Individual suicide: the ultimate act of "going green"?

I am all in favor of conservation. I am all in favor of developing technologies that deliver the energy we need without taking the toll on public health and the planet that current technologies do. (Yes, we've come a long way in cleaning up internal combustion engines and manufacturing discharge; but it's becoming apparent that, globally speaking, we need to do much, much more.)

Admittedly, I am of the camp that thinks the science is not settled on global warming or climate change. How could it be? Science is never settled; we're still learning about gravity as we gaze outward from our earthly perch. I suspect, in time, we'll figure out all the inputs into climate and have a better understanding of the many, many things that affect today's weather, much more so the trends in climate.

But the interesting combination of zero population growth supporters, climate scientists who hold to AGW, nonprofits, international governmental bodies, and many more who hold this position, more or less, may be absolutely right. We're causing it, and it's going to be bad. Certainly, allowing the human population -- the biggest irritant in the planet's harmony -- to continue growing rapidly is only going to make it worse, and maybe it's time we plan for the worst.

The shrillness of the environmental movement is hard to avoid. Some in the anthropogenic (i.e., human-caused) climate change advocacy movement say it's already too late; others, that it's nearly there; still others, that we'll encounter smaller disasters (potable water's increasingly limited availability) en route to massive exterminations if we don't make radical changes now. (By radical changes, I mean things along the lines of banning the internal combustion engine, banning all oil- and coal-burning technologies, strictly enforcing population controls, et al. That is, pure eco-fascism.) But shrillness does not mean false or wrong.

Now, we've established that there are far too many people on the planet. Who decides what "too many" is? Not clear, but there are far too many here now, and the population is only growing. Population control policies don't work, unless they're sufficiently harsh (i.e., one-child policies, with large orphanages to take in what abortion doesn't get), and even then it creates its own set of population-related problems (e.g., the Chinese problem of too many men, not enough women, because of the desirability in the nation's massive rural areas for male children).

It's clear that Russia, most of Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and the other nations of the west are falling below the level of replaceability (if they aren't already there), so -- aside from illegal immigration -- the wealthy West won't be adding much to these problems beyond what they already do, although implementing some of these ideas will create new problems as wealth disappears. (Poor countries can't afford to create environmental policies on the backs of people who are struggling to survive.)

The really big problem here are the developing nations, especially India, where population growth, poverty, and development are creating a heady brew of disaster for the planet. Factor in the many nations where wood and charcoal are burned routinely to cook and for heat, and the "carbon footprint" of the desperately poor becomes an enormous problem.

So, what to do?

• To borrow from the old Dead Kennedys song, "Kill the poor."I don't mean exterminate en masse, obviously; but just as we've allowed civil war in the Congo to rage on (and off and back on again) for these past, what, 11 years, with a death toll pushing 5.5 million, we can keep hands off from other "humanitarian" disasters. If humanity is the problem, then the term "humanitarian" should go the way of the dinosaurs, right? No more "humanitarian" aid. No more efforts to control or prevent disease. No efforts to end war or famine at all. Let the good times roll!
  
• Espouse suicide as an act of kindness toward the planet we're all condemned to share. Rich or poor, we can all do our part. We can quibble over who should go first, et al., but at some point we're all going to die anyway, and at that point we cease being a drain on limited resources.
  

At this point, is it not true that the situation is one of crisis -- that the sources of the problem should be addressed directly, rather than danced around? I'm thinking, "Yes."

Of course, if the situation isn't that desperate -- if we're getting way too alarmed over a public relations effort, engineered by the UN and at the highest levels of global governance, that is relying on shaky science -- then this will all be a "tragic" overreaction (to us and those who know us -- but the planet doesn't care). But we should know by now that halfway measures aren't going to bring temperatures down to habitable ranges. Everything else amounts to half-steps that will not preserve humanity or the planet.

Let's kill ourselves for Gaia. Kill ourselves for the well-being of our offspring. Kill ourselves because we're a drain on precious resources. Whatever the reason, help out the planet.

Agree with me? Kill yourself now. Don't agree with me? Ditto.

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(With apologies to Jonathan Swift and thanks to Finnish environmentalist Pentti Linkola ["We still have a chance to be cruel. But if we are not cruel today, all is lost."), whose ideas I liberally borrowed from -- as well as the History Channel series, Life After People.)