That is the suggestion of S. Matthew Liao, professor of philosophy and bioethics at New York University.

See:

How Engineering the Human Body Could Combat Climate Change

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/how-human-engineering-could-be-the-solution-to-climate-change/253981/

>>The threat of global climate change has prompted us to redesign many of our technologies to be more energy-efficient. From lightweight hybrid cars to long-lasting LED's, engineers have made well-known products smaller and less wasteful. But tinkering with our tools will only get us so far, because however smart our technologies become, the human body has its own ecological footprint, and there are more of them than ever before. So, some scholars are asking, what if we could engineer human beings to be more energy efficient? A new paper to be published in Ethics, Policy & Environment proposes a series of biomedical modifications that could help humans, themselves, consume less.>>

To the best of my knowledge this is not a windup.

Engineering humans to be more environmentally friendly seems to be a serious proposal.

S. Matthew Liao does seem to be on the faculty of NYU. Here is a link to his home page.

http://philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/object/smatthewliao.html

This is bizarre and of course quite absurd.

If Professor Matthew Liao and his cohorts put their mental energies towards methods of reducing the world’s population, significantly and steadily, for about the next fifty years, then they would be doing something useful for the planet, instead of entirely wasting their energies!

Well it is true that many of our academics are becoming more odd as time goes by, but it gets worse.

Today, if you find one with any reference to ethics in their title or job description, run for the hills. They are either ratbags, totally dishonest or both. They are so arrogantly crazy they probably actually believe some of the cr4p they write.

that's how the daleks started.

I know I have asked you this on many previous occasions, Ludwig, but it is always worth asking again.

What do you believe would be valid...

>>... methods of reducing the world’s population, significantly and steadily...<<?

I'd be particularly keen to understand what options you might have in mind that would not involve the suppression of basic individual freedoms.

If you are unable to envisage any, does it really make sense to keep banging your drum, hoping that someone else might be able to work cataclysmic magic on the entire human psyche?

The population of the world is managed, most effectively, through the availability of food and shelter.

In fact, when you think about it, there is a case to be made that the first action in the pursuit of your objective should be to end the process whereby rich countries send food and medical assistance to poorer ones. But as I'm sure you would agree, such callous inhumanity would keep the media in a permanent frenzy.

Or perhaps you don't consider this inhumane?

Yes ok, the only way we do that is breed far less of them.
World wide.

How about we just recognise consumerism as a mental illness?
Then anyone that makes, buys, cheap crap made in china designed to be obsolete in twelve months or just after the warranty period, get locked up in a padded cell.

We could start with all the ipAd and ipHone owners, then move on to winDows users!

You’ve got it Belly.
.

Pericles, your questions are taking us right away from the thread subject. I’d love to answer them but, the rules, the rules!

Oh pffff, I canna resist…..

You wrote:

<< I'd be particularly keen to understand what options you might have in mind that would not involve the suppression of basic individual freedoms. >>

Well firstly, there can be no doubt that reducing the world’s population at a steady rate for quite a long time would be a damn good thing.

Do you agree?

Now, of course whatever methods are implemented to do this are going to reduce some peoples’ freedoms to some extent, just as all laws in our society do. That needs to be weighed up against the reduction in freedom and quality of life that WILL occur for the majority of people if the number of us continues to become ever more wildly unbalanced with our life support systems and resource base.

Again, do you agree?

Rio, Cairo, Kyoto, Copenhagen… they all missed the biggest and most urgent issue – population growth!

We need a major global collaboration to implement binding agreements around the world.

Things like readily available contraception, much-improved education for girls and women, disincentives to have kids, and possibly in some places a strict two-child policy.

The methodology is not hard… if only the will was there.

What do you reckon?

Actually, the Cairo event was a population conference…

United Nations International Conference
on Population and Development (ICPD)
5-13 September 1994

But where has it got us?

NOWHERE!

We need to follow this up, with great urgency, nearly 20 years on.

Better contraceptive awareness and more woolly jumpers would be a start. Rather than trying to enforce small families how about recycling much more, and yes, buying less crap. Much less crap. Advertising is the enemy of the environment.

I think we're pretty much on topic, Ludwig.

>>...firstly, there can be no doubt that reducing the world’s population at a steady rate for quite a long time would be a damn good thing... Do you agree?<<

You use the active "reduce", which indicates that someone, somewhere is going to do the reducing. Which means that I cannot agree.

