Just say “no” to children?
We’re used to environmentalists telling us that we need to “save the planet” for our children. Now, they’re saying we shouldn’t be allowed to have them.
Echoing the sentiments of Paul Ehrlich’s environmentalist manifesto, the 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb, British columnist Alex Renton of The Guardian writes, “the worst thing that you or I can do for the planet is to have children. If they behave as the average person in the rich world does now, they will emit some 11 tonnes of CO2 every year of their lives. In their turn, they are likely to have more carbon-emitting children who will make an even bigger mess.”
Mr. Renton’s opinion is shared by the New York Times’ Andrew Revkin. At a recent panel discussion titled “Covering Climate: What’s Population Got To Do With It?,” Mr. Revkin argued that “probably the single most concrete and substantive thing an American, young American, could do to lower their carbon footprint is not turning off the light or driving a Prius, it’s having fewer kids, having fewer children.”
Environmentalists have always urged us towards a more ascetic existence, and population control is a logical progression within the framework of the environmentalist ideology, which views “the planet” as an inherent good that must be “saved” from the plague of man. Thus neither Mr. Renton nor Mr. Revkin is at all shy in advocating their position, nor does either skip a beat in suggesting that government force is necessary to achieve it.
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