{"id":9995,"date":"2023-02-14T12:53:58","date_gmt":"2023-02-14T12:53:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=9995"},"modified":"2023-02-14T12:53:58","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T12:53:58","slug":"yes-you-can-have-kids-and-fight-climate-change-at-the-same-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=9995","title":{"rendered":"Yes, you can have kids and fight climate change at the same time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“Total births and the general fertility rate in the US have fallen significantly over the past 15 years<\/a>. While 2021 saw a 1 percent increase<\/a> in births from the year before \u2014 the likely result of planned pregnancies postponed<\/a> during the first difficult year of the pandemic, plus the reproductive benefits of remote work<\/a> \u2014 that number was still more than half a million fewer than the US peak in 2007<\/a>. The total fertility rate \u2014 the number of children women are projected to give birth to over the course of their lifetimes \u2014 stood at 1.67, well below the point needed to replace the population through reproduction alone<\/a>. Nearly one in six Americans 55 and over is childless<\/a>, a percentage that is only expected to grow. Without the boost of immigration, the US population growth rate would have essentially flatlined in recent years<\/a>, and even with it, it grew by just 0.4 percent in 2022<\/a>, among the lowest rates in the nation\u2019s history.”
…
“America has room for more children; it needs them to thrive; and most of all, people do want the freedom to choose the family sizes they desire, including larger ones. It\u2019s a future that progressives can \u2014 and should \u2014 help create.”
…
” while it\u2019s true that a child born today will be responsible for adding more carbon into the atmosphere<\/a>, that 60-metric-ton figure was derived from work by researchers in 2009<\/a> who added up not just the lifetime emissions of the child, but dwindling portions of the lifetime emissions of that child\u2019s descendants, all the way until 2400 \u2014 and making all of that the responsibility of the parents. And that number assumes that the world will make no additional progress in decarbonizing the global economy, which already isn\u2019t true. In a rich country like the US, a baby born today will emit less CO2 on average<\/a> over the course of their lifetime than their parents did; according to the International Energy Agency<\/a>, if the world achieves carbon neutrality by 2050, the carbon footprint of those New Year\u2019s babies could be 10 times smaller than that of their grandparents.”   
…
“As for those fears that having a child would doom them to life in a hot hellscape<\/a>, the world now appears to be on a path to dodge the worst-case climate scenarios<\/a>. This isn\u2019t to minimize the very real suffering that will be unavoidable thanks to warming, especially in poorer countries, but a child born today almost anywhere around the world has a better chance of living a good, long life than at almost any other time in the whole of human history<\/a>.”   
…
“an aging country is one that will have a dwindling number of young workers to support a growing number of elderly. Today there are around three and a half working-age adults<\/a> to support every American eligible for Social Security. By 2060, that is projected to fall to two and a half workers for every retiree. Social Security isn\u2019t a Ponzi scheme<\/a>, but without enough young workers putting in payroll taxes, it can\u2019t continue in its current form.”  
…
“A study<\/a> of 33 OECD nations between 1960 and 2012 found that while countries can remain inventive even as they age, rates of innovation eventually begin to stagnate and decline. As a 44-year-old it pains me to say this, but creativity is a quality most concentrated in the young<\/a>.”  
…
“The average cost of child care in the US now exceeds $10,000 a year. That\u2019s an enormous burden for working- and middle-class families, but it also discourages people who would have more children from doing so<\/a>. Reducing the cost of care is one of the few proven ways of boosting fertility over the long term”  
…
“while the most effective way to grow population over the long term<\/a> is the old-fashioned one \u2014 have more children \u2014 liberalizing immigration to add more Americans would pay off immediately.”  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/the-highlight\/23542710\/population-growth-birth-rates-fertility-rates-democrats-republicans-climate-change<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Total births and the general fertility rate in the US have fallen significantly over the past 15 years. While 2021 saw a 1 percent increase in births from the year before \u2014 the likely result of planned pregnancies postponed during the first difficult year of the pandemic, plus the reproductive benefits of remote work \u2014 that number was still more than half a million fewer than the US peak in 2007. The total fertility rate \u2014 the number of children women are projected to give birth to over the course of their lifetimes \u2014 stood at 1.67, well below the point needed to replace the population through reproduction alone. Nearly one in six Americans 55 and over is childless, a percentage that is only expected to grow. Without the boost of immigration, the US population growth rate would have essentially flatlined in recent years, and even with it, it grew by just 0.4 percent in 2022, among the lowest rates in the nation\u2019s history.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“America has room for more children; it needs them to thrive; and most of all, people do want the freedom to choose the family sizes they desire, including larger ones. It\u2019s a future that progressives can \u2014 and should \u2014 help create.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

” while it\u2019s true that a child born today will be responsible for adding more carbon into the atmosphere, that 60-metric-ton figure was derived from work by researchers in 2009 who added up not just the lifetime emissions of the child, but dwindling portions of the lifetime emissions of that child\u2019s descendants, all the way until 2400 \u2014 and making all of that the responsibility of the parents. And that number assumes that the world will make no additional progress in decarbonizing the global economy, which already isn\u2019t true. In a rich country like the US, a baby born today will emit less CO2 on average over the course of their lifetime than their parents did; according to the International Energy Agency, if the world achieves carbon neutrality by 2050, the carbon footprint of those New Year\u2019s babies could be 10 times smaller than that of their grandparents.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“As for those fears that having a child would doom them to life in a hot hellscape, the world now appears to be on a path to dodge the worst-case climate scenarios. This isn\u2019t to minimize the very real suffering that will be unavoidable thanks to warming, especially in poorer countries, but a child born today almost anywhere around the world has a better chance of living a good, long life than at almost any other time in the whole of human history.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“an aging country is one that will have a dwindling number of young workers to support a growing number of elderly. Today there are around three and a half working-age adults to support every American eligible for Social Security. By 2060, that is projected to fall to two and a half workers for every retiree. Social Security isn\u2019t a Ponzi scheme, but without enough young workers putting in payroll taxes, it can\u2019t continue in its current form.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“A study of 33 OECD nations between 1960 and 2012 found that while countries can remain inventive even as they age, rates of innovation eventually begin to stagnate and decline. As a 44-year-old it pains me to say this, but creativity is a quality most concentrated in the young.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“The average cost of child care in the US now exceeds $10,000 a year. That\u2019s an enormous burden for working- and middle-class families, but it also discourages people who would have more children from doing so. Reducing the cost of care is one of the few proven ways of boosting fertility over the long term” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“while the most effective way to grow population over the long term is the old-fashioned one \u2014 have more children \u2014 liberalizing immigration to add more Americans would pay off immediately.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[625,1236,169,105,104,1469],"class_list":["post-9995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-births","tag-child-tax-credit","tag-children","tag-climate-change","tag-global-warming","tag-government-intervention"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9995"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9996,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9995\/revisions\/9996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}