Growing up in the 1960s (back when the human population was less than half of what it is today), we were allowed to talk freely about the problem of overpopulation without being labeled a misanthropist, or worse. Even Mary Tyler Moore covered the issue in an episode of her classic comedy show (before she was written off as a liberal animal lover).

But something happened over the years to effectively quell the voice of concern for the planet. I don’t know quite when it started, but I do remember when the prime minister of Japan (already an utterly overpopulated country at the time) urged his people to produce more offspring because they weren’t turning out enough ‘human resources’ to satisfy their industrialists’ and economists’ visions of unrestrained growth. What do our world leaders think we are, chattel? (Never mind, don’t answer that.)

Thankfully, some people are starting to talk about the subject again. Dave Foreman, founder of Earth First, recently wrote a book on overpopulation called Manswarm and the Killing of Wildlife. Meanwhile, comedian and author of a new feminist book, Caitlin Moran, known as the British Tina Fey (I assume because she does a great cockney Sarah Palin), wrote the following philosophical lines in a chapter called “Why You Shouldn’t Have Children:”

“JESUS! CORK UP YOUR NETHERS! IMMUNIZE YOURSELF AGAINST SPERM! Because it’s not simply that a baby puts a whole person-ful of problems into the world. It takes a useful person out of the world as well. Minimum. Often two. When you have young children, you are useless to the forces of revolution and righteousness for years. Before I had my kids I may have mooched about a lot but I was politically informed, signing petitions, and recycling everything down to watch batteries. It was compost heap here, dinner from scratch there, public transport everywhere. … I was smugly, bustingly, low-level good.

Six weeks into being poleaxed by a newborn colicky baby, however, and I would have happily shot the world’s last panda in the face if it made the baby cry for 60 seconds less. The cloth diapers … were dumped for disposables; we lived on ready meals. Nothing got recycled … Union dues and widow’s mites were cancelled — we needed the money for the disposables and the ready meals. …

Let’s face it, most women will continue to have babies, the planet isn’t going to run out of new people, so it’s of no real use to the world for you to have a child. Quite the opposite, in fact. That shouldn’t stop you having one if you want one, of course…But it’s also worth remembering it’s not of vital use to you as a woman, either. … I don’t think there’s a single lesson that motherhood has to offer that couldn’t be learned elsewhere. …

Every woman who chooses — joyfully, thoughtfully, calmly, of her own free will and desire — not to have a child does womankind a massive favor in the long term. We need more women who are allowed to prove their worth as people, rather than being assessed merely for their potential to create new people.”

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Not only does having children often relegate concepts like recycling, cloth diapers or a thriving world of diverse wildlife to the back burner, but the family pet so often gets ignored as well. In a story all too common, our adopted dog Honey was one of those animals surrendered by a young couple who, as new parents, no longer had any time for her…

Honey