Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Gone are the days when Good Housekeeping just told readers how to make a baby bonnet or decorate a nursery.
The Biggest Thing Holding Me Back From Having Kids Is Climate Change
My husband and I struggle with the impact having kids would have on the planet.
BY LIZZ SCHUMERJan 24, 20
Growing up, having kids someday felt like a foregone conclusion. My family and I never really talked about it; everyone just assumed I’d follow suit. As I got older, most of my friends started pairing off and starting families, and shortly before we got married, my husband Nick’s brother and sister-in-law did, too.
After we tied the knot, Nick bought two books on deciding when to have kids, placing them prominently on the coffee table in our newly-purchased home. But something shifted for me around that time. When the decision felt mostly theoretical, I looked at kids the same way I did any other milestone: just another box I was expected to check along the path toward adulthood. But once it became a real possibility, I began to take stock of my place in the world and my responsibility to it.
As Nick and I talked about it, what we realized tipped our personal scales in the opposite direction of we expected. I’ve always been pretty ambivalent about kids, whereas Nick dotes on his nieces and used to think he’d give them cousins someday. On the one hand, children would add another dimension to our little family. On the other, it felt pretty complete already.
Plus, I’ve always been a worrier, with my anxious brain given to fixating on the worst-case scenario. As a kid, my worries were fairly pedestrian: my house could burn down, my parents could die or I might. As an adult, the scope of my concern has expanded to include not just the well-being of my own loved ones, but everyone inhabiting our rapidly warming planet. As we discussed having kids, Nick and I looked around at our overcrowded world and didn’t see a compelling argument to add to the population. Even more so, we worried about the kind of world they’d inherit, which will almost certainly look far different than the one we grew up in.
…
For many people like me, composting and driving a Prius no longer feels like enough. A 2018 Gallup analysis reported that 70% of adults aged 18-34 said they worried about global warming, compared to 56% of adults aged 55 or older. A recent BBC survey of people ages 8-16 found that nearly three-quarters reported being deeply worried about the state of the planet.
…
Climate change is also impossible to untangle from other social issues related to raising a family. “We want to make the world safer for everyone,” says Kallman. “The right to control the pacing of your children, the health of your communities and a comprehensive view of what makes up a community that’s free of domestic violence, has access to safe food, safe schools, where police violence is not a threat.” By banding together to hold elected officials accountable, we can all make meaningful change that goes beyond our own doorsteps.
…
Read more: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a38727379/climate-anxiety-decision-to-have-kids/
My first impulse was to make a joke about at least they are removing themselves from the gene pool, but there is something so desperately sad about author Lizz and her husband Nick that I don’t feel like joking.
Nick at least really wanted kids initially, he “bought two books on deciding when to have kids, placing them prominently on the coffee table“. But somehow they talked themselves out of doing the one thing we are meant to do in life.
I don’t buy that it is actual climate anxiety driving these decisions.
People in poor countries where life is perilous, where people have short average lifespans usually try to have more kids than anyone else. The exact reason is controversial, a lot of people argue the issue is lack of education, women’s rights and access to birth control, but I personally believe the explanation is much simpler – death is an aphrodisiac. If you see death all around you, or have repeated near death experiences, our instincts kick in and try to preserve the species.
What is missing from the lives of people who claim to experience climate anxiety is an actual reason to be anxious. Its all kind of dry and intellectual, missing the raw panic which might in other circumstances have produced very different reproductive decisions.
What I think we are seeing is the workings of the climate cult, a belief system in which people who lead generally comfortable lives see having kids as a sin.
This is has happened many times in the past, for example the 1700s Shaker movement also thought procreation was a sin.
History of the Shakers
…
Background
The Protestant Reformation and technological advances led to new Christian sects outside of the Catholic Church and mainstream Protestant denominations into the 17th and 18th centuries. The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, commonly known as the Shakers, was a Protestant sect founded in England in 1747. The French Camisards and the Quakers, two Protestant denominations, both contributed to the formation of Shaker beliefs.
…
Ann Lee was born the daughter of a blacksmith in Manchester in 1736. She worked in a cotton factory, and in 1762 she married blacksmith Abraham Standerin. They had four children, all of whom died in childhood. Ann joined the Shakers in 1758, and 12 years later had “a special manifestation of Divine light.” After this experience she became the leader of the Shakers. In 1774 she received a revelation directing her to establish a Shaker Church in America. Ann Lee, her husband, and seven members set sail for America on May 10, 1774. By late 1776 she and some followers were located northwest of Albany, New York, by which point she and her husband had separated. She gathered followers in New York until her death in 1784.
