By Jo Nova
Written just in time for the UN Climate junket, Anna Lee, 21, declares she’s too worried about climate change to have children.
In the past these declarations have been a part of a Doomer fashion show where people who probably wouldn’t have had children anyway brag about how saintly they are for not having them. They wear their childlessness as a badge of glory. But Anna Lee’s declaration sounds more like a cry for help from someone raised on a climate fantasy. She doesn’t feel she can offer her children a future, perhaps because she doesn’t have one herself. She has, after all, been raised by the village on a dead-end religion. The world will only be saved if impossible things happen. Storms, fires and floods can be stopped with whirly-gigs and magical silicon carpets, don’t you know? The solution is so obvious, and it’s cheap and free too, but people in our tribe are too stupid and greedy to do it. Imagine what a depressing message that would be — born into a craven mob of colonizing lemmings who didn’t do anything good like ending slavery, inventing antibiotics or walking on the moon. Losers…
Some subset of Gen Z have been turned into perpetual climate alarm machine.
On the other hand, there’s also an activist element here. News editors are milking youthful angst to help the UN agenda. And Greenpeace are holding the next generation hostage unless they get their way on climate change. The Greenpeace plan, called “No Future, No Children” aimed to get teenagers to pledge not to have children unless the government fixed the weather, or helped oligarchs get very rich, or something like that. Thankfully I don’t think their 2019 plan caught on. The webpage CNN links to is now a shipping container company. But what could go wrong with coercing adolescents into making pledges they may later regret?
Why I’m not going to have children — says Anna Lee
If temperatures weren’t rising, I’d choose the name “Athena” for a girl. If the rivers were safe, I’d choose “William” for a boy. If I could breathe clean air on my morning commute, I’d paint the nursery a warm yellow. If I could see hope for a sustainable future on this planet, I wouldn’t be spending time mourning the children I’ll probably never have.
If things were different, I’d be honored to become a parent — indeed, I think there is no greater privilege or responsibility. But each day, the current state of the world dissuades me more and more from having children. Like many folks in Gen Z (those born between 1997 and 2012), my main concern is climate change. And, as climate catastrophes are already well in motion (coupled with a host of related socioeconomic and equality issues), I feel as if I would be doing an increasingly irreparable injustice to any children I would bring into this world with my inability to offer them a future.
Is she the product of Green Woke parents who felt guilty themselves? Sounds like her childhood may have been filled with doomsday clocks.
At my age, concrete discussions of family and having children are still far down the line — but this is a decision I’ve held firmly to since I, myself, was a child. Passing on my own climate anxiety would be akin to a generational curse — nor do I think the joys of childhood should be tampered with doomsday clocks, higher risks of disease and health issues and climate change’s ripple effects on the economy, violent conflict and education.
It certainly wasn’t filled with patriotic pride. For Anna, the US is not a culture, just a place on a map:
As a US citizen, I wield enormous privilege by virtue of location, alone…
Climate anxiety is becoming unbearable
Climate anxiety knows no national borders — according to a study from the University of Bath, nearly 40% of 16- to 25-year-old participants from several countries stated that they were hesitant to have children because of climate change.
Threats for climate change!
Other organizations, such as the Canadian “No Future No Children” group, have gained considerable traction among teens, many of whom are pledging not to have children until their government takes climate change more seriously.
…many of my decisions emerge from a need for control. Like many Gen Z and Millennial individuals, I feel largely powerless within today’s environmental and political climate.
The pointless rituals of comfort to soothe the anxiety:
With larger policy control out of the picture, I find myself grasping for any miniscule way to assuage my climate anxiety — finding green travel alternatives, reusing plastic bottles until they fall apart, buying locally sourced food and repurposing any clothes or unwanted items. My decision over whether to have children is yet another example of exerting control over events that seem to be, at this rate, uncontrollable.
The purpose of the story (for CNN at least) is to push the propaganda for the UN annual junket. The editors even admit that:
This story is part of CNN’s coverage of climate change ahead of the COP28 summit …
In reality of course, for most fertile adults it’s not about climate change but about the cost of living. Give them cheap fossil fuels and a culture that believes in itself.
h/t Willie Soon.