Via the London Times: Having large families ‘is an eco-crime’

HAVING large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a 4×4 car and failing to reuse plastic bags, according to a report to be published tomorrow by a green think tank.

The paper by the Optimum Population Trust (OPT) will say that if couples had two children instead of three they could cut their family’s carbon dioxide output by the equivalent of 620 return flights a year between London and New York.

John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT and emeritus professor of family planning at University College London, said: “The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights. An extra child is the equivalent of a lot of flights across the planet.

While it may be easy to say that less people is better than more, this issue is a tad more complicated than that. For example, there is the replacement rate issue in developed states (not to mention the linkage to funding the social welfare systems in those states if the population shrinks).

Further, there are questions of personal liberty here.

3 Comments

1. Has anyone worked out how much CO2 would be saved if they stopped printing the London Times?

   Comment by Steven L. — Monday, May 7, 2024 @ 1:43 pm

2. [...] Others blogging:  Wizbang, Right Wing Nut House, The Right Angle, Secular Blasphemy, The Jawa Report, PoliBlog ™, JammieWearingFool, Blogs for Bush, Michael P.F. van der Galiën and The Corner Bookmark to: Tags: environmental, wackos [...]

   Pingback by Right Voices » Blog Archive » I Guess My Parents Are Eco-Criminals — Monday, May 7, 2024 @ 7:56 pm

3. If you and Sherry committed an eco-crime, Steve and I are freakin’ eco-terrorist!

   Comment by Jan — Monday, May 7, 2024 @ 9:08 pm

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