Can having no children save the planet? GINK – green inclinations, no kids

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    Melb69 on 23/01/2019 - 19:41

    The GINks are justifying their choice for having no children. I don't believe their argument stacks up. As for the population growth it would be worked on current trends and projections. Nothing is definitive with projections.

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  ordinaryboy on 23/01/2019 - 09:37

  What does it matter why someone else decides not to have children? You can try to 'out-logic' GINKs as much as you want, but it's none of your damn business.

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    Melb69 on 28/01/2019 - 09:04

    GINKs are using the environmental issues not to have children. At the end of the day it is up to them as to whether they should have children or not. You just might not want them, but in my opinion using the environmental impact that kids may have to not have children just sums up where I think greenies have gone mad. Its hypercritical as well anyway. As I'm sure unless you live a fully self sustaining life style your impact is just as bad with kids or not.

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  optusprime on 23/01/2019 - 10:25

  +3

  not having kids so other people's kids will have a better future, that is crazy.

  if you're not even gonna have kids, why would you care what's gonna happen to this earth? they are not your problem anymore, just live life to the max.

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    wolomolo on 23/01/2019 - 22:28

    agree not having kids seems to be a pessimistic way to escape responsibility other than resolving the real problem

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  drfuzzy on 23/01/2019 - 11:06

  Logically, one approach would be to cull humans starting with those who create the most emissions.

  A more humane approach might be to castrate adults with high consumption/high emissions.

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    idonotknowwhy on 23/01/2019 - 13:54

    Wow, this site isn't what it used to be.

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      Melb69 on 23/01/2019 - 19:37

      No its always been hidden in the background. I just had to flush them out.

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  nobarginsarehere on 23/01/2019 - 17:36

  Having no child can save your bank account

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    Melb69 on 23/01/2019 - 19:35

    Your point being.

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      nobarginsarehere on 24/01/2019 - 17:24

      Children are very expensive

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        Melb69 on 24/01/2019 - 20:51

        They also create 58T of CE per year. So are you saying don't have kids to save money as another reason for people justifying not having kids.

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          nobarginsarehere on 17/02/2019 - 20:55

          @Melb69: Yes

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  rinco on 23/01/2019 - 19:21

  +1

  Having more children increases our chances of finding another Einstein. This new Einstein will solve our issue of overpopulation. Basically the problem solves itself. Just like Mexico will pay for the wall.

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    Melb69 on 24/01/2019 - 20:54

    Mexico wont pay for the wall. That's why the US government is in shut down. Increasing birth rates in the west is the issue as the more kids you have the more emissions. Will the little Einstein be able to sort all our issues out before its to late.

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      Imitation on 24/01/2019 - 23:04

      And high immigration rates to western countries just means higher carbon emissions.

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  vicosads on 23/01/2019 - 20:50

  +1

  Want to save the world, get Africans to have less kids, population projected to double to 2.5 billion by 2050.

  There is zero benefit to environment conscious westerners not having kids.

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  captaincabinets on 23/01/2019 - 21:19

  The great book Superfreakonomics (2009) taught me, if you want to explain something, look for the incentives.

  People frothing at the mouth against 'selfish' people not having kids.
  I believe this is because they're biologically incentivised to have them, and because of our caveman tribalism, we are naturally angered by those who are different to us. Something I haven't yet read in this thread is looking beyond the child or children you have. If your child grows up to follow the same biological impulses as you did, the population stays flat, or grows (give or take the extra percentage needed for replacement levels).
  "IUPUI study finds participants feel moral outrage toward those who decide to not have children"
  http://archive.inside.iu.edu/editors-picks/research/2017-03-…

  People frothing at the mouth trying to deny climate change is happening.
  Change and sacrifice are unpleasant. Much easier to employ confirmation bias and look for whatever outlier confirms your belief.

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  CalmLemons on 23/01/2019 - 23:19

  I really hope people are not taking the advice of some of these posts.

  Better to take advice of a well rounded person who has kids.

