Green Gone Wild

by rabbifink on April 22, 2010 · 8 comments

I am really appreciative to MSNBC.com for the great publicity they gave our Shul with the Escape Into America photo-film as I mentioned here: Pacific Jewish Center Featured on MSNBC.com. In addition, I now need to thank MSNBC for informing me of one of the craziest ideas I have ever heard.

Today is Earth Day and I have gone on record supporting conservation and many green initiatives. I believe conservation is an important part of a Torah lifestyle. (See Earth Day and Torah, Green Post and The Story of Bottled Water Review: Important Video, Way Over the Top.)

While I love the idea of being environmentally conscious, to me it is just a factor in making choices. We all weigh our priorities when we make choices and Going Green is something to consider among other factors.

To illustrate, if one was confronted with the theoretical choice of saving a life or making a more Green choice, it would be obscene to suggest that the Green choice would be more important than saving the life.

There is a woman who was on MSNBC who suggested that people consider the environmental effects of having children.

Yes, having children.

She has all sorts of lovely data about the carbon footprint each child makes on the environment and therefore she urges people to consider those factors while decided if they should become parents.

All with a straight face.

If one is uninterested in procreating that is their own personal choice. But to evangelize in favor of not bearing children because of a reason like “carbon footprint” is, in my opinion, obscene. Thinking “green” does not mean that one should cease to think about anything other green. It means that we should consider the environment when making choices.

It barely even makes sense. I thought one of the main reasons people are concerned with the environment is so our children will have a safe and clean planet to enjoy. Who are we saving the planet for, if not for the next generation? Yes, I know, OTHERS will have children, but the point remains.

The right to bear and beget children is considered a Fundamental Right implicit in the Constitution. It’s a big deal. You don’t whiff on parenthood because of environmental concerns!

I recommend reading her article on grist.org to see if it makes any sense to you.

The best part is when she says “I have lots of friends with children”. That is just like the “I have lots of [insert minority] friends to “prove” you’re not a racist. It means nothing with regard to racism and it means nothing in this context as well.

Then she has the whole “parents lose out on so much” argument. What do parents miss out on? and I quote:

Time and emotional energy to invest in friendships and a romantic partnership.  Space to focus on a career or education or avocation.  Uninterrupted “grown-up” conversations.  Travel that’s truly impulsive or leisurely or adventurous (and never involves zoos).  Unpremeditated Saturday nights on the town and Sunday brunches out.  Opportunities for political or community engagement.  Stretches of quiet for reading or writing or relaxing.  A non-child-proofed, non-toy-strewn, non-goldfish-cracker-crumb-riddled home.  Eight peaceful, uninterrupted hours of sleep a night.  All without any guilt that one should be spending more quality time with the kid.

First of all, parents do not “miss out” on all of that stuff. I know parents who enjoy many of those activities. Second, are these really compelling reasons? Those are the top things parents are missing? Sounds like trying to live a permanently immature lifestyle. Enjoy that.

Of course, Ms. Hymas would never want someone who was going to have children, not have children. This article is just for all the people who are on the fence or need something to use an excuse for why they are comfortable not having children. I just don’t get it.

Even that silly logo up top (taken from her article) is inane.

Also, it seems Ms. Hymas has a very immature view of the benefits of having children. And I quote:

Yes, as a childfree person, I’ll miss out on a lot: The miracle of childbirth (though, truth be told, I don’t feel so bad about skipping that one).  The hilariously perceptive things that only kids say.  A respectable excuse for rereading the Harry Potter series.  The hope that my kid will be smarter and cooler and better looking than I ever was.  More boisterous holiday celebrations.  Someone to carry on the family name (assuming I won the arm-wrestling match with my partner over whose name the kid would actually get).  Maybe even the satisfaction of helping a child grow into a well-educated, well-adjusted adult, and the peace of mind of knowing there’s someone to take care of me in my old age.

Is she serious? These are the reasons people have children? To read Harry Potter? Hilarious things kids say? Seriously?

In my view, being a parent is great opportunity to grow as a human being. Learning how to give and love unconditionally and with no expectation of reciprocation is an opportunity. Not a burden. It is a chance to grow up and become a more complete person. Parenthood is about places another’s need ahead of your own sometimes. Being a parent means working on yourself to be a better person so your child will have a more complete role model. Sure, there are fun things about parenting too, but it is so much more than that.

The only thing I can think of to make sense out of all this, is that when one has no core values one can imagine up any value to the primary value. I find this pretty offensive myself, but I think that is what happened to Ms. Hymas. In her worldview “going green” trumps procreation. I can’t imagine that is a very popular opinion but I guess it is possible.

