The Future of Energy

What's Your Baby's Carbon Footprint?


| Mon Apr. 28, 2008 2:00 AM EDT

72 percent of American adults have children.

60 percent of American children say they're more afraid of global warming than of terrorism, car crashes, or cancer.


One American child generates as much CO2 as 106 Haitian kids.


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For $20, British parents can have seven trees planted to offset the 1,430 pounds of greenhouse gases generated by their child's first 2.5 years of nappies.


In 2007, a Hungarian couple had 300 trees planted to offset their newborn's lifetime carbon footprint.



Citizens of the Russian city of Ulyanovsk get September 12 off to "conceive a patriot."

Due to its low birthrate, Singapore runs a dating program called LoveByte that promotes "the importance of marriage and family, and the need to start early."

Members of the "Quiverfull" movement believe that very large families populate "God's army."

In 2005, Pope Benedict XVI called for tax incentives for large families. Last fall, he vowed to "recreate a strong alliance between man and Earth."

In March, a Vatican bishop announced seven new mortal sins, including causing pollution and being obscenely wealthy. According to news reports, the bishop said the new evils were linked to "the unstoppable process of globalization."










Asked how many times they'd begged their parents for a product they'd seen advertised, 11 percent of tweens answered "more than 50."

American children make up 4 percent of the world's population, but they consume more than 40 percent of the world's toys.


In order to do as much laundry as Walt Disney World does in a single day, you'd have to do a load a day for 44 years.



In 2007, Julia Roberts told Vanity Fair that the "highest high" would be "growing our food that I then make, and then composting and growing more."

In 2004, she paid Hollywood's Cedars-Sinai Hospital $1,700 a night for a deluxe maternity suite with valets, a chef, security staff, and salon service.

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT—pronounced "vehement") advocates nonprocreation instead of suicide because "there's no way we could convince enough people to kill themselves.


Celebrity Babies, for Fun and Profit

pics of whose baby? amount paid/publication comments
Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie $7.6 million/People, Hello! Gave some of it to charity, but won't say how much

