Houseless Eco-Criminal

Our home is officially sold, as of Wednesday last week. We have until June 21st to move out, so we are houseless but not homeless. We expect to close on the Layton house on the 16th of May.

In semi-interesting news (though not too shocking), I am apparently an "Eco-Criminal" because I have a large family. Here is an excerpt from the beginning of the article:

Having Large Families 'Is An Eco-Crime'

HAVING large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a 4x4 car and failing to reuse plastic bags, according to a report to be published tomorrow by a green think tank.

The paper by the Optimum Population Trust (OPT) will say that if couples had two children instead of three they could cut their family's carbon dioxide output by the equivalent of 620 return flights a year between London and New York.

John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT and emeritus professor of family planning at University College London, said...: "The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child."

With 9 children, maybe Dail & Mary deserve to be charged with an environmental felony. When I was a child, I remember being told that my large family was contributing to global starvation and depleting the world's resources so that the next generation would have nothing. That never happened and the world is now depopulating, but I guess it would have been a good thing according Mr. Guillebaud--to him, God's children are still a blight on the face of this telestial sphere. I enjoyed Mark Steyn's reductio ad absurdum:

In those terms, surely the greatest thing everyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to reduce his carbon footprint to zero by killing himself. The United Kingdom's present fertility rate is not three children or even two but 1.6 or 1.7, and the British will be extinct long before the polar bear. And when the self-loathing westerners are gone how many Yemeni imams will want to man the late shift at the local Greenpeace office?

On that note, I wish the women of our family a happy Mother's Day. I don't think I'm wresting the scriptures with my belief that the planet was made for man and not man for the planet. Children are a blessing and cure, especially when I see how our grandmothers, mothers and sisters raise them. For those of you who have not yet contributed to the multiplying and replenishing of the earth, hang in there and know that the day may still come when you become an Eco-Criminal, and eventually your criminal desires will be fulfilled. In the meantime, don't underestimate the force for good you are to us and our children--you are truly accessories to our crime.

Happy Mother’s Day!