There is a way of killing worse than that of the sword; … To prohibit from being born is to kill; those governments are in the highest degree guilty of blood, which by taking from men the means of living, bring some to perish through want, drive others out of the country, and generally dissuade men from marriage, by taking from them all ways of subsisting their families.
—Algernon Sidney. Discourses Concerning Government, 1698.
Birth rates correlate to the availability of housing. Accordingly, when Malthusians feign concern for the environment and agitate to have a desert, patch of scrub, or swamp declared off-limits, or require prohibitively expensive environmental impact reports to be commissioned before a house can be built, they are preventing babies from being born. Genuine concern for the environment is based on concern for future generations. It follows that those who pretend concern for the environment as a pretext for efforts that will result in children going unborn are by definition insincere.
It is no insult to call such people anti-humans. Nor is it unfair to call their beliefs a mental illness, unless suicides and baby killers are to be counted among the sane. Unlike other mentally ill people (such as those who hold up sandwich signs that say “The End Is Near”), Greens have succeeded in gaining credibility for their murderous beliefs—and in some cases even government offices. Consider this article from London’s Sunday Times:
COUPLES who have more than two children are being ‘irresponsible’ by creating an unbearable burden on the environment, the government’s green adviser has warned. Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government’s Sustainable Development Commission, says curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming. He says political leaders and green campaigners should stop dodging the issue of environmental harm caused by an expanding population.
A report by the commission, to be published next month, will say that governments must reduce population growth through better family planning. “I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate,” Porritt said.
“I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible. It is the ghost at the table. We have all these big issues that everybody is looking at and then you don’t really hear anyone say the ‘p’ word.”
The Optimum Population Trust, a campaign group of which Porritt is a patron, says each baby born in Britain will, during his or her lifetime, burn carbon roughly equivalent to 2½ acres of old-growth oak woodland—an area the size of Trafalgar Square. Article in the February 1, 2009 edition.
There is another organization called the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement which proposes the ultimate extinction of mankind for the benefit of the environment. That may sound more radical than Green politicians who hold so much sway in Canada and Europe, but as their logic follows the same thread, we may simply regard them as less discrete.
Biodiversity is important because it enriches our lives. We lament the extinction of species because they may be of some use or interest to us in the future. But to place the interests of the natural world above our own is to forget the very reason why the environment is important.
