Guess that's another way of slowing down climate change and carbon foot prints??

[theking]

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As climate anxiety builds, these women are choosing to not have children



Nancy Madrid and her husband aren't climate activists, but do pride themselves on being "very intentional" about reducing their carbon footprint and living in an environmentall y conscious manner. They limit their meat consumption. They conserve energy and avoid buying unnecessary items. They donate to underserved communities and vote for pro-environment measures. They recycle.

It's an eco-friendly lifestyle fueled by small household habits and one significant decision: no kids. "We do feel that our biggest contribution to reducing our carbon footprint is, of course, not having children," she says.

While the climate crisis isn't the only factor behind the couple's determination to remain childfree — "there isn’t really a desire to parent for either of us," the 34-year-old tells Yahoo Life — it is what "ultimately solidified" the choice. Married for five years, the Texas-based pair represents part of a growing movement of young people for whom reproductive choices have been greatly affected by anxiety about climate change. For some, that means limiting the size of their family in order to reduce the impact a child might have on the environment. For others, it means not having kids at all, for fears of the impact a volatile, resource-depleted environment might have on a child.

A study published in the journal Climatic Change last November found that climate anxiety is factoring into reproductive decisions. Of 607 Americans between the ages of 27 and 45, 59.8 percent expressed being "very" or "extremely concerned" about the carbon footprint a future child might leave, whereas 96.5 percent were "very" or "extremely concerned" about that a child's well-being amid a climate-compromised world.

Whether or not to bring a child into the world is a decision that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, co-sponsor of the Green New Deal addressing climate change, acknowledged can have high stakes right now. "Even people my age are stressed and have anxiety about having kids just because we want to make sure we are bringing our kids into a healthy world, into a stable future, and we shouldn't ever have to be anxious about that," the 31-year-old congresswoman told TMZ in January 2020 as devastating bushfires raged in Australia.