O Little Town of … Public Housing? Por Mark Steyn.
As I say, the above demographic audit has become something of an annual tradition in this space. But here’s something new that took hold in the year 2007: a radical anti-humanism, long present just below the surface, bobbed up and became explicit and respectable. In Britain, the Optimum Population Trust said that “the biggest cause of climate change is climate changers — in other words, human beings,” and Professor John Guillebaud called on Britons to voluntarily reduce the number of children they have. Last week, in The Medical Journal Of Australia, Barry Walters went further: To hell with this wimp-o pantywaist “voluntary” child-reduction. Professor Walters wants a “carbon tax” on babies, with, conversely, “carbon credits” for those who undergo sterilization procedures. So that’d be great news for the female eco-activists recently profiled in London’s Daily Mail boasting about how they’d had their tubes tied and babies aborted in order to save the planet. “Every person who is born,” says Toni Vernelli, “produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of overpopulation.” We are the pollution, and sterilization is the solution. The best way to bequeath a more sustainable environment to our children is not to have any.
What’s the “pro-choice” line? “Every child should be wanted”? Not anymore. The progressive position has subtly evolved: Every child should be unwanted.
By the way, if you’re looking for some last-minute stocking stuffers, Oxford University Press has published a book by Professor David Benatar of the University of Cape Town called Better Never To Have Been: The Harm Of Coming Into Existence. The author “argues for the ‘anti-natal’ view—-that it is always wrong to have children… Anti-natalism also implies that it would be better if humanity became extinct.” As does Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us — which Publishers Weekly hails as “an enthralling tour of the world… anticipating, often poetically, what a planet without us would be like.” It’s a good thing it “anticipates” it poetically, because, once it happens, there will be no more poetry.
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It’s hard not to conclude a form of mental illness has gripped the world’s elites. If you’re one of that dwindling band of westerners who’ll be celebrating the birth of a child, “homeless” or otherwise, next week, make the most of it. A year or two on, and the eco-professors will propose banning nativity scenes because they set a bad example.
Pedro Sette Câmara
André Azevedo Alves
Carlos Guimarães Pinto
Helder
Bruno Garschagen
João Luís Pinto
LA
Bruno Alves
Miguel Botelho Moniz
ruicarmo
Miguel
Elizabete Dias
antoniocostaamaral
LT
Rui Oliveira
BZ
dos ∫antos
CAT
André Abrantes Amaral
planca12
ruialbuquerque
Rodrigo Adão da Fonseca
Adolfo Mesquita Nunes
Michael Seufert
jtcb
Luciano
Mais tarde ou mais cedo tinha que ser: os académicos da esquerda tontinha lá acabaram por se aliar aos economistas neoliberais e aos arquitectos modernistas para acabar de vez com a humanidade - essa coisa suja, desarrumada, ineficiente, impura que tanto os ofende.
Comentário por José Luiz Sarmento — Dezembro 20, 2007 @ 10:02 pm