Thank you for this. It’s the core of something critical imo. Loss of reverence, loss of ritual spring to mind but are just small pieces. This helped me put much of my thoughts into a coherent whole.
I am tired and raw this morning as I read this. Still in bed after a sleepless night. It hits home. I arrived in Ireland yesterday. Home to the house I grew up in and that generations of my family before me grew up in. I am always acutely aware of the changes when I come home - more traffic, fewer birds and insects, yet my mother’s house and garden somehow beautiful and welcoming to other-than-human life. At 10pm last night, news started to come through of a large wildfire on the edge of my village in Spain. My 17 year old daughter is home alone. The wind was blowing the fire in the direction of the village. I spent the next several hours advising my daughter on what to do, checking for updates, trying to make contact with older friends who live alone to make sure they were aware of what was happening and were prepared to evacuate. I went to bed eventually, but couldn’t sleep, checking my phone every few minutes. The fire has been put out now. I have heard of no human victims. But I am acutely aware of the non-human victims in the hills to the north of my village. And I’m aware that I flew from there to here, I am using data on my phone, I am a mother and I am complicit in climate change. Beautiful and powerful writing as ever, Katy.
Urgh. I'm so relieved to hear your daughter is safe.
How many worlds you were trying to hold together at once: your childhood home in Ireland, your daughter in Spain, your older neighbours, the hills and all the lives we rarely count when we speak of ‘no victims’.
Please don't confuse being entangled with being guilty. None of us stand outside this world. We use phones, make impossible compromises, love people who live far away. The fact that you feel this so deeply is not evidence of hypocrisy. It's evidence that you have refused the luxury of indifference.
I hope you manage to get some rest today. And I hope the hills recover, even if we know recovery is never complete in a world in overshoot. I'm holding you, your daughter, and your village in my thoughts.
You were in climate, agroecology and global justice movements. had read the reports, organised meetings, worked with land and food systems exc. and you still decided to have a baby ? This is what I don't understand. People know climate crisis is real. Yet they bring children into it. Do people not know that overpopulation overshoot is the main cause of collapse? Why bring a child into a dying world and contribute to it ? 🤔
Yes, I spent years working on climate, agroecology and global justice. That's precisely why I don't see ecological collapse through a single lens.
Population is one factor, but it's far from the whole story. Environmental impact depends on at least three interacting dimensions: population, consumption per person, and the technologies and systems through which that consumption takes place. Focusing on only one of them misses most of the picture.
And yes, having a child was my choice. I don't think everyone should make the same one, but I also don't think parenthood is morally incompatible with taking the ecological crisis seriously. So what are you doing about the ‘dying world’ you mention?
In fact, I believe raising a child that is aware of the loss and has the skills to deal with it and advocate for better is far more helpful for the environment than giving up and letting the billionaires’ kids inherit and destroy the planet
Is this a fact ? or a believe and a hope you have. ?
The facts are
1- overpopulation is destroying the planet and humans chance of survival.
2- being "aware" doesn't necessarily mean solving the hardest problem to solve In human history. I would argue that most people are actually aware of much. A college degree doesn't mean "aware" of reality or the ability to handle it.
3-humans are getting dumber and more reliant on technology. The very thing that got us here.
4- more invasive species don't solve the problems the invasive species generate.
5-there are less billionaires kids then poor or middle class kids. Have more kids in either class is dumb. The billionaires are fucked too. It will just take them longer to die out.
I recommend reading
"Biology of collapse"
If you care to live in reality and not hopeful careless risk taking.
It seems you have very simplified idea of the world and you also believe it is already doomed. That’s fine, if it gives your live meaning. I’ll even read your thingy
Why have kids when scientists are saying that billions of people are going to die. ?
What I do or give "meaning" to is irrelevant to other people's pro-breeding choices during an obvious collapse.
What is the meaning of having kids during environmental collapse?.
The hope Risky haphazard illusion that breeding kids now will somehow solve the problem of overshoot? And this dogma gives you meaning. Even though the stress involved and carbon footprint involved?