Shaker BeliefsThe Shakers practiced communal living, where all property was shared. They didn’t believe in procreation, and therefore had to adopt children and recruit converts into their community. For those that were adopted, they were given a choice to either stay within the community or leave when they turned 21.
Like the Quakers, the Shakers were pacifists who had advanced notions of gender and racial equality. The Shakers believed in opportunities for intellectual and artistic development within the Society. Simplicity in dress, speech, and manner were encouraged, as was living in rural colonies away from the corrupting influences of the cities. Like other Utopian societies founded in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Shakers believed it was possible to form a more perfect society upon earth.…
Read more: https://www.nps.gov/articles/history-of-the-shakers.htm
The Shakers still exist, though they have all but died out.
But I can’t help wondering how many wonderful additional people there might have been in the world, if Shaker founder Ann Lee didn’t have such a sad experience, seeing all four of her children die.
What the shakers did, what greens are doing today, its like watching some prolific serial killer sweeping through the people of the world, killing all the millions of babies and children and adults and grandparents who might have been, removing all that joy and happiness from the world.
Who knows how many Einsteins or Newtons or Mozarts or Picassos or Ghandis might have been, how many people there could have been who might have transformed the world, except then and now, thanks to belief systems which discourage procreation, all these wonderful people will never have the opportunity to be born.
I hope you find a way past this climate anxiety Lizz Schumer, before it is too late. Having children is a stressful, life changing decision, but there is no joy which compares to the joy of bringing a new little person into the world, to share the love of you and your family, and watching them grow up and bring joy and happiness and love to all the people whose lives they touch.
The Shakers did not believe in procreation and died out, Climate Alarmists are worried about procreation and will eventually die out, Muslims are keen on procreation and are multiplying like rabbits.
I know Muslims friends who don’t have hordes of children, they live in high rise apartments and have comfortable upper middle class lives in stable Muslim countries, and go on frequent holidays to Disneyland in Florida and tourist destinations in Europe, just like people in the West who don’t have many children.
Sincere question.
Did they stop at Disneyland and pray towards Mecca at Dhuhr, Asr, and Maghrib? Or were they the equivalent of other religious people that are born into their religion without the faith?
(Does Disneyland have a prayer facility set up on the campus?)
No. They are not very observant. They hardly ever go to mosque, but still call themselves Muslim, just like a lot of people in the West hardly ever go to church, but still consider themselves Christian.
I think its important not to fall for MSM narratives about Muslims, climate change is not the only thing the media lies about. There are plenty of peaceful Muslim people living in countries who you never hear about, who are law abiding and don’t cause trouble. They never make the news because they don’t do interesting things like hold “death to America” rallies or fill the streets screaming for the downfall of Israel.
Do they publicly denounce radical Islam?
You mean like Charlie Hebdo did?
In private they call extremists “scarfies” or other derogatory names, and there are brave people who speak out, but my friends are ordinary folk who want to raise their lovely kid in peace.
If you live in a Muslim country, even a relatively moderate Muslim country, you oppose extremism at the ballot box, or just by not associating with such people. You don’t go out of your way to attract the attention of crazies, unless you enjoy looking over your shoulder.
There’s a religious cult based in America which has a well known reputation for persecuting apostates or people who attract their attention through high profile persistent criticism. I’ve seen numerous documentaries, in which former members or high profile critics describe some of the awful things which happened to them, because they attracted the attention of the cult leaders.
Yet they are highly successful, with millions of followers world wide.
I’m not going to name them because I don’t want to be sued – frankly I’ve got enough on my hands, with some of the blowback my climate writing causes. Brave people who oppose such cruelty speak out, and live with the persecution. Most people just try to ignore them and go about their ordinary lives.
Hence the term: Climate Scientology
Do Catholics, CoE, Jews who turn their backs on their religion denounce theirs?
Do Catholics, CoE or Jews go around killing people who aren’t of their religion?
And I’m not talking about stuff that happened hundreds of years ago.
Er, yeah, or does Northern Ireland and the UK bombings not count?
No it doesn’t. That was political violence. And independence movement.
Do you publicly denounce the Catholic Church for abusing millions of little boys over the centuries, and brutally murdering hundreds of thousands of Muslims during the Crusades, if you’re Catholic? Do you publicly denounce whatever church you belong to or identify with, if any, for whatever crimes may have been committed in the name of that religion?
