‘I am starting to panic about my child’s future’: climate scientists wary of starting families ( www.theguardian.com )

A fifth of female climate scientists who responded to Guardian survey said they had opted to have no or fewer children

Ihad the hormonal urges,” said Prof Camille Parmesan, a leading climate scientist based in France. “Oh my gosh, it was very strong. But it was: ‘Do I really want to bring a child into this world that we’re creating?’ Even 30 years ago, it was very clear the world was going to hell in a handbasket. I’m 62 now and I’m actually really glad I did not have children.”

Parmesan is not alone. An exclusive Guardian survey has found that almost a fifth of the female climate experts who responded have chosen to have no children, or fewer children, due to the environmental crises afflicting the world.

…

An Indian scientist who chose to be anonymous decided to adopt rather than have children of her own. “There are too many children in India who do not get a fair chance and we can offer that to someone who is already born,” she said. “We are not so special that our genes need to be transmitted: values matter more.”

olicvb , (edited )
@olicvb@lemmy.ca avatar

lmao 'starting' ?? I believe starting should have been done years ago.

Reminds me of this South Park clip XD (youtube link)

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Even 30 years ago, it was very clear the world was going to hell in a handbasket.

And 30 years before that. And 30 years before that.

I mean, if you don't want to have kids more power to you. I get it.

But what I'm reading is far more a consequence of a social stigma against having kids without sufficient economic independence. And extraordinary rates of inflation in housing, food, health care, and education make kids utterly unaffordable even if the climate situation looks great.

“We are not so special that our genes need to be transmitted: values matter more.”

I think that's true up until a point. When I see the genocide in Gaza or forced sterilization policies aimed at black and Hispanic women in police custody in the US or caste violence in India or Myanmar or the Bill Gates Foundation's effort to quash population size in West Africa...

What values are we transmitting when we've got a policy of eugenics? What does it say about the western impulse to homogenize and euthanize everything it comes into contact with?

I can very easily see a world in which the impulse towards mass extermination gets us before the heat pushes us all into the upper reaches of Canada and Russia. And I'm loathe to see anti-natalism harnessed as one more tool in the bigot's bag of tricks, to justify why a population with high birth rates is an efficient target for population rightsizing.

StaySquared ,

lol... so wait, what you're saying is, believers of the climate change doomsday scenario are less likely to have kids?

Climate change is real! And we only have 20 years left... again. And again. And again... Annnnd again.

PopOfAfrica ,

Bruh, we practically only have 2 seasons where I live now.

HubertManne ,

im surprised its a fifth have no or fewer and not the other way around.

autotldr Bot ,

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Ninety-seven female scientists responded, with 17, including women from Brazil, Chile, Germany, India and Kenya, saying they had chosen to have fewer children.

Most of the female scientists interviewed had made their decisions about children in past decades, when they were younger and the grave danger of global heating was less apparent.

They said they had not wanted to add to the global human population that is exacting a heavy environmental toll on the planet, and some also expressed fears about the climate chaos through which a child might now have to live.

Compulsory population control is not part of today’s population-environment debate, with better educational opportunities for girls and access to contraception for women who want it seen as effective and humane policies.

Prof Regina Rodrigues, an oceanographer at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil, who also chose not to have children, was influenced by the environmental destruction she saw in the fast-expanding coastal town near São Paulo where she grew up.

A study of Americans aged 27 to 45 – younger than the IPCC scientists surveyed – found concern about the wellbeing of children in a climate-changed world was a much bigger factor than worries over the carbon footprint of their offspring.

The original article contains 1,186 words, the summary contains 206 words. Saved 83%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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