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Which of your climate actions make the biggest difference? Here’s how to find out (theconversation.com)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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[+] -6 points 5 months ago (9 children)

Don't breed. Nothing else comes close in reducing your ecological footprint by an enormous margin.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago* (3 children)

    This is silly, because the whole reason we want to avoid the climate apocalypse is so that humanity can keep on existing. If everyone stopped breeding then we would be doing the work of the climate apocalypse for it. Which is silly.
    Also, anyone dedicated enough to sacrifice their biological imperative for the environment should definitely have kids and raise them properly, otherwise there'll be nobody left speaking sense in the next generation.
    Also also, even not having kids, pets, a car, going vegan and never travelling is not enough to fix the problem. The people with the power to stop this are the very, very, very rich and the corporations pulling fossil fuels out of the earth and burning them. This is a true fact.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    There is a huge difference between keep existing and breeding like rabbits.

    In 1927 there were approximately 2 billion people on earth. In 1975 we went past 4 billion. 48 years to add 2 billion people. 1998 we went over 6 billion, 23 years for another 2 billion. In 2022 we hit 8 billion.

    In 100 years we quadrupled the human population. Do you think we’d be having any of the current ecological problems if we kept the population at 2 billion?

    The earth is a finite resource. There cannot be unlimited population growth regardless of how well each individual treats the environment. We’re over 8 billion already, when do we stop? 16? 32? 64? How many billion humans can you fit on a planet?

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    How would you control the global population? What carrots and what sticks would you use to persuade and coerce people into a managed population level? This discussion tends to get into some very messy corners, because there's just no properly ethical way to do it.

    The earth is an incredibly bountiful place. If we were to stop using up its non renewable resources we would be fine. In terms of space, the population density of earth's habitable land is about 50 people per square kilometre. Compare that with a dense urban area where it's over 10,000 people per square kilometre. There's enough space.

    My argument is: yes there are problems with the human race, but attempting to artificially stem population growth is not the answer to them. Providing stable lives for the majority of people globally would be the right place to start.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    The reason breeding is bad for the environment, is because of the impact the average person has on climate. If we lived sustainable lives, breeding would not have that much of an impact.

    If you try to live a sustainable life to the best of your abilities, and you instill that same mindset and way of living onto your kids, it's perfectly fine to have kids.

    But if you're going to drive giant trucks powered by oil, eat red meat every day with a glass of milk, use and abuse plastic for everything, and be a massive consumerist, then sure; having kids is terrible for the environment because they will probably also do all of that.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago

    You cannot have a human that has zero environmental footprint. The world population has exploded over the last 100 years. There is no point in lowering your ecological footprint if we’re outbreeding any progress in a few year time.

    But if you're going to drive giant trucks powered by oil, eat red meat every day with a glass of milk, use and abuse plastic for everything, and be a massive consumerist, then sure

    You misunderstand the scale of the difference. You can do everything in your power to lower your ecological footprint, recycle at your optimum, don’t eat meat, get rid of your car and only use a bike and public transport, etc. etc. If you have 2 kids and teach them to do the same your ecological footprint will still be many times higher than someone who eats steak every day and drives 3 hummers to work while rolling coal and throwing styrofoam pellets out the window. It’s that big of a difference.

    A few numbers to illustrate, the savings in tonnes of co2 equivalent per year.

    • recycle: 0.21 tonnes
    • replace car with hybrid: 0.51 tonnes
    • eat a plant-based diet: 0.82 tonnes
    • only use green energy: 1.47 tonnes
    • live completely car-free: 2.4 tonnes
    • have 1 child less: 58.6 tonnes

    It’s not just your kids, it’s also your kid’s kids, and your kid’s kid’s kids’s. etc.

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