Off the Record

Get the "Off the Record" Feed

what's the matter with kids today? By Diogenes | October 27, 2009

While you slept, your children consumed enough oxygen to fuel three dozen gerbils for six weeks at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Aren't you ashamed? What follows from the U.K. Guardian is not, regrettably, a parody:

The worst thing that you or I can do for the planet is to have children. If they behave as the average person in the rich world does now, they will emit some 11 tonnes of CO2 every year of their lives. In their turn, they are likely to have more carbon-emitting children who will make an even bigger mess...

In 2050, 95% of the extra population will be poor and the poorer you are, the less carbon you emit. By today's standards, a cull of Australians or Americans would be at least 60 times as productive as one of Bangladeshis... As Rachel Baird, who works on climate change for Christian Aid, says: "Often in the countries where the birth rate is highest, emissions are so low that they are not even measurable. Look at Burkina Faso." So why ask them to pay in unborn children for our profligacy…?

But how do you reduce population in countries where women's rights are already achieved and birth-control methods are freely available? 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?

You have to love the Orwellian archness of the phrase "countries where women's rights are already achieved" -- meaning, of course, countries where inconvenient children may be dismembered in the womb. Fortunately WE live in a nation where Roman Catholic office-holders like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden will protect the defenseless from arbitrary assault on their lives in the name of ecological progress.

Oh wait.

If you found this helpful, please support our work. Make a pledge or one-time donation now!

It's Your Turn to Sound Off!

» To ensure well-meaning comments, only donors are allowed to Sound Off.
  If you're a donor, log in; otherwise please support our work, and Sound Off!

Sound Off! Comments

• Posted by: John J Plick - Oct. 28, 2009 12:01 AM ET USA

  Leave Pelosi and Biden alone...., Rather, show me a real bishop.

• Posted by: Gil125 - Oct. 27, 2009 4:05 PM ET USA

  When Jonathan Swift wrote "A Modest Proposal" in 1729 it WAS satire. This just shows how far the world has progressed since then. I use the word "progressed" to give the self-styled "progressives" the credit due them.