This article is about only having one child for fear of increasing future’s carbon footprint:
In some sense, you are responsible for the carbon emissions of your descendants,” he said in an interview. He added that the impact on population growth and consumption of resources are also important to consider.
Then yesterday, I went to this event:
As soft-impact tourism, ArtWalk is non polluting and is inclined to attract people respectful of the community while generating community pride.
The random question for today is: Am I also responsible for the non polluting art of my descendants? Who will buy this non-polluting art (and let me tell you, it wasn’t cheap) if we have no descendants? What is my carbon footprint when I drive to the non polluting art event? Hmmm. High class problems, to be sure.
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Ouch! Brigitte hurt herself falling over backwards while trying to fetch eyeballs that had rolled a little too far.
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Tanya ponders: More art (AKA stuff) and less decendants (AKA consumers)… isn’t that what Al Gore wanted from the start?
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Véronique adds: Excuse me while I pull out my soapbox. I think the one-child-as-environmental-statement is a cop-out. It’s the kind of excuse people who are too self-absorbed to have a larger family use to make themselves look more self-sacrificing. It’s like couples who live in expensive houses, driving expensive cars, going on expensive vacations and tell you they would have “much preferred staying home to raise the kids but couldn’t afford it…” Why not just assume the fact that kids get in your face? Not giving a child a sibling is a decision that the only child does not make but that he or she will have to live with for the rest of his or her life. Even after the parents die. I personally think it’s unfair but I have six children so take it or leave it.
There is a mansion on my street. It’s likely three times the size of my house and my house is about 3,000 square-feet. Like me, the owners have two vehicles that they use to go shopping etc. But unlike me, the owners have two kids. They are driving the same distance I am to buy food and gas and drive their kids to activities. Except that they are doing it for four people, I am doing it for twice that number. So who has the bigger carbon foot-print? The problem is not the number of children. The problem is our lifestyle.
Excuse me while I pull out my soapbox. I think the one-child-as-environmental-statement is a cop-out. It’s the kind of excuse people who are too self-absorbed to have a larger family use to make themselves look more self-sacrificing. It’s like couples who live in expensive houses, driving expensive cars, going on expensive vacations and tell you they would have “much preferred staying home to raise the kids but couldn’t afford it…” Why not just assume the fact that kids get in your face? Not giving a child a sibling is a decision that the only child does not make but that he or she will have to live with for the rest of his or her life. Even after the parents die. I personally think it’s unfair but I have six children so take it or leave it.
There is a mansion on my street. It’s likely three times the size of my house and my house is about 3, 000 square-feet. Like me, the owners have two vehicles that they use to go shopping etc. But unlike me, the owners have two kids. They are driving the same distance I am to buy food and gas and drive their kids to activities. Except that they are doing it for four people, I am doing it for twice that number. So who has the bigger carbon foot-print? The problem is not the number of children. The problem is our lifestyle.
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“It’s the kind of excuse people who are too self-absorbed to have a larger family use to make themselves look more self-sacrificing.”
It can be, yes. But why do you consider having a larger family a good thing? The way you write that, you are almost suggesting that people are supposed to breed like rabbits, and for someone to choose otherwise is such an abnormal act they need an ‘excuse.’
I plan to never have any children. I’m honest about my reasons though – I’m lazy, and I think I’d make a terrible parent.
First, I take offense at being described as “breeding like rabbits.” My husband and I are not animals, nor are our children. There is 6 of them, born over 13 years: not exactly a rabbit population. You make a good point but you are rude and this takes away your credibility. That’s too bad. You ask why I consider having a larger family to be a good thing; I ask you back: why do you consider that parents of large families reproduce mindlessly?
I don’t think that having a larger family is an absolute good. To succeed at raising a large family — and I define success loosely as raising responsible and competent adults — you need love and commitment. The world is probably better off if those too lazy or selfish to squeeze it out of themselves avoid passing it on.
You can’t give what you don’t have. I am not suggesting that everybody should have a lot of children. What my husband and I are doing is not for everybody. Mostly, it’s not for the faint of heart or those without a strong command of their nerves. My husband and I were given a lot in life: lots of love, lots of opportunities, lots of plain old luck and good circumstances. Now we are passing it on. I don’t know if that’s what rabbits have in mind when they reproduce. Maybe. I could be surprised.
All I am saying, and I will stand by that point, is that the decision to have ONE child is a decision made by the parents for reasons relevant to the parents. These reasons might be health related, emotional or financial. But this decision will have a lifelong impact — it doesn’t have to be a negative one — on the only child. So in that sense, it’s an unfair decision that should be seriously motivated. But hey, life is unfair.