Posted on 05/11/2007 4:04:22 PM PDT by Lukasz
A radical form of “offsetting” carbon dioxide emissions to prevent climate change is proposed today – having fewer children.
Each new UK citizen less means a lifetime carbon dioxide saving of nearly 750 tonnes, a climate impact equivalent to 620 return flights between London and New York*, the Optimum Population Trust says in a new report.
Based on a “social cost” of carbon dioxide of $85 a tonne**, the report estimates the climate cost of each new Briton over their lifetime at roughly £30,000. The lifetime emission costs of the extra 10 million people projected for the UK by 2074 would therefore be over £300 billion. ***
A 35-pence condom, which could avert that £30,000 cost from a single use, thus represents a “spectacular” potential return on investment – around nine million per cent.
The report adds: “The most effective personal climate change strategy is limiting the number of children one has. The most effective national and global climate change strategy is limiting the size of the population.
“Population limitation should therefore be seen as the most cost-effective carbon offsetting strategy available to individuals and nations – a strategy that applies with even more force to developed nations such as the UK because of their higher consumption levels.”
A Population-Based Climate Strategy, the OPT’s latest research briefing, is published today (Monday, May 7 2007). It says human population growth is widely acknowledged as one of the main causes of climate change yet politicians and environmentalists rarely discuss it for fear of causing offence. The result is that a “de facto taboo” exists, throughout civil society and government.
One consequence is that “couples making decisions about family size do so in the belief that it is a matter for them and their personal preferences alone: the public debate and awareness that might have encouraged them to think about the implications of their choices for their fellow citizens, the climate and the wider environment have been missing.”
Other points in the briefing include:
*Providing low-carbon electricity for the 11 million extra UK households forecast for 2050 would mean building seven more Sizewell B nuclear power stations or 10-11,000 wind turbines.
*Global population growth between now and 2050 is equivalent in carbon dioxide emissions terms to the arrival on the planet of nearly two more United States, over two Chinas, 10 Indias or 20 UKs.
*Even if by 2050 the world had managed to achieve a 60 per cent cut in its 1990 emission levels, in line with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recommendations and the UK Government’s target, almost all of it would be cancelled out by population growth.
It concludes: “A population-based [climate] strategy…involves fewer of the taxes, regulations and other limits on personal freedom and mobility now being canvassed in response to climate change…To sum up, it would be easier, quicker, cheaper, freer and greener.”
Valerie Stevens, co-chair of the OPT, said: “We appreciate that asking people to have fewer children is not going to make us popular in some quarters. Equally, expressing concern about the environmental impacts of mass migration, which currently accounts for the bulk of population growth in the UK and will have a major effect on Britain’s carbon emissions, is a quick route to being labelled racist. But these are hugely important issues and the unfortunate fact is that both politicians and the environmental movement are in denial about them. It’s high time we started discussing them like adults and confronting the real challenges of climate change.”
She added: “Government fiscal measures that support child-bearing however many children a couple has, send a signal that increasing numbers are good for the welfare of everyone. In a world needing to diminish its consumption of key resources, especially energy, this is sadly no longer true.”
ping!
Now that’s an idea I like.
If all the tree-hugging granola munchers stop having children, we’ll have no problem.
If liberals in general stopped having children, then we’d have no problems.
A society that no longer values children is a society with no faith in a future, no faith in God and no hope.
Amen. The leftist loons should definitely stop breeding and indoctrinating more of their ilk. They should send all their women to get neutered and themselves spaded, just to make sure. How many carbon offset credits can you get for getting fixed?
Do they have even children? Lol. Most of them are either aborting their babies or are homosexuals. That’s why they insist on controlling school, media and government, to indoctrinate our children.
I suggest a two-pronged approach to the problem. Leftists can forgo having children, while the rest of us pay for new nuclear power plants.
Well, you better deport your muzzies then.
How many less children could the Europeans have? Some countries are barely at replacement and others are below it. Except for certain ethnic groups within those countries...
Okay, who is it that has that B & W graphic of the guy saying "Not this sh-- again?"
In fact, the total fertility rate of the United Kingdom is only 1.6 or at most 1.7, which is already below replacement. I’m not sure they should say “Well done, but we can do more”, or pushing these down the throats of Pakis in their midst.
We now have ability to purchase “carbon credits”; will “child bearing credits” soon be available?
What Hitler could not accomplish, Muslims could do within several generations - the conquest of England.
The scary thing is that the United Kingdom’s national total is already 1.6 now which includes the “South Asians” rates. You could imagine the Pakistani populations having three or four kids and the rest...
Okay, I didn’t procreate. How many carbon offsets will that buy me?
posted too many times already
The natives just may stop having children but the folks comming from the Middle East, India and Africa are going to have boucoups of offspring.
Looks like the death of British society.
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