Is having a large family a crime against the earth? (quick: somebody arrest the Duggars, and no conjugal visits!)

I just love how environmentalists and politicians with virtually no expertise in science are so certain that global warming exists and they know how to solve the problem. I have about as much expertise as those people, but I'm logical enough to know that it may or may not exist (there is evidence saying the earth is only in a temporary warming trend; other evidence saying in the long term the earth is cooling), and that humans may or may not have the power to heavily impact the climate. There aren't just two sides here - there are a wide range of opinions, but many scientists' views aren't being heard because the politicians and media have hijacked it. Sure there are scientists who say it exists, but how many of those scientists are receiving grant money and will lose their jobs if they show evidence to the contrary?

I personally would never want to have a large family, but for people to base their family planning on global warming is laughable.

Reply

No conjugal visits. Ha, I like that one!!

Here is another of those Eco-Terrorists. There is a picture of one of her many co-conspirators. It's about the 4th post down and the title is 'Profile of an Environmental Terrorist'.

http://www.daniellebean.com

I think that this study failed to include the tendency of large families (they are considering 3 kids excessively large??) to actually be less wasteful than the average 2.1 kid families.

I'm still not sold on global warming. There are way too many unanswered questions for anyone (without an agenda) to say that industrialization is causing the warming. What caused the cooling between 1930 and 1970? Earth has proven itself rather resilient and it seems unlikely that a few years of abuse can destroy this millions of years old rock.

Of course, we all need to treat the environment better. I guess for some it's necessary to play Chicken Little before they'll act.

Reply

Lisa,

So, let me get this straight. You have as much expertise as the politicians and enviromentalists with virtually no expertise in science, and are using simple logic to determine that climate change may not really be occuring and/or people are not actually the cause of the change.

I'm increasingly frustrated by people who have a strong opinion on the issue of climate change without having done any research.

I can see (but not condone) a scientist working for Greenpeace being fired/refused funding for research that did not further their agenda. However, most atmospheric/climate scientists doing peer reviewed research are not funded through environmental groups. Job security does not even enter in to this debate.

Look. It's fine to have an opinion about this, but you must admit your level of understanding of the situation falls far below what is needed to have an educated opinion.

I find http://www.realclimate.org to be a good starting point if you want to learn more.



P.S. The argument about cooling was settled a while ago: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/10/31/223318/86

Reply

So, they're saying that if I have a third child I will be leaving a "carbon footprint by the equivalent of 620 round-trip flights between London and New York."

Well, I don't fly to London so some business traveler can have my family's flights and I will go ahead and have as many kids as I please.

Reply

I think that the Duggar's should stop having kids so that the girls can afford to wear something other than those horrid homemade prairie dresses, and the Mom can find time to do something with her hideously outdated hair.

Reply

I work as a Quaternary palynologist. Forget the politics, forget the emotions, I am a scientist. There are problems ahead. We are pushing our planet, and in so doing, our people, towards a nasty and very final precipice. Whether humanity folds before the natural environment remains to be seen, though the two are symbiotic in many respects. Push people to the point of starvation and an inability to sustain themselves and the political climate becomes volatile.

All of that aside, obviously overpopulation is THE greatest concern for the survival of our species. And children in the "first world" use far more resources over the course of their comfortable lives than do people in other places. This isn't opinion. This is fact.

I would love to see a HUGE tax placed on families who have more than one child. We can't sustain it. The carrying capacity of North America has long since been overwhelmed. We are living longer, using more, and need to stop increasing the population NOW. To do anything else is suicide, whether for our generation or for one in the very near future. There's not much time left.

Reply

While some warming and cooling is normal, what they are saying is it is happening faser then it should be. We had temps of 16c in Canada in January! Then 1 week later we were down to -16's c. We had a really cold winter ( so according to the anti global warmng activists) it is ok because it averaged out.
The temp droped over 20 degrees in less then 24 hrs one day.
Mt Kilimnjaro has very little snow on it, there is a hole in one of the glaciers that if it melts through to the ocean it could posibly change the flow of the gulf stream causing a mini ice age. If the earth doesn't go into an ice age it will lose all that fresh water, and get hotter real fast.

