{"id":259037,"date":"2021-12-16T14:42:39","date_gmt":"2021-12-16T20:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=259037"},"modified":"2021-12-15T19:00:05","modified_gmt":"2021-12-16T01:00:05","slug":"climate-change-fear-keeping-people-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/climate-change-fear-keeping-people-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate change fear is keeping people from having children… but should it?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A recent New York Times article, in a rather callous manner, posed a controversial question: to breed, or not to breed?<\/a> In the article, young adults discussed how climate change and fears of overpopulation were keeping them from wanting to have children.<\/p>\n

Kiersten Little, one of the people interviewed, said she had always planned to have children until she and her husband took a road trip. \u201cWhen we were out west \u2014 California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho \u2014 we were driving through areas where the whole forest was dead, trees knocked over,\u201d she said. \u201cWe went through southern Louisiana, which was hit by two hurricanes last year, and whole towns were leveled, with massive trees pulled up by their roots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, she says, there are more reasons not<\/em> to have children than to have them. The New York Times supported this, stating that her fears were “not necessarily unfounded” as each new baby comes with a “carbon footprint.”<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0China faces its lowest birth rate ever in its history, and it is likely only to worsen<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Another woman interviewed, Jenna Ross, had the same bleak outlook for the future. \u201cHarnessing the love I have for my unborn hypothetical kid comforts me in sparing them an inhospitable future,\u201d she said. \u201cIn this way, my choice feels like an act of love.\u201d They similarly cited others, like actor Seth Rogen and writer Katha Pollitt, who both said they will not have children due to the negative effect on the planet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s enough kids out there. We need more people? Who looks at the planet right now and thinks, \u2018You know what we need right now?\u201d Rogen asked, while Pollitt wrote, \u201cDoes the world need more people? Not if you ask the glaciers, the rain forests, the air, or the more than 37,400 species on the verge of extinction thanks to the relentless expansion of human beings into every corner and cranny of our overheated planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet are<\/em> these fears based in logic? Is it truly dangerous for more children to be born?<\/p>\n

Despite the frequent claims decrying so-called overpopulation, which ostensibly leads to climate change, the opposite is actually the problem. Around the world, there aren’t enough babies being born \u2014 and this will eventually lead to catastrophic consequences beyond what are already being seen.<\/p>\n