Are you childfree, anti-population-growth, or just an STFU Parents fan? Unbaby.me will get rugrats off your social media feeds for good, and replace them with pictures of kittens, puppies, bacon, swimsuit models, or whatever you want.

Here’s how it works: The Chrome extension has an editable list of keywords that usually herald a precious, sticky little face in the vicinity. The preloaded keyword list is:

year old, so adorable, our family, cutest baby, learned to walk, years old, month old, months old, carseat, infant, too adorable, pajamas, solid foods, crawling, most baby, so cute, is precious, is too cute, diapers, too cute cutest baby ever, newborn, and mommy, looks like dad, beautiful baby, gerber, pacifier, tantrum, little angel,

but you can add whatever you want. The creators recommend dropping in the names of the biggest offenders among your Facebook friends. Then you can set it up with your favorite image feeds, or just use the default feed of cat photos from Instagram. It works best with big images, but otherwise, you can basically unbaby with whatever you find on the internet — puppies, food porn, Avengers fanart. You could even just do Goatse over and over, I don’t know your life. Then hit “save,” and voila: Tot-blocked.

My first thought was “so few of my friends have babies, and they’re usually so polite — I don’t need this!” But my second was “still, wouldn’t I rather look at pictures of puppies?” so I installed it just to see. Almost immediately, a grainy photo of a slightly menacing cat showed up in my Facebook feed with the message “Baby removed.”

I can only assume this cat sat on top of the baby and stole its breath.

I already subscribe to like three different feeds of puppy photos, and my friends really are exceptionally conscientious about baby photos (no pictures of poop blowouts or whatever), plus I actually think small humans are pretty cute, so I don’t plan to leave this extension turned on. But if you’re sick of your social media being covered in spit-up, or if looking at one more pair of chubby cheeks is going to make you scream, enjoy: This is by far the least controversial baby-removal technology you will ever see.

Take a look in the mirror.

But actually the population problem is all about me: white, middle-class, American me. Steer the blame right over here.

Well-meaning people have told me that I’m “just the sort of person who should have kids.” Au contraire. I’m just the sort of person who should not have kids.

Population isn’t just about counting heads. The impact of humanity on the environment is not determined solely by how many of us are around, but by how much stuff we use and how much room we take up. And as a financially comfortable American, I use a lot of stuff and take up a lot of room.

My carbon footprint is more than 200 times bigger than an average Ethiopian’s, and more than 12 times bigger than an average Indian’s, and twice as big as an average Brit’s.

When a poor woman in Uganda has another child — too often because she lacks access to family-planning services, economic opportunity, or self-determination — she might dampen her family’s prospects for climbing out of poverty or add to her community’s challenges in providing everyone with clean water and safe food, but she certainly isn’t placing a big burden on the global environment.

When someone like me has a child — watch out, world! Gear, gadgets, gewgaws, bigger house, bigger car, oil from the Mideast, coal from Colombia, coltan from the Congo, rare earths from China, pesticide-laden cotton from Egypt, genetically modified soy from Brazil. And then when that child has children, wash, rinse, and repeat (in hot water, of course). Without even trying, we Americans slurp up resources from every corner of the globe and then spit 99 percent of them back out again as pollution.

Conscientious people try to limit that consumption, of course. I’m one of them. I get around largely by bus and on foot, eat low on the food chain, buy used rather than new, keep the heat low, rein in my gadget lust. But even putting aside my remaining carbon sins (see: flying), the fact is that just by virtue of living in America, enjoying some small portion of its massive material infrastructure, my carbon footprint is at unsustainable levels.

Far and away the biggest contribution I can make to a cleaner environment is to not bring any mini-me’s into the world. A 2009 study by statisticians at Oregon State University found 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, things like driving a high-mileage car, recycling, and using efficient appliances and CFLs.

And so, for environmental as well as personal reasons, I’ve decided not to have children. I call myself a GINK: green inclinations, no kids.

Most people won’t make the same decision, of course, and I don’t fault them for that. Everyone has different circumstances and values, and environmental issues are not the only ones worth considering. I believe in choice, and that means supporting choices different from mine.

But it needs to become easier for people to make the same decision I have, if they are so inclined.

Here in the U.S., the Pill has been available for more than 50 years. It’s now almost universally accepted that women will use birth control to delay, space out, or limit childbearing. But there’s not so much acceptance for using birth control to completely skip childbearing. At some point, you’re expected to grow up, pair up, put the Pill off to the side, and produce a couple of kids. Deviate from this scenario and you’ll get weird looks and face awkward conversations with family members, friends, coworkers, and complete strangers.

