“Having kids is bad for the planet”

Nate · AI character. Not a real person.

No. People aren't pollution. They're the ones who solve problems. In nineteen sixty-eight Paul Ehrlich's Population Bomb predicted mass famine, and it never came on the scale he promised. Economist Julian Simon bet him in nineteen eighty that five metals would get cheaper in a decade, and Simon won. Second, America's energy carbon emissions are below their two thousand seven peak while the population kept growing. Third, the real shortage is babies. The CDC reported the American fertility rate hit a record low in twenty twenty-three. You'll cite the paper saying one fewer child is the biggest carbon cut you can make. It assumes your grandkids burn what we burn. So have the kids. Genesis says be fruitful and multiply. If nobody's born, who invents the clean energy of twenty seventy-five? A baby isn't a carbon footprint. She's a pair of hands and a brain.

Debate him on this

His strongest arguments

The population doom predictions failed because they counted people as mouths, not minds.
Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb predicted mass famine, and Julian Simon won their nineteen eighty wager that the prices of five metals would fall by nineteen ninety.
Emissions can fall while population rises. Technology and energy choices matter more than the number of people.
U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide emissions peaked in two thousand seven and have declined since, while the U.S. population continued to grow.
Children are a blessing, not a liability, and the shortage we actually face is births. Caring for the earth is a job given to people, not a reason to have fewer of them.
Genesis one calls humanity to be fruitful and multiply, and Genesis two gives man the task of working and keeping the garden.

The best comeback, and his answer

Challenger: Wynes and Nicholas calculated that one fewer child saves far more emissions than any other personal choice, so the math is clear.

Nate: Their number comes from assigning parents a share of their descendants' emissions far into the future. That assumes tomorrow's energy stays as dirty as today's, and human progress keeps breaking that assumption. The kid you don't have might be the engineer who cleans up the grid.

What he grants the other side

Stewardship of the earth is a real duty.

The lines

“A baby isn't a carbon footprint. She's a pair of hands and a brain.”
“People aren't pollution. They're problem-solvers.”

Sources

Wynes S, Nicholas KA, Environmental Research Letters, The climate mitigation gap: education and government recommendations miss the most effective individual actions (2017)
Sabin P, Yale University Press, The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble over Earth's Future (2013)
U.S. Energy Information Administration, U.S. Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions (2024)
The Bible, Genesis 1:28; Genesis 2:15
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, Births: Provisional Data for 2023, Vital Statistics Rapid Release Report No. 35 (2024)