A little item from The American Prospect that really gets at some of the unfortunate idiocy of the environmental movement: “The Population Debate Gets Personal,” to me, reflects a certain kind of prevailing eco-anxiety, a sort of feel-good feel-bad for yuppies, in which reduced procreation can be positioned as a “green” act akin to raising roof honey, using good diapers, and cutting back on flying.
Now, I’m by no means a global-warming denialist, and I am firmly convinced that the planet is going to hell on a variety of fronts, environmental among them (I don’t think much of the Global War on Terror–what’s up with that? Is it really global?); that said, I’m not a big believer in the personal as political, either, or the local as global, or any of that nonsense.
At the end of the day, your one kid, or even your octo-babies, will not impact the global environment, and please, spare me the slippery slope argument of “what if everyone thought that way.” Remember, I’m the guy who immortalized the phrase, “fuck the commons.” (can something be immortalized if I’m the only ever to use it and find it funny?)
We are not going to be buy our way out of global warming, ladies and germs, no matter how sensitively we buy; we are not going to offset our way out of it, either, no matter how many Third World nations we exploit. We just aren’t. Have your babies, buy your tortured beef, wear your flammable textiles, and hey, if you want to factor in the impact on global over-population into your fucking, be my guest. Well, no, do not actually my guest. Be someone else’s guest. You’re a nimrod.
A case in point:
An iPhone, as coveted as it may be, is not a baby. I get it. But in terms of personal choice, consumption, and global interdependence, the two are on a relevant continuum. Americans, most of them anyway, live in a time of relative abundance, even in this economic recession. We are faced with daily choices that impact the rest of the world in very concrete ways, and this new reality requires what Daniel Goleman calls “ecological intelligence” — the capacity to analyze what we consume so as to make the most sustainable decision.