Originally posted by Voussoir: Does having children have anything to do with global warming? Some of the key exponents of of our need to tighten belts have loads'a children.
I think James Lovelock (~Gaya Theory) has four.
Tony Blair was mooted as a possible jetsetting global warming guru - he has four
Al Gore has four kids.
Michael Meacher (tonights programme Friday 7th August 2007) has four, (and two step children).
If we all had four children, every generation, the world population would be around 100 billion by the year 2100.
Please refer to my other posts on this issue. Population increase is not the problem, it's unsustainable energy consumption and waste generation. Get rid of one wasteful American and you have the capacity for 2,000 odd Nepalese to live at the same consumption rate.
That is substantially correct although it is odd that most of the preachers on global warming seem to have a lot of children who will grow up (whatever anyone says) to be pretty wasteful like most of the rest of us. There seems to me to be a bit of comfortable middle class hypocracy here.
Of course in the 'third world' the sheer pressure of population does have some quite dramatic impact, without our type of waste. Slash and burn agriculture, the sale of forest trees, and the stripping of the land for firewood, all have their effects on the environment.
I disagree, its the education of those children, not the number of children that is important. I suspect those children i.e. Al Gores kids, will be exceptionally green, and promote green issues, thereby being a positive force for the cleaning up of our environment.
we had this discussion on the dump, however, we escalated the discussion to the extreme's, which led to "who gets to decide, who has kids" it was an interesting discussion which was quite heated!
Further to Jason, Stig of the Dump. "who gets to decide, who has kids" is indeed a contentious area. I wonder whether Al Gore's children really will be, (or indeed already are) 'that' green. Mr. Gore apparently has an annual fuel bill that has been reported as ten or more times that of the average American. One could argue that he is something of a hypocrite.
I gather Chris Huhne who may stand for the leadership of the Liberal Party, has five children - we do know how concerned the Liberals are about the climate. Perhaps none of his children avail themselves of the facilities at Heathrow airport?
Could someone with five children argue the case convincingly, for conservation of the planet from human depredation?