Not being judgmental . Although I do think introducing a child to a collapsing world is kinda morally irresponsible. I'm trying to understand why people choose to have kids. I suspect pro-Natalist indoctrination and anthropocentric indoctrination . I think despite working years on climate. You failed to understand the by FAR biggest problem with the environmental Collapse. All the many other reasons for collapse are just ignoring the elephant in the room and pointing fingers.
You either don't know the dire effects of overpopulation on the planet. And unaware of runaway climate change. Despite years in climate. ?
Or you simply don't care and have offspring anyways.
The only thing anyone can do at this point is NOT have kids. All other choices make no difference. Having kids being the biggest contributing factor to climate collapse. And bringing a child into it is irresponsible since we have methods to prevent having children.
Read books. Spread truth Regardless of cancel culture.try and enjoy life while you still can.
Other than that there is nothing an Individual can do to make any difference.
You are looking for a single causal variable ("overpopulation") and a single ethical response ("don't reproduce").
I'm looking at ecological collapse as a complex systems problem. Population matters. So do per-capita consumption, energy systems, wealth concentration, land use, infrastructure, political economy, technology, and collective capacity to adapt.
Reducing everything to reproduction turns a systemic crisis into an individual moral choice.
Human over reproduction IS the reason for the systemic crisis.
Free will is another matter. Perhaps free will is a myth. If that's the case then we are all off the hook. And there is really no point in worrying about anything. Even if that' means mass suffering for future offspring. I guess. It's all determined. Women will keep having baby's. No matter how much suffering will take place . It's wired in there dna. Just like men's desire for sex is wired. Self control and anthropocentric confirmation-bias is just too hard for humans to escape from.
But if there is free will and there is such a thing as acting rationally. And choice. Then....
My question is why are "rational" people still having children despite late stage collapse and knowledge of overpopulation and current and expanding poly-crisis . 🤔
If most teenagers can avoid having baby's. Why can't adults ?
I don't think we're actually disagreeing that population matters. It does. Every additional person has an ecological footprint, and no serious discussion of ecological overshoot can ignore population.
Where we disagree is the leap from "population is a major driver" to "therefore the only rational choice is not to have children."
The ecological crisis isn't monocausal. It's an emergent outcome of population, consumption, technology, institutions, economic systems, power relations and cultural norms interacting over time. Overshoot is the result of these variables reinforcing one another, not of any single factor alone.
If population alone explained the crisis, then a child born into a high-consuming society and one born into a low-consuming rural community would have essentially the same impact. Clearly they do not. Likewise, if we magically stabilized the global population tomorrow while maintaining the same economic logic of endless extraction and consumption, we would still be facing a profound ecological crisis.
I also think your argument becomes internally inconsistent when you move to biology. You suggest that free will may not exist, that women are "wired" to have babies and men are "wired" to seek sex, yet you also ask why "rational" people make the choices they do. If our behaviour is largely biologically determined, then there is little basis for assigning moral responsibility for reproductive choices.
More importantly, I don't think those claims reflect what we know about humans. We are biological beings, but also cultural, social and reflective ones. Fertility rates have changed dramatically across societies precisely because reproductive decisions respond to education, healthcare, economic conditions, gender equality, cultural norms and personal values. Women aren't simply biological vessels driven by DNA, any more than men are prisoners of instinct. That framing strips people of agency and oversimplifies human behaviour.
Finally, deciding whether to have a child isn't simply a calculation about ecological impact. It's also an ethical and existential question about what kinds of human futures we believe are still worth striving for. Many people who understand the ecological crisis deeply, including scientists and environmentalists, arrive at different conclusions. That doesn't make them irrational or indifferent. It reflects the fact that reasonable people can weigh the same evidence and reach different ethical judgments.
You're entirely entitled to conclude that you don't want children. That's a coherent position. What doesn't follow is that everyone who reaches a different conclusion is irrational, ignorant or doesn't care. History is full of people who chose to bring children into times of war, famine, dictatorship and profound uncertainty, not because they denied reality, but because they believed the future remained open enough to justify hope, responsibility and action.
We pretty much agree on everything. Except bringing more humans on to a dying over human populated planet.
Becuase over population is a taboo topic. I'm seen as a judgmental heretic.
I simply responded to your original post about the stress of bringing child into a well known dying planet.