Of course not. No religion or political movement or social movement of any kind has “clean hands”. People are people and some of them tend to do evil stuff from time to time.
Nobody in the human race is obligated to denounce anybody else. Denouncements, and apologies for stuff you did not actually do, are useless. It’s just talk. What matters is what you do in life.
The Catholic Church has a specific orthodoxy: The Bible.
There is a specific orthodox guidance regarding sexual relations. In this orthodoxy, you are not supposed to have sex with kids. PERIOD.
If a Catholic has sex with a kid, they are doing so OUTSIDE of their orthodox religion. [Setting aside the matter of a 15-year-old legit MARRIED bride.]
As well, there is NOTHING in the Bible about killing Muslims, in the Crusades. If you review the Bible, there is a very short list of conditions under which Catholics, or Christians in general, say it is OK to kill someone.
Islam as well has specific written ORTHODOXY: The KORAN.
The Koran DOES say stuff about killing non-believers.
NOW YOU KNOW.
If you repeat this stupid stuff about Christians, or Catholics, abusing children or killing Muslims in the Crusades, then you are NOW doing it out of intentional misleading malice, versus out of ignorance.
He’s also completely ignoring the historical context of the middle east. The Christians in Europe were attempting to re-take the Holy Lands that had recently been conquered by the Muslims. Anti-Christians love to point to the Crusades, without looking at what happened before.
It is well documented that the church of Rome goes out of it’s way to protect those employees who rape children worldwide to this day.
Do you denounce Muslims for murdering millions of Jews and Christians when they invaded and took over the Holy Lands?
It’s well known that only 10% of Muslims want to kill the unbelievers, while the 90% only want —- somebody else to kill the unbelievers. /s
10% of 1.5 billion is still a pretty big number.
I guess, if you’re dumb enough to take hiskorr’s spurious statistic as fact.
That may be, but you cannot get past the Koran insisting that every Muslim must kill the infidel and also insisting the word of Allah is unchangeable and that the Koran must be obeyed
The Koran is open to interpretation as are all the religious texts
It is religious leaders who decide the meaning of the words
Now call out the other religions for their holy wars
Sure – and there are passages in the Holy Bible that call for believers to slay the non-believers .. and calls for stoning of women adulterers. And all manner of Christian churches throughout the American South and border states who called for blacks to be enslaved for life because of some passage or other in the Bible that tells “servants” to “obey their masters”. Just as the same Christian churches throughout Europe proclaimed the same thing about their colonial slaves.
There’s all kinds of stupid stuff written down in religious documents, or stupidly interpreted by the True Believers who have an ax to grind.
It’s up to the individual to decide how they will act in life.
Not to mention all the calls by religious leaders amongst Christians to slay the heretics … Catholics calling for Protestants to be burned at the stake … Catholics calling for other sects of Catholicism (Russian, Greek, Ethiopian, etc.) to be burned for their hereticism .. and calls by Protestant religious leaders to burn, hang, and quarter Catholics. Protestants in America burned Quakers at the stake.
There is no end of religion being used throughout human history as an excuse for the few to control the many through terror and punishment. It’s a human trait.
Those who called for the killing of others weren’t following the Bible.
Once again, you take the Bible out of context.
Those passages where believers were called on to kill others was in the context of taking over the promised lands.
Those who lived in towns that were being conquered were told to leave, if they didn’t they were killed once the town was conquered.
The killings were only authorized in that context. Not before, not after, and no place else.
As to stoning adulterers, Jesus himself countered that by saying only those without sin were allowed to throw stones.
It really does amaze me how little atheists know of the Bible, and how little of what they do know is actually true.
Duane – are you declaring that is it Christian orthodoxy, from the Bible, to kill non-believers, to stone women for adultery, and to intentionally enslave people?
If so, can you cite chapter and verse, or some catechism, or maybe some official church’s website?
I challenge you to quote a single passage from the New Testament (the portion of the Bible that established the tenets of Christianity) where believers are instructed to kill non-believers. On the contrary, the disciples were instructed to “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Jesus also said, “He who lives by the sword will die by the sword.” Although He didn’t prevent His followers from carrying weapons for self defense.
Well known by whom? Where did you get that information?
Awful awful comment
Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re correct.
Especially awful since it’s mostly true.
Best cure for the urge to have lots of children is prosperity – The rich get richer and the poor have children – never a truer saying.
