The environmental impact of eating animals (by any measure, for example climate change) dwarfs all other human activities.

instead of pushing the responsibility to somebody else.

The science shows human life beyond the natural carrying capacity of the land is detrimental to the environment. So beyond reducing future generations is reducing the current generation.

Reductio ad absurdum? You bet. But the average number of children per mother in the USA is 2.4, which does not include women with no children. Including all women, the rate is around 1.87. Population replacement rate is around 2.1 children per woman in the developed world, so the USA, absent immigration, is already at a sub-replacement fertility rate.

I suppose one could go with a Logan's Run scenario with everyone being killed at age 30. Or we could do something about income disparity and get rid of the greed of the wealthy taking resources away from the rest of us.

Nobody dies from becoming vegan. Even the radical "stop having babies" idea seems tame compared to such thinking.

I don't think many are going to drink your Kool-Aid (Jonestown analogy intentional).

Did you mean Jonestown? I don't get the St. Petersburg reference...

I'm not advocating anyone offing themselves, just pointing out that future children are not the problem, we are. Getting rid of wealth inequality is the bigger problem. Just my $0.02.

I, BTW, have no children. My three siblings and I had a total of 7 children, so as a family, we are on a sub-replacement rate.

It's really not that hard (though the transition is psychologically challenging).

As for St. Petersburg, let's just say a large number of strange ideas have been emanating from there recently. Thought your inspiration might be based there.

Nope.

But if one doesn't do vegan correctly, it can kill you. If one doesn't eat the correct vegan foods to replace necessary amino acids, it's good night Irene. My sister (a nurse) has gone on a mostly vegan diet and says that it is great. I don't mean to argue that it is a bad thing, I just think that wealth inequality is the bigger hazard to the environment. YMMV.

that transitioning to vegetarianism/veganism is one of the biggest things that we can quickly, and most of the time easily, do as individuals to lessen the impact...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth

lots of little things we can do as individuals as well
https://www.naturespath.com/en-us/blog/nine-things-you-can-do-to-save-the-environment/

wealth inequality is a hazard but a bigger problem, that will take more time to remedy and will take a group effort...

We will be eating meat until there isn't any left...

Like I said, only my opinion. Your Mileage Obviously Varies.

just probably WON'T... because most of us really don't care enough

the science is clear... we just refuse to care... whether if be reducing meat consumption, recycling, driving less, etc...

Alien Technology... All are on the same scale of likely...

Not that we shouldn't try, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

I'm not sure that all republicans could be convinced. Or that it would be a good thing. And it sure as hell isn't a concept that approaches the Democratic Party's thinking about republicans.

"Reductio ad absurdum" means trying disprove a statement by showing it inevitably leads to a ridiculous, absurd, or impractical conclusion. The "future children" are not the problem, we are. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is wealth inequality. We would do better to reduce that than we would at reducing population as we are already at sub-replacement rates except in the undeveloped world. We can't reduce population too quickly without major upheavals, we need to unwind it gradually.

Getting rid of the greed of the uber-wealthy would have much greater effect on damage to the environment than "having fewer children". Idiocracy was based on the intelligent having fewer children...

Your suicide plan bears no relationship to healthier eating habits (other than being the exact opposite).

I've explained repeatedly that I am not advocating suicide, that suicide is carrying the "logic" of fewer children to the next step. You have accused me of being a troll.

You are free to shout to the heavens that if we only would become vegan, all our problems would be solved.

Just don't expect me to be convinced.

Do we instantly slaughter all animals, including wild ones? Whether you want to admit it or not, hunting and natural predation controls animal populations that would explode to vast levels without those things happening.

Stop eating domestic animals will result in their populations exploding unless we slaughtered them all or sterilized them all. My proposal is that people simply eat less meat, too much is consumed today.

Domestic animals are far too frail to survive without human intervention.
And the notion that billions of people would stop eating meat overnight is too silly to bother debating. I merely suggested an individual action that anybody can take to make an incremental improvement in the world.

I have seen cows and hogs survive perfectly fine on their own. They didn't come back to their fields or pens, they had to be found and captured. We once had a hog that had escaped from somewhere terrorizing the woods, someone eventually tracked it down and had to kill it, it was feral enough that it was not going to be taken alive.

