Eliminating people, instead of recycling and cutting back on carbon emissions, is one movement's way to "go green." The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement believes the world would be better off if humans stopped breeding and became extinct.
Les Knight, the founder of the movement, stated in an e-mail message his movement has one fundamental goal: "the extinction of Homo sapiens by voluntary non-breeding."
Knight said the most popular ways of "going green," such as buying hybrid cars and eating organic food, are not helping enough to preserve the world.
"The biggest environmental impact we can have is the creation of more of us with footprints of their own and the potential for creating more," he said.
Knight said humans should stop breeding to help other species survive.
"Earth's biosphere as a whole is more important than any one species. Our voluntary phase out to preserve the reset of life will make sense," he said.
More species would be able to survive without the presence of Homo sapiens, Knight said.
"The extinction of one species, us, would avoid the extinction of millions of other species," he said.
Steven Hegedus, advisor of Students for the Environment and a scientist at the Institute of Energy Conversion, said he thinks environmental problems cannot be solved by eliminating the human species.
"The fact that the human population is increasing at an accelerating rate is responsible for a lot of the environmental and human rights issues we have -overcrowding, resource scarcity, pollution, wars over resources - but we don't need to go to zero population to solve those problems," Hegedus said.
Erin Dilworth, co-president of S4E, said she does not think having fewer people on the planet is the only way to deal with environmental issues.
"It doesn't necessarily mean that having less people around is the only way to get rid of excess trash and pollution," Dilworth said.
Willett Kempton, associate professor in the College of Marine and Earth Studies, said even though humans are disruptive to many species and ecosystems, most people will not think it is acceptable to wipe out the human species.
"Very few humans have the value that it's OK to eliminate humans," Kempton said. "It doesn't make any sense to tell humans that they should be doing this."
Paul McRandle, deputy editor of National Geographic's The Green Guide, said humans belong on this planet.
"The human species is a species that evolved naturally on the planet, and as such, we're as much of a species that belongs here as does any other," McRandle said.
Junior Aly Helfand said she thinks there is no point to a world without humans.
"If we stop reproducing and eventually there are no more humans, then we cannot do anything to help the environment or care for it in any way," Helfand said. "Humans do damage the environment in several ways, but some humans do clean up and take on various environmental projects to better the earth."
Knight said it does not make sense for humans to keep breeding.
"Considering the number of children dying from a lack of care and the number of species going extinct due to our increase, I really don't see how the intentional creation of one more of us by anyone anywhere can be justified," he said.
Lauren Asprooth, co-president of S4E, stated in an e-mail message she thinks VHEMT is extreme and its ideas are not plausible.
"Instead of taking such drastic measures in one direction, it would be more beneficial to search for ways for people to individually cut down their carbon emissions, improve existing technology to reduce emissions and have better governmental regulation of polluting companies," Asprooth said.
McRandle said it is important for humans to take small steps to help the environment.
"We look at day-to-day life, and our basic tips are focusing on incremental changes so that people can take on a few habits to reduce energy use," he said.
McRandle said he suggests people become more environmentally friendly by buying organic and locally-grown food, using public transportation, riding bikes to work, discouraging the uses of pesticide, turning water heaters down and using green cleaners in homes.
Dilworth said people can take bigger steps to be green by getting involved and challenging their representatives to adopt green policies.
VHEMT's suggestions are ignoring the efforts of other environmentalists, she said.
"I think it's kind of like an easy way out, because there are so many people who are working hard to omit carbon emissions," Dilworth said.
Follow us on Twitter
Subscribe to our feed
Contact us through email
Be the first to comment on this article!