Should we have children quotas?

(C) Arenamontanus

According to a Harris poll, there is now strong support in the UK for a limit on family sizes. I’m sure we all recall in our childhood, being told about how the Chinese restrict you to having just the one child, and I know that I felt horrified at this; how can they do such a thing?

But now, enlightened, educated and environmentally aware, I look back at that young, naive me and question him. And I believe that the time is right to do something to tackle this problem.

One of the key reasons for this is because I believe that it is so necessary, that were we to wait much longer, our population would become so great that we would be forced to limit family sizes to a smaller number than we are able to allow today.

As it is, we don’t even have to limit family sizes; but what we must do, is to tackle carbon emissions, waste and children as a joint issue. To limit everyone to three children for instance, would be overly simplistic. The area of the world in which the population is burgeoning greater than anywhere else is of course Africa, and I don’t think it is too great a conclusion to jump to were I to suggest that the comparatively tiny joint population of Europe produce more carbon emissions each year than their African counterparts.

So, what is the logic behind a limit of any kind? The carbon emissions produced, quite simply, per head, at a time when our population expands rapidly. The simple fact is that the world is of finite space and quantity, and protection of the environment requires some kind of urgent action. Indeed, it’s relatively pointless each person limiting their use of environmentally unfriendly products and services, should we give birth to 4 children, who combined may use the same amount of emissions as one ignorant individual.

So there is the necessity to tackle population and the environment together. Moving on, the Optimum population trust asserts that those children born in the UK will be responsible for 160 times more greenhouse gasses than those born in Ethiopia. What this demonstrates is that we aren’t all equal offenders. Being the believer in liberty that I am, I think that treating people as equally responsible is unfair on some. And shouldn’t certain individuals be allowed to have more children, should they earn the right?

Yes, I’d say. So let’s put a cap on emissions per household, rather than limiting the size of families. If a family exceeds their limit, they face increased tax. That’s how you can enforce the measure. Is this draconian and police state like? Admittedly, yes it is. However, it is one of the few instances in which I would advocate such a harsh and radical solution. We have to realise that our planet is finite; we cannot advocate liberty above practicality when it comes to the future of the Earth itself. For if we do that, we limit the liberty of generations to come by making the world uninhabitable. Practicality must win out in this case.

And let’s also not be apologetic about the unintended, yet helpful benefits of such limits. In placing such quotas per emission, we can also refuse to pay out benefits for a family on any children over their personal limit. This would be a good way to avoid paying out money to parents who never work and simply have more children to make money off the state.

The other thing it would do, is to tackle some problems posed by immigration. In enforcing such a measure, those families who have 7, 8 or 9 children more as a cultural thing it would appear, than a love of childbirth, would be restricted in doing so; we would therefore help to assuage some of the tension between the white working class and growing communities of immigrants.

Ultimately, it is a painful thing for a liberal to advocate, but pragmatism cannot be idealistically ignored; if we do so, we risk ours, and our children’s, future.