Kids=Bad for Environment

If we’re really concerned about the environment, the best thing we can do is limit reproduction, according to CNN founder Ted Turner, The Globe and Mail reports.

At a conference of global leaders in Mexico on Sunday, the media mogul and father of five urged world leaders to institute a global one-child policy to save the environment.

Even scarier than the idea of state control of reproduction is Turner’s notion that poor people could profit from their decision not to reproduce by selling fertility rights.

At the conference, economist Brian O’Neill discussed his study on the impact of demographic trends on future greenhouse gas emission. The global population is now close to seven billion people, and is expected to rise to 10 billion by 2050, with 80 per cent of that growth coming in developing countries.

Mr. Turner said it was time we took a radical approach to the environment by following China’s lead in instituting a one-child policy to reduce global population.

“If we’re going to be here [as a species] 5,000 years from now, we’re not going to do it with seven billion people,” Mr. Turner said. Continue reading »

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What will our children condemn us for?

Our parents were great people. Most of us have loving memories of the time when our moms and dads seemed perfect. But we also grew up to do things differently.

Many of those almost-perfect parents spanked their kids, smoked while pregnant, and drank while driving. Some of them opposed the Equal Rights Amendment, fought back against feminism and voted for Nixon.

As I’m parenting my kids, I wonder all the time what they’ll condemn me for. What social justice issue am I on the wrong side of? What chemical am I ignorantly dumping into the oceans, or swallowing in a pill? What parenting practice will seem barbaric when it’s their turn to raise kids?

Now, the Washington Post has some answers for me.

Turns out there’s a good system for predicting what social and political movements will bring lasting change. In other words: for guessing what the next generation will take for granted, and what will seem antiquated and unjust. Here are the top three ways to tell if you’re on the wrong side of history:

• The arguments are older than your parents. Ideas that change cultures take shape slowly, over generations. Something that’s been brewing for a long time, like the gay rights movement, probably has staying power.
• The defense is based on tradition rather than morals. Not to belabor the point, but consider the example of gay marriage. The opposition bases it’s argument on what a “traditional” marriage looks like. This is a sign that they’re wrong.
• We’re sticking our heads in the sand. Let’s leave the gay rights issue for a moment and look at the environment. Most of us don’t know, or want to know, what our bottled water and minivans and plastic toys are doing to the earth. That kind of selective ignorance is generally frowned on by future generations.

Given these signs, the Washington Post suggests 4 things in our current culture that our kids and grandkids will see as Wrong. Can you guess what they are?

Continue reading »

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“Should This Be the Last Generation?”

That’s the provocative question posed by Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne, in his recent Op-Ed in The New York Times.

As someone who was pregnant and living in downtown Manhattan for 9/11 and its afermath, I often fretted over the future of the world my daughter was soon going to enter. Would she grow up in a war zone? Would she lead a life of suffering and deprivation? Luckily, my dystopian “Mad Max” vision of the future didn’t become a reality — at least not yet.

Singer wonders whether it is inheritantly good to be brought into existence. Is it fair to bring a child into a world with global warming, the threat of nuclear annihilation, environmental disasters and the rest ? Continue reading »

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Hey, infertiles! Did you know that your problems are maybe caused by running too much? Or by being obese? Somewhat conflicting, that? Then you’ll enjoy this charming little interview of Dr. Sami David by someone named Julie Menin.

She interviewed David, who apparently did the first IVF in New York State and has been in the fertility field for 30 yars, for her Internet TV show Give And Take.

And that sound you are going to hear in about five minutes, after y’all click and watch, is infertile women in New York and across the country tearing their hair out in unison. Continue reading »

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