Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t JoNova, Marc Morano – Climate philosopher Travis Rieder has been touring the country, trying to persuade university students not to have kids – and promoting ideas for restricting childbirth, including tax penalties against people who decide to have a child.
Should We Be Having Kids In The Age Of Climate Change?
Standing before several dozen students in a college classroom, Travis Rieder tries to convince them not to have children. Or at least not too many.
He’s at James Madison University in southwest Virginia to talk about a “small-family ethic” — to question the assumptions of a society that sees having children as good, throws parties for expecting parents, and in which parents then pressure their kids to “give them grandchildren.”
Why question such assumptions? The prospect of climate catastrophe.
…
Rieder and his Georgetown collaborators have a proposal, and the first thing they stress is that it’s not like China’s abusive one-child policy. It aims to persuade people to choose fewer children with a strategy that boils down to carrots for the poor, sticks for the rich.
Ethically, Rieder says poor nations get some slack because they’re still developing, and because their per capita emissions are a sliver of the developed world’s. Plus, it just doesn’t look good for rich, Western nations to tell people in poor ones not to have kids. He suggests things like paying poor women to refill their birth control and — something that’s had proven success — widespread media campaigns.
In the 1970s and ’80s, a wave of educational soap operas in Latin America, Asia and Africa wove family planning into their plot lines. Some countries did this when they faced economic crisis. The shows are credited with actually changing people’s opinions about family size.
For the sticks part of the plan, Rieder proposes that richer nations do away with tax breaks for having children and actually penalize new parents. He says the penalty should be progressive, based on income, and could increase with each additional child.
Think of it like a carbon tax, on kids. He knows that sounds crazy.
…
Read more: http://www.npr.org/2016/08/18/479349760/should-we-be-having-kids-in-the-age-of-climate-change
There is no evidence the world faces a climate apocalypse. All such claims are based on broken climate models which have never demonstrated predictive skill.
But people who act on Rieder’s well meaning but in my opinion scientifically unsound advice may be opening themselves to a lifetime of misery.
The West is full of unhappy couples who waited too long to have a family, thanks to the financial and social pressures of modern life. An entire industry has arisen to try to help desperate couples have a child, many of whom need medical assistance because they are too old to conceive naturally. Adding to the financial and social pressures prospective parents face will exacerbate this tragedy.
When his prophesied doomsday passes uneventfully, Rieder may have the integrity to do what James Lovelock did, and apologise for being wrong. But by then, for most people who listened to and acted upon Rieder’s advice not to have children, it will be too late to undo the harm.
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So much to say but let’s start with “WTF is a ‘Climate Philosopher?'”
Just another snout in the trough.
Paul Erlich, is that you?
..Well, the only good thing about this idea. is that only liberal “Green” millennials” will listen to him !! Less future Climate Alarmists has to be a good thing for Mother Earth !
I can’t help but observe it would be a good thing if those that listened to Travis Rieder and believed his claim would take his advise on strictly avoiding procreation.
1. Population growth is taking place especially in poor countries where lots of young people already alive will keep the future population growing. In the richer countries there are already countries with a negative growth rate = diminishing populations: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2002rank.html#ni
2. A negative growth rate causes a lot of problems. Think about an enormous aging and not any more working population and about not enough youngsters to take care of the elderly. Examples: Japan, in the future China and the countries in Europe with an already negative growth rate.
3. Countries with a positive fertility rate (= more than 2 children per woman) face future population growth, less than a fertility rate of 2 means future population loss. Countries with a high positive fertility rate can be found in Africa and the Arabic world: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html#ni Population growth in important parts of South East Asia and Latin America is already firmly slowing down.
So Travis Rieder is travelling and speaking in the wrong countries
4. The more economic development, the less children a woman. So the only thing you have to do when you want a more stabilized world population is to stimulate development in the poor countries. Give the world population free internet and help them building and maintaining infrastructure inclusive modern education. And not to forget: give them cheap and reliable energy.
Total fertility rate (TFR) versus human development index (HDI)
Countries with a already negative growth rate (see the list under 1.) and the ones facing a future negative growth (fertility rate less than 2, see list under 3.) would be smart as they stimulate the birth of children there where the birth rate is lowest: often with well educated younger people (for example middle class people that had to rent money for studying) and which are working both. The youngsters that are going to have children much later – or not.
So Travis Rieder is speaking to the wrong groups also.
The root belief of all environmentalists (including CAGWists) is that there are too many brown babies,
Environmentalism (including CAGWism) is the last socially acceptable form of racism.
Walter, a strange ‘reply’. Please quote the sentence you are referring to.
The point is that the demographic fact is that European decended populations are shrinking. This is something that is well known, and towards them an anti-natalist position is otiose. Why then urge anti-natalist polices? Who are they aimed at? They are aimed at people of color. They are racist.
