Owen Thomas
Jul 27, 2017 · 2 min read

The problem definitely isn’t that have you’ve had a child, which is a beautiful thing that you’ve had every right to do. The problem is that he’s been born into a society that doesn’t know how to accommodate his footprint.

The fact that you’ve highlighted how much waste this has already produced is great, because I hadn’t even thought about it. No one really talks about it. I would love to hear more of your perspective.

Looking at the bigger picture, populations in western societies have pretty much stabilised. People are already having fewer kids. The population boom is occurring mainly in developing economies, where there are more challenges around access to education, family planning and gender equality.

The concern is very much about where we’re headed. Developing countries want what we have – they have every right to get it – so we will inevitably need to accommodate their needs. This certainly means further population growth, but it also means more emissions per capita as quality of life goes up. Wealthier people have bigger carbon footprints. So the impact increases exponentially.

So how do we make room? Those of us who have been given every opportunity in life have a responsibility to evolve our society into something that’s both desirable and sustainable. For planet, yes, but also for people.

I think this requires a wholesale rethink about how we live, how we work, how we quantify wealth and economic performance. Everybody is racing towards an ideal of conspicuous consumption because that’s considered the holy grail.

But if we develop and advocate a better way to live – one that allows us to live healthier, more balanced lives that emphasise maintenance of relationships and accumulation of experiences rather than material gains – we can create a new benchmark that everyone wants. The challenge is defining what this looks like at scale.

Owen Thomas

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Designer with an eye on what’s coming next. www.near.limited