Population control has always been a staple in arguments made by environmentalists. The claim is "too many" people overload the earth and therefore in order to respect the environment, humans must limit their reproduction. We've seen dozens of magazine covers of the years warning about the consequences of an overpopulated planet. Here's a somewhat recent (2011) one from New York Magazine:
This is the message being sent to students on college campuses across the country as they prepare for their life in the real world and think about starting a family. They're also being brainwashed into thinking celebrations of new life should be downplayed or stripped out of society altogether, in addition to being told they should protect their future children from climate change by not having them at all. From NPR:
Standing before several dozen students in a college classroom, Travis Rieder tries to convince them not to have children. Or at least not too many.
He's at James Madison University in southwest Virginia to talk about a "small-family ethic" — to question the assumptions of a society that sees having children as good, throws parties for expecting parents, and in which parents then pressure their kids to "give them grandchildren."
Why question such assumptions? The prospect of climate catastrophe.
For years, people have lamented how bad things might get "for our grandchildren," but Rieder tells the students that future isn't so far off anymore.
He asks how old they will be in 2036, and, if they are thinking of having kids, how old their kids will be.
"Dangerous climate change is going to be happening by then," he says. "Very, very soon."
There's also a moral duty to future generations that will live amid the climate devastation being created now.
"Here's a provocative thought: Maybe we should protect our kids by not having them," Rieder says.
There have been a number of dire warnings from the environmentalist movement over the years: global cooling catastrophe, Al Gore warning of cities drowning as oceans rise and global warming that will eventually cause massive world war.
None of these things have come true.
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