Dear Tara and Umbra -

I must admit that I do make several trips to the Bay area and southern California each year to visit children and grandchildren which I am not willing to forego.  Unfortunately, Southwest Airlines has eliminated through flights to Ontario,CA so I must change planes in Oakland or Sacramento.  

The environmental contribution that I CAN claim is consuming no meat or fish products.  I have also hired Your Backyard Farmers here in Portland, Oregon to cultivate and harvest the produce of an organic garden. It's a bit spendy, so doing one's own would be far more economical.  As I have many more vegetables than I can consume, I will most likely invite neighbors to join in my efforts next year.

Other contributions I make are recyling and composting virtually all household waste, using fluorescent light bulbs, and driving a Prius.  I know you can't afford a new car, however!!

Good luck with your endeavors,

Marylou Noble
Portland, OR

How about: Don't have babies. When is the Grist going to start talking to the real problem with humans and humanity. There are too *%&^%$^ing many of us. When is the government and the people of this country going to create incentives and dialogue regarding the reduction of reproduction?I'll start taking you all seriously when you start addressing the elephant in the room. Or should we just keep moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic? Does anyone read Ishmael any more?

Here are some of the money- and CO2-saving things I've started doing this year:
stopped using the tumble-dryer - it just adds 15 mins to my laundry time to hang everything to dry on racks in the bathroom (I'm a working mom of 2, so I do laundry at night, hence can't hang outside). Only doing full loads of laundry and on a cold wash also helps.
replaced bottled fizzy water with a home-soda maker - just add tapwater and press to carbonate.
use the a/c as little as possible (keeping curtains closed during the day helps, as do screens in the skylights)
did an electrical audit, and switched off those things that drain power when on standby (the baby monitor was the biggest surprise!)
stopped visiting the mall to shop at lunchtime (a 5 mile roundtrip)

Now if only I could persuade the rest of my family that we don't need to eat meat every day! And I do need to do something about improving the insulation in my house before the winter hits.

Which has a bigger carbon footprint?  Four people flying from Indianapolis to Cancun, or four people driving a mid-size car (to accomodate their luggage)from Indianapolis to Cancun?

Being from just outside of Indy myself, I can agree that there are not a lot of transportation options.  However, when you are running to the store to buy your vegetarian goodies, I'm sure a bicycle will do you good both health and climate-conscience-wise.

Ride your bike and walk whenever you can.

Also, don't buy products that have a long and deep carbon trail to them.  Think about every little purchase you make. They add up after awhile.  For starters, try not to buy products made from plastic and reuse as much as possible before recycling.

I totally agree!!!  The earth CAN NOT handle the current population growth.  Where is the responsibilty of couples who need to have more than 2 kids???  It's selfish!!  I can understand one or two (to replace yourselves) but more than that?  And the infertile couples who spend thousands to have 1-8 and then expect their community to come running to their rescue or rely on a reality show to support them?  No sympathy here! Uh, hello....infertility is the universe's way of controlling the population!
NOBODY wants government regulation on the number of kids we can have so if everyone would step up and be more responsible it won't have to come to that!  

You can buy bulk containers or dried or liquid malt extract, hops by the pound, and yeast (which can be re-used again and again).  Walk around on recycling day and pick cap-able bottles out of recycling bins (you need about 48-70 bottles per batch).  You'll save thousands of glass bottles over your lifetime, which are totally re-useable after sanitizing and can be used again and again.  Home brew is much better for the money as well.

I'm wondering "tmakreider's" positon on the timing of when one has those babies.  At the rate I'm going, I won't be a parent before age 36.  At which point I ask, is it 'OK' for someone like me to go ahead and break that ZPG (Zero Population Growth) rule of 2 kids?  I think that anyone who waits to their 30s before they have kid #1 is not in the same boat as people starting in their teens or 20s.  The reason is simple: if all my kids follow the same pattern, our familial generations will be way stretched out (out of line with what biology intended) and it's unlikely great-grandparents will be alive when great-grand-children are born, also unlikely that grandparents will be in any shape to actively participate in the care of their grandkids.

Please also remember that around the world, the reason people have lots of children is not only to serve religious dogma, or because they were bored and having sex is cheap entertainment, but BECAUSE having a stable of children ensures security for the parents in old age because children don't always live to adulthood.  Even in our culture old age security is NOT a given.  If you want to address the "too many babies" issue, you also have to address the issue of security in old age and issue of resentful youngsters to pay the taxes to make it happen.

...and it's completely logical and compellingly written.  It's also completely inhumane and would probably take unbelievable elitism to intentionally put in place.  I fear the world that could actually accomplish this project.

Spoiler: too much food = increased fertility = more people.  Answer: take away the food, problem solved.

