Family planning a major environmental impact

[GliderGuider]

Family planning a major environmental impact

A study by statisticians at Oregon State University concluded that in the United States, the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an extra child is almost 20 times more important than some of the other environmentally sensitive practices people might employ their entire lives - things like driving a high mileage car, recycling, or using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs.

The research also makes it clear that potential carbon impacts vary dramatically across countries. The average long-term carbon impact of a child born in the U.S. - along with all of its descendants - is more than 160 times the impact of a child born in Bangladesh.

"In discussions about climate change, we tend to focus on the carbon emissions of an individual over his or her lifetime," said Paul Murtaugh, an OSU professor of statistics. "Those are important issues and it's essential that they should be considered. But an added challenge facing us is continuing population growth and increasing global consumption of resources."

In this debate, very little attention has been given to the overwhelming importance of reproductive choice, Murtaugh said. When an individual produces a child - and that child potentially produces more descendants in the future - the effect on the environment can be many times the impact produced by a person during their lifetime.

Under current conditions in the U.S., for instance, each child ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average parent - about 5.7 times the lifetime emissions for which, on average, a person is responsible.

And even though some developing nations have much higher populations and rates of population growth than the U.S., their overall impact on the global equation is often reduced by shorter life spans and less consumption. The long-term impact of a child born to a family in China is less than one fifth the impact of a child born in the U.S., the study found.

I urge every environmentally aware person to support the goals of VHEMT

[napi21]

1. That's probably true, but even on a more personal & individual

level, I find it hard to understand how people can afford to have a chuld today. I was shocked when my son, who has what is perceived to be good health insurance, told me his out of pocket cost for hus son was $7,000! It was a normal delivery without any7 complications. How do people afford that?

[MrModerate]

2. VeHEMent!! (Gesundheit) . . .

What goes up comes down. Western consumption patterns aren't going to be ahead of Bangladesh's forever. Developing nations, erm, "develop," and then sadly sully the purity of the virtuous poverty that romantics from wealthy countries so enjoy feeling superior about.

Also, the study is flawed in that it doesn't appear to predict the end of the human species (a topic of some interest to you, no?), which is the only way you could come up with a figure of less than INFINITE for the carbon emissions any given person (and all their descendants) is responsible for. (I've left the eventual heat-death of the universe out of this back-of-the envelope calculation because, frankly, since I'm not going to be there at the time, I don't really care.)

I'm debating whether the article is piffle or twaddle. I'm leaning toward twaddle because of its irritating and self-conscious seriousness.

[GliderGuider]

3. The study appears to establish a single-generation horizon

in order to avoid having to solve an infinite series whose function is at best a wild-ass guess.

The study's conclusion can be abstracted fairly succinctly: The greenest thing a western man can do is have a vasectomy. That's hardly news, but it bears repeating.

On edit: The human species isn't going anywhere any time soon -- we're the toughest, most adaptable large species on the planet. Nor should we. Things are as they are. I'd prefer us to leave a little more room for other species than we do, and not to unnecessarily disrupt the biosphere, but that's just my personal preference. The universe (and our place within it) will unfold as it will.

[phantom power]

9. The greenest thing a western man can do is have a vasectomy.

That's a bumper sticker.

[wtmusic]

12. Agreed. Suicide should be off the table. nt

[GliderGuider]

16. Really? Why?

I can see involuntary euthanasia being off the table, but a personal choice like suicide? I agree that suicide is usually a bad idea, generally driven by some underlying physical, psychological or spiritual pathology, but as a philosophical choice I can see no reason to prohibit it.

I do agree that it's off the table as a suggestion for a population control measure. Is that what you meant?

[wtmusic]

11. Infinite carbon emissions? I must have been out of math class sick that week.

Whether the species lives 100 years or forever - if I have no children I'm only "responsible" for my own carbon emissions.

If I and my spouse have two children, each of their descendants does likewise, and we assume a modest increase in longevity is countered by a modest decrease in carbon emissions (we're of an environmentally-conscious strain) the carbon output of my extended family, after reaching a point of equilibrium, will remain constant.

Understand, THEN become irritated.

[MrModerate]

26. The article I read didn't posit any point of equilibrium . . .

The (para)phrase was "and all of your descendants . . ." which means an increasing number of people until the end of time. As a practical matter, this wouldn't work out, but it is what the article said.

