- Live Science -
For people who are looking for ways to reduce their "carbon footprint," here's one radical idea that could have a big long-term impact, some scientists say: Have fewer kids.
A study by statisticians at Oregon State University concluded that in the United States, the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an extra child is almost 20 times more important than some of the other environment-friendly practices people might employ during their entire lives - things like driving a high mileage car, recycling, or using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs.
"In discussions about climate change, we tend to focus on the carbon emissions of an individual over his or her lifetime," said study team member Paul Murtaugh. "Those are important issues and it's essential that they should be considered. But an added challenge facing us is continuing population growth and increasing global consumption of resources."
Reproductive choices haven't gained as much attention in the consideration of human impact to the Earth, Murtaugh said. When an individual produces a child - and that child potentially produces more descendants in the future - the effect on the environment can be many times the impact produced by a person during their lifetime.
A child's impact
Under current conditions in the United States, for instance, each child ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average parent - about 5.7 times the lifetime emissions for which, on average, a person is responsible.
The impact doesn't only come through increased emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases - larger populations also generate more waste and tax water supplies.
Here you see it in black and white: life is not cheap to these people, it is a negative.
Ive got to say that everytime I see them cutting and hacking away at the pretty forests I enjoy, just to build more fking houses for people to live in, I get depressed. When I see roadkill because animals are getting run out of their homes, I get depressed. Humans are insidious. We dont stop. We dont care about other creatures on the planet. We dont appreciate a little time not piled up in apartments on top of one another. Its disgusting to me!
ReplyDeleteI like a little open space, know what Im saying? And this seems to be something of a rarity these days. I dont want the entire world to look like NYC or Phili or CHINA, all smoggy and overcrowded and polluted. The air is all filthy and smelly. But guess where we are heading if we keep on spitting babies out all over the goddamned place?
And seriously, when do people ever stop and think about the life of the kid they are going to pop out? Do they? I certainly dont want to bring a poor little soul into this uncertain, scary world. Sometimes the humane thing to do is NOT breed like rats. Keep your town clean. Stop urban sprawl.
Life is precious, but too much of a good thing--- get it? When is the last time you flew, in an airplane? Granted, Im not looking at statistics. Im not sure I care about them. Im loving wide open spaces. Now I look down from my plane in the sky and its like havoc down there. SOOOO many houses, and roadways.
This is coming from the heart---when I was a kid, I loved playing in the woods. Now they are ripping my friggin woods down to build....HOUSES. So why am I going to pop out more kids to have a lesser quality of life than I had? To have all these problems to deal with?
Less is more. Thats what Im screaming about. Perhaps its my imagination, but simpler times with fewer people and more intimacy between those who were... thats the way to have life. We evolved in cute little tribes roaming around plains, loving nature and animals. Look at this ugly BS we have created.
Now, change your position, 'fer I bitchslap your ass over to india to tour the open sewage plant of a landscape they've got going on. U no whodis. :)
For the record, for every acre of rainforest burned or cut down, 50 acres grow back. You have to cut through the bull coming from the elites and their controlled media, because more times than not it is nothing more than scare tactics and alarmism. Global warming hysterics epitomizes this. The earth has been much warmer than it is now, and life has never withered and died. The polar bears obviously didn't die out during the medieval warm period.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with environmental whackjobs like the author(s) of this piece is, they don't practice what they preach. Ted Turner tells us the earth should have no more than 250-300 million people. That's the population of the United States, and about 6 billion people less than the current population. So you're talking about a massive, near extinction level event to wipe out that many people. Now, the kicker is, Ted Turner has 5 - FIVE - children.
This is the problem: it brings about the question of, if we need to lower the population of the Earth, who decides who lives or dies, and who decides who has the right to reproduce? The elites like Ted Turner think it's their right, their power, and they'll have as many kids as they want, while they poison the water, our food, and vaccines in an effort to sterilize and kill us. You're putting an enormous amount of power in the hands of a scant few elites, and "power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely." You tell them you want fewer people on the planet, and with 80-90% of the planet being wiped out, there's a high probability that you won't survive to see the "utopia" that emerges in the aftermath of their global holocaust.
I would love to live the way you describe; I think a lot of people would. But not if we have to oppress and kill a lot of people to do it. And by the way...we live in the most densely populated state in the country. It's not like this everywhere. :)
http://www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm
ReplyDelete"For the record, for every acre of rainforest burned or cut down, 50 acres grow back."
Okay, just a few thoughts on this.
How LONG do these acres take to grow back? What was lost in those original acres that is not going to come back? Have a look at the website below and read about the effects of human greed--I find it more probable that we dumb humans ARE destroying the "lungs of our planet".
I realize we live in the most densely populated state, but I've flown over the US and paid good attention at the open/populated spaces. It was just amazing how we spread and consume every free bit of real estate we possibly can. We are like a virus.
Where did you get this fact about the rainforests? Now please do not feel I am on the attack... but from what I know, when they cut, they consume the land and use it for cattle farming and such. By no means am I an expert on this. There are probably a few books to read, a few documentaries to see. It would take alot of information to revamp my mind so as to find the quote above plausible. Alot of truly caring independent environmental organizations and good scientists have their eyes on this issue closely, and blowing the whistle.
I do think humans are so greedy, we will destroy our beautiful world, and then ourselves. Just look around at the mindlessness. Of course, I hope I am wrong.
A documentary just came on: what will it take to destroy our planet? Guess I will tune in.
Namaste my friend. :)