Last Straw

James Love­lock, amongst oth­ers, is pro­mot­ing a plan to cut CO2 emis­sions by pay­ing for fam­ily plan­ning in the devel­op­ing world:

Cal­cu­la­tions based on the trust’s fig­ures show the 10 tonnes emit­ted by a return flight from Lon­don to Sydney would be off­set by enabling the avoid­ance of one unwanted birth in a coun­try such as Kenya.

So one African’s life is worth the car­bon emis­sions of one flight from Lon­don to Sydney? Some­thing tells me the African is not the prob­lem in this equation.

Provid­ing the means for women to avoid an unwanted birth is an admiral pur­suit but, really, off­set­ting the over con­sump­tion of people in rich coun­tries to fund it?