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  • I have a younger sister, she's 12. I was 12 when my mother gave birth to her, so I know

  • what it is like to raise a child because I was really engaging in that as well.

  • Welcome to crowdscience from the BBC World Service. I'm Geoff Marsh. And this week we're

  • trying to find an answer to one of life's most common quandaries.

  • My name is Philine, I live in Salzburg in Austria. My question for crowdscience is,

  • is it responsible for me to have children?

  • You want that for yourself. I really would like to have children. But when I look at

  • the news, I get quite pessimistic and unsure of the future.

  • The United Nations estimates that drought brought on by the effects of climate change

  • could displace as many as 700 million people by the end of the decade. Thousands of people

  • in the Western United States are spending the weekend in evacuation.

  • We start with these catastrophic floods in western German states.

  • Right now, I'm 24 years old, and I don't want to have to right now, but I might have someday,

  • and what will their future look like? And how will the world be when they are my age

  • or even 50, 60 years old? So I thought about that a bit. And I haven't come to a solution.

  • Because I don't think not having children is the solution. Yeah, so that's why I wrote

  • to crowdscience.

  • Presumably, then if you decided not to have children, that would be a really difficult

  • decision for you.

  • Yeah. And I'm not sure I could make the decision honestly. I might be in the position to think

  • about it right now. But maybe in a few years, I'll be like, yeah, doesn't matter anymore.

  • I want to fool myself.

  • Because as far as biological impulses go, this is the big one, isn't it? Yeah, I know,

  • I know. I can’t promise anything.

  • In some ways, the fact that you're young, and you have no immediate desire to have children,

  • makes you a really great person to ask this question, doesn't it? Because it, you can

  • look at it almost dispassionately.

  • Yeah, yeah, I can just lean back and think about that and think about all the possibilities

  • I have. That's, I think why I am having the courage to ask this question right now.

  • And obviously, the question, is it responsible for you to bring a child onto the planet?

  • It's a very personal question. And only really, you can answer that.

  • I'm not looking for a definitive answer. I'm looking for maybe an approach on the question

  • in an ethical way, and in the scientific way, as well, and maybe some hints how I can tackle

  • that question for myself.

  • So you want a philosophical and scientific toolbox. that will be great. I will do my

  • best. Philine’s question really resonates with me. I am a decade older, but I'm still

  • struggling with the same predicament because, look, it's hard not to notice that the world's

  • becoming increasingly scary. I'm almost becoming desensitised to seeing huge tracts of forest

  • burning, ice sheets disappearing, livelihoods being swept away in floods. Unsurprisingly,

  • lots of young people are starting to ask whether having children is just wrong. And this isn't

  • just anecdotal. Researchers have started to document this worrying trend.

  • So my research through the University of Bath for the past 10 years has been talking primarily

  • with children and young people about how they feel and what they think about the climate

  • and biodiversity crisis.

  • This is Caroline Hickman. She’s a lecturer at the University of Bath in the UK.

  • And I'm also a psychotherapist and a member of the climate psychology Alliance, who have

  • been working for 10 years to bring the psychological understanding of climate change into the frame.

  • Caroline and her colleagues decided recently that they wanted to measure the psychological

  • impacts from as many young people as possible and from across the globe. Just a few months

  • ago, they published the results of a massive study into how young people were thinking

  • and feeling about climate change.

  • We conducted this research with 10,000 children covering 10 different countries in Australia,

  • Brazil, Finland, France, India, Nigeria, Philippines, Portugal, the UK and the US. So we wanted

  • a range of countries, some of whom were in the Global South, and some of whom were facing

  • the immediate impacts of climate change. So the first thing we asked them was how they

  • felt about climate change. We knew that young people were afraid, sad, anxious and angry.

  • There's been previous research done into this over the last few years. What we didn't know

  • was how scared young people were. And two thirds of children were afraid. Four out of

  • 10 young people told us they were hesitant to have children because of the threat of

  • climate change. And over half of our respondents told us they felt that humanity was doomed.

