Should People Stop Having Children to Halt Global Warming?

It certainly shouldn't come as a great surprise that there are people who think human beings are the worst species on the planet, and that Earth would be a much better place without us.

However, though Slate's Daniel Engber did add some skepticism to his "Global Swarming: Is it time for Americans to start cutting our baby emissions?" article, his conclusion made it quite clear his answer to this question was "Yes":

We know that babies add more to global warming than anything else in our home. Isn't it time to cut back?

For those with a strong stomach, here are some of the lowlights (emphasis added throughout, h/t Ken Shepherd):

According to The World Without Us, Alan Weisman's strangely comforting vision of human annihilation, the Earth would be a lot better off. In his doomsday scenario, freshwater floods would course through the New York subway system, ailanthus roots would heave up sidewalks, and a parade of coyotes, bears, and deer would eventually trot across the George Washington Bridge and repopulate Manhattan. Nature lovers can take solace in the idea that the planet will thrive once we've finally destroyed ourselves with global warming. But Weisman takes the fantasy one step further: Let's not wait for climate change, he says. Let's start depopulating right now.

For those who think people wouldn't possibly take such a recommendation seriously, please be advised that Weisman's book is on the New York Times bestseller list. But I digress:

As social policy, population control seems like an infringement on fundamental human rights. That's been the case in China, where mandatory birth planning has been a ghastly failure in both moral and practical terms. But these days, we tend to think of saving the environment in terms of personal choice, rather than government programs. We're obsessed with our green lifestyles-eating local, driving hybrids, paying off our excess carbon-dioxide emissions. From that perspective, voluntary familial extinction (or at least reduction) might not be such a bad idea. If you want to reduce your carbon footprint, cutting back on kids is the best choice you can possibly make.

Wow. Let's stop having children to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Is it becoming clear just how far the brainwashing by folks like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore has gone?

But, there was more, for Engber actually calculated for the reader the environmental cost of reproduction:

In the crudest terms, you've added another version of yourself into the world, which means you're potentially doubling your carbon-dioxide emissions over the total life of your family. That's a high estimate, since our kids won't spew as much greenhouse gas as we do-automobiles, appliances, light bulbs, and everything else will become more efficient in coming generations. But these marginal improvements aren't going to make our babies carbon-neutral. They'll just contribute to global warming at somewhat lower rates than we do.

Our other green lifestyle choices can't even begin to offset the cost of adding a brand-new CO2-emitter to the population. When I ran my own numbers through Al Gore's carbon calculator, I discovered that a switch to 100 percent wind and solar power would reduce my emissions by just 1.3 tons per year. That's not even enough to account for one quarter of today's average American. Meanwhile, I'd have to do quite a bit of driving around in a Hummer H3 to mimic the environmental impact of creating another version of me. Not to mention the fact that my children might eventually decide to have their own children, who would emit even more carbon dioxide down the line.

Horrors. Your children might have children. Heck, I remember when folks thought this was a good thing. Of course, that was before Al Gore convinced so many people how horrible they are.

Does everyone now understand why so many conservative writers such as myself have taken this issue on?

When the alarmism being spread by charlatans like Gore and NASA's James Hansen reaches a level where people start advocating population control to solve a problem that no one has yet proven exists, folks that haven't fallen under their spell better do everything possible to counter the propaganda or who knows where the insanity will end.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.