Hold the Baby, or Maybe One / A taboo subject
To save the planet, stop having children (?)
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(This is a message that few want to hear, and was the subject of an article in the SCMP magazine)

Bill McKibben wrote a book in 1998 called: "Maybe One: A personal and environmental argument for Single Child families."
The book inspired a storm of reactions, with people calling McKibben an "extremist", "sanctimonious", and "holier than thou",
for acting on his own beliefs and having a vasectomy.

But that was 1998, and today things are changing. The threats of Peak oil and Climate change have become more evident.
People are beginning to examine his arguments

But no major environmental groups in the West have yet taken up his cause, despite the strong argument behind it.

ARGUMENT:

+ "If you live Britain, the US or HK... nothing can reduce your impact on the environment as much as having one fewer child"

+ An American who foregoes having a child would save 9,441 tonnes of CO2

"If you're talking about having no children at all, you're still regarded as barmy of selfish"

"A recent study by OPT estimated that saving a tonne of CO2 costs only US$& if you spend it on family planning; to achieve
the same by means of solar power would cost US$51."

"From the point of view of climate change, choosing to have one fewer child - especially if you live in a high consumption society
- remains a Very Good Thing."

It seems to be happening already:
"A record 1/5 of British women who are 50 have no children at all"

Actually, there are various organisations on both sides like:

Optimum Population Trust (OPT) - supporters of reproductive rights

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement:
"Rather than stopping at two, we should stop at once"

The only factor that is increasing Australia's population is immigration. In third world countries population growth is much higher, in hope having more children will make their retirement years better as more children will ease the burden of taking care of them when the time comes they are to old to work or generate income.

In the West, we think the state or our pensions will take care of us.
But in the East, they are not so sure.

Time will show who has it right

BUT I THINK IT IS BYOND MADNESS to had out homes to single mothers,
and give reckless young women an incentive to have children, and live off the state

I read that article in the SCMP today and think this subject should be openly debated. However, this almost feels pointless in the face of growth driven policy by present day governments, East and West. Unfortunately the capitalist, western doctrine is so wasteful, so contemptuous of the environment and scarce resources that individuals who attempt to display morals and concern in their consumer/lifestyle decisions are always destined to appear foolish and futile in their cause.

Interestingly though, the market appears to be finding its own way to resolve some of these problems. As soon as an economy becomes sufficiently developed (in my experience UK/Hong Kong) then the incentives to procreate become eroded. This may be down to permanent sky high property prices, increasing awareness/ education of the costs of child care, greater consumer choice making child rearing more restrictive or something more subtle (e.g womens rights/choice/less likelihood of successful coupling?). As with everything the danger is the government steps in and screws things up. If population levels fall (which is highly desirable for rising living standards in developed economies) they will create incentives for short term thinkers to work on another sprog. Government failure will be the story behind the failings of the 21st century.

Too many single mothers can only occur with support from others, it will balance out as the funding, sympathy and the cycle changes as its impact is felt in public debt, out of control children and disharmony in the group. You state that it was a taboo subject and that today it should be openly discussed, now add in that tomorrow it will be understood and dealt with sometime in the future when the group has had enough.

I think that the Internet will change the way government works in the next few generations, decimating their control by the spread of information, just as the Gutenberg press spread information that changed control from that of the ruling classes to that of government. I wonder what will come next.

This is EXACTLY the kind of problem which Prechter foretells of what we can expect in a Wave 3. Expect more like this. If anyone is interested I suggest they take a look at the recent Eugenics issue of Socionomics.
If you want kids then I would go ahead and have them. If you want a vasectomy then go right ahead. In my opinion you won't reget kids (most of the time) but you may well regret sterilization.

Just wanted to add my thoughts are in tune with being in a healthy relationshiprather than a single mother trying to get benefits, which should be scrapped IMO except for genuine cases. Japan has no benefits for such cases you just go back to your family. This forces a certain level of responsibility which should have been thought about before.
Browns 'helping hard working families' rather than 'any old slapper looking for a freebie' springs to mind. If you are a hand wringing liberal then I apologise in advance. (I am a child from single parenthood-just for the record).