VHEMT's Answer To Global Warming Is For Humans To Become Extinct
by Momentsintime
July 16, 2007
"How can the Earth return to a healthy planet? VHEMT says the only way is to elimate the human race. Not by war or famie but simply by not producing any more of our own kind. Are they serious?"

Generations for Life
by Eric March 1, 2007
That's human life, by the way. The "Youth Outreach of the Pro-Life Action League" doesn't appreciate Nina Paley's animations:
"Babies Are Eating the Planet!
The 'anti-breeding' animations of artist Nina Paley have to be seen to be believed. I would call her 'radical child hater Nina Paley,' but even that doesn’t come close to describing her apparent contempt for children—and indeed for all resource-consuming human beings.

"Then again, for all I know she might be quite fond of the particular children she knows, preferring to despise only those unknown but too-numerous children spawned by Christians and suburbanites. Consistent logic is not to be expected from those who hold the view that human beings are by their nature a blight upon the planet; they apparently except themselves from that analysis, so why not their friends and their children’s friends too?

"But whatever Ms. Paley may be like in person, her animations are horrific—the more so because she is tremendously talented." [more]

Destroy all humans!
by Michael Huang
Monday, July 10, 2006
“'It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species,' said Stephen Hawking recently in Hong Kong. Although many individuals have expressed the same view (see http://www.spacequotes.com and http://www.spaext.com for some examples), many people are hearing it for the first time. Widespread media coverage of Hawking’s comments began a welcome public discussion of this important topic.

"However, this attention is unwelcome to those who want the complete opposite. The opposite of Stephen Hawking’s statement would be something like, 'It is important for the human race to stay on Earth for the extinction of the species.' It is hard to believe, but some people want their own kind to end, the sooner the better."

"One of the most famous is Les U. Knight, founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. VHEMT (pronounced “vehement”) states that 'Phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth’s biosphere to return to good health.' In other words, humans should stop having children to eliminate humankind and improve the environment.

"The appeal of VHEMT to its followers is its non-violent, passive approach to extinction. There’s no need for mass suicides, war, or disease to kill off humankind; only avoiding the difficult work of having and raising children. VHEMT is the lazy person’s extinction.

"Of course, the repulsion of VHEMT lies in the end of humankind: the loss of cumulative achievements in the arts and sciences, the elimination of countless future human lives, and the end of intelligent life on Earth. Of great consequence is the loss of a future for life itself."

[We're in agreement on that last sentence].

USA Today
Strange Movement
"The Web provides a digital soapbox to all comers, and God bless 'em, some real oddballs take full advantage of the opportunity. Meet the VHEMT. Its mission statement? 'Phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth's biosphere to return to good health.' (Um,  you first.)"
[Okay, you next: snip snip]

DeGoes.net
John A. De Goes
December 2, 2005
good…to whom?
Excerpt:
"Driving home from the airport last week, I caught an interview with the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, a group whose goal is to extinct humans by means of a universal, voluntary, self-imposed ban on human reproduction...
"Why Knight is so focused on humans in particular, I can’t say, since the reproductive dominance of any species in a world with finite resources must lead to a decrease in biodiversity...
But the larger gripe I have with Knight’s argument stems from my objection to the notion of intrinsic good. I categorically deny that anything is ‘good’, and instead insist only that things are good to someone...
"Another interesting point about the VHEM movement is that it seems doomed to fail at the hands of social and natural selection. Anyone who believes in VHEM will not reproduce, and will therefore die out. The people who don’t believe in VHEM will survive and raise children, most of whom will end up sharing the beliefs of their parents..."

The Burr in the Burgh
Scott Stiegemeyer
November 21, 2005
Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
"Do you believe that the planet earth is becoming over-populated? Do you worry that there may not be enough resources to sustain the burgeoning population? Then you may be interested to know about the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. This movement does not advocate murder, forced-sterilization, suicide or genocide. But it does encourage people simply to stop having babies. Why? So that the planet earth can return to health. But allow me to be as clear as possible. They do not promote reducing or stopping population growth. They literally promote the extinction of the human race.
"You absolutely MUST download this video from their website. If you still use dial-up, this could take a while, but it's worth the wait. It's a 4.5 minute animation comparing the human race to a cancerous tumor metastasizing and killing mother earth.
On the other hand, if you would like to see some sane statistics and research about population growth, go here:" Population Research Institute

Aversion Rock, Punk, Indie
Group Lobbies for Human Extinction
Nov 18, 2005
Those environmentalists, always harping about "stop extinction" this and "endangered species" that. Now a group is looking to help the Earth with a new plan: wiping out mankind.
The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, based in San Francisco, wants to do Mother Earth a big favor by helping eliminate humans from the planet. Rather than the nuclear holocausts or alien invasion as mode for human destruction we tend to hang our hats upon, the VHEMT wants people to just stop having babies of their own accord. When we all stop having offspring, the human race will die out, and all our environmental problems, pollution, forcing extinctions and a horde of other environmental issues, will die with us.

