Re: “Procreation is a bad idea” (Jan. 27, page 9)

In response to Procreation is a bad idea, published January, 27, 2011.

Katerina Tefft is correct that deciding not to procreate is an excellent way one can reduce the taxing impact humans have upon the biosphere. But why stop there? An even more important way one can save the environment is to end their own life.
Think about it: a student in their early 20s can save the planet the taxing burden of supporting one more human life for another 50 or 60 years by simply ending it now. As Ms. Tefft suggests, whatever reasons your parents procreated for, they were ultimately short-sighted and self-centred. Why not correct their immoral action? If you want to get serious about saving the planet, drink the Kool-Aid (just not from a plastic bottle, please).
If one is not ready to make that big a commitment to the environment, there are other little steps they can take.
For example, instead of adopting children from troubled parts of the globe, wouldn’t it be less taxing on the eco-system if these children were just left there to die from disease, war and starvation? It would be especially good for the planet if young girls died, since they might have otherwise grown up to be women who, according to Oregon State University’s 2009 study, would produce 20 (or 40, or 60) times the carbon footprint men do.
It is reducing the intrinsic value of each human life to a means to a greater good that is truly immoral, and is what led to the great tragedies of the 20th century.
Thankfully for the biosphere, however, these bloody experiments in creating a greater good resulted in the extinction of tens of millions of carbon-belching human lives.
Imagine how crippled the ecosphere would be today had the greedy polluters of Ukraine, Poland or Cambodia survived!

– Robert Galston

Published in Volume 65, Number 18 of The Uniter (February 3, 2011)