By Varushka Bhushan
30 years down the line, there is either no Earth or no children. Emma Lim, an 18-year-old Canadian, started the pledge #NoFutureNoChildren keeping this very premise in mind and today, more than 5,000 teens have taken the pledge. What is the pledge about? These teens have pledged to not reproduce until their governments have ensured a safe future for their children by taking definite action against climate change. The reason why is simple - their children should not have to live in a world where they are constantly under the threat of mass extinction, to see the world end before their eyes.
While the conversation is central to the science of climate change, the question remains a moral one - as a parent, is it responsible to bring a child into this world?
For these teens, science has spoken loud and clear. They strongly believe that they cannot bring life into this world knowing what they know: in the next century, we will see unprecedented heat waves, droughts and major flooding along with the destruction of entire ecosystems and eventual mass extinction. While they have seen the issues caused by prevalent wildfires, substantial flooding, pollution causing respiratory diseases, the loss of livelihood and mass migration, one thing they don’t want their children to live with is the anxiety. The anxiety that comes when one has to live with their entire life at risk of annihilation, not knowing when it’ll come, how it’ll come, simply knowing that it will. For them, climate change manifests in many different forms: a humanitarian crisis, the anxiety of impending doom, the loss of everything they know to be true.
This movement has gained the support of adults who are commending the efforts being taken by the youth however there are still many opposing narratives. Some of the more radical ones believe that these teens have been “brainwashed” and, as Steve Hilton from Fox News puts it, are trying to commit “civilisation suicide”. Lim believes that for these adults “climate change is a matter of opinion and not survival” and from that point of view, it is understandable why some adults are sceptical of the measures being taken. After all, these teens are pledging to stop reproducing, something critical to our way of life. Others that believe in climate change and empathise with these teens believe that the youth should not be taking action – this is a job for adults. Some also believe that these teenagers are children who don’t know what they’re talking about and should act like school kids, oblivious. These adults have been quick to criticise protests and the sense of urgency that has been created. Yet, they have failed to take action themselves or provide alternatives.
This criticism has given rise to the question, if teens are pledging to not have children is it justified for millennials today to reproduce? Should married couples and adults trying to reproduce welcome new life into the world? Do their offsprings not face the same threat? Reproduction is a human choice and one cannot take a moral standpoint on someone else’s decision to reproduce or not. To want to reproduce is a primitive human instinct that these adults may or may not indulge in and it should not be called right or wrong. The only factor that can be considered here is the fact that these adults are older than the teenagers pledging not to have children and, again, may not see climate change as an existential threat.
These steps do seem “extreme” to some. However, that is only because people often forget that these teens are only pledging until their governments take action. This only goes to show that either people are reading only half the story or there is a deep rooted belief that government action will not take place.
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