Experts call it 'ridiculous' to say having more than two children is bad for Earth.
In order to stop global warming, people should recycle, drive smaller cars and limit procreation - at least according to a paper published today by Britain's Optimum Population Trust (OPT).
"The most effective personal climate-change strategy is limiting the number of children one has," the report states. "The most effective national and global climate-change strategy is limiting the size of the population."
John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT, claimed if a couple has two children instead of three, it cuts the family's carbon dioxide output by the equivalent of 620 return flights from London to New York each year.
"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," he said. "The decision to have children should be seen as a very big one and one that should take the environment into account."
Stuart Shepard, a meteorologist and spokesman for Focus on the Family Action, said humans should never be placed on a scale against the amount of carbon dioxide they produce.
"We are created in the image of God," he said, "and to say the planet would be better off without us contradicts the design of Creation."
Dan Gainor, director of the Business & Media Institute and Boon Pickens Free Market Fellow, said it's ridiculous that an organization touting itself as an environmental group is against one of the planet’s species.
"Human beings are the greatest resource we have on the planet,"Gainor said.
Such groups view people and animals as equals, he said. "But we've somehow 'altered the balance,' so that makes us bad."
In the eyes of extreme environmental groups, the grizzly bear that attacks you in the wild is doing its job, Gainor said. In the eyes of those same groups, the activity of mankind is evil.
The OPT report came on the same day that Gainor found an article online by Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, who described humans as "the AIDS of the Earth."
"This is the extreme, utterly bizarre end of the environmental movement that you see in science fiction movies," Gainor said. "That's how they view human beings - but conveniently never themselves. They think they're the great enlightened ones."
Shepard said such a mindset is obviously flawed.
"It's obvious to the rest of us that there's something fundamentally wrong with seeing everything on planet Earth as 'natural' except for the humans," he said. “Why are we always viewed as if we were alien beings dropped on the planet by mistake?"
The OPT paper and the writings of Watson, Gainor said, are not isolated incidents.
"We've had Sheryl Crow calling for people to use less toilet paper; we've had Al Gore on Capitol Hill," Gainor said. "And right now Congress is still considering a bill that would mandate what light bulbs we can use. This is the eco-movement. This is what Congress is acting on right now."
Shepard said the report illuminates that the debate over global warming has never been about science - it's all about politics.
"Global-warming alarmism is not a scientific issue that found political support," he said, "this is a political movement that was looking for something to exploit in hopes of attaining elected office."
Talk Show America 5/08/2007
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