I would however accept a proposition that stated "a reduction in the world population might, over time, prove to be largely beneficial". Indicating, of course, that any reduction would be caused by natural attrition.

While on this point, I notice that you didn't comment on my observation on "humanitarian aid". What is your position on it - are you for it, or against it, in population-management terms?

>>...whatever methods are implemented to do this are going to reduce some peoples’ freedoms to some extent... That needs to be weighed up against the reduction in freedom and quality of life that WILL occur for the majority of people... Again, do you agree?<<

No. I am implacably against the reduction of our - already massively circumscribed - freedoms. Especially as the beneficiaries will not be me, or my family - or my city, or my country - in my lifetime or theirs.

>>We need a major global collaboration to implement binding agreements around the world.<<

Exactly. And that is not going to happen.

Ever.

Global population is not in dispute on the world stage, but it is going to come to that. How long before the world stacks on another billion.
The moslem countries breed at will, and that is not about to decline.
China has policies but the population is still rising.
How do you get stable population, environmentally friendly children, may be a way off yet. If anyone is likely to through rubbish from a car it's likely to be a younger person.

That’s a very telling post Pericles. Thanks for being so frank.

Regarding reducing the world’s population, you say that you << cannot agree >>

But then you say that you << would however accept a proposition that stated "a reduction in the world population might, over time, prove to be largely beneficial" >>

Seems contradictory to me. Could you please clarify.

Of course any reduction in population would be by natural attrition. I mean, how else would it be done? With a few nukes or biological warfare? Of course not.

But if it is to happen by natural attrition, obviously the birdthrate has got to be lowered below the deathrate.

Regarding humanitarian aid, yes of course the rich countries should be sending food and medical assistance to the poorer ones. But of course they should also, with vehemence, be assisting them with population control and sustainability.

For many decades the regime of aid has been too short-sighted. It has led to greatly increased population growth in many countries. This is one of the greatest paradoxes of humanity – improvements in food provision and medicine and their distribution to the needy have resulted in them now being in an enormous poverty trap due to very rapid population growth.

Of course this sort of aid should be given, and much more so than it is. But it desperately needs to be balanced by family planning aid and all manner of assistance for poor countries with rapid population growth to reduce their growth rates.

I wrote:

<...whatever methods are implemented to do this are going to reduce some peoples’ freedoms to some extent... That needs to be weighed up against the reduction in freedom and quality of life that WILL occur for the majority of people... Again, do you agree? >

Pericles, you wrote:

<< No. I am implacably against the reduction of our - already massively circumscribed - freedoms. Especially as the beneficiaries will not be me, or my family - or my city, or my country - in my lifetime or theirs. >>

Dear oh dear!

Can’t you see that your freedoms HAVE been reduced quite a bit over the last, say, three decades? Even in wonderfully free Australia, we have seen ever-more rules and regulations that restrict our freedoms. Why is this? Directly because we have been overdoing our impact on the environment, both the human environment and the natural environment and on our resource base, and we need to be reined in a bit, for the good of us all. Rapid population growth has been a very large part of this.

Isn’t it a bit selfish to implacably denounce any reduction in freedom? You do afterall live in this fantastic country where you have enormous freedom. You could forego a bit of it without really losing out at all, couldn’t you? For example, if Australia had a two-child policy or monetary disincentives to have kids or fuel 25 cents a litre dearer or a higher tax on food in order to better protect our agricultural lands, etc, etc, etc, would it really put you out??

Bottom line: if we are to really deal with population growth and sustainability, we will need to pay a bit more for it than we now do, and that will mean some small reductions in freedom for the average person.

The alternative is your position – an abject no to any loss of freedom, no to any personal cost, and consequently just a continuation of the same old disastrous path to oblivion.

We interfere with everything, this thread tells us we may be going to consider engineering future children.
But world wide birth control is not worth the effort?
Some blame consumerism, yet that is the basic building block that keeps us out of the caves.
We need to look at the products of over population.
Starvation, needless war such as the African Continent.
And, like it or not some think the problem of population is best served by major war every now and again.

I think that we are both reasonably clear on each other's position, Ludwig. The main point of divergence seems to be the concept of natural attrition.

