Kill A Kid For Carbon

Only an enviro would look at the joyful miracle of a newborn and see nothing but a despicable carbon footprint. It's hard to believe, but it's true -- they really do!

The Optimum Population Trust, a UK group that hangs on to the quaint belief that the world faces a population melt-down, has decided that the UK's already decreasing population is just too much for this poor old world to sustain, and they've got a solution:

A radical form of “offsetting” carbon dioxide emissions to prevent climate change is proposed today – having fewer children.

Each new UK citizen less means a lifetime carbon dioxide saving of nearly 750 tonnes, a climate impact equivalent to 620 return flights between London and New York*, the Optimum Population Trust says in a new report.

Based on a “social cost” of carbon dioxide of $85 a tonne, the report estimates the climate cost of each new Briton over their lifetime at roughly £30,000. The lifetime emission costs of the extra 10 million people projected for the UK by 2074 would therefore be over £300 billion. ...

The report adds: “The most effective personal climate change strategy is limiting the number of children one has. The most effective national and global climate change strategy is limiting the size of the population.

“Population limitation should therefore be seen as the most cost-effective carbon offsetting strategy available to individuals and nations – a strategy that applies with even more force to developed nations such as the UK because of their higher consumption levels.”

These modern-day Shakers (well, that's not a very good comparison since Shakers were celibate and the feel-good Left is anything but that) have a witty ... uh ... climax to their thinking:

A 35-pence condom, which could avert that £30,000 cost from a single use, thus represents a “spectacular” potential return on investment – around nine million per cent.

Yes, but what if you never hold that cute newborn and deeply inhale that sweet new baby smell? What if you miss all the adventures and mind- and soul-expansions that come with raising a child? What if you end up old and lonely, with no children and grandchildren to fill your days? Is the left so materialistic none of that matters to them?

Al Gore must be sitting in his palatial, energy-sucking mansion tonight bemoaning his ungreeness, since he has 4 kids. So far he hasn't offered to off any of them to make up for his and Tipper's bedroom eco-transgressions.

The people at Optimum Population Trust must not be reading their demographics. Most reasonable people now feel that the world population will begin dropping later in this century as the West's spurning of spawning continues, the draconian Chinese population controls hit the next generation with a shortage of women, and India follows in the same footsteps, and globalization brings more wealth and fewer babies to more and more nations.

Ironically, the fastest way to drop the cumulative carbon footprint of newborns is to burn a heck of a lot more carbon. The sooner we can spread energy and the wealth that follows to every flea-bitten corner of the world, the sooner their population rates will drop.

So fire up the coal plants, dam a few rivers, level a forest and replace it with factories.

It's the least we could do to save the planet!

Photo: Courtesy of Linnea Lenkus, where there are many beautiful photos of newborns.