Climate change: Causing people to reconsider having children? [View all]

[Arugula Latte]

I have a relative who is going to urge her young adult children to refrain from making babies in the future due to climate change (of course it won't be her ultimate decision, but it's interesting that she would choose to forego being a grandmother if it were up to her). I had my kids around the new millennium, and at the time I thought: "Well, horrible things have always happened on the planet." I hadn't quite registered the severity of climate change back then. It seemed abstract, something that might happen in the distant future. Now it is all too real. It's different than a war or something like that. It's global and it seems unstoppable and it will occur and have terrible consequences for many decades and centuries. I feel incredibly lucky to have had my wonderful kids, and, selfishly, being a parent has been the best experience by far of my life, but I wonder now if I would make the same decision to have babies if I were turning 30 now.

I'm curious if other people are bringing the new climate reality into baby-making decisions.