Forget geoengineering, the latest proposal in the fight against
climate change is bioengineering: genetically modifying humans
to require less energy. New York University bioethics professor
S Matthew Liao has published a paper (PDF) in Ethics, Policy and
the Environment arguing that one way to tackle the challenges of
a rise in energy use is to modify humanity to simply use less
energy. He suggests a range of ways to achieve this, from
creating an aversion to meat by giving diners a mild intolerance
to it, to using gene therapy to create smaller children. "Human
ecological footprints are partly correlated with our size," says
Liao. "This means that, other things being equal, the larger one
is, the more food and energy one height is determined by a
combination of both genetic and dietary factors, the growth
process is regulated by the hormone somatotropin, allowing us
some measure of control over our stature. Humanity's knowledge
hasn't yet advanced to the point where we can just pick a target
height and meet