The Phoenix
"Thank You For Not Breeding!"
November 17, 2005
"May we live long and die out."
"Thank you for not breeding."
Who on earth would be putting these two ridiculous messages on bumper stickers and T-shirts? If you can believe it, there is a group based in San Francisco that is calling for the extinction of the human race. Yeah, you read that right. They want all of us - including themselves - to be extinct for the good of the Earth.
VHEMT (pronounced vehement) - Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. I'm still trying to figure out what the hell the "T" stands for in VHEMT. I think they just stuck it on their so they can go around saying "vehement." Of course, they still need an "N" in front of the "T." It seems these morons can't spell.
Here's their argument in a nutshell: We humans consume and therefore ravage the Earth. We destroy the ecosystem and cause thousands upon thousands of other animal species to become extinct through our consumption and pollution. This movement is calling for the long range extinction of the human race in order to save the earth. When you look at the staggering statistics concerning human beings, they make a compelling argument...
*16,000 humans are born every hour on the world
*Each human creates 22 million pounds of liquid waste and 2.2 million pounds of solid waste (you can thank all the pro-fiber people for that one)
*Each human will consume 4,000 barrels of oil, 1.5 million pounds of minerals (which easily converts to more solid waste), and 62,000 pounds of animal products
*40,000 children died each day of malnutrition
(all stats from www.vhemt.org) [Actually, just the last one.]
So VHEM(T) believes we need to stop breeding, get old, and all just die. And that will save the Earth.
BRILLIANT!
Les Knight, founder of VHEM(t) had a vasectomy back in the 1970s when he was 25. He says,"We can't be breeding right now. It's obvious that the intentional creation of another [human being] by anyone anywhere can't be justified today" (SF Chronicle, 11/16/05).
On their website, they have several justifications for their views coming from all different perspectives: the economic impact, overpopulation issues, morality and religious issues, and environmental perspectives. They one day hope for: "Gaia completely cured of pox humans. Without us meddlesome humans, all other species would get their fair chance at survival."
I don't know about that, Les. I think cockroaches LOVE all the stuff we leave for them...as do mice, rats, and other species that eat our scraps.
Here are just a few of my personal observations:
1)What the hell is the "T" for in VHEMT? Come 'on Les...tell me. It's really bothering me. Does it mean "team?" Maybe "terror" or "troopers."
2)What good is a perfect Gaia without any humans? It just sounds pretty idiotic to me. You want us to be ecocentric? Forgo the human race to save Earth? Isn't that like falling in love with your car?
3)The biological urge to have children is our innermost base desire, removed from our conscious mind at times. Even two VHEM(T) members shed their movement's beliefs for their own needs. Mike and Mary Brune (Mike is the director the Rainforest Action Network and Mary is founder of Making Our Milk Safe) went against their own movement's manifesto and had a child after 7 years of marriage. Mike+Mary = Olivia, 15 months old now. How you like that Les?
4)They're against our species' survival! That goes against every fiber in every human being's body. Survival is perhaps our strongest ingrained instinct. If I had a gun and started shooting it at Les, he's going to duck...he's going to run and try to take cover. Why? Because he doesn't want to die. It's a survival instinct that takes over. We can't just turn off that instinct to survive as an individual, as a family, as a community, and as a race of beings. [there's more]
[The 35 replies hit most of the standard misconceptions, proving once again that ignorance about an issue is no barrier to vehement opinions on it. Some funny comments when you know what VHEMT is really about. I had to post a comment there in reply.]

