Monday, January 14, 2008

Extreme Environmentalism - Voluntary Human Extinction

Part 1 in a series on extremist environmentalist groups

(Special Report) - “Phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth's biosphere to return to good health. Crowded conditions and resource shortages will improve as we become less dense.”

So says the frontpage of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT, pronounced vehement).

Motto
May we live long and die out


Basic Ideas
The basic concept behind VHEMT is the belief that the Earth would be better off without humans, and as such, humans should refuse to breed. However, this does not mean humans should be forced to not breed. The group was founded by Les U. Knight, whose stated life work is “to phase out the human race by non-coercive means.”


Goal
The goal of VHEMT is eventual human extinction, although they understand that is unlikely to happen.


Action
Action is voluntary. So far, not much success, other than media attention.

Supporters
VHEMT recognizes two levels of support:
“Volunteers” think all of us should voluntarily refrain from reproducing further, bringing about the eventual extinction of Homo sapiens.
“Supporters” think intentional creation of one more of us by any of us is unjustifiable at this time, but extinction of our species goes too far.

Conclusion
Semi-realistic lunatics

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I spoke to the founder of this movement and he seemed a very nice man. I spoke with him about human population control and he made light of the fact that if the population control weren't voluntary than it wouldn't appeal to anyone. However, at this point in global environmental decay human population needs to be controlled and reduced no matter if the average ignoramus would vote for it or not.

-Ang Verse

Anonymous said...

I'm actually horrified that a group of people believe in this. I agree human are at fault for a lot of the global issues, but we have as much right to survive as a species as every other creature. I'm interested in seeing if any of the "members" of this group have themselves stopped breeding and are killing themselves to uphold their "beliefs". Death is not the only solution to problems!