Tag Archives: Holdren

News

Environmentalists support restrictions on number of children per family

10 Comments

Here’s the first story from CNS News. (H/T American Spectator via ECM)

Here’s New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin.

Excerpt:

At the event, Revkin said: “Well, some of the people have recently proposed: Well, should there be carbon credits for a family planning program in Africa let’s say? Should that be monetized as a part of something that, you know, if you, if you can measurably somehow divert fertility rate, say toward an accelerating decline in a place with a high fertility rate, shouldn’t there be a carbon value to that?

“And I have even proposed recently, I can’t remember if it’s in the blog, but just think about this: Should–probably the single-most concrete and substantive thing an American, young American, could do to lower our carbon footprint is not turning off the lights or driving a Prius, it’s having fewer kids, having fewer children,” said Revkin.

“So should there be, eventually you get, should you get credit–If we’re going to become carbon-centric–for having a one-child family when you could have had two or three,” said Revkin. “And obviously it’s just a thought experiment, but it raises some interesting questions about all this.”

And here’s the second story from the UK Guardian. (H/T National Review via ECM)

And here’s the UK Guardian’s reporter Alex Renton.

Excerpt:

The worst thing that you or I can do for the planet is to have children. If they behave as the average person in the rich world does now, they will emit some 11 tonnes of CO² every year of their lives. In their turn, they are likely to have more carbon-emitting children who will make an even bigger mess…

In 2050, 95% of the extra population will be poor and the poorer you are, the less carbon you emit. By today’s standards, a cull of Australians or Americans would be at least 60 times as productive as one of Bangladeshis… As Rachel Baird, who works on climate change for Christian Aid, says: “Often in the countries where the birth rate is highest, emissions are so low that they are not even measurable. Look at Burkina Faso.” So why ask them to pay in unborn children for our profligacy..?

But how do you reduce population in countries where women’s rights are already achieved and birth-control methods are freely available? Could children perhaps become part of an adult’s personal carbon allowance? Could you offer rewards: have one child only and you may fly to Florida once a year?

After all, based on current emissions and life expectancy, one less British child would permit some 30 women in sub-Saharan Africa to have a baby and still leave the planet a cleaner place.

A lot of people ask why I am so concerned about getting married in a nation in which 77% of young, unmarried women voted for Obama and his radically leftist science czar and radically leftist former green jobs czar. (The science czar favored mass sterilizations and forced abortions). And now we can see part of the answer: the left wants to interfere with my reproductive freedom using state coercion.

And it’s not just environmental reporters who are against people having children. It’s Obama’s own nominees. These fears of overpopulation are like “Left Behind” novels for the secular left. The failed doomsday predictions of Paul Ehrlich are identical to the failed doomsday predictions of Jehovah’s Witnesses. There is something very strange about these people – and women should not have voted for them.

Recall that Social Security and other government programs are fueled by income taxes on younger workers. Except that the overpopulation nutters aborted the next generation of American workers. Ooops. So where are we supposed to get the money for these ballooning social programs from if the left keeps putting restrictions on pregnancy? Here’s my previous post about Britain’s looming demographics crisis.

News

Science czar says trees should be able to sue and born babies are not human beings

8 Comments

Here’s the story from CNSNews. (H/T Secondhand Smoke via ECM)

Excerpt:

The idea has been endorsed by John P. Holdren, the man who now advises President Barack Obama on science and technology issues. Giving “natural objects” — like trees — standing to sue in a court of law would have a “most salubrious” effect on the environment, Holdren wrote the 1970s. “One change in (legal) notions that would have a most salubrious effect on the quality of the environment has been proposed by law professor Christopher D. Stone in his celebrated monograph, ‘Should Trees Have Standing?’” Holdren said in a 1977 book that he co-wrote with Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich. “In that tightly reasoned essay, Stone points out the obvious advantages of giving natural objects standing, just as such inanimate objects as corporations, trusts, and ships are now held to have legal rights and duties,” Holdren added.