All I'm asking is why people are doing this.
I offered the lack of freewill idea only to show that I'm not judgmental.
If you were talking about your troubles with tourism during a climate collapse or a war zone. I'd ask why would pay so much to fly into an area that is not suitable for humans ?
I'd suspect the tourism marketing got to you pretty good.
Telling me that I'm judgmental about the tourism industry and its emissions is not relevant to why people are contributing to climate change by way of tourism. To take selfies and brag on Instagram?
If you were joining the US military and going to war. And having issues with that. I would say that the US military is the biggest polluting industry in the world(humans are doing this). I would also ask why you are wanting to fight in a war that you know only benefits the war corporations? (Humans). Telling me I'm judgmental of the military industrial complex is irrelevant. I'm just drawing attention to human supremacy biases. And perhaps epistemological arrogance.
I can give many examples. But your post was about breeding during a well known climate collapse . Which is unfortunately by far the biggest cause of pollution because humans are doing all of this. . Not just billionaires. yes capitalism is a big problem as well. Even if we could solve every problem and create your utopian world of only the "best humans" (sounds kinda eugenic) . We would still have too many humans. common denominator is Humans . Not plastic. Or oil. Or just people who eat hamburgers. Or maga or woke people.
“Not being judgmental . Although I do think introducing a child to a collapsing world is kinda morally irresponsible. I'm trying to understand why people choose to have kids. I suspect pro-Natalist indoctrination and anthropocentric indoctrination .”
That all does sound an awful lot like judgement.
It also takes away any agency and thought that might have gone into the decision, by implying the author was acting on indoctrination.
Thank you for this. It’s the core of something critical imo. Loss of reverence, loss of ritual spring to mind but are just small pieces. This helped me put much of my thoughts into a coherent whole.
Glad to hear it helped you. Happy to read you in the future!
What a well written, substantiated and insightful piece. Thank you!
"resilient enough to endure what, and on whose terms?"...absolutely agree. Thanks for writing and sharing
I am tired and raw this morning as I read this. Still in bed after a sleepless night. It hits home. I arrived in Ireland yesterday. Home to the house I grew up in and that generations of my family before me grew up in. I am always acutely aware of the changes when I come home - more traffic, fewer birds and insects, yet my mother’s house and garden somehow beautiful and welcoming to other-than-human life. At 10pm last night, news started to come through of a large wildfire on the edge of my village in Spain. My 17 year old daughter is home alone. The wind was blowing the fire in the direction of the village. I spent the next several hours advising my daughter on what to do, checking for updates, trying to make contact with older friends who live alone to make sure they were aware of what was happening and were prepared to evacuate. I went to bed eventually, but couldn’t sleep, checking my phone every few minutes. The fire has been put out now. I have heard of no human victims. But I am acutely aware of the non-human victims in the hills to the north of my village. And I’m aware that I flew from there to here, I am using data on my phone, I am a mother and I am complicit in climate change. Beautiful and powerful writing as ever, Katy.
Urgh. I'm so relieved to hear your daughter is safe.
How many worlds you were trying to hold together at once: your childhood home in Ireland, your daughter in Spain, your older neighbours, the hills and all the lives we rarely count when we speak of ‘no victims’.
Please don't confuse being entangled with being guilty. None of us stand outside this world. We use phones, make impossible compromises, love people who live far away. The fact that you feel this so deeply is not evidence of hypocrisy. It's evidence that you have refused the luxury of indifference.
I hope you manage to get some rest today. And I hope the hills recover, even if we know recovery is never complete in a world in overshoot. I'm holding you, your daughter, and your village in my thoughts.
You were in climate, agroecology and global justice movements. had read the reports, organised meetings, worked with land and food systems exc. and you still decided to have a baby ? This is what I don't understand. People know climate crisis is real. Yet they bring children into it. Do people not know that overpopulation overshoot is the main cause of collapse? Why bring a child into a dying world and contribute to it ? 🤔
Thanks for the judgement.
Yes, I spent years working on climate, agroecology and global justice. That's precisely why I don't see ecological collapse through a single lens.
