Is having a child -- even one -- environmentally destructive?

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2005/11/16/gree.DTL

GREEN Maybe None
Is having a child -- even one -- environmentally destructive?

Gregory Dicum, Special to SF Gate
Wednesday, November 16, 2005

:eyes:

What's his problem? If he believes that strongly about ensuring the extinction of the human race, he should put on his purple jogging suit and go meet the Mother Ship NOW.

Hypocrite.

Jawn, you gotsa way with words

:rofl:

but I do agree to a point that we could do better as a world with FEWER people, so I just say support anybody who does not wish to have children. Instead we encourage and even force people to have children to support our economic system. Making birth control and abortion illegal would just make a bad situation worse.

What a hypocrite.

isn't personal suicide the logical outcome following the revelation of human malignancy?

there's ZPG and replacement breeding. One couple over 400 years can have a million descendents or more. If you did the math, and figured that everyone who did not have children today and was under age 45 had just one child and all their kids had just one child per person every 25 years. You probably still would have an unsustainable population growth rate. We are headed towards 12 billion people in the year 2040 if not before. It is not likely that I will be one of them at age 78, but that seems like wall to wall people to me.
Still, it is one thing to push for ZPG and another to call for human extinction.

requires more than 2 children per couple. I'm not sure what the exact ratio is, but there have to be additional bodies to make up for the kids that don't live to adulthood.

Having a child every 25 years is going to lead to a population increase. My replacement is born when I am 25. My wife's replacement is born when we are fifty. If we live to be 75 there is 3 for two. If we goto 100, there are 4 for 2.
Then again, you have a point, not every child lives to 25, and not every adult lives to 50, but that might be compensated by the people who have babies before they are 20.

how long you live (except that you have to live long enough to be able to breed. It depends on how many children each woman has, on average. Men don't count because each one has practically unlimited breeding potential given available females. They could sire a child a day with no problem.

Each woman, on average, needs something like 2.3 or 2.6, I don't remember the exact number, of children, in order for the population to replace itself. If the number is higher, then the population grows. Smaller, and you get the situation in Europe, especially Russia, where the population is shrinking.

Shrinking populations are dying populations.

But it doesn't matter how the women space out their kids. There simply have to be enough of them. AT 50 years, you should have stopped breeding for the sake of your wife and your kids both. I had a kid when I was 40, and that's tough enough.

starting with fifty males and fifty females who are age 15. If the average lifespan is 60 and the average is two kids by age 20, then the population grows to 300 in 25 years and then stabilizes. If the average is two kids by age 30, the population only grows to 200 in 15 years and then stabilizes. If the average lifespan is 80 and the average is two kids by age 20, then the population grows to 400 before it stabilizes. If your population density is already higher than the land's carrying capacity, then that short run increase is not desirable.

I disagree that a shrinking population is a dying population. As a Dakotan, I tend to view any population density over 10/sm as being packed like sardines. In a vacuum, there is no reason why Europe could not reduce their populations to a more reasonable density and then stabilize them there. In the real world, that would probably lead to labor force problems, and also lead to stable (or shrinking) nations being over-run by breeding nations looking for lebensraum, but in that case, they are not dying, they are being murdered.

your argument is semantics. Yes, if people die earlier, the population will not grow as much. But that's not what the whole thrust of civilization has been about. It has been to extend the lifespan and make it more comfortable. Medical advances, information technology, healthier choices, art, music, literature. As opposed to "nasty, brutal, and short", the natural life state of mankind. Nobody, including obviously, the members of this organization that want to lead mankind to voluntary extinction, wants to shorten their own lifespan.

As for for your 'in a vacuum' statement, well, anything is possible to an ivory tower intellectual. But Europe, and we, do not live in a vacuum, but in a real world. I see no distinction between my "dying" and your "being murdered", as you are using the terms. The end result is the same.

Can you spell H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y? The man is a hypocrite, pure and simple.

I always feel that people that have advice on how others should live should first practice it themselves. the fact that this man is still alive is enough reason not to take anything he says seriously.

He sure as hell is still consuming. I bet he prob hasn't had the greatest luck on the breeding side, too.

they seem to lack a rather vital gene. Glad they aren't breeding.

you make sure those grandkids of yours breed their asses off :hi:

Thanks.

Personally, I have always rather enjoyed breeding.

Like the time that writer for the Tampa Tribune said he wanted to create a sancuary for lovebugs b/c they were gettting hit by cars, and Rush Limbaugh picked it up and ranted about Liberal Whackos...whne the whole thing was a hoax

http://www.vhemt.org/aboutvhemt.htm#serious

The web site certainly looks a bit tongue-in-cheek but the guy who wrote article in the SF Chronicle seems to take it seriously.

For me, it was this morning's eyerolling exercise.
:D

that doesn't mean it's up to Gregory Dicum, or me, or anyone else to decide who should or who shouldn't reproduce.

I must say that there are grains of truth contained in the guy's nutty ideas. Personally, I have no wish to "breed" or reproduce, but I'm delighted that my parents did, and I encourage my nieces & nephews to produce babies for me to spoil & love! In the long run, the problems of overpopulation will take care of themselves, one way or another, without any need for self-mutilation on the part of earnest but misguided persons such as Mr. Knight.

nt

Quack!

