Who does more environmental damage, an eco-responsible family of six or an eco-irresponsible family of three?

Question

Six careful consumers of natural resources or three careless consumers of natural resources...

I can't decide who is doing more damage.

Answer 1

Right now we have 5 eco friendly members living full time at my home.   My neighbors-just 2 of them.......I personally, don't know what kind of habits they have......but we set out one bag a trash for pick up a week and they set out 4.

Answer 2

The people who are doing the most damage are third world countries. They cannot afford the ability to recycle or use eco-friendly appliances, they do not perform repairs on their vehicles. Et ceterea.

Answer 3

Obviously, the eco-irresponsible family would cause much more harm to the environment even thought they're only half the size of the eco-responsible family.  

This would be obvious to you, as it is to me, if you had seen how one eco-irresponsible person did just as much harm, if not more, as a family of 3 eco-responsible people.  I've seen this to be the case many times.  

So, you might conclude that it's not the amount of people being eco-responsible that's important.  It's being eco-responsible in the first place that's important.

Heck, I've seen one eco-irresponsible person do more harm to the environment than several huge eco-responsible families!

Answer 4

The funny thing with this is that one child families consume more because the children tend to consume more as they have no siblings to entertain and be entertained by, economies of scale also play a part.

Smaller families tend to be in rich countries where costs of raising children are high and child mortality rates are low, but this is coincidental.

It doesn't matter which does more damage, as long as both do less.

Answer 5

i would say the eco-irresponsible family because they are consuming more and doing more damage.

Answer 6

it's probably around the same damage.

Answer 7

I don't have facts to back it up but my hunch is the eco responsible family of six. Also it could be argued that the eco-responsible family may not do any damage at all but actually be helpful to the environment.

We are all called to be stewards of this earth and if we play that role right then only good will come from such people, pretty much no matter the numbers.

Answer 8

Both are equal.It doesn't matter how careful you are you will do something and the 3 that do nothing well your other 3 makes up for them.