Do you REALLY want to help fight climate change? [View all]

[GliderGuider]

Don't.
Have.
Children.

...and convince your friends to do likewise.

Family planning: A major environmental emphasis

A study by statisticians at Oregon State University concluded that in the United States, the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an extra child is almost 20 times more important than some of the other environmentally sensitive practices people might employ their entire lives – things like driving a high mileage car, recycling, or using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs.

The research also makes it clear that potential carbon impacts vary dramatically across countries. The average long-term carbon impact of a child born in the U.S. – along with all of its descendants – is more than 160 times the impact of a child born in Bangladesh.

In this debate, very little attention has been given to the overwhelming importance of reproductive choice, Murtaugh said. When an individual produces a child – and that child potentially produces more descendants in the future – the effect on the environment can be many times the impact produced by a person during their lifetime.

Under current conditions in the U.S., for instance, each child ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average parent – about 5.7 times the lifetime emissions for which, on average, a person is responsible.

Here's the paper:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/environment_impact/2009/07/carbon%20legacy.pdf

And a commentary on it, by the true heir to George Carlin and Bill Hicks:

I'm rather proud to have kept 20,000 tonnes of CO2 out of Mama Gaia's atmosphere.