A Nanny State That Doesn't Like Children

Two headlines were juxtaposed yesterday on the Drudge Report: "Czech president attacks Al Gore's climate campaign,"[1] and "Two children should be limit, says green guru."[2]

In the first, Czech President Vaclav Klaus, a free market economist, and global warming sceptic voiced his opinion about global warming in Davos at the World Economic Forum.

"I don't think that there is any global warming, I don't see the statistical data for that.  Environmentalism and the global warming alarmism is challenging our freedom...I'm afraid that the current crisis will be misused for radically constraining the functioning of the markets and market economy all around the world...I'm more afraid of the consequences of the crisis than the crisis itself."

In the second, Jonathon Porritt, who chairs British government’s Sustainable Development Commission, and is not a global warming sceptic, views population control as an integral component of any plan to avert global warming.

I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible. It is the ghost at the table. We have all these big issues that everybody is looking at and then you don’t really hear anyone say the “p” word.”

Sarah-Kate Templeton, the author of "Two children should be limit, says green guru," wrote,

Porritt...says the government must improve family planning, even if it means shifting money from curing illness to increasing contraception and abortion.

I was intrigued, and investigated further.  I searched the Internet for additional statements by Porritt, and found his blog, JonathanPorritt.  In a post titled, "Population: boom and bust," he wrties,

I can’t recall any environmental or climate change organization ever suggesting that “births averted” is probably the most single most substantial and cost-effective intervention that governments could be using. Just to give another example, the Chinese government calculates that since the introduction of the One Child Family Policy in the early 80s, at least 400 million births have been averted. 

Porritt does not suggest such freedom restricting policies for Britain as the Chinese maintained, but simply praising it suggest a disregard for civil rights.  He not only wants government in the bedroom, but the womb.

Choice over procreating is a civil right rather than an economic right but given Klaus' concern about the global warming cure in restricted freedom being worse than the problem, I read further, trying to find evidence of policies that would restrict economic freedom.  I found posts suggesting that society should be ordered differently than it currently is, but very few specific suggestions on how to get there.  I eventually found a very small smoking gun, or perhaps a small piece of cork from a popgun, in a post titled, "Low Impact Food," in which he writes, 

The Cabinet Office's recently published 'Food Matters' recognised that dilemma, and seeks all sorts of different ways of finessing it. For instance, it proposes a new "Healthier Food Mark" to promote healthier, "low-impact" food in the public sector – without quite spelling out that low-impact must (presumably?) mean less meat-intensive.

Good idea, but if it's promoted with the same laissez-faire spinelessness as the current Public Sector Food Procurement initiative, it will achieve precisely nothing. Hence the excellent recommendation from the Green Alliance (in its timely and very accessible new paper "Cutting Our Carbs: Food and the Environment") that the Government should make compliance with the Healthier Food Mark compulsory for all public sector bodies by 2012. For once, this would mean leading by example and by clear, unambiguous regulation.

What would Porritt recommend if Britons ignored government instruction, and continued eating meat? 

[1]  "Czech president attacks Al Gore's climate campaign," Breitbart.com, January 31, 2009.

[2]  Sarah-Kate Templeton.  "Two children should be limit, says green guru," Timesonline, February 1, 2009.