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Shevonne to Shevonne's feed, Parenting-A-Go-Go, Environment

The Best Way You Can Go Green: Have Fewer Children - http://www.treehugger.com/files...

August 4, 2009 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Brian Baggett, (jeff)isageek, Violet Mae Lim and 50 other people liked this

"Forget changing your lightbulbs, driving a car with high fuel efficiency, adopting a vegetarian diet or even switching to green power. If you live in the United States and really want to reduce your carbon emission legacy, perhaps the single largest change you can make to your life is commit to have fewer children. That's the word coming from LiveScience" - Shevonne from Bookmarklet

26 more comments

I don't know...I still want four. Now I feel selfish - Shevonne

aww ..But if i may play Devil's advocate for a second. So the extreme green thing to do would be just to have none at all, are those people doing the world a favor? - Tate

Also, the size of the footprint isn't limited to the children one makes, but it grows for generations (for each child they make and their childs etc). - Jemm

Let's just take this a step farther. If you're really serious about going green...kill yourself....immediately :) - Rah-PM 2012

@Matthew How about our footprint affecting other countries? One person in the US consumes tons more than one person in another country. - Shevonne

@Rah =O haha - Shevonne

MALTHUSIANISM FTW! - Joe The Sausage

>:) - Rah-PM 2012

Before overpopulation is taken as a serious problem in every country and culture, I don't really care about other "green" things. It's problem for those who reproduce. This globe will hold for my lifetime, anyway. - Jemm

@Matthew You are probably right, but do you think it's also companies fault because people are usually where the jobs are? - Shevonne

Well I botched that one... Rahsheen - I love your comment. - Robert Freeze

Shevonne, adopt! - Eivind

@Eivind I plan to adopt, and that would have been #5. =D - Shevonne

Maybe you can by a quota from someone else then (like we do with carbon dioxide) :) - Eivind

=D - Shevonne

This can't work if it's voluntary. Generation 1: Ten people care about the environment and each have 1 child. Ten people don't and each have four children. Generation 2: Now how many people care about the environment? On the other hand, education and prosperity tend to make people have fewer children. If we can create an educated and prosperous world, population will control itself naturally. - Bruce Lewis

This article promotes idiocracy, as Bruce outlines. If you truly care about the environment, you should have lots of kids, then raise and teach them how to live enviro-friendly. It demo-shifts the next generation in a direction in line with your values. - Trent Hamm from iPod

...but by the time our great-grandkids are old enough, we'll be living on Mars, and altough it's smaller in size it has more land mass so many more people can live there and procreate like minks. All we have to do is get Schwarzeneggar, er, Quaid, to start the reactor that turns the ice core into air. Come on Cohaagen, give deese people da air!!! ;) - .LAG liked that

What about having no/few children, and teaching all children about the environment. I plan on teaching my young cousins, nieces, and my bf's nephew about the environment. But I rather adopt then push out a kid of my own. Why do you have to have a herd of your own to teach them Trent? Plus, having a lot of kids, in my opinion, is hypocritical. I don't understand the defensiveness around procreation. - <3Heather<3

Because just preaching to a niece or a nephew has little impact if they're raised in the typical disposable American household. I know this firsthand. - Trent Hamm

I don't really agree with that. There are a huge number of school programs on recycling and other eco things that result in children influencing their parents to change. Plus, I don't just preach I teach and show. :) - <3Heather<3

Having less children is supposed to lessen the carbon footprint? That is bunk. Just a quick read of the article shows: "Each Chinese Child Has One-Fifth the Impact as US Child For sake of comparison, researchers found that the long-term impact of a child born in China has only one-fifth the environmental impact as a baby born in the United States." -- me thinks the actual number of... more... - Andrea Schmitz

I heard a snippet on the radio that noted that a stable marriage typically results in a smaller overall environmental impact than one that divorces and creates two households. (one moderate household vs two smaller households, but with a larger combined footprint). They can find a green spin on anything, you know. - Heather Solos

Just a wild guess - Octomom didn't write this article did she?? ;-) - Jannifer @wordsforliving

At last, someone is getting it. It has and will always be about resources and a climbing world population is hardly going to help. - Kevin J Hatton

@Kevin: Exactly. No kid causes less footprint than a kid with all the possible green upbringing - no matter how it is measured. - Jemm

There's definitely a huge difference in the impact of a kid raised by parents with environmental concerns in mind then by parents who will buy their child anything and everything. However, there is always a minimum impact. Transportation of food, clothing, toys, furniture, ect; the products themselves, water usage, waste created in terms of trash and sewage, ect. Having no/few children... more... - <3Heather<3