[wtmusic]

27. People die

and a closed population in which couples each have two children will eventually stabilize. You can get a feel for this by sketching a (somewhat incestuous) family tree, where no people can come in from "outside" - like the Earth.

If some couples have less than two children the population will dwindle.

Assuming an indefinitely hospitable planet they would continue producing carbon, resulting in a theoretically infinite amount of carbon. But the carbon is constantly being recycled by plants, so there's no problem as long as there is no net increase.

[MrModerate]

30. By "eventually stabilize" I presume you mean "reach 20 billion . . .

and then experience a massive die-off leading to eventual extinction." Or perhaps devolution to the point where our descendants aren't actually generating a substantial amount of carbon emissions anymore.

My whole point is that the article is sloppily presented and hence undercuts its serious intent. In actual fact, almost all human societies would agree that right around 2 children per family (which is where the US and Western Europe sit) is a reasonable, even conservative number. "Reproductive choices" less than that are impracticable and unlikely until the situation gets lots more dire than what is seen in Western societies today.

The article tried to take another tack on the Western propensity for smaller families but much larger carbon footprints. Unfortunately, it did so clumsily.

[wtmusic]

32. Not at all.

Mathematically, statistically, you will reach stasis within a few generations. It has nothing to do with external factors like food and healthcare.

Population is growing right now purely because of couples having more than two children. It doesn't take a lot of them.

The article is correct in its emphasis on Western couples simply because we don't have a few generations to wait for population to stabilize using the 2 children/couple model. But we can make an immediate difference by having fewer high-consumption Western children right now - when it's needed most.

[MrModerate]

33. OK, I'm not following you at all. What forces will cause stasis . . .

Within a few generations? Mathematically, statistically, or otherwise?

Given that there is an unbroken history of steady human population increase (aside, maybe, from a few catastrophic plagues, from which the species recovered in a single generation) what new factor is going to stop people from having more than two children per couple?

[wtmusic]

35. It's somewhat anti-intuitive

but I will pass on the manner in which it was explained to me: take out a piece of paper, draw 10 people (5 couples) at the top. Give each couple two children, create new couples from their children, and continue the progression. You will see that without influx to your paper-population that it must stabilize, and its ultimate size will depend on the average longevity of its members (I was oversimplifying a bit earler to make a point - obviously disease and famine will decrease the average longevity).

What new factor is going to stop people from having more than two children per couple? That's an excellent question, and I don't have an answer. Maybe education will help, and impressing upon people the environmental consequences of having large families, which I think this paper is trying to do.

[GliderGuider]

36. A voluntary drop in fertility?

I no longer consider a massive global shift in attitude towards moderated fertility to be out of the question, as I did up until a year or so ago. There is mounting worldwide awareness about the converging crises we face, and that awareness is spreading exponentially as far as I can tell. Given the nature of tipping points, I think it's quite possible that any negative expectations of social inertia will be overtaken by events, even before our emaciated rabbit bodies begin to pile up on the roadsides. Call me Pollyanna if you will, but I've seen evidence that hints at reasons for optimism.

The only thing we need is a new cultural story about ourselves: who we are, who we've been, and our place in the universe. This new narrative is being prepared even now down among the grass roots of our species. It's being written by the two million or more independent, local environmental, social justice, aboriginal rights and ecospiritual groups that are springing up in every corner of the planet. They seem to be growing in number by 40% or so per year. The story they are writing is one of interdependence, ecological responsibility, community, respect for all life and a respect for limits. Their success is not a foregone conclusion, but it's a possibility. Right now, that's as much as we can ask for.

[wtmusic]

37. Integrated PHE (Population, Health, & Environment) programs show promise

"Do Integrated Population, Health and Environment Programs Work?

New concepts and programs such as the integration of population, health and environment interventions must demonstrate that the outcomes merit the investment. Impact evaluations
based on randomized controlled trials are the gold standard for proving that one intervention produces better outcomes than another. Randomization is notoriously difficult in the case of
social programs that work at a community level. Instead, evaluations frequently use a quasi-experimental design to assess whether social experiments works. In a world where population growth in many developing countries is still unsustainable, poverty is on the rise, and ecosystems are under constant threat, it has become more important than
ever to demonstrate the enhanced value of integrated population, health and environment programs.

