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POLITICS.
hildren and the Climate
My children will suffer the climate crisis. Should I have them?
Words By Dominic Tscherny Image by Celine Delahoy
It’s December and I am visiting my grandmother. As her youngest grandson, the rules of our relationship dictate that I must endure the usual interrogation: Are you seeing anyone? Nein, Oma. Will you get married soon? I don’t think so, Oma. Would you like to have children someday? Pause. This time it’s different. Because I don’t know how to answer that question anymore. Although I have always wanted children, lately I have begun to fear the life they would lead. Burning summers, melting ice caps, mass extinction. In the face of total ecological breakdown, is it fair to create new victims of this crisis? Another question reaches my mind. It is one that is increasingly asked in both media and the arts: “Will my children contribute negatively to the climate crisis?” I first heard the question during a college performance of Duncan MacMillan’s “Lungs”, a stage play where, referring to the carbon footprint of her would-be child, the female lead laments: “That’s the weight of the Eiffel Tower. I’d
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be giving birth to the Eiffel Tower.” Of course, I can’t be certain what the carbon footprint of my future children would be. It depends on the type of life they lead. But more importantly, it depends on the type of world they inherit. To be sure, of all people in the world today, my life is among the most carbon intensive. Despite the choices I make to mitigate my environmental impact, my existence remains opulent - much of the food I eat is imported from far away, I enjoy intensive appliances like washing machines and refrigerators, and I still fly multiple times each year. Compared to most people on Earth, mine is a life of luxury. If I have children, their lives will likely look like this too; I hope that every child will live as well as I do, and better. I wish delicious, millennial avocados upon the children of Siberia, washing machines to remote settlements in Africa, and yes, I wish the joy of air travel to every human being. Such statements are not popular. I can already hear the critics spitting: “How can you say
“Burning summers, melting ice caps, mass extinction. In the face of total ecological breakdown, is it fair to create new victims of this crisis?”
this? Your way of life is destroying the planet! These children you speak of, they cannot live like you!” - and they are right. My lifestyle actively contributes to the destruction of everything that I love: the forests and the air, the corals and the waters, the plants and animals... My life is devastating to the biotic community; if I bring children into this world, it seems that theirs will be too. Does it follow that I should not create them? Concretely, the current trajectory of human consumption is abysmal. We need to drastically reduce our consumption of meat, fast fashion, air travel, concrete, and so on. But we cannot accept that the only acceptable life is one devoid of carbon. Nor can we justifiably deny the comforts of rich countries like ours to poor ones. Who are we to deny others the luxuries we have thus
