Save the Planet: Stop Having Babies

Reducing the number of children couples have is the best way to fight climate change, according to a British environmental group.

The UK's Optimum Population Trust (OPT) says in a report that population growth is one of the main causes of "global warming" but adds that both politicians and other green groups are loathe to talk about it.

Using fewer resources and "greener" technologies helps combat climate change, it said, but the most effective strategy would be to limit the number of humans on the planet.

The OPT said that during an 80-year lifespan, a Briton born today will produce 744 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), the gas many scientists blame for changes in global temperatures.

If birth control prevented this hypothetical baby from being born, the group said, then society would be saved from having to deal with his or her environmental cost.

Trust co-chairwoman Valerie Stevens said that advocating population control was not going to make her group popular, but that it needed to be done.

"These are hugely important issues and the unfortunate fact is that both politicians and the environmental movement are in denial about them," she said in a statement. "It's high time we started discussing them like adults and confronting the real challenges of climate change."

To achieve the required population reduction, the trust says people should be encouraged to have only one or two children -- not through any form of coercion but by making them aware of the effects of having larger families.

The group also wants to limit immigration into the United Kingdom, to keep the population stable, and to provide all British citizens with access to reproductive services including birth control and abortion.

Though the trust has been linked to the "voluntary human extinction movement" -- an even more radical philosophy that says all humans should stop reproducing to save the Earth - spokesman David Nicholson said Wednesday that it opposed that concept. He confirmed that some OPT members consider themselves members of the loosely organized extinction movement

Greenpeace spokesman James Holland Thursday declined to comment on the OPT stance and its .....