With the advent of prominent climate activists such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren, whose radical proposals such as the Green New Deal would cost over $51 trillion, it should come as no shock to see increasingly extreme “solutions” being presented to the American people.
Any normal solution, at this point, would likely be ignored by the media, which could explain why a group of 11,000 scientists has signed an urgent warning to society declaring a “climate emergency” and suggest serious efforts to curb population size is needed to avoid the demise of the globe.
In an article appearing in BioScience this week, a group of scientists breathlessly explained the need for “bold and drastic” population control policies.
To secure a sustainable future, we must change how we live, in ways that improve the vital signs summarized by our graphs. Economic and population growth are among the most important drivers of increases in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion (Pachauri et al. 2014, Bongaarts and O’Neill 2018); therefore, we need bold and drastic transformations regarding economic and population policies. We suggest six critical and interrelated steps (in no particular order) that governments, businesses, and the rest of humanity can take to lessen the worst effects of climate change.
Citing a “moral obligation” to enact such measures to stop people from having more people, the scientists argued (emphasis ours) it’s time to reduce the population, adding the caveat that it must be done with keeping social integrity in mind.
Still increasing by roughly 80 million people per year, or more than 200,000 per day (figure 1a–b), the world population must be stabilized—and, ideally, gradually reduced—within a framework that ensures social integrity. There are proven and effective policies that strengthen human rights while lowering fertility rates and lessening the impacts of population growth on GHG emissions and biodiversity loss. These policies make family-planning services available to all people, remove barriers to their access and achieve full gender equity, including primary and secondary education as a global norm for all, especially girls and young women.
Arguing for limiting people’s ability to procreate and “strengthening human rights” seems to be an oxymoron of sorts, but this is the type of extreme rhetoric that has become commonplace among those who believe we have about a decade to enact left-wing policies or else the world will suffer a certain demise.
Curbing population is an extremely radical concept, one usually reserved for oppressive nations like China, who famously enacted a disastrous one-child policy. Their population is now on the decline, and government lawmakers have been struggling to find ways to get citizens to have more babies to make up for the steep fall.
Currently, Chinese families can only have two children per family, but officials are exploring getting rid of a child policy altogether.
The main problem China faces, however, is self-inflicted. The decades of propaganda seems to have worked incredibly well, because it’s become embedded in culture and the thinking of regular families all across the country. Couples in China often prefer to “invest” resources into one child, fearful it will be difficult to help more children all succeed.
This is the kind of thinking that can grip a nation when God is not at the center of one’s life. Fear, worry, anxiety, all take the place of trusting in God’s provision. Children are a blessing, and from the very beginning, God instructed us to go forth, be fruitful, and multiply.
When we place limits on ourselves based on fear and worry that we just won’t be able to do it — we’re essentially telling God we don’t believe His promises.
The same rings true for climate alarmists, who see no path to redemption and out of fear and worry wish to impose harsh, inhumane population control policies that fly in the face of God’s nature and command.
Pray for eyes to be opened and for faithful policymakers who will not cave to extreme rhetoric designed to scare Americans into enacting radical policies that could ultimately harm our walk with the Lord.