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CORVALLIS, Ore. – Some people who are serious about wanting to reduce their “carbon footprint” on the Earth have one choice available to them that may yield a large long-term benefit – have one less child. A study by statisticians at Oregon State University concluded that in the United States, the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an extra child is almost 20 times more important than some of the other environmentally sensitive practices people might employ their entire lives – things like driving a high mileage car, recycling, or using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs. The research also makes it clear that potential carbon impacts vary dramatically across countries. The average long-term carbon impact of a child born in the U.S. – along with all of its descendants – is more than 160 times the impact of a child born in Bangladesh.
Which brings me back to the tax code: If you can get tax credits for installing energy-efficient windows and light bulbs, why can't you get a tax credit for doing something that is 40 times more green-friendly? Instead of Cash For Clunkers, we should have done Cash For Tube Tying or Cash For Vasectomy. Sterilization can cost as little as $1,600 according to Planned Parenthood, and if we offered people a tax credit of three times the cost of the operation, we could do a lot to help the planet.
But it gets worse: Not only do we not offer tax credits to people who do the environmentally-friendly thing and don't reproduce, but we actually offer tax benefits to those planet destroyers who selfishly procreate.
I ran the numbers on H&R Block's Tax Calculator, and here's how it works out:
-A single head of household with three kids who earns $60,000 will pay $1,560 in taxes.
-A single person with no kids who earns $60,000 will pay $8,450 in taxes.
This amounts to a gigantic transfer of wealth from responsible, green-friendly individuals to selfish, planet-trashing parents.
Originally posted by Aeons
Why do all the educated hard working people of the World seem so intent on trying to make sure they are bred under?
I really do not care which ideological spectrum you enjoy living on. For religious, economic, or "climate" reasons, you have no rights to anyone elses reproductive system.
Armed with Gore's utility bills for the last two years, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research charged Monday that the gas and electric bills for the former vice president's 20-room home and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours.
"If this were any other person with $30,000-a-year in utility bills, I wouldn't care," says the Center's 27-year-old president, Drew Johnson. "But he tells other people how to live and he's not following his own rules."
Scoffed a former Gore adviser in response: "I think what you're seeing here is the last gasp of the global warming skeptics. They've completely lost the debate on the issue so now they're just attacking their most effective opponent."
Kalee Kreider, a spokesperson for the Gores, did not dispute the Center's figures, taken as they were from public records. But she pointed out that both Al and Tipper Gore work out of their home and she argued that "the bottom line is that every family has a different carbon footprint. And what Vice President Gore has asked is for families to calculate that footprint and take steps to reduce and offset it."
Originally posted by TruthxIsxInxThexMist
Originally posted by Aeons
Why do all the educated hard working people of the World seem so intent on trying to make sure they are bred under?
I really do not care which ideological spectrum you enjoy living on. For religious, economic, or "climate" reasons, you have no rights to anyone elses reproductive system.
Even you have to admit that there are far too many kids being born in certain parts of this World... low intelligence is responsible for it and 40 years from now we will have a big problem with over-population unless people stop breeding like rats!!
As i've said before on other threads... i live in a Country which is already too crowded... how long before we have problems here like in other parts of the World?
You may not believe it but the Worlds resources are dwindling fast....
[edit on 17-11-2009 by TruthxIsxInxThexMist]
Originally posted by np6888
reply to post by Aeons
Well, you can have as many kids as you want, just please don't expect the government or banks to bail you out.
Originally posted by Aeons
Firstly, I don't agree with you. "The Stupid People" defense is a cop out for correctly dealing with the fact that culture, lack of opportunity, and hunger have a drastic effect on human intelligence. All of which are products of incorrect management, not population.
Secondly, promoting this idea in the areas that are NOT overpopulated, and are in fact usually educated and have a population replacement deficit means that you are promoting that those already containing their reproduction should yield the field to the masses who don't.
And frankly, if you don't see that you may want to reconsider if you are in or out of the "too many stupid people" category.
Originally posted by np6888
(if you are still in the process of paying off the house, then you probably shouldn't have them, because in reality, that house is not yours, and you "own" it only through debt.