Coupled with good health care driving down infant mortality. I don’t know of an instance where wealth and health haven’t driven down family sizes within a couple of generations, in some cases (Japan?) to a declining population which brings a different set of problems
The number of children in families started falling many, many decades before the advent of artificial birth control.
In no case has introducing birth control without doing anything to improve living conditions led to a reduction in the number of children being born.
Disneyland is in California. Disney World is in Florida. 😉
Yeah yeah 🙂
Yes, 20% are considered secular Muslims and also included in those who should be killed by the more devout Muslims and radicals. 80% of US mosques would support Sharia law and strict Islam if it was imposed on the country.
And Islam allows Muslims to blend in with other cultures as long as their long term plan is the furtherance of Islam = teqiya (lying to further Islam).
What the hell do Muslims have do with it?
+1000
Or more accurately,
Muslimspoor people are keen on procreation and are multiplying like rabbitsIt’s an economic irony that poor people have lots of kids and as societies become prosperous they have fewer children. The birth rate is below replacement in many wealthy countries around the world and the population in a few has already started to decline, like Japan and Italy. In Africa, the Middle East, South America, and Asia there are a lot of developing countries with high birth rates and large families. Many of those countries also have a lot of Muslims.
Disgusting comment
Poor people have lots of children in the hope that one or two may survive the high child mortality rate
Education and cheap, reliable energy drives down the birth rate – something the Greens are trying to stop with their eco-colonialism
Or is it merely that they get more welfare.in rich countries
Or, poor people have lots of children because they’re less likely to be attached to material gain.
But the same thing can apply to some rich people, and those in between. People make their own decisions about family size based on their own determining factors.
Encourage publications read by liberals to discourage breeding. Genetics is not the only factor, but fewer liberals can only help.
I understand the meaning of liberals outside of Australia, but the Liberal Party of Australia is more like the leaning to the right side of US Social Democrats with a blend of US Republican politics in what has been described as “a broad church” of membership.
I would argue that the Aussie Liberal party pretty much fits the US definition of a moderate liberal…
Never forget that the Australian Labor party was affiliated formally with Hitler’s Nazi party and showed similar lack of judgement in respect of Stalin and Mao.
National SOCIALISTS.
Don’t confuse English language with American jargon.
In English football is a game played with feet.
In American football is a game played with hands.
In English liberals are people like Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson and Richard Cobden.
In American liberals are people like Karl Marx, F.D.Roosevelt and Barak Obama.
All progressives must be encouraged not to pass their genes on.
i cannot feel your sympathy. These are supposedly intelligent people. There is absolutely nothing preventing them from having a more widespread look at the data and even, heaven forbid, realizing that some of what they have accepted as truth is nonsense.
One of the most highly educated (in theory!) groups in the world are carrying on about the end of it. Well let them refuse to reproduce. Perhaps the generation of children produced by others will have more common sense.
Greens are far crueler to each other than they are to climate skeptics.
While reading Lizz’s piece I had a vision of all the little sneers and vicious little social cues which culminated in that sad decision not to have kids.
I think Lizz overalls seems a good hearted person. I feel sorry for anyone I think is trapped in a cult, even if by their actions they are to a large extent contributing to their own misery. If what I write helps some of them break free, that’s my good deed for the day – helps them, and helps us.
Five stars, Eric. Best essay of yours, so far. I’m sure your good deed has been noted in St. Peter’s ledger.
My first thought was, “Poor Nick”.
My son is a builder and has told me that the younger apprentices and not much older tradesmen are returning to “normal” and do not blindly accept the climate hoax and other leftist nonsense.
Then again trades people are practical, common sense people.
I have had similar conversations with tradesman who think it’s all bs.
Trades people are generally well educated and practical and because many are self employed, self reliant.
Anyone thinking trades people are not well educated should take a look at the training and exams for electricians.
That so describes many of my clients.
Real people with a real inbuilt bs-detector.
The corollary of “never bullshit a bullshitter” over my life I’ve encounter a fair bit of BS from a fair number of trades people
The good ones have no need to BS anyone.
I have had similar conversations with tradesman who think it’s all bs.
I’m curious then about your take on trade magazines constantly going on about climate change and what to do about it?
I have never heard the magazines mentioned but from my own business experience and with trade based magazines the publishers and employees are more likely to be journalists and marketing people.
And the woke are all around us, the gullible virtue signalling types and carbon credit buyers to create emissions with they apparently believe a clear conscience.
Well, they are members of the congregation of the Church of Climate Change.
