Children Cause Global Warming

In all cultures, raising a child is considered one of the most beneficial things a person can do. However, a group of activists, scientists, and journalists suggests that all should think twice before doing so

Radio station NPR in the United States asks: “Should we have children in the climate change age?” The magazine The Nation wants to know, “How do you decide to have a child when climate change is restoring life on Earth? The Guardian advises readers: “Want to fight climate change? Make less children.” And the New York Times warns that having a child is the worst environmental action anyone can take.

Having two children, an American hypothetical woman who passes to a car that spends less fuel, drives less, recycles, puts lamps and windows that save electricity would do as much damage as “40 times what she has saved from these” actions. Last year, the US birth rate had a historic decline.

This has happened before. In the 1970 ' s, fear of environmental degradation and social collapse causes well - meaning people to be childless. Scientists and opinion leaders representing the Rome Club predicted the end of mankind, predicting that the world would end up in aluminum, copper, gold, lead, Wednesday, Moribden, natural gas, oil, silver, tin, Tungsten, and Zink. They supported stopping economic growth, lowering consumption and ensuring that people had fewer children.

Some in wealthy countries followed this advice. In 1972, American activists founded the National Organisation for Non-Princes, promoting not having children as politically responsible “”. A 1976 scientific study noted that fear of overcrowding had become “one of the reasons to remain childless”. You start to wonder whether any of the scientists had a conscience or how many future parents felt regret when terrible predictions resulted in mere fear.

Like the Roman Club, today's climate scientists speak against having children stressing the environmental burden caused by the growth of the planet's population. Most tests use the approach presented in a 2009 study by Paul A. Murataugh and Michael G. Schlax of the State University of Oregon, which holds every parent responsible for half of every child's projected carbon emissions. But it doesn't stop. You are held responsible not only for half of your child's emissions but for a quarter of the emissions of your grandchildren, an eighth of your grandchildren and grandchildren, and so on. In their main scenario, Murtaugh and Schlax expect that in the United States every child will be responsible for more than 20 tonnes of CO2 annually.

This prediction is problematic at some points. Initially, the quantity of emissions is 20% higher compared to today's reality. Furthermore, the US expects personal emissions to drop 0.5% more annually before 2050.

Second, the approach to blaming parents for all the emissions of future offspring is simply ridiculous. With this measure, our ancestors were far worse for the planet than any billionaire who lived today. Clearly, your daughter's decision after two or three decades to have children is her responsibility and choice.

The fact is, one more child may mean perhaps 90 years of CO2 emissions (caused mainly from a lifetime of consumer products and services responsible for such emissions), which in the worst case will remain around today's rate of about 15 tonnes per person per year. This amounts to 1,350 tonnes during this century.
If you are really concerned about additional emissions, you can compensate for the damage caused by the emissions of your child's life for about $23,400 ($1,600) in the European Union's emissions trade system. If you buy certificates, you will force energy companies and others to issue exactly 1,350 tonnes less this year.
To make it easier, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates the cost of raising a middle - class American child by age 17 to $23,610. Clearly, the value of a child's parents is more likely than $33,610. The reduction of CO2 emissions by not having children is of no value above $23,400. In crude monetary terms, their “benefits” of children exceed their “comstot<x3) climate.
And yet, the fear of becoming parents continues. New York Times interviewed a young woman who said: “E know people are meant to be born, but my instinct now is to protect my children from future horrors by not bringing them to the world”
This rhetoric is as wrong as the Rome Club's predictions. A global study of all scientific assessments of climate change costs undertaken by the United Nations climate panel found that global warming currently has a net zero cost. (The most pessimistic study identifies a cost of 0.3 percent of world GDP, and it more optimisticly a net profit of 2.3 percent.) If we do nothing, future damages are expected to reach a total of 2 per cent of GDP in half a century and 3-4% at the beginning of the next century.
This means that climate change is obviously a challenge we have to face, and there is a convincing opportunity to spend on research and development of renewable energy. But to frighten people from having children denies potential parents what is often viewed as one of the best things life has to offer to achieve more good than they can buy $2,400. Making little environmental goods at such a great human cost is a bad deal for everyone.

/ Project Syndicate