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Comment by chillwaves | Hacker News Reader

The problem is consumption, not population.

Population is a huge part of that equation and it's not talked about.

There are people going around shitting out kids left right and centre and I'm treated like the antichrist for wanting some bottled water.

And the consumption required to sustain families itself is a huge part of the consumption aspect. I feel like my carbon footprint is literally 30x what it was before kids, and that's not even including the kids' carbon footprints.

That is probably mostly because the population argument is usually used by people in rich countries in order not to have to change anything, despite the fact that on average, a 10-person family in rural Africa emits less CO2 than a single individual in the US.

I agree there is probably no good reason for anyone to have more than 4 kids (at most, probably just 2 to go for a manageable population decline) but lifestyle is simply a more important aspect of the equation.

You can presume that your kid will have roughly the same lifestyle, and emissions, as you over a lifetime - so having a kid is a decision of doubling your emissions.

It doesn't end there. Kid will probably have kids that have the same lifestyle as well. Who will also probably have kids, etc.

Which is exactly why change is needed, not for us all to stop having any kids at all.

With that attitude, yes. This actually illustrates my point of changing consumption habits perfectly.

We became vegetarians the moment we became parents. Not because I think our individual change will make a difference but because I want it to be a no-brainer for our kids to drastically reduce meat intake.

If you don’t want to raise kids, that is fine. But don’t act like having 1 or 2 kids is ruining the planet. It is not, it’s the way we live that is.

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