Walter Sobchak: “Why then urge anti-natalist polices? Who are they aimed at? They are aimed at people of color. They are racist.”
China’s one child policy is well known. Being very poor at that time, China did foresee problems when there would be more than one and a half billion people in their country and I think they were right. There are very poor countries without enough future possibilities for their exploding population. Think about a country as Yemen. And there are many more to mention.
I would prefer a more nuanced judgement. Besides that, you didn’t quote the sentence you were reacting on. So no judgement from you is the best.
Mr Rost,
“So Travis Rieder is speaking to the wrong groups also.”
In general (in your opinion), what shade of folks best represent the groups that Rieder should be speaking to, so as to best achieve his goal?
“In general (in your opinion), what shade of folks best represent the groups that Rieder should be speaking to, so as to best achieve his goal?”
Don M, thank you for your question. I will try to limit myself in my answer, but, as aspects of ‘demography’ are not broadly known, I will first give some introduction.
In the seventies “demography” was one of the parts of my study human geography, the geography of developing countries was another one. I learned about de demographic transition model: first starvation goes down (because of modern medical and sanitary developments) and later (because of economic development) the birth rate goes down. In general (!) it is a kind of automatic process which was first visible in the western countries. First people got a lot of children, the kids could work for them and would take care of them in their old days. But a lot of the young born kids died early and population growth was low because starvation was high. With modern developments (sanitation, medical) the starvation rate fell rapidly, creating a big population growth. When (as in Europe) people got richer, it became expensive to have your children grown up. Furthermore, child labour became prohibited, old age provisions diminished the need to have children for the old day and because child starvation diminished, all was resulting in the heavy burden of having big family’s. The wish developed to diminish the number of children per family and ‘family planning’ made such possible. In the first part of the demographic transition model countries had high birth rates but also a high starvation, in the last part countries are having not only low starvation rates but also low birth rates, both situations (first and last one) resulting in low population growth. In between, you find the explosive population growth.
History shows it is rather easy to diminish starvation. It is more complicated to create the whole societal shift that makes people want less children and that enables ‘family planning’, all together resulting in a more or less automatic going down of the birth rate, even in a growing number of cases below the population stability level.
In short, for a lower birth rate in countries with a high population growth you need economic development in combination with the wide availability of family planning opportunities.
In my opinion (and some experience), nearly all big family’s in countries with fast growing populations already have the wish to diminish the number of children. While you find the biggest family’s mostly in the poorest countries, the opportunities for family planning are lowest just there where most (local) people want family planning. The bottle neck to get smaller family’s most often is the availability of family planning at (hardly) no cost.
If Travis Rieder wants to diminish the world population growth, he should be speaking with people that influence the availability of family planning in countries with a high population growth. In doing so, he would not only help individuals and family’s who are desperately searching for means to get less children, but he also should reach his own goals in a very effective way.
In conclusion, the only efficient way to stabilize world population is to help countries and individuals to reach the last stage of the demographic transition which is shown in the simple but clear graph in the next link: http://slideplayer.com/slide/7828865/
(For a bit more information: keep clicking on the image you get)
To pick a small point….
Zero Population Growth (ZPG) varies by couintry, but — in developed countries — is typically associated with a birth-rate of 2.3 (to account for non-childbearing couples, etc.)
Correct me if I’m wrong here.
Hello Ross King, I also learned another number, 2,2. That’s why we have to look at the definition CIA uses.
Up here the CIA Factbook gives an explanation for the number they use: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/docs/notesanddefs.html?fieldkey=2127&term=Total%20fertility%20rate . I ever learned 2,2 child per woman IN THE FERTILE AGE will keep the population stable. I think this is the difference with the number CIA uses: they look for all [newborn] women: “This entry gives a figure for the average number of children that would be born per woman if all women lived to the end of their childbearing years and bore children according to a given fertility rate at each age.” If (!) The old number we learned, 2,2 (or 2,3) is higher than the CIA gross 2 (one boy and one girl) for every woman + man because not every newborn girl will reach the end of the fertile age and so will reproduce. And the ‘old fertility rate’ looked for all the women IN THE FERTILE AGE. The CIA uses another definition and names 2 as the replacement factor needed: “A rate of two children per woman is considered the replacement rate for a population, resulting in relative stability in terms of total numbers”. Therefore in their way of defining and measuring their Total Fertility Rate TFR they can use the number ‘2’ I think. To keep it simple for not-demographers.
Technically, I think the number must slowly decline as premature deaths from disease and other causes is reduced. Of course, with global doom arriving any day now, it’s all irrelevant. CAGW will kill us all by about 3pm tomorrow, or so I gather.
They love people so much, they don’t want any more of them born.
Hm. Ask him if he “loves animals.”
Ask them his position on “future animal births.”
