TBC NewsWatch

The Western Baby Bust

ChristianHeadlines.com, 8/10/17, “The Western Baby Bust: Who Will the Leaders Lead?” [Excerpts]: A recurring topic is the demographic challenge—“crisis” isn’t too strong a word—facing the industrialized world. From Tokyo to London, people are having fewer and fewer children: In some cases, they’re having barely half as many kids as are needed to maintain a stable population without relying on mass immigration.

This “birth dearth,” as it’s called, poses economic and social challenges to much of Europe, as well as Japan, South Korea, and even China.

The impact of this “birth dearth” is not lost on European leaders and their counterparts in Asia. They’ve gone to extreme, and even comical, lengths to reverse the trend. Last year, we told you about the Danish government’s “Do it for Denmark” ad campaign. Russia offered women who had a second child not only money but also “cars, refrigerators, and other prizes.”

Singapore even went so far as to establish a government-run dating service in a bid to increase one of the lowest fertility rates in the developed world.

Not surprisingly, few, if any, of these measures met with much success. It could scarcely be otherwise since, especially in Europe, the message from leaders seems to be, “do as we say, not as we do.” The leaders of four of Europe’s five largest economies are childless: Germany’s Angela Merkel, Britain’s Theresa May, France’s Emmanuel Macron, and Italy’s Paolo Gentiloni. The sole exception is Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who has an increasingly un-European two children.

According to the historian Niall Ferguson, Europe’s low birth rates have put it on track for “the greatest sustained reduction in European population since the Black Death in the fourteenth century.”

(https://goo.gl/K2qHtk)

Individuals To Self-Identify Gender

ChristianConcern.com, 7/25/17, “Individuals to self-identify gender under new government proposals” [Excerpts]: Individuals will be able to self-identify their gender, under new government proposals.

The [British] government is to review the Gender Recognition Act 2004, to remove the need for an individual to have lived for two years as their desired gender before acquiring a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).

A consultation on the Gender Recognition bill, which will be published this autumn, will also suggest ‘demedicalising’ gender identity, by removing the requirement for an individual to be diagnosed with ‘gender dysphoria’, before applying to ‘change’ their gender.

Both the Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn have spoken in support of the plans.

The government’s announcement is timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Act to partially decriminalise homosexuality.

[Education Secretary Justine Greening] said that the Church of England should “keep up with modern society” by allowing same-sex ‘marriages’ to take place in its churches.

(https://goo.gl/WViLcA)

Fight Climate Change? Fewer Children

TheGuardian.com, 7/12/17, “Want to fight climate change? Have fewer children” [Excerpts]: The greatest impact individuals can have in fighting climate change is to have one fewer child, according to a new study that identifies the most effective ways people can cut their carbon emissions.

The next best actions are selling your car, avoiding long flights, and eating a vegetarian diet. These reduce emissions many times more than common green activities, such as recycling, using low energy light bulbs or drying washing on a line. However, the high impact actions are rarely mentioned in government advice and school textbooks, researchers found.

The new study, published in Environmental Research Letters, sets out the impact of different actions on a comparable basis. By far the biggest ultimate impact is having one fewer child, which the researchers calculated equated to a reduction of 58 tons of CO2 for each year of a parent’s life.

The figure was calculated by totting up the emissions of the child and all their descendants, then dividing this total by the parent’s lifespan. Each parent was ascribed 50% of the child’s emissions, 25% of their grandchildren’s emissions and so on.

(https://goo.gl/w2NTFX)