Another sect … The Church of Latter Day Saints … celebrate the family and prize procreation. Sorry … but this sad couple’s offspring won’t be missed. And something tells me they would have been teased mercilessly throughout their school years … set up for failure by their crackpot parents.
There are likely a plethora of reasons but there is no dispute that years of women education and their fertility rates are highly negatively correlated:
https://wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/228/pdfs/female-education-and-its-impact-on-fertility.pdf
My personal view is that woman education lifts their aspirations. They want to have a career and want their daughters to have a career.
Because they’ve been taught since little that they can have a family or a career but not both. Amy Coney Barrett shows that they can.
Eric,
You seem to imply that having children is something everyone wants. My wife and I never had that feeling. We prefer our hedonistic lifestyle where we are not responsible for someone else’s life. I’m not against other people having children if they want.
Never ever have we regretted that decision.
Not having children, though you wanted them, because of climate change is idiotic.
Agree, if you genuinely don’t want kids for lifestyle reasons fair enough. But tormenting yourself because of climate beliefs, I see that as wrong, as harm done by a cruel belief system.
No children, genetic failure. Your choice.
Not everyone is a breeder. Some of the things bred make me think eugenics needs another look.
Well, Good Housekeeping is a lot less work without children
I am my wife’s child.
It is my children who will pay taxes to support your “hedonistic” lifestyle – unless, of course, you abjure all social benefits to the aged.
I paid out more than half of my income for the first half of my career to pay for childcare and education.
You sound resentful that you paid all that money and didn’t spend it on yourself.
Your children won’t be paying anything for me. I paid my fair share of taxes all my life and still pay a goods and services tax today on my purchases. My taxes contributed to the education system, such as it is, although I had no children. My taxes also paid for other peoples childcare (in Australia).
I feel you have confusion with the word ‘hedonistic’. It doesn’t mean debauchery, it means for pleasure ie volunteering with organisations, having a job I enjoy, representing my country in international sport (all self-funded because there is zero support in a low-profile sport). If I had children it would have been impossible to do these things.
If you need any help getting off that high horse, I can hold the step ladder for you.
Deep down many young couples don’t want kids for a variety of unexpressed reasons. Blaming climate change gives them a reason believable to them and accepted by their peer group.
That’s good! Yes, justification for what otherwise might be considered selfish like grandparents really expecting grandkids
Yes, exactly, especially when there is an obvious economic advantage to just not having children to raise! Saying that they are blocked from their heart’s desire by an outright cultish faith doesn’t seem quite right, though I’d concede it is an affecting narrative as set out in the head posting.
If procreation is thought bad, but contributing to the welfare of children generally might be seen as good, you might think these folks would look at adopting a child, (which is the approach to life that the Shakers took, apparently)? If there is any sign in this couple of wanting to put forth the effort of adopting a little person, I’m not seeing that in the writeup anyway.
When it comes to a lot of the far left wing beliefs these days, it just starts to seem like any fad will do as life guidance, and if it goes toward something generally easy and low maintenance for the practioners, so much the better for them? Slacker faddishness, I guess.
As a grandparent all I can say is grandchildren bring a great deal of joy and almost as much worry as their parent. But we never mentioned grandchildren until they were on the way. Parents pressure their children in multiple ways.
I saw this on a tee-shirt once
If I’d known that grandchildren are so much fun, I would have had them first.
I’m glad that I read the whole of this article because I too was erring towards taking the p*ss out of Lizz Schumer, I mean where is the passion? the lust? the “I fancy the pants off you” in this relationship? I just felt that her’s was a soulless marriage so in a way I’m glad she’s not going to have children because I would pity their childhood, they would never be allowed to enjoy anything because I suspect that their mother would keep reminding them at every opportunity to tell them how much their meager existing is harming the planet.
However on the other hand if she did have kids they might do what lots of other kids do and rebel against their parents values and leave all the lights on before leaving the house, use all the hot water, put the dishwasher on with only two dinner plates in it, turn the central heating thermostat to “toasty” and buy a Humer.
If I knew Lizz’s address I would send her a copy of the Kama Sutra so she could add that to her coffee table selection.
“Think of it as evolution in action”
Your first instincts were right, Eric. The challenge is to keep quivering Liz and Nick from damaging others before they’re gone, or taking someone even marginally more useful with them.
Turn that statement around dk_ – you’re saying useful people could be taken down by believing in nonsense. I think that is Nick and Liz’s problem. They seem compassionate, decent people who unfortunately have been led up the garden path by a vicious belief system.