One 30-something woman I know who works for a reproductive-health NGO says that her colleagues pester her about her decision not to have children, telling her she needs to get started on that family or she’ll regret it. And these are people whose careers are dedicated to making birth control and reproductive health care available to all women! Pro-natal bias runs deep.

Many women in the U.S. have found that it’s difficult if not impossible to find a doctor who will perform a tubal ligation if the woman has not already had children (and sometimes even if she has). Doctors warn that sterilization is an irreversible, life-altering decision. But having a child is an irreversible, life-altering decision and you don’t find doctors warning women away from that. The broadly held prejudice, in the medical profession and much of the rest of society, is that becoming a parent is the right and inevitable choice.

Over recent years and decades, it’s become more acceptable for mixed-race couples to have children, and single women, and gay couples, and women over the age of 40, and that’s all good. Acceptance has been slower to come for the decision not to have children. There’s now a fledgling childfree movement, but some who are part of it say they still feel like they’re violating a taboo.

Read more on population. Check out our series 7 Billion: What to expect when you're expanding

Finally, it will mean fewer Americans making a mess of the planet, and a little more breathing room for those of us who are already here or on the way.

I recognize that I am the population problem. I’m trying to be part of the solution. Let’s make it easier for others to join me.

A version of this post was originally published at RH Reality Check.

Quotable bits:

• “The overpopulation is still the biggest reason for global warming, for all the pressure on the environment.”

• “The truth is that global warming is a nuclear holocaust slowed down slightly.”

• “The important thing, I think, about both ecofeminism, as a term, and deep ecology … is that we are part of nature, not separate.”

• “There’s no concept of enough. There’s no concept of overdeveloped. We talk about underdeveloped; how come we never talk about overdeveloped? This country is overdeveloped. There’s no concept of enough money, of enough children, of balance.”

Of course, I have to point out that Steinem is a GINK — green inclinations, no kids. She opted against having children of her own.

Here’s another part of the ABC News segment with more background on Steinem, plus conversation about how climate change hurts women more than men. And here’s Steinem on The Colbert Report last year, arguing that men in egalitarian marriages have better relationships with their wives, live longer, and have better sex. She also talks about sexual pleasure and good fatherhood is this interview published in Grist last year.

This is the latest in a series of Saturday GINK videos about population and reproduction (or a lack thereof).

Betty White, honorary forest ranger and ardent environmentalist.Photo: USDA

Did you know that the octogenarian actress is a longtime environmentalist? She’s starring in a new campaign for The Wilderness Society: “Keep it wild with Betty White!” “Wilderness is harder and harder to find these days on this beautiful planet, and we’re abusing our planet to the point of almost no return,” White said last year when she was made an honorary forest ranger.

She’s also a huge animal lover. She has long been involved with the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Los Angeles Zoo, and other organizations that not only let people see animals but also that teach the importance of protecting them in the wild. Proceeds from her 2011 calendar — which features her surrounded by scantily clad hunks — are going to support the Morris Animal Foundation, which works on behalf of wildlife as well as companion animals.

White even has an eco-crush on Robert Redford. “Aside from just thinking he’s wonderful, I just love his love of nature. His films are great, but his environmental work just knocks me out,” she gushes.

On top of all this, White has kept her carbon footprint way down by opting not to have kids, though her reasons were personal rather than environmental. As she writes in her latest book, If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won’t):

Barbara Walters once asked me if I ever had desired to have a child. The answer is, I never did think about it. … I didn’t think I could do justice to both career and motherhood … It’s such an individual choice.

Like so many other childfree people, she’s caught flack for this. In an interview earlier this month on public radio station WNYC, host Leonard Lopate hassled White for her decision, pointing out that plenty of other women have successfully balanced careers and parenthood:

Lopate: You’ve never had children and you write that you’re not a big believer in being able to do both — having a career and being a mother.

White: But I meant I know a lot of girls who do that very successfully. I know myself too well that I’m so compulsive I would not to justice to them.

Lopate: Because there are a number of people who’ve talked about achieving that balance: Michelle Obama, Meredith Viera, Tina Fey –

White: Meryl Streep.

Lopate: They’ve been able to pull it off. …

White: Yes, but that’s, that’s — they know themselves well enough to know they can accomplish it. I know myself well enough to know I would feel guilt about neglecting the children every time I’d go to work.

