VHEMT (pronounced vehement) is a movement not an organization. It’s a
movement advanced by people who care about life on planet Earth. We’re not
just a bunch of misanthropes and anti-social, Malthusian misfits, taking
morbid delight whenever disaster strikes humans. Nothing could be farther
from the truth. Voluntary human extinction is the humanitarian alternative to
human disasters.
We don’t carry on about how the human race has shown itself to be a
greedy, amoral parasite on the once-healthy face of this planet. That type of
negativity offers no solution to the inexorable horrors which human activity
is causing.
Rather, The Movement presents an encouraging alternative to the callous
exploitation and wholesale destruction of Earth’s ecology.
As VHEMT Volunteers know, the hopeful alternative to the extinction of
millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one
species: Homo sapiens... us.
Each time another one of us decides to not add another one of us to the
burgeoning billions already squatting on this ravaged planet, another ray of
hope shines through the gloom.
When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth’s biosphere will be
allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be
free to live, die, evolve (if they believe in evolution), and will perhaps
pass away, as so many of Nature’s “experiments” have done throughout
the eons.
It’s going to take all of us going.
Graphic by
Nina Paley
Colorized by Aaron Hackmann
Q: Are you really serious?
We’re really vehement.
Many see humor in The Movement and think we can’t be serious about
voluntary human extinction, but in spite of the seriousness of both situation
and movement, there’s room for humor. In fact, without humor, Earth’s
condition gets unbearably depressing—a little levity eases the gravity.
True,
wildlife
rapidly going extinct and
tens
of thousands of children dying each day are not laughing matters, but
neither laughing nor bemoaning will change what’s happening. We may as well
have some fun as we work and play toward a better world.
Besides, returning Earth to its natural splendor and ending needless
suffering of humanity are happy thoughts—no sense moping around in gloom
and doom.
Q: Do Volunteers expect to be successful?
VHEMT Volunteers are realistic. We know we’ll never see the day there
are no human beings on the planet. Ours is a long-range goal.
It has been suggested that there are only two chances of everyone
volunteering to stop breeding: slim and none. The odds may be against
preserving life on Earth, but the decision to stop reproducing is still the
morally correct one. Indeed, the likelihood of our failure to avoid the
massive die off which humanity is engineering is a very good reason to not
sentence another of us to life. The future isn’t what it used to be.
Even if our chances of succeeding were only one in a hundred, we would
have to try. Giving up and allowing humanity to take its course is
unconscionable. There is far too much at stake.
The Movement may be considered a success each time one more of us
volunteers to breed no more. We are being the change we want to see in the
world.
Q: Does VHEMT have any enemies?
After we’ve seen a few hundred TV dramas where the good guy kicks the
bad guy’s butt, it’s tempting to look at the real world with this same
knee jerk, zero-sum mentality. We might look for an enemy to attack when
championing our righteous cause, but in reality our enemy doesn’t have a
butt to kick.
In the end, the real “enemies” are human greed, ignorance, and
oppression. We can achieve more by promoting generosity, awareness, and
freedom than we can by vainly kicking at a buttless foe.
Great progress will be made toward improving the quality of life on Earth
by countering greed with responsibility, ignorance with education, and
oppression with freedom.
Instead of meeting the bad guys in the street at high noon and shooting it
out, why not invite them into the saloon to work things out?
Examples of unity.
Q: What is the official position of VHEMT?
Since the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement isn’t alive with a brain
or a mouth, it can’t take positions or have opinions. It can’t get into
arguments, tell people what to do and think, nor get punched for doing so.
Voluntary human extinction is simply a concept to be added to existing
belief systems, not a complex code of behavior to live by. No committee of
Movement shakers decides what position everyone else should take.
Most Volunteers subscribe to the philosophy embodied in the motto “
May we live long and die out”, but if someone
doesn’t want to live long that’s their business. Really, the only action
required for becoming a VHEMT Volunteer or Supporter is not adding another
human being to the population. A couple could conceivably be expecting and
decide to become VHEMT. That new human would be the last one they produced.
VHEMT Supporters are not necessarily in favor of human extinction, but agree
that no more of us should be created at this time.
Volunteers are so diverse in religious, political, and philosophical views
that it would be divisive to begin formulating official Movement positions.
Beware of dogmas. We speak with our own voices.
Q: When and how did VHEMT start?
Roots of VHEMT run as deep as human history. Potential for a voluntary
human extinction movement has been around for as long as humans have.