<>

Findings
Results show that the integrated PHE program has achieved measurable impact over a three-year period. Twenty-nine out of 44 key indicators resulted in higher outcomes in integration (24
statistically significant at the 0.05 level and five at the 0.1 level, all at a power of 0.8) than in non-integration communities. For only two indicators non-integration communities showed better
results, although these could have occurred by chance alone. For the remaining 13 indicators the evaluation methodology was a limiting factor and not able to tell whether any differences
between integration and non-integration groups existed.

<>

Fertility rates are high along Madagascar’s forest corridors, which are largely cut off from essential services such as health care and education. Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) is
one of the 44 key population, health and environment indicators. CPR reached 17 percent in integrated communities in 2004 compared to 8 percent in communities without integration or
about a 5 percentage point increase compared to 2001 in each."

http://iussp2009.princeton.edu/download.aspx?submissionId=92900

[GliderGuider]

38. Every little bit helps.

I'm a bit cautious about organized top-down programs, they tend to be a bit too "parental" for my taste. They have their place though, no question about it. Anything that cuts the number of hairless apes overrunning this garden is a good idea in the long run.

[FiveGoodMen]

40. Birth control

[cabluedem]

39. Looks like a mass die off in 40 years as we hit the 9 billion mark. Nature always rules. nt

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. See Here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=203418&mesg_id=203418

[GliderGuider]

5. Huh. That's twice in one day.

Great minds think alike again :-)

[pscot]

6. There must then be a similar carbon impact

when an immigrant from a third world nation moves to North America. If so, that would allow Lou Dobbs and Pat Buchanon to rebrand themselves as environmental crusaders. Dreadful thought.

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. There is, to an extent

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=12620

Demographic trends, often ignored by policymakers, are clearly linked with the US’ immigration policy. If Congress and the Obama administration plan to implement an effective immigration policy, they need to understand how over time it will affect the country’s population figure. As demographer Joseph Chamie notes, policy makers should start by asking how large should the US’ population be. Answering this question will determine what should be the rate of immigration since immigration has a significant multiplier effect on population growth. The US is currently the most populous developed nation in the world and at current rates, it could overtake the European Union by the end of the century. Indeed, immigration policy affects not only domestic issues like social security and health care, which can have international implications as a result of government debt levels, but also affects the use of resources and carbon emission linked with global climate change. Imagine how high the US’ emissions could grow if its population were to double while retaining the current per capita carbon footprint? Until such questions are answered, immigration is unlikely to abate. – YaleGlobal

[pscot]

8. Good find

n/t

[amandabeech]

42. Personally, I thought that this place was much better with fewer people.

Two hundred million ought to have been enough, IMHO.

[Fotoware58]

10. Bad Combination

How are we going to get the Mormons onboard with population control? I once asked a Mormon if their idea of dominating the desert is a sustainable one, due to a serious lack of water. He had no answer whatsoever but, I know that those people are depending on their faith to supply them with live-giving water. I guess they could all drink Pepsi, instead, since it is apparently no longer a sin to partake in caffeine. <smirk>

[phantom power]

14. I actually view that as a legitimate problem, with respect to natural selection.

If you've got a set of dogmatic belief systems (e.g. mormonism, or catholicism), that explicitly give the finger to any notion of population control, and in fact pretty much consider it a virtue to breed just as much as physically possible, these groups will tend to saturate the population over time.

Sort of makes population control, as a meme, self-limiting.

[GliderGuider]

15. Why does the ghost of that movie "Idiocracy" keep appearing in these discussions?

Not that I'm calling Mormonism or Catholicism idiotic. I'd never do such a thing. Not me. No way. Well, maybe just a bit...

[phantom power]

17. The first place I ever saw that idea floated was "Saturn's Race" by Niven/Barnes

There's a scene where a couple characters are discussing birth-lotteries, and one of them questions whether or not it would be preferable to stick with education and voluntary measures, etc. The other character lays it out, and says: "If you make education favor lower birth rate, what are you selecting for?"

I actually am not that concerned with physical selection, i.e. for phenotypic traits like intelligence. I view it as a purely memetic selection problem. And in meme space, there is actually some natural rate of attrition, i.e. children of large families do not always have large families themselves.

