Climate anxiety is altering family planning. Should it? : Short Wave

16 comments

1. Lots of things are driving women to have fewer children. It’s very hard to identify real motives when virtue signaling muddies the waters, confusing even ourselves. Who wants to admit to themselves that their reasons are primarily over personal wealth, time and independence?

   I’m not saying that concern over bringing children into a harsher world doesn’t play a role, but I’ve been unimpressed with researchers taking survey responses at face value.

2. I can well imagine that this is a mayor factor for some. My kids are teenies meanwhile but I am also worried about their future. One scenario: In the end it might be a world of geo-engineering where the most powerful countries make sure that the weather in their region gets locally optimized with enormous efforts while the other countries go to hell. And this will just be a temporary fix because ocean acidification and other dramatic changes will just go on.

3. Can we please stop saying that climate change is “likely” going to get worse? It is *certainly* going to get worse—the question is, by how much? And the answer to that depends on how quickly we reach zero emissions.

4. It was certainly a factor in my decision not to have kids

5. Everything should give people second thoughts, but just the climate. 

6. [Climate change has already resulted in a roughly 12% loss of income](https://phys.org/news/2025-12-climate-hidden-price-tag-income.html), and [babies are expensive](https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Family/costs-raise-child-us/story?id=120376717).

   The smart thing to do would be to [enact mitigation policies](https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=25.11.0), but in order for that to happen, we sill need to [vote](https://www.environmentalvoter.org/get-involved).

7. idk is having breathable air something you’d want for ur children?
   is having having arable land a concern or are u mostly cool with ur kids experiencing famine?
   does ur family plan to drink water?

   not factoring in climate change into “family planning” is so ignorant and negligent its basically pre-emptive child abuse. only a complete dipshit would ask if this matters

8. No kids

9. It was a consideration. I still went ahead and had two. Not a day goes by that I don’t suffer at least a moment of anxiety for their future and I have spent time being genuinely sad and guilty for bringing them into this shithole cancerous society.

   That’s not the entirety of the experience of course, but the scale of those feelings was not what I expected.

10. Give people:

    * Accelerating climate change
    * No concrete long-term nationwide plan of mitigation or adaptation
    * Increasing precarity in the job market
    * Energy price inflation
    * Unaffordable housing for the bottom 90%
    * Ever-lower living standards for the bottom 90% over time
    * Unaffordable education for the bottom 90%
    * Increasing infant mortality
    * Food price inflation
    * Decreasing life expectancy for the bottom 90%
    * Insurance inflation
    * Rising fascism and uncertainty about the peaceful transfer of power

    And you will get less children.

11. Nope. Next question.

12. Go ahead n have kids if yr rich and own property in a climate resistant area with access to freshwater

13. I decided not to have any kids ten years ago because of climate change. It’s only getting worse.

14. Well, more people pretty directly equates to more resources used, so…

15. By nearly all measures, human quality of life is improving and will continue to do so. Climate change will be a major problem, however. Even so, I think people born today will on average continue to have higher standard of living than past generations.

16. Yes. Humanity is in for a very wild and expensive ride…and a lot of humans already aren’t making it through the impacts. Bummer we didn’t just turn off old pollution exhaust, right? Hella wild and hella expensive. I feel bad for my own kids…I absolutely wouldn’t be bringing kids into the world now.

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