Baby decisions - adding to the world's woes?
VIEWPOINT
Joanna Benn

How responsible is it to have children in a world whose environmental health is already under stress? That's the question Joanna Benn poses this week in the Green Room. On the other hand, she wonders, will a couple more hungry mouths make much difference?

I came out of my house last week and got caught up in a fleet of mothers and prams.

They were wearing a middle class yummy mummy uniform combining comfort and fashion - skinny jeans, UGG boots, black tops and large sunglasses.

The prams were all state-of-the-art three wheeled, balanced, air-bagged mini cars that can fold to the size of a postage stamp and carry the week's shopping.

The urban mother tribe looked chic, proud and collectively cool.

It got me thinking. I love kids, I love babies.

I love the idea of the Brady Bunch, of close-knit large families and a stream of brothers and sisters of different heights with crazy hair.

However, perhaps it's my age; suddenly everyone I know has children and it is confusing me.

I don't even know when it all happened. I remember conversations about university, jobs, flats, boyfriends and partners, but I seem to have missed the pre-baby musings.

One minute people were childless - or child-free, depending on your viewpoint.

The next - magic wand, small bang, plume of smoke - it was insta-family, complete with new people-carrier in the drive and more often than not, a house extension.

Two weeks ago, a single childless friend confessed she'd been looking into freezing her eggs. That apparently is not a taboo subject.

Nor are conversations about contraception, fertility patterns, mastitis, post-partum depression and sex, child behaviour problems, sleepless nights, credit crunch worries or redundancy.

However, dare ask how green is it to have kids in a world of dwindling resources, vast global inequality, terrifying climate change scenarios and dying empty seas... then people get uncomfortable and usually defensive.

Ugly truths

I have couched the question a few times: "Why did you want children?"

The answers have usually been - "It seemed the next thing to do, we wanted to, it felt right, I couldn't imagine not..."

Push again - "Have you thought about what kind of world you are bringing them into to? Some climate change scenarios give us a 10 to 15 year window before things get very ugly and scary indeed."

Resounding silence.

Being an environmentalist is, quite frankly, an awkward thing.

When I see babies, not only do I see the beauty, joy and miracle of life, I also see nappies, landfill waste, vast amounts of food and money needed, and a very shaky, unpredictable future.

According to United Nations projections, the world population will nearly stabilise at just above 10 billion people after 2200.

That's a lot of people on one small planet.

When we talk about the environment and available natural resources, we bandy around statistics; yet none of it seems to be about me or you or that guy that everyone talked about during the US election campaign, Joe the Plumber.

Mood swings

Ask any environmental organisation what it thinks about birth control; it'll sidestep the issue, and say it's not their place to comment.

If a commentator says there are too many people on the planet, their words smack of authoritarian dictatorships and human rights violations, and echo traces of unpalatable eugenics.

However, the reality is that every time we eat, switch on a light, get in a car, drink a beer, go on holiday or buy something to wear or use, we are adding to our environmental footprint.

Toddlers - small beings that they are - require almost unlimited nappies, a fair amount of food, and apparently a loungeful of loud, battery-powered plastic toys.

I am not saying we shouldn't have kids. They may well be the leaders of tomorrow, steering humanity into a just, equitable, fair and healthy future.

The new generation may indeed succeed where all others have failed, and learn lessons of the past.

Perhaps it's just my mood.

Or perhaps it's the media's fault that some of us feel as if humanity is sliding from one patch of melting ice to another in a murky sea of financial, environmental and social woes.

I am curious to know if I am the only 30-something woman who has these dilemmas, worrying about the planet's future and what we could and should do to ease the strain.

Am I fretting needlessly? Because in the grand scheme of things, one or two more children in the world really make no difference, do they?

And as for the future - rising sea levels, bare former forests, desertification, empty seas and a few dollar bills floating in the wind - well that'll all take care of itself.

Won't it?

My fellow Martian anthropologists should have no trouble finding some flaws in reasoning here.

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Parents' losses compounded by China's one-child policy
From Kyung Lah
CNN

SICHUAN, China (CNN) -- Li Yunxia wipes away tears as rescue crews dig through the ruins of a kindergarten class that has buried her only child -- a 5-year-old boy.

Other parents wail as soldiers in blue masks trudge through the mud, hauling bodies from the rubble on stretchers.

"Children were screaming, but I couldn't hear my son's voice," she says, sobbing.

This grim ritual repeated itself Thursday across southwestern China, as thousands of mothers and fathers await news about their sons and daughters.

The death toll from Monday's massive earthquake could be as high as 50,000, according to state-run media.

The grief is compounded in many cases by a Chinese policy that limits most couples to one child, a measure meant to control explosive population growth.

As a result of the one-child policy, the quake -- already responsible for at least 15,000 deaths -- is producing another tragic aftershock:

Not only must thousands of parents suddenly cope with the loss of a child, but many must cope with the loss of their only child.

China's population minister recently praised the one-child rule, which dates to 1979, saying it has prevented 400 million children from being born.

Some wealthy families ignore the order, have more children and pay a $1,000 fine. In rural areas -- like earthquake-devastated Sichuan province -- families can petition for an additional child, but there's no guarantee the authorities will approve the request -- they usually don't.

That reality has cast parents like Li into an agonizing limbo -- waiting to discover whether their only child is alive or dead.

Thousands of children were in class when the temblor hit Monday afternoon. Many of their schools collapsed on top of them.

In Dujiangyan City, more than 300 students were feared dead when Juyuan Middle School collapsed with 900 students inside. A similar number died at the city's Xiang'e Middle School.

Now parents cluster outside collapsed school buildings, held back by soldiers in some cases as rescue crews search for signs of life.

"Which grade are you in?" a rescuer asks a trapped child in Beichuan County.

"Grade 2," comes the answer.

"Hang on for a while," he says. "We are figuring out ways to rescue you."

The child is pulled from the rubble a short time later.

For every child saved, though, many more are lost.

Many are missing at a middle school in the city of Qingchuan. The scene is devastating at Juyuan Middle School, where sorrow seems endless.

"There were screaming parents, and as the bodies would come out they were trying to identify whether it was their child or not," said Jamil Anderlini of London's Financial Times. "And once they -- the parents -- realized it was their child, obviously they collapsed in grief."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05...index.html

The Threat of Population Growth Pales Beside the Greed of the Rich
By George Monbiot, Comment Is Free
Posted on January 31, 2008, Printed on January 31, 2008

http://www.emagazine.com/view/?4034

COMMENTARY: Smaller Families for a Healthy Environment

Why less is more when it comes to kids
By Richard Grossman, MD

If you’re concerned about overpopulation, it’s easy to get self-righteous about other peoples’ growing families. But I think that’s shortsighted.

This article is from the U.K. but pretty much sums up my feelings. IMO, overpopulation is THE biggest problem we are facing.  However, it's the only issue that is never addressed in any of the "our environment is in crisis" movies out now, like "The Eleventh Hour", "What a Way to Go" or "Inconvenient Truth".  No one wants to face the fact that PEOPLE HAVE TOO MANY DAMN BABIES! 

Potential parents opt to put the planet before procreation
By Jennifer Willis
Pamplin Media Group, Apr 10, 2007
COURTESY OF MICHELLE SCHNEIDER

http://www.forestgrovenewstimes.com/sustainable/story.php?story_id=117589671435170700