A professor who teaches in the United Kingdom says in her new book that we can solve climate change by deciding to not have any more babies and simply letting the human race die out, CambridgeshireLive reported.
Patricia MacCormack — a continental philosophy professor at Anglia Ruskin University and researcher of "feminism, queer theory, posthuman theory, horror film, body modification, animal rights/abolitionism, cinesexuality, and ethics" — notes in "The Ahuman Manifesto" that humans have failed to see the damage we've done to each other and other living species on Earth, the outlet said.
What are the details?
"The basic premise of the book is that we're in the age of the Anthropocene, [and] humanity has caused mass problems, and one of them is creating this hierarchal world where white, male, heterosexual, and able-bodied people are succeeding, and people of different races, genders, sexualities, and those with disabilities are struggling to get that," she told CambridgeshireLive.
"This is where the idea of dismantling identity politics comes in — they deserve rights not because of what they are, but because they are. The book also argues that we need to dismantle religion and other overriding powers like the church of capitalism or the cult of self, as it makes people act upon enforced rules rather than respond thoughtfully to the situations in front of them."
MacCormack added to the outlet that capitalism has enslaved the human race to the point of “zombiedom," and ending human reproduction is the only way to repair the damage to the world.
She also told CambridgeshireLive that her book's ideas are "joyful" and full of "radical compassion, which cares for the world. It's not about our death so much as it's about celebrating the tools that exist to care for a decelerating Earth. People wonder why I don't think humans are exceptional, dominant beings — but when I ask them why they think that, I never get a good answer back."
Here is MacCormack talking about the subject last year:
Not kidding around apparently
Others have come to similar conclusions:
- Les Knight — a climate activist in Portland, Oregon — voluntarily had himself sterilized in the 1970s. He also founded the Voluntary Human Extinction Project, which tries to get "people to stop procreating so the biosphere might return to its former glory, and everyone already here will be able to live life more abundantly.
- Wes Siler, a columnist for Outside magazine, noted he "got a vasectomy because of climate change" — and that by deciding not to have kids, he's saving the world from 58 tons of carbon emissions annually.
- Hundreds of Canadian teens banded together last fall saying they will not have children until the Canadian government stops climate change.
- Prince Harry and Meghan Markle said they'll have only two children "maximum," apparently due in part to a dedication to eradicating climate change.
- Actress and musician Miley Cyrus also said she's not interested in having children until climate change is solved.