And perhaps, for some unknown reason, matched with a large dose of lacking self-confidence!!!
I’d intended to say that these two have the right to do what they want, and to let them go. Decency is a matter of opinion, and compassion from the willfully ignorant is, at minimum, misplaced. Let them go, but point out their error — loudly.
We had evolution. Now we have devolution.
As an infamous American motivational speaker living in a van down by the river once exhorted a complacent duo:
That’s funny! Chris was one of the funniest people around.
And if they had an accident and had a kid anyway they’d look at him everyday like he was a disease or a sign of failure.
Great parents to have
Lizz is chronically depressed, she is guilty about something AND, she is lying.##
From her photo it’s not a result of sugar poisoning and somehow, as ‘a big noise’ at her magazine, she is not any great consumer of alcohol.
Thus by being drug-free, Lizz and ‘her body’ are endlessly talking to each other. Her body is constantly tasking her brain to ‘go get me this, get me that, get me the other‘
It is how we all know what to eat, how much to eat, when to eat it etc. It is a sytsem that served us well until cooked starch, alcohol and tax-collectors came along
But especially what to eat. Our body will put ‘special orders‘ for the brain to go get and as it cannot describe or know the names of exactly what it wants/needs, the brain must go out there and experiment.
Hence= herbs, spices and the myriad things that comprise medicine. What we all might see as Chinese Medicine perfectly describes the fruits of that search.
Back to Lizz.
Her body is talking to her but something is in the way – not sugar or booze as happens in 99% of everybody
Lizz instinctively knows that something is missing from her diet (I suspect Iodine, the ‘worrier’ admission speaks volumes) or that she is genetically predisposed to not absorbing ‘some nutrient or the other‘. Again =Thyroid issues
Or, that she is sub-clinical Autistic or in the modern vernacular, suffers an undiagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Autistics do not ‘go a bundle‘ on babies
And it is that or those which is/are preventing her from making babies – her own body is strongly advising her brain “No, don’t do it”
But and in the face of constant peer pressure, she has to come up with some excuse and Climate Change is The Perfect Excuse for just about everything these days.
Why all this verbiage?
Go check Lizz’ profile at Good Housekeeping – just *look* at her recent output.
She is obsessed with dating, romance, Valentines day and cosy ideas.
She so desperately wants a baby but her worrier disposition stopped her.
## Hence why I say she is a liar – only alcohol really does that to people. Even very modest amounts = amounts well less than even the Safe Recommended Limits. Which are frankly a total joke as far as your mind, personality, memory and not least ‘soul’ are concerned
Working in the media only reinforces it – and weren’t Fleet Street Hacks from days of yore in London some the the hardest drinkers you could ever meet?
Or was that another fake story- put out by The Media?
It could even be a case of her husband being a selfish b’stard & not wanting anything to disrupt his perceived luxurious lifestyle!!!
PS I once had an old mate who did that to his 20 year old wife, I remember him saying to her on several occasions “we’re not having any kids!” However I knew that his young & lovely wife wanted them but no matter how hard she tried, he just wouldn’t concede, having said that, he mysteriously loved talking to my teenage son about Star Wars & Star Trek & all the other Sci-Fi movies – go figure!!!
There are a lot of women who don’t want to lose their lifestyle or their “body”. I know some. One even adopted children so she wouldn’t destroy her figure.
I’ve met women like Lizz before (the advantage of ageing”!). Poor silly little thing. The reasons were different then: nuclear war, world famine due to over-population, whatever the cause-du-jour was. But this is what will happen to Lizz — when she and Nick are in their late 30s, Nick will divorce her. He will realize he’d like a kid and as a man he doesn’t have a biological clock ticking. He’ll find a 10 year younger woman and immediately start having kids. Lizz will be devastated, and then become very bitter. Nick and Wife #2 with their kids will be fine.
I’ve seen that happen to these silly women many, many times. And all of them sob that they didn’t see it coming. *eye roll*
On the contrary. Lizz does have an inkling Nick will leave her for a younger procreator that doesn’t need coffee table books to get it happening-
I’ve always been a worrier, with my anxious brain given to fixating on the worst-case scenario.
Ha ha! Nature’s way of culling the losers from the gene pool. We “dumb” people who have no anxiety about adapting to the glacially slow pace of climate change will pass on our genes while the “enlightened” elitists living in perpetual fear will self-select themselves for extinction. Beautiful.
