Medical journal urges British to have fewer children
Limiting family size is called sensible way to save planet
With 60 million people already living in one of the most densely populated countries in the world, the journal said, British couples should aim to have no more than two children as part of their contribution to worldwide efforts to reduce carbon emissions, stem climate change and ease demands on the world's resources.
Limiting family size is "the simplest and biggest contribution anyone can make to leaving a habitable planet for our grandchildren," the editorial's authors said.
Family planning as a means to reduce climate change has been little talked about in international climate forums, largely because it is so politically sensitive. China's leaders, however, regularly argue that their country should get emission reduction credits because of their one-child policy, and many environmentalists — and even a growing number of religious and ethics scholars — say the biblical command to "be fruitful and multiply" needs to be balanced against Scripture calling for stewardship of the Earth.
The appeal to have fewer children sounds a bit odd in Europe, where one of the biggest worries these days is plunging birthrates. German women today bear an average of just 1.3 children, fewer than women in China, where the one-child policy is fast weakening. Even British women are giving birth to just 1.9 children on average, a level below that needed to produce a stable population.
In the U.S., a Census Bureau study released last week said that women are not only waiting longer to have children, those ages 40 to 44 who do have an average of 1.9 children each, more than one child less than women in that group did 30 years ago.
But each child born in a rich country like Britain or the United States is likely to be responsible for 160 times as much carbon emitted as a child born in Ethiopia, said John Guillebaud, a British family-planning doctor, university professor and one of the authors of the British Medical Journal editorial. With efforts to cut emissions likely to go only so far, cutting births may be the best option, he said.
"We're not Big Brother. We're not for pushing people," he insisted in an interview. "We just think deciding how big a family to have should take into consideration our descendants."
Recent comments
Please realize that not all environmentalists believe this.
The…
Timj | Aug. 30, 2008 at 5:23 a.m.
This convoluted article just shows that the global warming, enviromental…
Dave | Aug. 29, 2008 at 8:24 a.m.