Population is one factor, but it's far from the whole story. Environmental impact depends on at least three interacting dimensions: population, consumption per person, and the technologies and systems through which that consumption takes place. Focusing on only one of them misses most of the picture.
And yes, having a child was my choice. I don't think everyone should make the same one, but I also don't think parenthood is morally incompatible with taking the ecological crisis seriously. So what are you doing about the ‘dying world’ you mention?
In fact, I believe raising a child that is aware of the loss and has the skills to deal with it and advocate for better is far more helpful for the environment than giving up and letting the billionaires’ kids inherit and destroy the planet
In fact? You believe ?
Is this a fact ? or a believe and a hope you have. ?
The facts are
1- overpopulation is destroying the planet and humans chance of survival.
2- being "aware" doesn't necessarily mean solving the hardest problem to solve In human history. I would argue that most people are actually aware of much. A college degree doesn't mean "aware" of reality or the ability to handle it.
3-humans are getting dumber and more reliant on technology. The very thing that got us here.
4- more invasive species don't solve the problems the invasive species generate.
5-there are less billionaires kids then poor or middle class kids. Have more kids in either class is dumb. The billionaires are fucked too. It will just take them longer to die out.
I recommend reading
"Biology of collapse"
If you care to live in reality and not hopeful careless risk taking.
It seems you have very simplified idea of the world and you also believe it is already doomed. That’s fine, if it gives your live meaning. I’ll even read your thingy
No one as answer a simple question.
Why have kids when scientists are saying that billions of people are going to die. ?
What I do or give "meaning" to is irrelevant to other people's pro-breeding choices during an obvious collapse.
What is the meaning of having kids during environmental collapse?.
The hope Risky haphazard illusion that breeding kids now will somehow solve the problem of overshoot? And this dogma gives you meaning. Even though the stress involved and carbon footprint involved?
https://a.co/d/01RusNK8
Not being judgmental . Although I do think introducing a child to a collapsing world is kinda morally irresponsible. I'm trying to understand why people choose to have kids. I suspect pro-Natalist indoctrination and anthropocentric indoctrination . I think despite working years on climate. You failed to understand the by FAR biggest problem with the environmental Collapse. All the many other reasons for collapse are just ignoring the elephant in the room and pointing fingers.
You either don't know the dire effects of overpopulation on the planet. And unaware of runaway climate change. Despite years in climate. ?
Or you simply don't care and have offspring anyways.
The only thing anyone can do at this point is NOT have kids. All other choices make no difference. Having kids being the biggest contributing factor to climate collapse. And bringing a child into it is irresponsible since we have methods to prevent having children.
Read books. Spread truth Regardless of cancel culture.try and enjoy life while you still can.
Other than that there is nothing an Individual can do to make any difference.
I think this is where we differ philosophically.
You are looking for a single causal variable ("overpopulation") and a single ethical response ("don't reproduce").
I'm looking at ecological collapse as a complex systems problem. Population matters. So do per-capita consumption, energy systems, wealth concentration, land use, infrastructure, political economy, technology, and collective capacity to adapt.
Reducing everything to reproduction turns a systemic crisis into an individual moral choice.
Human over reproduction IS the reason for the systemic crisis.
Free will is another matter. Perhaps free will is a myth. If that's the case then we are all off the hook. And there is really no point in worrying about anything. Even if that' means mass suffering for future offspring. I guess. It's all determined. Women will keep having baby's. No matter how much suffering will take place . It's wired in there dna. Just like men's desire for sex is wired. Self control and anthropocentric confirmation-bias is just too hard for humans to escape from.
But if there is free will and there is such a thing as acting rationally. And choice. Then....
My question is why are "rational" people still having children despite late stage collapse and knowledge of overpopulation and current and expanding poly-crisis . 🤔
If most teenagers can avoid having baby's. Why can't adults ?
I don't think we're actually disagreeing that population matters. It does. Every additional person has an ecological footprint, and no serious discussion of ecological overshoot can ignore population.
Where we disagree is the leap from "population is a major driver" to "therefore the only rational choice is not to have children."
The ecological crisis isn't monocausal. It's an emergent outcome of population, consumption, technology, institutions, economic systems, power relations and cultural norms interacting over time. Overshoot is the result of these variables reinforcing one another, not of any single factor alone.
