Monday, March 02, 2009

Pigou Club for Children?

If I'm a Green Puritan it makes sense. Children impose a negative environmental externality. Therefore, the social cost of a child is greater than the private cost. So we draw our little externality graph, and pick Q*, and tax each additional child for n >2 to get the "socially optimal" number of children. With moral and economic understanding like this, I wouldn't be surprised to see it suggested at some point. 
Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government’s Sustainable Development Commission, says curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming. He says political leaders and green campaigners should stop dodging the issue of environmental harm caused by an expanding population.

2 comments:

Ian Dunois said...

Wow! I know China had already imposed such laws. Abortion happens when the parents find out the child will have some sort of disorder, but they also murder/ abandon their daughters once they are born.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy

It is extremely sad to see this even proposed. It is a complete attack on human life and liberty, and is completely against the first commandment ever given to man.
"God blessed them, saying to them, 'Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all the living creatures that move on earth.' "
- Genesis 1:28

What is it to save the earth only to create a wake of murder behind it?

tmarsha4 said...

That is really out there. If the purpose of the green movement is to ensure a cleaner and "better" earth for ourselves and future generations, I hope they remember that more than a billion people live on less than a dollar a day - the same outcome they are trying to prevent with their movement.

It makes sense they would come to this conclusion since the green movement, using a child's logic, sees that we are the problem and therefore throw out the problem (human life) rather than solve it.