Want to help fight climate change? Have more kids
Don’t feel guilty about bringing children into a warming world. Be hopeful that they can help solve the problem
ulous — thus boosting its capacity to solve the problem.
But even if your kid doesn’t grow up to be a leading scientist or environmental crusader, she may still have a real impact. More people, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer, create bigger markets for innovations. There are more medicines for common diseases than for rare diseases, precisely because market size is larger. By having more kids, you are increasing the demand for remedies to climate change. For instance, there are significant fixed costs to coming up with higher-quality electric cars or better solar panels. Investors put money into these areas only because they hope to sell a lot of units. Your children will help boost demand.
Furthermore, if you are sufficiently concerned about climate change that it might influence your child-bearing decisions, there is an above-average chance your children will share similar concerns; political views are to some extent inherited. That will make your kids more likely to want to alleviate the problem.
Look at it this way: If progress on climate change is at all possible, someone will need to contribute to it. Aren’t your potential children among the most likely people to do that? If nothing else, they have an above-average chance of voting for political remedies for the problem, given how you will raise and instruct them.
Alternatively, you might think that climate change is such a huge and terrible problem that even marginal improvements are unlikely, never mind a comprehensive solution. If that’s the case, then you should just do what you want right now and forget about future considerations altogether — whatever you decide, it won’t matter.
Granted, this is a rather silly and nihilistic scenario, but the logic leads to the same result: You should have children if you want to. But by all means, encourage them to be