Letters to the Editor
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Back at you nkennedy
"AfterThat:
If you aren't interested in having children, please don't. But, and this is a big but, please don't pat yourself of the back too much. You are still an American and even if you are living "green" you are still using a lot of those resources for yourself. I won't suggest that you should off yourself to fully realize your desire to limit global warming."
I do have children and they are the best thing I've ever done, and my most positive potential contribution to humanity and to the collective well being of Planet Earth and its people and ecosystems.
"I give you credit for at least recognizing that the only way to not exist is suicide and that existing is not a moral choice."
Thanks? OK, I'll take that.
"I give you no points for not acknowledging the obvious consequence that by having children, regardless of how "green" you choose to be, you are multiplying your environmental impact by the number of children you have and the number of offspring they have."
Nope. You've got that wrong. By reproducing at a replacement rate (and by fostering a culture of reproduction at a replacement rate over time), and by living in and working for a society that reproduces at a replacement rate, while reducing my environmental load over my life and over generations, I am DECREASING the environmental impact associated with my (our) collective life.
"Plus there is no guarantee that you will instill your "green" values in your offspring. After all, you've already set an example by having children."
Again, having a replacement number of children IS the correct green choice, as is fostering a society that reproduces at a replacement rate on average.
As to guarantees... yep, there are no guarantees in life, but maybe my children will be more green than me not less, and thus continue the positive trend represented by my life and existence on the planet?
Then I (afterThat) said
"Come peak oil and its aftermath you are quite correct that we will discover that we are in overshoot. A horrible scramble for life may ensue. I see no reason that I or my offspring shouldn't have a shot at making it through the population bottleneck."
And nkennedy replies:
"This is what boggles. Obviously you and I deserve a shot to "make do" as we may in the awful event of this kind of population overshoot and resource bottleneck. But to say that "your (potential) offspring" should have a shot illlustrates the selfishness and exactly what the earlier letterwriter meant by saying that you should find another way to achieve immortality. By having "offspring" you are increases the resource contention, American-level consumption, and correspondingly reducing the "shot" that everyone else living no this planet has to "make it."
Sorry to boggle you, but by having a replacement number of offspring I am keeping the level of contention roughly constant, while by reducing my resource and environmental load over my life and across generations I am improving the planet. Only if you take a strictly individualist viewpoint can you reach your boggling conclusion. If you take a collective/tribal/family perspective as I and most of humanity do then it is impossible to see a small number of children per family (at the replacement) level as an increase in resource contention. It is by definition a steady state.
My children ARE me in the next generation. My shot at survival now is no more or less important than THEIR shot survival in 2050 (when I may or may not be alive at age 90.)
There may be many contenders for resources in 2050. I see no reason to disadvantage other future citizens who will be struggling to survive, but I see no reason to advantage them either by taking my own genetic progeny out of the game in advance. I want my children and grandchildren to survive, hopefully on fair and just terms, but in any case to survive somehow, and that will only happen if I create them and work with them to create a world that will enable survival for them and others.
"There's no need to reproduce, at all. Others are doing it for you, just fine. The human species is in no danger of extinction because people choose not to have children. "
There is only a need to reproduce if you wish your genes to be represented in the next generation, as I do. Most people feel that need, some do not. Some people feel less attached to their biological selves, and more to their cultural or social selves. Me, I'm more of an animal.
Others are doing it for me? No no, I am doing it for you. And if it feels like a favor you appreciate, then the feeling is mutual. You are welcome!
The human species is in danger of extinction because of how many and at what rate people are having children, not because they are having some children.
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@ Spankathon
That letter was not meant for you. I apologize if you feel that I was attacking you in any way. I was not. You are exactly the reason I said "Be around extended family grands and gramps and aunts and uncles." That is cool. That brings meaning to life. You bring purpose to the children in your life. You rock! People need to come together as families even if they are not related and then people are supported and make change. I do not judge you (even if you live alone) I was just trying to point out that no one here is actually better than anyone else in the childhaving / childless departments. And I did feel it was very hypocritical to tell people that they should not have children because they are killing the planet when the same people writting those words are doing the same thing.
What you can say is, "Have children responsibly, and be a resposible consumer, and I in turn will do my best too."
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eeek
I try to treat guys as I find them, although unfortunately doing so seems to result in my being transformed into "nonthreatening female friend" to whom they tell their tales of romantic woe, instead of asking *me* out on a date. Rrrrr.
Eeek, I had the guy equivalent of this. Sounds like you are one to value character and thus pick your potential male friends based on such great things as brains and emotional compatibility, 'friend' type things-- but of course also what happens to lead to the BEST relationships.
Prevail. Ask the guy out. Do it in a non-threatening (to you) non-risk way. You already have his attention, so invite him to do something romanticky with you. Jump HIS bones, I guarantee you 95% of the time, he will NOT turn you away.