Part of this is normal cycling but it has been exagerated by man kind.
The only species the planet can do with out is human. The planet would flourish if we were to become extinct.

Reply

This same gloom and doom discussion went on 30 years ago, and if they had been right that time, we would not still be alive to talk about it.

Fact is, scientists know a lot, but there is a lot more that they don't know. Too bad some of them are not humble enough to admit this.

And why is is that those who live in harsher climates seem to be more successful over time? Is there really any benefit to preserving the tropical climates exactly as they are, considering that despite their near-optimal conditions, people can't seem to make things work there? Maybe they need a kick in the butt (such as six months of frozen earth every year) to get motivated to harness their resources. Or maybe it's the non-tropical dwellers' turn to enjoy an easy climate for a change.

Obviously the previous paragraph was tongue-in-cheek, but seriously, nobody can really predict whether the human race, as a whole, will be better off or worse off over the next couple of millenia, regardless of whether the current science indicates a bit of warming.

As for the number of kids effecting the environment, it would be more accurate to say that each additional child in a household reduces the per-child ecological footprint for that household. So a large number of households with only one or two kids is worse for the environment than fewer households with more kids.

In addition, most of the waste involved in raising children can be avoided by adopting an environmentally-friendly lifestyle. My mom had 6 kids, but since she used cloth diapers (etc.) for all of them, she created less waste than "modern" mothers who have only one kid. Moreover, in my experience, larger families tend to do a better job of "reduce, reuse, and recycle."

Furthermore, there are opportunities to reduce consumption by, e.g., having multiple small families share the same home, etc.

And if I have 2 kids as a result of adoptions, I am not creating a bigger ecological footprint than someone who has only one biological child.

So there are lots of variables to consider before blanket statements are made about the evils of big families.

Reply

And about the China example.

First, the one-child policy has led to greatly increased consumerism in China as families splurge on their only child. The child also doesn't have the same opportunities to learn about sharing and give-and-take, leading to a sense of entitlement that in turn leads to more consumerism / waste once they are adults. (Of course this happens in the US too as people tend toward smaller and smaller families.)

Second, having toured China last summer, I noted that they are working on a huge project involving building a dam that will ultimately force millions of people to relocate to higher ground. The relocations are already going on because the civil engineers already know which homes will be under water. The people are not dying out - they are relocating. If there are places in the world that are going to be slowly submerged (theoretically) due to global warming, over a long period of time, why can't these populations be systematically, gradually, efficiently, humanely relocated to places where their lives will be better? The answer is, this CAN be done, and with more or less certain results. On the other hand, nobody really knows what will happen ecologically if we try to deal with global warming by banning emissions, childbirth, etc.

I agree with Sandyone that this huge earth has ways of regulating its own temperature - much like an organism. For example, forest fires are argued to be caused by global warming based on observed short-term correlations (though one could question why they don't think the short-term warming is caused by the fires); but these fires result in cooling in the long run, since they make the burned part of the earth's surface lighter, thus reflecting the sun's heat instead of absorbing it. It is simplistic to project long-term warming trends based on short-term fluctuations and based on the limited knowledge we have about the earth's natural climate moderation.

Reply

"I would love to see a HUGE tax placed on families who have more than one child. " -Nicola

I would like to see a HUGE tax placed on families with only one child. They have a whole car for just three (or even 2!) people? What waste! Make them pay!

Starvation causes political unrest? The starvation in today's world is caused *by* political unrest. What happens to the food that the UN brings in to all of these countries? Warlords (and regular old politicians) steal it and use it to control the people.

With airplanes and fuel-burning land transportation, we can get the huge surplus of food to areas that experience famine. Famine is an age-old problem, long before fossil fuels began polluting our air.

The solution is not to limit people. It's for people to limit their consumption. There is plenty to go around, if only people would exercise some self-control.

JD, are you saying that China's one-child policy is a good benchmark? We should all be grateful and happy to cut down on our reproduction because the Chinese have it mandated?

