- Sep 13, 2002
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What a kook!
By Cara Buckley
PORTLAND, Ore. — For someone who wants his own species to go extinct, Les Knight is a remarkably happy-go-lucky human.
He has regularly hosted meteor shower parties with rooftop fireworks. He organized a long-running game of nude croquet in his backyard, which, it should be mentioned, is ringed by 20-foot-tall laurel hedges. Even Tucker Carlson proved no match for Mr. Knight’s ebullience. During a 2005 interview with Mr. Knight on MSNBC, Mr. Carlson criticized him for espousing “the sickest” of beliefs but then added, “You are one of the cheeriest guests we’ve ever had.”
Mr. Knight, 75, is the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction movement, which is less a movement than a loose consortium of people who believe that the best thing humans can do to help the Earth is to stop having children.
Mr. Knight added the word “voluntary” decades ago to make it clear that adherents do not support mass murder or forced birth control, nor do they encourage suicide. Their ethos is echoed in their motto, “May we live long and die out,” and in another one of their slogans, which Mr. Knight hangs at various conventions and street fairs: “Thank you for not breeding.”
On Nov. 15, the Earth became home to a record eight billion human beings. Despite declining birthrates, the number is forecast to peak at 10.4 billion in the coming decades, in large part because of increases in life expectancy and decreases in child mortality.
Mr. Knight is among those who believe that overpopulation is a main factor in the climate crisis, but the idea that can be fraught. Poor countries that are heavily populated, such as India, contribute relatively little per capita to the greenhouse gas emissions that are heating the planet. Wealthy countries with relatively smaller populations like the United States are generating most of the pollution that is driving global warming.
“The problem that is spiraling out of control is consumption,” said John Wilmoth, director of the United Nations’ population division, who says that focusing on population limitation as a potential climate fix diverts attention from the urgent need for everyone to ditch fossil fuels and more efficiently use resources. “We have to transform the economic incentives that make it possible to profit off of polluting the environment.”
The idea that population must be controlled has also lead to forced sterilizations and measures that have proven inhumane or have been linked to racist theories like eugenics.
Yet Stephanie Feldstein, director of population and sustainability at the Center for Biological Diversity, said while greater human longevity and health were good things, they have come at a cost to other living things on the planet.
As the human population doubled in the last half century, wildlife populations declined by 70 percent. Though lowering fertility rates today won’t change emissions in the short-term, she said surges in the human population would put increasing pressure on dwindling natural resources and the intricate web of animals, birds and plants that depend on them.
“The loss of biodiversity can be just as devastating as it unravels the ecosystems we need to survive,” Ms. Feldstein said. “We’re already using nearly twice as many resources as the Earth can replenish in a year.”
One of the most effective ways to combat global warming, say both climate activists and those concerned about overpopulation, is to expand access to education for girls around the world, in addition to birth control and family planning. Nearly half of all pregnancies worldwide, some 121 million a year, are unintended. The Center of Biological Diversity, for its part, has handed out a million endangered species-themed condoms, colorfully packaged with slogans such as “for the sake of the horned lizard, slow down, love wizard.”
But it is rare to find anyone who publicly goes as far as Mr. Knight, who never had children and got a vasectomy in 1973 at the age of 25. Beyond advocating for universal access to birth control and opposing what he calls reproductive fascism, or “the lack of freedom to not procreate,” Mr. Knight says that despite our many achievements, humans are a net detriment to the Earth.
“Look what we did to this planet,” Mr. Knight said during a chat in his sunlit backyard one warm morning this fall. “We’re not a good species.”
Earth Now Has 8 Billion Humans. This Man Wishes There Were None.
For the sake of the planet, Les Knight, the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction movement, has spent decades pushing one message: “May we live long and die out.”By Cara Buckley
PORTLAND, Ore. — For someone who wants his own species to go extinct, Les Knight is a remarkably happy-go-lucky human.
He has regularly hosted meteor shower parties with rooftop fireworks. He organized a long-running game of nude croquet in his backyard, which, it should be mentioned, is ringed by 20-foot-tall laurel hedges. Even Tucker Carlson proved no match for Mr. Knight’s ebullience. During a 2005 interview with Mr. Knight on MSNBC, Mr. Carlson criticized him for espousing “the sickest” of beliefs but then added, “You are one of the cheeriest guests we’ve ever had.”
Mr. Knight, 75, is the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction movement, which is less a movement than a loose consortium of people who believe that the best thing humans can do to help the Earth is to stop having children.
Mr. Knight added the word “voluntary” decades ago to make it clear that adherents do not support mass murder or forced birth control, nor do they encourage suicide. Their ethos is echoed in their motto, “May we live long and die out,” and in another one of their slogans, which Mr. Knight hangs at various conventions and street fairs: “Thank you for not breeding.”
On Nov. 15, the Earth became home to a record eight billion human beings. Despite declining birthrates, the number is forecast to peak at 10.4 billion in the coming decades, in large part because of increases in life expectancy and decreases in child mortality.
Mr. Knight is among those who believe that overpopulation is a main factor in the climate crisis, but the idea that can be fraught. Poor countries that are heavily populated, such as India, contribute relatively little per capita to the greenhouse gas emissions that are heating the planet. Wealthy countries with relatively smaller populations like the United States are generating most of the pollution that is driving global warming.
“The problem that is spiraling out of control is consumption,” said John Wilmoth, director of the United Nations’ population division, who says that focusing on population limitation as a potential climate fix diverts attention from the urgent need for everyone to ditch fossil fuels and more efficiently use resources. “We have to transform the economic incentives that make it possible to profit off of polluting the environment.”
The idea that population must be controlled has also lead to forced sterilizations and measures that have proven inhumane or have been linked to racist theories like eugenics.
Yet Stephanie Feldstein, director of population and sustainability at the Center for Biological Diversity, said while greater human longevity and health were good things, they have come at a cost to other living things on the planet.
As the human population doubled in the last half century, wildlife populations declined by 70 percent. Though lowering fertility rates today won’t change emissions in the short-term, she said surges in the human population would put increasing pressure on dwindling natural resources and the intricate web of animals, birds and plants that depend on them.
“The loss of biodiversity can be just as devastating as it unravels the ecosystems we need to survive,” Ms. Feldstein said. “We’re already using nearly twice as many resources as the Earth can replenish in a year.”
One of the most effective ways to combat global warming, say both climate activists and those concerned about overpopulation, is to expand access to education for girls around the world, in addition to birth control and family planning. Nearly half of all pregnancies worldwide, some 121 million a year, are unintended. The Center of Biological Diversity, for its part, has handed out a million endangered species-themed condoms, colorfully packaged with slogans such as “for the sake of the horned lizard, slow down, love wizard.”
But it is rare to find anyone who publicly goes as far as Mr. Knight, who never had children and got a vasectomy in 1973 at the age of 25. Beyond advocating for universal access to birth control and opposing what he calls reproductive fascism, or “the lack of freedom to not procreate,” Mr. Knight says that despite our many achievements, humans are a net detriment to the Earth.
“Look what we did to this planet,” Mr. Knight said during a chat in his sunlit backyard one warm morning this fall. “We’re not a good species.”