Some young people planning fewer or no kids because of climate change

Thirty-three percent of adults who said they had, or expect to have, fewer children than they would want cited climate change as a reason in a 2018 poll of more than 1,800 people ages 20 to 45, performed for The New York Times.

More recently, the Lancet Planet Health study found that 36% of Americans ages 16 to 25 were hesitant to have children due to climate change.

Co-author Caroline Hickman said the study, based on surveys of 10,000 people in 10 countries, also found that 68% of Americans reported the future was frightening because of climate change, and 67% said the government is not protecting them, the planet or future generations from the threat.

“I don’t think this is just about climate change,” said Hickman, a lecturer in social work at the University of Bath. “This is about a kind of intergenerational betrayal. This is, ‘The very people who are supposed to look after us, the very people we trust with our futures, with our lives, are doing the opposite of what they should do, while, at the same time, telling us that they care about us and we should trust them.’”

She said she saw climate distress increase dramatically among young people during the COVID-19 crisis, not because of the impact on the planet, but because governments responded to the pandemic with such great urgency.

Young people asked Hickman, “If we can do that for COVID, why can’t we do that for climate change?”

An ‘act of hope’

A lifelong environmentalist, Pearsall, the Humboldt Park resident, tries to live as sustainably as possible, composting food scraps, eating a low to moderate amount of meat, growing herbs on the balcony, and walking or skateboarding instead of driving.

All of those things can have an effect on a person’s greenhouse gas emissions, or carbon footprint, but Pearsall, a senior risk engineer at an insurance company, notes that one of the most impactful individual decisions a person can make is whether or not to have children.

According to a 2017 analysis in the journal Environmental Research Letters, having one less child is associated with a reduction of 58.6 metric tons of CO2 equivalents, which compares to 2.4 metric tons a year for living car-free.

Pearsall understands that a lot of people view the decision to have kids through a different lens, but he suspects that his perspective will become more popular.

“As the climate continues to change, with more extreme weather and loss of properties and livelihoods, here and around the world, it’s only going to increase, in terms of the number of people who will consider (climate) as the factor that tips the balance in favor of not having kids,” he said.

Early in her climate-and-kids journey, Flath also had concerns about her carbon footprint.

But as time went on, she began to push back against the idea that climate change is an individual responsibility, as opposed to a corporate, political or societal one.

“We are made to feel so individually guilty,” she said. “If I use a plastic straw, I feel like I’m harming the world. I feel like we have all these messages about individuals and their impact on the planet, and I want the 100 companies that are responsible for the majority of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions to be the ones to feel guilty.”

She wants everyday people to be able to have children, if that’s what they want, she said. And she wants to leave the door open to having a child of her own one day, without overwhelming climate guilt.

“I just really believe that having kids is an incredibly courageous thing to do. It feels like the ultimate act of hope, that you are willing to take that risk and raise children that hopefully will go on to be good to one another and good to the earth,” she said.

Del Vecchio, the U. of C. instructor who is writing her doctoral dissertation about the ethics of having and raising kids during climate change, said that people who decide not to have children, or to have fewer, are finding other ways to expand their family circle.

That can mean serving as godparents, mentors or foster parents.

“I do hear a great sense of loss and lament and frustration about their reproductive choices being minimized or complicated by the climate crisis, but I also want to emphasize that people are finding their way to create these meaningful relationships even if they aren’t having more children,” she said.

Pearsall said his generation, which came of age during the 2008 financial crisis, has grown accustomed to living with scary headlines and global problems.

“Everybody has their own coping strategy to focus on other stuff and not get too bogged down,” he said. “But when it’s 75 degrees in February, it can bubble to the top.”