Transcript of Disccusion with Daniel Engber

Save the Planet - Kill Your Genes

In the "Global Swarming" article below, a Slate Journalist takes on the issue of cutting the population to save the planet. A few hours ago, he had an online dialog with readers. Either they selected the questions well, or a lot of our kind were in the virtual audience.

They ask whether adoption would be better, and advocate elimination of child tax credits (a point Engber ignores)

Simply put, each child you have in the U.S. has a dramatic and negative impact on the Earth's climate. That's true if the U.S. population were shooting through the roof, and it's true if our population were stable.

To be clear: The question here isn't "how do we reduce the global population?" (That's not an end in itself, after all.) Instead we're asking "how do I reduce the damage that I'm personally doing to the environment?"

He does trash VHEM, and denies ZPG as a goal, and there are some pretty stupid questions in there. Still, it is worth a read, as he skilfully deals with some tricky questions about, among other things, our place in the global population growth.

While you're there, drop by Slate's discussion forum to debate the issue with others.

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