How to save the planet

My wife remarked the other day how many baby-wipes we get through with our toddler. It's a small thing, but it reminded me of a question on QI a year or two ago, about environmental damage. And it seems that if you're looking for the biggest carbon culprit, you can forget about dogs or horses: and presumably the Porches and petrochemicals and fossil fuels and fighter planes which sustain our democracy. The greatest carbon damage, it turns out, is achieved by having children.

That is: to save the planet, stop having children. This will probably work: but taking the human race out of circulation seems a little drastic.

I expect there are some with an agenda who would approve. Our extinction would doubtless be well-deserved, might be pursued (by quicker methods) by certain religious sects seeking divine approval, and is also  the logical end of eco-terrorism. I don’t know whether there are militant nihilists out there, who reckon creation “ex nihilo” was a bad move, and would like to restore our bit of the universe to its pristine chaos.

I wonder, though, about the Buddhist take. The end of the world would free us all from that troublesome reincarnation business: but I don’t think Buddhists are actually meant to kill people. So would Buddhists approve the “QI agenda" of letting humanity die by simply not having children? It is probably the surest way of saving the planet.

But what does it mean for the path to Nirvana? If I’ve got this right, current reincarnation arrangements allow you to be - as it were - promoted (eventually to a life as a monk, and thence to Nirvana) or relegated. Someone relegated to (say) a flea can presumably work their way up through the leagues of newts and newspaper magnates.

But if all the human divisions are removed, will it be possible to gain Nirvana? Or will the spiritual Premiership forever be out of reach? It’s like removing the Championship and League One and Two, along with the various feeder leagues: so that qualification for the Premiership will depend on improbable performances in the pub leagues.

Meanwhile we are rapidly filling the air, sea and soil with stuff with unguessable side-effects. It’s quite likely that we will all soon be infertile, the QI agenda will be fulfilled, and the planet will be saved. (Without abandoning the consumerist agenda! Win-win.)