Every single day, we are exhorted by environmentalists to do our part to save the planet. We are told we must take public transportation, install LED light bulbs, eat an organic vegan diet, recycle, and above all, flagellate ourselves for merely existing.
Because make no mistake, humans are considered the biggest scourge on the planet. Science writer Carl Zimmer refers to humans as parasites and a virus spreading across the earth: “In fact, I would say that we may be parasites, but we’re not very good ones. Successful parasites do a very good job of balancing – using up their hosts and keeping them alive. It’s all a question of tuning the adaptation to your particular host. In our case, we have only one host, so we have to be particularly careful.”
It’s not hard to understand why this analogy is popular. All you have to do is stand at the edge of any municipal waste facility and marvel at the sheer quantity of garbage we generate to appreciate why environmentalists hate the impact of humanity.
Statistics about American consumption have been bandied about for decades. America has 5 percent of the world’s population and uses one-third of the resources. Over a lifetime, the typical American will create 13 times as much environmental damage as the average Brazilian. Yadda yadda yadda. Face it: We’re the scum of the earth. Literally.
So, obviously, to reduce the impact we have on the planet, it would be best if we subsisted at a hunter-gatherer level to shrink our carbon footprint. Oops, wait, forget the “hunter” part – just make that a gatherer. We need to gather nuts and berries and clothe ourselves in animal skins – I mean hemp garments. Forget smartphones, forget the Internet, forget cars and homes and any other carbon-laden convenience we’ve grown accustomed to. We must discard it all the save the planet.
Or must we?
Maybe we can keep our affluent lifestyle after all, because environmentalists have come up with the ultimate sure-fire way to save Mother Earth: Stop having babies. It’s no accident that mothers are contemptuously referred to as “breeders” by such advocates.
A recent study concluded having children is the most destructive thing a person can to do to the environment, topping out eating meat, driving a car and traveling by air. “A U.S. family who chooses to have one fewer child would provide the same level of emissions reductions as 684 teenagers who choose to adopt comprehensive recycling for the rest of their lives,” the article said.
In a 2009 article, writer Cameron Scott notes, “A new study argues that having children dwarfs parents’ attempts to go green in other ways. Having a child boosts a mother’s carbon footprint enough to offset 20 times over her choices to use CFLs and energy-efficient appliances and windows.” (Twenty times. Remember that number.)
Travis Rieder, a moral philosophy professor and bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University, states: “We’ve been trying to get you to give up your toys – to change per-capita emissions. So if you’re really going to continue to show reluctance, well, here’s the other option: We’ll start putting pressure on families. If that pressure’s really, really, really undesirable, then, well, maybe people decide to start doing the other thing.”
Babies in affluent countries are the biggest problem, of course. “You want to continue to live in your 10,000-square-foot house?” Rieder adds. “You know, fly private jets around, and that kind of thing? Well, that would mean a lot fewer people on the Earth.”
(Can I get a show of hands from those of you living in 10,000 square foot houses? How about flying private jets? Mr. Gore, put your hand down. Anyone else? Yeah, that’s what I thought.)
It’s no secret hardcore environmentalists lament the human birthrate and its impact on the earth. For decades they’ve told us the planet is overstocked and will experience devastating degradation if we don’t stop having babies. Fortunately, Planned Parenthood is here to help. On the campaign trail for Hillary Clinton last October, Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards told an Iowa crowd she was “excited” to see so many women trying to normalize abortion by telling their stories. Fewer children! Just watch those carbon footprints shrink!
Thomas Ferguson, former official in the U.S. State Department Office of Population Affairs, stated: “There is a single theme behind all our work – we must reduce population levels. Either governments do it our way, through nice clean methods, or they will get the kinds of mess that we have in El Salvador, or in Iran or in Beirut. Population is a political problem. Once population is out of control, it requires authoritarian government, even fascism, to reduce it. … The professionals aren’t interested in lowering population for humanitarian reasons. That sounds nice. We look at resources and environmental constraints. We look at our strategic needs, and we say that this country must lower its population – or else we will have trouble.”
(Let’s see … citing the “20 times” number quoted by Cameron Scott above, if America sent home the estimated 11 to 30 million illegal aliens inside our borders, our nation could lower our collective carbon footprint equivalent by as many as 600 million people. Just saying.)
Author Michael Snyder writes, “Many that write about the population control agenda make it sound as if there is just a ‘tiny elite’ that is promoting this philosophy. Sadly, that is simply not accurate. The truth is that this twisted agenda is being taught at the majority of the colleges and universities in the United States. It is being promoted in our television shows and in our movies. It is even being taught to elementary school children.”
Can’t reduce the population without converts, after all, and so it’s critical to teach our young people how immaterial and destructive their very existence is. Deep ecologists cannot see hope, beauty, potential, or joy in children. They are merely irritating little carbon users and resource-sucking burdens on the earth. All this sets the stage for some very, very ugly practices highly reminiscent of Nazi Germany: eugenics. This is why such people as famed evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne can argue in favor of the “merciful” killing of disabled newborns.
Meanwhile, for those environmentalists who seek to reduce the world’s population by reducing the birthrate to sustainable levels, I beg you to take your message to the massive number of new immigrants to Europe whose goal is to conquer the Western world through population increases. Please, please, please, preach your message. Please. Please. Please. I beg you.
Because frankly, I can think of no finer way to save the planet.