What is Les Knight’s Voluntary human extinction movement?

As of November 15, Earth has become home to 8 billion people, and the global population is constantly growing. Les Knight, the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT) a sort of "disorganized consortium" of people who claim that the best thing humans can do to save the Earth is to stop having children and would like the human species to disappear forever, reports the NYT.

The 75-year-old man is the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction movement, in which those who participate believe that the best thing people can do to help the Earth is to stop having children.

While the VHEMT is not technically an organization, its founder Les Knight, who had a vasectomy at age 25 in 1973, according to a recent article in The New York Times, argues: “We are born and then we run wild,” Knight, now 75, said. "And because we're smart enough, we should know enough to put a stop to it."

Knight has promoted his views for decades and always with a positive attitude. The New York Times reporter has repeatedly commented on how Knight is, proving that those involved in the anti-natal movement or any other movement fighting the status quo in pursuit of fighting climate change and making the world a better place don't have to be misanthropes.

The founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement and his supporters believe that antinatalism is the solution to reducing the environmental impacts caused by the use of natural resources by human beings.

Who is Les Knight

Les U. Knight, is a Western Oregon University graduate and high school substitute teacher who lives in Portland, Oregon. He is the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, a group of people who believe that the best thing humans can do to help the Earth is to stop having children. In 1991 Knight a Portland high school teacher created the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT).

Knight tries to open our eyes to overpopulation, with humanity expected to reach 10 billion people by the end of this century, and what that would mean for the planet, flora and fauna. He also wants Knight to convince us that fewer people on Earth would stop resource wars and world peace could be achieved. 

Knight came to regard humans as just as much a pest as invasive species and super-predators. "We showed up and then we got out of control," Knight said.

What is the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement?

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is a group that encourages people not to have children. According to the website, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (also known as VHEMT, vehemently spoken) believes that "voluntary human extinction is the humanitarian alternative to human disasters." Basically, it's part of the anti-natalist movement, with a focus on the environmental side of things.

The VHEMT website makes it clear that people who sign up to this movement should do so with positive attitudes and without shaming people. “We do not continue to talk about how the human race has proven itself to be a greedy, amoral parasite on the once healthy face of this planet,” the website states. "That kind of negativity offers no solution to the unrelenting horrors that human activity is causing."

“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,” the VHEMT website reads. “It’s going to take all of us going.”

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