And also:

“The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being,” John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote in “Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions.”

I wonder which of Obama’s advisers is the most insane?

From the Secondhand Smoke article:

Just when you thought that the high advisers to President Obama couldn’t get any more radical. Consider: Cass Sunstein, his nominated regulations czar, wants animals to be able to sue their owners and has asserted that the lives of elderly people should be given less value in government regulatory cost/benefit determinations.  Ezekiel Emanuel, a high health care adviser, wants to ration health care based on quality of life (and perhaps against the elderly) and has asserted we all have a moral obligation to be experimented on.

I wrote before about how environmentalists banned DDT in Africa, causing 25-50 million innocent deaths. And I also profiled the murderous views of leading environmentalists, including the radical views of Obama’s pick for Science Czar. And don’t forget – they kill 1 million unborn babies per year in the USA alone – 50 million since abortion was legalized in 1973.

Secularism is not a nice worldview.

Commentary

CRISIS! Science czar advocated forced abortions, mass sterilizations and totalitarianism

7 Comments

Report here by ZombieTime, featuring quotations, page scans and photographs of the actual pages from the book. (H/T Hot Air, Michelle Malkin)

The report linked above is a MUST-READ. It is important that we understand the thinking of people on the secular left. We need to understand why they oppose traditional morality, religion and capitalism. We need to look at the writings of the most committed secular leftists, environmentalists, feminists and environmentalists and ask ourselves whether we should be voting for these people.

Here is the book cover:

The book authored by John Holdren, Obama's science czar
The book authored by John Holdren, Obama's science czar

Here are the main points in the parts cited at ZombieTime’s report:

  • Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
  • The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food;
  • Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
  • People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
  • A transnational “Planetary Regime” should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans’ lives — using an armed international police force.

When you’re done reading the report, come back here I will explain how people born and raised in this country of liberty can even think things like this, much less advocate for them in public.

Michelle Malkin’s post had this video that explains where Holdren’s views came from:

And left-wing Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg has similar views.

She says this in a New York Times interview:

Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.

This is the mindset of the secular left. The secular left doesn’t want to have too many babies of a certain color or gender, so they kill them. Because there is no purpose to life except to be happy, and the strong need to be happy even at the expense of the weak.

The denial of God matters

If there is no God, then survival of the fittest is true. Those who are deemed unfit by the secular left elites may be culled by abortion or eugenics so that they do not use too many of the world’s resources. This way, the happiness of the strong can be maximized. And that is the purpose of life on atheism – to maximize your happy feelings at the expense of others weaker than you.

The nihilism of the secular left makes them try to prevent future crises by seizing control. There are no human rights in an accidental, materialist universe, so there are no objective restraints on their exercise of power. In contrast, Christians believe that God is in control of history, and that other people have human rights and were made to freely respond to God, if they want to.

The job of Christians is to make sure that everyone has a chance to respond, and that means other people need to have liberty, prosperity and security to give them time to respond. People have value because they can respond to God. And even those who can’t or won’t respond have a human rights. The needs of others give Christians the opportunity to exercise love instead of selfishness. We were made to be good.

In Christianity, Christians are admonished not to compare themselves to others, and especially not to think that they are better than others. Christians are only allowed to voice their disagreement, set an example and try to persuade others. It is actually the worse sin (pride) to compare yourself to others and look down at them. In Christianity, everyone is equally loved by God, and having different views doesn’t change their value.

Secular leftists are different. When they turn away from God (and ultimate purpose and meaning), they feel a tremendous pressure to do something important in the world in order to maintain the illusion of having meaning and purpose. As they carry out their plans, the pride of comparing themselves to others grows, until they start to think they should really be controlling others, and even killing those who are “unfit”.

There is all the difference in the world between a Christian and a secular leftist.

Further study

I wrote an entire series here about how the worldview of the left, which begins with the denial of God, does not provide an adequate grounding for human rights, human dignity, moral values, free will, ultimate significance, and moral accountability.