- Written by Navin Singh Khadka
- BBC 100 Women Environment Correspondent
Although awareness of the climate crisis is generally strongest in developed countries, some couples in other parts of the world are now deciding not to have children due to “climate anxiety.”
Julia Borges' concerns about climate change intensified during the first months of the pandemic, when she and others were isolated and alone with their thoughts.
“I started imagining my city and university underwater,” says the 23-year-old agricultural technology student from Recife on Brazil's northeast coast.
“I started having anxiety crises to the point where I wanted to give up on my life because I didn’t know how to deal with everything.”
Taking a course on climate change leadership didn't help much. It only increased her sense of responsibility for what was happening. She soon came to her conclusion that it was not right to have children.
“I don't think other human life is responsible for creating new life that would be a new burden on an already overburdened planet,” Julia says.
In 2022, a team of researchers from the University of Nottingham surveyed adults in 11 countries and asked them whether they had ever thought about not having children or regretted having children because of fear or distress about climate change. Ta. The percentage of respondents who said they had such thoughts sometimes, often, or always ranged from 27% in Japan to 74% in India. The study is expected to be published next year.
A previous study published in The Lancet was based on a 2021 survey of 10,000 people aged 16 to 25, and found that more than 40% of respondents in Australia, Brazil, India and the Philippines They said they were hesitant to have children because of climate change. In France, Portugal, the UK and the US, this figure was between 30% and 40% of her. In Nigeria, it was 23%.
And an analysis of 13 initial studies conducted between 2012 and 2022, published this month by researchers at University College London, found that concerns about climate change are typically associated with fewer children. It turns out that this is related to the desire.
This was usually because participants were concerned about the impact of climate change on their children's lives, or, like Julia, felt that having more children would only increase pressure on the earth's resources. However, in two studies conducted in Zambia and Ethiopia, researchers said the prevailing view was that “smaller families are better able to support themselves, even in adverse environmental conditions.”
In 2019, singer Miley Cyrus said she would not have children because of the state of the planet, and US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked if it was right to have children in a world devastated by climate change. I asked the question. The same debate now appears to be occurring in countries on the front lines of the climate crisis.
Julia's concerns about climate change intensified in May 2022 when Recife was hit by a storm that caused flooding and landslides, killing more than 120 people in the region.
“Just three days before that heavy rain, I was giving a talk on the climate crisis to children from a local NGO, because that location was later the area most affected by the floods. ” she says. “That really affected me in the sense that if today's children are already at risk, how do we think about our future children?”
image source, Getty Images
Floods in Recife in May 2022 caused deadly landslides in parts of the city
Two other women, who live in countries far from Brazil, are also severely affected by severe weather events believed to be caused by climate change.
Nepali animal rights activist Shristi Singh Shrestha visited her family's village this year and was horrified to see people starving due to drought.
All the crops died and despite digging a 200-foot well, no water could be found. Meanwhile, in a neighboring district, a village was washed away by floodwaters.
Shristi Shrestha spent a sleepless night after visiting her family's drought-hit village
Shristi, 40, has long been concerned about climate change. Eight years ago, as she watched her newborn daughter sleep, she worried about the world she would inherit.
“I cried every day when I realized how this world works and how climate change is changing the lives of animals and children for the worst. It was pretty scary,” she says.
She swore then that she would never have any more children.
A new tragedy in the village has led to young girls being forced into marriage by parents who cannot feed them, leaving them with sleepless nights plagued by climate anxiety.
What is climate anxiety?
Written by psychotherapist Caroline Hickman, University of Bath
Climate anxiety, or environmental anxiety, is the healthy distress we feel when we see what's happening in our changing world. We face personal and global threats from a rapidly changing climate. And it makes us feel anxious and fearful about the future of ourselves and our children.
It's not just anxiety, but also sadness, depression, grief, despair, anger, frustration, and confusion. We often have moments of hope and optimism, but we are rapidly heading in the wrong direction and are not doing enough to slow the climate crisis, making it difficult to maintain it. can be difficult.
Ayomide Olude, a 24-year-old sustainability NGO worker in Nigeria, decided not to have children after filming a documentary in a coastal fishing village last year.
Residents of Furu, 100 kilometers east of Lagos, showed her a pier that was once used for seaside fun, but almost all of it was already submerged under water.
“During high tides, the floodwaters reached deep into the village, forcing people to leave their homes,” Ayomide said. “This is a place where there was a real estate boom in the past, but now there are abandoned houses and parts of the village are already under water.”
Fishermen told her that the storm had become so intense that their work had become dangerous.
Ayomide says she often hears young Nigerians discussing their concerns at the Climate Café she runs in Ogun state, north of Lagos. The cafe encourages people to share what they know and feel about climate change. Her experience with Fol made her own concerns even clearer.
Ayomido Olude says social pressure to have children is strong
Like Julia in Brazil, she says she faces pressure from society and her family to have children, but nothing can persuade her to change her mind.
“In a society where women have very little decision-making power and where there is a religious belief that they should have children, it takes a lot of strength and determination to say this in public,” she says.
“My parents are upset and we don't talk about it much. I think they're sad, but I try not to think about it.”
Shristi has to deal with relatives asking her when her second child will be born.
However, all three women said their partners supported their decisions.
Psychotherapist Caroline Hickman from the University of Bath, lead author of the 2021 Lancet study, argues that climate anxiety is a healthy response to the climate crisis.
She advises those experiencing this crisis to reach out to others who feel the same way and collaborate on practical steps to deal with the crisis.
“These difficulties will not go away, so we need to learn how to deal with them.”
Coping tips
- Join a community of like-minded people and have someone to share your feelings and thoughts with.
- Learn how to control your emotions so you don't get overwhelmed (feeling too much) or depressed (feeling too much). Mindfulness and meditation can help, but anything that helps increase emotional resilience can be helpful.
- In doing so, we have the potential to “reframe” eco-anxiety into eco-care, eco-courage, and eco-connection. We shouldn't try to get rid of it. We feel anxious about the environment because we care. We should be proud that we care.
Caroline Hickman, University of Bath
Julia followed this path. She helps map areas prone to floods and landslides, and works for a local NGO that educates people about climate and the environment.
“What helped me release some of that anxiety was becoming an agent of change and change in my community,” she says.
Nevertheless, her anxiety remains.
“I still feel that sense of hopelessness, but I'm working through this with my therapist. Talking about it is helping.”
Additional reporting by Paula Adamo Idoeta
