How Adoption Can Save the World
We live in an era of drastic climate change that's impossible to ignore (Does the term "Polar Vortex" ring any bells?) and increased awareness of toxins not only in our air, but also our food, water and everyday items. In turn, people now pay more attention to the ways in which our home energy use, travel, food choices and routine activities affect our carbon footprint. The decision whether or not to forgo meat in our diets, drive cars, buy energy efficient appliances and so forth all affect our individual contribution to global warming and pollution. But when it comes to the decision to expand our family, the environment rarely weighs on our minds.
A recent article in Time Magazine explores the fact that the United States' birthrate is at its lowest point in recorded history-and that's including the Great Depression. Author Lauren Sandler finger points the growing cost of child rearing as compared to average family earnings, the negative impact of motherhood on women's careers ("The opportunity costs for an American woman who gets off the career track could average as high as $1 million in lost salary, lost promotions and so on, economist Bryan Caplan says") and the ostensibly increased value placed on freedom.
All these contributing factors have fueled "the childfree movement," as Time calls it. However, according to Lisa Hymas, writer for Grist.org, the article fails to address another, equally important factor: the green angle. "Choosing not to have children is by far the biggest step an American can take to limit the size of his or her environmental footprint. The global population is now 7.1 billion, and is projected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050. That's a whole lot of people contributing to climate change and other ecological ills, and we Americans are just about the worst of the bunch. The average American generates about 25 times more CO2 each year than the average Bangladeshi-22.2 tons versus 0.9 tons. So if an American opts against having kids, the decision has an outsized impact."
Hymas sites a 2009 Global Environmental Change study, in which researchers Paul A. Murtaugh and Michael G. Schlax of Oregon State University calculate that "the climate impact of having one fewer child in America is almost 20 times greater than the impact of adopting a series of eco-friendly practices for your entire lifetime." When you take into account the "summed emissions of a person's descendant" these far exceed the lifetime emissions of the mom or dad in question. Schlax and Murtaugh estimate that in the United States each kid adds about 9441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon footprint of their parent-that's nearly six times the amount one person emits in his or her lifetime. That said, adopting a kid whose footprint is already fixed in stone is one way to avoid that kind ocarbon culpability.
Yet, perhaps Time was right to ignore the "green angle." After all, national statistics suggest that, when it comes to deciding whether or not to have kids, eco-consciousness is far from a decisive factor. For the vast majority of women who want to have children, adoption is an absolute last resort. A 2002 study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that a mere 1.1 percent of women and only 2.3 percent of men between the ages of 18 and 44 adopted that year. Of course, the prevalence of adoption varies depending on demographic-homosexual partners tend to adopt more; when they remarry, formerly married men and women frequently adopt one another's children from previous marriages to strengthen their new family bonds. Unsurprisingly, when it comes to women, the percentage of adoptive mothers is significantly higher among those who've struggled with infertility or who've opted to start a family later in life.
We're all aware of the reasons one might prefer to raise biological children. There's the miraculous experience that is pregnancy and childbirth. Also, let's not forget how damn expensive adoption is (though with the cost of childbirth in the United States growing ever-more crippling, it's hard to say which method is most economical). Couple that with the difficulty of the adoption process-unless, of course, you're Madonna-and you've got plenty of strong incentives to go the traditional route. It's the path of least resistance.
With the environment visibly hurting from the weight of our carbon stampede, perhaps it's time we gave more consideration to the future of the earth when planning for our own futures. By choosing to adopt, not only can potential parents make one kid's life a whole lot brighter, they can help improve future generations' quality of life.
What do you think? Would you consider adopting for the sake of a cause so seemingly abstract?
By Cordelia Tai
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