
'I’m not having children because I want to save the planet' - Mimino123
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/stories-43699464/i-m-not-having-children-because-i-want-to-save-the-planet
======
DanielleMolloy
Every time I hear a rational, intelligent person expounding why they decided
not to procreate, I have to think about the opening scene of Idiocracy:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwZ0ZUy7P3E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwZ0ZUy7P3E)

Don't get me wrong, everybody is free to make their own decisions (and I would
be the last demanding from anybody to go through parenthood), but sometimes it
seems as if intelligence is not an evolutionary advantage.

There are whole subcultures of people who spend their life breeding, while
especially the DNA lines of intelligent, working women just seem to end there.
And it does not help that there are all these seemingly rational argumentation
lines against children, e.g. about environmental impact. If you can pass on
your education (and maybe some intelligence-related DNA), it may help society
more overall in the end. Think of a big birthday party of an educated
grandparent you may have visited - this procreation thing is an exponential
function.

~~~
js8
I get it. But it's their children battle. (Not to mention that Idiocracy is
not coming, general intelligence seems to be not decreasing, despite the
claims to the contrary.) Why should the people who decide not to have kids be
held responsible for the failure of evolution? They didn't invent or promote
the mechanism..

In my view, to say "you should have kids because then stupid people will win"
is as much a rationalization to have kids like "I do not have kids to avoid
environmental disaster" might be a rationalization for something else.

~~~
DanielleMolloy
I'm not blaming anybody, everyone has freedom to decide. It is better to be no
parent than a parent who never wanted to be in this role.

I want to point out that the evolutionary mechanisms are always active, and
intelligent humans rationalizing against procreation (something that primarily
educated humans seem to do) are part of the evolutionary game.

------
Ambroos
Hm. I always think these statements are a bit weird and somewhat trying to
hide something else.

I don't want children because I really don't want to have children. I think
children are a ton of work and I really don't think I'd get enough out of it
to make it worth the investment. It's a bit of a rational look at things, but
that's how I feel about it too. Being gay complicates the whole process
anyway.

I often get weird responses from people if I tell them this, as if I gave them
a slap in the face, so I get why people would hide behind the environmentalist
point of view.

~~~
glaberficken
I think age, or the stage of life you are at changes the way you think about
these things radically. The same way we think we know everything when we are
in our teens and the whole "adult" world is clueless. When we are young adults
(20 to 35) we tend to think we will never want children, but some people later
find that they change their mind. I personally believe you should follow your
natural instincts (easier said than done).

~~~
usrusr
I fully expect life at advanced age to be more fulfilling with children than
without. Even complaining that they never return your calls would probably
beat asking unpleasant what if questions. But is that really worth adding a
multiple of your personal footprint to the problems of _all_ future
generations?

------
simonsarris
"Don't have a lot of kids, it's bad for the environment" is an objectively
pro-dysgenic argument.

People with a low IQ will not understand the argument and no one with low
conscientiousness will care about it. "Don't have kids, for sustainability" is
just an argument that the children of low-IQ low-conscientiousness people
should inherit the Earth.

It's an unsustainable practice. It's also the answer to the commentor below
asking, _" If you're not having children, who are you saving the planet for?"_

Smart people need to have more children. Areas of the earth that pollute
terribly by dumping garbage into rivers, etc, need to stop. Rich nations need
to stop feeding poor nations until they have refugee-creating population
explosions, and people need to get over how mean that sounds if they actually
want to save the planet.

~~~
js8
> "Don't have kids, for sustainability" is just an argument that the children
> of low-IQ low-conscientiousness people should inherit the Earth.

I'll play devil's advocate and say, maybe they should. Who do you think has a
lower ecological footprint - a homeless alcoholic or a successful scientist?
There is even a theory that posits that intelligence evolved in order to
increase entropy faster.

I have nothing against intelligence; it's a gift, as far as I can tell. But
the claim that intelligent people (with few exceptions) are somehow going to
live more sustainably is just ridiculous.

~~~
ignoramceisblis
I don't think it's ridiculous. Assuming that one component of "intelligent
behavior" is the ability to think "further into the future," that is, not
purely beholden to feeling good in the here and now, intelligent people are
more likely to make more sustainable choices (if only for their own sake).

------
azeotropic
If you're not having children, who are you saving the planet for?

~~~
317070
Animals, plants and other beautiful things. Saving it for life in general does
not sound too bad? If it goes between leaving a dead rock in space, or keeping
this lively rock around albeit without humans, that does not sound too bad.
You can turn your question upside-down. Why should there be humans around to
enjoy it in order for it to be a thing to strive for?

