NYU professor suggests we genetically engineer babies to be smaller and more 'energy-efficient' Other suggestions to save the planet include making humans intolerant to meat through pills or patches 'The Kyoto Protocol, has not produced demonstrable reductions in global emissions' Authors of study stress they are not advocating the ideas, just opening the debate up for radical cures

By Eddie Wrenn

PUBLISHED: 10:56 EST, 13 March 2012 | UPDATED: 02:43 EST, 14 March 2012

Mankind should consider extreme options - such as taking pills to wean humanity away from eating meat or genetically engineering ourselves to be smaller - in order to reduce our ecological footprint, says a leading philosopher.

From reducing our reliance on fossil fuels to finding more energy-efficient ways to travel, the push is on for humans to combat the threat of global climate change.

But the ways in which we change our behaviour - either culturally or through technology - are still up for debate.

Engineering of the future: Could we re-wire humans to be intolerant of meat and less of a drain on our planet's resources?

Professor Matthew Liao of New York University has outlined some of the dramatic ways we can alter our future.

Professor Matthew Liao suggests we debate new methods to reduce our damage to the environment

He and his co-authors make suggestions ranging from providing pills that give people an aversion to eating meat to genetic engineering or hormone therapy so that parents give birth to smaller, less resource-intensive children.

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Save the planet by genetically engineering humans to be smaller, suggests NYU philosopher