Driving a Pious? Stupid woman, almost impossible to recycle, like wind turbine blades.
“My husband and I struggle with the impact having kids would have on the planet.”
LOL! sorry I save my empathy for people with real problems.
“For many people like me, composting and driving a Prius no longer feels like enough.”
Oh FFS…
When there is no Social Security system, having lots of children is the only alternative. When there is no reliable way of saving for your own care in old age, having lots of children is the only alternative.
Yes, you are right, its a cult. The way you see this is that what they feel driven to do, or in this case abstain from, has no bearing on the problem.
As in, we are going vegan to save the planet. OK, how much difference will your going vegan make?
There are two effects, one the direct effects of lowering meat consumption. The other the force of example, that if you stop, your example may lead others to.
Quantify both, and then ask again, why are you doing (or not doing) this?
How much will your remaining childless reduce US emissions? How much effect will this reduction have on global emissions? How many, US and worldwide, will as a result of your action follow your example? How much effect will this reduction have? Add the two together, and you get something indistinguishable from zero.
The same thing applies to most unilateral carbon emission reductions by countries.
The question to put to this couple is simple.
Why are you doing something with the aim of reducing global warming which, on your own account of global warming, can have no effect on it?
This is what marks a cult. Its hysteria. Its like the hysteria a few years ago about standby appliances. Turn them all off. How much difference does it make to your electricity usage? None.
I would also say to them:
You want to do something effective about global carbon emissions? Get a bunch of people together and start demonstrating outside the Chinese and Indian embassies. And organize a movement to boycott Chinese manufactured goods. Or start some activity to get lots of investment in basic energy research.
These might conceivably have some effect on what you claim to be so concerned about. Your decisions either way about children will not.
the best way to save children of dying prematurely of any cause is actually not having them.. funny enough it tends to similar in life expectancy as maximizing premature death..
I’d say the world will be a better place if Lizz Schumer doesn’t have children.
Tell me not to clean my house and I might listen to you. 😻
I suspect that she is ambivalent about having children, and is simply using “climate change” as an excuse, but another powerful motivation appears to be virtue signaling. It is the virtue signaling aspect which is distasteful, and why I have no sympathy for her. Climate Belief is a choice, and it is in fact an evil one, based on lies at it is.
“I’ve always been pretty ambivalent about kids” ie, I don’t want to have to do the work, and spend the money, that children require, so I’m using CC as an excuse.
Not sure why, but the opening scene from Idiocracy comes to mind.
Opposite reason, but same end result.
Hidden in this story are the alarming stats about Climate Change Concern. The brain washing of the younger upcoming generations is working.
Lizzy, please don’t have children, there are too many sheep afraid of their own shadow, we don’t need any more.
It’s almost like a resistance to peer pressure is a new litmus test for genetic survival.
Having children rearranges priorities, usually in a good way. Thank goodness we have couples that still want to have kids lest we become Europe. Liz’s husband should divorce her, assuming he hasn’t drank the kool aid to her deranged level.
I point this out a lot: skeptics are NOT “winning the debate” or even making headway at all in the general public perception. GHK is only one magazine: this assumption about “climate change” being a looming threat is everywhere. Even woodworking magazines get into it. So far, I think the only magazines I haven’t seen mention it are gun magazines like Guns & Ammo.
Sure having kids is an option, but it is an option with huge benefits, such as the much maligned idea of continuing the species. She should consider that a main reason for her being is to not only continue the species but also to pass as many benefits to her progeny as possible, including, not just material things, but useful features of her and her spouse’s mentality, morals, and values, as well as family history and background.
She and he can also foster aspirational goals in their kids aimed at improving the world. How is that a negative? Seeing her kids as a commodity to be assessed in terms of their carbon footprint is patently stupid.
Not having children reduces her life to a much smaller niche, which in her later years she might seriously regret. IMHO, she is thinking about becoming a biological dead end. That said, I imagine anyone who is dumb enough to think that climate change myths can determine the future of her genetic line should thus not have any children. Thus, her line would be no loss from the gene pool.
You can also do that with kids that you have adopted.
Shortly after we got married in 1970 My wife’s cousin also got married but, because of the cold war and the risk of a third world war, they decided not to procreate. 52 years later they have no children or grandchildren to cheer up their declining years where as we, who didn’t worry, have 2 children and 3 grandchildren who bring us great joy and lots of love and fun.
I suspect that in years to come todays childless eco zealots will have many regrets over the misinformation that was force fed to them.
