LA Observed

"Advice for Greenies in a Complicated World"

Dear JJ:

My husband Justin and I are in our early 30s, and my biological clock is ticking! We'd always planned to have children, but some of our greenest friends are joining the Childless by Choice movement. What do you think? Should we at least consider whether adding more people to the planet is a good idea?

Maggie, greenApplechick
Brooklyn

Dear Maggie:

Wow, the ultimate question--the big Greenie kahuna. And such a tough one for me to weigh in on--and not just because this is such a deeply personal decision.

Should you and Justin add more resource-gobbling humans to the planet? That has to be entirely up to you.

The trouble is, we don't actually know whether it's greener to have children or not overall. If you think about it, for example, there are lots of ways in which children can actually discourage the rampant use of resources--an obvious example being that you'll probably want to avoid air travel for the first 10 years.

I can certainly urge you to consider all the pros and cons before you make such a spectacularly important decision--and yet, the debate over the Childless by Choice movement really hasn't even begun to do so.

A few of the more obvious pros, for example--i.e. ways that having kids in fact will help you reduce your impact on the earth:

• You'll have a lot less sex--tons less, let's just be honest--so you won't accidentally have more children than you might otherwise.
• When you teach kids about recycling, they become instant recycling nazis--in a good way.
• The Tea Party is going to keep having children. Think about it.
• Changing diapers for 3 years (especially in the 2nd and 3rd years) will make you completely comfortable with the idea of compost toilets.
• When the climate-change apocalypse arrives, you'll be able to eat for 2 months off the floor of your car on cereal, fruit-roll bits, and cookie and cracker crumbs.
• The most effective environmental organizations are run by people who have parents.
• We need a huge market for all the wonderful new toys without BPA, PVC, mercury, lead, and colors not found in nature.

By the same token, children can also be highly problematic planet-wise--and we need to examine that problem honestly and in a lot more detail than the debate so far has generally done. A few obvious examples:

• Kids never turn off the lights.
• Juice boxes aren't recyclable.
• It's just embarrassing to own a hybrid SUV that gets 22 mpg. Or it should be.
• Grandparents often embark on orgies of consumption, which can last 30 or 40 years.

And the most significant impact? Well, children have a way, we know, of making you care about them more than anything else. A lot more. Maybe it's the genetic imperative. Or their smiles. Or how they look when they're asleep. And yet, your car mileage? How much electricity you use? How long that shower is? Even those of us who love children have to admit that the biggest threat they pose to the planet is that they can make our strongest Greenie intentions fly right out the window.

On the other hand, you're probably not going to live as long yourselves--what with the years (decades!) of lost sleep and the worrying that never ends. Which is itself a huge argument in favor of having those kids, especially since old age... Well, the incredible resource-intensiveness of old age can be a subject for another whole column.

Of course, if you do decide to have children, then the next question you're going to want to ask is.... Are boys or girls greener?--which clearly will become more important as we develop more technologies to influence which one you have.

And it's just as complicated a question. Boys, for example, can eat 9 meals and take 7 showers a day as teenagers. And they don't eat vegetables--which can make it awfully challenging when the CSA box arrives with lettuce, mustard greens, collard greens, 2 kinds of chard, and 5 kinds of kale. And girls.... Well, girls, OMG. Girls, too, will require another whole column.

Good luck with your decision!

Green Me Up, JJ is an occasional advice column. You can e-mail JJ with your burning questions about how to act and think environmentally smart in our complicated 21st-century world.

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