Lopate: So the career wound up taking precedence –

White: And I’ve never regretted it.

…

Lopate: Our next guest had four kids of her own and then adopted five kids, and she’s been a successful journalist –

White: She feels about kids the way I feel about animals.

For crap sake, Leonard, let the woman be!

White, gracious under pressure, made it clear that she’s not judging anyone else’s decision — just talking about the decision that was right for her.

Green inclinations + no kids — that would make Betty White a GINK. Add in her charm, zest, and nonjudgmental attitude, and you’ve got a model GINK.

Betty, welcome to the club!

See also: Oprah on choosing to be childfree

Does the average American have any idea what the global population is? Watch and see:

As Population Action International explains in this video, the world population will hit 7 billion this fall — on Oct. 31, to be specific. At least that’s the date the U.N. has specified, maybe because it’s scary — mwah-hah-hah. But seriously, the U.N.’s latest population projections are scary. Many demographers have been projecting that human numbers will stabilize at about 9 billion in 2050, but the U.N.’s new, more realistic analysis says the population could in fact keep on growing and hit 10.1 billion by 2100. That’s in part because there are still 215 million women around the world who want to avoid or delay pregnancy but don’t have good access to effective birth control, and the U.N. seems to have grown more pessimistic about remedying that situation any time soon.

While milestones like 7 billion focus the mind, big numbers don’t begin to tell the whole story. When women in developing countries aren’t able to limit the size of their families, they have worse prospects for climbing out of poverty and their local environments suffer (water shortages, degraded land, depleted wildlife, etc.). But it’s those of us wealthy Westerners who are causing environmental problems on a global scale (read: climate change) and who can make the most difference by having fewer (or no) kids. One woman in this video, at 1:25, is responding in the GINK fashion: When asked how the rising population will affect her, she says, “I feel like I actually don’t want to have children because of that issue.” Woman in pink jacket, welcome to the GINK (green inclinations, no kids) club.

This is the latest in a series of Saturday GINK videos about population and reproduction (or a lack thereof).

“I felt like a gay person must feel, coming out of the closet and having these people validating me.”
– Jason Gill, quoted in a New York Times Magazine article on the childfree

“My friends and I have occasionally likened coming out as childfree to coming out as a gay person 40 or 50 years ago. There’s the same sense of shock — perhaps that’s too strong a word. But it’s a lifestyle people don’t expect and it may challenge their world view.”
– Rhona Sweeting, quoted in a BBC News article on the childfree

“I’m coming out of the closet. I’m sick of apologizing for my lifestyle which feels totally organic and right to me.”
– Jane, commenter on Childfree Life forum

At first the comparison struck me as ridiculous. Prejudice against the childfree is wholly different in kind and degree from prejudice against the LGBT population. Childfree people aren’t ejected from the military or denied housing or barred from marriage. The biggest threat of violence we might face is a peeved parent tempted to bonk us on the head with a diaper bag when we ramble on too long about a relaxing weekend getaway.

But acknowledging all that, still there is something to the idea of “coming out” as childfree. While some childfree people have no problem just putting it out there, many of us aren’t sure how to talk to some of the people in our lives about our choice not to have kids — whether it’s parents eager for grandchildren, siblings engrossed in parenthood, friends struggling with fertility issues, curious colleagues, or complete strangers. Saying “I’ve decided not to have kids” can feel like walking into a minefield. And not saying it can feel like concealing an important part of who we are.

I consulted a few coming-out guides to see if any struck a chord, and they certainly did. “Mom, Dad — believe me, it’s not a phase. I’ve known it for a long time.”

Consider these bastardized snippets, first from the Human Rights Campaign’s “Resource Guide to Coming Out“:

From birth, most of us are raised to think of ourselves as fitting into a certain mold. Our culture and our families teach us that we are “supposed” to [become parents] …

Once we do come out, most of us find that it feels far better to be open and honest than to conceal such an integral part of ourselves. We also come to recognize that our personal decision to live openly helps break down barriers and stereotypes that have kept others in the closet. And in doing so, we make it easier for others to follow our example.

And from About.com for GLBT Teens:

The Risks to Coming Out …

• Your friends and family might treat you differently.
• You might lose friends. …
• People might feel uncomfortable around you.
• You might be asked a lot of personal questions.
• Not everyone will be understanding or accepting.