Reply

"The argument about cooling was settled a while ago:"

I don't know anything about satellite temperatures from the 1980s onward. I was talking about the cooling from the 30s to the 70s and I'd guess that it was measured the old-fashioned way...Joe Blow went out to the fencepost and read the thermometer.

And what about Mars? I have heard that it's experiencing temperature increases, also. Could this be a Sun thing?

One of the CNN guys was supposed to be doing a special on Global Warming, featuring scientists who disagree with some of the basics of the *theory* of Global Warming. I know that Al Gore swore that there was not one single scientist in the whole wide world who didn't agree, but, just between you and me, I think he was maybe a little wrong on that.

Reply

Sandyone - of course there are scientists who disagree with global climate change. And Gore never said that there wasn't a single one who disagreed. The ones who disagree very clearly have an agenda - they work for think tanks sponsored by petroleum companies and the like. Or, for religious reasons they do not believe it is happening. The VAST majority of scientists who have studied this, very few of whom are in the employ of the 'environmental movement' agree that global climate change is a serious threat to the survival of mankind.

Most of the world agrees - 140 nations have ratified the Kyoto Protocol - but not the US!

SKL? The fact is that we CAN predict whether mankind will be better or worse of with 'a bit' of climate change. If the average global temp goes up enough (and it isn't that much), a lake of frozen water will pour down from the arctic. This WILL unfortunately disrupt the gulf stream (the overall physics are not that complicated) and the earth will be changed for the worse, at least as far as mankind is concerned.

And when sea levels rise still further, large portions of the world that are by the ocean will be flooded - NYC, the Netherlands, Shanghai...

So while it might be nice to have Bermuda's weather, it wouldn't be a lot of fun living and working in a city underwater.

And I'd LOVE to see your plan for humanely relocating the 11 million people living in NYC - along with Boston, DC, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, San Francisco.... Can we all stay with you? As Sandyone said, there's plenty to go around, if you and your family give us all your food...

Reply

T, in what year are New York and Shanghai scheduled to find themselves under water?

Will anyone still be living in today's homes at that time? Or will they all be rebuilt numerous times? And city and country maps redrawn many times?

In my city, the rich people used to live in the area which is now the slums and vice versa, because the economic value of farmland has given way to lake front property. And let's not even get into the moves to the suburbs, and across the country to follow regional economic booms (and escape busts). These changes have taken place within decades. It's entirely reasonable to assume that the areas that will be submerged in the future will have long ceased to be inhabited anyway. The earth has lots of examples of that from history.

Also, you totally missed my point. If NY is under water (which might not be such a bad thing), some other part of the world is probably going to be enjoying a better climate than it has since the dawn of man. Maybe some desert or tundra will become a paradise. The gloomers and doomers don't want people to think about that. But it's completely illogical to focus on only one side of the story. I was talking about the net result for the whole earth, not for any particular place on the earth.

But why am I bothering to answer? Anyone who believes that a conclusion is set in stone is not capable of learning or understanding anything.

Reply

"The planet would flourish if we were to become extinct."

Great. Hitler had the beginning of a perfect path to that one.

Who wants to be first?

Reply

I completely agree with the writer of this article. It's only common sense that we're overpopulating the earth, it's getting sick(earth), and we need to heal it. To me, having over two kids is selfish. You need to replace you and your spouse but to have more is a recipe for disaster. To have 15 kids is sooo selfish. I know that they say they don't take money from the government but just watch how fast that would change if one or more of their 15 kids came down with a disease or illness that costs thousands. They'd be running to get assistance. Also, no child should have to share their parents w/ 14 siblings. Horrible!

Reply

SKL - If someone throws sticks of dynamite at the Hoover dam, I can tell you when there will be a flood. But I *can* tell you that there will be one, and it will happen fairly soon.

Just because scientists don't know what day NYC will be underwater, or the UK becomes uninhabitable, doesn't mean that they don't know that it will happen. They do.