Yeah, imagine all the feral cats and dogs inheriting the earth once we humans are extinct!
When crazy people have a platform in the media…
The depth of hatred toward human beings is astonishing.
University graduates having fewer children. Count me in! Where do I donate ( not sperm obviously!). Given the massive bias to the ‘ liberal’/left in universities that would be a great outcome although a bit long winded for mine. But then I/m not a fascist and am happy for the current generation of greenl/eft imbeciles to live out their lives and see their lunatic ideas crash and burn so we will be cured like we were cured of slavery, of the subjugation of women ( a work still in progress but over the hump in the West), race based fascism and communism..
If this doesn’t highlight the enviromentalists’ [sic] misanthropic project, nothing will
Encouraging college students not to have children…..what an excellent idea.
There was a recent “documentary” which chronicled the effects of such a policy. It is called Idiocracy.
Mike Judge, the director of this “documentary” says it is scary how the real world is starting to show the effects of this policy.
There is a tax on children already. It’s called college tuition.
There’s been a tax on having children since about 1960 in the “West”. Currently, the cost of raising a child(less education) is well over $100,000. Add in education, mostly hidden in taxes, and it’s over $150,000. With a median annual income of ~$51,000 and 3 kids most of their income is going to raise their kids, mostly in the form of taxes and payments for eduation.
The other point both Rieder and Rosling miss is savings. The Puritan idea of “thrift” meant mostly using money purposefully, including minimizing waste and saving for the future. Those savings promote economic development and in the end pay for retirement or healthcare in old age,
Unless you get stuck with negative interest rates.
Your cost estimates must be out of date, philohippous.
The US Govt gives the cost of raising a child until age 18 as $241,080 in 2012.
http://blogs.usda.gov/2013/08/14/what-does-it-cost-to-raise-a-child/
The cost of raising children is huge and largely hidden. In the US, housing near better schools is significantly more expensive, often subject to higher tax rates, and may be more distant from the workplace. Distance equals additional commuting and daycare/after-school-care costs. Add in clothing, food, life-enrichment activities such as sports, tutors, field trips, in-school activities and the investment in time and money accumulates daily. Career decisions are subject to surprising new limitations on travel, relocation, and working hours. During the life stage where the childless enjoy the fruits of their careers and save for retirement, those with children face costs of 10-100k dollars per college student per year. After graduation most children could benefit greatly from a bit of help while establishing their own careers. At some point there may be grandchildren to spoil.
The fact is that those who have no children usually have no understanding of the sacrifices it takes to birth, feed, house, clothe, socialize, and educate children, and to help them establish productive lives and healthy families of their own. Sadly, many of these folks also have little appreciation that it will be this new generation which will pay for the infrastructure, defense, and social services they will expect during the 20-30 years they will live after retirement. Sadder still, they will never see their children grow, learn, and prepare to take over the world. And they will be a bit less wise and human for the loss.
Oh, boo hoo! Don’t complain to childless-me how expensive your children are, as I’m forced to pay for their healthcare, housing, education, …
Sleep
You do pay a very small percentage of the cost, but at some point you will expect to receive as much benefit as those who made far greater sacrifices. Your comment eloquently makes the point I attempted to cover in my second paragraph.
No. You are wrong, and abusing language. No-one forces you,on pain of imprisonment and forfeiture of property, to send your child(ren) to college.
Correct. I educate and socialize my offspring so that they can enjoy their best possible lives and contribute their full potential to making the world a better place going forward. That includes paying taxes to support you and your quality of life as you age. You are welcome.
We are in the process of turning women into faux males. Where do the mothers of the future come from ? Seems like noone cares.
Here is a very spare bio:
http://www.bioethicsinstitute.org/people/travis-n-rieder
The news media is not doing its job. They should be ridiculing this idiot, not elevating and amplifying his stupidity.
…Oops….Tesla bursts into flames during test drive in France !
http://video.foxnews.com/v/5085272299001/tesla-bursts-into-flames-during-test-drive/?intcmp=obnetwork#sp=show-clips
https://mic.com/articles/152044/watch-a-tesla-model-s-burst-into-flames-during-a-test-drive#.49Bl8LuvP
The language of the ideologically motivated warrior annoys me just as much whether it’s Travis Rieder or Eric Worrall.
[your language generally annoys us moderators =mod]
Anonymous moderator said:
“[your language generally annoys us moderators =mod]”
If you wish to criticize me personally, and you’re not just performing the role of a neutral moderator upholding the rules, would it be too much to ask for you to do it under your own name, and not with your anonymous moderators hat on?
[that is how this shop operates with anonymous moderators, if you don’t like the way it operates then don’t comment here =mod]
I wasn’t complaining about moderation being anonymous. I was complaining about an anonymous moderator becoming a participant rather than just moderating, while still remaining anonymous.
