Having Children Brings High Carbon Impact
New York Times
By Kate Galbraith
Having children is the surest way to send your carbon footprint soaring, according to a new study from statisticians at Oregon State University.
The study found that having a child has an impact that far outweighs that of other energy-saving behaviors.
Take, for example, a hypothetical American woman who switches to a more fuel-efficient car, drives less, recycles, installs more efficient light bulbs, and replaces her refrigerator and windows with energy-saving models. If she had two children, the researchers found, her carbon legacy would eventually rise to nearly 40 times what she had saved by those actions.
“Clearly, the potential savings from reduced reproduction are huge compared to the savings that can be achieved by changes in lifestyle,” the report states.
The impact of children varies dramatically depending on geography: An American woman who has a baby will generate nearly seven times the carbon footprint of that of a Chinese woman who has a child, the study found.
The calculations take account of the fact that each child is, in turn, likely to have more children. And because the calculations derive from the fertility rate — the expected number of children per woman in various countries — the findings focus on women, although clearly men participate in the decision to have children.
“In discussions about climate change, we tend to focus on the carbon emissions of an individual over his or her lifetime,” said Paul Murtaugh, a professor of statistics at O.S.U., in a statement accompanying the study’s release. “Those are important issues and it’s essential that they should be considered. But an added challenge facing us is continuing population growth and increasing global consumption of resources.”
The full report is published in the February 2009 edition of the journal Global Environmental Change: Human and Policy Dimensions.
.
Wild Thing’s comment……
Just think not only do young children delight their parents and all of us, they upset the NYT writers and other envirofreaks.
The enviro people belong in insane asylums, they are nuts and dangerous.
This is an outrage to think they can even put this kind of thinking in print. They really want to do populatoin control. I wonder when they come up with these horrible things they even realize their horrid ideas will include them too.
.
….Thank you Jim for sending this to me.
Anyone remember the movie Fortress with Christopher Lambert? One child per woman, we live on such a fragile planet. This is junk idiot science. It’s not been proven. This woman who wrote this article needs to do some more hard research before she opens her pen again to write something stupid. My daughters want to have children-they want to be mothers someday. And I want them to enjoy every happy, sad, emotional moment of it. My little one wants 4-2 boys (Billy and Charlie) and 2 girls (Rosie and Daisy) and I want her to have the right to do that.
All of the flowers, grasses, trees and seaweed that depend on Carbon Dioxide and all of us who eat fruits and vegetables thank each American woman who has a baby for making our lives richer.
Question: is a NYT columnist a fruit or a vegetable? (Much of the world’s plant life is carbon dioxide limited so food production goes up with higher carbon dioxide to about 100 times the carbon dioxide we have today or about 5% of total gases in the atmosphere. )
What’s amazing is how wrong the eco fiends have been proven to be.
Never mind that more than half of world’s nations now have below replacement level birthrates (2.1 average per each woman, assuming roughly 50/50 male female births).
The population continues to rise in many countries *only* because people are living longer, and the average age of the population in North America, Europe, East Asia and now even Latin America continues to rise. It’s a little more crowded in those countries, but it’s also a lot more gray. Barring major super duper life extension breakthroughs, many countries will have *fewer* people in 2050, given current birthrates.
There is a large chunk of the world, however, where the women are basically enslaved and given to breeding like rats. It is the world of clitoris chopping, schimitar swinging, moon-god of murder worshipping, moslem savages.
Of course, for the “multicultural” brainwashed leftist dupes, that’s a feature, not a bug. I can’t help but think the population alarmist eco-fiends are in cahoots with the moslem savages. Get us to breed less, while they keep on breeding like vermin.
These eco-fiends were “watermelons”–green out the outside, commie red on the inside. They decried capitalist pollution problems but looked the other way while the Soviet bloc created the most disgustingly polluted cities on Earth and literally turned the Aral Sea into a dust bowl. Now they look the other way while the Moslems multiply.
My wife has had 10 children. I suppose this makes her an environmental criminal. This is good to know. I will hand-cuff her when I get home. 🙂
I think this is GREAT! They should have more studies like this, because only idiots and liberals (OK, I’m repeating myself!) will believe this baloney and follow these guidelines and stop reproducing themselves! This way only conservatives will get kids and voilà, the future is ours! 🙂
Ed
Lynn, I had forgotten about that movie,
your right.
All of this stuff from the enviro people
is baloney and they will have a tuff time
getting it to become some kind of law.
It is just sickening that they even
think like this.
Avitar, that was great, thank you
so much.
Curmudgeon, well said and so very true.
“Now they look the other way while the Moslems multiply”
Jim, heh heh
LMAO good one Jim. hahahahhahaa
That is so cute.
Eddy Burke, LOL great idea!!!!!