And from EmptyClosets.com:

Coming out to your family may be the hardest thing for you to do in your coming out process. Your parents most likely raised you assuming that you would [become a parent yourself]. … When parents first learn of a child’s [decision to be childfree] they often feel a loss.

Yep, yep — with you on all that. But wait — there’s no bastardizing that can make this next sentence relevant:

It generally takes some time for [parents] to realize that they haven’t lost anything and that things like marriage and children are all still possible.

D’oh. Coming out as gay or lesbian might hit your parents hard at first, but at least you can still give them grandkids!

This points to a strange twist: While LGBT people face more vehement and vicious prejudice than the childfree, they can, if they choose, ultimately lead more conventional lives. Their families won’t look like the Cleavers, but they can have what many people would at least recognize as a family, following the traditional parent-with-child pattern. We childfree people, in contrast, are messing with the notion of family in a way that’s perhaps even more fundamental.

Are you a GINK -- green inclinations, no kids? Check out The GINK Manifesto and become a fan of GINK on Facebook.

Maybe that’s why gays actually seem to be further along in gaining social acceptance than the childfree. In my urban milieu, no one skips a beat or lifts an eyebrow if you say you’re gay, but people do often frown or avert their eyes or awkwardly change the subject if you say you’ve decided not to have kids — if they don’t tell you what you’re missing and try to get you to change your mind.

Take, as a pop-cultural example, the Sex and the City 2 movie. Carrie Bradshaw and the gang are having a gay old time at Stanford and Anthony’s big, fat, same-sex wedding when a woman starts interrogating Carrie and hubbie Mr. Big about when they’re going to have kids. “It’s just not for us,” Carrie responds. ”So it’s just going to be the two of you?” she asks, voice dripping with pity and disdain. Flamboyant gay lifestyle: A-OK. Heterosexual couple deciding to forego parenting: deviant.

We don’t face all the same challenges, but we childfree could certainly use some advice from our LGBT friends on how to claim our rightful place in society. Whether you’re LGBT or childfree or both, please share coming-out tips below in comments. Also, LGBT folks, do you feel this same pressure to have children?

—–

Also check out: Why are gays more eco-friendly?

Photo: jrodmanjr

If you really want to be a parent — that is, if you’d like to help guide and shape and unconditionally love another human being, and you’re OK with sleepless nights, no time for novels, and very little alone time with your partner — consider adopting.

I have nothing but respect for my GINK brothers and sisters. I think it’s important to say (out lout and often) that it’s OK to choose not to have kids. Not only is it OK (and, if I’m remembering correctly, a heck of a lot of fun) to be childfree, it’s also good for the planet in a lot of ways. Plus, you can get more done at work.

Certainly, as Lisa has mentioned in previous articles, there are ways to be part of a child’s life without the responsibility and full-time commitment of parenting. But the thing is, a lot of people — let’s call them GIWKs, as in green inclinations, want kids — would actually find that responsibility and full-time commitment fulfilling. The other thing is, caring about the future of the planet, and specifically, about controlling human population, doesn’t automatically preclude parenting.

Right now, there are almost half a million children in foster care in the United States. Slightly less than a quarter of them are legally available for adoption. If each one of those children was adopted by a GIWK (not sure of just how to pronounce that) on the fence about procreating, we’d make a pretty decent dent in that problem — and in a lot of others.

Last year, almost 30,000 children turned 18 and “aged out” of the foster care system without ever having found an adoptive family. Most of these young people found themselves homeless and jobless and turned to crime at rates significantly higher than their peers. From The Christian Science Monitor:

The vast majority of young people who age out of the foster-care system struggle to find housing and jobs and to complete their education, according to a new study released Wednesday, which tracked hundreds of foster-care youths from age 17 and 18 through age 23 or 24.

Among some of the more sobering findings:

• Only 6 percent of those surveyed had finished a two- or four-year college degree by age 24, and nearly one-quarter did not have a high school diploma or GED.
• Nearly 60 percent of the young men had been convicted of a crime.
• Only 48 percent were working, compared with 72 percent of their peers who hadn’t been in foster care. For those working, the median income annual was just $8,000.
• Nearly 40 percent had been homeless or had “couch-surfed” since leaving foster care, and three-quarters of the young women had received public assistance in the last year.

Imagine the impact on our cities if those kids had found stable, loving families before (preferably long before) they turned 18.

And imagine the impact on the kids.

