WaPo: Sanghani-Jorgensen is not alone. She joins a generation of people living in the U.S. and other rich countries preoccupied with how having children may worsen the world’s rapid warming. ... According to a 2021 Pew Research Center survey of childless adults, 5 percent of those who cited a specific reason for not having children said it was because of “climate change/the environment.” ...
A 2017 literature review by two sustainability scientists, who calculated that opting out of having a child would reduce emissions by approximately 60 metric tons per year, an amount that positively dwarfed the other possible actions (living car free: 2.4 tons of emissions avoided; skipping one transatlantic flight: 1.6 tons). ...
Many people, perhaps, would choose not to have children if they knew with certainty that extinction-level warming were right around the corner. On the flip side, more people might choose to have children if they knew with certainty that countries would rally to end greenhouse gas emissions and create a more sustainable society.
