3-02-12

Family

While climate change will impact on our own future, it will impact our children and grandchildren even more.  We may think that we are being good parents by driving them to school, keeping them safe, but unwittingly we are adding to atmospheric CO₂. Minimising their carbon footprints as well as our own must become a priority.

Family size

If the average carbon footprint of a British person is 12.7 tonne per annum, every child born is going to add this amount to our global footprint. Responsible parents will therefore limit family size for the sake of the planet. Large families, like large cars, should be a thing of the past.

 “Parents will do everything for their children and grandchildren except safeguard their future”.

The suggestion that we need an increasing population to fund and care for our aging population is simply “kicking the can down the road”. We end up with even more people in an already overpopulated world. We must simply allocate more time and a higher proportion of our income to caring for the elderly, until children, the country’s active workforce and the elderly come back into balance.

The wider aspect of population is discussed under the “one planet living” heading on this site. It is possibly the major issue where a change in mankind’s behaviour could prevent future catastrophe. The world however is hesitant to do anything. Only the Chinese were brave enough and compassionate enough to act, with their one child family policy.