Children in foster care “have been removed from their birth family homes for reasons of neglect, abuse, abandonment, or other issues endangering their health and/or safety.” Foster children become available for adoption when the parental rights of their birth parents are terminated by the state.  A child who has suffered in these ways is likely to benefit immeasurably from simply being loved.

Many of us think of adoption as a “last ditch” choice — one that we make if we have exhausted all of our options to have a child biologically. But adoption can also be viewed as a very intentional way to create a family. Adopting a child from foster care means choosing to open your home to someone like Brian, one of the many kids featured on the weekly television segment, Wednesday’s Child:

Brian has dreams of guarding the streets as a police officer when he is older. He is a very mature young man, has a great sense of humor, and gets along well with his peers. In school, he enjoys math, science, and recess. During his spare time, he likes to play video games, sports, and watch movies. His ideal day would include eating at McDonald’s and watching wrestling. In the future, Brian would like to be very successful and have LOTS of money.

When talking to Brian, he agrees that you must use teamwork in a family. While Brian has many goals for the future, his current goal is to find a family to which he can belong. He would like to have a family that will be there to support his goals, dreams, and aspirations. Will someone add him to their team?

What could be more intentional than adults who really want a child opening their home to a kid who really wants parents? And — for those of you who’d prefer to parent from infancy — we’re not just talking about big kids. Some children enter the foster care system immediately after birth.

In most states, adopting a foster child is legal (even encouraged) regardless of marital status, age, or sexual orientation. There aren’t long waiting lists. And, unlike private adoption, it’s not horrendously expensive. And so, my GIWKs, you have an alternative. Foster adoption is a good choice for the planet, for the families it creates, and for the health of our communities. It’s the ultimate happy ending.

Why is the teen birthrate in the U.S. so high? One big reason: Sex ed in many schools sucks.

In Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood, some teens got so fed up that they put together a film about the dire need for real sex education.

Here’s the trailer: 

The high school students have also launched a Facebook campaign and drawn up a list of demands, including “comprehensive sexuality education” beginning in 9th grade and designated school staffers to whom students can go for free condoms.

Many teenagers are daunted by the prospect of buying contraception in a drug store, as high-school junior Merilin Castillo explains: “[I]n CVS, they have [the condoms] behind a bin and it’s locked. So you have to go through the shameful process of asking someone if I can please have a condom. If there are people around, if there’s anyone that you know around, it’s very awkward to have to be like, ‘Hey, can you open this so I can buy a condom?’”

Other high school students — like ones in the small Nevada town of Fernley — are fighting back against abstinence-only curricula.

You might think old-fashioned school sex ed is passé anyway. Everything you need to know is at your fingertips on the internet, right? In the case of teens and sex, not so. A new study to be published in the Journal of Health Communication found that American teenagers are wary of sexual health info online (with good reason). “The teens indicated a distrust of online information because it is often user-generated and could therefore be incorrect. They also noted that they would probably have to sort through an abundance of sexually explicit material to find the factual information they were looking for,” according to a press release about the study.

If we don’t want teens to rely on what they find by googling “sex,” we need to get decent sex ed into our schools.

This is the latest in a series of Saturday GINK videos about population and reproduction (or a lack thereof).

But it is relatively new to have a cohort of people who are deliberate, outspoken, and even proud about being childless — or, as we prefer to say, childfree. We nonparents have traditionally been a quiet minority. And we’re still a minority — albeit a growing one, now about 20 percent in both the U.S. and the U.K. — but we’re no longer so quiet.

In 2010, the childfree started making some real noise. Get used to it; you’ll be hearing a lot more racket from us in the future. Here are some of the cultural signals and media moments that have rung out during the past year, putting the childfree lifestyle in the spotlight as never before.

Oprah’s having a baby! (No, not that kind)

Oprah Winfrey is probably the most powerful and influential childfree person on the planet. She doesn’t harp(o) on her decision to skip motherhood, but in a December 2010 interview with Barbara Walters, she said, “I have not one regret about not having children.” As she explained, “I could not have had this life and lived it with the level of intensity that is required to do this show the way it’s done. I’d be one of those people that their kid’s coming and saying, ‘Mom, you’ve neglected me.’”

