Despite efforts to encourage the use of smaller cars, Americans still seem to like their larger ones:
President Barack Obama's White House has unveiled new fuel-efficiency rules that will push auto companies into making more small cars and General Motors and Chrysler -- both heavily associated with large vehicles -- have sunk into bankruptcy.But don't expect many dents in the Sport Utility Vehicle fan club.
Cities like Houston, where driving is at the heart of the daily routine, are proof of the American love affair with the big car. [...]
For many Americans, the choice between buying an SUV or a fuel-efficient hybrid seems to be about meeting family demands of carpools and soccer games.
"There's still an SUV market in Texas," said Michael Wolf, a salesman at Sterling McCall Toyota, beside a bustling highway where 20,000 people commute to Houston from the suburb of Sugar Land every day. "There are all those families with two and three kids down in Sugar Land."
Now, I don't think having two or three children automatically means you need an SUV, though in our family it does mean a minivan. When the girls were younger, we found out that you can't put three car seats in the back seat of a sedan; even when we didn't need car seats anymore we did need room for kids plus groceries or luggage.
But I've heard from a family with four young children, and I know of families with five or more--and more and more they're feeling like not only the push for smaller cars, but environmental practices in general, are leaving them far behind.
Growing up in a large family, I learned a lot of environmentally-friendly habits without even knowing it. Clothing was handed down from child to child; toys were purchased in smaller quantities and shared with everybody; waste, whether of food or of materials or supplies or even of things like toilet paper or electricity (yes, Dad, I listened!) was strongly discouraged, on the basis of the financial, if not the environmental, impact of such practices. Frivolous consumerism in general was something we just didn't do--we ate out less frequently than other families, my mom planned her shopping trips instead of running to the store on a near-daily basis, and we practiced thrift and frugality before we even knew what those words meant.
Today, though, families with more than two or three children are increasingly being made to feel as though they're automatically penalized by some of the green efforts out there. Large families already know they're counter-cultural, and they deal with hostility and derision from strangers every time they go out in public as a family; but now they're being treated like polluters just because they have more than the culturally acceptable number of children.
Keep reading:
Take the car seat problem. Many states now require that children be in a car seat or booster seat until they are at least 70 or 80 pounds in weight. For a big family, that means the family car might have to accommodate anywhere from four to six car seats, ranging from the infant type to the boosters (and I know that there may be some families with twins, say, who might need even more car seats than that). But the only cars available that will do that are often SUVs; a minivan can take up to four car seats at once, but most won't fit five, and none will fit six that I know of. SUVs are expensive, and now they're under the gun of the environmentalists who think they should be phased out altogether; full-sized vans aren't much better at fuel efficiency, and have, generally speaking, much worse safety ratings than many SUVs do.
Then there's the push for smaller homes, with the accompanying view that a larger home is a wasteful luxury; there's the trend toward pricey organic food sold at high-end grocery stores, which ignores the larger family's habit of shopping at warehouse clubs; there's the notion that we should all purchase reusable shopping bags, which is pretty silly to anyone who has done a week's shopping for eight or more people, and so on. The bottom line is that the kind of "in-house" recycling a large family does isn't always recognized, while policies and programs which are encouraging people toward green living are aimed at the notion that there will almost never be more than four people in a household, and setting all benchmarks at reduction of carbon use from that standpoint.
Understanding this problem as it pertains to larger families, though, is where those people who want to be Christian environmentalists clash with the rest of the environmentalist movement: mainstream environmentalism takes the default position that humans themselves are pollution, and that people who don't reduce the number of their offspring to no more than two are already polluters. There may not be an intent to penalize people for having large families (at least not yet) among the environmentalists, but I think most of them would shrug at any negative impact large families face from environmental policies, with the viewpoint that if you want all those kids despite the overcrowded planet and the polluting effect each human has on it, then too bad if you end up paying more or doing more just to attempt to live a greener life; it's your fault for making such a bad lifestyle choice.
The Christian environmentalist doesn't see humans as pollution, and welcomes large families as well as smaller ones into the ministry of humble stewardship, an approach to the planet and its resources that remembers that all of it is God's gift to us, and seeks to care for the earth and its treasures accordingly. So the Christian is at odds with the mainstream environmentalist when it comes to appreciating the conservation and recycling efforts that large families are capable of achieving; the Christian environmentalist sees all the members of the family as valuable and welcomes their contributions to greener living, while the mainstream environmentalist may tend to think that the greenest thing the family could have done was fail to bring into being at least half of the children in it.
