Culling for Gaia
Time for another selection of Classic Sentences from the Guardian. Or rather the Guardian’s Sunday sister paper, the Observer. Until recently, I had thought the Observer’s commentary wasn’t quite as obnoxiously self-loathing as the material that swills all but daily through the piping of the Guardian. Sadly, it seems I was mistaken:
Fewer British babies would mean a fairer planet.
So barks the headline of AlexRenton’s latest exercise in ecological hair-tearing. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. It’s just another overexcited sub-editor and not representative of an otherwise measured and sober article. However, the first line reads,
The worst thing that you or I can do for the planet is to have children.
And besides,
One less British child would permit some 30 women in sub-Saharan Africa to have a baby and still leave the planet a cleaner place.
It continues,
Why not start cutting population everywhere? Are condoms not the greenest technology of all?
Inevitably, we veer tantalisingly close to China’s state reproduction policy:
It was certainly the most successful governmental attempt to preserve the world’s resources so far.
And there’s this little gem.
A cull of Australians or Americans would be at least 60 times as productive as one of Bangladeshis.
So several candidates there – from, lest we forget, a progressive and liberal newspaper.
Deciding not to have a child because of their estimated annual CO2 production is a particularly wretched parental calculus and suggests either pathological self-disgust or pretensions thereof. I suspect Alex Renton measures his moral and intellectual sophistication by the extent to which he loathes his own culture, and by extension himself. That, or he pretends such for the benefit of other, likeminded souls. Happily, he’s found a cause well suited to the cultivation of such feelings. Less happily, he presumes to share his leanings with others, coercively if necessary:
Could children perhaps become part of an adult’s personal carbon allowance? Could you offer rewards: have one child only and you may fly to Florida once a year?
Readers may feel inclined to assist Mr Renton in his totalitarian urges by gnawing off his testicles and tossing them on a fire. And then doing the same to any male children he may recklessly have sired. For Gaia, of course.
Birth rates are falling all over the world, including even developing nations. The more economically developed a society becomes, the lower its birthrate. Europe and Japan are already at the point of severe demographic downturn. World population is projected to peak at around 9 billion and then stabilize about a century from now. This is certainly sustainable. The fact is, the world will fill up with people to it’s carrying capacity whether you have children or not. Do you want your cultural heirs to be part of that mix, or should it be all left to head-chopping zealots, authoratative commutarians, and subsistence level tribalists?
There can be a bright future ahead for all of humanity, but only if the values of the West survive the great demographic changes of the coming century. The extinction of Europeans is nothing to cheer about.
What happened to 2010? Has it been forgotten already? And where is the off switch for the Guardian, the liberal-left and all who sail in it?
“The more economically developed a society becomes, the lower its birthrate.”
True, but this aggregate statistic says nothing about the evolutionary consequences of unrestricted reproduction. Further, economic development is more a result than a cause of low reproduction. Within the US, the plot of reproduction rate versus family income is U-shaped (consider the Kennedys). Some people attribute the Renaissance to the Black Death. During the Medieval Warm Period, Europe’s arable land and population grew. For about 50 years before the Black Death arrived, temperatures fell and Europe’s population fell, as growing seasons grew shorter and arable land turned to swamp.
“World population is projected to peak at around 9 billion and then stabilize about a century from now.”
Love that passive voice: “is projected”. Why expect this result?
“The fact is, the world will fill up with people to it’s carrying capacity whether you have children or not. Do you want your cultural heirs to be part of that mix, or should it be all left to head-chopping zealots, authoratative commutarians, and subsistence level tribalists?”
Let’s add another axiom to the argument (somewhere around #6): “Misery is like heat. In the absence of barriers it flows so as to equalize over a closed system.” Here I make another departure from many Libertarians (and libertarians). I support restrictions on immigration. Think of natural increase as immigration from the future.
Aside: assessing Perry de Haviland’s veracity.
(Perry): “Sorry to burst your bubble but acting like a tit and claiming people said things they did not got you banned from Samizdata. We ban blogroaches, not opinions, and you are a bloagroach.”
Oh? From “Hard Cash” (Samizdada, 2007-July-20).
(Malcolm): “Voluntary programs for population control selectively breed non-compliant individuals. In the absence of compulsory measures, given a minimally supportive environment, the negative correlation between wealth of society and rate of natural increase cannot last. Think otherwise? Salmon are your cousins. Try talk them out of reproducing. Humans who can reproduce at high densitiy have a selective advantage over humans who require lots of open space. ”
(Perry): “Fascist crap as usual Malcolm. I am happy to pass my ideas on to those who want to breed. I do not give a damn about my genes, I care only about my memes. That is how I will ‘reproduce’, thanks.”
(Malcolm): “Perry finds ‘have fun’ and ‘be civil’ [Samizdada posting guidelines. MK] incompatible, at least when his tidy ideology yields uncomfortable conclusions. Note that there’s no attempt to dispute any assertion as to fact in my post. As usual.”
(Perry): “Because it is like arguing with a flat-earther, that is why: pointless. That is why I usually just ban people like you because I have very low tolerance for fascists and debating them just dignified their position when rolled eyes is actually a more appropriate response… so banned.”
“People Should be Banned”, a population discussion. (Samizdada, 2007-07-13)
“Hard Cash”, a related discussion, on heritable reproductive behavior. (Samizdada, 2007-07-20)
Samizdada was at one time my Grand Central Station for links. I left comments on four or five posts in several years of visits, without trouble.
Malcom Kirkpatrick, up against the wall. Do you have any children? No? Good, that makes this much easier. Ready… aim… F
“Malcom Kirkpatrick, up against the wall. Do you have any children? No? Good, that makes this much easier. Ready… aim… F”
That was de Haviland’s attitude, anyway. Also Mussolini’s, Franco’s, Hitler’s, Stalin’s, and Mao’s.
“Fewer British babies would mean a fairer planet”
I’m not sure why he singles out babies. Wouldn’t, to his mind, the world be better off with fewer British adults?
I expect the next logical step, to someone of his mid, to be the requirement that all persons without three generations of British ancestors (basically, all post-1900 immigrants) leave or be sterilized.
“For the planet’s sake, I hope we have bird flu or some other thing that will reduce the population, because otherwise we’re doomed.”
Dr Susan Blackmore, ‘Nightwaves’, BBC Radio 3, 5 Nov 2008.