As Michael Crichton noted in a talk in 2003, environmentalism is a religion and one that even back then he argued was one of the most powerful in the Western World. It’s not for everyone, of course—but urban atheists are particularly drawn to it, which helps explain their view of childrearing.
While God called His people to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth,” environmentalists are sending the opposite message.
In a Vogue column titled “Is Having a Baby in 2021 Pure Environmental Vandalism?” author Nell Frizzell wrote about her worries when she was expecting.
Is having a child an act of environmental vandalism or an investment in the future? Is it possible to live an ecologically responsible life while adding yet another person to our overstretched planet? Can I get away with it if I just never learn to drive, never get a dog and keep wearing the same three pairs of jeans for the rest of my life?
For the scientifically-engaged person, there are few questions more troubling when looking at the current climate emergency than that of having a baby. Whether your body throbs to reproduce, you passively believe that it is on the cards for you one day, or you actively seek to remain child-free, the declining health of the planet cannot help but factor in your thinking. Before I got pregnant, I worried feverishly about the strain on the earth’s resources that another Western child would add. The food he ate, the nappies he wore, the electricity he would use; before he’d even started sitting up, my child would have already contributed far more to climate change than his counterpart in, say, Kerala or South Sudan. But I also worried about the sort of world that I would bring my child into – where we have perhaps just another 60 harvests left before our overworked soil gives out and we are running out of fresh water. Could I really have a baby, knowing that by the time he was my father’s age, he may be living on a dry and barren earth?
While gestating my son, and probably every day since, I have wondered whether having children is, in itself, an ecologically sound or unsound decision. (Vogue)
Honestly, what can you say about this other than it's insane? These are the people who actually believe the AOCs of the world who put specific dates on when the world will come to an end if climate change isn't addressed. They're always wrong.
But to Frizzell's specific arguments, Human Progress, a Cato Institute project, had quite of few responses.
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Another dubious claim in the article: "Pollution now kills more people than tobacco – and three times as many as AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined."
— HumanProgress.org (@HumanProgress) April 28, 2021
Air pollution deaths are actually going down. AIDS, Malaria, and TB deaths are just decreasing faster. pic.twitter.com/fdIzs8U5O4
Rich countries might consume more per capita, but economic development is good for the environment. pic.twitter.com/FeJbi8Cay2
— HumanProgress.org (@HumanProgress) April 28, 2021
Poaching: https://t.co/GQl2IeeIU3
— HumanProgress.org (@HumanProgress) April 28, 2021
Deforestation: https://t.co/ZcXNk3DEEn
In other words, no, having a baby in 2021 is not environmental vandalism.
— HumanProgress.org (@HumanProgress) April 28, 2021