So. In an environment where education dominates, phenomena like high-birth religious dogmas may be self-limiting too.

Still. I think that voluntary population control strategies will have the effect of keeping high-birth memes at a larger fraction of the population, since we inherit memes from our parents with high probability.

[phantom power]

19. Come to think of it, we could actually take a credible stab at this...

with population genetics equations. Somewhere, I think there is a statistic regarding what fraction of people adhere to the religion of their parents. That fraction is less than 1, but higher than 0.9 -- either way, it represents a rough estimate of the background rate of meme attrition.

With that, you could estimate subpopulation equilibria under differing scenarios.

[GliderGuider]

21. Cool idea.

Religious adherence is one of the strongest memes around (well, along with, "Growth, for lack of a better word, is good.")

[GliderGuider]

20. I think that voluntary population control strategies will have the effect of...

Well actually I don't think they'll have much effect at all. Education works, but its influence on fertility control is a second-order effect. So far the way I've seen education work is that it makes people aware of the world around them, and as a result they decide for themselves to limit their whelping.

[kristopher]

24. Cause and effect is questionable regrding education

The best hypothesis I've seen is that improved education is a measurable proxy for social complexity in the area of skills specialization. The division of labor (including care of elderly) associated with specialization is perhaps the key element in benefit/cost calculations regarding reproduction.

[GliderGuider]

25. I tend to agree.

"Education" is a shibboleth of the voluntary population reductionists. It gets around messy ideas like legislation or resource constraints. I've never seen any "proof" that it works as advertised, all I've seen are some broad correlations spackled with wishful thinking.

[Nihil]

34. That's been the failing of all "voluntary" schemes ...

> "If you make education favor lower birth rate, what are you selecting for?"

:-(

[Fotoware58]

23. Dumb people

Sounds like a Randy Newman song but...

Dumb people should not be allowed to breed....too bad that is what they do the best!!

[phantom power]

13. Dialog about population control always reminds me of how...

Zero Population Growth eventually decided to change their name (to Population Connection), mostly because the general public does not understand the difference between a function and it's first derivative, and so there was this continuous confusion bewteen "ZPG" and "VHE" (the literal variety).

[XemaSab]

18. I thought this was going to be an Onion article

Family planning a major environmental impact

Fresno, California-

The Ross family of Dayton Ave. is planning a major environmental impact in their front yard, area sources allege. According to their neighbor, David Gonzales, the family was recently seen unloading an above-ground pool kit. According to Gonzales, not only is California in a severe drought, making a pool a massive waste of water, but the unsightly pool will undoubtedly be situated in the front yard due to a large trampoline occupying most of the back yard. According to the Fresno county planner's office, no environmental documents or permit applications have yet been filed.

The Ross family was unavailable for comment.

[GliderGuider]

22. Snork

Actually, in keeping with the original article, any family that is planning to have a child is planning a major environmental impact...

[The2ndWheel]

28. Every organization worth a damn requires more people doing more things

More people participating in your organization, be it governments, corporations, religion, neighborhood watches, schools, whatever, wants more people involved in whatever it is that is being done. More people means more money, more taxes, more profits, more activity, more innovation. Every organization that has any idea of what it's doing wants to grow, expand, and diversify. How do you do that with fewer people? You don't.

We're going to have a shit load of problems with fewer people. We're going to have a shit load of problems with more people. They'll be different problems in each particular case, but either way we don't get to escape.

[GliderGuider]

29. That's why we need to change the cultural narrative.

The urge to "grow, expand, and diversify" isn't primarily genetic. It's a minor pro-survival trait that got co-opted by our cultural story-tellers about 10,000 years ago and turned into a perverse form of Manifest Destiny. If we can change that one piece of our myth we can fix a lot of shit muy pronto. If we can't do that, this civilization is headed for the dustbin of history at Warp 8.

Fortunately I think we can do it, and in fact I think the story is in the process of changing around us as we speak. Most people haven't noticed the shift because they're expecting it to come from politicians and business leaders.

[glitch]

41. Excellent point. nt

[NNadir]

31. I'm not sure that my family planned to have a major environmental impact, even if other

families did, but we did have a major environmental impact nonetheless.

We're Americans. It is our intrinsic right to consume 2,000 times as much energy as a Nigerian, since we need cars, and Nigerians don't.