Nothing against vasectomies, I’ll probably get one once I have a few kids. But putting the environment before the propagation of our species is unique to us, and I think a sinister thought pattern. Oh well, if enough extreme environmentalists share the same thought, then there will be no more extreme environmentalists.
I’m all for doing our part to reduce greenhouse gases, and pollution. But not at the expense of human life.
First it’s “To save the planet, I won’t have kids”. Next is, “To save the planet, you shouldn’t have kids”
Regardless if you have children or not, the chilling sentiment still exists. My fear is when, inevitably, there is social pressure, if not force, to adhere to similar doctrines on a larger scale.
Have kids. But please be mindful that it has a real impact, and one greater than mostly anything else you can do.
The parent envisions a world where the commons have been destroyed because everyone decided to pursue their self interest.
I'm not sure that's cultish - seems like calculated pragmatism about a limited resource.
The danger I see is that, with most movements, once a “critical mass” of support is reached, there tends to be a sentiment of “us vs them”.
Then it’s less about accepting other people’s different beliefs (having x children vs having y or 0 children), and more of shaming/“forcing”/coercing non-believers to your side.
We see this with cancel culture today, and various other movements in recent times.
Are you suggesting that being an "extreme environmentalist" is an inherited characteristic? Presumably not, because that would be ... eccentric, so what are you suggesting?
> social pressure, if not force
In most developed countries the population is falling or would be falling if it weren't for immigration, and currently that's with a fair amount of government support for human reproduction. If most people agreed that the population should be reduced and government policy were to reflect that opinion then I think the population would continue to fall without the need for anything the slightest bit chilling or oppressive.
However, a minority political or religious movement could interfere with that.
Regarding the second quote, we’ve seen what government policy’s effect is on reproductive limits, such as number of children laws in China (assuming you’re alluding your that, but perhaps not). Obviously there exist other policy options, but I’d rather not have my generation, or someone else’s, be a guinea pig for such policies. Further I don’t think any government should have a right to determine specific axis of child rearing, such as limiting offspring.
Regardless of whatever small accommodations you may make, you apparently consume at a first-world level, because "all doing our part" seems to indicate that you're not doing a lot more than those around you, and for the most part we're not doing much. Presumably you want your kids to be able to do the same. You definitely don't sound like you're talking about slashing your or their consumption by say a factor of 5 or 10.
But you also want to have "a few" kids, which usually means 3 or more, which means above replacement level.
You're not just increasing the number of people; you're increasing specifically the number of high consumers.
You can't have both increasing population and increasing per-capita consumption. In fact, you can't get away with increasing either one for the long term without at least reducing the other. And in the still-longer-but-not-that-long term, there's a floor on how far you can reduce consumption and still stay alive.
So at some point you HAVE to stop increasing the population. Or not only does the surrounding world suck, but people simply start starving.
... and people who think the "demographic transition" is going to ride in and save the day are thinking pretty wishfully. It may cause a bobble. It might even get the world 100 years. But in the end, evolution keeps running. There's going to be a heritable tendency to overcome the "demographic transition" factors and reproduce anyway. If that's not artificially stopped, there's going to be a problem.
Space travel is not going to fix this either.
I'm sorry that reality seems anti-human to you, but then the universe has never been obligated to care about humans.
I’m pretty sure humanity is at no risk of dying out. 90 percent of us could not have kids, and there would still be plenty of people.
... so that the planet is preserved for the descendants of less environmentally responsible human beings?
I also ride an electric bike, live in the PNW where I use barely any heat or AC, limit meat and dairy intake, and generally just don't buy stuff unless really needed.