Environment more important then humanity, say some

There was an interesting article on Maclean's that I read today:

http://www.macleans.ca/science/environment/article.jsp?content=20070806_108079_108079&page=1

It is discussing the nature of humanity, that the only way to save the environment (and humanity, maybe, if we're nice enough) is to stop having babies.

In fact, some would even go so far as to say "Save the world, kill yourself" (though one of course has to comment about the obvious rebuttals of "well, why haven't you done your part yet?").

Anyways, it just shocks me at what people are saying. They think that because man produces so much carbon just by breathing that he is a threat to the environment. Well, I hate to bust their bubble, but there are things on this Earth that produce far more carbon then Man. I'm not wanting to get into the environmental science issue of this article, however.

What shocks me about it is that there are people in the world who think that having more people is a bad thing. This is a direct attack on the philosophical Principle of Plenitude which states (if you take the Augustinian view of Beauty as a proper way of describing reality) that the more being there is in the created realm, the better it is. That is, a universe that is the most full is the best possible one. If man is meant to yearn for beauty, then to have a world with less of Man, then beauty is no longer an essential thing for man. I think many can agree that a world without beauty will be a world without truth and love, and that is a world, in contradiction with the last line of the article, is explicitly anti-human.