The Nonlinear Library EA - [Linkpost] BBC - How much does having a baby contribute to climate change? by jackva
Jan 23, 2024
01:33
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: [Linkpost] BBC - How much does having a baby contribute to climate change?, published by jackva on January 23, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
I recently had the opportunity to talk about the climate effects of having children on the BBC's What In the World podcast in an episode titled "How much does having a baby contribute to climate change?" (link, X/Twitter).
The episode is very short (~15min) and conversational and covers the debate from several angles and with multiple voices.
I try to make the argument, building on prior work with John Halstead, that (i) extrapolating from current emissions massively overestimates expected emissions of kids born today ("a kid born today will never drive a petrol car") and that, in addition to that, (ii) credible jurisdiction-level policies such as the UK's net-zero targets should lead to a situation where additional kids in those jurisdictions have (close to) zero counterfactual impact. (iii) Instead of making our decision about having children about climate change, our primary responsibility as individuals should lie in holding our governments accountable that targets are met and ambitious policies maintained / passed.
I actually found it somewhat shocking how normalized / unquestioned anti-natalist assumptions are even in 2024. I am the only voice in the episode questioning the idea that climate change should not be a reason to not have children. So I hope that's a useful intervention and reference to point to.
Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org
I recently had the opportunity to talk about the climate effects of having children on the BBC's What In the World podcast in an episode titled "How much does having a baby contribute to climate change?" (link, X/Twitter).
The episode is very short (~15min) and conversational and covers the debate from several angles and with multiple voices.
I try to make the argument, building on prior work with John Halstead, that (i) extrapolating from current emissions massively overestimates expected emissions of kids born today ("a kid born today will never drive a petrol car") and that, in addition to that, (ii) credible jurisdiction-level policies such as the UK's net-zero targets should lead to a situation where additional kids in those jurisdictions have (close to) zero counterfactual impact. (iii) Instead of making our decision about having children about climate change, our primary responsibility as individuals should lie in holding our governments accountable that targets are met and ambitious policies maintained / passed.
I actually found it somewhat shocking how normalized / unquestioned anti-natalist assumptions are even in 2024. I am the only voice in the episode questioning the idea that climate change should not be a reason to not have children. So I hope that's a useful intervention and reference to point to.
Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org