"The Optimum Population Trust... says each baby born in Britain will... burn carbon roughly equivalent to 2½ acres of old-growth oak woodland...."

Why old-growth oak woodland? Why specify your absolute favorite form of vegetation in comparison to a completely generic baby? We're just talking about carbon emissions over the course of a lifetime. Why not weigh one largish cornfield against the entire lifetime of love and service of somebody's adorable grandma?

Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government’s Sustainable Development Commission, says curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming....

“I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate,” Porritt said.

Actively promoting abortion as a matter of fundamental morality?

Porritt, who has two children, intends to persuade environmental pressure groups to make population a focus of campaigning.

“Many organisations think it is not part of their business. My mission with the Friends of the Earth and the Greenpeaces of this world is to say: ‘You are betraying the interests of your members by refusing to address population issues and you are doing it for the wrong reasons because you think it is too controversial,” he said.

Porritt, a former chairman of the Green party, says the government must improve family planning, even if it means shifting money from curing illness to increasing contraception and abortion.

Yeah, why cure illnesses? Let them loose to off more people with carbon footprints. True, it's not as good as abortion, where you avoid the entire life of an old-growth forest killer. But a couple of middle-age disease deaths is the equivalent of an abortion, and these things add up. Just think of the immense progress in population control we could get with a major flu epidemic or bold new plague.

"We still have one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in Europe and we still have relatively high levels of pregnancies going to birth, often among women who are not convinced they want to become mothers."

High levels of pregnancies going to birth.... In the U.S., anyone at all mainstream has the decency to say they support abortion rights but that doesn't mean they are pro-abortion. This story is from the U.K., where, apparently, the political — the moral — discourse is different.[NOTE: The "anyone at all mainstream" sentence was not meant to apply to those who oppose abortion rights, and I did not anticipate that it would confuse some readers. My point is simply that in the United States, those who support abortion rights know they need to speak in terms of freedom of choice and not to affirmatively promote abortion.]

And one more thing. Why are we supposed to care about carbon footprints? Because of global warming? But why do we care about global warming? Because it will hurt people. If we see people as the problem, then there's nothing to care about anymore.

ADDED: There is a glaring error in this post! EDH, in the comments, prompted me: "higher atmospheric CO2 levels would help plant life." The new babies aren't harming the old-growth forest at all. They are feeding it! Tree lovers should appreciate the infusion of CO2. Now, supposing it's true and things do warm up. Won't the plants be happy? Antarctica could be re-forested.