Consistently ignored as an idea, having fewer children is
the single best way to reduce an individual’s carbon footprint, as a
reduction of just one child would save
a family an average of 58 tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions per year. This
isn’t a new topic here. But I guess I’m still smarting from some friends' assumption last year that I didn’t care about the environment or the future, rather than
the fact that I had a much lower carbon footprint because I didn’t have
children. So I thought I’d document some reasons why my footprint is smaller as
a result of not having children.
1. I have never purchased baby wipes or nappies (diapers)
or a myriad of other plastics that are necessary baby accoutrements, and I have
not sent them to the landfill.
2.
I don’t have the same food requirements or food
waste that I might have if I had children, particularly fussy children.
3.
I’ve never purchased or made new clothes and
shoes for growing children every year, or had to provide school supplies.
4.
The sheer number of brightly-coloured plastic toys
or electronics that I have seen in the houses of friends and family members is
mind-boggling. Sure, some of them might be passed on, but the broken, faded, left
out in the rain, and simply unloved toys all go to the landfill.
5.
Housing. We can have smaller houses (yes, I have
a three bedroom house, but we thought we were going to have kids when we bought
it, and will eventually down-size). We also don’t create a need for new houses.
I look at my in-laws – with four children, and now grand-children leaving home,
from the demand for one house, they have now produced the need for up to 12
houses to accommodate. As available and affordable housing is a major issue
here in New Zealand, it is both an environmental AND social issue.
6.
Our overall water and energy living requirements
are so much lower. We don’t need to run the washing machines or dishwashers as
often, we don’t have the same hot water needs to shower a family of four or
five, we don’t have so many lights on at night or need to heat (or cool) as
many rooms or cook as many meals, or run as many screens/devices as a family
with children.
7.
Our transport footprints are generally so much
lower. There’s less of a reason to have multiple cars per family. Two cars is
quite common, one to use to drive the kids around, and one to get to-from work.
Then the children begin driving, and they often get cars too. We don’t drive
kids around transporting them to activities (and have either shared cars or
taken buses to work). I remember one of my sisters-in-law commenting that she
was driving hours a day delivering children to/from sports. The environmental
impact of that is so much higher than my occasional foray out to a park for a
walk or to take photographs. We also don’t need to travel at peak time or have
as many deadlines (sports games, music/art lessons etc), using more fuel.
8.
Celebrations (for example, Christmas, birthdays,
baptisms, graduations, etc) waste and detritus. Anyone at a family Christmas just
needs to look around the room after the present-opening part of the day to
think about the waste involved. The gifts themselves, the plastic packaging, the
transport miles to both send gifts or to be there in person.
9.
Air travel for necessary events. Even with the
stereotype of a childless couple travelling the world (pandemics not
withstanding), my travel footprint is much lower than my friends and family who
have children. Whenever family events (weddings, funerals etc) or simple visits
to siblings or grandparents require travel, a family is going to double or
triple the carbon emissions by bringing their children. And of course they will
bring their children. For example, my brother-in-law flew his three children
and his wife back to New Zealand for his mother’s funeral service. That’s a
perfect reasonable thing to do. They then came back a couple of months later to
spend Christmas with his father. Again, a perfectly reasonable and decent thing
to do. But that’s a lot of emissions in a short time. Friends travel with their
children, both to see the world (as we do) and to visit families who are so
often far-flung these days. But they buy four or more plane tickets rather than
the two we might purchase.
10.
Air Travel for leisure. Yes, families with
children might travel less often than those of us without, simply because of
the expense of transporting four or five or six people over one or two. But in
my social group, they don’t seem to hold back. However, because they need to
adhere to school holiday dates, they will tend to take shorter holidays more
frequently, even if those holidays are simply necessary visits to family/ageing
grandparents or great-grandparents. Depending which country you live in, this
can be accentuated. (I’m always amazed at the limited annual leave provisions
of the US, and the fact that people there might fly to Europe for just a week
or ten days.) Whereas we don’t have to travel at peak times, and we can go for
longer trips. We’ve always saved up our annual leave, and ensured that when we
take a long plane trip (to Asia or Europe), we end up spending longer, making
the most out of our long haul carbon miles. Over the last ten years, our trips
to Europe and the Middle East would not have been possible with children. We
would have had to take multiple shorter trips, as our friends do. Likewise,
within New Zealand or Australia, we are much more likely to drive than fly. Or
within Europe, we are much more likely to drive or take trains between
destinations, rather than fly. But a road-trip with children might not be as
easy, or as much fun. (Though that said, flying with children would be no joke
either!)
So even as I try to reduce my emissions, and endeavour to
become more conscious, I (and you) can still be a little smug knowing that I
have helped limit my impact on the environment and climate change.