When Ice Age humans hunted animals to extinction, at least one of the
sapient neanderthals among them may have reasoned beyond bewilderment.
As the Fertile Crescent became a barren desert, and the Cedars of
Lebanon were sacrificed for temples, someone must have thought, “this
bodes ill.” When Romans fueled their empire by extracting resources from
near and far, surely someone remarked, “Humanus non gratis,” or words to
that effect.
Someone had to get the idea that the planet would be
better off without this busy horde.
Someone, that is, besides the middle-eastern god, Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah.
Tradition tells how, in prehistoric times, this creator-god realized his
mistake in making humans and was going to flush us from the system, but in a
weak moment he spared one breeding family. Oops!
(Genesis 6:
1-22).
The Story of
Atrahasis, an earlier Sumerian myth recorded in Babylonian text, tells of
multiple gods conspiring to rid Earth of the bothersome creatures they had
molded out of clay. One sneaky god warns a human to build a boat before the
flood, and the rest is our history.
We call The Movement VHEMT, but it’s undoubtedly been given other names
throughout history. None have been recorded, as far as we know.
There must be millions of people around the world who are
independently arriving at the same conclusion. A
large portion of today’s Volunteers were vehement extinctionists before
they learned of the title “VHEMT”.
The true origins of The Movement can be found in the natural abundance of
love and logic within each one of us. Our in-born sense of justice guides us
to make the responsible choice.
Q: Who is the founder?
No one person is the founder of VHEMT.
Les U. Knight
gave the name “Voluntary Human Extinction Movement” to a philosophy or
worldview which has existed for as long as humans have been sapient. It’s
an awareness which has been arrived at independently in many places
throughout history, but had become lost amid societies’ pronatalism.
Like millions of other people, Les followed a simple train of logic,
guided by love, and arrived at the conclusion that
Gaia would be better off without humans. He could be
considered the finder, having identified The Movement by giving it a name,
though each of us finds the truth for ourselves.
Although Les has become known internationally as a spokesperson for The
Movement, no one can speak for all VHEMT Volunteers. There is no official
position on issues beyond what is implied in the name of The Movement.
Q: We have children. Can we still join?
Today’s children are tomorrow’s destiny. Our children have the
potential for achieving the awareness needed to reverse civilization’s
direction and begin restoring Earth’s biosphere. Most could use our help in
realizing their full potentials.
Naturally you’re welcome to join, and you won’t be alone. When people
gain the VHEMT perspective, they decide to add no more to the existing human
family. They don’t pressure their children to give them grandchildren and
might encourage them to make a responsible choice with their fertility.
There is no reason to feel guilty about the past. Guilt doesn’t lead to
positive solutions. Being VHEMT has little to do with the past. It’s the
future of life on Earth that Volunteers want to preserve.
Q: Are some people opposed to VHEMT?
At first glance, some people assume that VHEMT Volunteers and Supporters
must hate people and that we want everyone to commit suicide or become
victims of mass murder. It’s easy to forget that another way to bring about
a reduction in our numbers is to simply stop making more of us. Making babies
seems to be a blind spot in our outlooks on life.
The idea of all of us voluntarily refraining from procreation is often
dismissed without much consideration. These examples are considered elsewhere
at this site:
- “People are going to have sex, you can’t stop that.”
- “It’s a human instinct to breed.”
- “But I just love babies.”
- “Some of us should reproduce because we’re better than
others.”
- “Humans are a part of Nature.”
- And so on.
However, if any of us thinks about the situation long enough, and makes
the effort to work through those socially-instilled blocks to clear thinking,
we will arrive at virtually the same conclusion: we should voluntarily phase
ourselves out for the good of humanity and planet.
VHEMT is naturally in opposition to involuntary extinction of any species,
as well as any efforts encouraging human extermination. There are presently
concerted efforts supporting both of these horrors. For example:
- Production and use of weapons.
- Toxin production, such as petrochemical and nuclear.
- Exploitation of natural and human resources.
- Promotion of reproductive fascism.
- And so on.
The above could be called the Terrorist Human Extermination Movement
(THEM), but that’s labeling and encourages a “Them or Us” attitude.
VHEMT is opposed to what these people are doing, but it’s doubtful any
would bother to return the favor. Really, there isn’t much point in
opposing a voluntary movement which harms none and benefits all.
I think voluntary human extinction is misguided or worse.
