I don't know if I'm just fried from this week or what. My Husband has been working on a big project at work that is due next Tuesday. He has had to work until 10:30 or 11 p.m. ALL week. We are all feeling the pain of this separation from such a wonderful Husband and Father. Wednesday was the day when I felt as if I was done with the situation, and I can tell that today the kids are ready for life to go back to normal. They were grouchy with each other all day, and tonight after putting them in bed, they have come down about 50,000 times with issues. Poor First Daughter. She always feels things the most. She came down crying for her Daddy. I let her give him a call, held her while she cried and sent her to bed to read Psalm 23 and to pray for her Dad. That seemed to make her feel better. God bless her. The hope is that First and Only Husband will be able to come home at the normal hour tomorrow. :-)
ANYWAY......
All that to say I don't know if I read this article wrong because I'm fried out of my brains, but maybe you all can verify for me. I came across this article titled Global Swarming: Is it Time for America to Start Cutting Our Baby Emissions? You can tell from the title what the article is about. You know our family is a full quiver kind of crew, so I clicked on the link to this article with a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach. I didn't really want to read it, but decided I needed to get over it and read some stuff from the "other side" every now and then. So I plowed through. The article started out, to me, sounding as if yes, we should limit the number of children we have. Then about halfway through, I came across this:
In general, a country's per-capita emissions rise as it becomes more prosperous, while its fertility rate declines. In other words, fewer babies are born, but each one emits more CO2. (That's why the economic boom in China will create a massive increase in greenhouse gas emissions even if its population remains stable.) In fact, the birth of every additional child in the developed world can have a major impact on the cost of keeping global warming in check. According to studies published over the last decade, this amounts to as much as $10,000 to $20,000 per baby.
Doesn't it sound to you as if the author is saying that having more children is a GOOD thing for the environment???? Again, maybe I'm fried. Maybe I'm just not reading what he wrote correctly, because by the time I got to the end of the article he wrote:
Whether it's eating vegetarian or wearing organic eye shadow, we're all shopping for absolution. We know that babies add more to global warming than anything else in our home. Isn't it time to cut back?
Am I going insane, or does this man sound like the double-minded man from James 1:8? He says one thing, and then seemingly contradicts himself. It seems that if this is the best he can do, he should have come up with a better argument. Something like, "Common man and woman just doesn't have the patience to have all those kids." Or "The average couple just can't afford that many kids." Or "The world needs love, but who has that much to go around for a passel of needy little ones?"
Sorry to hear about your husband! My kids are always out of sorts when Daddy is gone at night.
ReplyDeleteI read that article. It seemed to me like an argument for cutting population. What these people don't get, when they suggest people around the world stop having babies, is that certain groups will continue to have lots of babies and will thus be the ones "taking over." (I am not talking about quiver-full Christians who are still pretty rare in the world.) Look at Russia and Italy; they are losing population because people aren't having enough kids. Suggesting people stop having kids as an environment-saving tactic may seem attractive to some, until they consider that they may be wiping out their own particular cultural group, and leaving their one great-great-grandchild at the mercy of the groups who don't buy into the scheme.
Here is a snippet from a Mark Steyn column: "An-Najar [65-year-old suicide bomber] gave birth to her first child at the age of 12. She had eight others. She had 41 grandchildren. Keep that family tree in mind. By contrast, in Spain, a 64-year old woman will have maybe one grandchild. That's four grandparents, one grandchild: a family tree with no branches."
There is more at this link, but I can't find the original article:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/016028.php
Hey hsmomof2. :-) I read the column you gave the link to and was shocked by Bishop Kate's comments:
ReplyDelete"How many members of the Episcopal Church are there?"
"About 2.2 million," replied the presiding bishop. "It used to be larger percentage-wise, but Episcopalians tend to be better educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than other denominations."
Wow. Does that mean my B.A. is null and void? ;-)
I read that Russia has begun having a day each year (I can't remember the official name of the holiday) where they encourage couples to try to get pregnant. They offer HUGE prizes to the couple who has a baby exactly 9 months later. So things may be looking up for the Russians.