There is a story out of London, reported by news.com.au (1) which speaks of the latest results from one of those "think tanks", this time on the issue of global warming. This particular tank has thought up a real solution to our impending doom. After all, planting trees or finding new ways to power our machines doesn't really get to the root of the problem, which, according to the global warming doomsdayers, is us. Humans are the parasite. The think tank suggests, with all candidness of elite science, that not having children is the solution to the real problem.
"The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child." John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT and emeritus professor of family planning at University College London, demonstrates his real knack for family planning by helping people rid themselves of the nuisance of planning a family. Instead, his comments give us reason to avoid that next child, which in many countries of the EU, is the only child couples were planning on having anyway. The latest statistics show us that every nation in the EU has a below replacement level birth rate, and that these low level birth rates are already diminishing the native population of Europe. Take for instance, Italy. By 2050, if present birth rates continue, 60 percent of the Italian people will not know personally what a brother, a sister, an aunt, an uncle, or a cousin is (2). And less than 5 percent of Italy's children will have both siblings and cousins (3). Is this not bothersome to people who say they are experts in family planning? Where is the family going? Are they really suggesting that the "future of the planet" depends on continuing this trend of removing humans from it, and can this really be called family planning?
Why are we so afraid of more people? Why are we so afraid of ourselves? Could not the most intelligent animal on the planet think of a viable solution for the world's problems without resorting to a suicidal view?
Never before in history has humanity thought that the best solution for our children's troubled world is to remove them from it. How dare we even call this a solution?
Human beings are good. And having children is good for the planet. If we have serious issues concerning global warming or misuse of natural resources, let's put our minds together, let's organize a think tank that actually thinks up a solution. It is easy and hopeless to solve the problems of the future by eliminating the future. It is also evidence of a disturbing and homocidal trend within our cultures that we often resort to this self-loathing view of the human person when looking at our problems. We must return to a point of view that sees humanity as a good thing, indeed the best thing, the most amazing thing that makes up this planet. We are not just a part of the world, we are given the world. We are not a wayward parasitic development of the evolutionary life chain. We are not dispensible. We should have children, and many of them, in order to preserve the future. Perhaps it would have been that "next child" that Mr. Guillebaud suggests we not have who would have thought up a new way to power a vehicle, or a way to prevent the effects of carbon emmissions. If we start eliminating people, we are eliminating the very thing that could solve the problem.
If we are going to eliminate anything, we might start with that think tank.
(1) http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21684156-5009760,00.html
(2) Is Europe Dying? Notes on a Crisis of Civilizational Morale By George Weigel (http://www.fpri.org/ww/0602.200506.weigel.europedying.html)
(3) Nicholas Eberstadt (1998), ‘What if it’s a world population implosion? Speculations about global de-population’, Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies.
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