“But… where this planet’s environment is concerned, I still haven’t heard a rebuttal to my point that having children is one of the most destructive things a couple can do. To repeat myself, I don’t care if people have 10 children because, again, I don’t have an emotional attachment to what happens to this planet beyond my own lifetime. But how you or Marion “feel” about children and perpetuating human life is not relevant. So I’ll ask you, Marion, or anyone else, AGAIN, to disprove my thesis. Stick to facts and leave out the “feelings.””
You are 100% correct. Actually, to narrow it down in terms of environmental destruction, being a citizen of the US and having children is the most damaging thing you can do. A well off American family of 4 is equivalent to a small town of about 150 in Bangladesh. Population biologist measure this in something called energy slaves. We americans like our energy and in terms of some third world countries we have a population of 20 to 30 billion.
We are in what some biologists call the sixth extinction. Currently the earth is losing around 30,000 species a year, which is about 1000 times more that if humans were not involved. We are winning big time in our competition with other species for resources, food and land.
However, we seem to be bumping up against the limits of numerous resources which allow us to feed the 6.7 billion people on this planet. Maybe you have seen the food riots through out the third world as of recent. This is different from famine of the past because it is due to actual food shortages rather that distribution issues. This issue will no doubt get exacerbated in the near future due to the start of fossil fuel depletion and begin to kill off the worlds poor via starvation.
So in terms of carrying capacity of the earth which was passed back in the late 40s to early 70s according to most experts in the field, one could only conclude that breeding is the most environmentally irresponsible, selfish thing a couple can do especially in the 1st world. Unless you think your life is more important than poor 3rd world people. In that case breed away it will just kill off people in countries that we exploit for resources and compete for food with.
If you put yeast in a jar with sugar and water. The yeast will multiply like crazy until there is no more sugar. The population will skyrocket and collapse as food disappears. So far humans are not doing any better than yeast and now we are approaching the collapse phase of the population bell curve. Food production will undoubtedly start decreasing over the next decade, as we are just seeing the start off, and population will follow. It should be very interesting to witness.