  • Eight out of 10 told us that they thought people were failing to take care of the planet.

  • 48% of young people said they felt ignored and dismissed when they tried to talk about

  • climate change.

  • Caroline gave me the full results in all their bleakness and we don't have time here. But

  • in essence, a huge proportion of young people from across the world are worried about climate

  • change, they felt ignored and failed by their leaders, and they thought they were being

  • lied to. And I feel for them, they saw how rapid action based on science was possible

  • during the pandemic. So why was so little seemingly being done to hold the destruction

  • of the climate and environment that they could see happening around them? But it was one

  • of those statistics you might have heard that alarmed me the most, four out of 10 young

  • people that's 40% said they felt reluctant to have children.

  • Yes, that's right. Wow. Yeah, I think that number is much bigger than we ever anticipated.

  • So although I wasn't hugely surprised about the emotions and the feelings and people were

  • telling us, I was really surprised, by the way that the feelings impacted on their thinking.

  • And did you notice any kind of patterns in where anxiety about having children was focused

  • around the globe?

  • Yes. And because climate change is not impacting equally across the globe, it's not surprising

  • that we can see variation by country. So for example, the Philippines 47%, were hesitant

  • to have children. Maybe unsurprising. Not surprising. Exactly. But it's very variable

  • by country, Nigeria, only 23% were hesitant to have children. If we look at India, it

  • is 41%. So it's not an exact correlation with the way that climate change is impacting on

  • the country.

  • So you're not surprised that we got a question from a young lady Philine asking whether it

  • was the right thing to do for her to have children that doesn't presumably surprise

  • you.

  • It doesn't surprise me at all, because I've been hearing this from young people for many

  • years. So I've got young people coming to me for therapy, talking about this. I've got

  • adults, young adults coming for therapy and couples and singularly saying, We don't know

  • whether we should have children or not. Because we're concerned about the climate. We also

  • want children, and we don't know how to deal with this dilemma. So I think that's the most

  • important thing is to always recognise that this is a dilemma. And there isn't a perfect

  • right and wrong answer to this question.

  • Well, bleak as those figures are, I think there's at least some comfort in knowing that

  • you're not alone Philine, in feeling conflicted by this dilemma, as Caroline puts it, and

  • actually perhaps those numbers are somewhat reassuring, in the sense that that's a lot

  • of young people who obviously care about the planet. They are after all her future custodians.

  • But what about Philine’s question on the climate, the impact of having a child for

  • that we're going to need some numbers, and I know just a man for the job.

  • I'm Mike Berners-Lee, I'm a professor at Lancaster University. I'm the author ofHow bad are

  • bananas? the carbon footprint of everythingandThere is no planet B’. I think some

  • people frame up the population growth as you know, the single issue that we need to face

  • if we want a sustainable world. It is an important part of the equation. But it's not the only

  • thing. 12 billion careful people could live really well and sustainably on this planet.

  • On the other hand, 1 billion careless people would trash the place in no time.

  • Can we get some numbers on the climate footprint of a child born, you know around now?

  • Well, I don't have the figures for Austria, but I do have some estimates for the UK, for

  • example, and I think that will be pretty similar. So if you make the basic assumption that a

  • child born in the UK will start off with a typical average UK person's carbon footprint

  • and then that that will fall in line with the way that a typical UK person's carbon

  • footprint is going to fall over time - assuming that the UK meets its carbon commitments to

  • be net zero by 2050. Then the carbon footprint of that child over its lifetime will come

  • out at something like 210 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent over its lifetime. Of course,

  • if it were to be born in average person and not cut its emissions, then it will come out,

  • maybe twice that or three times that are higher. And if you give birth to a child who ends

  • up not caring at all about climate change, either because you don't bring it up to care

  • about it, or it makes its own bad decisions, and it goes off to become both rich and careless,

  • then it could easily end up with a footprint of 5000 tonnes. On the other hand, if there

  • are any people in Malawi average typical Malawians listening to this, then their carbon footprint

  • per year at the moment is not 13 tonnes per year. It's about 0.2 tonnes per year. Although

  • another sort of dimension in the equation is that I hope going forwards that the economy

  • of Malawi will improve and the and the quality of life of Malawians and the life expectancy

  • of Malawians will improve. And of course, unless we're careful, that will also go with

  • somewhat increased carbon footprint.

