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dancing james-
Leaving aside Gbj_Tester’s unexpectedly aggressive comment, this is a suggestion that people have actually put a lot of research into, and you’re right. Having smaller families is one of the most ecologically impactful decisions a person can make.
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When you look at the disparity of environmental footprint of individuals, it's clear a wealthy, childless individual can still cause more negative impact than a whole family. So as a personal choice yes it's effective, but guard against feeling too superior to other people who have kids.
Adhiero
hoefla
Both you and the people jumping into these fashionable band wagons are asking for simple answers to complex questions.
The simplest answer for anybody who really wants a minimal ecological footprint is suicide. Next in line for people without the courage of their convictions is to be so poor that they can't afford to consume any more than the bare minimum required for survival. Economic activity is a pretty good proxy for environmental damage - the more you spend, the more wreckage you leave in your wake.
Once you go past that, most people enter into self-serving calculations to show that their particular middle class posturing is better than somebody else's. These calculations are always based on guesswork, wrong assumptions, and deliberately ignoring inconvenient factors.