~~~
taneq
Earth's gonna get hit by another big meteorite at some point. When we get to
that point, any species that hasn't been lifted off the planet by humans (or
whatever equivalent is around at that point) are gonna be wiped out
regardless. We're the best hope for a continued existence in the long run, for
all life.

And if the argument is that animals are happier without humans around, you
should watch some nature documentaries. Nature is brutal.

~~~
arkh
Even without meteorite: 1 billion years from now the Sun will output enough
energy to make it a lot less enjoyable.

5 billions years from now the Earth is no more.

So long term if you want Earth based life to endure you need it to start
getting the fuck out and spread. At the moment it seems the best positioned
for this are humans.

------
pasta
_" having one fewer child (an average for developed countries of 58.6 tonnes
CO2-equivalent (tCO2e) emission reductions per year), living car-free (2.4
tCO2e saved per year), avoiding airplane travel (1.6 tCO2e saved per roundtrip
transatlantic flight) and eating a plant-based diet (0.8 tCO2e saved per
year)."_

[http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541](http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541)

[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3kn5z9/stop-
telli...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3kn5z9/stop-telling-
people-not-to-have-kids-to-save-the-planet)

~~~
wiz21c
From the study :

"For the action 'have one fewer child,' we relied on a study which quantified
future emissions of descendants "

Now imagine people taking the plane, say 40 times in their life : 40 _1.6 = 64
and living car free half during, say 40 years : 2.4_ 0.5 * 40 = 48 => total =
64+48=112.

So by changing the way of life, you can make _as much_ as your "one child
fewer" proposal. What I say is that the "one child" scenario is not much
better than changing the way we live.

~~~
hycaria
And very piously hope that the said children will be as ecologically minded,
because society as it is is definitely not going that path. Everything in
society will encourage away from a simple life.

------
chubs
I used to work with a guy who said he used to have this mentality, and now
he's older and childless, he deeply regrets it.

~~~
davidy123
There are also a lot of people who regret having children, which causes a lot
of misery too. Children are certainly a gap-filler for a lot of people, but
imo there's nothing wrong with being content with other people having them,
and plenty of ways to interact / benefit from them (aka "society.")

------
amriksohata
Save the planet? Its what humans are doing on the planet rather than having
more humans, just because a small number of people dont want children to save
the planet is not going to stop all the other humans from polluting it. Its an
ineffective solution, its better to have fewer children and educate people on
meat pollution and carbon output.

What I fear most is intelligent people having fewer children creating a even
dumber society.

------
givan
Why people are so short sighted and focus only on the numbers instead of
seeing the root cause?

The root cause is how we live and treat our enviorment, our society with it's
consumerims uses mostly non regenerable energy sources to produce mountain of
useless junk that breaks fast or it's out of fashion, driving big polluting
cars and eating lots of meat that leads for deforestation to provide land for
the crops that are eaten by billions of animals that are slaughtered every
year and many other irational things the modern man is doing to it's planet,
it's home.

Reducing the numbers while keeping this insanity going will no help much, it
will only slighly delay the inevitable.

------
stmfreak
Save the planet for whom?

I guess I should appreciate when people choose to leave more resources for my
DNA to exploit. I plan to make the most of the sentience that my genetic
ancestors wrested from the muck.

------
LandR
Why on earth is the decision of a random woman not having children on the BBC?

~~~
ignoramceisblis
Headlines and articles essentially identical to this one have occurred a
number of times throughout the years, like you point out, largely focusing on
one person or a small group of people.

I'm unsure how much viewership and engagement they expect to get from these
articles, but they obviously think it's a story that other people should at
least read (if not live by). At the expense of other matters, naturally.

------
viach
According to this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons)

She won't save the planet acting this way

------
haglin
100 billion could, without problem, live on this planet using nuclear energy
and vertical farming.

~~~
melicerte
100 Billion, all farting at least once a day, and you might have the biggest
global warming ever.

