Combat global warming by having fewer babies?
In 2006, the last year for which the U.S. Census Bureau has tallied the data, close to 4.3 million babies were born in this country.
That's 11,780 a day, or about 8 a minute.
That's a lot of dirty diapers. A lot of soccer practices. A lot of college tuitions to cover. Above all, a lot of parents' hearts pounding with a sudden avalanche of love for this new creature.
And something else that researchers are beginning to talk about and quantify: a whole lot of planet-warming carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere.
This should hardly come as a surprise. At its simplest, adding more people to the planet results in an increase of emissions.
Like other avoidances - not turning on excess lights, not driving excess miles - having fewer children would result in less emissions.
Egad! Is anyone really saying that to be green, you shouldn't have kids?
Who shouldn't have them? The poor? The rich?
And where shouldn't they have them? For instance, a U.S. baby will generate, in all likelihood, exponentially more emissions than a child in a developing country.
