Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

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Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, or VHEMT ("vehement"), is an organization that calls for the voluntary extinction of the human race. There are no confirmed members save the site's creators.

Contents 1 Support 2 Interviews and official statements 3 Criticism 4 See also 4.1 Antonyms 5 External links 6 References

[edit] Support

VHEMT recognizes two levels of support. "Volunteers" are people who believe in the VHEMT goal of eventual human extinction, and have decided to have no children (or no more, if they already have children); "Supporters" are people who believe that "intentional creation of one more of us by any of us is unjustifiable at this time, but extinction of our species goes too far."^[1]

[edit] Interviews and official statements

Les Knight, owner of VHEMT.org, appeared on Hannity & Colmes and presented VHEMT's ideology. On the program, he stated that "as long as there's one breeding pair of homo sapiens, there's too great a threat to the biosphere."^[2] He also expressed no hope for voluntary human extinction, but stated that "it is the right thing to do."

Knight has also been interviewed by MSNBC's Tucker Carlson, during which he debated with the host on the merits of the movement. ^[3] Knight stressed the movement's peaceful, nonviolent goals and reiterated that the movement's professed motivation is environmental protection.

[edit] Criticism

VHEMT spreads its message through the Internet--thus reaching mainly wealthier nations. As a general rule, these countries already have fertility rates below the replacement rate and are thus already trending toward "human extinction," or at least a reduced population. However, it is wealthier nations that have the largest impact on world resources.

Other criticism points out that humans are a part of nature and the biosphere the movement seeks to "protect." By intentionally seeking to extinguish one of nature's creations, critics say, they are damaging a part of Earth's biosphere.

Still other critics suggest that the presence of humans is not nearly as devastating in the long term as VHEMT suggests--pointing out that more than 99.9% of the species existing before the birth of humanity managed to go extinct on their own and that other life, like plankton, substantially modified the earth's atmospheric composition and temperature as part of nature's circle of life.

[edit] See also

• Childfree
• deep ecology

[edit] Antonyms

• Natalism
• Quiverfull

[edit] External links

• Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
• The "End of species" hypothesis Does demographic decline mark the end of humanity's life cycle? Is this the common fate of all intelligent species in the universe?
• Sui genocide The Economist, Dec 17th 1998

[edit] References

1. ^ How to join VHEMT
2. ^ Sean Hannity. Televised on Hannity & Colmes (FOX News Channel) "Should Humanity Let Itself Die Out?", August 14, 2001.
3. ^ Taking on the Human Extinction Movement. MSNBC.