capability intake is a cultural disese. confident, China is the main polluted place I even have ever lived. The undesirable air high quality sometime is so undesirable my eyes burn and the poisonous waters have me swearing off fish and warding off untreated eating water. do no longer blame the effortless man or woman even with the incontrovertible fact that, the priority back is a societal one. Deng Xiao Peng advised the loads that to be wealthy is wonderful and then he bumped off any obstacles to unscrupulous procedures of achieveing reported glory. China is becoming on the fumes and exhusts from 10000 factories all dumping unhindered. perhaps the question being asked could be directed at an even bigger entitiy. Say governments and mega companies. the effortless guy is doing what he can.

Answer 4

Yes, having fewer children is good. The world is overpopulated (depends on who you listen to but the Optimum Population Trust provide a reasonable estimate). You could also turn off your electrical equipment completely if you were a *really* crazy hippy!

As for why mainstream media and authorities don't suggest not having children, I think there are a number of possible reasons. Firstly governments want stable (or even young) populations; they don't want an aging population because that's very bad economically. Secondly, ignorance and apathy towards sustainability. Perhaps the influence of religious organisations (especially the Roman Catholic Church) and/or cultural expectations of having large families

Answer 5

It is true that not having children, or choosing to only have 1 child does greatly reduce resource usage per HOUSEHOLD. BUT, large families tend to use less resources per PERSON. For example, an only child will get new toys and clothing while a child in a large family will be given hand-me-downs. Also children raised in a large family tend to be more aware of how much stuff they buy and use than single children. Single children tend to have a sense of entitlement that leads to consumerism -the enemy of all ideas of going green.

Personally I see some of the huge families, 4 or more children per couple, as a form of child abuse and neglect that should be outlawed, but as long as we elect Catholic presidents, that is never going to happen.

Answer 6

The campaign should be addressed as "If you don't desire to have children, we will pay for your sterilization."
Sure to get negative feedback for this comment.
I love children exceptionally but after so many my husband and I came to an agreement, (sterilization) if we wanted/could afford more children later, we adopt, so we adopted 2 older children.
Many people having children don't wish for anymore but due to these factors: won't place for adoption, are too ignorant to use birth control, illicit drug use, ethnicity, religious beliefs, poverty; will continue to have them anyway and the whole world is paying.

Answer 7

yes, population control is a way to reduce carbon. however, most people who care about this issue are more concerned with ways to reduce their carbon footprint by changing a few things in their daily life, even if its driving less often, taking shorter showers, of turning the lights off everytime you leave a room.

Answer 8

Actually, if you read the book called "the earth without us' by Alan Weisman, that's one of his suggestions. He admits it's a bit extreme, but at the rate the population is growing, within 25 years, our demand will be at crisis stage.

Answer 9

Cheaper to distribute one 500 mgm capsule of potassium cyanide to each man, woman, and child in the world. It will raise a royal stink, but man made global warming will stop.

Answer 10

Simply because it's too controversial. It may sound terrible, but I think it's great that some countries limit the number of children you can have.

Because many people are so insecure they need to have to children to have someone to love and need them.

That and the ignorance regarding birth control - and the religious implications of birth control (where would the Catholic church get their money if more little Catholics weren't born.)

Answer 11

Hmm, well, I have one. A beautiful accident and I love her but I totally agree with you! And I'm getting my tubes "tied" (they actually cut them, no tying involved) for Xmas! My cousin has 7 and I find that totally appalling...