Alan Weisman, meet the Duggars.

I recently read Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us. It’s a fascinating exploration of what would happen to our planet if humans suddenly disappeared. Like, completely. Of course, almost immediately, every single nuclear reactor around the globe, without people to maintain it, would melt down, causing if not nuclear winter then at least a real bummer of a nuclear autumn. What’s really heartening is that our denuded forests and the irradiated wildlife around Chernobyl would eventually come back (albeit with a few extra legs), and, sooner or later, our poisoned oceans would heal themselves. Sort of. It’s pretty cool to read Weisman’s description of how nature would swiftly reclaim a typical house.

He talks about the efforts of some scientists to create a durable record of ourselves and our doings (an actual record, made of gold-plated copper and designed to last a billion years) containing sounds (human greetings in 54 languages, plus whales and birds) and images (buildings, babies, bagels). They sent it into space along with glyphs explaining how to play it back, should it ever found by some life form with eyes and opposable thumbs. What struck me with almost unbearable poignancy was the realization that someday, maybe far off, maybe a thousand generations from now but still, some actual day, everything will be gone. Not just Britney Spears CDs and plastic tampon applicators, but all of humanity’s most sublime achievements: Bach’s sonatas and partitas, Shakespeare’s plays, Caravaggios and Rothkos and Calders, jazz and fishnet stockings and love letters, everything ever created by a human brain that makes life exquisitely beautiful and meaningful.

It makes me lonely to think about a time when every human accomplishment, conversation and passionate striving, every simple pleasure and phenomenal triumph will be but an echo traveling through the void of space.

Which brings me to those Duggars of Arkansas. You know, the Duggars. The family with 18 kids? There’s a whole show devoted to them. TLC parades this family around as if they’re a spectacle to be celebrated, instead of stigmatized. Clearly the Duggars feel no shame, but rather a surfeit of pride in their dubious accomplishment. Are we supposed to see them as role models? I will grant you that caring for your children is far preferable to abusing and neglecting them; I have no doubt that the Duggars love their children. That’s not the issue. For Mrs. and Mr. Duggar to propagate themselves so extravagantly, heedless of the population explosion and diminishing world resources, is irresponsible and selfish. Moreover, it smacks of hubris. What makes Jim Bob and Michelle think their genes are so special?

If a healthy proportion of their kids goes on to beget kids of their own, in just one or two generations the Duggars will have an overwhelmingly disproportionate impact on the gene pool. Then again, maybe some of the Duggar kids, conscripted into raising their younger siblings, will be so fed up with changing diapers that they will swear off reproduction altogether. And let’s face it: statistically speaking, at least two of them are gay.

Have Michelle and Jim Bob stopped to consider the environmental impact of just one or two generations of grandchildren and great-grandchildren? In her book Small Wonder, Barbara Kingsolver tells us that Americans, who make up 5% of the world’s population, use 25% of its fuel. And there go hundreds of Duggars buying cars, all while blithely outstripping the 2.6 replacement average with which most people content themselves (which itself, according to Alan Weisman, is 1.6 too many).

Weisman argues convincingly that starting NOW, every woman needs to limit herself to one offspring. One. Otherwise, in 100 years, we will have destroyed life as we know it on our small planet.

Newsflash, Jim Bob and Michelle: many people actually agonize over whether it is responsible to bring even one child onto this groaningly overpopulated planet. In your home-schooling classes, surely you've learned more than just how God wants you to “be fruitful and multiply.” If you haven’t noticed, being fruitful and multiplying has really screwed up our poor beleaguered planet. How would you like it if everybody else had 18 kids? That’d clog up the carpool lane pretty damn quick.

The Duggars say that each child is a gift from God. Guess what? There are other kinds of gifts. Condoms are a gift from God too. And how about the gift of regular undivided attention from one’s parents?

Anyway, the Duggar kids are more than just gifts from God – they're cash cows. This family needs to take some of that green and start buying some serious carbon credits.