For one thing many humans have lived in harmony with their surroundings, like in South America, Africa, Australia and the Pacific until technologically advanced humans moved in, mostly those of European decent. So if he wants to eliminate the white race, then he might be right, but we know that too is nuts. Most white people care about their environment, so how do you decide in the future those who wont be caring?

Also, many zero population proponents forget that each generation must be populated in order to have enough labor for those decades because half the population at any give time is not productive and must be supported, the children and the elderly.

I defend the right of us to exist!
The earth is NOT more important than human existence. In fact, it is a parrntership, but most people seem to view the earth as only something to be exploited which is a shame.

to human happiness and sense of well-being. Check out this ad for, well, you'll see...

http://www.nothingtoxic.com/playVideo.asp?id=432&v=4

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

I suggest we begin searching right this minute to find "breeding couple(s)" and demand that they stop their mindless, thoughtless, "breeding."

This guy is grappling with real questions. The writer of the article is not the one quoted in the original post.

One thing that seems to be universal. None of us can see MYSELF as the problem. We want to blame other people and their way of life, but the facts are stark, as cited in the article. No amount of righteous indignation is going to change them.

snip>

In 1994, Charles Hall, an ecologist at SUNY Syracuse, performed a life-cycle analysis of the average American (PDF file) by determining each person's lifetime share of the nation's total consumption of various resources. It's the kind of study usually undertaken for assessing the impacts of a new product or policy, and the results are unsettling.

Hall and his colleagues found that a single new American born in the 1990s will be responsible, over his or her life, for 22 million pounds of liquid waste and 2.2 million pounds each of solid waste and atmospheric waste. He or she will have a lifetime consumption of 4,000 barrels of oil, 1.5 million pounds of minerals and 62,000 pounds of animal products that will entail the slaughter of 2,000 animals.

"In terms of energy usage alone, a convenient measure of environmental impact," Knight says, "the average Ethiopian uses one 310th of what we use. So when an American couple stops at two kids it's like an Ethiopian couple stopping at 620."

snip>


I think he's asking a valid life-question. Should I have a child or should I adopt, or teach, or enjoy loving my nieces and nephews. I'm not sure why this is raising such an uproar.

Perhaps its the smuggery of such a suggestion. Perhaps its the ultimate form of intrusion into one's private life. Perhaps because it would appear that the "final solution" approach would be geneocide, e.g. you'd consume a hell of lot less if you were dead, not just "don't have kids." I mean if you buy into the premise, either you stop consumption, stop excretion, stop farting and all other activities, or you are untrue to the cause. If you buy into that position, it would be half hearted to just stop at not having kids, so, IMHO, its bullshit. Is bullshit OK, being that its not human shit...

Smug is thinking our OWN little dears are exempt from natural laws. I know this because this is exactly what I think about my own precious children. They NEED their hot water.

and the idea that if one realllllllyyyyy cares, then they wouldn't have kids.

OK, so now the test of ones righteousness is the total obedience to "natural laws"? So I'm a better person if I bathe my kids in cold water? Isn't that a waste of water? Shouldn't we not bathe? Farting causes methane release, should we not fart? We exhale CO2, should we not breath.

I don't really care if its smug or not smug. Its BS nonetheless.

Liquid, solid, and atmospheric waste here includes bodily wastes (all of which are almost immediately recycled)?

What is the point of comparing Americans to Ethiopians? What about Ethiopian-Americans? If you're saying we should live like Ethiopians if we want to have kids, I've got a better idea: let's feed that Ethiopian so he/she's not malnourished and has a decent life expectancy. Let's stop assuming that because we might be able to survive on an Ethiopian's consumption, that anyone in the world should have to.

Not too argue that Americans aren't ridiculously over-consumptive. But this hysterical crap doesn't help matters.

Just sayin'.

to thin this herd.

Misanthropes unite!

and on what are supposed to be the Progressive internet boards we have people holding up someone in caricature for supporting zero population growth.

How sad.

and the planet's ecosystems are dying due to overconsumption, waste, and apathy far more than overpopulation stress.

Is ZPG a possibility? No. Is addressing overconsumption and waste not only a possibility but a responsbility for the most powerful nation on earth? You bet--and it ain't happening.

The situation is getting worse. There is really no way around this, unfortunately. Its ecosystems cannot renew themselves because they have been depleted.

Wake up.

Changing any number of things would improve the environment rather than destroy it.

it's a hard sell getting people to voluntarily lower their living standards. It's even harder to get them to continue to produce so that they can lower their's while using their excess to raise up other's living standards. Hardest of all, IMO, is to get those who do not have a high living standard to give up their hopes and efforts to get one.

It's a challenge for all progressives.

If you want to convince people to do something, you'd do better to involve them in the process. "We have a problem with (issue). What can we do to make it better?" One of the biggest hurdles to all of this is the power of corporate interests over popular opinion. Until we can tame the sociopathic parasite using us for profit, it will continue to hypnotize the masses with its siren's call to consume and stop thinking.