"The overwhelming majority of scientists are in agreement about the following fundamental assertions: 1) the world has been warming and will continue to warm for the foreseeable future, 2) the warming is largely due to human activity (burning fossil fuel - oil, coal and gas - and destroying forests), and 3) the consequences of rising temperature, in all projected futures, are grave enough to warrant global action.

How do we know this? In 1988 the U.N. established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This is a body of over 2000 scientists and experts from around the world who gather periodically to review the existing peer-reviewed literature of the relevant science. The skeptical scientists, by the way, are invited and are even among the lead authors of working groups. The summary documents are reviewed word for word, with industry and skeptics in the room. The IPCC's methods are rigorously fair to dissent, and incomparably thorough."

I do not believe that the conclusion is 'set in stone' but rather, I accept the conclusions of the vast majority of people who have studied this issue. If a thousand CPAs tell you that you are required to file federal income taxes, and one person tells you that you don't because one Amendment wasn't ratified properly, and the thousand CPAs all agree that that argument is bogus, you can believe who you want, but I'm filing my taxes.

Unfortunately, deniers such as yourself aren't just risking themselves, you are risking the human race. Because the process of moving major cities miles away would massively disrupt the global economy, result in thousands of deaths, notwithstanding the fact that you can't run from a hurricane (as New Orleans discovered).

You can be callous about the deaths that will happen if you want, but don't expect the rest of us to do so as well. I would really love to have a petition made which would be signed by all the people, without any scientific background or study into climate change, blithely make the kind of assertions you are making. You would then be the last to recieve assistance after the changes affect your area. People who didn't simply stick their heads in the sand and deny what is happened could then be helped first. This would have the added benefit of raising the average IQ of the human race.

Of course, if we're all living in magic sky houses, or have inexplicably abandoned the coastal cities of the world by the time all this happens, you won't have to worry.

It is far more likely that your grandchildren will curse your willful ignorance.

Reply

Thank you, T, you have proven that you don't know what you're talking about. So maybe you should get off your soap box.

Reply

I have had about enough of these idiotic discussions. Here are four words for you: MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. Have you people nothing better to do than insult and ridicule a family who is doing what they believe is right for THEM? No one said YOU have to do it. I am expecting my 8th child and personally am grateful that those of you with such vile comments and ill-informed opinions do use artificial birth control. The world has enough morons as it is, we don't need you opinionated freaks breeding. What the Duggars want to do is their own business, stay out of other people's bedrooms. I am a stay at home mother in my mid 30s, have been married 16 years, and my husband makes an excellent living (we have NEVER been on any type of government assistance) and I do not homeschool or make my children's clothes. We are devout Catholics and practice natural family planning and I personally believe that artificial birth control is demeaning to women and to families. I choose to have 8 children, because I love my husband, I love my children, and I want to make this world a better place by raising intelligent, caring, generous human beings who will one day go out and change this world that you self-centered egotistical people are destroying. God's ways are not our ways and they do not make sense to us at times, but it is not my choice to decide what is best for me, that is God's choice and I freely give it to him. One day when your 30 year old spoiled children are living in your basement, perhaps one of my children will be able to set him/her straight.

Reply

I think large families are great! I have four kids and I am seriously thinking of having at least two more. How is it that any of your business? Why should large families have to pay huge taxes? They are much less wasteful than those of you who have one or two kids. There is NO evidence that large families are hurting the earth. Oh, and those dresses the Duggars wear...why do you care? Maybe they would buy dresses like that if they went shopping. What a snobish comment! You know there used to be a time when everyone had large families. Unfortunatly with the decrease in morals in our country there has been a decrease in large families as well. I would love to know what number child you are in you family? If your mom stopped at one child how many of you know it alls would be here right now? Huh? That's what I thought.

Reply

I personally don't care how many kids the Duggars have. They don't care if I have two and one on the way. That being said, the can afford their kids and their way of life, how many can say that and one have one or two kids? And if you have ever watched them on TV, than you would know that are actually earth friendly and do not make a lot of waste. Of course with a family that big a lot of waste makes for a lot of wasted money. And to top everything off, their children are well-behaved and have manners....Don't see a lot of that know adays...

Reply