I agree that people can eat less meat, people eat far more that their evolved body chemistry require. When I see people taking about eating a large steak or porkchop, I want to throw up, all they are going to do is pack their stomachs and take 12-15 hours to digest what they ate.

That was all my family could afford growing up, and I am still healthy in my late 70's.

Zero Population Growth? It was a movement in the 60's and 70's, but once China put their one child policy into force the movement went belly up.

...did have an impact on the demise of ZPG, I am sure.

I still believe in the power of education, though. One of the most fascinating things I've read in the past couple of decades was this: in poor rural underdeveloped societies, the average woman will have 8 babies. But give a girl schooling even up to the 4th grade level, and that drops to 4 babies. Four years of schooling may not sound like much to Americans, but it gives a person the ability to read, write, and do simple math, all of which are very powerful tools.

Other information about the availability of education for girls past the age of 12 has convinced me even more that this is the key to so much.

throughout their entire life, regardless of the number of partners or spouses. This is the kind of law required to save what is left of this planet.

My cousin was abused by her first husband, got divorced, then married a much older man who had two nearly grown children. She desperately wanted a child of her own, but struggled with infertility. She finally had a child, just one. Would you have denied her that just because her husband already had 2 kids, especially after all she had been through?

There can be no exceptions. A person would still have other choices and alternatives based on their life's priorities.

That her single child has caused mass extinction...

Humans never really want to address problems until it is too late, then they never learn from the consequences.

People having large families are the problem. Catholic teaching is a problem. Poverty is a problem, since it is a fact that poor people have more children - educate women, and make birth control available, and birth rates drop.

is not mass extinctions.

We’ll all be vaporized in a massive explosion when her water breaks!

(shrugs)

that's like halfway to demon possession right there.

That's just the way things work. The only way we humans can extend the lifespan of our species is to leave this planet at some point and colonize other systems. If we stay here, the human race dies.

I hate that phrase. She couldn't love an adopted child? Her desire to be a parent could only be fulfilled with a child of her own genes?

But how do we get third-world nations to comply? That is where the problem is, mainly.

I have always felt that the reason most folks rail against high taxes is not because of federal withholding, but rather property taxes... which are local and dictated by the school systems. This has given rise to the animus against teachers for making too much money... which is a joke...(See TIME magazine this week),

I think if a couple has more than two children in the school system at one time they should pay extra for each additional child in the system.
This would help bail out oldsters and childless couples who pay for their kids regardless.

I also think parents should pay extra for High School Sports when their children are involved. This is beginning to happen here in New York State.

Kind of off topic, but if they had to pay extra to educate those third and fourth children, I think couples would have a different conversation.
JMHO.

participation where I live which is the Phoenix area in AZ. It has been that way since my son was in high school 1999-2003.

Humans need to take some responsibility for the destruction of their own planet and overpopulation is a key ingredient to that destruction.

The penalties must be strong enough to enforce compliance.

What about the 1-2% failure rate for contraceptives? Would you require forced sterilization after the second child? Or would you require force abortions?

Your position isn't just extreme, it's immoral and quite frankly evil.

Oh, wait.

There is no rational reason for anyone to have more than 2. In general, Bill Hicks speaks for me on this issue:

Your children aren't special

The Bill Hicks set was very funny with an underlying, perhaps uncomfortable, truth.

And one that is hard to talk about with people who have children, and think their progeny are "little miracles".

This issue will not be taken seriously.

Humans don't take important issues seriously.

right up until the moment it’s not?

Fuck that.

over procreate. Pretty simple.

She may do with it what she wishes.

At a certain point all ideologies descend into fascistic control fantasies. This would be that point.

"taking responsibility and having a child" if she gets pregnant and thus banning abortions?

Yes, your ideas indeed are "pretty simple."

They're all white supremecist groups.

This is a human issue, not a racial issue.

But, most white majority countries are already under the replacement fertility rate, so it would basically be us, Europe, Russia and Australia telling Africans and Indians to have less kids.

That sounds like something Trump would get behind.

I know this suggestion isn't being made to curb the population of non-whites.

