Really want to save the world? Quit having kids
Filed under: Tax
The IRS recently updated consumers on all the tax savings you can get from making your home more green-friendly. Installing energy efficient windows and doors, insulation, roofing, HVAC, water heaters, and biomass stoves can save you a boatload of money on your taxes.But will doing all those things really help the environment? Yes. But ya know what will help mother nature a hell of a lot more?
Not breeding.
According to a study conducted at Oregon State University, whether you have a child has a far greater impact on your carbon footprint than all other earth-saving measures combined. For example: A woman who switches to a fuel-efficient car, recycles, installs energy-efficient light bulbs, and replaces her refrigerator and windows with energy-saving models will, of course, reduce her carbon footprint. But if she then goes and has two children, her carbon legacy will rise to nearly 40 times the energy she saved with green-living sacrifices.
"Clearly, the potential savings from reduced reproduction are huge compared to the savings that can be achieved by changes in lifestyle," the report states.
It isn't SUVs and drafty windows that are ruining the planet. We have met the enemy and it is our children. We talk a lot about how we need to save the planet for our children, but the best way to do that is to not have children: or at least have fewer or, even better, adopt already existing ones.Which brings me back to the tax code: If you can get tax credits for installing energy-efficient windows and light bulbs, why can't you get a tax credit for doing something that is 40 times more green-friendly? Instead of Cash For Clunkers, we should have done Cash For Tube Tying or Cash For Vasectomy. Sterilization can cost as little as $1,600 according to Planned Parenthood, and if we offered people a tax credit of three times the cost of the operation, we could do a lot to help the planet.
But it gets worse: Not only do we not offer tax credits to people who do the environmentally-friendly thing and don't reproduce, but we actually offer tax benefits to those planet destroyers who selfishly procreate.
I ran the numbers on H&R Block's Tax Calculator, and here's how it works out:
- A single head of household with three kids who earns $60,000 will pay $1,560 in taxes.
- A single person with no kids who earns $60,000 will pay $8,450 in taxes.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-16-2009 @ 12:02PM
Nicole Akers said...
Just think Zac,
We could have been relieved of having to read this ridiculous article if your own parents had not been "selfish procreators". Studies show that larger families are much more in tune with the environment and repurposing clothing, materials, vehicles due to tightened expenses.
Love,
A loving mother of 5
(who yes buys at thrift stores, uses a compost pile and does not use plastic bottles)
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11-16-2009 @ 1:53PM
Eric said...
wow...confirmation bias...straw men...red herrings and those good old personal emotion touches...how many logical fallacies can you all people make?
the point of the article is...humans (and our accompanying behaviors) are the problem!
more humans, more problem.
Lady with 5 kids, lets put it this way: whats worse - 100 people guzzling gas, driving around suvs, using plastic, burning coal just to watch it burn and basically wreaking terror on the environment or 6 billion eco-concerned housewives who never use plastic, drive a prius and so on. Don't take it so personally, its just information.
As for adopting kids...man, you people have to try to misunderstand this stuff...
i adopt a kid that already exists (1 kid)
I give birth to a kid...whilst the previously unadopted kid still exists (2 kids)
wow, that was hard. 2 is more than one, if his stats turn out to be true that is now 80x the carbon legacy instead of 40x.
But, what can we expect...this from a nation of people who feel content consuming 9x more than the average earthling so long as they provide minor reductions and token green attitudes (or some that just flagrantly say F it).
Zac, thanks for writing this post. It is hugely taboo to talk about, but is all the massive F-ing elephant in the room that will bring about water wars, starvation and extreme competition for resources before AGW becomes a legitimate threat (and this coming from a big time climate progress, clean tech and fossil liberation advocate). 2050, welcome your 9 billion new bestest friends!
11-16-2009 @ 12:18PM
Nicole said...
Interesting argument. I think there's probably more to the decision to "breed" than purely environmental considerations. Maybe thinking about and/or researching some of those reasons might help with some of your anger issues. As Nicole above said it's probably been a benefit to your life that your parents were selfish breeders. And my guess is that most of the readers of this blog are already parents.
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11-16-2009 @ 12:21PM
Astounded said...
Wow, I guess this is why newspapers shoiuld actually still exist. There actually might have been someone who reviwed this stuipd blathering and not allowed it. In fact the invidual might have been fired on the spot.
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11-16-2009 @ 1:27PM
anonymous said...
Yes, not existing can have a dramatic drop in your consumption and waste, too. That's a silly point.
What got me curious was the part "even better, adopt already existing ones." How does an adopted child use less and expend less than a child that wasn't adopted? The facts in the article seem to spin rapidly back and forth from the microcosms of an individual or family, to the macrocosms of country or world.
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11-16-2009 @ 2:26PM
Cooper said...
Uh, I guess reading between the lines was too much of a stretch right after lunch, but I believe Zac was suggesting adoption INSTEAD OF procreation. There are plenty of un-adopted children already living on the planet. If you adopt one of them INSTEAD OF creating a new child, you have kept the population constant rather than increasing it by one.
11-16-2009 @ 2:07PM
Jason said...
Well I chuckled. I picked up on your sarcasm at the end and hope others did as well. I imagine that this article was mostly written as a satire, but it's hard to tell these days.
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11-16-2009 @ 2:25PM
Cooper said...
Zac, you had to know that you were going to get lambasted for this one. I salute you for writing it anyway.
Population control/management is an old, old argument which China has already adopted as a national policy. We live on a planet with finite space and finite resources. Unfortunately, it's a policy that is even less likely to fly here in these days of "political correctness."
Ironically, the most prodigious breeders have historically been minorities within a society. So, within a dozen or so replies to your article, expect to be accused of advocating "ethnic cleansing."
Then, there are the short-sighted capitalists who truly believe that the economy needs an ever-expanding population to foster economic growth. Those tend to be the people who believe that an acre of undeveloped land is an acre of wasted space.
You did a very nice job of tying overpopulation together with environmental issues and taxation, though. We can only hope that a few readers will actually get the message and spread it around. Don't count on it. This is an issue that always riles up the overemotional and undereducated.
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11-16-2009 @ 8:24PM
Jason said...
Congrats on the double whammy insult to those opposed. Years of higher education have certainly prepped you for the blogosphere.
11-16-2009 @ 8:24PM
Eric M said...
The myth of overpopulation was debunked decades ago. Try asking Europe how that declining birthrate is working out for them. Anybody really wanna emulate China? How's that worked out for them? A bunch of guys in their early 20's with no women to marry!
I couldn't care less about my "carbon footprint". Just a way for Al Gore to get rich. All the people-haters should lead by example. If we're all destroying the earth and there are too many of us, you be the first to quit. No? Didn't think so.
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