Over the weekend I saw this article on population and climate change by Matthew Yglesias and he asks why people don’t talk about the benefits of small families. on the enviroment.
Efficiency—just not using energy—is the cleanest source of energy at all. And nobody uses less energy than a person who doesn’t even exist. That’s not to say we should be engaging in coercive limits on people’s ability to have children, that would be a cure that’s far worse than the disease. But the evidence is pretty clear that in societies where women are empowered and have access to contraception, that on average they want modest-sized families. And what this study is talking about is specifically what could be accomplished by closing the gap between the level of contraception that people want to have and the level of contraception they’re actually able to maintain. There are dozens of good reasons to think closing that gap would be beneficial, the impact on the environment is one of them, and there’s no reason people should refuse to say that.
I have even been in college classes where talking about the benefits of smaller families is strongly dicouraged. Kids have sort of become a consumer good that everyone is entitled to have, and anyone who suggests otherwise is some sort of elitist jerk. And yes I am bitter about being called an elitist jerk.