Tandoori Tatanka

Let’s suppose that CO2 emissions are an accurate measure of an individual’s and by extension a nation’s overall greenliness score. This measure includes all energy consumed by an individual both directly (leaving lights and TVs on, driving to the market) and indirectly (consider the energy used in manufacturing and transporting myriad electronics, food, clothing and various whatnot).

Framed as a measure of environmental responsibility on a personal and national scale, the issue of CO2 emission control sheds the shackles of the Climate Change controversy and makes room for other controversial subjects e.g. Population Control.

From the report titled Fewer Emitters, Lower Emissions, Less Cost, commissioned by the Optimum Population Trust:

Contraception is almost five times cheaper than conventional green technologies as a means of combating climate change.

The study, based on the principle that “fewer people will emit fewer tonnes of carbon dioxide”, models the consequences of meeting all “unmet need” for family planning, defined as the number of women who wish to delay or terminate childbearing but who are not using contraception. One recent estimate put this figure at 200 million. UN data suggest that meeting unmet need for family planning would reduce unintended births by 72 per cent, reducing projected world population in 2050 by half a billion to 8.64 billion. Between 2010 and 2050 12 billion fewer “people-years” would be lived – 326 billion against 338 billion under current projections.