" . . . probably the single most concrete and substantive thing an American, young American, could do to lower our carbon footprint is not turning off the light or driving a Prius, it's having fewer kids, having fewer children."
UPDATE 12/11/09: Copenhagen Hears Birth Control Solution to Climate Change
-- From "Cap-And-Trade For Babies?" posted at Investor's Business Daily 10/19/2009
It's long been a mantra on the left that people are a plague on the earth, ravaging its surface for food and resources, polluting its atmosphere and endangering its species. Now we are endangering its very climate to the point of extinction. Even the result of our breathing — carbon dioxide — has been declared by the EPA to be a dangerous pollutant.
New York Times environmental writer Andrew Revkin participated in an Oct. 14 panel discussion on climate change with other media pundits titled "Covering Climate: What's Population Got To Do With It?" People who need people they are not.
Participating via Web cam, Revkin volunteered that in allocating carbon credits as part of any cap-and-trade scheme, "if you can measurably somehow divert fertility rate, say toward accelerating decline in a place with a high fertility rate, shouldn't there be a carbon value to that?"
"More children equal more carbon dioxide emissions," Rivkin has blogged, wondering "whether this means we'll soon see a market in baby-avoidance carbon credits similar to efforts to sell CO2 credits for avoiding deforestation." Save the trees, not the children.
Rivkin's views are unfortunately shared by people with power and influence. Jonathon Porritt, chairman of Britain's Sustainable Development Commission, believes that "having more than two children is irresponsible" and that people should "connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint."
This brave new world is not too far-fetched for science adviser John Holdren, who has advised taking population control to quite another level. He has at various times advocated forced abortion and sterilization and views people as a burden, not as the ultimate resource, as we do.
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