Do you want to be Green? Then Don’t have Children

We all have our morning routines we go through. Mine involves coffee, oatmeal, catching up on the news, and listening to my favorite radio morning show.

The radio morning show is a little immature (or maybe a lot immature), but that’s why it’s great! The hosts don’t take themselves too seriously and like to joke around and have fun. I’m pretty addicted to it. I’ll even listen to their after-show podcast.

You can judge me all you want, but it’s part of my morning routine that I love. And hey, it’s better than a lot of those parents out there that have a forced routine of changing crappy diapers and dealing with a crying child for a stupid reason like they found out “H” comes before “J” in the alphabet and it made them sad. (Kids are dumb.)

Anyway, one morning as I was listening to my radio morning show they did a segment called Confrontation. Essentially it’s a segment where they have a listener call in to the show and confront someone else on the air. I have no idea why people want to do this on the air, but they do.  

A listener, who did not have children, called into the show to talk about a topic that came up at the baby shower she went to over the weekend. Let’s call her Mrs. Pretentious.

Mrs. Pretentious wanted to confront a parent who also attended the baby shower. Let’s call her Mrs. Breeder.

The confrontation went something like this:

Then there was a bunch of yelling and bleeped out words.

This made my head hurt. A lot. I’ve never called into a radio station, but this would have been the time to do it. These two woman were arguing about who was Greener…on a radio show!

Raising awareness for climate change is important. It’s is a hot topic in the US and the awareness of it is getting higher not only in the US, but also in the world. You hear about climate activists wanting more fuel-efficient cars. You hear climate activists wanting to get power from solar and wind. You hear climate activists wanting to reducing coal burning power plants. You’re even hearing people shame others for flying in airplanes. But there’s one thing you haven’t heard. And I suspect you won’t in mass media because it’s not socially acceptable. Here’s the giant elephant in the room:

Having a child is the single largest thing you can do that negatively effects climate change and the environment.  

Most people don’t consider this, but it’s not hard to realize it’s true.  Every person born will consume resources.

Every person will use power from power plants. Most of that electricity will come from coal or nuclear power plants. And guess what? Those leave a carbon footprint. Even if you get power from solar or wind, resources were used to make the solar panels or wind turbines.

Every person will consume food. Food needs to be grown or produced in some manner. Then it needs to be shipped to a store or restaurant, which is generally on a truck that burns fossil fuels. Don’t forget that the packaging of food and beverage containers needs to be produced in a factory too. That all leaves a carbon footprint.

Every person will use transportation in their lifetime. Whether that’s through an electric car, gas powered car, train, boat, or plane. Those all consume resources.

I could go on and on, but the fact of the matter is people use resources. When you have a child you’re compounding the impact. If you have a child, statistically speaking they will likely have children someday. Then they’ll likely have children of their own someday too. The string continues and there will be new generations being added to the family tree.

Every new generation and person brought into the world will consume resources and leave a carbon footprint.  Even if you have one child, and that child never has a child of their own, you’re doubling your carbon footprint over a lifespan. (Maybe not quite doubling since there will be future scientific breakthroughs and efficiencies on slowing down climate change, but you get the point.)

Doubling your carbon footprint by having a child doesn’t hold a candle to taking a trans-Atlantic flight.

But unfortunately, you won’t hear about the impact having children has on climate change.  

Why is that? Why don’t climate activists (and let’s be honest and call them politicians) want to talk about this? Two obvious reasons.

1. They’ll lose votes because it’s not socially acceptable to talk about. If they lose votes they won’t get elected. If they don’t get elected, their career tanks.
2. They have children of their own. How can they say having children has a negative impact on climate change and the environment when they have children themselves? They would lose credibility instantly.

That means it up to us to raise awareness. The next time you’re at a dinner party and people are talking about climate change I encourage you to join the conversation. But don’t brag about the minuscule difference you’re having on the environment by using a paper straw rather than a plastic straw. Don’t be like the woman on the radio show and brag about using cloth diapers. Let them know you’re doing the Greenest thing of all for the environment by living a Child Free Lifestyle.

The earth is the only place we have, and we need to take care of it. And it might depend on you raising awareness of the carbon footprint you leave for generations to come by having a child.