  • So assuming Philine’s child is born, and lives in Austria, and assuming that an Austrians

  • carbon footprints roughly similar to a Brit, and assuming the global community sticks to

  • its climate goals of reducing carbon emissions to zero by 2050. And assuming, well, that's

  • a lot of assuming. More interesting for Philine I reckon, is where those 210 tonnes of carbon

  • equivalent actually come from, and where someone might actually be able to reduce their own

  • impact.

  • While the average person in the UK day to day their carbon footprints about 13 tonnes

  • a year. And about a quarter of that is the food that they eat. And I'm hoping that will

  • go down a lot as we come to eat less meat and dairy. That's the biggest thing in that.

  • And then a quarter is about the travel that we do and there's no getting around it, we're

  • going to need to reduce by quite a bit, the amount of flying we do. And then also in travel

  • is driving and we need to drive less, but also that will come down as we electrify our

  • vehicles that will help as well. And then the third quarter is our home energy. And

  • that will improve especially as our grid electricity decarbonizes and our homes improve. And then

  • the fourth quarter is everything else. And that specifically, that includes the stuff

  • that we buy. And we're going to get good at dematerialising, having less stuff, making

  • our stuff last longer, getting into the habit of having things repaired, buying secondhand,

  • all those things that are going to dematerialise the economy and help our carbon footprint.

  • So between all those things, we expecting the carbon footprint to come right down. And

  • actually the world will reach we hope, net zero by 2050.

  • You sound quite optimistic about the future. So you've got to think one of two things is

  • going to happen. Either humanity is going to get on top of the climate crisis, in which

  • case, if we're clever about it, you know, we can live better than ever before, we can

  • use this as an opportunity to improve our quality of lives. Like if we're smart about

  • how we do it as bit of habit changing, but you know what we can, it can be better than

  • ever. If we don't get on top of the climate crisis, let's just be very clear. Humanity

  • is heading for a very dark place. So am I hopeful? Well, I think, you know, if we push

  • hard, and we all try hard and encourage everybody else to be trying hard too, then there's no

  • reason why we can't do this.

  • You could argue that the easiest things for Philine to do if she does care about the future

  • of society and life on Earth is to just not have children. If a couple decide that they're

  • just not going to have kids for a mixture of lifestyle and environmental reasons, then

  • I think that is now regarded increasingly as a totally normal lifestyle choice that

  • people make. Whereas I think when I think the day when I was born, it was more often

  • seen as wellOh, dear, how sad for them’. I don't think it seemed like that anymore.

  • And that's, that's really, really good.

  • Agreed. And when you think about the numbers, a few people deciding not to have children,

  • especially in the carbon spewing Global North does seem like it could be an impactful and

  • noble cause. But it is such a tricky one because you never know whether these unborn people

  • would have gone on to become a persuasive environmentalist president or just a conscientious

  • person who grew up in a decarbonised world. Mike left me thinking that it certainly could

  • matter more how you raise a child than whether or not you do and this is actually something

  • that Philine and I had discussed.

  • Yeah, actually, I thought about that as well. Instead of not having children it’s maybe

  • my responsibility to have children and to raise them to be able to check make a change

  • someday and to educate them to the best of my ability. Make sure they listen to crowdscience.

  • Yeah, for sure. Yeah, no, exactly. Because the one thing you do have control over if

  • you have children, is how you try to raise them. You don't have control over who else

  • is going to have children, and they might not care about the environment, and they might

  • just be consumers. So in some ways, maybe you have more control over the future. By

  • having children. That could be true. And I think that's where it is really hard to predict.

