What's up? Usually when I tout procreation, there's no end to the scolding. But my guest post on Sustainablog has generated almost nothing. The Treehuggers were not similarly restrained.
While we're on the topic, I ran across this passage in Cradle to Cradle:The goal is zero: zero waste, zero emissions, zero "ecological footprint."
As long as human beings are regarded as "bad," zero is a good goal. But to be less bad is to accept things as they are, to believe that poorly designed, dishonorable, destructive systems are the best humans can do. This is the ultimate failure of the "be less bad" approach: a failure of the imagination. From our perspective, this is a depressing vision of our species' role in the world.
What about an entirely different model? What would it mean to be 100% good?
Comments
View as Flat
amazingdrx Posted 12:43 am
14 Jul 2005
Too many foxnews viewings?
It's like your dirty hippies dancing round the fire worshipping satan entries.
Overcompensation for your hair farming years. Hehey.
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:51 am
14 Jul 2005
Answers to our problems have to fit within certain parameters. Just as you should not be asked to stop walking upright (which by the way, would greatly slow the consumption of resources if you could convince people to go against their genetic programming and crawl), you should also not be asked to commit suicide or to remain childless. There are limits as to what should be asked of people.
Many childless envrionmentalists (although not all) who profess that they are childless for altruistic reasons (to save the planet) are in reality childless because they don't want kids for personal reasons or have not yet been asked by a partner to participate in creating a pregnancy. They naturally use the fact that they are childless to earn brownie points. That is OK though because the fact that they have no children, regardless of the reason, does help reduce strain on resources. It is OK to have a kid or two and it is OK not to have a kid or two. Many environmentalists who were once critical of those with children (me) change their tune when they meet the love of their life and have children as a result, which is natural and healthy. Waiting to have kids until later in life also has a dramatic effect on reducing strain on resources. Having a kid when you are thirty instead of twenty may allow your child to take the place on this planet of a deceased grandparent or great grandparent.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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CM Hersh Posted 10:52 am
14 Jul 2005
"If I could remove my ecological footprint entirely, the earth would endure 0.000000000000167% less insult (or assuming I have five times the average footprint, 0.000000000000667%). Let's say I zero out my footprint and refrain from having my two children, and furthermore, all three of us would have had ten times the impact of an "average" person. The earth is thereby spared 0.000000000005% the damage. Big whoop."
This is the same argument made by every developer looking to fill wetlands, every farmer with cows in the creek, every timber company clear-cutting a parcel, and every SUV driver on earth.
If you think the earth has a sustainable number of people, even if N. Americans reduce their resource consumption to the European level, or even less, then I want some of what you are smoking.
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amazingdrx Posted 11:34 pm
14 Jul 2005
Mow-ronic observation on a mow-ronic topic! Hehey.
You a mind reader now bio-d. Youse guys is mighty sensitive around this issue.
You need someone to reign in your paranoia over enviro-political correctness. I am that someone.
It might be painful but you and dave need it badly.
Have kids, procreate! Your kids will be green voters and activists, vastly overcompensating for their "footprints".
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jdhlax Posted 3:03 pm
16 Jul 2005
It's unnatural not to breed. Unfortunately, it's also unnatural to circumvent natural population controls, as humans have done for over 10,000 years. Because humans failed to lower their birthrates to compensate for their circumvention of natural population controls, we now find ourselves with at least 500 times too many people.
It's too bad that those who don't recognize the overpopulation problem for what it is try to denegrate those of us who've made sacrifices to try to lower the human population by not breeding. Sure, there are people who don't have kids because they don't like them or because they can't find a suitable mate, but there are also many of us who would have had families if the world weren't overpopulated.
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:40 pm
16 Jul 2005
and I did say "...many (but not all)..."
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com
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City Hippy Posted 9:21 pm
16 Jul 2005
I have been aware of overpopulation as an issue for a decade but the logic of the debate seems absurd to me in the long-term.
So here is my take...feel free to correct or clarify. I am sure you will ;)
Premise 1:
There are too many people on this planet for any realistic green and fair sustainability.
Premise 2:
By breeding I can only contribute to overpopulation.
Premise 3:
The only people who will not breed are those with enough of a conscience about overpopulation to act responsibly.
Conclusion 1:
If people who appreciate the reality of overpopulation don't breed then they are selectively breeding themselves out, the part of humanity that understands the problem will become weakened and lesser in numbers.
Conclusion 2:
Without those people those souls who would not act selflessly to prevent overpopulation will become more numerous and stronger.
So the logic of saying 'we are overpopulated so don't breed' leads to a world devoid of caring green people and a world full of materialist selfish people.
Genius!
To me...it therefore makes sense to breed! Responsibly! For me after 1 (or 2 kids max)....I plan to adopt! And bring up all my kids as green and as fair inhabitants of the planet as possible.
Thoughts?
Namaste
CH
a href="http://cityhippy.blogspot.com[/a]
City Hippy (http://cityhippy.blogspot.com)
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jdeely Posted 1:00 pm
17 Jul 2005
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accel2 Posted 11:47 pm
17 Jul 2005
A) Just because you're an environmentalist doesn't mean your children will be
B) People who are not environmentalists may have children that become environmentalists
A couple of the commentaries above made really creepy claims: for example, that if the environmentally-minded don't have babies, that will somehow decrease the population of environmentalists in the world? I hope you don't mean genetically. I really doubt that genetics determine much of one's eco-consciousness. Or the claim that if enviros have children that will increase the number of enviros in the world. I'm not an expert, may be parents really can influence who their children become. But, I have seen many overly cloying, preachy parents of all persuasions who have sent their kids life-paths in the completely opposite direction by being too overbearing.
One other question for the pro-baby set: How can you justify having biological children when there are millions of orphans worldwide who need parents and families, any more than you can justify buying a pure-breed dog when there are millions of dogs needing adoption who will be euthanized?
As a disclaimer, I plan on having one or two children one day (as well as adopting). I guess my perspective is that #1 in the case of something as personal and weighty as having children, I just don't give the environmental issues as high priority as my personal preferences, and #2 I will do everything else within my power to make my having children a positive, not negative thing for the planet.
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City Hippy Posted 1:12 am
18 Jul 2005
Many assumptions are made...I think it is fair to assume however that in general children tend to follow similar paths to their parents more often that not...hence the cliche saying...the apple does not fall far from the tree.
For me the assumptions stand but you are right to highlight them as assumptions.
Namaste
CH
City Hippy
http://cityhippy.blogspot.com
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jdhlax Posted 2:21 pm
18 Jul 2005
Furthermore, even if it were true that without breeding enviros couldn't produce any more enviros, how could we lower the population if we didn't stop breeding? As accel2 said, if you have kids, you either don't know about the overpopulation probem, don't care about it, or think that your personal desires are more important than the rest of the planet, as most Americans, and maybe most people, do.
Jdeely, you're lost. Ecologically there are over 500 times too many people on Earth. We're centuries away from declining populations being a problem, absent an unforeseen catastrophe that wipes out billions of people.
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