Procreation-spiracy

[nobody]

This infographic shows that the most effective thing people can do to combat climate change by a large margin is have one fewer child. So why isn't there a push among the scientific community and environmental organizations to get this information to the public and convince everyone to have one fewer child?

Probably because it is too personal for people and would not go over well politically or well in the way of donations. These are some of the same reasons there is not a huge effort by them to get everyone to switch to a plant based diet.

The most effective individual steps to tackle climate change aren't being discussed

Governments and schools are not communicating the most effective ways for individuals to reduce their carbon footprints, according to new research.

m.phys.org

 

[SapphireLightning]

Well, I have no kids, I live nearly car-free, I never fly anywhere, my electric bill is about 20 a month for my share (no real way to buy green energy here, most of it comes from an other country where I live.). Oh and I live without animal agriculture, and do only one load of laundry a week (mixing colors and whites) in cold water most of the time, I recycle, and soon will be hang drying my clothes. Also, use LED lights... So why hasn't the world been fixed yet? :<

But yes, there are uncomfortable truths that are hard for people to swallow. Beyond that, your chart there ONLY looks at carbon and not water, methane, and other resources so I suspect that the car and flight stuff would be dropped down a few pegs.

Also, curious about your avatar; the promotion of egg-free and dairy-free vegetarianism. Why not just promote veganism? Or do you like leather and honey too much? Or do you not care about the ethics side of things? Just kinda boggled.

 

[Sax]

Yeah, this should get mentioned more often. Kinda like WFPB diet and heart disease...maybe people don't want to hear it and won't change their behavior but it's too big of a factor to leave out of the discussion.

Instead we've got people feeling good about about plugging their electric cars into coal powered grids, upgrading appliances and buying patagucci. If we feed corporations enough money that'll solve everything!

 

[nobody]

Also, curious about your avatar; the promotion of egg-free and dairy-free vegetarianism. Why not just promote veganism? Or do you like leather and honey too much? Or do you not care about the ethics side of things? Just kinda boggled.

I don't promote it because I don't agree with the UK Vegan Society's current definition of the word "veganism," which makes it completely synonymous with "ethical veganism." I think the diet and the excluding of other forms of animal exploitation should be separate - not lumped in with each other under a "way of living". Some people already have a prescribed way of living, like following Jesus or something like that, and they would be more open to adopting a diet than a (perceived) competing "way of living," especially when they don't even believe in animal rights in the first place and the way of living is all about respecting animal rights.

The percentage of animals killed for food vs. other uses is about 99.99999%, so diet is the most important thing when it comes to sparing animals. After adopting the diet, people are more likely to exclude other forms of exploitation, but this doesn't mean they necessarily become "vegans" if they do. Non-diet related excluding of products of animal exploitation can fall under the category of being "beast free" or under "compassion" or whatever someone wants to call it or wants it to fall under, if anything, if they are so moved to exclude those things at all.

I personally don't want any society or religion to stipulate my way of living. I prefer to formulate my own way of living. I will follow a diet devised by someone else, but not a whole way of living. Since I happen to believe in animal rights, I do certain non-diet related things to respect their rights, like refusing to visit a roadside zoo for example. But stuff like that isn't part of "veganism" for me and it doesn't have to be for anyone else.

As far as honey, my attitude concerning insects is that at the present time, we don't know for sure if they can suffer or not, so I'm not going to worry about people going honey free until everyone is meat, dairy and egg free - because I know for sure that cows and chickens can suffer. I don't use honey myself (or buy or wear leather) just to be on the safe side because bees may be able to suffer, but I'm a little inconsistent when it comes to bees because I do eat plant foods from this list that are pollinated by them, and many of them die in the process: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated_by_bees

 

[nobody]

But yes, there are uncomfortable truths that are hard for people to swallow. Beyond that, your chart there ONLY looks at carbon and not water, methane, and other resources so I suspect that the car and flight stuff would be dropped down a few pegs.

You're right about the water but I believe the methane is accounted for because those are supposed to be the CO2 equivalents of all the greenhouse gas emission reductions for each personal choice. "C02e" is shorthand for "carbon dioxide equivalent." I wish I knew what it says in the upper lefthand corner of the infographic.

Radware Bot Manager Captcha

iopscience.iop.org

"We recommend four widely applicable high-impact (i.e. low emissions) actions with the potential to contribute to systemic change and substantially reduce annual personal emissions: having one fewer child (an average for developed countries of 58.6 tonnes CO2-equivalent (tCO2e) emission reductions per year), living car-free (2.4 tCO2e saved per year), avoiding airplane travel (1.6 tCO2e saved per roundtrip transatlantic flight) and eating a plant-based diet (0.8 tCO2e saved per year)."

 

[Forest Nymph]

Well, I have no kids, I live nearly car-free, I never fly anywhere, my electric bill is about 20 a month for my share (no real way to buy green energy here, most of it comes from an other country where I live.). Oh and I live without animal agriculture, and do only one load of laundry a week (mixing colors and whites) in cold water most of the time, I recycle, and soon will be hang drying my clothes. Also, use LED lights... So why hasn't the world been fixed yet? :<

But yes, there are uncomfortable truths that are hard for people to swallow. Beyond that, your chart there ONLY looks at carbon and not water, methane, and other resources so I suspect that the car and flight stuff would be dropped down a few pegs.

Also, curious about your avatar; the promotion of egg-free and dairy-free vegetarianism. Why not just promote veganism? Or do you like leather and honey too much? Or do you not care about the ethics side of things? Just kinda boggled.

Yeah this Wynes and Nicholas study only looks at carbon emissions and this study is EVERYWHERE. I find this extremely unfortunate because if you include water, methane, and land use, the number one most effective thing to do is to stop eating meat.

Western countries already have a steady or negative birth rate, it's primarily poor, developing countries and fundamentalist Islamist groups that are procreating like crazy. Still, Americans have the largest footprint per capita, so an American child creates 7 times more emissions than a Chinese child (on average).

 

[Forest Nymph]

Yeah, this should get mentioned more often. Kinda like WFPB diet and heart disease...maybe people don't want to hear it and won't change their behavior but it's too big of a factor to leave out of the discussion.

Instead we've got people feeling good about about plugging their electric cars into coal powered grids, upgrading appliances and buying patagucci. If we feed corporations enough money that'll solve everything!

Actually if you aren't car-free, buying an electric car is the next best thing, and cities like LA and San Francisco have electric powered or hybrid busses. Upgrading appliances is also important, in some cases. If by patagucci, you mean Patagonia, they are an ethical company for what they are.

The birthrate among Millennials is the lowest that it's been in a couple of generations, so it's not like people in their 20s and 30s are running around having 6 kids. Many aren't having any at all. This is due to other factors, like Millennial lack of opportunity to own homes or feel that they can afford kids, as well as fears about climate change.