Weekly John Locke Foundation research division newsletter focusing on environmental issues.
The newsletter highlights relevant analysis done by the JLF and other think tanks as well as items in the news.
The global warming movement moves from social engineering to "human engineering" (non-dare call it eco-eugenics)
Here’s how new research coming out of New York University is being described in Atlantic Monthly Magazine:
The threat of global climate change has prompted us to redesign many of our technologies to be more energy-efficient. From lightweight hybrid cars to long-lasting LED’s, engineers have made well-known products smaller and less wasteful. But tinkering with our tools will only get us so far, because however smart our technologies become, the human body has its own ecological footprint, and there are more of them than ever before. So, some scholars are asking, what if we could engineer human beings to be more energy efficient?…
Some of the proposed modifications are simple and noninvasive. For instance, many people wish to give up meat for ecological reasons, but lack the willpower to do so on their own. The paper suggests that such individuals could take a pill that would trigger mild nausea upon the ingestion of meat, which would then lead to a lasting aversion to meat-eating. Other techniques are bound to be more controversial. For instance, the paper suggests that parents could make use of genetic engineering or hormone therapy in order to birth smaller, less resource-intensive children.
According to the Atlantic, which has published an interview with the paper’s lead author, S. Matthew Liao, professor of philosophy and bioethics at New York University, the purpose of the research is "to introduce human engineering as one possible, partial solution to climate change."
Here is one sample question and answer from the interview:
Your paper also discusses the use of human engineering to make humans smaller. Why would this be a powerful technique in the fight against climate change?
Liao: Well one of the things that we noticed is that human ecological footprints are partly correlated with size. Each kilogram of body mass requires a certain amount of food and nutrients and so, other things being equal, the larger person is the more food and energy they are going to soak up over the course of a lifetime. There are also other, less obvious ways in which larger people consume more energy than smaller people—for example a car uses more fuel per mile to carry a heavier person, more fabric is needed to clothe larger people, and heavier people wear out shoes, carpets and furniture at a quicker rate than lighter people, and so on.
And so size reduction could be one way to reduce a person’s ecological footprint. For instance if you reduce the average U.S. height by just 15cm, you could reduce body mass by 21% for men and 25% for women, with a corresponding reduction in metabolic rates by some 15% to 18%, because less tissue means lower energy and nutrient needs.
Again according to the magazine, "neither Liao or his co-authors…approve of any coercive human engineering; they favor modifications borne of individual choices, not technocratic mandates."
Oh, ok, now I feel completely reassured.
Here’s a link to Liao’s own summary of his work where he states that, "our upshot is that human engineering deserves further consideration in the debate about climate change." The entire prepublication copy of this work can be accessed at this site.
Here are some more critical observations of the paper published at The Reference Frame blog.
A not so aside, aside–The environmental movement has a deep history in eugenics. For example, Julian Huxley, founder of the World Wildlife Fund, was "a leading figure in the eugenics movement."
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