------
boblivion
Well if she finds having children not to be attractive, that's fine. But I
doubt that further decline of birthrates in the West will stop overpopulation.

~~~
gnode
Overpopulation isn't ultimately the problem, but rather over-consumption of
finite resources. If people consume resources in an unbounded way, then
population doesn't matter. The energy consumption of someone in the US is
roughly 30x that of someone in Bangladesh for instance. With advances in
technology, particularly in automation, we will be able to industrialise to a
greater extent, and consume more.

------
abstractmaths
It's an interesting question of whether someone (e.g. my future childhood))
will produce more value than they consume.

Obviously, selfishly, my own child is inherently invaluable to me. But that
kid could also grow up to make a positive change in the world, or at least
make the change which leads to a positive change in the world.

On the other hand, consumption in Western countries is already and
increasingly way too far in excess of what's necessary or healthy. So if my
kid ends up simply getting by in life, even raising them to be "eco-conscious"
wouldn't be nearly enough to offset the normal bite each person takes out of
the environmental pie. And that's just trying to break even.

I'm optimistic about this and do plan on having kids, but the goal is to raise
them to make a real positive change in the world, at a high level. That way
the cost they incur on the world will be seen as a worthwhile investment, not
a waste of resources!

------
lsd5you
Unfortunately this amounts to unreciprocated virtue. Ultimately I believe all
the demographic optimism will be confounded as we are effectively selecting
for women who are broodier (and similar for men). Having met women who 'just
love' the feeling of having a baby inside them. It's not something learned.

------
jimmytucson
Millions of species flourish and procreate without destroying the planet.
Their populations rise and fall in harmony with other species and the
resources nature provides. Only one species is destroying the planet, and it’s
not because we’re acting like animals (procreating and such).

It’s because we’re acting like humans.

We grow food where it’s not supposed to. We survive disease, natural
disasters, shortages. We live too damn long—not only as a species but as
individuals. Think of one natural check or balance we haven’t either turned
off or are actively working to. Even minor inconveniences like boredom or
unwanted facial hair we’re putting coal to flame to destroy.

If you want to save the planet, have lots of babies, live a simple life, and
die young. And if you’re wondering where I got this from, watch Disney’s The
Jungle Book. It’s all you need to know.

~~~
mavdi
> die young

No thanks, I'll just not have babies.

------
tobyhinloopen
Fine, but people that don't give a shit still reproduce. Result: More kids
that don't give a shit, and less that do.

She could better have 10 kids, so her kids can "out-vote" the kids that don't
give a shit, and they can put their head together to make a real change.

~~~
cornholio
If voting habits were genetic we could replace natural selection with
electoral selection. In a sense, Europe experimented with that in the first
half of the 20th century, didn't go well.

------
qrbLPHiKpiux
To think one persons’ action on not having one or two kids will save the
planet. Must think highly of themselves to think it will make a difference.

~~~
kawsper
Do you recycle?

~~~
Ygg2
Do you recycle anything other than tin and glass?

~~~
robin_reala
Yes? Newsprint, cardboard, plastic, metal, coloured glass, clear glass and
food waste go into seperate containers. Also batteries and lightbulbs are
collected seperately.

~~~
Ygg2
Congratulations. Outside of tin, and glass, most things on that list take more
energy to recycle than to just grow and/or extract from the ground. Keep that
good-feel-but-otherwise-non-ecologically energy flowing.

------
quantumofmalice
Intelligence and conscientiousness are > 50% heritable. Political attitudes,
including environmentalism, are also highly heritable. Adult intelligence is
between 70-80% based on genetic factors.

Articles like this are encouraging the most intelligent and highly
conscientious of us not to have children and, in the long run, will destroy
the planet rather than save it.

The right attitude is one of stewardship: we have a sacred duty to preserve
the planet and a sacred duty to produce intelligent, thoughtful children to
enjoy that planet and to carry on our work.

------
microtheo
We should develop a model, but wouldn't it be more efficient to have children
and educate them rather than letting others influence our future?

------
vincnetas
I missed that opportunity. Now my only option is to populate earth (mars and
everything else if possible) with better humans than i am.

------
ganzolo
Just making up to 2 children is having a similar impact. 2 is just bellow
population renewable rate. Is everybody was having 2 children world population
would slowly shrink.

The real deal nowadays are people having 3 or more children. Once you realize
that we are consuming 1.5 times what the earth can renew every year, it is a
complete non-sense to make more than 2 children.

------
fractalwrench
HCOL areas probably make this viewpoint more common than it otherwise would
be. It's hard enough living in Bath as a couple on the median wage, and having
children makes things very difficult financially.

Choosing between living in a really nice city and having kids is a difficult
choice.

------
klokoman
Good job, more space for people who don't care about the planet or anything
outside their tribe

~~~
notjtrig
That's what I'm thinking, my 7 year old is very pro environment. It's easy to
offset his carbon footprint as a child and he's been interested in
conservation from a young age. 10/10 would recommend

------
pixelbreaker
I'm not having children because they are awful creatures, and even worse the
grow up to become adult humans.

I am doing it for selfish reasons, it's cheaper not to have them and the
entitled shits would never look after me in retirement, so why bother?!

~~~
melicerte
We are the result of our choices ;-)

------
dmritard96
I negotiated with my wife to only have biological children below the
replacement rate barring unexpected twins, etc. If we want more kids than
this, we will adopt.

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bitxbitxbitcoin
Are there a disproportionate amount of people in the tech industry that end up
making this decision?

------
pixelbreaker
[http://vhemt.org/](http://vhemt.org/)