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I have to confess the study released today by OSU stating that each child we have increases our carbon footprint is very distressing to me. What I find so troubling are articles like these--please note the comments section
http://zeldalily.com/index.php/2009/08/making-babies-the-surest-way-to-send-your-carbon-footprint-soaring/comment-page-1/#comment-10698
I'm not a Christian Conservative mother, I'll be honest about that. I'm a divorced mother of one fabulous daughter who I treasure--and if the situations would have worked out differently, I would love to have more kids (I'm a bit old for it now, and my focus is my daughter, not dating, so I think the motherhood thing stops with this wonderful child I have).
However, I don't consider large families to be what ails the planet. So please know, that there is a pro-environment mama who believes big families are a blessing, and I fully understand the wonderful conservation lessons learned in big families.
Blessings to you all.
Desires of the human beings are unlimited and it changes day by day as some time ago tubal ligation process is introduced for those couples who are willing to engage in the permanent birth but now the tubal reversal is process that offers those women who again desired to get the baby the tubal reversal fulfill their desires.
the tubal reversal results are almost hundred percent accurate.......
i hope u will get the more detail about the tubal reversal.\
This does not surprise me with the laws. I know of a state where a couple wanted to have IVF treatments to have a child due to a previous tubal ligation and the physicians would not do it because the couple was not married. Which the woman ended up having tubal reversal surgery performed at mubabydoc Tubal Reversal Center which was outside of the couples home state. Not only was it cheaper but the pregnancy success is much better.
There are people that change their minds but they should be the ones to make the decisions and not the government.
I would start by asking the physician if there is anyone else he/she can suggest to contact. If this does not work then I would be searching quite a bit. The answer is out there somewhere.
The suggestion are highly appreciated
Every woman has right to dream of having a baby. Tubal reversal allows a woman the ability to conceive naturally without any harm. Although tubal ligation is considered a permanent method of birth control,
While I agree it should be the women's choice, the procedure and apparently a great many attempts to reverse it come out of the public coffers.
I agree she should be allowed the proceedure as she's a responsible adult, but she sould also be required to sign a waver stating the PUBLIC medical system is not on the hook for a reversal should she later demand it.
Fair is fair. Be responsible for the decisionand be responsible for your later decisions should they change.
Sterilization reversal surgery for women is highly successful if a enough length of tube remains on both ends of the ligation. Often the active report from the tubal ligation procedure is useful in identifying candidates who do not have a good chance for successful reversal. However, in approximately 5% of cases, the tubal reversal surgery cannot be performed due to unexpected findings in the pelvis at the time of the intended reversal surgery. These result include scar of the fabricated end of the tubes or absence of the fimbria. The fimbria are the tiny finger-like structures that sweep the egg into the tube from the ovary. The tubal reversal surgery is performed through a 3 to 4 inch “bikini cut” incision. The patient leaves the hospital or surgical center 23 hours later in most cases. Two to 3 weeks are needed to return to normal function. If the patient’s job involves heavy exciting she may need to take 4-6 weeks off work. In the situations where the scarring or length of the remaining tube prevents the reversal, the patient avoids the full incision with its resultant cost and recovery time. This is because we carry out a laparoscopic assessment of the tubes immediately prior to the tubal reversal while the patient is under general anesthesia (completely asleep). The tubal reversal surgery requires a certain amount of expertise; therefore, you should choose a reproductive surgeon who has undergone a fellowship in infertility and preferably is board certified in Reproductive Endocrinology. An operating microscope is used to reconnect the two ends of the tubes using very fine suture material to reduce the chance of scar formation.
Sterilization reversal surgery for women is highly successful if a enough length of tube remains on both ends of the ligation. Often the active report from the tubal ligation procedure is useful in identifying candidates who do not have a good chance for successful reversal. However, in approximately 5% of cases, the tubal reversal surgery cannot be performed due to unexpected findings in the pelvis at the time of the intended reversal surgery. These result include scar of the fabricated end of the tubes or absence of the fimbria. The fimbria are the tiny finger-like structures that sweep the egg into the tube from the ovary. The tubal reversal surgery is performed through a 3 to 4 inch “bikini cut” incision. The patient leaves the hospital or surgical center 23 hours later in most cases. Two to 3 weeks are needed to return to normal function. If the patient’s job involves heavy exciting she may need to take 4-6 weeks off work. In the situations where the scarring or length of the remaining tube prevents the reversal, the patient avoids the full incision with its resultant cost and recovery time. This is because we carry out a laparoscopic assessment of the tubes immediately prior to the tubal reversal while the patient is under general anesthesia (completely asleep). The tubal reversal surgery requires a certain amount of expertise; therefore, you should choose a reproductive surgeon who has undergone a fellowship in infertility and preferably is board certified in Reproductive Endocrinology. An operating microscope is used to reconnect the two ends of the tubes using very fine suture material to reduce the chance of scar formation.
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