Certainly a strong argument against having a child is it makes it easier for society to deal with climate change. Halving the global population has the same effect on climate as doubling the size of the Earth’s atmosphere, allowing it to absorb twice as much CO2 for the same effect on climate. But if people who care enough about society to respond to an argument like this actually do respond to this argument, then the next generation will not include their children, so it will be more selfish than the current generation.
Some people believe that the main impediment to drastically reducing or stopping society’s use of fossil fuels is stubborn refusal to see the light by consumers, voters and people in power. Obviously if that is the actual situation we are in, then reducing the human population will not be needed to deal with climate change. But there’s a good chance that that is not the situation we are in and that the only way we can stop burning fossil fuels is to suffer a severe drop in the global standard of living if we maintain current global population levels.
Halving the global population has the same effect on climate as doubling the size of the Earth’s atmosphere
assuming economics (CO2 emission) scales linearly with population.
(alt idea) I think a large contributor to greenhouse gases is transport to remote areas, so solving problems with housing prices in local areas could somewhat concentrate people and help with ecology.
Certainly a strong argument against having a child is it makes it easier for society to deal with climate change. Halving the global population has the same effect on climate as doubling the size of the Earth’s atmosphere, allowing it to absorb twice as much CO2 for the same effect on climate. But if people who care enough about society to respond to an argument like this actually do respond to this argument, then the next generation will not include their children, so it will be more selfish than the current generation.
Some people believe that the main impediment to drastically reducing or stopping society’s use of fossil fuels is stubborn refusal to see the light by consumers, voters and people in power. Obviously if that is the actual situation we are in, then reducing the human population will not be needed to deal with climate change. But there’s a good chance that that is not the situation we are in and that the only way we can stop burning fossil fuels is to suffer a severe drop in the global standard of living if we maintain current global population levels.
assuming economics (CO2 emission) scales linearly with population.
(alt idea) I think a large contributor to greenhouse gases is transport to remote areas, so solving problems with housing prices in local areas could somewhat concentrate people and help with ecology.