U.N. Says Children Are The Cause Of Climate Change

The latest report from the United Nations Population Fund says that children are the cause of climate change (via ProWomanProLife):

The latest report from the United Nations Population Fund was released on Wednesday at news conferences in Ottawa and other key venues where policy makers could be made aware of the news: more babies will undermine attempts to stop climate change.

Strangely, much of the news conference, like the material put out by the Population Fund, was taken up with detailing the ways the world’s leading population control agency works to combat maternal deaths and serious complications from childbirth, both admirable goals. Yet the crux of the report is that, while we need to save those who do give birth, we need fewer of them. In the eyes of the UNFPA, it is the babies of maternity wards present and future that are the culprits in climate change: “Each birth results not only in the emissions attributable to that person in his or her lifetime, but also the emissions of all his or her descendants.”

Before world leaders head to Copenhagen to try and hammer out a deal on climate change, UNFPA wants them to consider population growth as a contributing factor to be dealt with. Its report says: “No human is genuinely ‘carbon neutral,’ especially when all greenhouse gases are figured into the equation. Therefore, everyone is part of the problem, so everyone must be part of the solution in some way. The world’s Governments and peoples will need to work together on every aspect of the factors that increase greenhouse-gas emissions. One such factor is the earth’s growing population.”

Ok, can somebody help me here? If we aren’t saving the environment for our children… who exactly are we saving it for?

What does this have to do with abortion? Have a conversation on campus about abortion and see how long it takes for a pro-choicer to bring up the overpopulation argument (“there are too many people already,” “we have enough trouble feeding the world as it is…”). Though, at that point, I get stumped on a separate question: if killing people is a legitimate way to reduce the population… why limit ourselves to the unborn?

And on a slightly economic sidenote: is it really that hard to imagine that people can contribute to solving problems in the world, rather than just being a drain on resources? A baby is not just a “source of emissions…” *sigh*