Having kids in a climate crisis would you do it

When Ashlee Tucker was a kid and adults asked what she’d like to do when she grew up she would always answer: “a mum”. “I wanted to have kids, I wanted to be a mum, I always had a maternal instinct,” she says.

But as Tucker got older, and her beloved grandpa nurtured her interest in the environment, this impulse felt more and more incongruous set alongside what she was learning about the escalating climate crisis.

Tucker, 26, who lives in Melbourne and works in the renewable energy sector, still remembers the day in grade six when her grandpa said he felt deeply guilty for not doing more to make the world a safer place for her: “And that’s when it hit me that maybe we weren’t going to be OK.”

Environmental advocate Nelli Stevenson, who is 34 weeks pregnant, wrestled with the idea of raising children in an unpredictable future. Credit:Darrian Traynor

Now married, Tucker and her wife Tess have made the decision â€" with considerable sadness â€" not to have children because they are so concerned about the devastating impacts of global warming caused by burning fossil fuels.

“I don’t remember a time I wasn’t concerned about the climate crisis â€" I had the hope that as individuals we were going to change it, we were going to be the generation that did,” Tucker says. “I don’t have hope of that happening anymore.”

Some of her friends and family find this decision extreme and would like the pair to reconsider. “They want me to have the dreams where you buy that house and have kids, all the things that were available to them,” she says. “But it’s just not the same anymore.”

A man takes pictures of high waves along the shore of Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana as Hurricane Ida nears. Climate change will lift sea levels everywhere, adding more heat to the oceans.Credit:AP

Tucker is not alone, according to a survey of 15,000 Australians conducted by YouGov on behalf of the Australian Conservation Foundation â€" the country’s largest poll ever conducted on climate change and politics.

Participants were asked if they had reconsidered or chosen not to have children because of concern about climate change. Ten percent of all respondents said they had. For adults under 35, it was 20 per cent.

This aligns with qualitative research that social researcher Dr Rebecca Huntley has undertaken in Australia, which shows overwhelming concern about climate change in young people under 25.

Rebecca Huntley is an author and researcher on social trends.

It’s easy to understand why. The most recent Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change report found that under the most ambitious emission reduction scenarios, the world is likely to be heated to 1.5 degrees or more above pre-industrial levels by 2040, exposing it to the kinds of extreme weather currently damaging Europe and North America.

Australians under 25 recognise the next few years are critical and some are prepared to pause their family plans to see if governments “get their shit together” and rapidly decarbonise, says Dr Huntley, also the author of How to Talk About Climate Change in a Way That Makes a Difference.

“Even among those who are open to having children they are a bit more hesitant, asking if they want to raise a child in this kind of world,” she says.

But when people do have children it sometimes prompts a renewed sense of environmental commitment, Dr Huntley says. She has noticed this phenomenon in her role as advisory group chair of Australian Parents for Climate Action.

“We get surges of parents coming in after they have their first child, saying they need to be part of a movement to change this.”

Nelli Stevenson, 33, didn’t wait until she had children to get involved in activism. She went to her first environmental protest at age 7 and is now the head of communications at Greenpeace Australia.

A few years ago Stevenson was told she was infertile after a serious medical condition, but happily, this advice proved wrong. Now 34 weeks’ pregnant, Melbourne-based Stevenson says it wasn’t until she turned 29 that overnight she switched from ambivalence about parenthood, and how it might limit her activism, to feeling the strong pull of motherhood.

“I remember the first time I had a briefing from a climate scientist about the warming trajectory we were on, and it was all between 2 and 5 degrees,” Stevenson says. “It’s something I really struggled with because I wanted that incredible experience of becoming a family.”

Large Icebergs float away as the sun rises near Kulusuk, Greenland. Scientists are hard at work, trying to understand the alarmingly rapid melting of the ice. Credit:AP

In Stevenson’s role, reading IPCC reports comes with the territory. When the most recent one was released last month she locked herself away and read the summary from cover to cover.

“It was the very first time I was looking at climate projections and thinking about that timeline affecting my son,” she says. “I have realised that the best I can do as a parent is not only fight as hard as I can for his future, but also to raise him to take on that fight with that next generation.”

This topic comes up in discussion at almost every workshop that Dr Beth Hill facilitates for Psychology for Safe Climate, a not-for-profit group founded a decade ago to support people engaged in climate change work.

The risk of bushfires will intensify in Australia as the climate heats up, the IPCC says. Credit:Nick Moir

“We see people who either don’t want to have children, or haven’t necessarily reached a decision, but feel a lot of despair and doubt,” she says.

Dr Hill recommends talking with friends and peers about these big decisions. They may have similar thoughts, or other points of view, but these “raw and vulnerable “conversations can offer comfort, she says.

It’s a valid choice to not have a child in this climate context, she says. But Dr Hill also points out that even with scientific predictions, we still can’t know exactly what the future will look like.

“I’m not trying to say find silver lining or say it’s all going to be OK. But all you can control ... is to make choices that bring you alive and bring you nourishment and connection.”

Alessandra, 26, who lives in northern Sydney, decided four years ago she didn’t feel able to explain to her future children why certain species had become extinct.

Alessandra, 26, does not want to have children due to concerns about climate change.Credit:Steven Siewert

Alessandra, who is studying zoology and does not want to use her surname, doesn’t intend to have children unless she sees positive, “huge” action around decarbonisation in the next few years. And frankly, at the moment she’s not hopeful.

“The IPCC report was disgusting to read, we’re just not doing enough. As a first world country we need to act and act now.”

Alessandra is open with friends about her decision, and likes to discuss it. She has a few friends who also do not want children, and a few in their 30s who have decided to start a family even though they are apprehensive about the future.

“It’s a huge grief, it feels like an option has been taken away from me,” she says. “My view has solidified over time, and it just feels like it’s not an option for me.”

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