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Birthstrikers – cancelling their future kids to advertise climate change?

Two hundred years from now anthropologists will marvel at a bizarre cult at the start of the third millennium that were so terrified of climate change that they vowed not to have children until the weather got perfect, or climate change “ended” or the Yeti appeared at their press conference.

This is the logical end point of where the self-hate civilization gets us.

 BirthStrikers: meet the women who refuse to have children until climate change ends

Elle Hunt, The Guardian

In just two weeks, 140 people, mostly women in the UK, have declared their “decision not to bear children due to the severity of the ecological crisis”, says Pepino. “But we have also had people get in touch to say: ‘Thank you for speaking out about something that I didn’t feel I could even talk to my family about,’” she adds. Many of these BirthStrikers are involved with Extinction Rebellion, which on Saturday threw buckets of red paint outside Downing Street to symbolise “the death of our children” from climate change.

So people involved with a group called “Extinction Rebellion” are rebelling against extinction by, wait for it, not having kids?

The irony ‘s so hot it’s almost nuclear.

Be aware, she realizes this won’t cool the planet. She’s cancelling her future children as an advertising campaign:

Pepino says that BirthStrike is distinct from the antinatalist movement (which says that having children is morally wrong because sentient life is so awful), and its aim is not to discourage people from having children, or to condemn those who have them already, but to communicate the urgency of the crisis. It is a “radical acknowledgment” of how the looming existential threat is already “altering the way we imagine our future”. “We’re not trying to solve it through BirthStrike,” she says. “We’re trying to get the information out there.”

Apparently they believe that if they went on a Birthstrike they could convince others to save the planet.  I think the theory is that their friends would see this “sacrifice” and go buy solar panels, electric cars or grow hydroponic soy beans instead? Good luck, eh?

BirthStrike, she says, “is about saying: ‘It is OK to make this choice, but it’s not OK to have to make this choice.’ We should never be in a situation where we are genuinely scared to bring life into the world.”

Oh. It’s also a handy therapy group for people who don’t want to have kids … I hope someone finds some peace there.

Seems pretty selfish to trade a future life for a political ad campaign.

UPDATE: There is an out clause:

Pepino, at least, takes a similarly optimistic view of BirthStrikers’ approach. It is, she says, “in a sense a very hopeful act. We’re not just making this decision, hiding it and giving it up. We’re politicising that decision – and hoping that will give us the chance to change our minds.”

Hopeful? Dear Ms Pepino, You’re 33 and you hope that the world will change energy sources, decarbonize and then cool, in time for you to have a baby?

Below Mudcrab points out that this is barely 140 people out of 11 million (being generous). A tiny sample. I reply:

Yes, but notice how little it takes to get a media story across the world if you are pushing the “right message”. 140 people sign something that no one checks, promising something that will cost them nothing, (which perhaps they were going to do anyway) and can be broken without penalty “by accident” any day and yet they get headlines everywhere.

The media IS the problem.

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