Climate alarmists have put forth myriad propositions they claim will reverse the damage supposedly being caused by man-made global warming. Whether it’s onerous regulations like the Clean Power Plan, policing air conditioning or attempting to alter our diets, there’s no shortage of things “experts” say can save our beleaguered environment. One of the ideas they inculcate is population control — a topic that NPR delved into in a recent article, “Should We Be Having Kids In The Age Of Climate Change?” In it, Johns Hopkins University’s Travis Rieder tries to make the case for a “small-family ethic.” Rieder proposes, “Maybe we should protect our kids by not having them.”

On the contrary, columnist Jeff Jacoby writes, “The notion that too many people are having kids, and that ‘overpopulation’ spells doom for life on Earth, has been an article of faith among environmental extremists since at least the 1960s.” Jacoby quotes former Sierra Club executive director David Brower, who “insisted decades ago that childbearing should be ‘a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license.’” That view is also held by John Holdren, an Obama administration adviser who “was writing in the 1970s about the catastrophe that would result if governments didn’t turn to forcible sterilization, compulsory abortion, or anti-fertility drugs in the water supply to shrink the population,” Jacoby explains. “Population misanthropes were freaking out about the disasters sure to come from making too many babies as far back as ancient Greece. But though babies keep being made … the disaster never comes.” The reason is simple: “That is because babies are more than carbon footprints. They grow up not merely to consume, but to produce.”

On that note, columnist David Harsanyi addresses the economic repercussions of population control. He writes, “The real problem we face is sustaining population. The replacement fertility rate is 2.1, and in certain places where they fail to meet this threshold — parts of Europe and Japan, for example — they’ve suffered economic and cultural stagnation. Here in the United States we have, for a variety of reasons, long struggled with this problem, as the Wall Street Journal’s Jonathan Last has argued. The success of developing nations also portends a similar slow-down. Here’s a provocative thought: Maybe it’s the best time in history to have children.” Indeed, God would not have directed us in Genesis 1:28 to “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” if He were concerned about man-caused environmental catastrophe.