Mark, as I’m sure you know, the liberal environmentalist movement is chock full of anti-human activists. Carl Pope, who heads The Sierra Club, for instance, was once Political Director of Zero Population Growth. This is going to be a theme in my forthcoming book (you heard it here first).

Of course, there’s a tried and tested way of reducing the population in developing countries – let them develop. Countries with access to affordable energy tend to have highly educated, liberated populations who can provide more to the economy than their children (the proletariat, as it used to be called, ceases to exist). Of course, the greenies are terrified by the prospect of affordable energy, so their preferred solutions are always a bit on the authoritarian side.

I’m even more bemused by their arguments about industrialized countries, though. You, more than anyone know, that their demographics are such that population growth is really only occurring through immigration (for exactly the reasons just given), so what exactly are they saying? I haven’t seen green activists joining the Minutemen on the borders, and I’m not sure Mark K would find many new members if he bombarded the next climate change demo with CIS leaflets.

Moroever, barring some miracle technology that will make zero-emitting energy as affordable as fossil fuels, if we’re going to reduce U.S. emissions by 70% by 2060, as most of the current slew of bills before Congress aspire to, we’re only going to be able to match the standard of living we would have with fossil fuels by a massive reduction in U.S. population – to about 170 million.

How might a government achieve this level of population reduction? Would they repatriate all immigrants, including yours truly? Would they ban all future immigration and build massively secure border defenses? Would they repeal the income tax deduction for dependent children? Would they impose surtaxes on families with more than the “right” number of children? Would they limit the number of children per household eligible for federal income-security, health, housing, nutrition, and education benefits? None of these options look politically attractive, to say the least.

They haven’t really thought this one through, have they?