Regarding Pieta Woolley’s piece [“Time to pick Earth over birth”, December 25–January 1], Noam Dolgin should feel no guilt about having a couple of children with his fiancée. While Woolley spends the bulk of the article harping on the Malthusian tragedy of overpopulation, she glosses over her own stated fact that “Canada’s women are bearing, on average, 1.5 children, well below the replacement rate of 2.1.” Canadians are already doing their part in this department.

The core Canadian environmental focus should be on reducing our insane rate of burning fossil fuels and exporting them to the U.S. We ought to divert the billions in subsidies to oil-sands development toward foreign aid for countries such as Niger, which will ultimately have the side effect of reducing their high birthrates. Your readers need not worry about Noam Dolgin’s children in the same way they need not worry about David Suzuki’s kids. No doubt these will be environmentally conscious citizens, exactly the type of babies this country needs. Go forth and multiply, Noam.

> Barry Shell / Vancouver

I’m getting a mixed message here from the media—our new moral compass since we all belched out religion. I’m reading an opinion piece that encourages people not to have kids.…But then I open up a free daily…with a big advertisement for an “immigration consultant” program. So what’s it going to be? Mass immigration or natural childbirth?

It seems the economic model we are currently subscribed to—free-market capitalism with a smidge of socialism—isn’t going to be changing anytime soon. And the economic machinery is hungry for a steady diet of new labour/energy consumers, regardless of whether we all choose not to have kids. Perhaps people aren’t aware that newcomers produce a lot more carbon emissions in Canada than in their home countries? So a person living in a developing country who moves here to Canada goes from a relatively small ecological footprint and then starts gobbling up resources like the best of them. How is that a good thing? So please, publish your misdirected message where it’s really needed: India, Asia, Africa. For women here in Canada, grab a guy and bang some kids out.

> Jon McDermott / Vancouver

I want to thank you so much for the article “Time to pick Earth over birth”. I don’t know why those of us who are blissfully childless are called “selfish”. We simply have more time and opportunity to work toward improving the conditions of this beautiful blue planet which teeters at the edge of nuclear annihilation. Also, the torture of childbirth is a “privilege” I would prefer not to experience.

Last year, when I was visiting India, my older conservative relatives were quite supportive of my decision to not perpetuate my DNA. Back here in Canada, people from many different backgrounds have not been so tolerant, and that leaves me feeling rather bewildered.

> Raj Kaur Pannu / New Westminster