If we're ranking selfishness by impact, the scoreboard isn't close. A widely cited 2017 study in Environmental Research Letters found that having one fewer child saves about 58.6 metric tons of CO2-equivalent per year, dwarfing every other personal climate action combined: no car, no flights, plant-based diet, all of it (the study). Every child born into a high-consumption country inherits a massive footprint and a destabilizing climate they didn't vote for. Framing childlessness as selfish gets it exactly backward. The genuinely self-interested move is demanding the planet produce another consumer to staff your old age, keep your pension solvent, and carry your name forward.
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