Save the Earth! Don't Give Birth!

Let me start off by saying that the fate of the earth should not fall into the hands of individuals. The majority of pollution and environmental harm is done by just a handful of large corporations that need to be regulated, and fast. But many people are still looking for ways to reduce their personal carbon footprint, and do their part to try to save the earth. People go to all kinds of lengths to do their part, from carpooling, to living completely waste free. Some people get really serious about it, giving up many daily conveniences that are just a part of life to many. But there is one big thing that we can do as individuals to help save the environment. Not have kids.

When you think about it, it makes total sense. By deciding to have even one less child, you eliminate an entire lifetime of emissions, and potentially the emissions of the children they could have. You prevent generations of humans from adding to the problem. Will this alone prevent the climate crisis? The answer is no. But if everyone on earth decided to have one less child, it would absolutely create a large impact. Try 58.6 tonnes of carbon per person, per year less. That's about 4,254.36 tonnes of carbon emisions prevented for every child you decide not to have (if the average person lives 72.6 years.)

There are a growing number of people that are taking this step, in hopes that enough people will follow to make an actual impact. As time goes on, it looks less and less likely that politicians will take the necessary steps to regulate corporations' carbon emissions in time. Some individuals feel that it would also be unethical to bring another human into a world that they would not really be able to live in, further motivating the child-free movement. But, whatever the reason, should things continue down this path, the best thing we as individuals can do for the planet, is to stop putting so many new people on it.

Plenty of people would still like the option to have children, and although I personally can't relate, I say there are still options. If you absolutely must have children, consider limiting the number of children you have to two, or better yet, only one. This either only replaces you and your partner, or only replaces on of you in the global population. It's a good way to try to keep the numbers low in the long term, especially with the concerning rate at which the population has grown. Enviornmental activist Leilani Münter, voiced her concerns on the subject, saying "It took humans 200,000 years to get to our first billion people, then 126 years to double to 2 billion, 30 years to add another billion and 14 years for the next billion.” Each subsequent billion has only taken 12 years.

Another impactful thing you can do if you feel you absolutely need to be a parent, but want to do your part to reduce the global carbon footprint, is consider adoption. There are aproximately 153 million orphaned children around the world in search of homes. Münter says, ultimately, “your kids and your kid’s kids will be the ones who benefit from humans deciding to slow down our rate of growth."

So, if you are looking to take the next step in reducing your personal carbon footprint, consider simply not having kids. Use the spare time that you're not spending on childcare to call your local politicians and representatives. Put pressure on them to create laws and regulations that could save the earth for future, if not smaller generations.