Oprah has found other outlets for her nurturing instincts — like students at the school she set up in South Africa a few years ago. “These girls are like my children,” she said. “That’s not just rhetoric for me. I take their futures and the possibility for what their futures hold very seriously.” And now she’s channeling some of that maternal intensity toward the Oprah Winfrey Network, which launches on Jan. 1. “I look at this launch as the birthing of a baby,” she said. “I’m about as calm as a person who’s about to give birth to such a humongous baby can be.”

Watch Oprah talking to Barbara about her choice not to have kids (starting at 7:29):

You’ve come a long way, babyless

She's just not that into children.

The childfree got another high-profile (albeit fictional) spokeswoman this year in Carrie Bradshaw, who defends her decision not to become a mom in Sex and the City 2. “We both love kids, but it’s just not who we are,” Carrie says of herself and her husband.

Julia Roberts played the happily childfree writer Elizabeth Gilbert in the movie Eat Pray Love this summer, even as Gilbert came out with the new book Committed, in which she discusses at length her decision to forgo parenthood and her delight at being a member of the “Auntie Brigade.”

There's something about nary a kid.

Cameron Diaz talked this year about her happily childfree state, after saying last year, “We don’t need any more kids. We have plenty of people on this planet.”

Marie Claire magazine rounded up more childfree celebs, including Renée Zellweger, Eva Mendes, Janeane Garofalo, Rachel Ray, and Kim Cattrall.

Mad Men actor Vincent Kartheiser became one of the newest members of the club; he announced this fall that he intends to go childfree — and for environmental reasons, no less.

On the literary front, Jonathan Franzen‘s bestselling novel Freedom has an overpopulation leitmotif and an environmental-activist character, Lalitha, who declares her intention never to have kids.

Polly Vernon wrote “Why I don’t want a baby” for Marie Claire, Brittany Shoot wrote “Why I got my tubes tied at 27” for Salon, and yours truly wrote “Say it loud: I’m childfree and I’m proud” right here in Grist.

Other childfree evangelists blogged and tweeted, worked on documentaries and audio programs, and occasionally even made it onto TV.

FML

But ironically, the most compelling arguments for the childfree lifestyle this year came from parents.

Take the much-buzzed-about cover story in New York magazine, “All joy and no fun: Why parents hate parenting” — or, as the cover put it, “I love my children. I hate my life.” Jennifer Senior writes with jarring frankness about the downsides of parenting:

Most people assume that having children will make them happier. Yet a wide variety of academic research shows that parents are not happier than their childless peers, and in many cases are less so. … Perhaps the most oft-cited datum comes from a 2004 study by Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize-winning behavioral economist, who surveyed 909 working Texas women and found that child care ranked sixteenth in pleasurability out of nineteen activities. (Among the endeavors they preferred: preparing food, watching TV, exercising, talking on the phone, napping, shopping, housework.) This result also shows up regularly in relationship research, with children invariably reducing marital satisfaction. The economist Andrew Oswald, who’s compared tens of thousands of Britons with children to those without, is at least inclined to view his data in a more positive light: “The broad message is not that children make you less happy; it’s just that children don’t make you more happy.” That is, he tells me, unless you have more than one. “Then the studies show a more negative impact.”

Senior’s grim portrait of parenthood is accompanied by a tantalizing description of the idealized childfree life:

Lori Leibovich, the executive editor of Babble and the anthology Maybe Baby, a collection of 28 essays by writers debating whether to have children, says she was particularly struck by the female contributors who’d made the deliberate choice to remain childless. It enabled them to travel or live abroad for their work; to take physical risks; to, in the case of a novelist, inhabit her fictional characters without being pulled away by the demands of a real one. “There was a richness and texture to their work lives that was so, so enviable,” she says.

Even the author of the forthcoming book Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, economics professor Bryan Caplan, started from the premise that parenthood is a bum deal in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that ran in the spring. It’s “true that modern parents are less happy than their childless counterparts,” he admits. “[C]hild No. 1 does almost all the damage,” he writes, citing the National Opinion Research Center’s General Social Survey. But here’s his positive angle: “Each child after the first reduces your probability of being very happy by a mere .6 percentage points.” Color me unconvinced.

Lots of people love parenting, of course, or are perfectly willing to make tradeoffs in order to enrich their lives with children. And lots of celebs are still hamming it up for the paparazzi with their picture-perfect progeny, fanning the “baby bump” craze.

But in 2010, it became clear that the pro-parenting contingent is no longer the only game in town.

It’s about time, because in 2011, we’ll get a big reminder that there are already plenty of us around — 7 billion reminders, actually.