  • Because sometimes parents really want their children to go a certain way, and they give

  • exactly the opposite. We don’t know what the hypothetical child would turn out to be

  • like.

  • Well, I'm afraid I can't help you there Philine although if I had to guess I'd say they'd

  • be in good hands. But like she said, it is hard to predict, like so many of the issues

  • raised in this episode. It’s not the complexity of the climate that's hard to predict. We've

  • got giant computers to crunch those numbers. It's people. If the US and Chinese leaders

  • don't make bold commitments at COP 26, let's face it, we're all stuffed, and it's the same

  • for Philine's unborn child. Could it go on to solve world hunger or set up a coal mine?

  • We don't know. But actually, those are questions about individuals. When it comes to people

  • more broadly, we can make predictions. What is demography and why is it important?

  • Okay, good question. Demography is an empirical science, databased science. We basically deal

  • with two aspects of a population. One aspect is what we call population dynamics, which

  • is a change, a main factor driver of the change direct driver of birth, death, and migration.

  • The other thing we have is what you call population statics, not statistics, that's statics. That

  • means in one point in time, what the size of a population means how many people are

  • there, and structure of a population, age and sex slash gender.

  • This is Professor Noriko Tsuya, a demographer from Keio University in Tokyo, Japan.

  • And my research has been focusing on especially fertility and family change in Japan and other

  • Asian countries and also other developed countries.

  • The reason I wanted to get in touch with Noriko is because for the past few decades, Japanese

  • women have been opting to have fewer and fewer children. In demography speak that is their

  • fertility rates been going down. And this has now caught up with them, meaning their

  • overall population is in decline.

  • Yes, it is declining, ever since 1975. We started having really population decline in

  • about 2010. More people are dying than people born. And we have very limited number of international

  • immigration. So we are set to keep losing more population. And meanwhile ageing.

  • Of course, everyone alive is technically ageing, but that's not what Noriko means here. She

  • means the population is ageing.

  • Ageing is an issue relative issue, proportion of elderly in total population is increasing.

  • Japan is probably the most aged society one of the most ageing society in the world, but

  • also absolute size started shrinking. And I'm afraid that is going to accelerate before

  • it settles.

  • Why would the government be unhappy about an ageing population?

  • Well, how can you maintain, for example, public pension system, almost everybody expects to

  • depend on it. And you have to support it somehow. And we have national health insurance scheme.

  • That's also very difficult because as you age, people get sicker, less healthy, and

  • they need more expensive health care. We have ageing workforce. And we used to have we still

  • have what you call seniority wage system. So as workforce get older, it's very difficult

  • to maintain profitability in the context of economic globalisation.

  • So with this smaller workforce, looking after a larger elderly section of society is basically

  • damaging the economy and society as a whole. It is. I mean, shall we say, heavier burden

  • to carry.

  • I told Noriko about Philine’s question to see if she thought there any progress But

  • the situation in Japan.

  • it's interesting that she's from Austria, because German speaking countries including

  • Austria, has low fertility alongside Italy and Spain and Portugal, Southern Europe. So

  • my recommendation is you have to make the woman and men want to have kids. But a lot

  • of things are making it difficult.

  • How does the Japanese government try to encourage people to have more children?

  • Well, you can't really have it, you have to have more kids, because it's individual choice.

  • But they say that they try to make the child rearing environment more helpful by providing

  • like childcare services, and paid parental leave, and giving some childcare allowances

  • and making the workplace more family friendly. And all those sort of things. I think we started

  • in 1995. I mean, we are trying hard, and we are doing less bad job than before. But clearly,

  • it's not enough. And the problem is once populations start shrinking, which is the case in Japan,

  • it's very difficult to stop. Even if women have kids, people who bear children is already

  • shrink, smaller, even if they have okay fertility, the actual number of birth is shrinking. So

  • Japan's population is going to keep declining for some time to come. And there are many

  • other countries in Asia, in some countries in Europe, as well, is going to have this.

