Imagine being so monomaniacally obsessed with climate and so cynical about life in general as to reduce all the potential of a child to its carbon footprint. As I have written here before, couples in the First World choosing not to have children because of climate change makes no sense. Still, the message continues to be spread:
#BigBaby is inflated and ready to spread the message that choosing a #smallfamily is one of the most powerful eco-actions individuals in the Global North can take. 👶 #COP26 pic.twitter.com/6Zz5PwZRe6
— Population Matters (@PopnMatters) November 8, 2021
I can’t help but think here of the Christmas classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. In the movie, the protagonist George Bailey is rescued from despair by his guardian angel, Clarence. When Bailey says it would be better for everyone if he’d never been born, Clarence responds by showing him what the world would have been like without him. What follows is an incredibly moving illustration of how “each man’s life touches so many other lives,” and how “when he isn’t around, he leaves an awful hole.”
Imagine instead — at the brink of suicide — George Bailey had been given the opportunity to see how much carbon the world might have been spared if he’d never existed. What a terrible movie! And what a terrible argument.