If population alone explained the crisis, then a child born into a high-consuming society and one born into a low-consuming rural community would have essentially the same impact. Clearly they do not. Likewise, if we magically stabilized the global population tomorrow while maintaining the same economic logic of endless extraction and consumption, we would still be facing a profound ecological crisis.
I also think your argument becomes internally inconsistent when you move to biology. You suggest that free will may not exist, that women are "wired" to have babies and men are "wired" to seek sex, yet you also ask why "rational" people make the choices they do. If our behaviour is largely biologically determined, then there is little basis for assigning moral responsibility for reproductive choices.
More importantly, I don't think those claims reflect what we know about humans. We are biological beings, but also cultural, social and reflective ones. Fertility rates have changed dramatically across societies precisely because reproductive decisions respond to education, healthcare, economic conditions, gender equality, cultural norms and personal values. Women aren't simply biological vessels driven by DNA, any more than men are prisoners of instinct. That framing strips people of agency and oversimplifies human behaviour.
Finally, deciding whether to have a child isn't simply a calculation about ecological impact. It's also an ethical and existential question about what kinds of human futures we believe are still worth striving for. Many people who understand the ecological crisis deeply, including scientists and environmentalists, arrive at different conclusions. That doesn't make them irrational or indifferent. It reflects the fact that reasonable people can weigh the same evidence and reach different ethical judgments.
You're entirely entitled to conclude that you don't want children. That's a coherent position. What doesn't follow is that everyone who reaches a different conclusion is irrational, ignorant or doesn't care. History is full of people who chose to bring children into times of war, famine, dictatorship and profound uncertainty, not because they denied reality, but because they believed the future remained open enough to justify hope, responsibility and action.
We pretty much agree on everything. Except bringing more humans on to a dying over human populated planet.
Becuase over population is a taboo topic. I'm seen as a judgmental heretic.
I simply responded to your original post about the stress of bringing child into a well known dying planet.
All I'm asking is why people are doing this.
I offered the lack of freewill idea only to show that I'm not judgmental.
If you were talking about your troubles with tourism during a climate collapse or a war zone. I'd ask why would pay so much to fly into an area that is not suitable for humans ?
I'd suspect the tourism marketing got to you pretty good.
Telling me that I'm judgmental about the tourism industry and its emissions is not relevant to why people are contributing to climate change by way of tourism. To take selfies and brag on Instagram?
If you were joining the US military and going to war. And having issues with that. I would say that the US military is the biggest polluting industry in the world(humans are doing this). I would also ask why you are wanting to fight in a war that you know only benefits the war corporations? (Humans). Telling me I'm judgmental of the military industrial complex is irrelevant. I'm just drawing attention to human supremacy biases. And perhaps epistemological arrogance.
I can give many examples. But your post was about breeding during a well known climate collapse . Which is unfortunately by far the biggest cause of pollution because humans are doing all of this. . Not just billionaires. yes capitalism is a big problem as well. Even if we could solve every problem and create your utopian world of only the "best humans" (sounds kinda eugenic) . We would still have too many humans. common denominator is Humans . Not plastic. Or oil. Or just people who eat hamburgers. Or maga or woke people.
It's not about me. Ad-hominem only goes so far.
https://youtu.be/Z_W8uZMph2c?is=5S1Lg1k_j85w8VZE
https://www.google.com/search?q=having+children+co2+emiisions+graph&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS1108US1108&oq=having+children+co2+emiisions+graph&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCTEyNDk4ajBqOagCE7ACAeIDBBgCIF8&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#lfId=ChxjMe
“Not being judgmental . Although I do think introducing a child to a collapsing world is kinda morally irresponsible. I'm trying to understand why people choose to have kids. I suspect pro-Natalist indoctrination and anthropocentric indoctrination .”
That all does sound an awful lot like judgement.
It also takes away any agency and thought that might have gone into the decision, by implying the author was acting on indoctrination.
Yes. According to science having a child adds to the problem.
According to anthropocentric narcissism and hubris it's a good idea.
"resilient enough to endure what, and on whose terms?"...absolutely agree. Thanks for writing and sharing