>>Of course any reduction in population would be by natural attrition. I mean, how else would it be done?<<

You then go ahead and describe a requirement for direct interference with the lives of strangers, to achieve this.

>>But if it is to happen by natural attrition, obviously the birdthrate has got to be lowered below the deathrate.<<

Who does the lowering?

>>For many decades the regime of aid has been too short-sighted. It has led to greatly increased population growth<<

Ummm, that was precisely the point I was making. Glad you agree.

>>But it desperately needs to be balanced by family planning aid and all manner of assistance for poor countries with rapid population growth to reduce their growth rates.<<

So how exactly will that work? Use condoms, or we cut off your food supply? You see, however you go about this, you are in danger of using thoroughly unethical methods to achieve your result.

The reality is, unfortunately, that the most effective form of population control is to bring these people out of poverty, not through cargo-cult food-aid, but by developing their country's economy. Unfortunately, most of the do-gooder brigade are also implacably against the concept of free trade, and globalism in general. A dichotomy that they will never be able to resolve.

So the sad fact is that we have charitied ourselves into a corner. We stop sending them aid, and we are complicit in genocide. We continue to send them aid, and the despots who run their countries stash the loot in Switzerland, and continue to oppress their people.

>>Can’t you see that your freedoms HAVE been reduced quite a bit over the last, say, three decades?<<

Come on. That is surely the worst possible reason to extinguish even more of them?

<< Who does the lowering? >>

I would have thought it obvious, Pericles.

Governments do the lowering. It is afterall a fundamental role of government to protect and improve the quality of life of its citizens and make sure that the future is bright.

International pressure gets applied to governments that don’t do this. Aid and diplomatic efforts from the rich countries gets strongly channelled towards assisting governments that don’t have the wherewithal or commonsense to do this. International agreements are struck.

But of course, the will has got to be there in the first place. It isn’t…. and that is the huge stumbling block.

The methodology is not a stumbling block at all. The things that need to be done are clear, as I elucidated earlier.

And NONE of it needs to be draconian. It would all be done via better education, improved living conditions / quality of life / standard of living, the implementation of financial incentives, etc.

Even at this late stage (and a global population of 7 million and rapidly growing is arguably pretty late in the picture), I believe we can still avoid massive catastrophe if we put our collective minds to it.

<< You see, however you go about this, you are in danger of using thoroughly unethical methods to achieve your result. >>

No I don’t see it.

The trick is to work out just how to do it and get stuck into it, and not be negative about it – not be put off by the fear that it is too hard or that some people might be disadvantaged a little more than others or whatever.

<< So the sad fact is that we have charitied ourselves into a corner >>

Yes!

But the cause is not lost, if we can just get a reprioritisation of aid happening.

It is a crying shame that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation didn’t see fit to lead the way here. It has largely supported the terribly lop-sided antisustainability-oriented aid regime, which is most unfortunate.

continued

I wrote:

>>Can’t you see that your freedoms HAVE been reduced quite a bit over the last, say, three decades?<<

Pericles, you replied:

Come on. That is surely the worst possible reason to extinguish even more of them?

We’ll get a MUCH bigger extinguishment of freedoms if rapid population growth continues compared to any loss of freedoms associated with efforts to stop it! That’s for sure!

Pericles,

Are you really under the impression that it's possible "to bring these people out of poverty" in order for their birth rates to decline? Do you for a moment believe that the planet could sustain the majority of nations enjoying the current lifestyle of the developed industrial world? I've heard it predicted that it would take the resources of five earths to do so.

We only have to look at the environmental sacrifices made in China to understand that.

It would be nice to think that humans could get their act together to solve the population issue, but it's likely we'll just sail along until some sort of collapse imposes itself.

Poirot,

You have history on your side. Throughout history and pre-history, when species reach the limits of their resources they suffer population collapse.

We may yet end up reducing our population the hard way.

I'd like to believe, with Pericles, that as a species we're smart enough to avoid that fate. But, maybe, we won't.

Steven,

Therein lies the human dilemma. It's not enough to be smart/clever/ ingenious if we don't apply wisdom as well.

Well, on the bright side, there has been a precipitate drop in human fertility across the globe. Even in a conservative Islamic country like Iran the fertility rate is now below replacement.

China's population is set to fall and while Indian fertility is still above replacement rate it is declining.

I'd say our chances of avoiding a hard population collapse are 50 - 50.