Are Babies Bad?

So maybe people who don't need people are the luckiest people after all, Maggie.

Maybe None: Is having a child -- even one -- environmentally destructive?

Gregory Dicum, Special to SF Gate
Wednesday, November 16, 2005, here.

"We can't be breeding right now," says Les Knight. "It's obvious that the intentional creation of another [human being] by anyone anywhere can't be justified today."

Knight is the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, an informal network of people dedicated to phasing out the human race in the interest of the health of the Earth. Knight, whose convictions led him to get a vasectomy in the 1970s, when he was 25, believes that the human race is inherently dangerous to the planet and inevitably creates an unsustainable situation.

"As long as there's one breeding couple," he says cheerfully, "we're in danger of being right back here again. Wherever humans live, not much else lives. It isn't that we're evil and want to kill everything -- it's just how we live."

. . . So if fewer people means less destruction, wouldn't no people at all be the best solution for the planet?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately because my wife and I have been talking about having a child. We're the kind of people who reduce, reuse and recycle. We try hard not to needlessly fritter away resources. We think globally and act locally in our day-to-day decisions. So while the biggest quandary of most couples in our shoes might be what color to paint the nursery, we have to ask ourselves, Is the impact of a new person justified?"
posted by maggie at 10:44 AM VOTE

1 Comments:

At 11/16/2005 9:31 PM,  Marty said...

Crackpots on MDB? Please.

He got a vasectomy in 1970, when he was 25 and in the full throes of the hippie environmental doomsday movement. 35 years later, he's still trying to believe he did the right thing.

There's nothing sadder than an old man who refuses to admit that he was young and stupid -- and wrong -- once upon a time.

Human Extinction Movement, heh. What's the matter -- the mutually assured destruction of cold war didn't turn out like you'd hoped?

 

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