As I am a person in my 70s can you explain this ‘declining years’ thing? If it wasn’t for this covid nonsense I would be travelling overseas and climbing mountains.
Hello, Alexy. I’m 70 and my years are declining in a way that, apparently, yours are not. Climbing mountains? I’m impressed. Ask me to run 100 yards, and I’d have to pack a lunch.
Although I certainly agree that COVID is nonsense. What has amazed me is how easy it has been to frighten people about something that barely exists for most of us. After nearly two years, I still don’t know anybody who has had to be hospitalized with COVID, and I”m an old man. (Unlike you, young feller.)
Last week in the Netherlands, there was a massive demonstration against COVID restrictions. Thousands of people, all maskless. It was like the crowd for a rock concert. Now I ask you, how is it possible that there could really be a deadly plague sweeping through the world, and yet there are obviously so many people who don’t fear it?
I didn’t mean rock climbing mountains, more the walk up a mountain to scenic views.
In the UK it’s freedom day with no masks or vaccine passports required.
In Canada it is considered a serious breach of etiquette to even imply that you’re not frightened every minute of your life of death by COVID.
What do I hate most (other than the mandatory stupidity and timidity that is now taken as a sign of virtue)? Masks. I have to wear a badge on my face that proclaims to all the world that I’m a silly, fearful git.
But good for you that you are fit and active. I’m going to need a lighter TV remote, as the one I have now is too heavy.
The bottom line is that having and raising children is a far bigger commitment for the mother than the father.
Apart from our financial contribution to the family, which we would be making anyway, we Dads get to do the fun things like playing with them when they’re younger and taking them to sport when they get a bit older.
For blokes, it’s almost as good as being a grandparent.
In this case, she seems daunted by the prospect of motherhood, and has found what seems a valid justification for not having children. As has been noted in other comments, earlier generations have found other valid justifications for not having children.
Lizz should read in praise of lawn darts
The basis for a civilization of free people resides in the skills that children learn from the benign neglect of unsupervised play in an un-nerfed world
This is why you have children.
I suppose the act of swallowing all of the climate change manure without question might be an indication of lower fitness for parenting. If you are not a critical thinker and someone who is willing to question the basis for scientific conclusions and the recommended policy responses, you may be not be fit to make critical decisions about how you raise kids. Still the ultimate blame is with those who profess to be scientific when, they are really just being propagandists for a belief system without scientific foundation.
I strongly support stupid, paranoid people not breeding.
“My first impulse was to make a joke about at least they are removing themselves from the gene pool, but there is something so desperately sad about author Lizz and her husband Nick that I don’t feel like joking.”
Mockery is the only correct thing to do. Indeed we should ask them, why wait a generation?
I am not a worrier because, at 70 years of age, there is no longer anything to worry about other than decline, illness and death. All of which are going to happen soon, and nothing I can do about it. No matter what cheery nonsense you read, old age is quite unpleasant. Nothing on you or in you works as well as it did when you were 40, and you’re often just kind of sick. About the only thing to recommend old age is that you now have permission, from both other people and yourself, to be a dedicated hedonist. If it doesn’t make me feel good right now, I’m not doing it. That is the current state of my personal planning.
I didn’t have children. In my case this was probably the right choice but, for most people, not having children is to cut yourself off from the single thing you can do that is most likely to make you a good person. Fully human and wise in your humanity. I know for a fact that, by not having children, I’ve avoided a lot of suffering, but also a lot of true and unblemished joy.
“ I’ve always been a worrier, with my anxious brain given to fixating on the worst-case scenario.”
Yep. AGW eats it’s own. Same people who want to keep us all locked down over colds and flus. Good riddance. Brighter days ahead for humanity.
Ashes to ashes, they will be forgotten and the climate will cycle on without even a trace of their thoughts, opinions, or pretenses. Glaciers will recede and advance, rivers will carry sediment, and planets will spin and revolve. No one will care.
I already knew there was a group called The Shakers.
And there’s also a nomadic group known as 5he Movers.
“What the shakers did, what greens are doing today, its like watching some prolific serial killer sweeping through the people of the world, killing all the millions of babies and children and adults and grandparents who might have been, removing all that joy and happiness from the world.
Who knows how many Einsteins or Newtons or Mozarts or Picassos or Ghandis might have been, how many people there could have been who might have transformed the world, except then and now, thanks to belief systems which discourage procreation, all these wonderful people will never have the opportunity to be born.”
That’s a pretty good description of the consequences of making abortion legal.