At a Glance

A new study says having smaller families is the best way to combat climate change.Living car-free, avoiding airline traveland eating a plant-based diet are the next best measures to lower your personal carbon footprint.

Most of us want to do our partto fight climate change and reduce ourpersonal carbon footprint. Many of us recycle, forego our automobilefor public transportation, and we watch our energy consumption.

While those are all important measures, a team of scientists says there is one personal choice we can make that is better than all of those to reduce personal greenhouse-gas emissions:having fewer children.

According to a study, having one child fewer leads to a reduction of 58 tons of CO2 for each year of a parent’s life.

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Study co-author Kimberly Nicholas of Lund University Phys.org that the researchers recognize that having fewer children is a "deeply personal choice" but notes that "we can’t ignore the climate effect our lifestyle actually has."

Want to fight climate change? Have fewer of these.

(Roger Wright/Getty Images)

“It is our job as scientists to honestly report the data," she added. "Like a doctor who sees the patient is in poor health and might not like the message ‘smoking is bad for you,' we are forced to confront the fact that current emission levels are really bad for the planet and human society.”

To draw their conclusions, the scientistsanalyzed 39 peer-reviewed papers, carbon calculators and government reports to determine what actions had the greatest impact on reducing carbon emissions.

Nicholas said the evidence is so compelling that she and her fiancé are considering not having children of their own.

“In life, there are many values on which people make decisions, and carbon is only one of them,” she said. “I don’t have children, but it is a choice I am considering."

Having fewer children was followed in the study byliving car-free, avoiding airline traveland eating a plant-based diet.

More widespread measures we've grown accustomed to like driving hybrid vehicles, recycling and switching to reusable shopping bags didn’t even come close to achieving the same reduction in an individual's carbon footprint as having smaller families.

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