However, that's still exactly what would have to be done. For this 'policy' to be enforced, white-majority countries would have to tell Africans and Indians to have less kids (while a lot of white-majority countries could have even more kids, if they wanted to)

because couples live to around age 75, by which time their 2 kids have already produced 4 kids total.

China was more correct on 1 child policy to control population growth.

As you might have noticed, there is a tremendous resistance with a 2 child policy, good luck trying to get a one child policy past. I had one child and if I were starting today, I would have no children.

and slim to none chance for 2 child policy.

But there should be a push to stop dependent deductions at 2.
Why should singles and people with 1 or 2 kids subsidize those with a bunch of kids?

Why should the wealthy subsidize the poor? Why should property owners subsidize renters?

The answer to all those queries is simple; we are a society. We are a civilization. And we’re in a country with basically no birth-related population growth at all, so whining about some lady down the street with five sniveling brats is silly.

I have no kids of my own (two stepkids, but I haven’t passed on my genes for anxiety, male pattern baldness, and scrawniness for obvious reasons) but I will not seek to prevent others from exercising their fundamental reproductive freedoms.

There is no choice in getting old and feeble.
There are definite choices in how many kids to produce. If you choose to have 10 kids, you should be responsible to have the wherewithal to educate them properly.

Reason our population is now growing slower is because people are getting married at a later age than they used to, and they are having fewer kids than they used to. But with robots and automation expanding at a furious rate, we can do fine without growing populations.

Same thing about poor and rich. Majority of poor people are not poor because they prefer to be poor. They either had poor parents, did not have opportunity to get a better education, or simply have less capabilities. As you said we are a society and I never complain about help to poor.

on an anti-welfare rant. Seeking to control wombs via economic punishment is morally bankrupt, regardless of how well-intentioned you may be.

Fascism is fascism, folks. And the idea of controlling the reproductive freedoms of others is inherently such.

I just don't want to take responsibility for other people who produce lot more kids than they can afford. We live on a planet with limited resources. We eat too much meat which creates more CO2 and accelerates climate change.

I am for food stamps for the needy, heat subsidies to the poor, medicaid for the poor, rent subsidies for those can't afford a decent home, gov't scholarships to good students who can't afford college, and various other help to the poor.

But do not ask me to support your 10 kids because you want a big family which you can not afford.

China has successfully stopped unchecked growth in their population with the 1 child policy. We in United States do not have to go to that extreme, yet, but we should not put incentives out there to people to produce more kids than they can afford. 2 kids is enough.

If I was a freeper, I would want no abortions, as many kids as you can produce. I am strongly for choice on abortion issue.

Crises in China, the “4-2-1” problem. Fertility rates were already dropping significantly prior to the adoption of the policy (5.8 in 1970 to 2.7 in 1978) and the models used by the UN Population Division suggest fertility would have declined more rapidly without the policy.

One child replaces each parent in the long term.

with his studies in demographics.

If each and every one of us replaces ourselves with one, and only one, child in our lifetimes, then the population has to stay the same over the long-term. That's just math.

If there are surges in life-expectancy, you could have short-term increases because some folks that were expected die sooner, didn't. However, over the long-term, every person being born, would be replacing someone that died.

Average life span of a human in USA is about 75,
While a person starts having kids at age 25.
And then his/her kids again have kids after 25 years.
So 50 years pass, the original person is still alive and 2
Generations behind him are producing kids.

....unless the new lifespan is immortality.

As long as each of us produces exactly one replacement person, the population would stay stable over the long term.

Government assistance. That should help.

...

will keep these breeding bitches in line!!

For the impaired;

In order to humanely limit the damage humans are doing to the earth, it is essential to have fewer children. Children are a scourge upon the Earth, and one of my proudest accomplishments is not having any.

If not, you have overlooked a larger part of what you can do.

If you cared as much as you claim, you would take every measure humanly possible. What’s holding you back from practicing veganism?

Weak argument. In fact, you're using a well-known logical fallacy. Argumentum ad passiones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion

I have metabolic syndrome (aka a disordered insulin metabolism.) If I get the majority of my calories from carbohydrates, I suffer severe weight gain, high blood pressure and eventually Type II diabetes and heart trouble. If I get my calories from animal sources none of that happens.

