How's this for controversial...
I've only heard one author say this "out loud", but I think it's one of the most important ways to prepare for peak oil, global warming, etc. - Don't have children.
Shocked? Don't be - Once you believe in peak oil, there's a lot of support for avoiding having children:
- Their standard of living will be far lower than ours. Why raise a child where you have no chance of providing them a standard of living that's at least somewhat close to yours.
- Perhaps more importantly, their standard of living will likely decline throughout most if not all of their lives. Think about what a miserable life that would be - to live with a continually degrading standard of living.
- The world is far beyond its carrying capacity. Every new child just worsens the problem.
- We'll have a hard enough time caring for ourselves, the elderly, etc. - caring for an extra child just adds to the burden, especially for the parent.
There must be some positives though. Here are a couple I thought of, not sure of the validity of any of them though:
- You will have likely prepared better than most, so your children's standard of living will be good relative to others. Perhaps that's good from a psychological perspective.
- If you decide to become a farmer, you may feel the larger the family, the better the standard of living.
OK - let me have it :)
posted by Todd @ 9:04 PM
1 Comments:
A taker - finally! OK, here's more of an argument:
Back before the days of overpopulation (ie. the world today is far beyond its "equilibrium" carrying capacity), people would have more children to help with labor - farmers are the classic example. Each farmer would have a big family so that there was always enough help around the farm.
This made perfect sense from a resource planning perspective. You invest up front (ie. when the child needs taking care of), and then when the child is old enough he/she will be a net contributor to the family's well-being.
Lots of kids also made sense from a long-term security perspective. The more kids, the more support you'd have in your old age.
But now let's think of it from a little higher level, beyond "what is best for me" (which is what the people were thinking re: "cheap labor and social security")
- Children today will have zero chance of living as prosperously as their parents (ie. all of us) are able to live.
- After peak, the fact that the world is overpopulated will become even more evident than it is right now. There will be a fierce scrambling for available resources, and there will be no fairness regarding the allocation of those resources.
- In the past, the farmer was able to teach his children how to "make it". We don't have the knowledge to teach our children the basics that they'll need to know to live even remotely prosperously.
- Despite having no knowledge and limited if any resources, our children will have to take care of us in addition to their many other burdens.
- Remember we have to look out 30, 40, 50 years, and there is nothing at hand that can stop global warming, fossil fuel depletion, etc. Given that there's nothing at hand, it seems highly plausible that we'll just drive off the cliff without a net.
Doesn't it seem cruel to bring a child up in this environment? Why make your child pay for all of the idiocy of previous generations? The only way to prevent your child from suffering throughout their entire life is to not have the child at all.
It's the only humane thing to do.
Post a Comment
<< Home