  Would you take surgery advice from a surgeon if he has never done surgery?

  People ideally should breed. The question of whether certain people should comes down to whether that person has gained suitable experience, wisdom, perspective, endurance so that when they do care for their kids they don't become a menace to society.

  Another book people should read is Jordan Peterson 12 Rules for Life. He isn't exactly a motivational speaker but he articulates quite well.

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  SolidlyIrresponsible on 24/01/2019 - 07:23

  +1

  I highly recommend "Factfulness" by Hans Rosling as a great book that discuses some of the issues mentioned in this thread - population growth, high number of kids in poor countries, the changes across the world in the last 100 years. The author also gave numerous talks on TED about the subject.

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    captaincabinets on 24/01/2019 - 17:43

    +2

    RIP Rosling. A legend.

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  thebadmachine on 25/01/2019 - 14:19

  Any proposed solution will be authoritarian. Which can be good or bad depending on your view of human behaviour.
  Regarding carbon emissions you will have to also account for emissions from animals (predominantly mammals).
  One of the fundamental principles of life itself is to grow. A solution to stopping/preventing reproduction is counter productive (at least until we merge with technology and become semi-sentient).
  My personal thoughts on this topic would be firstly - allow a service for euthanasia to the masses. Anyone who qualifies can use the service at a cost or for free. (Lets get over this ‘we know what’s best for others concept’, yes it will be like a genocide, but rather than targeting a specific people, this one just asks for people to step up and volunteer.)
  Reduce consumption of products that require farming mammals to an absolute minimum (grow meat in labs, develop natural-synthetic hybrid materials).
  Allow a wild population of mammals to exist as a fail-safe.
  You do not need to have empathy to be sustainable, it is in fact quite a self-centred, selfish concept.
  Efficiency, this is they key word here, the solution can never be so simple, including what I have typed above, this is about 0.05% of what we actually need to achieve to become efficient life forms. Change is slow, and we may forever be in this era of ‘inadequacy’.
  Far into the future projects including the Dyson-sphere. (Harnessing more than 80% of the energy that hits the earth from our Sun). This will allow the maximum amount of progress/productivity before the sun begins runs out of energy and then truly our energy supplies will be at risk. (Current energy sources [fossil fuel/gas etc] will be considered scraps at this point. Will we be able to travel to other stars before this happens ?)

  My advice would be, don’t worry too much. We may go through an extinction level event, but we will be back in another 10 billion^ years to try again. And if we fail (stay stuck on this planet when the sun runs out of energy) we fail, nothing wrong with that. I’m sure many have failed before.

  ^citation needed

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    thebadmachine on 25/01/2019 - 22:28

    On another topic, it seems sperm counts in the modern western world are constantly on the decline. So it may be that this is the natural order of things, smaller and smaller numbers of fertile men (an effect of living in the modern world), and then eventually the ability/technology to reproduce exclusively through non-sexual means & the merging between organic human beings and synthetic artificial intelligence.

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      Melb69 on 26/01/2019 - 08:39

      As per my updated opinion on whether GINKs can make a difference. As a whole probably not. We all have to try and minimise our carbon emissions together. People and governments have their own priorities. Its like if I'm sitting next to a smoker after I've just given up because I know it's bad for me. They know its bad for them, but don't give a shite as they are addicted to it. Then I get all the outfall from their smoke. Unfortunately we may be doomed anyway unless we collectively make those changes in our lives. We have to eat and live and the changes can be great even if they are small.

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        thebadmachine on 26/01/2019 - 10:56

        I agree with changes can be great even if they are small. But as a whole change is slow, every thing is in place, and just like the changing of the perception of reality there is a resistance. I like to believe yes we can attempt to hasten this change, but in the end, the life stream is a greater dictator in where we head.
        We are all leaves floating down the stream. All apparent actions including those I’ve mentioned above could be trivial in affecting the process of human efficiency. There is much human kind does not know, and in the end our actions have the possibility of being correct, it is more of a case of ‘we got it right’ than ‘this is it’. Only time will tell.

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