Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable

experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC

makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service with me Wesley Stevens.

Now this week we're looking at a controversial topic so much so that one of the academics

we're going to hear from

has received numerous death threats. So no death threats please listeners but

here's the question is having children the worst thing you can possibly do for the environment.

Yes, it's not cheery talk about family, we're talking about cutting down on the family.

Lucy Proctor's been looking into this, hi Lucy.

Hello, yes, I'm one of those people that

recycles and shouts at my partner for leaving the car idling. So when I came

across this idea, I did start to worry that all my environmental do-gooding

was basically meaningless compared to the

toll my two kids are inevitably going to take on the planet's finite resources.

That's quite a harsh way to look at your kids.

I know I'm blaming Seth Wins he's a PhD student at the

University of British Columbia he got me thinking like this he's set out to compare all the things

...