This whole "have one fewer child" thing is totally bonkers, because even on the face of it, it really only makes sense for people in Western nations with their current lifestyles. It's also an average over all the people in that country, meaning it's heavily spoiled by rich kids. Essentially, 1. you can't know beforehand how your child will live and 2. emissions don't scale linearly with the number of people (again, look at the difference between countries). And then there's the anti-humane undertone of it.
The average environmental impact of even poor people in rich nations is many times higher than even rich people in poor nations.
a) Having fewer kids is extremely environmentally friendly, in any nation, and especially the West. Each child produces around 60x the CO2 offset by one person going vegan for life. This is just CO2. Consider the countless other ways an individual pollutes the environment during the course of their lives.
b) Migration from poor nations to rich nations is extremely damaging to the environment. Consumption matches Western patterns almost immediately.
The average environmental impact of even poor people in rich nations is many times higher than even rich people in poor nations.
It's often around 1t CO2e for a poor person in developing country vs. 5-10t CO2e for a poor person in an industrialized country.
However, rich people in Western countries tend to be in the 100s or 1000s of tons of CO2e/p/y which is extremely far off from being sustainable.
But I want to emphasize that this is just the current state. How your child lives in 20 or 30 years, you don't know. It may use much fewer resources or much more. I am cautiously optimistic that they will use fewer resources than we do. The question is more whether it will be enough.
a) Having fewer kids is extremely environmentally friendly, in any nation, and especially the West
1t CO2e/person/year is roughly sustainable within the current ecosystem. Thus, many people in poor countries are at or near climate neutrality already. If people live sustainably already, then no, there is no inherent need to reduce population or necessarily have fewer children.
That's not to say there may not be other benefits to having fewer children.
Each child produces around 60x the CO2 offset by one person going vegan for life.
Again, this is true only in the current situation and in Western countries.
b) Migration from poor nations to rich nations is extremely damaging to the environment. Consumption matches Western patterns almost immediately.
Blaming CO2e emissions on migrants is a bit disingenuous. But if it helps you make the case to yourself that Western countries should do more to give people in developing nations safer lives so they don't have to flee, I guess I'll take it.
Almost every modern human uses non-renewable resources and produces greenhouse gases either directly or indirectly. At the current rates it is unsustainable. It is the exponential growth of industry, technology, and human population that has caused the dramatic shift in climate change.
The top 10% earning Americans (>$178,000/year) created 40% of the nation's pollution according to a recent study. And that factored in the industries they worked in. That still means that the majority of climate change is caused by the activity of normal people.
People may make it eugenicist but the policy can not be. For exemple if the country gives money for the first child but not the second, you reduce the intentions to have more than one. Then maybe people will kill their baby because they want a blond girl but this is their fault.
We can acknowledge reality without being histrionic. I’m not calling for an end to humanity. I’m simply explaining that human life is wasteful and inefficient. I think we should accept that, rather than pretending otherwise. Tinkering around the edges isn’t going to change the trend.
Reality isn’t “fascism.” If you can’t end bear to hear facts without screeching about fascism, consider that you might need to work in your mental resiliency. I didn’t argue to end migration from poor to rich nations. I’m simply explaining it’s catastrophic for the environment. Pick your poison. What do you care about more? The environment, or your belief in open borders?
I didn’t argue to end migration from poor to rich nations. I’m simply explaining it’s catastrophic for the environment. Pick your poison. What do you care about more? The environment, or your belief in open borders?
this is ecofascism. I can't believe your instance or this community tolerates it.
I don't think that we should focus on something specific, for sure you will not convince everyone to go vegan, but it's the same to go car free
Some people might find it easier to to vegan and stop plain that not owning a car, and other opposite, I think that at this point everything is good to take
The average trip length in America is something like 2 mi in distance. That's a distance that you could walk, and you can bike that in less than 5 minutes. So Americans really can meet a lot of their daily travel needs to the store and short errands by means other than a car.
The biggest problem in America is twofold: infrastructure and behavioral patterns.
You don't have to replace your calories from animal products with produce, foods like beans exist. Also some produce like onions and potatoes have long shelf life.
Your point is valid, but the fact is none of those are enough on their own. Even if we get rid of all emissions except for the cattle industry, wed still shoot way past the 1.5° mark. So not going at least vegetarian was never an option.
The environmentally beneficial effects of plant based diets or a vegan lifestyle are not reduced to harmful GHG emissions alone but encompass a wide range of advantages. To name some:
Reduced agricultural land use (the vast majority of land is used to grow cattle feed). This can also reduce deforestation (especially interesting in the Amazon region), increase ground water and soil quality. Avoids soil erosion. It also perserves eco systems on land and helps to mitigate species extinction.
Water usage. It takes about 1000x to produce meat than to produce an equivalent amount of, e.g., wheat.
Reduction of overfishing and thereby protecting and stabilizing oceanic eco system.
Reduction of the huge amount of water and air pollution caused by the animal industry.
In general sure, producing less and consuming less leads to less impacts. But there are quite the differences in what and how we consume it with regard to their impacts. For example, we don't need agricultural space for mining cobalt to build batteries which power electric cars.
I'm absolutely not giving a fuck about someone's opinion of how many kids I want, it's bad enough the labour's wage isn't decent enough for big families these days without being guilted over having the children.
I'll go vegan once the oil companies have stopped killing our planet just for their numbers to go up and pinning it all on us living too extravagantly.
You don't have to go vegan all the way to make a big positive impact for greenhouse gas emissions. If you manage to reduce the consumption of animal products this already helps a lot!
You could also just eat the rich, that would help a lot more actually. Since people typically aren't considered animals that'd even be vegan
I think I can eat meat a couple times a week without it weighing on my conscience, look at the numbers. I won't change the world if I fuck up my diet and hapiness.
If the world changes and that would actually have an impact, then I'd do it despite the difficulty.
You are right. I could have added 'They way you are acting you are showing that...' at the beginning, but I wont do that every time Im assuming something. It should be obvious Im not readingtheir mind.