If you thought you were doing your part for the environment by recycling your pickle jars and orange juice containers, think again. A new study says that if you're really serious about keeping your carbon footprint in check, you need to have fewer children.
That's right. A study by Oregon State University says that if you really care about creation, you'll do a little less creating of your own. It's not easy being green. Apparently, the greenhouse gas impact of having an "extra" child is 20 times as environmentally significant as the energy you'd save from driving a fuel-efficient car, recycling or using energy efficient light bulbs and appliances. And don't we all think of our children as we do our light bulbs or old newspapers?
Paul Murtagh, an OSU professor, said in the Los Angeles Times:
"Many people are unaware of the power of exponential population growth. Future growth amplifies the consequences of people's reproductive choices, the same way that compound interest amplifies a bank balance."So, our "extra" kids are like light bulbs and compound interest? Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn't it?
Murtagh goes on to say that each child "ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of CO2 to the carbon legacy of an average parent--about 5.7 times a person's lifetime emission." First of all, what is that even supposed to mean? If we start thinking about our future children in terms of how many metric tons of carbon dioxide they will produce, we may need to consider the possibility that perhaps we are not called to the vocation of motherhood and fatherhood in the first place.
So what will this study mean for those of us who have our children out of love? Will we have to pay a fee for every "extra" child? Right now they're saying that none of this is about government "controls or interventions." But how much do you want to bet that this ridiculous study gets some some serious traction among the super green crowd and, of course, with the "reproductive rights" crowd, also known as Planned Parenthood? This is not about caring for the earth, this is about population control, something that was on the far-left agenda long before any of us even knew we had carbon footprints.
Hauling reusable shopping bags to the grocery store every week doesn't seem like such a sacrifice now when the alternative is not having a child. And, for the record, I don't think you can ever have an "extra" child. An extra scientist or researcher, maybe, but no child is ever an "extra" child.