When I first came here I was criticized for cowardly hiding behind a name that wasn’t my full real name, while criticizing others, and I thought, you know what, they’re right. So I started using my full real name. I even provided enough details for people to be able verify I am who I say I am.
But, hey, it’s your site, and you can do as you please. I have no power to make you do anything.
While this is sad, he does have a point. Here in Massachusetts, section 8 welfare recipients recieve 10’s of thousands of dollars per child in benefits.
This seems to be a career choice of lazy persons and part of the problem liberals greedily created themselves just for votes and other gov perks they themselves recieve.
It’s been a big green watermelon all along. Control, control, control. Cranks emanating gaseous theories usually on the public dime.
Btw Trump is our Corbyn.
troe
“Btw Trump is our Corbyn.”
Do you mean not merely unelectable but actually rejected overwhelmingly by his own [Century plus old] party.
And an unfortunate hair problem??
Auto
auto
Odd response, that comment above. See, trump got more votes than has any other recent (or ever) nominee for that 140 year old party.
Now, he has been rejected by many of the recent and consistent losers (er, Washington-paid-TV-media-elites) of that party. But he has received more VOTERS than any of those recent-and-consistent losers.
Trump got 44% of the GOP primary and caucus votes, and a majority of delegates under the rules of the various state GOP committees. That doesn’t look like overwhelming rejection to me.
I’m sure that Travis Rieder has already been castrated.
My 94 year old uncle tells me it also prevents prostate cancer.
But really, who is going to pay for his Social Security ? I already figure that those who produced tax paying citizens should get extra credits.
Not sure about prostate cancer, but it sure prevents testicular cancer.
And children
You know that “climate science” is far more about ideology than about science when all solutions converge on socialism.
In the linked NPR article, it states that he himself had to be persuaded by his wife to have even one child. He is in equal measure a victim and an apostle of the CAGW delusion.
Obama irks La. flood victims with memo warning them not to discriminate
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/aug/19/obama-offends-louisiana-flood-victims-me/
“…Rieder’s well meaning…advice…”
Well meaning?
Here he is on Clinton v. Trump. I think he types with forked keystrokes: http://pilotonline.com/opinion/columnist/guest/travis-n-rieder-is-the-lesser-of-two-evils-an/article_de150392-fc73-558c-b986-b5f2e3c59992.html
Better hurry if you want to make a comment on National Public Radio.
That network will no longer permit comments on its reports as of 23 August.
Those who have grave doubts about the fairness and objectivity of NPR’s reporting on “climate change” lament the loss of our ability to draw attention to evidence and opinion that contradicts or fails to support the dangerous global warming conjecture.
NPR’s comment section was heavily edited. The moderators not only deleted comments with dissenting viewpoints, but modified their content. Their unscrupulous efforts reinforced the viewpoint that NPR is a propaganda outlet.
Enough people had become wise to NPR’s practices, that the cessation of comment sections is nothing less than the addition of another layer of camouflage to their not- so- well hidden agendas.
So we’re supposed to not have kids…and have open borders
They could just put more hormones in our water….
Don’t give them any ideas.
I suspect that Travis Rieder has not read “How civilizations die & why Islam is dying too” by David P Goldman, who also writes as Spengler at Asia Times. Put simply, countries that don’t breed to enlarge their population & culture will fail. Only the USA & Israel are breeding above mere replacement levels. He wrote this on 31st May in an article about Erdogan & Turkey.
Turkey’s demographic winter and Erdogan’s duplicity:
“Muslim countries that achieve a high rate of adult literacy jump from infancy to senescence without passing through adulthood. Like their Iranian, Algerian and Tunisian counterparts, Turkish women reject the constraints of Muslim family life as soon as they obtain a high school education. The shock of sudden passage from traditional society into the modern world has produced the fastest-ever fall in fertility rates in the Muslim world.
Iran, whose fertility rate fell from 7 children per female in 1979 to less than 1.8 today, has the fastest-ageing population of any country in the world. Turkey has an average total fertility rate of 2.18, or just at replacement, but the split between ethnic Turks and ethnic Kurds will make Turkey’s present geographic configuration untenable.
The Kurds’ courage and military prowess leave Turkey in a quandary. Any effective action against ISIS enhances the Kurds’ political standing and advances the day when they will have their own state including the northwest of Iraq and the southeast of Turkey, as well as the southwest corner of Iran and a large swath of northern Syria. But Turkey cannot abandon the NATO alliance, which stands as a guarantor of its territorial integrity. It has no choice but to play both sides, playing the public role of an alliance member while covertly sabotaging the effort to destroy ISIS.
That is the origin of the present refugee crisis.”
Those who wish to have a worldwide view should probably desist from reading their dead tree press.
http://atimes.com/2016/05/turkeys-demographic-winter-and-erdogans-duplicity/