The Audi ad that ran during the Super Bowl featured the “green police” arresting people for various eco-crimes like not composting an orange peel. It ends with Audi’s suggestion for evading the green police: driving off in a diesel A3 TDI (named by Green Car Journal as Green Car of the Year). David Roberts’ commentary on whether the ad was aimed at teabaggers or enviros got folks all hot ‘n’ bothered.

I’ve got Kevin Costner on the phone. He’ll know what to do.
The BP coffee spill

This video spoof of BP execs flummoxed by a coffee spill injected some much needed hilarity into a gloomy Gulf-spill-dominated spring.

Photo: Joann BrusoScrap that
McDonald’s scraps composting program because food won’t decompose

This April Fools’ Day joke was inspired by the claim that McD’s Happy Meals don’t decompose (though that was disproved by Serious Eats’ Food Lab). But some readers took our report seriously, so McDonald’s replied on Twitter, clarifying that it was a joke — and that they were laughing. (Uh … did they read it?)

Photo: Tracy O’ConnorWTFood?!
12 things you should never put in your mouth

This horrific slideshow caused many a Grist reader to burp up some vomit. Featuring gems like canned cheeseburger, canned alligator, and even an entire canned chicken, plus non-canned delights like Twinkie sushi, it’s a gallery of shudder-inducing non-foods that remind you how fake and additive-laden our nosh has become. Don’t view it over lunch.

Photo: The White HouseLettuce pray
White House to put 6,000 salad bars in schools

School-food investigator Ed Bruske broke the news that First Lady Michelle Obama would help 6,000 public schools get fresh food through a new public-private partnership called Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools. Somehow, Tea Party mad-hatters interpreted this to mean that she’d be forcing carrot sticks down every American kid’s throat, and swarmed to our comment section to protest. Others worried that small children would spread germs. The USDA later said it would OK salad bars in elementary schools with appropriate food-safety precautions.

Don’t waste this crisis
Wake up, Obama. The Gulf spill is our big chance

In an impassioned plea to the prez this past April, Jonathan Hiskes argued that the Gulf oil spill was the perfect illustration of our urgent need for renewable energy. “It’s a prime opportunity to pressure the Senate to put a price on carbon pollution and invest in the R&D necessary to jump-start a clean energy economy,” wrote Hiskes. “This is a golden opportunity to completely change course and work toward ditching fossil fuels.” Did Obama take note? Apparently not.

Raw deal
Raids are increasing on farms and private food-supply clubs — here are 5 tips for surviving one

You’re not paranoid if they’re really out to get you. And if you’ve got anything to do with distributing unpasteurized milk or other “nutrient-dense foods,” with or without a license, then you should be prepared for a knock on the door from the FDA and/or your local health officials. Raw Milk Revolution author David Gumpert’s five tips for surviving a raid on your farm or food club seemed to many readers to be essential information.

Photo: Dave HamsterFair-weather foodies
Do you have the balls to really change the food system?

This gutsy screed from Northern California farmer Rebecca Thistlewaite gave a lot of locavores something to chew on, saying that our crappy industrialized food system would never change as long as they bought pastured eggs from the farmers market just once a month and Trader Joe’s “cage-free organic” the rest of the time. She offered up more than 25 ways that conscientious eaters can make a real difference. Unfortunately it was already too late for Thistlewaite’s farm when she wrote that post: She announced a few weeks later that TLC Ranch was not sustainable financially for her family and was closing down.

The GINK manifesto
Say it loud: I’m childfree and I’m proud

Lisa Hymas’ explanation of her choice to be childfree spawned (ahem) lots of discussion, attracted media attention from outlets like MSNBC, earned a Population Institute media award, and launched the term GINK (green inclinations, no kids) into the lexicon. “Here’s the dirty little secret that we’re never supposed to say in mixed company: There are a lot of perks to childfree living, not to mention a lot of green good that comes from bringing fewer beings onto a polluted and crowded planet,” she writes.

The cheapskate’s dilemma
Lessons on the food system from the ammonia-hamburger fiasco

Readers voted hamburger the Scariest Food of 2010 thanks to stories like this one, about a New York Times exposé of a company called Beef Products that sells what’s known in the industry as “pink slime.” This horrible hamburger helper is made of fatty sweepings from the slaughterhouse floor, ground into a paste, and laced with ammonia to kill pathogens — and it ends up in 70 percent of burgers in the United States. The worst part? This penny-pinching paste is just making more people sick.