On Edit: I know this because my late wife was a strict vegetarian, and I adopted her diet for about 5 years to keep peace in the household. Those were the symptoms that showed up (along with severe GERD and mood swings.)

It extremely difficult to believe you don’t understand thr benefit of a vegan diet for it’s management.

Eventually their stupidity will take them out of the gene pool.

Of course not. So let's regulate and control women's bodies. Repug plan already.

immediately after their second child is born.

There. I've solved the problem.

is to control men's?

lol

have a problem with ANYONE's body being controlled.

Our birth rate is 1.84 and population growth is 0.7.

It's the developing countries that still have many children. How you get them to change voluntarily is the real question and one which I don't have answers.

They've found that educating women is the key. Educating women, encouraging female-owned business models and encouraging their participation in the work force for pay. Those things actually cut down on the population growth. I'm not home now, but I can look up some of the articles he used as sources.

And BTW, we paid for sports, music, and extracurricular activities from middle school through high school graduation public schools all the way for both of our kids. It took 5 pregnancies to have 2 kids, and "Yes", we consider them miracles.

Birth rates tend to fall as economies develop.

By economic development.

So there's that countervailing argument to this particular strategy. Just sayin' ...

The population explosion was being discussed in the mid 1960s, and I understood the upcoming dilemma. So, I decided not to reproduce. I couldn't ask others to do that, but I could decide for myself.

Now, I'm 73 years old, and have kept that pledge.

I'm not sure it helped, really, but it was a question of ethics for me.

Serious decision. I very much wanted to be a mother someday -- my last semester in college I took a science course called Technology, Ecology, and Man -- it changed my life. One of the books we read was The Population Bomb.

I just decided to take it a step further. I didn't take a course, but read The Population Bomb and various other writings about population issues. Fortunately, the two women I married felt the same way. I brought it up with people before getting too involved with anyone, because that was the only fair thing to do.

The choice to go from 2 down to 0 wasn't complicated by some socio-biological "clock" ticking like a bomb in my subconscious.

When children are given care, love and acceptance they grow into loving productive adults

It's their very productivity that damages the environment.

in AP Lit. The conversation eventually turned to what would happen today given those circumstances.

We should all just commit suicide right now.

C'mon, man....

Having said that, the best way to get people to have fewer children is to develop economies.

My wife and I have just one kiddo.

Most of our friends have 2.

Turning us all into Shakers. No more children, no more Martin Luther Kings, no more poets, dancers, no new musicians or heroes. While I think it would be good if people used family planning and had small families I do think the species should continue.

And adoption is an option.

Also, as long as we use a hugely disproportionate percentage of resources, kids in the US are going to have a much more detrimental effect than kids in many other countries.

Because it’s going to happen to women. So please proceed.

of enforced reproductive compliance is astonishing for a supposedly “progressive” discussion board. I guess we’re willing to be Nazis for the right cause.

We can debate about 'the best/most humane ways of trying to reduce population growth', but if one calls themselves an environmentalist ... or at least someone who gives a shit about life on this planet (in particular, the non-human kind) ... you should be very amenable to SOME SORT of encouragement towards fair/humane population growth reduction.

There's way too many friggin' people, it's very obvious we're wrecking the planet, and if we don't do something VOLUNTARILY as a species? Mother Nature is gonna take care of the problem we've made for her in a way that's extremely UN-VOLUNTARY.

that people should be having smaller families, or even none at all (no kids myself), but rather with the idea of global enforcement of reproductive limits.

That goes against the very core issue of women having control of their own wombs, which is a fundamental philosophical core of Western liberal ideology — in my estimation, at least. YMMV.

Education? Sure. Encouragement? Absolutely. Laws taking away reproductive rights? Nah, fuck that noise.

What’s your proposal?

That One Child policy blew up big time. Since boys got preferential non-abortive treatment there is a huge shortage of women. The young men who are now “only” adults have grown up with more social anxieties and problems. They are reverse engineering population control now, making abortions and birth control more difficult.

I’ll look to see if there’s a link because even as I say it, it sounds almost unbelievable.

Edit: The Economist isn’t usually where I’d go for corroboration but this is on the same subject.

https://www.economist.com/china/2018/07/26/chinas-two-child-policy-is-having-unintended-consequences