"A SQUAT grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State's motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY."

Its the opening passage to Aldous Huxleys classic sci-fi novel Brave New World, but are human hatcheries and genetic tampering about to become a reality?

Not quite.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, philosophers in Oxford and New York are suggesting that the problems of climate change could be tackled with human engineering.

Matthew Liao of New York University and Anders Sandberg and Rebecca Roache of Oxford University have written a paper in which they recommend that human beings could be made smaller, modified to enjoy eating meat less and given cat-like eyes to reduce the need for lighting.

Environmentalist Bill McKibben tweeted in response that the paper had the worst climate-change solutions of all time.

According to the SMH, the papers authors are unfazed. They argue that if people are willing to consider really dangerous solutions such as space-mirrors, then human engineering should also be considered as an option.

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Human engineering in Brave New eco-World