President’s Page: Cradle Cap and Trade?: Ecophiles Demand Limits on Reproduction

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. The radical environmentalists, emboldened by some of the positions taken by Obama’s Czars,1 are proposing even more radical solutions to combat their favorite apocalypse: global warming.

For instance, The New York Times environmental reporter has proposed giving carbon credits to couples that limit themselves to one child. This would, of course, effectively penalize all couples that had more than one child.

Revkin’s comments came during an Oct. 14 panel discussion on “Covering Climate: What’s Population Got to Do With It” that was held at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. The other participants on the panel were Dennis Dimick, executive editor of National Geographic, and Emily Douglas, web editor for The Nation magazine. The National Geographic has long been beating the drums of overpopulation and global warming, while The Nation occupies the far left of the political spectrum. The New York Times, of course, falls somewhere in between, but has long embraced the idea, first brought to public notice by Al Gore, that babies cause global warming.

Revkin’s proposal came during a discussion of population control programs: “Well, some of the people have recently proposed: Well, should there be carbon credits for a family planning program in Africa, let’s say? Should that be monetized as a part of something that, you know, if you can measurably somehow divert fertility rate, say toward an accelerating decline in a place with a high fertility rate, shouldn’t there be a carbon value to that?

“And I have even proposed recently, I can’t remember if it’s in the blog, but just think about this: Should — probably the single-most concrete and substantive thing an American, young American, could do to lower our carbon footprint is not turning off the lights or driving a Prius, it’s having fewer kids, having fewer children,” said Revkin.

“So should there be, eventually you get, should you get credit — if we’re going to become carbon-centric — for having a one-child family when you could have had two or three,” said Revkin. “And obviously it’s just a thought experiment, but it raises some interesting questions about all this.”

When CNSNews.com later followed up with questions about his comments, Revkin responded in an e-mail.

“I wasn’t endorsing any of this, simply laying out the math and noting the reality that if one were serious about the population-climate intersection, it’d be hard to avoid asking hard questions about USA population growth,” wrote Revkin.

“By raising the notion of carbon credits for, say, single-child American families,” he continued, “I was aiming to provoke some thinking about where the brunt of emissions are still coming from on a per-capita basis.”

In a Sept. 19, 2009 blog entry, “Are Condoms the Ultimate Green-Technology?” Revkin cited an August 2009 study by the London School of Economics that highlighted having fewer children as a solution to diminishing our carbon footprint.

The study was sponsored by the British activist group Optimum Population Trust, which advocates reduced population growth.

“More children equal more carbon dioxide emissions,” blogged Revkin. “And recent research has resulted in renewed coverage of the notion that one of the cheapest ways to curb emissions in coming decades would be to provide access to birth control for tens of millions of women around the world who say they desire it.

“I recently raised the question of whether this means we’ll soon see a market in baby-avoidance carbon credits similar to efforts to sell CO2 credits for avoiding deforestation,” he later added. “This is purely a thought experiment, not a proposal.”

Furthermore, he blogged: “But the issue is one that is rarely discussed in climate treaty talks or in debates over United States climate legislation. If anything, the population-climate question is more pressing in the United States than in developing countries, given the high per-capita carbon dioxide emissions here and the rate of population growth. If giving women a way to limit family size is such a cheap win for emissions, why isn’t it in the mix?”

Revkin earned a Master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and a biology degree from Brown University.

Here is a transcript of that portion of Revkin’s remarks at the Oct. 14 panel discussion in which he suggested the possibility of giving people carbon credits for having fewer children:

“Well, some of the people have recently proposed: Well, should there be carbon credits for a family planning program in Africa let’s say? Should that be monetized as a part of something that, you know, if you, if you can measurably somehow divert fertility rate, say toward an accelerating decline in a place with a high fertility rate, shouldn’t there be a carbon value to that?

“And I have even proposed recently, I can’t remember if it’s in the blog, but just think about this: Should — probably the single most concrete and substantive thing an American, young American, could do to lower our carbon footprint is not turning off the lights or driving a Prius, it’s having fewer kids, having fewer children.

“So should there be, eventually you get, should you get credit — If we’re going to become carbon-centric — for having a one-child family when you could have had two or three. And obviously it’s just a thought experiment, but it raises some interesting questions about all this.”

I looked up this article after hearing Rush Limbaugh talk about it today. He had some insightful consequences:

• Who/what defines a couple?

• Does this mean people don’t have to be married?

• Could a young girl at thirteen +/- 13 years of age demand payment for not having sex or having children?

• I add: could women demand payment for having hysterectomies, and men demand payment for having vasectomies?

• Does this mean that same-sex couples can demand payment because they are doing the world the biggest favor of all? (not my words, Rush’s).