LifeSite Your Life, Family, and Culture Site
Population Control Fanatic Advocates “Voluntary Human Extinction” as Means to “Green” the Planet
Somewhat similar views held by Gorbachev, Cousteau, Suzuki and others
By Terry Vanderheyden
PORTLAND, November 16, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A population control fanatic is calling for massive world de-population - and therefore elimination of human reproduction - ostensibly for the purpose of revitalizing the planet’s ecosystem.
Describing human population growth as an “inexorable horror,” Voluntary Human Extinction Movement founder Les Knight said “It’s obvious that the intentional creation of another [human being] by anyone anywhere can’t be justified today,” according to a San Francisco Chronicle report. [more]

Oblogatory Anecdotes
September 29, 2005
Excerpt: What’s scary is that extremism always has to go one step further, so the logical conclusion to VHEMT is the Involuntary Human Extinction Movement. [That's logical: one thing follows another.]
There may be forms of this going on now. John Terrantino [Actually, James Taranto. See below] of the Opinion Journal coined the phrase “the Roe Effect”. His theory is that the reason conservatives are gaining in numbers in this country is because liberals are either not having babies or aborting them, thus unable to pass liberalism on to the next generation. If VHEMT catches on then even more liberals would stop breeding and instead of the human race becoming extinct it would be liberalism itself. Hmmmm. GO VHEMT!! [comments accepted]

Why VHEMT Is Only Half-Right
By writingstatic
September 17, 2005
Why the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement will only take us so far.
There is no question that the voluntary extinction of the human race is a good and noble cause, and it will surprise nobody to learn that I am a strong supporter of the movement. But VHEMT has no real "game plan" - they advocate the cessation of pointless breeding and advise us to consider the health of the entire ecosystem before our own selfish desires. In order for people to see the wisdom in the minimization of productive copulation, they must be taught that more humans equates with greater damage to our increasingly-fragile, unstable planet.

But how are we to convince people that damage to the planet should be actively discouraged? Most of us claim to be "environmentally aware", but awareness is useless if it doesn't result in direct action. I am more environmentally aware than my cat, for example, but my cat doesn't use electricity or consume plastics or spray aerosols or travel by car. Her inaction is my "awareness", and I find it interesting that non-human animals (NHA's, for convenience), while completely oblivious to the planet's natural infrastructure, do very little damage to it (and that damage they do cause, primarily in the case of introduced species wreaking havoc on indigenous flora and fauna, is human-initiated anyway), while humans, who carry on about being "deeply concerned for the environment", are fucking it all up as awesomely and as mercilessly and as ceaselessly as possible. [more]

From the Wall Street Journal editorial page
Quantifying the Roe Effect
By James Taranto
March 5, 2004
Regular readers of this column know that for some time we have been pushing a pet theory about the political effect of abortion. We refer not to the issue of abortion but to the practice, and our theory is that abortion is making America more conservative than it otherwise would be.
We base this on two assumptions. First, that liberal and Democratic women are more likely to have abortions. Second, that children's political views tend to reflect those of their parents--not exactly, of course, and not in every case, but on average. Thus abortion depletes the next generation of liberals and eventually makes the population more conservative.

America Outdoors -- Animal Wrongs
News from the front - It isn't just about hunting anymore.
By Don Zaidle
In Wild Earth, Vol. 1, No. 2, a writer using the pseudonym [!]Les U. Knight said, "The extinction of Homo sapiens would mean survival for millions, if not billions, of earth-dwelling species. Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental." As extreme as AR's "final solution" is, it nonetheless has influential advocates, such as Peter Singer.
Singer is recognized as the AR "Messiah," credited with founding the movement with the 1975 publication of his book "Animal Liberation".

Executive Intelligence Review
Prince Philip's Malthusians Launch New Age Killer Cults
by Mark Burdman and Roger Moore
July 18, 1997
We Should Phase Ourselves Out
The VHEMT promotes itself as more "reasonable'' than the GLF, since it supports "voluntary,'' rather than "involuntary'' approaches to human extinction.
On inspection, however, the VHEMT policies are no less draconian.
The group was founded in 1991, in Portland, Oregon, by Les Knight, a schoolteacher. His stated purpose is to "phase out'' the human race, primarily through putting a "stop at once, to all reproduction.'' According to Knight, "each child increases the environmental impact of a family by 50%, and two children do so by 100%.''
On June 8, 1994, Knight was interviewed on BBC World Service's "Outlook'' program. The BBC interviewer, who chirped that Knight's views were "very interesting,'' reported that the VHEMT was gaining support from elements of the environmentalist movement in the United States. Knight told BBC: "Having made such a mess of the world, we should phase ourselves out. We're incompatible with the biosphere.''
In the same breath that he expressed his affection, as a schoolteacher, for children, he said that the appropriate slogan for the times in which we are living, would be: "Make love, not babies.''