Tuesday, September 15, 2009

The Best Fix for Pollution: Birth Control?

To heck with carbon dioxide. A new study performed by the London School of Economics suggests that, to fight climate change, governments should focus on another pollutant: us.

As in babies. New people.

Every new life, the report says, is a guarantee of new greenhouse gases, spewed out over decades of driving and electricity use. Seen in that light, we might be our own worst emissions.
Read the rest here.

I would laugh. But I think they were serious.

7 comments:

  1. Well, if you won't laugh, I will. Hahahahahahahahahahaha!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, yeah, if we'd all just die, then green house gas problems would go away.

    But then, no one would be here to gloat about it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. And if we stopped all the efforts to fight communicable diseases and cancers, there would be a lot fewer people on the planet. After limiting ourselves to one child each, will that be the next potion to pollution control?
    There are scary people out there...

    Angela

    ReplyDelete
  4. "In the United States, each baby results in 1,644 tons of carbon dioxide, five times more than a baby in China and 91 times more than an infant in Bangladesh, according to the Oregon State study. That is because Americans live relatively long, and live in a country whose long car commutes, coal-burning power plants and cathedral ceilings give it some of the highest per-capita emissions in the world."

    This is the gist of the article. It has to do with consumption of natural resources and pollution from that consumption.

    Nothing shocking if one thinks about it.

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  5. So if we shorten the lifespan and de-industrialize the US, then we'll have a greener planet.

    Angela

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  6. I couldn't believe it when I read this. I'm surprised it hasn't been picked up much around the b-sphere. Not that I'm an environmentalists, but I found it fascinating that the article blames procreation, rather than suggesting we limit our selfish recreation. Just bizarre.

    Thanks for bringing this to attention.

    BJ
    Stupid Scholar

    ReplyDelete
  7. Instead of wasting time on such stupid solution as birth control to check air pollution, intelllectuals should directly get involved to control the causes of air pollution after the birth of a child.

    Tony
    www.aafter.com

    ReplyDelete

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