I appreciate DannyGirl's thought provoking comments and they raise more questions for me to think about.  However, I believe that it's not a "requirement" for grandparents to actively participate in the care of their grandkids.  In addition, these last generations are living longer than our ancestors and therefore the simplicity of your reasoning doesn't seem to apply. I believe that societal traditions are/need to change because our world is changing...which is where parental responsiblity comes in to play.  I definitely agree that our governmental system is not set up to take care of the elderly.  However, because the future is "unknown" doesnot give way to the right to bear as many children as possible.  Just writing that comment reinforces my previous post of being selfish. And nothing was mentioned that just because one bears more than two kids does not guarantee that even one of them will be there to provide.
I don't know...my beliefs tend to be black and white and exchanges like this open my mind.  Thank you!

Several people have made comments about having more than two children as being selfish.  I have to wonder, are any of these people who made these comments parents?   Having children is a great responsibility and being a good parent is very difficult work.  

To me, the really selfish people are the ones who are well educated, making good money, could afford to raise 2 or more children and choose not to have any.  Don't leave the baby making to the poor, uneducated and those who don't care about the environment then blame them for the problems that they and their children are causing.

As the saying goes, "The children are our future."  Once you are gone from this world, you will no longer be able to add or subtract to your carbon foot print.  If you have children who are taught how to live in a sustainable way, your contribution to the environment could go on for generations after you are gone.  In that case, if you had 4 children instead of just 2, your impact would be two times greater.  So, no, the argument that having more than 2 children is irresponsible and adding to the problem is just plain wrong.  

Educating our children and our parents who to live more in harmony with the environment is the key.  And as a person who choses not to have children, this could be your lasting contribution to make.  Be a good example and help educate children and parents instead of judging and condemning them.

Parents of large families by default have to be more efficient and recycle by necessity (hand-me down clothes, toys, cars, etc).  These families per person carbon foot prints can be much smaller than a single person or married couple living in a home.  I am not advocating that we should all go out and start large families, I am just pointing out that having a large family does not necessarily make the parents selfish and a larger burden on the planet.

Umbra already did a great comparison on this. Its very clear- driving is ALWAYS better. Avoid the plane. Take the car. Take the bus. Ride a bike. Walk.

I can't see a future where the government incentivises fewer children. It is a simple matter of economics. More babies=more worker drones=more money. It has been that way forever. The "selfish" attitude of the wealthy and educated who choose not to have babies may be what saves us from overpopulation. So, here's to more education!

I'm sorry, but whoever invoked ishmael to say that pop. growth is the real issue in developed nations (which I'll assume most of us are from) is a moron.  Developed nations use 12 times more energy, per person, than in developing nations.  

What's more, our population growth rates are pretty close to zero (and in some european nations, are less than zero).

I plan on only having 2 children, myself, but if we don't change the ways in which we produce and consume energy, we are done for.  Slowing population growth alone isn't going to do it, even if we froze the population at today's level, we're screwed, if that's all we do, and here's why:

The real scary thing about pop. growth in developing countries is that, eventually, these countries will move towards more 'western,' energy-intensive lifestyles.  As mentioned above, this second move increases average energy consumption by 12 time.  Doubling the world population (and energy demand) will be tough to accomodate, but if this population growth is followed by a 12X increase in per-capita demand, we're finished.  This is why China is building, on average, one coal plant a week now, after pop. growth has slowed, and not during their period of high population growth.

So the real 'elephant in the room' isn't population growth.  The developed countries need to figure out ways to maintain their 'comfortable' lifestyle on less energy, so that when developing countries start looking to increase their standard of living, cheap and efficient means of energy conversion are the standard-bearers.  The sooner we can do this, the better.

/rant

Whether or not to have children is a complicated and highly personal decision, to be sure.  It's transparently self-serving, however, to believe that bringing more people into the world is a "contribution to the environment". So is the belief that the world needs more middle-class Americans. To adopt a child who was born poor, and raise it to have as small a footprint as feasible, is admirable in many ways; but the only way to reduce one's footprint to zero is to die childless.

Having children is a natural process. We are all hardwired to reproduce, as with all species on this planet it is our primary function and to deny this is to lie to ones self. Social engineering of our society has failed time and again. Western society is already out of balance with an aging population. Look around you, in any room there are fewer and fewer children and all one sees are gray hairs. I grew up as a baby boomer and children were everywhere, there was joy in family life and today we have become a bunch of old farts sitting around on our scooters worrying about making it to the early bird special and our hip replacements. This social decline is what will destroy the human race not children. Too many resources going to support a non producing population, no other species survives like this and we can't either.

So all you social engineers out there I suggest that you start at the top and find a way to solve the real problem, which is an aging population and change the population ratios, our pyramid is up side down and too few young people will be pulled down by the too many old people. Get real no other species has this problem.

Suggestion: Let's fight all our wars with the old people, since they are the ones that voted these idiots in to office. This will "kill "two birds with one stone. Children are the future.