Re: “JD Vance’s demeaning remarks don’t help this valid cause” [Aug. 14, Opinion]:
Columnist Ramesh Ponnuru criticizes the weirdness of JD Vance’s pronouncements that people should have more children. But the writer himself is a promoter of high birthrates.
Is there no such thing as enough people? Isn’t it evident that the Earth is already beyond its carrying capacity?
Referencing an ancient text, Ponnuru calls for humans to “be fruitful and multiply.” But that has been accomplished over the past couple of millennia. Ponnuru should find a new book to read.
I suggest “The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth” by Elizabeth Rush. She writes, “Should I have a child, their greenhouse gas emissions will cause roughly fifty square meters of sea ice to melt every year that they are alive. Just by existing, they will make the world a little less livable for everyone, themselves included.”
Anyone interested in having more than two children should grapple with this eventuality. The position of both Vance and Ponnuru amounts to a crime against the viability of life on earth.
Roger Lippman, Seattle