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by kelnos
1926 days ago
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Yeah, that struck me as odd too. The biggest thing anyone can do to reduce their future carbon footprint is usually to have fewer or no children. That's a pretty big thing to ask, though, as children are pretty central to most people's lives. It's an interesting point, though: is it better long term for environmentally-conscious people to have fewer or more children? If they have fewer, then most of the children born will be to parents who are not environmentally-conscious, and will likely grow up without an ethos of reducing their consumption, which will negatively affect public policy. But if environmentally-conscious people have more children, they will add to the drain on the planet, but raise kids who hopefully will grow up to influence public policy in the direction of less consumption. Not sure which choice will be a net benefit, but I suspect the kind of person who would make their child-bearing choices primarily on the basis of environmental impact is uncommon enough that it wouldn't make much of a difference either way. |
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Earth has produced a grand total of one species that even has the potential to be effective stewards. That's us. Earth is already on the far backside of how much longer it will be habitable due to the Sun. And I see no reason to think that any other intelligence that did evolve here wouldn't be beset by the same problems we have now.
So (IMO) intelligent, conscientious people having fewer children helps nothing. We (humans) are the best thing our biosphere has got, by a long shot, in terms of long-term preservation of life, which is something that I personally think is of great importance.