I’ve never even heard this mentioned as an environmental choice. It strikes me as very strange that this would be the _most effective_ choice we can make — do you have some sources?
People that want others to do things like avoid plastic straws but themselves have 2.5 unadopted kids per household are obviously being somewhat hypocritical
Since the emissions per person can be zero, any level of emissions reduction can be achieved with any number of people, you just need more emissions reductions per person when you have more people. "We should have both more emissions reductions and more people" is thereby an entirely consistent position.
More than that, emissions reductions generally require R&D and have some economic cost, but an aging population is economically weaker and has fewer resources to spare. Meanwhile older people who aren't going to live much longer and have no descendants have less incentive to care about what happens in the future and spend those scarce resources on things like emissions reductions. People having more kids avoids that death spiral.
Also, I mean, who are we trying to save the world for?
You're left with things like concrete that emit CO2 from something other than burning fossil fuels. But none of those things are strictly required. There are alternatives to them with various trade offs. Some that are essentially a drop-in replacement, basically different kinds of cement that don't emit CO2, others that operate differently but get you the same result, like using entirely different building materials. The main reason these aren't already used is cost, but that doesn't mean you can't pay the cost, it just means nobody is going to do it voluntarily. It also doesn't mean that no one could come up with some new alternative with a lower cost going forward -- that sort of thing happens all the time.
I personally take the view that policing individual consumption is meaningless, but I still notice the doublethink required for those that have that view to rationalize their choices to not adopt.
> who are we saving the world for?
The future, regardless of whether those people are genetically derived from our selves. Having your own children is often viewed as a selfless act, which is weird, because if you do that when you could adopt an orphan, and if we’re being honest, then it’s one of the most selfish things you can do.
This argument is absurd and naive. Mass murder and your suicide would also reduce consumers. Clearly there are other factors to consider over and above the raw numbers, many of which are cultural and subjective.
Do no harm also means, if you think consumption is harmful then you do need to avoid opting into creating maybe 50-100 Years of extra consumption per child just for the satisfaction of knowing your genes will be doing the consumption.
Are there ever acceptable cultural or subjective reasons to excuse “rules for thee but not for me”?
It could be achieved either way. If you want to e.g. replace gasoline cars with electric cars, you could have some kind of government incentives, or you as an individual could just choose to buy an electric car and put solar panels on your roof to charge it.
> people who do argue for reducing consumption must consider the fact that consumption hinges on consumers
But it doesn't. The rate of consumption is number of consumers times consumption per consumer. You can increase number of consumers while reducing consumption per consumer and end up with a net reduction, as long as the latter is larger. Since consumption per person can get arbitrarily close to zero, it's entirely consistent to want to get there that way than by reducing the population, which has all kinds of terrible consequences.
> Having your own children is often viewed as a selfless act, which is weird
It costs a significant amount of money and primarily benefits someone else (the child). You have to forego a lot of luxury vacations and early retirement to pay for books and food and college.
> if you do that when you could adopt an orphan
The fertility rate is below the population-replacement rate. That includes the orphans. If the fertility rate was only the orphans, it would be far lower than it even is already and we would be completely screwed. Not only that, by your logic the orphans' parents are selfish too, but then who is it that you think should be having kids if the human race is not to go extinct?
Of course using a plastic straw isn't what got us into this mess and small individual choices like that won't save us.