Q: How do I join?
Being VHEMT is a state of mind. All you have to do to join is make the
choice to refrain from further reproduction. For some, this is an easy
decision to make. For others, it’s a moot issue. But for many, joining The
Movement means making a monumental personal sacrifice.
The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is not an organization, so no
membership dues go to officials in offices. We are millions of individuals,
each doing what we feel is best.
Join with other VHEMT
Volunteers and Supporters.
Latest About The Movement
The VHEMT web site has been available to visitors since July 1996. People all
over the globe are visiting these pages, with translations in several
languages. They say “There’s nothing more powerful as an idea whose time
has come.” The Movement certainly has momentum, if that counts as
powerful.
More impetus was added to our momentum on September 5, 2009, when the
Discovery Channel’s
Focus Earth included the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement’s solution in
their episode about over population. Bob Woodruff’s interview of Les Knight
and Nina Paley may be viewed online:
“No
More Children.”
Bob Woodruff discusses human breeding with Les Knight in Portland, Oregon
For Earth Day 2009,
Laura Ingraham
hosted Les on her syndicated radio program in advance of
Steven Milloy, author
of
Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What
You Can Do to Stop Them. No, it’s not intended to be a parody.
On July 3, 2008 in a half-hour radio broadcast, Stephanie Potter interviewed
Les about VHEMT. Archived at:
The Recovery
Zone.
In Time magazine’s number one non-fiction book of 2007,
The World Without Us, Alan
Weisman generously presents
the VHEMT perspective.
A November 16, 2005 article in
SF
Gate - the San Francisco Chronicle online - by Gregory Dicum:
“GREEN
Maybe None: Is having a child—even one—environmentally
destructive?” was picked up by UPI, appearing in many newspapers.
From there, quite a few
radio talk shows
invited Les to be interviewed and sometimes take calls from listeners. Les
was a guest on “FOX News Live With
Alan Colmes” radio show on
November 29th, 2005. Alan also hosted Les for two Earth Day shows, April 27,
2004, and April 22, 2005, receiving calls from across North America. Les was
on Alan’s show again on February 2, 2009.
On December 2, 2005, an MSNBC TV program,
The Situation with Tucker
Carlson, featured Les in a segment entitled,
“Taking on the [Voluntary]
Human Extinction Movement”. Although Tucker wasn’t fully in agreement
with VHEMT, his questions allowed the main points to be shared with the
audience. A transcript and video may be seen at their site. Tucker’s final
comment: “I will say, that is the sickest thing I think I’ve ever heard,
but you are one of the cheeriest guests we’ve ever had. I don’t know how
to—how the two fit together, but I appreciate you coming on. Thanks a
lot.”
Selected articles, interviews of Les, mixed reviews, and so on may be seen
at:
Media Mentions
A major goal of our web site is to advance the population-awareness
movement, which seems to have become stalled, and may have slipped back to
where it was more than
35 years
ago. Progressive population awareness groups advocate a one-child average
and two maximum, but few, if any, dare to advocate zero procreation.
Environmental groups, with the notable exception of
The Center for Biological Diversity, avoid the controversial topic, preferring to work on consequences of our excessive breeding.
Scientists
acknowledge population’s effects, but also decline to include it in their
suggested solutions.
Several
online forums for sharing and
discussing ideas related to voluntary human extinction are available in English, French, and Spanish.
On April 8, 2010, French TV, Global Arte, broadcast a 2:16 minute
anti-natalist, pro-planet video which included VHEMT. (in French)
“Les anti-natalité font
leur buzz”
Giving a talk,
“Thank you for not breeding”, on
February 16th, 2010, Les presented the VHEMT concept at Oberlin College and
Conservatory, sponsored by Oberlin Animal Rights.
Les participated in a panel titled,“Human
Population Density: Patriarchy’s Influence, Positive Signs, and
Reproductive Freedom.” at the 26th annual
Public Interest Environmental Law Conference in Eugene, Oregon March 9th, 2008. The panel also included
Kelpie Wilson, Environmental Editor for
TruthOut and author of
Primal
Tears, and Richard York, Associate Professor of Sociology at the
University of Oregon and co-editor of the journal
Organization and
Environment.
Q: How do I order bumper stickers (car stickers), buttons (badges),
T-shirts, and back issues of These EXIT Times?
These items are readily available by postal mail
from
These EXIT
Times, or online from CafePress.
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