Eight (plus six) is too much

Given the current economic conditions, why on earth would anyone have a family with 14 kids? It's financial suicide. Unless that single mother, who recently gave birth to octuplets, scores her own reality TV show or gets a slew of big-time endorsements, I can't see how she's going to manage to raise the six kids she already has plus her eight newborns. According to news reports, the mother doesn't have a job and lives at home with her parents.

On Sunday, I was trolling around the Internet when I noticed a piece from London's Sunday Times about a leading green guru who is starting a campaign to get families to limit the number of children they have as a way to be eco-friendly. This is not a new concept, of course, as anyone can attest who remembers the hullabaloo about the "population bomb," but the green angle gives it renewed relevance.

"I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible," said Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government's Sustainable Development Commission, according to the Times. "It is the ghost at the table. We have all these big issues that everybody is looking at and then you don't really hear anyone say the 'p' word."

The newspaper -also points out that "The Optimum Population Trust, a campaign group of which Porritt is a patron, says each baby born in Britain will, during his or her lifetime, burn carbon roughly equivalent to two and a half acres of old-growth oak woodland."

So, what do you think? Are two children enough for any green-conscious family in this day and age, or this guy out of line? Shouldn't most people - I refuse to include that mother of 14 kids -  be allowed to have as many babies as they want?