History
The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement was founded by Les U. Knight, a secondary school substitute teacher who lives in Portland, Oregon. Although he was raised in a large family, after becoming involved in the environmental movement as a college student in the 1970s, Knight attributed most of the dangers faced by the planet to human overpopulation. After coming to this conclusion, he joined the Zero Population Growth organization and chose to be vasectomised at age 25. He later concluded that the extinction of humanity would be the best solution to the Earth's environmental problems. He believes that this idea has also been held by some people throughout human history.
In 1991, Knight began publishing VHEMT's newsletter, known as These Exit Times. In the newsletter, he asked readers to further human extinction by not procreating. VHEMT has also published cartoons, including a comic strip titled "Bonobo Baby", featuring a woman who forgoes childbearing in favor of adopting a bonobo. In 1996, Knight created a website for VHEMT; it was available in 11 languages by 2010. VHEMT's logo features the letter "V" (for voluntary) and an inverted Earth (i.e., with north at the bottom).
Read more about this topic: Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness.”
—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)
“All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and say, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“If man is reduced to being nothing but a character in history, he has no other choice but to subside into the sound and fury of a completely irrational history or to endow history with the form of human reason.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)