Want To Go Green? Have Fewer Children

[TheBiodegradableMan]

I wish people would focus more on improving life than they do on creating it.

Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

[Trinifar]

There is a link to the original editorial in this post: population pressure in the news « Trinifar.

Thanks for the tip August.

[Mantra]

Originally Posted by krystof

I really think that ample economies of scale are achieved by selling 10 million Cokes per day, not 400 million.

Also Imp, I hope you were simply not alive in 1965. The USA population was 100 million and we proudly did not have visible homeless people in every major city. Also as often as not only one parent had to work regularly. If however you were alive in 1965, then I can imagine no reason for your opinion.

In my opinion, the advantages of having only one child, both to a family economy and to the global environment, should be self evident. The fact that this is not considered self evident, even in a forum about the environment, is utterly dismaying.

AMEN! I couldn't have put it better myself.

The only problem is, the people that are having fewer children, for the sake of the environment, are those who are intelligent enough to think about the impact of their actions & to have knowledge of science and environmentalism. People that are ignorant and have done no research on the environment, and/or don't care about other people and the future of the planet, will continue to have as many children as they want.
This is the reason that so much of the world refuse to recycle, eat meat, drive cars unnecesarilly...etc, it's because most of the world are ignorant, as upsetting a fact as that is to have to face
I am by no means saying that you should have numerous kids beacuse it wont make a difference anyway, but I think that the message needs to be spread more and explained to people, backed up with scientific evidence, such as the OP's link. Also, If you want kids, but don't want to damage the environment, AND want to spread information about the environment onto more people, then the best thing you can do is adopt a child

[GreenRewards]

Originally Posted by imp

Absolute bunk. Higher populations, on a global level, has always led to a higher quality of life due to economies of scale.

really? I think is much easier to organize smaller group of people and they can act much more efficiently - what's about economical and social achievements of Holland, Swissland, Belgium? - to name just few - and permanent poverty problems in overcrowded India?

[August]

News - World: End of the world as we know it

We are at a tipping point in history. This is the time when Malthusian facts can no longer be ignored. We passed the peak of energy consumed per capita in the mid-1980s. What hope is there of a sustainable future when we are adding more than 80 million new mouths each year to a world total of 6,7 billion and more than 50 million new cars to an existing fleet of more than 600 million?

Compare this to the world's population at the height of the Roman Empire (200 million) or at the beginning of the Renaissance (400 million).

A short lesson in basic mathematics will provide graphic proof of inevitable consequences when a straight line meets a curve. Geometric or compound growth can easily be understood with this simple tool.

If you want to know how long it will take for a growing population to double, take the number 70 (it comes from about 100 times the natural logarithm of 2) and divide it by the percent increase. For example, interest compounding at 10 percent per annum will cause a doubling of the original amount every seven years. A country's population growth of 2 percent per annum will result in the population doubling in 35 years.

As a species we have been growing at just over 1,6 percent per annum since the 1950s. It does not sound like a lot, but this means a doubling period of 43 years. The population doubled since 1965 (3,35 billion) to today's 6,7 billion. Right now, finite resources stare world population in the face.