  • It's interesting to hear Noriko’s take on why this is happening in Japan. Although it

  • sounds more about gender roles than climate change there. The outcomes could be similar.

  • I think people are searching for the meaning of having a family and having kids. Women

  • shoulder a lot more than men in terms of juggling family and work responsibilities. And we're

  • trying hard like policy wise and all those things. But it boils down to the family and

  • individual relationships.

  • I came to speak to you Noriko because I thought that maybe we'd find some arguments for why

  • having children would be good for your society. But it actually sounds like what you're saying

  • to me is society needs to make it good for you to have children. And that it's that way

  • around. Both. Oh, it's both. Having kids used to be obligation. But after the war, and especially

  • I think in the last say ever since mid ‘70s, people's attitudes and the way our society

  • is functioning started changing, right. But at the same time, though, population is something

  • that we are part of. It might help to see us as a member of a group in society. And

  • hopefully, we are not only in the receiving side. of what's happening, but we can really

  • contribute to what happens.

  • Yeah, so actually, the decision to have children now should be a personal one, but it will

  • affect the society you live in later down the line.

  • Definitely it’s a fact. So you don't have a society you have kids, for yourself or your

  • family, for your loved ones and for kids. And that's perfectly fine. But at the same

  • time we are social creature. So what you did and what you would do affects you and other

  • people and vice versa.

  • We can all agree that no government should be able to make reproductive decisions for

  • their citizens. But national governments are very concerned with population issues. It's

  • true that Philine's possible offspring would feed into a society as with a decision not

  • to have any children. They may just be small data points on an economic spreadsheet, but

  • this decision is of real human consequence. And it's not to say that these issues only

  • apply to countries with low fertility rates rapidly growing populations will have their

  • own challenges to contend with. Anyway, I'm not suggesting anyone should have a child

  • to balance the books of a future society. But the reason I think demography is an important

  • angle to consider here is because I do wonder if Japan's decades old reproductive hesitancy

  • might actually be a harbinger of things to come. Let's not forget that 40% of young people

  • from across the world in Caroline's study said they felt hesitant to have children.

  • If all that hesitancy translated to vast swathes of people not being born, that could cause

  • real harm. But what about the responsibility to the unborn children themselves? They're

  • not currently people so they're a trickier demographic to cater for than old age pensioners

  • alive today. To give them a voice we need to swap lenses once more and this time to

  • philosophy.

  • It's not responsible to have children, we should rather not have them.

  • This should be interesting.

  • I realised that that's a controversial position and that there's lots of arguments required

  • to defend it.

  • Meet David Benatar from the University of Cape Town. His name kept cropping up everywhere

  • in forums I found online dedicated to so called antinatalism, a philosophy, which basically

  • says that humans should stop procreating. So you're saying that you think in, in all

  • circumstances, it's morally wrong to bring a new person into existence? Yes. What about

  • if they were to go on and, you know, live a happy, meaningful life? Well,

  • I think that judgement of happy and meaningful is all relative. So it can be happy and meaningful

  • relative to other people, but I think require good arguments to show that even the best

  • quality human lives are actually not that good. And that even the most meaningful human

  • lives are not that meaningful. All lives actually filled with considerable suffering. And they

  • all end in death, which most people will take to be a bad thing.

  • So quick recap. Your life is devoid of meaning full of suffering, and we're all going to

  • die. Dear listener, I'm sorry if I've just ruined your day. But look, in David's defence,

  • if he just never existed, you wouldn't be depressed right now. I mean, are you glad

  • that you were

  • brought into existence? Well, I don't answer personal questions. That's an easy get out.

  • I think they're a distraction. And I think too many people attempt to psychologize. And

  • what I'm trying quite hard to do is to get people to focus on the arguments and to think

  • about this in an impersonal dispassionate way. And when I say impersonal, I mean, without

  • tying it to the identities of particular people making arguments.

