A WEST Australian medical expert wants families to pay a $5000-plus "baby levy" at birth and an annual carbon tax of up to $800 a child.

Writing in today's Medical Journal of Australia, Associate Professor Barry Walters said every couple with more than two children should be taxed to pay for enough trees to offset the carbon emissions generated over each child's lifetime.

Professor Walters, clinical associate professor of obstetric medicine at the University of Western Australia and the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth, called for condoms and "greenhouse-friendly" services such as sterilisation procedures to earn carbon credits.

Somewhere in our country, a Greenie is wringing her hands because the Americans didn't think of this first. But it's not too late...watch for ideas more and more like this to take hold as part of the Global Warming Hype.

Happily, the voices of reason are not yet extinct. In response to the plan, Angela Conway of the Australian Family Association had this to say:

"I think self-important professors with silly ideas should have to pay carbon tax for all the hot air they create," she said. "There's masses of evidence to say that child-rich families have much lower resource consumption per head than other styles of households.

Labels: Social Observation, Theater of the Absurd