by Lynn Costello
Some teased me about being short;
it wasn’t until seventh grade that I finally reached the five foot mark. I’ve gotten used to needing a stool to reach
the top shelf and I learned how to hem pants at an early age (that was before
they started making “petites”). But now
I learn that I have been beneficial to the environment. Who knew?
Recently reported in Reason
Magazine is “The Short People Solution to Climate Change” by Ronald Bailey who
states that researchers at New York University and Oxford University will be
publishing a new paper in which
they argue that short people are more climate- friendly. Environmental concerns have motivated such
studies before:
·
In
1967 Technology Review published an article that among other things, argued that
smaller man could mean smaller vehicles and either smaller highway rights of
way or greater capacity for existing highways.
·
In
1984, the Washington Post in an article on how to feed a growing world
population cited futurist Graham Molliter as envisioning the use of genetic
engineering to produce smaller people –who need less food.”
In the new study ethicist
suggest that shrinking the average size of human beings
may have an impact on the amount of atmosphere-warming carbon dioxide humanity
produces by burning fossil fuels. Their
aim is to show that human engineering deserves consideration alongside other
solutions in the debate about how to solve the problem of climate change. Besides size, humans could also be altered
to be meat aversive. Another suggestion
to reduce the number of births is cognitive enhancement as the authors maintain
that there seems to be a link between cognition itself and lower birth-rates. As envisioned, human engineering would be a voluntary
activity, possibly supported by incentives such as tax breaks or sponsored
health care.
I wonder if I can get some of
those carbon credits for a lifetime of taking up less space and leaving a
slightly smaller footprint.
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