On what are you basing your statement that there are "too many people on the planet to support them all" :shrug:

I sure hope not. It's more than overconsumption and waste, it's sheer weight of numbers. That is is you care about sharing the Earth with the rest of our fellow creatures. Or if that don't float your boat then if you care about people having quality of life.

Difficult? Absolutely. But absolutely necessary. The alternative is too grim to contemplate.

Every life form, in every niche, increases in population until the niche's resources cannot support the population. The equilibrium that is reached invariably involves some starvation. There is no animal or plant in nature that practices birth control, or that does anything, in fact, except do anything and everything possible to maximize its reproduction.

Yet somehow we are unnatural because we are the same in this respect as every other thing in nature.

Interesting.

and are subject to the environment rather than in control of it. Instead of dying off, as other species, our species has come up with ways by which we exploit it as no other species can.

Instead of dying off, or depopulating naturally, we use Science to better harness and further deplete the environment. The by-products of this manipulation become ever more toxic. If you want to unleash energy, take oil from the ground, analyze it, refine it, and burn it and obtain more energy than previously possible.

Eventually, you suffer in the by-products, and the by-products become ever worse and more difficult to absorb. Even environmentalists admit that only nuclear energy can provide for the world's population in the future, but the half-life of plutonium is 24,000 years -- longer than all of known human history.

Instead of dying because there is not enough corn, we have fundamentally re-engineered corn, which in turn opens a Pandora's box of repercuassions in itself, too extensive to go into here. Eventually -- eventually -- it will be completely and irrevocably altered, and will be unable to support us any longer.

At that point, whether we outlive it or it outlives us is a Hobson's choice.

We are in control of our environment, but out of control? Genetically-modified corn provides far more food than "natural" corn per acre, but it will be "unable to support us any longer"? Because the half-life of plutonium is 24,000 years no solution for storing it or recycling it is possible? Humans should be depopulating "naturally", as in starving to death? No other species has come up with ways to exploit nature to survive?

is that when all someone can come up with is ad hominems, their argument is toast.

Feh.

Open your mind. Listen and learn.

While I decided at an early age not to have children because of the same concerns that this person has I do not advocate the races' extinction.That we must begin getting very serious about stopping and reversing population growth is absolutely necessary. Through empowerment of women, education, incentives and other means short of coercion we should aim to make the one child family the norm until human numbers match carrying capacity. Being childless should be de-stigmatized.(Not that it has bothered me, just going with what I see on the internets.) The longer we jerk around the lower that carrying capacity will be.

In the short term we might preserve some of the biota that we share the planet with and in the longer term our civilization might survive. I have very little hope that we will accomplish this. I fear that by the time the will is found that things will have gotten so bad that it will be a totalitarian effort. We can do better if we start now.

God what a silly discussion.

You see, you have to be pretty alienated from your essential being to believe that a human being is somehow "unnatural," separate and apart from all other parts of nature. This is the mindset behind viewing human activities as "destructive" of "nature."

The relative adaptive success of various life forms has drastically re-shaped the face of the world in many ways over the course of the development of life on earth. Land animals, grasses, dinosaurs, mammals, flowering plants, trees, all have had an impact.

Our current success as a species is now altering the ecological balance.

But why is the result now somehow not natural also?

then the argument is beside the point. There are well-known examples of ecological collapse due to overpopulation pressure in human history (Easter Island is the most dramatic). The unfortunate effect of these collapses was the decimation of the civilizations in question. They overshot their resource base.

Is this what is going to happen on a worldwide scale? I don't know, but if we do decide to have children, let us do so thoughtfully.

More people will only create more trash on this planet.

There is no point if no one is here

(I feel like Im losing IQ points just participating in this inane discussion)

The point is we should all hari-kari for the sake of the bees and the flowers. Get it? :silly:

this awful world these days" yet again.

So what "days" would be preferable to bring a child into? The 1700s, maybe, with no clean water, no reliable food supply, no decent medicine, and so on?

Furthermore, "Voluntary Human Extinction Movement?" "Phasing out the human race." What an asshole. If he thinks the human race is so bad, why doesn't he start eliminating it with his own self, instead of continuing to crowd the Earth with his presence?

Redstone

People can live in well-built airconditioned houses, have 50" TVs, vacation in the tropics, and generally live healthy, happy, middle class lives, on far less than half the earth we use now.

It's a matter of current economics not accounting for the full 'cost' of things in their 'price'.

This is why we shouldn't tax incomes and productivity but rather tax natural resource use, extraction, and pollution.

Of course there are trade-offs: no one who just retired and bought a house wants their taxes based on the resources their using, but everyone who works for a living would benefit; retirees could be grandfathered out with a homestead exemption.

Perhaps the more people we have the better chances we have of having more intelligent people to help us out of things and better leaders.

:cry: what's the point? :cry:

in countries like the US or places like Western Europe where the birthrate is at or below zero? Everyone should stop breeding? Gives the human race a max of about 100 years until all of us are gone...and yeah, THAT makes sense...let's do what this whackjob's foundation suggests...make the humans extinct...

subjektProdigal