Either that, or she’s just looking for attention and publicity. In that case, she got what she wanted.

Here she is on the Dylan Ratigan Show:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

If the video is not showing up in your browser, I blame MSNBC.com for terrible embed support. Just click the link above to see it there. Sorry.

Related posts:

  1. Green Post
  2. Where The Wild Things Are
  3. Repost: Where the Wild Things Are

Tagged as: children, Earth Day, green, Grist.org, MSNBC, parenting, parents, ridiculous, video

  • http://twitter.com/MarkSoFla Mark

    I completely agree with her; She shouldn’t have kids. :-)

    But she is absolutely correct, increasing world population is one of the primary causes of increased carbon emission and use of the earths resources. Another primary cause is improving the standard of living of the worlds population (India and China are prime examples of this).

  • http://ingathered.com leah

    I completely agree with your statement about core values. If there is nothing before or after this life, nothing apart from the here and now, why not concentrate on the best ways to pass the time?

  • http://ilanadavita.wordpress.com/ Ilana-Davita

    Extremists are frightening whatever their forms and colors!

  • Loren Spigelman

    Rabbi Fink,

    I’d like ask her what she thinks about her parents not following her advice! But I think she’s right about one thing. Not everyone should become a parent. Parenthood takes responsibility and sacrifice. There are many people who are not responsible, and / or are too selfish to make the sacrifices, and maybe it’s better they don’t become parents. Same goes with any of the awful stories you hear of abuse, incest or even a parent murdering his / her own child. There would be an example of someone who should not have had children.

    If, as you said, she’s only using the environmental angle as another consideration to those who are undecided, it doesn’t bother me as much. If parenthood is not clearly what someone wants, maybe it’s better they don’t.

    But it’s sort of like when (insert car company name here) offers you $500 cash back. That’s only going to win over someone who was already considering that car. I doubt it would attract someone who previously had no intention of buying one. She’s not going to dissuade someone who had already decided to have children. If someone would actually be swayed by this alone, maybe that’s not a bad thing either.

    Loren Spigelman
    Happily married with 4 wonderful children

  • yoni r.

    With all due respect, you do not make a compelling point. It seems that you merely point out why you think having children is really important, and that it trumps environmental considerations. You don’t seem to offer any support for your viewpoint (no matter how much I agree with you, it’s a fundamentally unsupportable viewpoint, since it really boils down to a matter of personal values; in addition, some of the “proofs” you bring are entirely assailable). It’s no more persuasive than a “Did not – Did too!” line of reasoning (full disclosure – it’s late, and I read your post quickly).

    I think a better argument would be that a person can affect the amount of carbon in the world in two ways – adding to it (e.g., driving a car, turning on the A/C, etc.), and reducing it, by coming up with “green” technologies (e.g., alternative energy sources, more efficient cars, A/Cs, etc.).

    Ms. Hymas is focused on the first kind, but that is far from the full picture.

    In my line of work, I come across a lot of people who affect the amount of carbon by reducing it. And the reductions of a single person can offset the additions of many, many others. (For example, a technology which increases the efficiency of a solar power plant by a few percent, may reduce the amount of carbon released into the air equivalent to the amount added by 100s of people. Multiply this by the number of times that the technology is implemented, and it really adds up.) I came to the realization (or maybe just rationalizing my growing brood) that the more people there are in the world, the more people there will be working to reduce the amount of carbon. I don’t know if the net effect will be a reduction in the amount of carbon, but it’s something to be taken into account.

    • http://mysticalpaths.blogspot.com Akiva

      Yoni makes a point that should be expanded upon…an analysis of “great ideas” shows an obvious (after stated) point – there is a simple ratio of great ideas per year per billion people. Something like (remembering, not quoting) 0.5 great ideas per 1 billion people-years of invested thinking. So today we get an average of 2-3 great world changing ideas a year. And correspondingly we see that for most of recorded history, with low population levels, technology and science moved very very slowly. Even arts, philosophy, and religion developed very very slowly.

      Nowadays technology and science are moving at an incredible pace. And yes, arts, philosophy, and even religion is developing/changing quickly.

      So indeed, with more people we are more likely to come up with solutions to environmental problems – even while those more people cause increased stresses on the environment.

  • Pingback: Fundamentalists and Extremists Are The Exception, Not The Rule | Pacific Jewish Center | Rabbi

  • Pingback: Fundamentalists and Extremists Are The Exception, Not The Rule | Pacific Jewish Center | Rabbi

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