What Earth does care about, is when you decide that's a good idea to have on average more than 4 children per couple over the last 2 generations in India [1] instead of only 2 or even less children per couple like in USA or the EU [2].
Every country has a set of natural resources at its disposal. It should manage and cherish those resources and not overtax them. If a country decides it's a good idea to perpetually grow their population when all they have are the same set of natural resources available, then well, the onus is on them to figure out how to do it without destroying everything.
You're making my point. The US went through the same process, with the same birth rate interrupted only by the great depression until two generations ago.
There aren't countries, there are humans responding to the same conditions similarly. Economic development will slow their reproductive rate, like clockwork.
If you point to a family in the 60s in the US and a family in India today and find only one of them irresponsible, your thinking is flawed.
I assume you're following through with your convictions and will remain child free?
> I assume you're following through with your convictions and will remain child free?
No, I will remain with my child at replacement rate (a little below actually), like my parents and my grandparents did (and all parents and grandparents on average here), and I expect them to be entitled to a lot more resources than someone who lives in a country where (on average) their parents, grandparents and themselves didn't follow the same principle.
As a fact, India's CO2 emissions per unit area are almost the same as EU. We are using the same share of ecological resources (assuming roughly they are equivalent on average per area), so there is nothing to give or to take from both sides.
P.S.: A family in USA in the 60's, 1st: didn't had any idea that there was such thing as a catastrophic global warming incoming, 2nd: had a 4x smaller population density than India has today. But sure, go ahead and keep pretending that Earth's resources magically increase anytime someone decides to have a new child, so that you can tell yourself we are all entitles to the same amount of resources, no matter the size of our immediate family.
I have no ideological agenda other than not engaging in casual racism to construct a boogeyman to point at to absolve myself of the substantial impact I've made to the climate.
It's not your racism that has you stating that someone in a country with a very good track record when it comes to CO2 emissions (and a number of other environmental aspects) should stop having children, so that someone in a overly populated country, with an appalling record when it comes to all kinds of pollution can have even more children?
If it's not racism from your part that makes you ask for that, than you should clarify what it is. But one thing is for certain, it's not environmentalism for sure.
I'm not telling you not to have children, but it does make you a hypocrite.
I'm accusing you of casual racism for drawing a false distinction around the behavior of Indians. They are doing what everyone else has done in the same circumstance. Just because we have gotten our growth spurt and dirty economic development out the way doesn't entitle us to waggle our finger at those that took longer.
It's on the first world to fix things first. The wealthiest should have the lowest per capita emissions, not the highest. Shouting at the third world for their high population count isn't environmentalism, it won't work, and it doesn't give you the moral high ground.
> They are doing what everyone else has done in the same circumstance.
We already established those aren't the same circumstances at all:
- 1st: we didn't have even 1/4 of the Indian population density when we were having the same birthrates.
- 2nd: When global warming became clear and urgent action was needed, we started reducing our emissions while India during that time already increased them by 400%, and is going to increase them by another 100% in the next decade.
It's not by keep repeating the same lie that you are going to make it a reality.
We didn't establish anything. You grasped at the density straw in order to intellectually justify your prejudice.
The poor in India should increase their emissions, because otherwise they'll die. Life expectancy has risen from 40 to 68 years since the 60s. Would you halve your life expectancy to fix global warming? I don't think so.
In any case, the births have already happened, and India is now barely above replacement rates, which you've conveniently overlooked. You want them to die because of the choices their parents made.
If you excuse me, I'm going to go take a shower. I honestly can't believe I'm having this conversation on HN.
You crossed badly into flamewar in this thread, which breaks the site guidelines regardless of how right you are or feel. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do that on HN again; it's strictly destructive here, and someone else behaving badly is no justification.
I agree. The trouble is that we don't see everything that gets posted here; there's too much. So sometimes when there's a repeated pattern of abuse, it takes longer than we would like to notice it. Users can help by flagging comments (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html for how) and by emailing hn@ycombinator.com about egregious cases.
Ah, I specifically picked a comment that had been killed by repeated flagging. I assumed that there'd be a human reviewing by that stage.
I've been under the impression for a while that it takes quite a bit more to be banned these days than five years ago, but that might just be nostalgia.
Anyway, I know you're volunteers and it's not really appropriate for me to be complaining about the dress code after fighting in your bar. I'm sorry for causing trouble.
> The poor in India should increase their emissions, because otherwise they'll die. Life expectancy has risen from 40 to 68 years since the 60s.
So, you are saying that CO2 emissions are actually good for the population and the way forward is to actually increase them even more. Interesting turn of events from an environmentalist.
> You want them to die because of the choices their parents made.
Funny thing to say, since you want the West to pay for the choices our grandfathers made and descend into deprivation, so that the rest of the world can go on polluting even more.
Here is the thing, people with your discourse aren't interested in saving the planet but into forcing your ideological agenda - which is got nothing to do with environmentalism but with your personal concepts of morality - upon the rest of us under the threat of environmental catastrophe. And the worst part of it? It does nothing to tackle climate change.
P.S.: > If you excuse me, I'm going to go take a shower. I honestly can't believe I'm having this conversation on HN.
Go easy on that shower, it's a big toll on the environment and, after all, you just spent the last 24h telling us all how those resources actually should belong to be used by people in India and not selfishly by me or by you.
[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IND/india/fertility-ra...
[2] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/fert...
Every country has a set of natural resources at its disposal. It should manage and cherish those resources and not overtax them. If a country decides it's a good idea to perpetually grow their population when all they have are the same set of natural resources available, then well, the onus is on them to figure out how to do it without destroying everything.