  • Philine, on the other hand, had no such qualms. You know, are you glad that you were brought

  • into existence?

  • I guess I am. But I just am because I am living right now. And I don't think if I hadn't been

  • brought into existence, I would be mad.

  • Only existers have feelings. Right.

  • Not bringing someone into the world. I don't think there's any problem in that.

  • Well neither does David. Here’s his argument.

  • When were deciding whether to bring a being into existence, we have to consider the counterfactual

  • scenario. That is to say the scenario in which the person never comes into existence. And

  • I think the absence of the pain that we avoid through not creating somebody is a good thing.

  • So it's good if we can avoid pain, even if the way to do that is by avoiding bringing

  • somebody into existence. But the absent pleasures of the never existent, those are not bad.

  • If you've got an existing person, and theyre deprived of pleasures, that's bad. But if

  • you have the deprivation of pleasure, and there's nobody who's been deprived, there's

  • no person there who's suffering that deprivation, then my view is that's not bad. And what you

  • find then is that so long as a life is going to contain some pain, it's never in the interest

  • of somebody to be brought into existence.

  • Presumably, what a good reference point for this is just what currently existing people

  • think. And you know, most people that I've spoken to you about this, they're kind of

  • glad that they were brought into existence. How do you explain away the opinions of current

  • existers?

  • I just don't think that those judgments are reliable, I think there's a very good evolutionary

  • explanation for why people have those views. Because people with those sorts of views are

  • more likely to reproduce. And so it's going to be evolutionarily selected for that kind

  • of psychology.

  • So it sounds like you're saying that we are sort of pathologically optimistic, is there

  • sort of evidence to back that up?

  • I think there's good psychological evidence for a number of traits that characterise most

  • people have one of these is known as an optimism bias or a Pollyannaism.

  • And there's evidence for this, for example, if you ask people to recall past pleasurable

  • and positive experiences, what you find is that the recall rate differs for those two.

  • Similarly, when people make projections about the future, if you ask people, where will

  • you be in 10 years time or in 20 years time, you find that many of the beliefs that they

  • had about how good things would be it turned out not to be true. I mean, if we were to

  • follow that thought through to its logical conclusion, you're not only saying that Philine

  • shouldn't have children, presumably you're saying from a moral standpoint, you think

  • we should all stop having children and our species should go extinct?

  • I do think that's the implication. I don't think that that will in fact happen as a result

  • of people being persuaded by my arguments, but it is a logical implication of everybody

  • accepting it if they were to do so. And while I think there's something sad about human

  • extinction, for those of us who already exist or have existed, I don't think that on balance,

  • it's a bad thing, so long as the extinction is brought about through non procreation as

  • opposed to extermination. I'm not in favour of exterminating people.

  • So there's a difference between a life continuing versus a life starting.

  • Exactly. And that distinction is often not recognised and not made. People instead simply

  • speak about a life worth living. And I think that those two judgments about a lack of starting

  • and a life worth continuing, those are different judgments. And we should use different standards

  • for deciding each of those cases.

  • And I suppose I mean, we are constantly bombarded, aren't we with imagery of natural disasters

  • and famines and apocalyptic kind of predictions from climate scientists? Assuming, as I think

  • many do that conditions for life on Earth are going to get worse? Do they kind of strengthen

  • your antinatalist resolve?

  • Yes, I do think so. I think that the current crisis that we face is actually causing more

  • people to ask the kind of question that Philine is asking. And I think with good reason, I

  • think even in the absence of climate change, we should still ask those kinds of questions.

  • But there's very good reason for thinking that conditions on Earth are going to become

  • a lot worse than they are now. And make the quality of life a lot lower for very many

  • people.

  • Do you see antinatalism and you know, your ideas, gaining popularity? And do you link

  • that to what's happening in the world around you?

  • I do think that the crises that we're going through, do occasion those kinds of thoughts

  • more commonly. And so I think that's part of what's motivating people. But whatever

  • the cause I think it's welcomed.

