Comments on "The Empty Crib"

“The Empty Crib,” published in The Economist a few weeks ago, describes a radical decline in fertility rates around the globe.  Most surprisingly, according to their polls, urban residents of India believed the ideal family size was 1.9 (a rate below population replacement).  The Economist takes a liberal, free market perspective on news issues, which is evident in their critique of Paul Ehrlich as wrong about both agriculture and population.  Though I tend to agree with this viewpoint, such a perspective fails to acknowledge the work of bioethicists like Travis Reider, who see even smaller families as an important individual responsibility for meeting our goals to mitigate climate change impacts.