Lament

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
(Wallace Stevens, The Emperor of Ice Cream)

Mark Steyn writes a column for the New York Sun pointing out that the cat is out of the bag, so to speak. Eco-fanatics are revealing their true intent in raising the hysteria level over global warming: a loathing of humanity. Specifically, a loathing of the societies that produced them and gave them their soapbox to preach auto-genocide.

So how far are the ecochondriacs prepared to take things? In London last week, the Optimum Population Trust called for Britons to have "one child less" because the United Kingdom's "high birth rate is a major factor in the current level of climate change, which can only be combated if families voluntarily limit the number of children they have."

"Climate change is now widely regarded as the biggest problem facing the planet," says Professor John Guillebaud. "We're nearing the point of no return and people are feeling increasingly desperate and helpless. The answer lies in our own hands … We have to recognize that the biggest cause of climate change is climate changers — in other words, human beings, in the UK as well as abroad." As the professor sees it, having fewer children is "the simplest, quickest and most significant thing any of us could do to leave a sustainable and habitable planet for our children and grandchildren." The best thing we can do for our children is not to have them.

Professor Guillebaud isn't the only one. Just ahead of the Live Earth flopperama, another "rational" man of "science," Professor Chris Rapley, head honcho of the British Antarctic Survey, turned up on the BBC to argue that population control is central to the environmental debate.

This is the logical reductio of climate-change fever: throw the baby out in order to save the bathwater. For a start, look at the "high birth rate" Professor Guillebaud is complaining about: Britain's current fertility rate is about 1.8 children per couple. Replacement rate — ie, what you need for a stable population staying pretty much exactly the same — is 2.1 children per couple. So the United Kingdom's population is already headed for long-term decline (and would be in much steeper decline without the higher birth rates of immigrant communities). In Europe as a whole, the fertility rate is a little over 1.3, which is what demographers call "lowest-low" fertility, from which no society in human history has ever recovered. The Spanish, the Italians, the Germans, the Greeks, the Bulgars and Ukrainians will be extinct long before the polar bears or the Antarctic krill or the Latin-American three-toed tree sloth or any of the other species these professors wants to protect.

Steyn is, as always, difficult to excerpt. So much is left behind when a section of his work is quoted. There are multiple snarks on Al Gore that alone make the whole thing worth reading. But Steyn is spot on in pointing out the anti-Western-civilization motivation of many of the most vociferous of the true believers. And in the end, if they get their way, the West will fall. An auto-genocide, a self-inflicted eradication of all that we are. Thirty or more years ago, the screeching was about the "population bomb". That "problem" seems to have been solved in the West. The lights are flickering across Europe and we here in the US appear to be not far behind.

(Steven's poem came to mind when I read Steyn's piece. Somehow it seems to fit.)