  • Do lots of your colleagues disagree with you? Yes, there's

  • lots of disagreement of course. I've been persuaded by any of their arguments yet, but

  • then again, they haven't been persuaded by mine.

  • Well, it remains to be seen a Philine will be either, I suppose that depends on how she

  • feels about the bit of David's argument that I still struggle with, that the absent pleasures

  • of the never existent is not a bad thing. I think it is. But then I am of course, a

  • biased exister. But perhaps also, my brain just struggles with really abstract concepts

  • about non existent people. But this all made me realise that maybe the people we should

  • be focusing on do already exist, Philine and the millions of other people in her shoes.

  • After all, they're the ones who are going to have the biggest impact on the unborn as

  • their one day parents. So for one final thoughts, I went back to Caroline, who's made a career

  • speaking to these people about how she thinks feeling and others should be framing their

  • anxieties about having children.

  • We measure mental health by looking at people's capacity to respond to external reality. And

  • external reality, if we look at what's happening in the world, we look at the ice melting,

  • we look at the wildfires, we look at the floods in America, Germany and China this year, the

  • news is telling us that things are getting much worse and rapidly. So it would make perfect

  • sense to be anxious about this. So this anxiety and this concern, whether you call it eco-anxiety

  • or climate distress, it makes perfect sense. And it's an emotionally mentally healthy response.

  • So this is a really comprehensive, emotionally healthy question to be asking. It shows that

  • these young people care, it shows that they care not just about their own lives, but the

  • lives of their future children. So this grief and this anxiety, and this concern is actually

  • a sign that humanity is emotionally stepping into the problem that we've got. Of course,

  • we need technological solutions, and we need rational solutions. And we need economic and

  • political solutions. We also need psychological and we need relational solutions to the climate

  • crisis.

  • As we've said, throughout this episode, there is no right and wrong answer to this question.

  • But there are ways to justify whatever decision you come to. And if you're going to be a parent,

  • I think that's crucial. You never know, you might end up having to defend your position.

  • There's so much of the future that we can't predict that it's easy to feel powerless.

  • But in actual fact, what this episodes taught is that whatever decision you do make, it

  • can make a huge difference. Maybe you don't want children because you want to spend all

  • your precious time as a busy climate activist. And I think that's great. Maybe you are going

  • to have children because you want to feed into the future custodians of the planet.

  • And that's great, too. And whether you agree with David Benatar about the moral case for

  • starting a life, us existence have to really listen to society's youth. Net zero by 2050

  • Blah, blah, blah, Net Zero blah, blah, blah, climate neutral, blah, blah, blah. This is

  • all we hear.

  • The scale of frustration felt by young people today's palpable, not just from famous activists

  • like Greta, but from huge numbers of people. Who knows as they continue to feel failed,

  • they might just decide that children aren't worth the risk. And I don't know about you,

  • but as a human, I find that kind of tragic. And yet against a noisy backdrop of environmental

  • apocalypse in the media and the widespread anxieties that incurs, I think that we should

  • all find some optimism in the fact that people like for them are stopping to ask the question.

  • Youu gave me a lot of food for thought. And I feel like I'm not hysterical.

  • Well, that's positive at least. Yeah,

  • I feel reassured that it was okay to ask this question.

  • Well, then there's only one last thing for you to do then, and that is to read us the

  • credits if you'd be so kind.

  • You've been listening to crowdscience from the BBC World Service. Today's question was

  • for me Philine in Austria, and was produced and presented by Geoff Marsh. If you've got

  • a major ethical dilemma or any other sciencey question, why not do what I did and email

  • the team at crowdscience@bbc.co.uk Thanks for listening, auf weidersehen.

I have a younger sister, she's 12. I was 12 when my mother gave birth to her, so I know

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小孩(Should I have children? - CrowdScience, BBC World Service)

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    joey joey 發佈於 2022 年 01 月 05 日
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