It seems at times that much of the world feels pressure from family / peers / partner to have a child. Other parts of the world may feel a need to have children as part of the sustainability of the family, through work contribution and care for elders.
Is it selfish to not have a child? This comment is still made at times, even a world bursting with population.

Can the social stigma (that exists in some parts of the world) of being childless, by choice, be reduced?

Are there social approaches to encourage reduction in population growth?

Isn’t the population level, and growth, a cause behind many symptoms?

Where the basics of life have been met, the perceived need to acquire wealth and possessions to keep up and compete with others, largely to improve the chances to attract and retain a suitable partner and increase chances to reproduce (materialistic selection) can become a driving force.

There is a demand on many of the young men in China’s larger (consumerism) cities for example, to acquire a car and apartment, to have a realistic chance to get a quality girlfriend. It can appear that some Chinese girls in the larger cities expect this of a potential boyfriend. The pressure is on for these young men to acquire wealth through any means available to them, and I think saving the planet might not get quite as much focus as securing a suitable girlfriend and future wife (especially before mum and dad start sending him on dates with women they chose!). This is not true of all Chinese girls, and this is probably more so in larger cities, but this type of pressure is not confined to China; it can probably be seen in various forms throughout the world.

 Family – Friends – Neighbours – Neighbourhood – District – State / Province – Country – Planet

How far up the ‘care-chain’ will people care about their impact?

If someone needs to find a way to feed their family they won’t have much interest for higher level impact considerations, perhaps unless they can see correlation between todays actions and the impact that can have on near-future feeding of their family.

In times of war people can group together at various levels though the forward thrust of their collaborative thinking and efforts is not regarding planet saving.

Why do people take proactive steps up the care-chain?

Peer pressure can play a good role in this. In financially privileged countries people don’t want to be seen by their peers as wasteful or non-caring for the planet (not unlike the way some companies also try to build a façade of higher care-chain placement than may be factual).

What other factors can encourage people to take active steps further up the care-chain?

If someone walked in to our garden or immediate neighbourhood and started taking or destroying naturally occurring things, for their gain, would we stand by and watch, or think it was not our concern? Perhaps the neighbourhood would group together. How far away from our immediate surroundings does it have to be for us to step up the care-chain?

If nuclear waste from another country is going to be buried in our country maybe our countrys population will gather together to fight against this.

Does awareness increase action? Knowing is one thing, but action based on knowledge requires triggers.

If someone knew that their misuse of water could contribute to the death of a child, would they be more conscious about water usage? If ‘more’ and ‘more expensive’ and ‘faster’ and ‘bigger’ were not promoted as ‘better’ and ‘desirable’, but as ‘obvious and damaging consumerism’, would that have any reduction in human desire for ‘things’ through many people caring what others’ think (peer pressure)?

A few ponderings from me to add to discussion