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Comment by truth on July 6, 2010 at 2:08pm

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China says one-child policy helps protect climate

VIENNA (Reuters) - China says its one-child policy has helped the fight against global warming by avoiding 300 million births, the equivalent of the population of the United States.

Some scientists say that birth control measures far less draconian than China’s are wrongly overlooked in the fight against climate change,

“Population is clearly an important factor,” said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, at U.N. talks trying to plan a new deal to combat climate change after 2012.

The number of births avoided equals the entire population of the United States. Beijing says that fewer people means less demand for energy and lower emissions of heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels.

“This is only an illustration of the actions we have taken,” said Su Wei, a senior Foreign Ministry official heading China’s delegation to the 158-nation talks from Aug 27-31.

avoiding 300 million births “means we averted 1.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2005″ based on average world per capital emissions of 4.2 tonnes, he said.

A country emitting 1.3 billion tonnes a year would rank just ahead of Germany on a global list of emitters behind only the United States, China, Russia, India and Japan.

Beijing introduced its one-child policy in the late 1970s.

“Population has not been taken seriously enough in the climate debate,” said Chris Rapley, incoming head of the Science Museum in London.

- 2007

Australian medical journal recommends, “parents to be charged $5000 a head for every child after their second, and an annual tax of up to $800. Couples who have more than two children should be charged a lifelong tax to offset their extra offspring’s carbon dioxide emissions. ”

British medical journal recommends, “explain to UK couples who plan a family that stopping at two children, or at least having one less child than first intended, is the simplest and biggest contribution anyone can make”, “Investing in contraception would help in the fight against climate change.”

Daily Mail: “In 2006, there were 201,173 abortions in England and Wales ”

Daily Mail: “Catherine Kent, 27, and her partner Kevin Gray, 28, were devastated when they were told that their unborn baby had died at eight weeks and she was offered an abortion or pills to shorten the miscarriage. But Catherine chose to wait for the baby to pass naturally - and a month later she was stunned when a scan revealed that her child was still alive. ‘How many other people have taken the tablets or had an abortion when their baby was alive all the time?’ ”

1991 - Leading scientists, philosophers, political advisors, former politicians and many other influential bureaucrats and technocrats co-authored a report titled The First Global Revolution [ISBN 0-671-71107-5] in which they wrote, “in searching for a new enemy to unite us [all of humanity],